Mechwarrior Online open beta starts now

Officially done with it until bugs are dealt with.

Game looks very promising.  But it seems like free-to-play model is hindering the game mechanics.  

The past few months, the game devs have been busy implementing money making features (which doesn't surprise me since it's a free to play game and they need to add features to make money for the studios).  But there are plethora of issues that are plaguing the MWO community. 

1.  issues with weapon mechanics.  seems like some weapons are way too powerful or they are broken and not doing the full damage it's supposed to.

2. issues with coding/connection.  people call the bug lag shield and there are only theories in the community that it's caused by bad coding or people with bad latency are given advantage where the hitbox is off the mech model in game.  which causes light mechs (mechs with the least amount of HP) to become impossible to kill.

3. issues with over powered mechs.  it seems to me that with every update, they introduce more powerful mechs.  pretty much making previous mechs that were in game unused in battle field.  so any mechs you invest in now, might become useless in future updates.

It's still BETA.  Which means any money you spend on mechs can be a waste.  It also means the game you spend money on can become something different in months to come.

Anyways, if you want to check out a fun mech battle, this game is great. 
But I would give it few more months before I go back.  

Btw.  Right now these are the most over powered set ups.

All pure Ballistic Mechs.
All pure SRM6 Mechs.
Light Mechs benefit from lagshield bug.  
Any mechs with ECM.  Especially light mechs with ECM are over powered.
And before you buy a mech or spend real money in game, do research on what kind of setup a mech has.  You can't find that info in game, but there are some great guides in the forums that gives you what Mechs have.  A Mech type can have multiple load outs, so do research before you buy!

Been playing this game for close on 7 months now through closed beta and into open beta. I have heard quite a few people raging in that time that they are gonna quit, but then they stay :)

From end October to December I was beginning to get pretty annoyed with all the cosmetic changes and lack of bug fixing, but that all changed in December when they released a major bug fix together with new mechs and conquest mode.

Prior to going open beta, the game was pretty much bug free, but then they released it to open beta in late October, one week delayed to beat Hawken and the bugs crept in. These have been fixed now and the community has more than doubled in size from 2000 to 4500 and still growing.

I play this game with my guild TAW, we are an online gaming community of 1900+ international gamers (www.taw.net) playing in 3 divisions NA/EU and OC, its fun to play as a team, use tactics and strategy, follow good loadouts, assign targets and move as a lance.

Team play is very much the province of clan/guilds, sadly not pugs and if you have the misfortune to play in pugs, you are gonna get stomped and whine about losing like all the other losers who don't understand the concept of playing as a team.

If you play this game or are thinking of it, come join us and play as a team.

"The game's open beta was previously delayed due to network instabilities. "

LOL - Such a marketing statement.  Those of us who were in the closed beta know why they really postponed it and why they should have kept it postponed.

I haven't played a Mech game in a long, long time. It would be pretty cool to get interesed in one again. I will be passing on this seeing how it looks to be online focused.

bl00dy hell I cant open the page... must be swamped with ppl signing up.. aaarrrgghhh

Did they ever get mechs that are anything but glorified steel boxes and even less finesse in the realm of battle? No, they're not even up to Transformers standard as far as that goes, well that's pathetic...*Looks for a good mech game*

Yup everything is working again :)

And the site is UP!

ya we will lose all our mechs and configurations again...AT LEAST they refund the credits though! SO really you dont lose out,just have to redo your mechs over.

Yes, i new today was the BIG day sort of speak that they were bringing the game to the public..But indeed it was poorly advertised. In hindsight an e-mail to closed testers should of been sent out giving a heads up about the scheduled downtime..I know they'll get it right and it's a great game worth supporting(especially for mechwarrior fans! nothing else comes close atm) 

The game doesn't work period right now..The webpage is down its not just this link. When you try to login to the game you get a prompt that a network error has occured. Clearly they have been overwhelmed. And i agree, i been beta testing this game for a few weeks now and the 3 patches i've played through the game has regressed each time. The game is fun don't get me wrong, but the weapons are poorly balanced it is borderline brutal! This game COULD be great, but they either need a bigger dev team and or probably more capital..Maybe they will get picked up by a large publisher? I guess time will tell..I will however continue to support this game and i hope that they get it going in the right direction SOON!

The link to the official website doesn't work because they put "http" twice, and the link for their coverage of it leads to a video for Need for Speed. Quality gaming journalism.

The game is incredibly buggy and PGI constantly makes very strange decisions.

For example, the game has been in closed beta for something lik half a year, and most of the weapons are completely useless. Almost no attempt has been made to balance them. In a normal closed beta, the devs would be changing weapon stats every patch to test them...for MWO, there have been a handful of balance patches in 6 months, and from what little posts the devs have made on the topic, they seem to think most of the weapons are "fine".

The game is also near pointless to play currently because a 8 man premade team stomps a 8 man random team any day, and again, in 6 months, the devs have done nothing to fix it. When open beta starts, people are going to play a couple of games, lose repeatedly to premades, and quit. You would think PGI would be concerned about this, but they don't even consider it a problem. They are so out of touch with reality that open beta is going to be a major shock to them.

PGI's QA process is also a mystery, since EVERY PATCH contains massive, extremely obvious bugs and/or hidden changes that closed beta testers must find on their own. Whether this is because PGI is trying to hide the changes, or the patch notes guy isn't being told anything, is up for speculation.

In the last patch alone, PGI couldn't even figure out that double heat sinks were not working correctly....something closed beta testers noticed in less than half an hour of playtime. Keep in mind this patch was delayed for more than 2 weeks "To make sure everything works right".

This game is not ready for open beta.  I don't know why they call it a beta if they never implement the changes the community requests.

Is beta just a codeword for server stress testing?  They could have done that in house.

Also where is this week's patch?

href for game's official site is incorrect.

Game is broken to a point that it's going to drive away new players.

Could have used another month in close beta... Prob even 2.

The closed beta they had running for quite some time was already like an open beta basically.

You apply, you fill out the form, submit your PC specs and about 2 days later you're in.

With around 2000 concurrent users it was not much of a surprise that they want to let more people in.

Don't confuse the current state of the game with a demo through, because it's not.

It's a bug filled, unfinished (yet already very fun) product you're helping to test and even though you may not be actively reporting bugs but just playing it instead, you're still helping out through anonymous data collection and producing server load for further sizing.

Paying for mechs / content in this game is not necessary unless you don't know what to do with your money, because founders mech players go down just as quick against a half-way organized team of pure free players and the virtual (free) currency "c-bills" is grinded up pretty fast too.

If you are not located in the US though, be warned of high latency, it causes lag (as in updating positions, rotations, etc.), visual rubberbanding and aiming is still way off against moving targets.

But it's free, so not much is lost by giving it a shot, just be aware of it being a beta, not a demo.

I've been playin in the closed beta (you wouldn't believe the funny story of how I got in).

It's not bad. Especially if you're a fan of the series like me. With that said, it's NOT for everybody, especially newbies or casual gamers. It may not be the best the giant-mech simulation subgenre has to offer, but yes, it is still a sim. And though I'm a mech sim veteran, I find it odd that I didn't even see a "boot camp" function or refresher course.

And oh, don't forget to bring a joystick or some similar controller with you, you're gonna need it.

"The founders program is a scheme where players can pay money up-front to get exclusive in-game items and early access to the game on July 17." That "scheme" makes it sound a bit negative, like it's a hoax or something :D