I created an account just so I can participate in this conversation.

First off to throw cred out here. I have been a closed Beta player for awhile. I ended up with a founders package, so you can see my name in the credits if you wanted too. I have put real money in to the game to see this IP fully developed and have had a blast. I have flushed a lot more money then I have spent on this game down the tubes for crappy AAA titles, Star Wars: The Old Republic ring a bell.

For all your naysayers about the game cause they want this or that or what not in the game. Are you the developer? Have you given money to the system, which is using crowd sourcing / F2P system to fund the development? If not, shut the hell up you have nothing to say other than whine about the game you want that you have not added anything. Before you say, well they are never getting my money, so be it. If you want that type of game, create a company, buy the rights for the IP, and create the game. If you cannot do that, then shitting on a game that never promised a PVE experience cause you want a PVE experience shows the lack of mental capacity that you have. If you want a PVE experience wait until one is made for you or make it yourself. That is like going to a Chinese restaurant and then getting pissed because they dont have Chicken Parmesan on the menu.

As for the initial review going back 8 months till now. It was in beta and has been in beta for awhile. A closed beta, then open, and a launch that happened on Sept 27th.

The game is a PVP Only, as it was fully intended to be, game that is F2P. If you never ever pay them real money, you can configure a mech that is competitive. Currently in game there isn't a pay to win function like in other F2P PVP games. There is no gold ammo, there is not super duper awesome weapon that you get because you gave them cash. Even the cool shot (reduces heat), artillery strikes, air strikes, can all be bought with in game currency. If you use the MC (mech credits) in to get those things, the coolant flush cools you a touch more or the artillery strike lands a touch faster. Not to critical of a difference. As for the other items in game that are being charged real money, that is all vanity stuff. Like camo, medals, dashboard figures, and such. They are charging for mechs. The hero mechs come with a bonus in earning C-Bills, the in game currency. They are just another variant of a class. They come with a special paint scheme, and a slight reconfiguration of weapons hardpoints. Even then, the reconfiguration is not that special as it doesnt change much. You can compare them yourselves, but honestly there isnt much difference between the Highlander Heavy Metal Mech (Hero Mech) and the other Highlander Variants, other than the pink camo and speakers that play every time you kill someone.

As for the bugs that have been mentioned. When the initial review happened it was still in closed beta I believe. Meaning, holy shit buggy. Honestly, there were issues and that is why it was closed beta. When it went open beta a lot of those issues were resolved. That latency was reduced and so was lag times. Unfortunately not all latency is on the game producer with servers. If you have a shitty connection, you might end up having lag. Upgrade your connection. Not the games fault at all. If you have a shitty computer, fix your computer and stop blaming the game. I see people in the game occasionally with a 700 ping. Who's fault is that? Not the game company. It is your connection. Get a better one or talk to your ISP cause they are causing the issue.

As for other complaints dealing with weapon balance. Yep... most games spend a lot of time doing weapon balance, class balance, and such. Look at WoW, BF3, CoD, StarCraft, etc, every other patch they change something on how fast a spell activates, the damage, the items so and so. They are constantly tweaking the game, which is a good thing. If you don't see that you are ignorant anyway. That means they are actively involved and trying to make the game fun and fair for everyone. Derek's example of the LRM missile boats (What they are called in game) is a prime example of tweaking. LRMs used to be stupid dangerous, reason why is that they only hit one spot. They were dealing with coding issues on that, so it need to be fixed not nerfed. They got it fixed and now it spreads the damage like it should on a basic "radar" lock. If you want a tighter grouping you use TAG/Narc and then the missiles impact the spot more often. Prime example of a fix, not a nerf. Idiots that try to take advantage of the game for a bug and then get pissed that it was fixed are the reason so many games suck. Ah they nerfed my ridiculously over powered so and so... no bunghole they fixed it.

When I hear people complain about the hard points of weapons I have to laugh. The table top game does it. The Mechwarrior 4 game did it. Hell really the only one that never did it was MechWarrior 2.and 3, but there were limites in 3. In mech 2 you could put weapons wherever you wanted so you would actually build your mech in the mech editor with all torso points and the arms held all the internals like endo-steel, and such. Mechwariror 3 allowed you almost the same measure, but you had to deal with a couple of restrictions. MechWarrior 4, which I saw referenced bunch of times as the best game... which actually sucked so much ass, locked you into place on what you could do. Technically when Clan Mechs should have "Omni Points" in order to have a place whatever the hell you want in that space. Right now in MWO, we have innersphere technology. Based on the year this game is set in a lot of advanced tech has been lost and such. Like people literally dont know how to make these things or to replicate them, which is why salvaging a battlemech is stupid important in the lore.

Dealing with the complaints of the AC/20 is a subsonic round, PPC Ball of Lighting, Gauss Rifle, so on and so on. Please for the love of god link your cannon materials saying the speed of flight of each weapon and so on. Why do I say that? Well because you pulled that shit out of your ass to what you think it should be. I cannot find anything in tech manuals, game rules, or what not saying anything about the speeds of these weapons. Again, you arent developing the game so technically they can make the speeds however they want as long as in the rules of the IP agreement. On top of that, ballistic were broke for a long time on the physics, i.e. they didn't put it in yet. *Gasp* You mean the beta game didnt have all the features, say it aint so Joe! Well, that is now put in. You have to lead your target with the ballistic weapons. You have to aim higher for long range shots. Hell they even changed the way the gauss rifle fires. You actually have to charge the damn thing before you push a "ferrous nickel-iron alloy at extremely high velocities" Technical Readout: 3050, p. 216.

Where else can I go... oh yeah game types. There are currently two game types. That is Conquest and Assault. It used to only be assault, which is standard 12v12 death match with an objective of capture the base. Conquest introduced a territory system that you can to control to get resources. While those game types do not offer a whole bunch, we all have seen AAA titles come out with only one or two game types at first. The big thing were the maps. Again, triple AAA titles have had limited maps. BATTLEFIELD 3 for instance with 4 maps for conquest on release. They didnt have a bunch of them, so it was the same 4 maps. That is it. I can tell you, slugging through those same four maps so many times a day was rough. They have gotten much better by adding in new maps and helping things along nicely. Means you actually have to use tactics on the bigger maps like Terra Firma and others now. Soon there will be another game type, actual several as "Community Warfare" the much vaulted "Faction" game that people have been waiting for comes along. Which we are seeing initial parts coming out such as the ready button and forming of merc units.

As for the interface, I can honestly say it needs work. The home screen that comes up on initial load is your information screen. It tells you news of the game, sales on vanity items, information of double xp weekend, patch notes, etc. You move over to the mech bay tab and you never have to see any of that information again. Until initial load in again. I constantly stay on the mech lab screen to launch into battle and it comes right back to that screen when you get out. It is in a window though and you cannot go full screen until you launch the game. As stated it needs work, and that is happening. The project is called UI 2.0. Based on the devs response and explanation it was a coding choice and way of going about things that have limited how launcher / mech bay area worked. They have had to go back in and redesign how it functions on the back end and then changing the front it. They say they are almost ready to deploy the new way of doing things, so we will see how that happens.

Basically for the last 4 or 5 months there hasnt really been any forward movement in the game other than a few maps and a few mechs added to the game as there have been three "big" projects happening. They deal specifically with Community Warfare, UI 2.0, and The Phoenix project. If you are a BattleTech person you know what that means. It is simple, we are going to start seeing some of the unseen mechs that have been licensed! Woot Woot! In this one packed they are introducing 6 new mechs with all the variants to go with it. If precedence serves it is 4 variants and a hero mech. which if you can do math means 5 different versions of the same mech. That is a lot of work to get all that stuff together so there hasn't been leaps and bounds to the overall state of the game. Since we are talking about that, honestly I wouldn't have launched it if I was them for another 6 months or at least until I got the community warfare aspect setup.

To some up all this nonesense. Good game, if you are missing a big mech game that is PVP. They have still a lot of features to get added to the game and a lot of refinement to go. Yet with that said for the actual release, they have a stable game that has a lot of choices on the mechs and maps with half the fun being tweaking the mech of your choice to your playstyle. Can it be better? Of course it can. Well it get better, well time will tell. I give it a 7 out of 10 in its current configuration if it was a pay to play game. Since it is a Free to Play game, I am going to give it a 8/10 simply cause you can pick it up and see if you like it. If you dont, you can drop it and move on. You can always come back and test it out at a later date.

Well, there it is. That is all I have to say which is a lot. See you in game... and if not I am totally fine with not seeing you. In the mean time, my mech techs will be getting my stead ready for battle and having a blast doing it.