ISWars Closed Beta

Taliesin

Taliesin

New Member
Hi Everyone,

A long time ago (7+ years now) there was a piece of software that stole all of my free time, my sick time, and my vacation time. Multiplayer Battletech: Solaris (MPBT:Solaris) was the greatest (IMHO) incarnation of the Mechwarrior games with online mech battles, politics, and community. EA later bought the franchise, made a whole new game (MPBT: 3025), released the beta to the public in a wildly popular move, and then cancelled it.

5 years have passed since that fateful day. This lonely mech-jock grew up, got married, had kids, and grew an addiction to WoW. Then, just a little while ago, a couple of my old lancemates from MPBT: Solaris contacted me and told me about ISWars. http://www.iswars.com It's still in the early stages, but it has the politics, the community, and now economy and galactic domination that the community was working towards in MPBT: 3025. Combat requires MW4: Vengeance, but if you were a fan of any of the mech sims, it doesn't hurt to check it out.
 
o0o, I will have to dig up my disks..

tho the mw4 game engine is about 10 years behind its time... they should have used the mw3 engine...

or better yet start over with a unreal engine.
 
It's just a couple guys working on it, there's no money involved, so no sense in programming more than necessary at this point. Plus, MW3 has a major flaw, it allows for non-canon variants (missle boats, AC20 armored behemoths, etc.) and doesn't offer the control that MW:4 does over the allowable mechs. In the case of ISWars, they are trying to stick to the Battletech Universe in roughly 3057.
 
mw3 is more accurate, you could modify any mech in the universe to do anything you wanted. Mind you I believe they could have limited it more like mw4, but specifically limiting a slot to solid or energy is stuipid.

after playing in various clans in mw4 up to mercinaries, I got sorta tired of that system. also the random removal of weapons really made me mad.

the mw4 engine is incredibly flawed, I used to know a variety of fairly easy to do instant kill head shots because of flaws in the armor system.

It is also laughable that you can blow off a leg and destroy a mech. and to point that mw4 doest have boats is plain wrong. thats all that the game becomes. explain the guass/ppc black nights, the srm boat cauldrons. also is a hell hound with 3x lbx10s running around at 97kph fair, I loved when I originally made that design (3 weeks after mercs was released). It was unfair, cheap, and best of all surprising :P
 
I remember making a Marauder variant in MW2 that had eight particle cannons. One all-fire would push you right to the edge of critical heat, but it would also one-shot almost anything, assuming you hit.

I loved MW2.
 
Agreed there, Microsoft really took the series downhill from Activision. There's a project (http://www.is3025.com) that is actually working on their own engine and everything. My thoughts are the community will head that way after it's up and running. ISWars is just a rung on the ladder at this point to keep the community together and active.

The original Battletech universe didn't allow for heavy modification to mechs, as Omnimechs, even in 3057, were rare outside of the clans. Each house had one or two by 3055 (with the exception of House Kurita, which had 4) but they were considered expensive and hard to maintain. Most of the mechs in MW:4 are actually not omnimechs, so the limitations are to allow for variants, but not complete crossovers. Also, as for the head shot and leg shot, that's not a fluke. A mech without a pilot is dead, and the cockpit is traditionally the poorest armored section of the mech. The leg shot kill is from an old practice in MPBT, known as legging. You take out the legs on a mech, and it's as good as dead. A few times the better pilots got a lucky shot because someone forgot they were still "alive" and walked on top of their reticles, but that only happened a couple dozen times in the period of 4 years.

LOL...I remember that MW2 variant as well, kraniac. Usually from the receiving end. I specialized in light and medium mechs (infamous for using a Jenner, a Javelin, or a Wolfhound to clear a room of assault mechs) so the 8 PPC MAD would just track me firing 2 PPCs at a time. Only thing worse was an AC/20 laden assault mech.
 
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