MechWarrior: Living Legends – F.A.Q.

Very obviously the player base for a mod such as this is astronomical.

Mankind spread quickly, soon populating a region of space more than 1,000 light-years wide: the Inner Sphere. As the human race spread, it brought with it the seeds of war.
The Inner Sphere, heart of the Battletech Universe, contains all worlds within 500 light-years of Terra. It is dominated by five “Great Houses”: House Davion, House Liao, House Marik, House Steiner and House Kurita. (The term “Inner Sphere” sometimes refers to these houses collectively). The leader of each Great House claims to be the rightful successor to the rule of the Star League, and so their nations are known as the Successor States.

We have also concepted new game modes such as “Solaris Arenas” which is similar to a racehorse track where you bet on combatants and use your funds in your own battles. Also, we will be making this far more fun and rewarding to play as infantry rather than only piloting vehicles, infantry combat for those that can handle it will be tactical and team orientated rather than a jumping and strafing war. Vehicles will be used for what they are used for in realistic combat as support rather than front line troops, infantry will be the only element able to capture the objectives that are essential to win the map. This project will differ in many ways from other MechWarrior titles released to date.

Initially we plan on using the campaign system (series of 3 maps) to reenact some historical engagements between The Clan and the Inner Sphere. As we finish these campaigns our long term hope is to include the succession wars campaigns in addition to the exodus campaigns as future “expansion” releases where it will be Inner Sphere vs. Inner Sphere or Clan vs. Clan.

There are so many stories to tell in the Battletech universe but it is really important that players be able to understand what is happening without having to read through a 200 page source book.

In terms of a cosmetic look, all art we’ve seen each Mech made varies from artist to artist so they can’t look EXACTLY like the Fan Pro books concept. This
flexibility allows our modelers to add their own special touch to the mech and perhaps improve on the design a bit. Still, a Madcat should and will look like
it’s supposed to with the missile pods and arms out the side with reverse kneed legs and tri toes.

For the Clans, warfare represents the apex of human achievement. A Clan warrior by definition is considered worthy of more respect than a Clansman of any other caste, because his life’s work – waging war – brings his Clan the greatest honor. No scientific breakthrough, no degree of technical or business expertise, no artistic achievement and no amount of wealth can match the value of what a Clan warrior does. Even freeborn warriors, scorned as near worthless in some Clans, have higher status than members of lesser castes do. Though the Clans acknowledge value in the work of other castes, they see that value in military terms. Scientific research created the eugenics program that breeds trueborn warriors, and also produces such useful items as improved armor alloys and devastating weapons; technicians maintain the sophisticated machinery that makes warfare possible; merchants find the resources and create the wealth to finance Clan fighting forces; and the laborers’ menial work oils the machinery of everyday Clan life so that higher castes may devote themselves to more worthy tasks.

A: We refer to this as the modular/child system, where one part of the mech (the arm for example) can get blown off and take the weapons with it, while the body remains intact. The simple answer is Yes. To be more precise, we plan to make it a 3 part system. The first part: depending on the BattleMech, the major children of the whole are going to be laid out as follows… Head (cockpit), Torso, Right Arm, Left Arm, Left Leg, Right Leg. Again, based on mech design, these major modules may differ or even have more.

The next two parts of the modular system are the armor plating and the internal structure of a component, respectively the HP (Hit Points or Health) these elements have. Of course you will have to blow away the armor off that specific component first before hacking away at the internal structure. After the internal structure is destroyed for that child, that whole child will be removed from the mech and no longer functional. It will not be possible to aim for an ammo compartment and blow that up to render that gun or even that component useless.

Hijacking the mech (kinda like in Mech Assault) will not be possible. We imagine that in the future, there would be security measures in place to stop hijackers from making the pilot eject and stealing the mech.

The player will be given just the basic Privates pay, which provides enough funds to purchase basic armor/weapon/ammo and/or vehicles. As the player makes kills and/or achieves other goals (like securing capture points), you’ll earn credits that can be used to obtain bigger and better things. Your headquarters will be armed with automated missiles and turrets – effectively eliminating base camping altogether. Your headquarters may be an offshore station, an inland base or a landed dropship.

MWLL multiplayer will provide a wide variety of different vehicles and machines including BattleMechs.

Such vehicles and machines just don’t just spawn – the player’s side will have to take control of certain capture zones in order to be able to manufacture them. The capture zones won’t be just markers on a map – rather they will be factories, ports, motor works etc. For example, capturing a vehicle plant will enable the production of tanks and BattleMechs. Capturing a zone will involve simply standing in a specific room for a small amount of time. The player will gain credits for this also.

Once the players’ team captures a zone, it doesn’t just start manufacturing the goods. It provides the means to manufacture, but the player must first of all order their desired machine or vehicle through their PDA and have a certain number of credits available. The PDA will provide the player with a key code so that no one else can take what the player has ordered. The player will also have the opportunity to give your order to another team member.

While the player can have multiple vehicles/machines, they can only manage one at a time. The others can be locked in a somewhat secure area. They won’t be completely safe though as the enemy can pick your locks and steal equipment. Also, if for any reason the player leaves their vehicle and the enemy is snooping around they can jump in and claim it as theirs.

Throughout the game the player’s rank will change as you gain more “C-bills” The higher rank they have, the more equipment they will in turn have access to.

Getting the right balance is perhaps the most pertinent issue. While new players may think it’s grossly unfair that all they will begin with is basic issue while other players may be already playing with some serious firepower, it won’t quite be like this. Firstly new players will be able to steal others machines/vehicles. Secondly, those players with higher ranks won’t be after the new players as they will have very little to gain from killing them and more so be jeopardizing their entire team. Players with high ranks will get the greatest benefit from killing opponents with a higher rank level. Based on this it’s likely that you’ll be fighting others with a similar rank.

A very interesting plan for the MWLL Multiplayer “Theatre of War” is the “Action Area” concept. This is a completely new concept never before seen in an FPS multiplayer title. Essentially each map will consist of a large 60km wide terrain. In this terrain, there will be three major action zones which are essentially maps in themselves. For ease of definition the large 60km will now be known as the world map, and the smaller areas that exists inside this map will be knows as Area/Action Zones. Each action zone will play very much like a typical FPS multiplayer map with domination of all capture points being the objective. Upon victory for either side on this particular map the losing team becomes the defending team in the next area which may be 5-10km away from this central action zone. The defending team must scramble to make it to the map before the attacking team does so as to set up a strong defensive position. The attacking team must inflict as much damage to the retreating defending team as possible to minimize the amount of resistance that they will meet upon arrival at the new area.
The main interesting feature of this is that on the defensive action zones if the defenders defeat the attackers, the attackers must then retreat back to the central map and a tug of war will begin.

Due to the unique factor of the time in each game. Depending on the servers’ settings, a game could last as long as ten real hours! (Keyword: Could) With the dynamic day/night cycles in MWLL, it’s possible that the player could be playing on the same map during the day and under the stars!
Acquiring more Funds

The player will earn additional funds by capturing and defending build locations, spawn points and main objectives. They will also earn additional funds by aiding their teammates in a variety of ways, either by resupply or kill assists.

Each map will consist of an attacking faction and a defending faction. Depending on the map, different objectives will be required to be completed by the attacking team for the victory conditions to be met. Typically the maps will consist of 3-5 objectives depending on the overall complexity of the map itself.

Players use the variety of vehicles and tool to accomplish their tasks be it defending or attacking and completing certain objectives.

If you’d like to learn more about normal mapping please visit:

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow.htm

The idea is that you take all of the detail from the high poly model and put it in a normal map. Then you apply the normal map to the low res model just like you would add a texture map. Now you have a low res model that looks a lot like the high res one. It’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty good trick that makes low res models look A LOT better than they ever have before.