#34: Author: DDM_Salvatoris,
You have posted in this forum: Mon May 28, 2012 1:31 pm
I admit that I share your concerns, but I am not overly worried about it. Your physical, hard-earned or god-given, abilities as a 'Mechwarrior are still paramount. Your c-bills, level progression and equipment choices affect what you can buy and use, but it's still the pilot in the cockpit aiming, maneuvering, managing heat and ammo...
I know there are a lot of new things here... and a lot of ways it could go terribly wrong. I hope that it doesn't, and i don't think we have any evidence yet that it will be a "pay to win" scenario.... or even one where level and bank account alone decide the fight before a shot is fired.
I remember when we all started finally branching out in to other games, accepting the fate of Mech4 and not knowing what when or if the next game would be made. Running around in Guild Wars, Anarchy, Battlefield, all kinds of games really, talking about a potential 'Mech game with the type of combat, customization and control we demand, but updated with all the features we loved in the more socially connected games we were playing at the time....
A fully online game with a single community of players, Perpetual content updates, objective-based game-play, Guild management tools, in-game voice coms, stat tracking, character progression, a persistent and fluid map of the Inner Sphere to fight over, a game economy that pays our pilots for their service and offers them equipment upgrades in exchange for their hard earned c-bills.
The game will even handle the assignment of merit based promotions, medals and achievements to our members... a few of you know how much work over the years has gone in to just that one aspect... the thousands of forum posts between members of OCL, spreadsheets, side-bars and slide-rules. The persistent influence jockeying, politicking and political posturing involved in just giving everyone a shiny little badge for their shoulder... but I digress.
I'm going to remain optimistic about the game, and continue to hope it at least comes close to the game we waxed-philosophic and pipe-dreamed about for all those countless hours killing time on other fields of battle while we waited for it to be made. I'll keep my eyes peeled for things I don't like, and you all know I'll complain loudly and frequently, when I see them. But for now, I'm excited about it.
I'm excited to see how the game plays out with all the new features. I'm excited to see what a professional-created Mechwarrior game looks like in the 21st century. I'm excited about the living universe they are creating and the running timeline of the game which leaves us only a few months out from first contact with the returning Clans. But mostly, I'm excited to see if this brings any of our brother back to us.
To that end, I'd like to come up with some sort of call to arms / return to active duty, type message, inviting all our brothers and former members home, to fight alongside us again. Every one of them, no matter what the circumstances of their departure were. Warriors get restless when sidelined for years at a stretch, and brother fight from time to time. We can only move forward once we have made the decision to leave the past behind us. I want to see this message posted on all the forums and emailed to every former member we can contact.
If any of you have old member email addresses, or current contact information for any of the guys we have lost along the way, please dig it up. I'll get a thread started to compile what we have in a secure forum in a bit. 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the 'Mech. We have MWO, tactics, and several other mech related projects in the works. I for one think that if Mechwarrior can rise from the ashes like a Phoenix, so can the Death Dealer Mercenaries.
Getting back up to speed wont be easy. And It's going to take all of us. We have to whip this place in to shape and start filling cots if we are going to have any chance of getting warrior on the field at launch in the kind of numbers we need for effective recruiting. The more of brothers we can get to lend a hand, the better our chances will be. Over the years, we have moved form "too many chiefs, too little Indians" in to a "chiefs only" kind of Boy's Club. Rather than organizing some sort of Highlander-style, battle royale to reduce the number of chiefs around here, I say we just find a whole new batch of Indians.
I guess the first question to ask is, "Who's in?". Who else around here thinks we should even try to get our membership up again, now that the game we were founded to play is back from it's long hiatus? Who wants to see this place packed with smiling faces again, those of new and old friends both? Who else wants that enough to put in the work to make it happen? Are there even enough of us still around for the Death Dealer Mercenaries to make an honorable, respectable run at Mechwarrior Online?
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