Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Knave]

It's weird to me that they're about to jump into beta, but not be feature complete (mechlab missing, etc.).

Hope they're not rushing this out the door! I guess the definition of Beta has changed a lot over the years.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, a May release seems really optimistic to me.

[Flying Dice]

They did hint that they might roll out more features during the beta. Suggests to me that most of it is there but still needs refining and internal testing.

[Neonivek]

Wouldn't it be hilarious if they were a lot further along than they indicate and pretended to be earlier in development to get this money?

[Mephansteras]

I'll take that over the reverse any day.

[Neonivek]

I'll take that over the reverse any day.

*raises finger*

Yeah...

And it isn't like the stretch goals weren't likely genuine. Still would have liked co-op but whatever.

[Dohon]

Considering the fact that HBS has kickstarted three other games (Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong) and I haven't heard anything about any "foul play" regarding those games, I feel very confident that HBS isn't out to just fill their bags with gold. They might not be able to release the game in May and it might seem odd that they release the beta without customization rules for `Mechs initially, but it is their first time releasing a beta for the wider audience than their internal Q&A team. That makes them nervous.

I think that HBS really does not want to screw this game up. The BattleTech fanbase is quite small compared other popular games, but those guys are pretty hardcore. If the game fails commercially, there probably won't be another turn-based strategy game set in that universe for a long, long time. Making sure that the combat in this game works well by providing some form of "early access" (to people who are huge fans of the genre or at least interested enough to hand out their money) makes sense in my book. I'm looking forward to the campaign and the random sidemissions, but if the combat feels "meh", than all the campaigns and story in the world can't save the game.

But then again, it is a pretty small game studio, without a big publisher backing them. I don't know how successful the shadowrun games are or how many copies the Necropolis game sold (a game that I didn't like myself). So, I hope like some of you that it isn't a case of rushing it out the door. I really want the game in my hands right now, but I rather have it by Christmas and be great, than be May and "okay".

[Mephansteras]

I really want the game in my hands right now, but I rather have it by Christmas and be great, than be May and "okay".

Same here. I'm happy to be patient if it gets me a better game.

[My Name is Immaterial]

But then again, it is a pretty small game studio, without a big publisher backing them. I don't know how successful the shadowrun games are or how many copies the Necropolis game sold (a game that I didn't like myself).

According to Steam Spy, Shadowrun Returns sold over 1,000,000, Dragonfall sold 680,000+, and Hong Kong sold 400,000+, and Necropolis sold 90,000+. I think they might be counting on Battletech to be good.

[Neonivek]

But then again, it is a pretty small game studio, without a big publisher backing them. I don't know how successful the shadowrun games are or how many copies the Necropolis game sold (a game that I didn't like myself).

According to Steam Spy, Shadowrun Returns sold over 1,000,000, Dragonfall sold 680,000+, and Hong Kong sold 400,000+, and Necropolis sold 90,000+. I think they might be counting on Battletech to be good.

I am probably one of the few people alive who doesn't have a very positive opinion on this team's ability to make games or to stick to the concepts and ideas of the things they make games for

But I guess it could be worse... they could be Telltale's point and clicks!

[Dohon]

HBS had another Q&A session yesterday. You can watch it here.

Spoiler: Short summary (click to show/hide)

Story-related Questions

• One of the fans on the forums asked if the game (the story) is closer to Game of Thrones in Space, a Less Spicy Dune, Machiavelli with Mechs or Something else all together. HBS said it is a bit of all of those. They took inspiration of all those things. GoT had strong characters and that is something that they want to convey as well.
• They didn't collaborate with other BT authors when writing the story, although Jordan Weisman (one of the founders of the BattleTech universe) is the studio head.
• As to how they came up with the idea, Mike McCain said that there is a certain quote about authors. Some authors are like architects and plan out everything to a T. They say they will do this and then go do that exactly. Others are like gardeners. They plant the seeds, hope they planted the right ones and nurture those to see what becomes. BattleTech's story creation is somewhere in between. The story is partly created to fit certain gameplay goals. They want the players to have a gameplay experience, and the story can't conflict that. So, they created a framework and then filled it out. They wanted a revolution story and make the players either join that revolution or not. Seemed like a good "merc fit".
• BattleTech isn't about black and white. Individuals might in their own mind think that certain factions / others are black or white, but in the end, the universe itself does not care. The individuals do. HBS feels that having strong characters gives perspective and may change the view you, as a player, have on the conflict in the Aurigan Reaches.
• There are huge differences between constructing a deep rpg like Shadowrun and a tactical game like BattleTech. Last thing you want when in a mission is to work your way through a dialogue branch. It arrests your flow. An RPG is about branching, a tactical game is not so much.
• In Shadowrun, they took a more literary approach to the dialogue and relied more on GM text.
• As to the story linearity, you can look a bit to GTA. You can explore at will in that game and choose when to undertake which mission. Each mission itself however doesn't have a lot of branching or rpg-interaction. BattleTech will be similar to that approach.
• Playing the game and the effects your playstyle has on the ending of the game boils down to whether or not you want to see the Aurigan Restoration (the Revolution that the "good guys" undertake, as it were) to its ending or not. You can choose to leave the rebellion "hanging".
• You don't have to play the story missions. Once the game opens up (you have access to the Argo), you can choose how much missions for the Restoration you undertake. If you don't do missions, the Restoration will fail. So, failing the storyline, does not mean you fail your career in the game. The game won't end.
• You cannot side with the Directorate itself (mainly because of budget / time limitations with developping the game), but you can watch the rebellion fall apart (by not doing missions for the Aurigan Restoration).
• Story missions will have scripted elements and randomized elements. Just how much of each is still subject to change!
• If you fail a story mission, you will be able to re-do it. HBS does want to avoid "snowballing", meaning that you lose a mission, lose Mechs, redo the mission, lose again and ultimately are left with nothing. That said, if you fail a storyline mission, you might want to go do something else to recover and recuperate. You'll never be stuck with just having the choice of doing that difficult story mission.
• You start out with a ragtag crew. Later on, you'll be able to take on missions for different clients, which affects your reputation with those clients. The Restoration will then contact you and let you undertake missions. It is a bit of back and forth.
• The Aurigan Restoration considers you as a "special ops" unit. You are not with the rank and file and are called upon to do special missions. They will use you to do sketchy missions, so they can disavow that certain things happend. Your actions will help the regular army advance and gain ground.
• Between missions, you will be able (optionally) to interact with your crew. Think dialogues with your crew in Shadowrun, just not as deep, more light-branching background. You'll also be able to learn their opinion on the world and the events around them. They want to flesh out a bit the "upstairs, downstairs" difference in viewpoints. What the aristocracy and the noble houses think, is in contrast to what the Regular Joe and Jane might think.
• Crew progression is linked to upgrading the Argo. The DropShip you get in the beginning is all banged up and you'll need to repair/upgrade it piece by piece (repairing a MechBay to full operation for instance).
• No romances in the game.
• When creating your Mercenary Commander, you'll be presented with a three-stage character creator. Remember, you will be creating a character that becomes a mercenary, so the choices you can make for your background will take that in account. You will be presented with 6 choices and some sub-choices to that effect.
• Character background will have an impact in at least one story mission, where your background will have effects on what people / you say or do in that mission. Work in progress.
• When calling in artillery and the like, you will get nice "audio barks".
• In MechCommander, each MechWarrior had about 30 lines of spoken audio. In BattleTech, that will be about 150 per MechWarrior. HBS admitted that was expensive.
• One lesson learned from writing story for the Shadowrun games is that creating interesting backstories for each of your crew, dropping them in a relatively simple conflict and letting the interactions drive the drama provides an interesting view on the world around the characters.
• They way to sell the story to newcomers to the BattleTech universe, is by way of the characters. If you're able to strip the sci-fi elements from the story and still have it interesting to the player, that is a good story. If you then work in canon elements and make it fit the universe, you'll draw in the fans of the setting too.
• Re-reading the fiction and sourcebooks leading up to the creation of the story has been a lot of fun.

General questions

• The MechWarriors you hire and use will not interact with the story themselves. The crew of the Argo and you as a commander will.
• Be prepared to lose MechWarriors. In this part of the setting (and the current year), the metal is more important than the meat. It is unlikely that a MechWarrior survives till the end of the story, but the Mechs might.
• Infantry is a fine candidate for post-launch success and updates.
• Nothing is being done to actively prevent modding, but you won't get a toolkit as well. Unity is also no the most flexible engine. But HBS won't stop you from messing with the raw files.
• Salvage will be a strong negotiation point in the contracts that you take in the game.
• Weapons and "interesting" parts can salvaged as is. Other parts (like engines, actuators, ...) are sold automatically and you receive cash. You also collect scrap. [Note: I do not know whether this means scrap as a general resource or not]
• Engines on Mechs cannot be swapped.
• The parts you salvage also depends on how efficient you were at blowing up a `Mech. If you blow almost everything to smithereens before taking the `Mech down, you probably won't get much back.
• Expect salvage to be a major source of upgrades. There will be stores, but (certainly in the early part of the game) they will have an incomplete and mis-matched inventory.
• They are discussing the possibility that enemies might pro-actively surrender to the player in single-player. There won't be a "parlay" option and if the enemy want to surrender, you will certainly not get a dialogue wheel or somesuch.
• There will be contracts offered by parties other than the five Houses (being House Davion, Steiner, Kurita, Liao and Marik).
• The movement of Mechs in the game will match the movement speeds of tabletop. That said, they applied a bell-curve as to eliminate the edges. An UrbanMech will not be so damnably slow, a locust will not be blazingly fast.
• You will probably not be able to send lances out on simultaneous missions. There is a spec for something called "secondary missions" where you send out someone to do them, but that will be revisited post-launch (if the game is successful).
• HBS will not be at Pax East. They rather work on the game.
• There are 5 terrain biomes in production. Mountainous, Arid Desert, Glacial Lowlands, Terrestrial Lowlands, Frozen, Martian, Lunar and Tundra. Each biome has their own terrain features. Forrests will be pretty much in all biomes. There is for instance a Crystal Field in the Desert, in which lasers will be less powerful, but kinetic and missiles will work just fine. Each biome will have a set of valid weather and lighting and fog etc ... It will change depending on the battle and other factors.
• Contracts will in general last for one mission. What will be in the game, is mission chains. You do contract 01 and complete it, contract 02 will be available, and so forth. They wanted to do this so that you can take a break and go do another mission for instance. Also, it will allow for re-supply. Missions in this game tend to take longer to complete than the team had originally anticipated (which they find a good thing) and they don't want to shut a player out of the simulation part of the game for 4 hours in a row (which would have been the case if contracts took multiple missions to complete).
• There is a system for camo-schemes and paintjobs. Each chassis has 6 different paint schemes (for instance stripes, double stripes, across the chest, ...). You can choose 4 colors to make up your Mech and use those to make a global paint scheme for your Mech or you can make each Mech individual.
• You can also put a heraldry icon on your Mech on several locations (you have a nice cat picture? You can put it on the chest!).
• Heraldry can be made in the emblem editor.
• You can continue to play the game after the story has finished / failed.
• BattleTech and the announced MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries will not be linked, story-wise or gameplay-wise. They take place in different timeperiods of the universe as well. The only link between HBS and Piranha Games (creators of MechWarrior Online and MechWarrior 5) is that the latter have supplied Mechs to the former. HBS will provide some tank models for PGI's upcoming MechWarrior 5.
• You will face a lance of 4 Mechs quite often.
• The game will be available on Windows, Mac and Linux. You can purchase the game on Steam, GoG and Humble. That's about it, because they do not have the license to do anything else.
• You will not be able to put an axe on an Atlas assault Mech (sadly enough).
• BattleTech has a hardpoint system for the Mechs, similar to MechWarrior Online, but not the same. Hardpoints on Mechs will not change, the weapons you put in can be changed (within what that hardpoint allows). More details will be revealed later.
• You can make PPC boats (`Mechs bearing nothing but Particle Projection Cannons), but only if the hardpoints on the `Mech allow it.
• You will start with a lance, one of those being a Blackjack. That Blackjack has been modified in order to fulfill a certain request. [Note: No more info was given]
• The starting lance will NOT have Assault Mechs.
• A Mech will not be able to take up scrap or trees and use it to bludgeon other mechs. Not possible in the scope of the game. If they had 10 million extra...
• The money raised with the kickstarter is not a lot, compared to other game budgets. It allowed for the team to be paid, food to be bought and chairs to be placed.  Focus = quality, they can't do many things well. So, buy the game, make your friends buy the game, make their friends buy the game. [Note: The comment about chairs indicated that there is more to the story, but they didn't want to go deeper into it. The trio was also a bit less cheery afterwards.]
• You will only have Leopard Dropships available. They will be your shuttles from the Argo to the surface.
• Multiplayer combat will be 1 player vs 1 player.
• Mechs painted red will not go faster.
• There will be difficulty options, but they are still kinking out the details.
• A movie replay of your battles will not be in the game. Once again, limited budget.
• No dropping Mechs from orbit.
• No "Stackpoling" Mechs. [Note: Stackpoling refers to shutting down the safety regulators on your Mech's fusion engine, creating a fusion explosion. BattleTech author Michael A. Stackpole used that in his novels, but realistically, you cannot easily turn a fusion reactor in a fusion bomb]
• A mission will last about 30 to 40 minutes.
• Combining the Shadowrun Engine with the BattleTech engine in order to make the ultimate MechWarrior campaign ... A bit like mixing Nitric Acid and Sulfuric Acid, while adding a bit of Glycerin. It creates explosive results. So, yeah, no, not gonna happen.
• UrbanMechs will be in the game. Hell yes.
• Ammo explosions happen. First shot disables the mechanism feed, the second sets it off.
• Light Mechs get higher initiative, are harder to hit because they are smaller (the enemy gets to-hit penalties, even if the light Mech stands still!) and can move further in general, creating more bonuses.
• A light Mech in melee might not sound like a good idea, but do not forget that Melee also includes fire your small weaponry. A Firestarter light Mech can charge in melee and unleash a lot of flamers and small lasers on you, creating pain. But if a locust does this and charges an Awesome, the returnpunch can hurt the Locust a lot.
• Tonnage is not the only indicator of a Mechs prowess in melee. A chassis might have certain bonuses to melee.
• There is a save-in-mission option.
• Ironman mode? Yes.

[Dohon]

But then again, it is a pretty small game studio, without a big publisher backing them. I don't know how successful the shadowrun games are or how many copies the Necropolis game sold (a game that I didn't like myself).

According to Steam Spy, Shadowrun Returns sold over 1,000,000, Dragonfall sold 680,000+, and Hong Kong sold 400,000+, and Necropolis sold 90,000+. I think they might be counting on Battletech to be good.

Thanks for the numbers! Didn't know Necropolis did that poorly (relatively speaking).

[Dohon]

New Kickstarter update is out.

Backer beta release has been postponed due to development woes (blame Unity). No new date has been put forward at this time. At the same time,  the May / Summer release date of the game has also been pushed back to Late Summer / Fall.

While I myself was really looking forward to stomping some Mechs next week, I rather have them take their time. So, yeah, the waiting continues. 

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, better a solid experience than a soon one, so to speak.

[Scripten]

Yeah, I'm not worried at all. I'm a software engineer and the games industry crunches way harder than any other I've ever seen and also have to deal with some of the least stable development environments you will find. That they ran into this issue at all is not only unsurprising, but significantly less drastic than several I've encountered myself. There's a reason why so few "serious" software companies release deadlines to their customers.