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Battletech |KS| Turn-based tactical mech combat, Harebrained Schemes, Summer 2017

S

ShadowSwordmaster

Banned
Woorloog said:
Missed opportunity in making the beer stein look like an UrbanMech.

At least the MechWarrior is pretty accurately.

I'm thinking someone is throwing darts into a wall with various proposals.
This one must have landed into "beer and pretzels", as that is how the original BattleTech tabletop game is described.
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Agreed.
 
L

Lime

Member
New flamer gif posted by Jenn Trann on Twitter:

ezgif.com-6678af85a0.gif
 
K

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
Mechwarrior Online going in a good direction.

Battletech turn based game in development.

Mechwarrior 5 in development.

Okay, I desperately need that Mechcommander 3 announcement to fulfill the circle of life.
 
B

BrokenFiction

Member
Beta coming - March 15th!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/posts/1801796

We have good news for you - we're targeting March 15th as our Beta launch date. (As you'll recall, Beta access was a Kickstarter Reward for all Backers at the $50 MechWarrior Tier and above). The team has been hard at work getting the game in shape and we're almost ready for you to take a test drive.

Now, I bet you have a few questions... well, your friendly, neighborhood BATTLETECH Producer is here to fill you in with a FAQ that should answer your most pressing questions right away. As we get closer to our target date, I'll update you with any final details you may need to be an effective Beta participant.
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When will the Backer Beta start?
Our target delivery date is March 15th. While we're on track for this date and looking good, this IS game development, so please take the date with the expected grain of salt. Something may break as we head into this date and it may require us to take additional time to fix it to ensure a good experience for our participants. We'll let you know as far in advance as possible if something like this comes up!
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How long will the Backer Beta last?
We haven't finalized exactly how long the Beta will remain live, but it should be up for at least two months.
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What will the Backer Beta include?
As outlined in our Kickstarter Campaign, the Backer Beta will feature 1v1 multiplayer and single-player Skirmish play. The Beta will include a subset of the 'Mechs and Maps that will be found in the game at launch. Note that the Backer Beta will not include the story campaign or mercenary company management, nor will it include the ability to modify your `Mech loadouts. We hope to update the Beta later with the `Mech Lab feature but can't commit to that at this time.
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What `Mechs will be in the Backer Beta?
We're still determining which `Mechs will be included in the Backer Beta. The target list of ‘Mechs for the full game can be found in our Kickstarter page FAQ.
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Will the Backer Beta be under NDA, or restricted in any way?
The Kickstarter Beta will not be under a non-disclosure agreement, though there may be an end-user licensing agreement required to participate.
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Can we post screenshots and/or videos of the Backer Beta?
Yes!
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How about livestreaming the Beta or posting YouTube videos? Can we do that?
Yes! Yes!
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Oh yeah? Can we write blog posts about it and mini-reviews if we want?
Yes, yes, yes! All of the above.
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Where will I be able to play the Backer Beta and for what platforms?
The Beta will only be available on Steam for Windows and Mac. Supporting more platforms would require additional development processes that would impact precious development time needed for feature development.
While the Beta keys will be Steam-only, your key for the final RELEASE version of BATTLETECH will still be on whatever platform you chose in your BackerKit survey responses. If you've forgotten what platform you chose, you can check by logging into your BackerKit account and, if you want to change that, contact us and we'll change that for you manually.
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Also:
If you're not aware, we've resumed our monthly livestreamed development Q&As and the next one will be TOMORROW Wednesday, February 8th from 12am-1pm Pacific Time.

nl7p6Uw.jpg
 
L

Lime

Member
I seriously wonder if I will be able to hold back. I want to go into the full experience completely blind, yet I hunger for Battletech like a fanatic.
 
M

Memory

Member
Hmmmm i really want to read the Novellas' all th together but I've got nothing to read right now so Heir Apparent is perfect timing for me.

In regards to the Beta, I'm glad its Sandwiched in between Zelda and Mass Effect so I'll have no time to play it. Holding out for the full game if I can.
 
P

Poodlestrike

Banned
Tbh, I'm kind of glad I didn't back at beta access level. It's the campaign mechanics and features I'm really looking forward to, and I'd hate to burn out or get a bad impression from the early tactical stuff.
 
B

BrokenFiction

Member
Backer Beta Delayed...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/posts/1824640

Developers are constantly weighing risks vs rewards during a project, often with incomplete information. In this case we made two big decisions in the leadup to Beta and both turned out to have a bigger impact on the project than we planned for. Here’s what happened:

  • Our development infrastructure desperately needed an upgrade but the fixes caused lots of short-term headaches. HBS has a history of “toughing it out” and working with sub-optimal back-end tools because we want as much development time as possible to be spent on game features and fun. Eventually however, a system becomes too painful to use and we bite the bullet and pay the development price. In this case, we had two vital systems that required improvement for the Backer Beta, so we decided to “tear off the bandage”, hire a professional IT contractor, and get all the work done at once so our engineers could stay focused on the game.

    Unfortunately, the infrastructure upgrade process caused several issues including delays in getting new versions of the game built. This consumed time from our Lead Engineer, our Test Lead, and myself. Without the ability to test our work in new “builds” of the game, progress slowed. It has taken the better part of 3 weeks to get back on track, but we finally feel like we've cleared the hurdle.
  • An upgrade to the latest version of Unity brought the game editor to its knees. Unity is the game engine we build BATTLETECH on top of and when the company updates its software, game developers need to take a hard look before deciding to take the plunge and install it. In this case, we determined that the update was required for beta because it contained performance optimizations that would greatly improve the gameplay experience for nearly all our participants and for some, make the game playable at all on their machines.

    Now, we know from experience that whenever you update major software in the middle of development things WILL break, so we diligently planned time for integration and bug fixing. Unfortunately, while the upgrade succeeded in improving the game’s performance, the changes in Unity broke a lot more of our systems than anticipated - with these consequences proving more time-consuming to troubleshoot and address than any other Unity upgrade we’ve done in the past (including on previous projects). We were relieved to learn that at 2:30am this morning, our engineering and technical art team removed the final productivity sink and were able to start our Monday with a solid infrastructure and performant game editor.

As you can imagine, it’s been a frustrating few weeks in the studio. The entire project slowed dramatically just as we were attempting to hit the gas for the final weeks until Beta launch. The team continued to push as hard as they could, refusing to give up on our March 15th target date, but the slowdowns and instability were punishing. The leadership group decided to step back and take a good, hard look at the situation. We decided it was best to stop the crunch and focus on finishing the infrastructure and editor work before reviewing our quality level and reassessing the target date for the Backer Beta.

Now that our technical issues are behind us, the team is focused on quality and on delivering an experience that shows the world why HBS loves BattleTech and why everyone else should, too. As soon as we have a new target date that we can confidently announce, we’ll send out another update. We are dedicated to delivering a great Backer Beta, even if that means taking a little longer with it.

Regarding the final release date for BATTLETECH: As noted during our livestreamed dev Q&As and on our forums, once we unlocked all of our Kickstarter stretch goals, our estimated release date of May was no longer valid. Way back then we said things like "Summer 2017.” Now that we're further along, we're targeting a Late Summer / Fall release of the game - but we won't be announcing a more exact release date until we're much closer in!
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TL/DR: Infrastructure upgrades and Unity upgrades caused a delay.
 
C

callsignkrogan

Member
I am not too worried about it. I'd much rather them upgrade the engine to allow for better performance and delay a bit then have it immediately this summer.
 
T

TheVoidDragon

Member
Sinatar said:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/416020/
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I don't see any chance of this being successful at £30, even less so when it seems they're specifically targetting "e-sports" from what i've read of it. It's been out nearly a month and has only managed 9 reviews, i expect the price is the biggest reason for that.

I don't think i ever actually completed a mission of either Heavy Gear or any of the Mechwarrior games but i remember playing some of them. At least this seems to be doing things right.
 
L

Lime

Member
Behind the Music in Battletech part 1: BattleTech MIDI Mood Piece

Here's the first (of many) videos that will give you a behind the scenes look at my process composing music for BattleTech. I'm starting 'er off reaaaal slow with a simple video of a MIDI mood piece I wrote in a day to accompany a specific portion of the game. This is an (obviously) unfinished version of a track in progress that will later be properly mixed and mastered and added to. This video serves to show that fairly complex moods can be established with rather simple brushstrokes and textures using virtual instruments and analog synths.

Future videos will include commentary by myself with a more robust look into what processes I follow when writing a cue for BattleTech (or for anything). This will include live videos of my recordings with orchestra, score overviews, some videos of me smashing keys, pushing buttons and twisting knobs on synths in my studio and some cinematics and snippets of music in the game itself.

Let me know if you have anything specific you'd like me to cover or have any questions that need answering!
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L

Lime

Member
The game looks pretty decent, I just hope the Unity engine won't be too much of a hassle in terms of performance.
 
W

Woorloog

Banned
Because i'm bored, i browsed the game's forum a bit.

First, looks like further merchandise crowdfunding is not happening. Jordan (Weisman, i presume) is looking at other options though.

Second, the beta is apparently content-locked and "finished", except for some critical bugs like connectivity or such.

My guess, June beta at this rate.

Oh, and the title probably needs to be updated, IIRC they indicated release is going to be around fall at this point, when the beta was delayed.
 
P

Poodlestrike

Banned
Damn that's pretty.

And current thread title is okay, if your guess of a June beta is right. We'll get a lot more media and impressions then, even if full release isn't until fall (and who knows, maybe it hits sooner).
 
L

Lime

Member
Woorloog said:
Because i'm bored, i browsed the game's forum a bit.

First, looks like further merchandise crowdfunding is not happening. Jordan (Weisman, i presume) is looking at other options though.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding me? They haven't done anything worthwhile with a good price of access. They could've easily printed some posters for cheap.

*sigh*
 
E

Effect

Member
Lime said:
Are you kidding me? They haven't done anything worthwhile with a good price of access. They could've easily printed some posters for cheap.

*sigh*
Click to expand...

That's what has frustrated me about this. The options they've presented have been so expensive that unless you're a hardcore fans you're not even considering them. There had to have been plenty of cheaper options that would have had lower numbers required. It didn't need to be these "premium" styled items.
 
G

gregor7777

Banned
Sorry if this is posted somewhere already, but I can't find it on KS or the OP. Does anyone have any idea what kind of specs this is targeting for a decent experience? Most of my PCs are older gaming machines or integrated dogshit. Turn based games typically accommodate lower spec machines but this looks fairly complex.
 
L

Lime

Member
Cleaned up the OP and changed the thread title

gregor7777 said:
Sorry if this is posted somewhere already, but I can't find it on KS or the OP. Does anyone have any idea what kind of specs this is targeting for a decent experience? Most of my PCs are older gaming machines or integrated dogshit. Turn based games typically accommodate lower spec machines but this looks fairly complex.
Click to expand...

It's Unity 5, so it may be a bit performance heavy, but its visuals aren't that high-end and it should work on a low to medium-range PC for sure.

The first line in the OP has the link to the Slacker Backer pledge: https://battletech.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Here's the KS link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/
 
A

AColdDay

Member
This looks way better than I anticipated. I hope that this project is successful and that they tackle another Shadowrun game in this graphical style, because that looks awesome for Unity.
 
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