Of course the MW4 pilot population has dwindled considerably over the past few years. I have seen between 20 and 30 people playing on MekMatch with MW4 MP3.

The recent news of MP4 has gotten me back into the game in anticipation and excitement for the great changes ahead. I certainly hope more of those former players catch on to this news and fill up MekMatch!

Count on me.

If you make enough youtube videos people will come.

Seriously, have you seen the comments for mektek modded MW4 videos? It's all "where can I get this, what mech is that, how'd u get that mech, please tell me how you got those" and so on.

There's about 40-50 people on mekmatch when I look - half is using hard core. Few weeks ago it wa************ting 100 though. Keep in mind many people are part of units in leagues, and the only games they play are matches, so just looking at opens isn't a good indicator of the playerbase. With stat tracking there should be more active players in opens, because there will be something for those who like to show off records, which only leagues do now.

The censor was pretty random...

when MP4 comes out I will return, if I can find a copy of MW4: Mercs that is

I doubt that will be a problem.

I am satisfied with the poll results so far

I was wrong, it's 115 now.

That's the most I have seen, then again, I haven't watched MekMatch in awhile

The most I ever saw was close to 200, which was when mektek was down a few weeks ago. But like you say, I don't watch mekmatch much either. Only recently I can take looks because I'm on the bloody computer all the time due to assignments that have to be done.

I think that MP4 needs more advertisement outside the "community". Youtube helps, also gaming sites, etc. Anyway, I don't expect a big increase of people playing, old mechwarriors or newbies.
And don't forget that this game is not always friendly to get it working: codec issues are common, mechpaks activation problems, safedisc drivers update, new OS (Vista) problems, other problems, multiple patchs and map packs to install... Newbies get fooled easily and people in general can found it tiresome (not so heavily as before but....). NBT had a good idea making an updater, which make a lot easier to install everything (freespace 2 Open also have one to install the game, the updates and all the mods), but a mega-patch containing all the updates (pr1, mekpak, codecs needed, auto reg for mekmatch...) besides de incremental patches would be useful instead. The key is making it user-friendly.

yeah, but this time we'll have the manual as well

so, when you come on whining asking "how do i do this" you'll just get a RTFM answer first, and more concise answers later
besides, PR1, PR1->MP4 isn't hard.
maps could be batched in one big download. oh, but that hurts the dialup users ... you can't just please the world, can you?

I play but VERY rarely multiplayer

I agree with the advertisments.

I'd be posting links to MP4 in all forums that I visit, send e-mails to my gamer friends, etc.

I'm not good with MekMatch. Maybe bacause i play NHUA matches too much with my LAN friends. But i will definetly try it.

I just recently installed the whole game back to my computer. And now I'm re-learning the game. I still haven't fixed my probs with mekmatch, but I think it's just portforwarding prob. I'm really look forward the MP4 and online games too

I would play more often, but my vista parition is too slow and when I play in XP, my internet connection dies out, causing torture to everyone who is on the LAN in my house.

It's a skewed poll and bias who would not play a game they downloaded on there machine? Idiots? And maybe mekmatch will get a little busier but after a couple weeks or month it will be the same old ,same old players still playing and any newcomers will be crying haxors and leave without ever knowing the game. The level of play the veterans have will keep newcomers out. The game isn't new no matter how hard you try to put a new face on it. If it changes to much you fragment the community yet once more. The more you try make majority happy the more it fragments into minorities, you end up with a pool of minorities all in there own little pools. I play where most players play which happens to be MP3.02b atm and will always seek out the player base. You should put up a poll that says "will mp4 fragment the community more" You may get more insight on it unless your looking for specific poll results to your liking, which is not unlike many polls

Well, we aren't trying to make anyone happy. We are doing this for other reasons. If people are happy great, if not fine. It's not about you this time AG1. Sorry. Iwish I could tell you more but I can't I'm sorry you are unhappy with it. Considering that there are only a handful of people playing this old game in the first place, I seriously doubt anything will be fragmented or anyone will care for that matter.

MILLIONS are playing WAR, and Conan, and PotBS, and the list goes on and on and on and on. If you think we are doing this to please THIS community alone, you are sadly mistaken. Wat's left of the MW4 could have stopped playing this game completely years ago, and we would still be pushing forward with this project. So, you don't have to like what we are doing and we are not asking for you or your cronies' approval. Noone is taking away your ability to play earlier mekpaks, nbt-hc, or pr1 or anything else for that matter. We are not trying to "save the community! OMGzers!". So, it can fragment all it wants, but we are doing what we are doing because it is what we do, and you can either take it or leave, it's not like anyone is making you pay for this, it's free, so Get Over It.

geez.

Not to pop your bubble, but all the former players that i know have left in rage-fits because of MP1 then more with MP2 and more with MP3 and to ask them to come back for MP4 with games like cod4, 2142, bf2, TF2 you gotta be joking. I am already hearing about others just fed up with it and quitting. Very few quit because of RL issues.
I like MW and always have I will keep on Fragging even if it is MP4. I will adapt and overcome with any info the game presents, after all it is still an old shooter/sim game.

And ask me if i care?

The "community" is fragmented already, exactly as it was always: 3PV NHUA/mixtech and 1PV/puretech devoted players. These two are the most important groups, but what about pr0, pr1, HC, NMIV? (maybe MP4 will add the MP3 subgroup also?).

I guess that Mektek can't please everybody. People will have to choose or SIM gameplay or puppet shooter (more of the same, with new mechs and some stuff) or whatever, not a very different thing than now.

I know its not for the community you have made it clear many times it is for personal gain and always was. I am not crying about anything. you read to much into things i was stating facts I know. I see all posts from others what mektek is doing this for the community and I have seen admin and moderator posts about what mektek is doing for community "oxymoron"?
I never asked for approval from mektek about anything, get over yourself
Free is all it can be, so don`t act like your doing it out of the kindness of your heart your not
I didn't come here to be argumentative or pop your bubble cause i can't , your in your own little world
Maybe if mektek wasn't so abrasive when it came to the community and other points of view you would have better public relations
Mektek never had the abilities to save the community them days are long past and forgotten
I will play MP4 without any remorse or approval, good or bad as I do with mp3

Geez. This place is for the ones who love this game... and the ones who are interested in knowing/ rejoining it. If anybody hates or despises or think mp4 will be trash, please, you can say it, but try not to play the Prophet of Disaster... this is a game, it is supposed to have fun.
Remember: press "F" to flush coolant

If you remember your history, the abrasiveness started by the community towards mektek a long long time ago when EvilCow released (without OUR approval) a horribly balanced Weapons Demo. Remember that? Ever since then, the community never forgave us and have treated us as a pariah ever since.

I have been pretty much out of the loop for at least two years, but every now and then (like 6 months between visits) and read your MWLL boards and it is just nonostop bashing. And we are the abrasive ones. Right, I have had fun over the past few days reading your opinions and hyperbolic comments over at MWLL, and see that nothing has changed.

Now, that that has been settled, why do you come over here to bash our work? You don't like it, and obviously won't play it except to pick apart minutiae and anything else that makes your boat float. I would love to get some of you guys on Vent and have a nice talk with you just to put a voice behind this, but, my time is better spent on things that matter.

I don't know about the rest of the staff, but, I for one, have given up on you and your buddies along time ago. If you want my honest opinion, I really do hope whats left of the malcontents ragequits after all this. It would be a well deserved house cleaning that has been needed in what is left of ths community for years.

If ANYONE has kept this community "together" it is I, who created mekmatch two weeks before it went offline. Not one soul has put anywhere near the effort that I have put into this stupid game, literally thousands of difficult engineering tasks with nothing to go on put pure sweat and hardcore low level hacking and slashing. Countless late nights working full time after a full time job all day working on stuff that I knew from the get go would get cat calls and other crap from your side of the fence. If that isn't dedication I don't know what is. Sorry if you think I am "full of myself" but it these are the facts. And the rest of the staff and artists who have spent just as much time individually as I have on the engineering side. If it wasn't for the staff here at mektek I would have dropped working on this the day after EvilCow's crap got released (and a demo at that, because it became pretty clear that this crowd would never be happy. I think one of the reasons MS dropped MW4 was BECAUSE of you people and how you behaved towards their product. A very small community with a very big delusion of importance to the corporate world. YOU guys killed it, not us.

(If we REALLy wanted to crush the community we could turn it off, or only have it server versions that we choose.)

Do I want anything in return from you, f no, just to ************ if you don't like it, or at least take it elsewhere, not here on our forums.

MW4 Mercs was a half finished product when it was released YEARS ago. And I know way more about this than you will ever know, and I know people that you will never know who have told me just that. We are merely completing what shoudl have been done before this was ever rushed out when it does. We are doing what the original devs wanted to do but didn't have the budget or contracts to do.

Sorry to be so blunt, but it is what it is. You don't like me, I don't like you. How's that?


Mechwarrior is Dead! Long Live Mechwarrior!

So sayeth the lord, amen.

You've seen me bash mektek work here or you? you obviously must be mixing posts up . Do I bow to mektek, no. Will I play MP4 ? Sure will, and far as liking or disliking something I havn't seen would be idiotic. I come over here to get info on next pak or read forums, as you see from my post count i rarly post at all but I read and keep most of my opinions to myself. I only posted here because polls that are made to skew outcomes is a pet peeve I have and I couldn`t resist responding. Far as bashing goes I don`t do it but you can continue to bait me all you want if it makes you feel good. I hope your day will be better tommorow and yes your time could be much better served elsewhere

To try and steer this thread back a bit, seeing MP4 news got me back interested in mech again. Now my one question is the free reticule related; could this work with Saitek X-52s mouse stick, since it just emulates a normal mouse anyway? Personally, I think if it's advertised, it will bring people, even if it's just those hoping it's MW5. Also, it would be interesting to try and work some HDP patch content into the game... even then if it's done right, gameplay should outweigh graphics complaints.

We didn't create the community around MekTek. Nor have we forced the leagues and such to use the MekPaks.

All we have done is create them and release them.

We have even gone so far as to support PR1 on MekMatch, if you so wish to play it.

You've said that MekTek has only fractured and shrunk the community with MP1, 2, 3, and now 4.

The fact that the leagues have (until HC) have used the MPs and that the vast majority of players have adopted says much more than a few complaints on the forums.

The fractured community idea is somewhat flawed in the first place. The community has ALWAYS been fractured. FFP - 3PV, PureTech - Mixtech, Planetary - Ladder, Purists - Everyonelse, NHUA - HOLA, Stock - Custom. I could go on. You would be playing the exact same people if there was one version or a hundred. You could have every single version of Mercs installed on your computer, if you wanted. Nothing is stopping you. This is still one community.

If so many people stopped playing because of us, why didn't anyone make a PR1 league? You'd think it'd be highly successful. Especially since you'd think that's where any new players would try playing first.

I think those players were just looking for an excuse. Besides, I've heard just as many say that the MekPaks are the only reason they still play. This game is very old, I highly doubt there would be more players if we never did a MekPak.

My point is, it's offensive when someone comes here and accuses us of such. We've only seen evidence of the opposite except for the few unfortunate people that are lost in the middle. What would you rather MekTek do? Nothing?

No.

We've supported the current model of game play quite enough. We tweaked, but did not completely altered. We've released three MekPaks as such. MekPak 4 will be different. We do not suggest the leagues jump to adopt it. Especially since MP4 will likely be released in a series of updates. Let the players decide, this is what we've always supported.

However, regarding the number of players, this is something MekTek is very aware of. We have some ideas and plan on doing what we can to help. Which is much more than I've seen anyone else in this community do. There are actually very few individuals who take any responsibility and support this community. We like to think we do our part.

MekPak 4 will attempt to take MW4 in the direction that we, MekTek, believe the game should go. Any future project of ours will reflect, in some form, this style of Mech combat.

Very well said Jeho and WhiteFeather.

I originally created this poll wondering about how many of us stopped playing out of getting bored of the game, and will return since there will be big changes in store with MP4. I'm one of those who came back after about two years of not playing, maybe on and off once in awhile.

I knew before I left the beta team that big things were going to be in the works and that left me wondering here and there what they were up to.

Glad you guys let us have a peek

May I ask that the flames go through the PMs please, or another topic? I created this one in hopes of sparking a positive discussion as to spreading the news of MekTek's developments and perhaps recovering some lost playerbase.

I've posted MW4 MP4 links and MW4 videos in other gaming forums that I know. Please post/share any good MW4 videos, I'll spam their forums until they can't think of anything else aside from MW4!

try not to overdo it tho, the last thing we want are people coming here saying "so you wanna take over the comunity from us with your eyecandy spam?" or something like that ...

i hope it doesn't, too.

my hope is that all other mech-type communities accept that all the other communities share a love of piloting mechs, whatever game engine they use to do it.

letting people know about new developments in other engines can't really be bad for the mech community as a whole, can it?

providing, as RkShaRkz says, it isn't overdone.

it'd be nice to think we could all get along. i wish people didn't see rivals/competition all the time. surely all this work is done for a love of the game(s)...

*hippy rant over*

I need this game in my life as much as my wife, so dont insult this game

*sigh*

I think I overdid one. My thread got deleted.

A lot of forums have no advertising rules.

+1

"MechWarrior is dead. Long Live MechWarrior."

I hate... HATE that quote.

Why?

It implies that the community is destroyed and yet you try to strive to keep alive what no longer exists.
I honestly think it's slightly better off than that.

I actually thought it was sarcastic.

I don't do sarcasm very well.

It was a pun on "The King Is Dead! Long Live The King!".

And THAT I never understood in the first place.

"The (old) King Is Dead! Long Live The (new) King!".

Bingo! Thanks Gil!

That makes more sense now!

There is no king... I´ve heard something about 5 Successor Houses, and some freaky biotech guys called Clans...

*cough*Steiner*cough*

You know what, I could care less If people think mp4 would fragment the community. My community is just over 12 people who play once a month or so at a LAN party, And everyone in that group is excited about the depth in gameplay Mp4 is adding on. So, LONG LIVE MECHWARRIOR!!!

I'm looking forward to it. Always did like MW. Some of my best times with online team play was with MW. Sure I like and play BF2142, BF2, and Crysis, but MW still beckons. I think it is a good move to bring some of the elements of MW3 back into play. I still think it was the best of all of them-not that I have anything against MW4...it is just that MW3 really made you feel like you had some skill just remembering all the controls as it felt like a simulator instead of an arcade game! But hey, your talking to a guy that was part of a harvest crew that could drive the dickens out of a combine but couldn't drive a truck for ****. It would be very interesting to see how MW3 would play today without the lag shooting. I do think that the programming wasn't all that bad as the game is still playable today without a lot of problems from a compatibility perspective. You know the next gen single player version of of this game would be great if it was scripted well...it is a lot fun being in the middle of a full length adventure...the job that the Dave school did with the MW video was great.

+2