New MechWarrior Game?

[Gargantou]

I doubt it, seeing as, afaik, Activision owns the rights to MechWarrior 2(and its subsequent expansions), rather than FASA or Microsoft.

Only reason they can release MW4 as freeware is because it was published by Microsoft(And FASA was a part of it back then), hence the rights to the game were transferred to the new owners when they bought up all the rights to the MW franchise from MS. Hence also, Activision still owns the rights to MechWarrior 2 and all other MW games they published, which means Smith and Tinker would have to come to an arrangement with Activision to make them freeware.

Also FYI, MW4 isn't the first commercial BT game to become freeware, iirc MechCommander Gold was made freeware years ago.

To sum up, the odds of MW1, MW2 and MW3 being released as freeware are in my opinion quite slim.

 

[Maestro]

MechCommander and MechCommander 2 are both freeware.

 

[Gargantou]

IIRC MechCommander 1 isn't actually freeware, but rather semi-legal abandonware since the rights to it belonged to MicroProse, I have been able to find no official press release etc stating it's freeware, however, for MechCommander 2 I have, but as I noted earlier, MechCommander 2 was funded and published by Microsoft.

This is a fact, they can not make MechWarrior 2 and its expansions freeware legally without permission from Activision.

This is because MechWarrior 2 is still owned in essence by Activision because they funded development costs etc.

The rights to MechWarrior 2 and its expansions did not transfer over to MicroProse nor Microsoft when they got their hands on the BT license.

 

[CR0M]

MicroProse

Quoted for nostalgic excellence.

1982 -1996
The Sid Meier years

*doffs cap*

 

[unozero]

so when are we getting mw4

 

[Ennui]

Hopefully soon, I checked the site yesterday but nothing. MekTek.net says they're busy upgrading their servers so that they can handle demand for downloads when they do release it.

Echoing the nostalgia for Microprose...

 

[Maestro]

Source software was released for MC2 which made it a somewhat shady abandonware, just go to Mechcommander.org for more info. I don't know the whole story.

I expect the free version will come out 1-3 weeks from now, with MekTek you're never sure because they don't ever give definitive release schedules.

 

[Gargantou]

Mechcommander.org has been deemed illegal, even by several major MechWarrior/MechCommander fansites, they've recieved no permission to distribute either freely, and the source code for MC2 is freely available yes, but not the game itself.

 

[Bob_Marley]

One thing I would like to see changed with this reboot is the range, or lack there of, on BT weapons. 10 centuries in the future and the ultimate fighting machines of the era cant enguage at anything over a kilometer.

Also, having weapons like machine guns chew threw the armour on mechs and heavy tanks. Sure, strapping 13+ machineguns to a Direwolf and unloading at point blank range causing anything and everything to be dead within 5 seconds of sustained fire is fun, but it is also rather silly in my opinion.

 

[Acepilotf14]

You're 16 years old, and thus, it is my right as an adult to dismiss any opinion or ideas you may have, as stupid!

I'm 16 years old, and thus, it is my right to BE A LITTLE BITCH.

>: (

Okay, so it wasn't the best. But it was decent.

 

[Gargantou]

One thing I would like to see changed with this reboot is the range, or lack there of, on BT weapons. 10 centuries in the future and the ultimate fighting machines of the era cant enguage at anything over a kilometer.

From what I gather, the reboot will still try to stay close to official BattleTech canon and standards prior to 3015 so..

We'll see.

 

[63]

Sorry but this has Jordan Weisman directly involved, he's the founder of FASA. It's highly unlikely to suck. And the story looks fine to me, it'll at least be better than MW4: Mercs since that game had no storyline, just some vague backdrop to go kill shit.

As for Mechassault? That game is an arcade bastardization of the mechanics of MechWarrior. Lava gun? What the ****'s a lava gun? Oh, and don't get me started on the ****ing powerups! Giant robots can't use 'powerups'!

It takes more than one person to make a good game, and the developer doesn't have much of a track record at all.