Jan 16

Message from the Founders

By Criminal Media, MWLL, News & Updates, The Team 1 Comment »

Greeting Living Legends!

In light of recent confusion and rumors, the co-owner of Wandering Samurai Studios and I are here to clear some things up.

First and foremost there has not, nor has there ever been, any legal action or threat of legal action leveraged against the MechWarrior: Living Legends development team. This was an assumption of a small amount of volunteers based on incomplete information.

To clarify, the decision to discontinue development of MechWarrior: Living Legends was made by the founders and owners of the project. On behalf of all the people involved in MechWarrior: Living Legends we must sincerely apologize to all parties affected by this miscommunication.

In closing, development on this project has officially come to an end. We thank you for your support and express our hope for the continued success of the MechWarrior franchise.

 

Continue the Discussion

 

Mar 14

MechWarrior: Living Legends Talks Past, Present and Future with NoGutsNoGalaxy

By KingLeerUK MWLL, News & Updates, The Team No Comments »

No Guts No Galaxy PodcastThis last weekend two of the Project Directors for MechWarrior: Living Legends, Toth ”Morgan” and KingLeerUK “Will”,  discussed the past, present and future of the MWLL project with the Phil and Daeron of the No Guts No Galaxy podcast.  Among the various topics covered included:

  • the origins of the MWLL project,
  • some of the initial challenges and frustrations of bringing the project to a release state,
  • responses to both praise and criticisms levied against the project,
  • discussion of some of the technical hurdles that the project has had to overcome,
  • the joys and pains of working on a volunteer project,
  • roles for battle armour in upcoming game modes,
  • and an assortment of teasers, coming attractions and the usual efforts at disinformation you’ve come to expect!

Click over to the NoGutsNoGalaxy.net page to listen to the hour-long interview and then discuss in our forums!

Mar 05

MechWarrior: Living Legends Media Release – Improved HUD System & Concept Art

By KingLeerUK Media, MWLL, News & Updates, The Team 1 Comment »

A MechWarrior without information is just meat in a can waiting for the next gauss round to arrive.  We here at MechWarrior: Living Legends recognise that and are pleased to bring you a look at our newly revised and massively improved HUD system; coming soon to a battleground near you.

The original HUD system in MechWarrior: Living Legends has been functional and did meet the requirements for the initial game launch back in 2009, but we have since added numerous layers to the complexity of our game and have many, many more treats in store for our community.  Our beta launch HUD design was built upon the native Flash system within the Crysis modSDK but has always been fraught with performance and maintainability issues as well as looking rather plain.

This last summer we decided it was time our HUD took off the training wheels and be recreated, ready to support all of our released and planned gameplay concepts and at the same time improve the appearance.

Concept artist “FlyingDebris” worked with the project directors and lead developers of the MWLL team to create multiple concepts for the HUD that encompassed the breadth of functionality available within MWLL and provide accomodations for planned features and expansions.  One of the core requirements was that the HUD for each vehicle class be uniquely suited to the roles that those players play and provide them with an interface that prioritises the information most important to those roles.

Here are the concepts for the Mech HUD showing the “kitchen sink” of information elements and a static/interference effect concept.

MWLL Mech HUD Concept     MWLL Mech HUD Concept Static Effect\

Here is the concept for the tank version of the HUD.

MWLL Tank HUD Concept

Our Flash Programmer “CHHs Deathshade” has been hard at work for months converting these concepts into working Flash files that can be dynamically updated by game code.  Working closely with our programming team, he has been implementing the ‘Mech HUD in stages making sure to test both functionality and performance at each step of the process.  Our goal is to create our own native HUD system that has little to no reliance upon the Crysis modSDK Flash system and has greatly improved performance and reliability.

Here are some screenshots of the HUD progress implemented thus far:

MWLL Mech HUD In Game 01    MWLL Mech HUD In Game 02    MWLL Mech HUD In Game 03

MWLL Mech HUD In Game 04    MWLL Mech HUD In Game 05    MWLL Mech HUD In Game 06

MWLL Mech HUD In Game 07    MWLL Mech HUD In Game 08

We have also prepared a quick video showing an alpha build playtest using the current ‘Mech HUD progress:


View Video on YouTube

We hope that you have enjoyed this look at upcoming improvements to the HUD systems within MechWarrior: Living Legends.  With each content release, teaser and peek into new features I hope that our MWLL community share in our sense of accomplishment and the pride in seeing what our volunteer team continues to achieve.

Discuss in our forums!

Feb 27

MWLL Technical Brief – Build Rules Spaces Concept Draft

By KingLeerUK Media, MWLL, The Team 1 Comment »

MechWarrior: Living Legends Build Rules Spaces ConceptToday the MechWarrior: Living Legends team pulls back the curtain a bit on an aspect of our game design that some of the more rabid in our community have been clamoring for details on: the Build Rules.

The Build Rules for MechWarrior: Living Legends have been in development since prior to the original beta release back in 2009.  We have been putting in extra effort over the past few months to truly refine the rules and make them a cohesive and consistent reference that can be used to inform new gameplay features and eventually… the MechLab.

The overall build rules concept for MWLL can be considered to have two main branches:  Spaces and Tonnage.  The document shared today provides an overview of the Weapon and Equipment Spaces concepts used within MWLL to govern the configuration of variants within the game, some specific examples for why certain choices where made in the design of the rules and goes into some of the technical details of how vehicles are realised within MWLL.  This overview was originally intended to be presented only within a news posting, but as it was being written it quickly became apparent that it would be better served as a technical brief contained within a standalone document.

Download the MECHWARRIOR: LIVING LEGENDS BUILD RULES CONCEPTS OVERVIEW in PDF format here.

Discuss in our forums!

Dec 28

MechWarrior: Living Legends Wins 2011 Honorable Mention – Mod of the Year

By KingLeerUK MWLL, News & Updates, The Team No Comments »

Question: What’s better than winning…

2007 #4 Player’s Choice Best Upcoming ModModDB Mod of the Year 2011
2008 Honorable Mention Player’s Choice Best Upcoming Mod
2009 Editor’s Choice Multiplayer Mod of the Year
2009 Player’s Choice Mod of the Year
2010 Honorable Mention Mod of the Year

Answer: Winning again with 2011 Honorable Mention Mod of the Year.

Thanks to our community, MechWarrior: Living Legends has once again earned a worthy mention in the ModDB.com Mod of the Year competition for a 6th year straight.  We are very proud of this accomplishment and hope that you will celebrate with us as we enter into our 7th year of development.

Discuss in our forums!

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