[english]Что мы хотим от MechWarrior?

[DeJaVu]

Источник: _http://pc.ign.com/articles/105/1054509p1.html
What We Want from MechWarrior
Some ideas that will make the upcoming reboot an instant classic.
by Jeff Haynes

December 11, 2009 - Earlier this year, we were thrilled when Piranha Games and Smith & Tinker announced the reboot of the MechWarrior franchise. It had been seven years since PC gamers had the chance to leap into the cockpit of a 30 ton mech and blow apart rival pilots with lasers, rockets and other weapons. But with the decision of the re-launching of the franchise came a wealth of questions: What's the new story of this revamped series? How large would the single player campaign be? Will multiplayer be as chaotic and enjoyable as the previous games?

While Piranha and Smith & Tinker have been quietly slaving away at the title, I thought I'd put together a list of things that should hopefully be included within this revamped title. While these are just suggestions, hopefully including some of these items would help the new MechWarrior tower above other action games for some time to come while fixing some of the past mistakes of the previous games.

Use the conflict and chaos of BattleTech history to create a rich back story for the game.

The Inner Sphere of the BattleTech Universe has an extremely rich and detailed history that's surrounded in political intrigue, betrayal and chaos as each one of the Great Houses fights for their dominance over each other. In fact, most players of Battletech were introduced to the franchise during the period of the Third Succession War, where the five main factions constantly fought over planets. Since the new game takes place during this period on disputed world between Davion and Kurita space, let's hope that this becomes more than a simple battle between Fed Rats and Snakes. Hopefully, Planet Deshler (the setting for this new title) has economic value that appeals to House Marik, is tactically appealing to House Liao or has a familial connection to House Steiner to draw these other factions into the battle. Make it more complex, include a historical analysis of what makes this world so vital and the fans will love you for it.

Bring popular and recognizable Merc units into the game.

Currently, the only details that we have about the struggle in the game is that House Kurita decides to invade Davion-held Deshler in an attempt to reclaim what they consider is rightfully theirs. But this shouldn't simply be an assault by these two sides. The game should bring in many of the recognizable mercenary units to help fight out battles across the planet. For example, does the Davion world send out a distress signal to the Kell Hounds or Wolf's Dragoons because of prior work contracts? Would the Waco Rangers possibly land on the planet to cause trouble so House Liao could sweep in and pick up the pieces? Pulling in Merc companies would provide more that simple cannon fodder for players to assault during the game; it would pit them against worthy opponents.



Scale the difficulty for Lance configurations, or vary rewards based on lances.

Right now, we know that the game is being tuned so up to four players can co-operatively play through the campaign and experience what it's like to control a lance, a four man group of mechs. While the concept is great to give players the sense of what it's like to roll through as a foursome of heavy or assault mechs, this could make it incredibly easy to break enemy defenses, especially if you have a group of friends that coordinate their tactics well. To ensure that the game is challenging, there's two potential approaches that can be taken.

The first would be to scale the difficulty of the game based on the lance that you decide to field. If you field a lance of light mechs, like Hornets or Javelins, you'll go up against elementals, other battle armors and a lot of turrets. You'll also face off against a few medium class mechs like Shadow Cats or Hellhounds, and perhaps a Thor or Daishi every now and then, requiring a lot of coordination and fast strikes to successfully survive these encounters. However, if you choose to roll with a foursome of Warhammers or Fafnirs, expect to go up against increased numbers of heavy or assault mechs, all launching their weapons in concentrated bursts at your lance.

The other option is to increase the rewards for launching into a mission with radically different load outs. You're advised to launch with one heavy and mediums and instead you launch with all lights? Bonus cash, prestige points and experience for you if you survive.



There has to be a deep character progression system, including a loyalty slider for your hired pilots.

MechWarrior pilots known how to get the most out of their equipment, and it would make sense that they would gain further experience on the battlefield, learning new skills or tactics that they can employ to eliminate enemies. Adding an experience system isn't anything radically new, but hopefully MechWarrior will have additional facets to developing and promoting hired pilots. For example, the game could allow you to spend experience points to allow veteran pilots to teach skills to the recruits. You could also make promotions for characters within your lances boost their resilience and piloting skills, along with their confidence in battle.

However, you should also be encouraged to use all the pilots that you collect, so you aren't constantly holding onto characters and never using them. What if there's a loyalty or fatigue system included within the game based on the number of times you employ a pilot, forcing you to cycle characters to keep them happy? Failure to do so could result in pilots abandoning or potentially turning on you in a battle situation because they've received a better offer from the other side. The game could even include missions that call into question the loyalty of some soldiers: Choosing to perform one objective over another could boost the loyalty of some while eroding the confidence of others. No one said that war, or balancing the needs and wants of mech pilots, would be easy.

There needs to be multiple mission paths with multiple endings.

We know that the current plan is to have the game change based on the kind of mech that you choose to pilot, but who says that your path across Deshler needs to be a linear experience? There should be branching paths thrown into missions, where choosing to take or refuse different secondary objectives changes the plot and what's available to you. For example, let's say that you choose to ally yourself with one group of mercs instead of another. The rival group could come back to attack you at a later time, or decide to become mortal enemies of your lance. Perhaps there should be additional dilemmas that should be thrown in for Adrian Khol, the main character. Should he spend extra time searching for equipment, or respond to a distress signal from a childhood friend? The consequences of his decisions could echo throughout the game, setting up intriguing possibilities for expansion packs and sequels.

Include side missions, like Solaris Tournaments to expand your prestige and money.

MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries included Solaris Tournaments that allowed players to boost your personal prestige and cash so your pilot could acquire additional gear for his forces. Currently, we don't know if there would be time to enroll Khol or his pilots into a tournament while he's trying to repel incoming attacks from House Kurita or take revenge against the mechs that destroyed his family. However, including possible side missions could easily boost the prestige of your lance, attracting new pilots to fight by your side. It could also give you extra cash so that you could possibly purchase new gear for your battered mechs if there is any kind of economic system included in the game.

Have destructible environments that affect salvage, reinforcements and money.

From what was shown within the revamped trailer, we know that environments within the game will be completely destructible, and will respond to the weight of mechs or blasts from weapons. However, what if you potentially earned more for not completely destroying the environment? After all, we know that Khol is one of the members of the planet's royal house; this is his planet, and the responsibility of protecting it has now fallen on his shoulders since the rest of his family is dead. Protecting certain structures scattered across the environment could be more beneficial than taking a scorched earth approach to repelling invaders. For example, allowing a factory to remain standing could provide additional salvage, protecting a hospital could provide you with new pilots that were recuperating from wounds suffered from battle, or saving a museum could provide you with additional funds. On top of that, the prestige earned could cause additional side benefits, like the ability to call in reinforcements during battle.



Let us manipulate our mechs, equipment and weaponry.

These seems like a no brainer, but think about it this way: the main character is supposedly a pilot that's a natural when it comes to mechs. Well, perhaps this extends to customizing and creating new equipment as well, especially if he doesn't have access to a mechanic and a mech bay until he gains characters willing to help him fight back. While we don't expect that Khol will be able to take salvaged gear and turn it into equipment on par with the vastly superior Clan technology found in older MechWarrior games, players should be able to cobble together and hack the placement and effectiveness of our heat sinks, weapons and systems to create truly unique mechs that serve our piloting style on the battlefield. Let the effectiveness of the tinkering be further boosted by skills gained through each successive mission, and you've multiplied the replayability of the game exponentially.



Persistent Multiplayer battles across Inner Sphere worlds for each house.

An older PC game, Multiplayer BattleTech 3025, allowed players to pick and choose from any one of the five houses in the Inner Sphere and let them fight on planets with their lances to determine which faction would dominate the galaxy. The persistent results of which territory was won and what planets were eventually lost were broadcast across multiplayer lobbies, which resulted in players constantly trying to tip the balance towards their chosen House. We know that the goal is to have a Conquest style format in MechWarrior, but making it similar to BattleTech 3025 could ensure a large base of players that would consistently fight against each other.

Keep the cheesy FMV sequences for cutscenes to retain old school vibe.

Yes, the full motion video revolution has come and gone, with only a few franchises keeping the live action sequences alive to tell story sequences or cutscenes. But something feels appropriate to melding FMV and CG together for MechWarrior, since you're supposed to be interacting with other humans just like you in gigantic robots. Similarly, having the grainy video loop of another pilot coming in from your lance giving you info as they're being attacked, or incoming video feeds from enemies seems like it fits with everything that's been known about the Battletech/MechWarrior franchise. I don't care if you see a rendered character model moving in the cockpit of your mech. Call it retro, call it a hold out from a previous franchise, but throw actors into the Mech regalia and feed that footage onscreen. You'll be ready to leap into a cockpit to blast enemies for your house in no time.

[KolbunD]

DeJaVu
Большая просьба: хоть короткой строкой на русском, ибо попытался через переводчик, у меня тарабарщина не сусветная получилась, а ведь интересно что компания написала