Gaming thoughts, bite-size chewables - new orange flavor!

[Nekojin]

So Rocket League has made a change to their MTX, and for the worse.

Old way: You would get crates (lootbox) dropped in game. You could open it with a key that you bought for $5 (and later with a decryptor that you could earn in game), and you'd get a random item from within. You could get duplicates of items.

New way: You receive blueprints for items. You spend credits to craft said item. You can earn a teeny tiny amount of credits by playing (battle pass), or you can purchase.

The problem is, the costs of the builds for the blueprints are insane. They range anywhere from $5 to $25. And of course they set the credit costs of the items to be in between the purchase amounts of the credits (i.e. a car can cost 1200 to craft, but you can only purchase credits at 500, 1100, 3000, and 6500).

People are of course blaming the fact that Psyonix was purchased by Epic for the prices.

Those numbers aren't quite right. Keys cost $1, and the lowest-end rewards from blueprints cost 100 credits (which is $1). So, if you want the cheap stuff, you'll get it at the same price, and get it without question - no opening dozens of crates to get the one item you want. The highest price I've seen for anything in the blueprints so far is 1600 credits - and I'm quite certain that the chance of getting those items from a crate before was less than 1/16.

Despite the furor, nothing much has actually changed. Without any keys/credits, I couldn't open the crates before, I can't craft the blueprints now. But now, I know what's sitting there, and I can make a far, FAR more informed decision on where to throw my money. The upshot is that the crafting cost is going to have a deflationary impact on trading prices (people generally have an idea of how much an item is worth). The low-end common (Uncommon and Rare) crap that nobody wants will become worthless, or nearly so, on the trade market. But they were already not worth much (.05 keys was a price I saw for one).

Unless you think you need to open every crate and craft every recipe, the game likely costs you less now than it did before - and if you never invested money to get the shiny rares, then nothing has actually changed for you.

 

[Mortus]

Those numbers aren't quite right. Keys cost $1, and the lowest-end rewards from blueprints cost 100 credits (which is $1). So, if you want the cheap stuff, you'll get it at the same price, and get it without question - no opening dozens of crates to get the one item you want. The highest price I've seen for anything in the blueprints so far is 1600 credits - and I'm quite certain that the chance of getting those items from a crate before was less than 1/16.

I'm guessing you meant $1 gets you 100 credits? I've got a few blueprints in my inventory that are in the 2200+ range. Most exotics are up in that range. So you're looking at ~$22 for a fancy set of wheels, or ~$12 for a new car frame. It's funny looking back when you could buy their DLC packs for like $4 and get a car, 3-5 skins, and potentially a goal explosion/engine sound/set of wheels. Gone are those days.

 

[Nekojin]

Those numbers aren't quite right. Keys cost $1, and the lowest-end rewards from blueprints cost 100 credits (which is $1). So, if you want the cheap stuff, you'll get it at the same price, and get it without question - no opening dozens of crates to get the one item you want. The highest price I've seen for anything in the blueprints so far is 1600 credits - and I'm quite certain that the chance of getting those items from a crate before was less than 1/16.

I'm guessing you meant $1 gets you 100 credits? I've got a few blueprints in my inventory that are in the 2200+ range. Most exotics are up in that range. So you're looking at ~$22 for a fancy set of wheels, or ~$12 for a new car frame. It's funny looking back when you could buy their DLC packs for like $4 and get a car, 3-5 skins, and potentially a goal explosion/engine sound/set of wheels. Gone are those days.

I haven't seen anything that high yet, but it's certainly possible. And it's still more reasonable than the old system, it's just that the cost is much more in-your-face (and going to Psyonix/Epic instead of random trader chode) that people find objectionable.

Here's the odds of getting things in a crate:

Rare item: 55 percent
Very Rare item: 28 percent
Import item: 12 percent
Exotic item: 4 percent
Black Market item: 1 percent
Painted version of item: 25 percent chance
Certified version if item: 25 percent chance

So in order to get a painted, certified black market item, your odds were... 1 in 1600. You'd have to open 1600 crates on average to get a Black Market item with a random paint and random certification. The odds of getting a specific item with a specific paint color and specific certification is even more outlandish.

There are 13 colors and 15 certifications. If they're all distributed evenly then your odds of getting a Titanium White Striker Infinium wheels (which is only Exotic, not Black Market) is... around one in 78,000.

I don't want to pay $78,000 of opening crates for that, do you?

Obviously, the value of the other crates you open has some impact, but when more than 3/4 of the crates are Rare or Very Rare and effectively have no value on the trade market, it's not hard to see that the highly-coveted items are going to be much more expensive.

 

[ferzerp]

Are these items only cosmetic? If so I don't see any problem with however outlandish they want to make the system.

 

[tim1_2]

Are these items only cosmetic? If so I don't see any problem with however outlandish they want to make the system.

Yeah, all the Rocket League extras are cosmetic.

 

[Nekojin]

Are these items only cosmetic? If so I don't see any problem with however outlandish they want to make the system.

The paint, wheels, toppers, goal explosions, etc. are all completely cosmetic - they do absolutely nothing to impact the game. The bodies (which are all relatively low rarity) have some slight differences in their hitbox designs which CAN impact gameplay, but they all fall into a few set designs, so have minimal impact on gameplay other than stylistic choices.

 

[Drizzt321]

We're looking to get into a new Blood Bowl 2 league, if anyone is interested in joining. Could use another couple of players! Goal is games weekly, 3 minute turns. Hop on over to https://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1457749&start=280

 

[Kilgaine]

Spoilered this in case you don't want to know how to handle it

Spoiler

To get her to go to Kaer Morhen you have to persuade her that Radovid is not going to forgive her, don't take the notes and then offer her safe haven in KM

Ok, I had already redid that part, and I actually did the previous quest better the second time as well. But I'm telling you, two of the dialogue options were so similar it made it more frustrating.

Spoiler

Basically, two choices: "Radovid NEVER forgets." and "Radovid will not forgive you." I'm fairly sure choosing one of these will end up with you killing her, and the other one will not. I even took the notes from her and she still didn't attack me this last time.

I tried to look up the exact dialogue from that piont, and I couldn't find it anywhere. Only the "correct" dialogue is mentioned, which is annoying.
On the rest of it, thanks for the info! I continued without changing any further decisions, and I got all the allies to stick with me. Overall I think I did it the way I wanted it to go.

I guess I'm not at the end after all though, lol. I hope I'm fairly close though. I will say that the last few play sessions I have really enjoyed. The story is definitely picking up, and the questing feels a little more meaningful.

Spoiler

The constant looking for Ciri was really boring. Now that I've found her, plus, the lead up of trying to gather allies was interesting.

I'm sure a lot of the side quests are interesting, but I kind of wish it was easier to determine what is part of the main quest and what isn't. I can get burnt out on massive games like this, so after a short stint messing around with side quests early, I usually try to focus my efforts to get through the story. It definitely felt harder with Witcher 3, until these more recent quests.

E: Also, my gripe about dialogue choices being "correct" or "incorrect" was more about games in general. Having a "good ending" sucks if you ask me. All of the endings should be satisfying for the way you decided to play. I think some games do this better than others, but I shouldn't have to read a walkthrough to decide that I want to save people, or murder people or whatever. And most of the time, especially in large games like this, I'm not going to take the time to play it through again.

 

[Sunner]

I'm sure a lot of the side quests are interesting, but I kind of wish it was easier to determine what is part of the main quest and what isn't. I can get burnt out on massive games like this, so after a short stint messing around with side quests early, I usually try to focus my efforts to get through the story. It definitely felt harder with Witcher 3, until these more recent quests.

Maybe that's a console thing, but on PC at least the quests are sorted into categories, off the top of my head "Main quests", "Secondary quests", "Witcher contracts" and "Treasure hunts", all aside from the main quests being skippable. In fact the main quests give you vastly more XP precisely so that you won't get cockblocked because you didn't pad out your level doing side quests.

 

[Lurking Lawyer]

I'm sure a lot of the side quests are interesting, but I kind of wish it was easier to determine what is part of the main quest and what isn't. I can get burnt out on massive games like this, so after a short stint messing around with side quests early, I usually try to focus my efforts to get through the story. It definitely felt harder with Witcher 3, until these more recent quests.

Maybe that's a console thing, but on PC at least the quests are sorted into categories, off the top of my head "Main quests", "Secondary quests", "Witcher contracts" and "Treasure hunts", all aside from the main quests being skippable. In fact the main quests give you vastly more XP precisely so that you won't get cockblocked because you didn't pad out your level doing side quests.

Nope - console dealt with it exactly the same way.

 

[Kilgaine]

Maybe that's a console thing, but on PC at least the quests are sorted into categories, off the top of my head "Main quests", "Secondary quests", "Witcher contracts" and "Treasure hunts", all aside from the main quests being skippable. In fact the main quests give you vastly more XP precisely so that you won't get cockblocked because you didn't pad out your level doing side quests.

Actually, I found that XP thing kinda sucked. I was vastly underleveled when I started that quest I spoke of above. I gained 3 levels in that one event because of it, but why limit XP? When I realized how bad the XP was, that was precisely when I stopped doing side quests.

Except it turned out that some of those side quests had an important impact on the main quest, notably in the quest I mentioned above. All of the allies required side quests to be completed, otherwise you would "fail" the main quests associated with them.

I get that they're optional, but it feels really bad to not do them. Even for someone like me who is just trying to cut through the extra side content, I figured it was worth it to do them in case I was missing out by being extra lazy.

 

[richleader]

How easy are the Genesis Mini controllers to use with a PC? Are they xinput or do you have to use a keymapper program? Not a deal breaker, just want to know.

I'm the one person who evidently hates the 6 button Genesis controllers with a passion (which all the 3rd party retro ones have been thus far) so I've been looking forward to 3 button ones. Not sure if it's worth $25 a controller to me at this point but it might be. OK, this is my second or third cheapskate post today.

 

[Ecmaster76]

Maybe that's a console thing, but on PC at least the quests are sorted into categories, off the top of my head "Main quests", "Secondary quests", "Witcher contracts" and "Treasure hunts", all aside from the main quests being skippable. In fact the main quests give you vastly more XP precisely so that you won't get cockblocked because you didn't pad out your level doing side quests.

Actually, I found that XP thing kinda sucked. I was vastly underleveled when I started that quest I spoke of above. I gained 3 levels in that one event because of it, but why limit XP? When I realized how bad the XP was, that was precisely when I stopped doing side quests.

Except it turned out that some of those side quests had an important impact on the main quest, notably in the quest I mentioned above. All of the allies required side quests to be completed, otherwise you would "fail" the main quests associated with them.

I get that they're optional, but it feels really bad to not do them. Even for someone like me who is just trying to cut through the extra side content, I figured it was worth it to do them in case I was missing out by being extra lazy.

It was a good enough game that playing the side quest *was* the reward

Just like how most of the gear was pointless but it didn't matter

 

[Diabolical]

Beat Jedi Fallen Order yesterday. It was a game. A Star Wars game. Not as good as many others, but much better than anything else we've been able to get out of EA so far during its license period.

Up next? I remembered that A) I never played through the Batman Arkham games and B) I got all of them for free recently! The first 1.5 hours of Arkham Asylum have been entertaining. Is it bad that the Arkham style combat feels REALLY simplistic now that I've played so many other games that do it more/better? I don't know, but it's fun.

 

[Workaround]

Beat Jedi Fallen Order yesterday. It was a game. A Star Wars game. Not as good as many others, but much better than anything else we've been able to get out of EA so far during its license period.

Up next? I remembered that A) I never played through the Batman Arkham games and B) I got all of them for free recently! The first 1.5 hours of Arkham Asylum have been entertaining. Is it bad that the Arkham style combat feels REALLY simplistic now that I've played so many other games that do it more/better? I don't know, but it's fun.

The games in the series vary in quality. City is the best to me. City > Origins > Asylum > Knight

 

[Quarthinos]

Beat Jedi Fallen Order yesterday. It was a game. A Star Wars game. Not as good as many others, but much better than anything else we've been able to get out of EA so far during its license period.

Up next? I remembered that A) I never played through the Batman Arkham games and B) I got all of them for free recently! The first 1.5 hours of Arkham Asylum have been entertaining. Is it bad that the Arkham style combat feels REALLY simplistic now that I've played so many other games that do it more/better? I don't know, but it's fun.

The games in the series vary in quality. City is the best to me. City > Origins > Asylum > Knight

I could never get Origins to award achievements correctly, so I'd never rate it above City and Asylum. I never tried Knight. I think Asylum has better story and level design than City, but City does combat better.

 

[Interactive Civilian]

I hated Origins because they tweaked something about the combat timing and camera / attack focus to make it unintuitive and very difficult to maintain combos in crowds. So many times I'd have Batman break a combo because he'd perform an attack on some padded baddie that I wasn't targeting rather than kicking the normal guy I was targeting in the face. Or whiffing on a counter and getting punched in the face like a punk because something felt off about the timing of the prompts and the button presses.

Arkham Asylum has the tightest focus and set the standard. It was a great game. City was great fun, and my only complaint is that I wish it had had a more interesting things to do with the Catwoman parts (surely there must be enough fodder in the comics to have given her some interesting multipart quests along the lines of the Batman side quests in the game), but overall I think I played it more than Asylum because I had great fun just cruising around the open world to groups of baddies and dropping in on them for a quick brawl. While some of the batmobile parts in Knight got tedious and annoying, overall I like Arkham Knight probably as much as Arkham City. Though I was one of the lucky few that didn't have game-breaking bugs near the launch and was able to play it at an acceptable enough level of performance to enjoy the hell out of the game right from the start.

Overall, they are all pretty good IMHO, except for Origin, which I found frustrating enough to take the fun out of it. I'd almost call it a 3 way tie for different reasons between Asylum, City, and Knight.

 

[Kilgaine]

It was a good enough game that playing the side quest *was* the reward

Just like how most of the gear was pointless but it didn't matter

I'm definitely kinda glad that gear wasn't more important, because I didn't feel like gathering mats to craft great armor, and I didn't know where to go for the good gear from witcher contracts or whatever.

Finished it on Saturday, and I really did enjoy the story. The more I got into it, the more I enjoyed it, especially after

Spoiler

finally finding Ciri

Didn't play the DLCs yet. I might get back to that in the distant future though. I was really impressed with the story once I got some play time back into it.

 

[Ecmaster76]

The DLCs, especially Blood and Wine, are as good as the best parts of the base game for what its worth

 

[Interactive Civilian]

The DLCs, especially Blood and Wine, are as good as the best parts of the base game for what its worth

While I'm sure the Blood and Wine DLC is great on its own, I highly recommend reading the books to get maximum enjoyment out of it. I had tears of joy in my eyes when a certain character showed up because of knowing that character from the books. So, Kilgaine, if you are taking a break from the game for a bit and if you fancy a bit of reading and want to spend some more time in the Witcher universe anyway, I do recommend giving the books a go.

 

[Kilgaine]

Yeah, I just needed a break, and I wanted to free up space on my PS4. But I do intend to go back and play the DLC, since I've heard multiple recommendations here.

And yeah, I do kind of want to check out the books. Chances are I'll do audiobooks though, if they're available!

 

[Deleted member 14629]

Yeah, I just needed a break, and I wanted to free up space on my PS4. But I do intend to go back and play the DLC, since I've heard multiple recommendations here.

And yeah, I do kind of want to check out the books. Chances are I'll do audiobooks though, if they're available!

Only in the original Polish.

 

[CuriouslySane]

Yeah, I just needed a break, and I wanted to free up space on my PS4. But I do intend to go back and play the DLC, since I've heard multiple recommendations here.

And yeah, I do kind of want to check out the books. Chances are I'll do audiobooks though, if they're available!

The narration by Peter Kenney for the Audible version is excellent.

 

[pauli]

A friend convinced me to give Assassin's Creed: Origins a try, despite me not liking AC1 or AC2 much at all.

So far, I've learned that the game/uplay doesn't support my Switch Pro controller, but I can get it to work if I launch the game... through steam. Which is fucking ridiculous.

On the plus side, steam now lets me auto-translate inputs to match the ass-backwards nintendo button layout. Which *is* nice, though looking down at the controller does sharply remind me that the buttons aren't backlit or even painted very well, which is disappointing.

The game does look pretty good (at least in the benchmark test, which is as far as i've gone), and it's got lots of options and both text and graphical explanations of what almost everything does, which is very slick. Right now, though, I've apparently got to OC my video card.

 

[MichaelC]

Origins and Odyssey are the first AC games I've liked... well, ok... my only other experience was with AC1 on the PC which I found to be a cluster. Worst UI of any game I've played. Oh, and no subtitles. Just an all around poorly designed game.

AC: Origins and AC: Odyssey are so vastly different they may as well be called something else entirely. Get the stink of AC off them. Odyssey is a fantastic game... I should have listed it in the Games of the Decade thread. Origins is good, but Odyssey improves on that game play a bit. Both I think, are worhwhile.

 

[Frosty Grin]

It's the other way around for me. Assassin's Creed felt fresh and new when it came out, even as some aspects were half-baked. And when I tried AC: Origins, it was... almost generic. And not even especially satisfying, at least when it comes to the combat system. I might try Odyssey sometime - but would rather play Syndicate first.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

It's the other way around for me. Assassin's Creed felt fresh and new when it came out, even as some aspects were half-baked. And when I tried AC: Origins, it was... almost generic. And not even especially satisfying, at least when it comes to the combat system. I might try Odyssey sometime - but would rather play Syndicate first.

My impressions might help you.

AC1 was neat but flawed.
AC2 was perfection (for the time). Built on the ideas of AC1 and made all the flawed parts better.
Everything between that and Origins: Various forms of "good" to "bad", but nothing that has a peak or a trough to stand out (though improving your family estate as a money sink is visually fun).
AC: Origins. Pointed to a generational improvement in AC, but didn't really break out yet. I never finished it, but thought Egypt was a breath of fresh air.
AC: Odyssey. Fucking easily the best AC game ever, but depends entirely on the character you play as. Alexia is vibrant and such a great switch from the previous game. Alexios might as well have been a bland, Greek Ezio. The story is great, the meta is great, the DLC is great (one literally brought me to tears). You're seriously missing out if you don't play this one above all other AC games.


Note: I keep misspelling Origins as Orangina and can't help what a great ad that would make, considering how bizarre Orangina commercial are: https://youtu.be/f48Nx3LK24M

 

[krimhorn]

So far, I've learned that the game/uplay doesn't support my Switch Pro controller, but I can get it to work if I launch the game... through steam. Which is fucking ridiculous.

That's more on Nintendo for using DirectInput signals rather than supplying a Windows driver for XInput support. So unless Ubisoft decides to build a translation layer between DI and XI nothing that uses DI will work. IIRC, Steam has that translation layer within the Steam Overlay so long as that can launch with the game (most games launched through Steam but a few don't work well with it but they're mostly older games) then any DI controller should work.

 

[pauli]

So, after a couple hours of AC:Origins, I'm going to say that I like this game - all the frustrating weirdness from the previous games is pretty much gone. Climbing is almost automatic, the camera does what I expect it to do, and the characters aren't nauseating. Just being dropped into the story with the barest hint of simulation is a nice change.

I gave up on using the controller; other than the weird press-and-hold thing all over the place, it feels like it's a native m+kb game (unlike AC1/2). Combat is still a bit strange, but I'm getting by ok. It feels like a nice, normal open world game. It even looks pretty good, though my FPS doesn't want to go over 55.

Of course, for all I know it's going to back to herp-a-derp "press cryptic buttons on your gamepad and pretend you're a monk, that's totally normal!" garbage any moment...

 

[pauli]

So far, I've learned that the game/uplay doesn't support my Switch Pro controller, but I can get it to work if I launch the game... through steam. Which is fucking ridiculous.

That's more on Nintendo for using DirectInput signals rather than supplying a Windows driver for XInput support. So unless Ubisoft decides to build a translation layer between DI and XI nothing that uses DI will work. IIRC, Steam has that translation layer within the Steam Overlay so long as that can launch with the game (most games launched through Steam but a few don't work well with it but they're mostly older games) then any DI controller should work.

Yeah, I understand what's going on, it's just that needing to run a Uplay game through Steam is clownshoes. If Valve can make the gamepad work, Ubi should too.

 

[Lt_Storm]

So far, I've learned that the game/uplay doesn't support my Switch Pro controller, but I can get it to work if I launch the game... through steam. Which is fucking ridiculous.

That's more on Nintendo for using DirectInput signals rather than supplying a Windows driver for XInput support. So unless Ubisoft decides to build a translation layer between DI and XI nothing that uses DI will work. IIRC, Steam has that translation layer within the Steam Overlay so long as that can launch with the game (most games launched through Steam but a few don't work well with it but they're mostly older games) then any DI controller should work.

Speaking of XInput, I loathe it. DirectInput supported so many more controller configurations well, but now, if you want a single joystick for movement and mouse configuration, you either have to do some XInput hackery which doesn't work very well or deal with a joystick that only gives 8 inputs. Drives me mad.

 

[Workaround]

Ubi should too.

Throw it on the pile of "Ubi shoulds". It's about 6 feet high at this point.

 

[bigkoss]

For anyone who is having trouble getting their Switch Pro controllers working outside of Steam (even if it's just convincing the computer it's a 360 remote), this has been a complete lifesaver for me. Custom software, install at your own risk, etc., but so far it's been legit and works super well. Just run it, plug in the controller, make sure it shows up, and boom. Unlike Steam, this driver won't force on the blue start button light, too.

 

[Vastamious]

Waiting for server maintenance to complete is a pain when they also drop a new content patch as well. Well, that and spammers messing up threads.

 

[Ecmaster76]

PSA: Deleting posts makes you go blind

EDIT: ninja'd

 

[kibbler]

It's the other way around for me. Assassin's Creed felt fresh and new when it came out, even as some aspects were half-baked. And when I tried AC: Origins, it was... almost generic. And not even especially satisfying, at least when it comes to the combat system. I might try Odyssey sometime - but would rather play Syndicate first.

My impressions might help you.

AC1 was neat but flawed.
AC2 was perfection (for the time). Built on the ideas of AC1 and made all the flawed parts better.
Everything between that and Origins: Various forms of "good" to "bad", but nothing that has a peak or a trough to stand out (though improving your family estate as a money sink is visually fun).
AC: Origins. Pointed to a generational improvement in AC, but didn't really break out yet. I never finished it, but thought Egypt was a breath of fresh air.
AC: Odyssey. Fucking easily the best AC game ever, but depends entirely on the character you play as. Alexia is vibrant and such a great switch from the previous game. Alexios might as well have been a bland, Greek Ezio. The story is great, the meta is great, the DLC is great (one literally brought me to tears). You're seriously missing out if you don't play this one above all other AC games.


Note: I keep misspelling Origins as Orangina and can't help what a great ad that would make, considering how bizarre Orangina commercial are: https://youtu.be/f48Nx3LK24M

I thought the beginning of AC3, the Haythem Kenway part, was promising, but the rest was a trainwreck.
AC4 Black Flag was great fun for the naval focus.

Now that RE3 is on the way I really should get to actually playing the original. It's the only numbered RE that I've not played (except for 6 because of course).

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Can this game be as awesome as the videos make it look?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/823500/BONEWORKS

The reviews actually seem to think so!

 

[Deleted member 14629]

Can this game be as awesome as the videos make it look?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/823500/BONEWORKS

The reviews actually seem to think so!

I only have 30 minutes into it, but even the introduction is fun, and it has a Portal-esque sense of humor. Looking forward to getting into the game proper.

 

[S2pidiT]

Quotes came from MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries thread, I don't want to distract from MW5 discussion

I'm waiting for MW5 to arrive on Steam (my PC is also packed away for several months, so no need to get new games). I'm excited for the game because I came back around to the BattleTech universe after a twelve-year hiatus. In the meantime, I've been trying to find official ways to buy the old MechWarrior and MechCommander games, but I'm not finding anything...

Ah yes, Mechwarrior. The game that you had to severely dig through to find the plot, and the best non-battlemaster mech was a locust only shooting machine guns. Since there was no kicking, you could defeat anything large one-on-one by getting under its guns and just machine-gunning a leg off.

I think at one point I did beat it, but unless you look for the story, the game is more a merc sim than a deposed prince regaining his throne story (or something like that. I'm not going to look up what the actual story is) since if you didn't figure out the story parts in time, too much time passed and you could never pick it back up.

I prefered the Battletech named turn based/rpg-like game. The Crescent Hawk's Inception I think it was. I remember save scumming to escape with the starter mech (which if I recall correctly you were expected to lose). It was the only medium mech in the game which was funny because you could start with it. Everything else was smaller.

edit: or I am looking it up.

"With this information, Gideon Braver Vandenburg and the Blazing Aces eventually find and defeat the Dark Wing, and reclaim the Chalice of Herne within five years after it had been stolen from Ander's Moon. The retrieval of the Chalice, together with the data disk on Operation Inroad, clear the Vandenburg name and the family title and honor is restored."

Yeah, if you just play as a merc and ignore the plot for long enough, those 5 years are up and you can never win apart from how having a full lance of battlemasters is a win.

I'd buy the old BattleTech games too. I missed out on pretty much all of them - if I remember correctly, one of my friends had MW4 when it came out.

I dug through the BattleTech video game list at Wikipedia (not sure why I didn't start here) and I found a few things:

• Archive.org has MechCommander (and its expansion) from when FASA released it for free on their website in 2006.
• Microsoft released the source code for MechCommander 2 (except network support and art) on GitHub (last update Aug 2019). Someone started working on a Linux port (last updated Oct 2018).
• In 2010, MW4: Mercenaries was released free, but it is no longer available as such.

I'm going to check out MechCommander 1/2, and try to see if I can find the MechWarrior games anywhere other than abandonware sites.

EDIT: Cored rogue close parenthesis

 

[Jonathon]

Archive.org has MechWarrior 1 and 2 (the DOS versions) playable online.

Not sure where one might find MW3 or MW4. If anyone were going to have them, it would likely be GOG, but they don't have either. Most likely, the rights to the franchise have bounced around so much that licensing them is probably nearly impossible.