Good for him.. always good to see someone step up and take some risks for what hopefully will reward him down the road.

More Crimson Skies is definitely a Good Thing.

It's the Christmas miracle!

Tim Lebel is one of the founders with Weisman and he's a bit of a personal hero of mine. Tickles me to no end to see him here.

Wow. I'm excited. From what I played of it, Crimson Skies is a great franchise.

Glad I'm not the only one who doesn't know.

His company was one of the first to make this stuff work. It's extemely addicting for some. Funcom used some ARG elements to introduce their new game Secret World. The new Cloverfield movie advertisements started off using some of these techniques.

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm not really seeing how a MechWarrior ARG could really be all that, given the distinct lack of large, bipedal tanks in our present reality.

Make another MechWarrior sim however, and I'll commence with the drooling.

I was hopeful, until I read the actual text at the link. That broadside describing the company is a pure marketing B.S. sundae with a venture capitalist on top. I'll wait to see what they actually announce before I get too happy.

For years now, myself and a small group of friends have dreamed of a Battletech MMORPG. Some kind of dream game that is the perfect combination of space faring planetary expansion, dynamic loss and gain of technology and terrain and well as on planet activity akin classic MMORPG in which not only do you experience a human level of interaction but also the ability to use vehicles and even Mechs. In this fantasy game there would be Star missions in which the game changes to a Mechwarrior type interface and enters a realm of mechanical robotic FPS in which the winner in the end controls the planet. On going is the battle between the Clans and the Core and in the end when one is finally besieged upon their home world or some otherwise determined final defensive perimeter then the game would reset, akin to Pirates of the Burning Seas, and the war would wage again renewed with experienced players and characters alike, veterans and skilled.

Alas if an MMORPG/FPS/RTS combination type game existed in the Battletech genre, I and my friends would disappear into the ether with such ferocity that one would think that WoW was simply a passing fancy in comparison. Such dreams of grander. *sigh*

I would love a new Mechwarrior game, or anything in the universe.

While the nerd libido twitches at thinking about a Battletech MMO, I'd hate to see the game distilled down having to grind sibko rep to get in a mech, or see the strategy element get reduced to a rush of a few key planets each time (OMG Luthien RUSH!!!11). How would you handle advancement? Would everyone wind up in Daishis or Summoners? If there were a way to effectively simulate the concept of combined arms (light to assault mechs, plus combat armor/vehicle/artillery/aerospace support), then it could be pure opium. But with the way that MMOs are structured, I wouldn't hold my breath.

No sh*t. If they go console only again, I'm going to be pissed.

They got rid of the Battletech pods at the D&B in Atlanta a couple of years ago. End of an era.

This is pretty stream-of-conciousness, shotgun-blast style of post. Apologies if it's unreadable.

I've not currently got the time to find a reference, but Warhammer Online might be a decent model for the RvR combat of a BattleTech MMO. Think WoW Battleground but with more real-world consequences.

As far as "questing", use something like a Guild Wars (or was it DDO? I never played either) where you get missions in town and then load up with your lance or star and perform a supply raid or any of the other standard missions that can be gleaned from the MechWarrior games. Combat would be done something like was developed for Auto Assault where firing arcs and the like determined what weapons could be fired but, behind the scenes, it was still die rolls to determine to-hit and damage. These were affected by skills that would increase as you level. Actually, you could probably steal alot of mission concepts from Auto Assault as well.

Regarding everyone ending up in Daishis... it has been common practice in BT to implement tonnage limits (ostensibly due to dropship lift capacity) and not everyone is interested in driving plodding Behemoths anyway. If the combat can be implemented in such a way to give the lighter 'mechs a fighting chance... They can't duke it out, but a lance of mediums can take out an assault mech much like a pack of lions or wolves can drop much bigger creatures... as long as they keep moving and stay hard to hit.

Once upon a time, I got a copy of MUSH code and started working on this game but it quickly became beyond my abilities. The one element that I'd really like to see is more out-of-mech action, much like the admittedly-weak Mechwarrior PnP RPG tried to bring to the table.

Anyway, I really think it can be done with the borrowing of concepts from already-existing games... but I doubt it ever will be.