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Time for Battletech VR

Panpiper
Honored Guest
The big bugaboo is presence and the difficulty maintaining it while seated. Elite Dangerous however has no such issues and is a fantastic experience in VR, because you sit in a cockpit. It just so happens that when piloting a battlemech, you are also sitting in a cockpit.

Microsoft stated way back when they last did a Battletech game (Mechwarrior 4) that they did not want to do a fifth unless they could do something different. Leave aside that they missed a few very different possibilities right then and there, with VR Battletech it could be very different indeed.

Of course Microsoft sold off the electronic rights ages ago to the folks now (mis)managing it with Mechwarrior Online. I have little hope that an actual Battletech game based off the original tabletop game will ever see the light, a cynicism I seriously regret. Perhaps however someone else out there can create a mech game that has similar scope.

The game I would hope to see would be a game that allows a player to build a mech themselves, deciding upon not just the weapon loadout, but just as in battletech, engine power, range, heat, armor, etc.. Allow for unlimited upgrading of such components but with exponentially increasing costs and/or decreasing benefits, rather than hard caps (I 'loathe' hard caps). I would want a game that uses procedural terrain generation so as to provide an essentially unlimited number of possible scenarios. Allow modders to create custom scenarios and make those scenarios something a mechwarrior mercenary 'contracts' for in game. Let the player build a mercenary unit of AI pilots that they command and outfit, and thereby form their own mercenary company. Have them contract with transport to go to new worlds, but ultimately let them purchase their own spaceships.

Maybe interface with someone else's spaceship game so the two can ship together.
6 REPLIES 6

zork2001
Heroic Explorer
Have you played Vox Machinae yet. That’s the game I want in VR with all the stuff you added. Vox Machine feels and plays great; I had a lot of fun using the booster jets to get behind the enemy Mechs and shoot them in the back as they try to turn. It had that MechWarrior 3 feel ing in VR; a feeling I never had in any Mech game since MechWarrior 3.
It lacks.. pretty much everything right now except for the proof that they can make a great Mech game in VR.

kevinw729
Honored Visionary
Its a great dream @Panpiper.

As one of those that worked alongside the VWE team when they established BattleTech 2.0 (Virtual Worlds) - the concept was hugely popular and very compelling.



The system used a 'infinity optics' that was much more compelling than we can currently achieve with HMD's, and the physicality of the simulator pod was amazing.



Though the concept had been closed down back in the 90's - and the whole FASA IP acquired by MS - there is still a strong underground group using VWE tech in a demo environment.



This overall concept was kidnapped by Bandai Namco to create their own pod system.



- Future

There is plans underway from a number of developers in the attraction sector towards a networked FEC / LBE concept. How many of these that will use VR HMD is still undecided as the need for a commercial viable HMD with the current upheaval in commitments from some parties.

As a specialist in this sector (and covered in the book) there is a lot of interest in the possibilities for this approach to immersive entertainment - though the attitude of some towards commercial deployment is proving "difficult"!
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

acarrilho
Explorer
Yeah, Vox Machinae is an interesting proof of concept, check it out.
G3258 @4.4MHz GTX970 8GB RAM Windows 7 64

Panpiper
Honored Guest
Vox Machinae certainly is interesting and already seems to have the "pew pew" essentials down. What remains is to make it a game that is more than just shooting homogeneity. I wonder if they would be interested in design document sorts of ideas from outside?

The BattleTech Virtual Worlds was something I was majorly interested in back when they first got started in Chicago. Sadly nothing got opened in Montreal where I live. Perhaps that's a good thing in hindsight, as it would have used up a LOT of my money back when. 😉

Networked gameplay or just multi-player in today's terms certainly is an essential feature nowadays. Personally though, I still pine for single player as I enjoy taking my time and being able to tweak the difficulties for my older reflexes.

VizionVR
Rising Star
Before I had my Rift, I had hopes that Titanfall would embrace VR. Now, having played FPS games in VR, I realize that would have been a big mistake. :mrgreen:
Vox Machinae, even in its extremely rough proof of concept state, already has some nice seated immersion.
Not a Rift fanboi. Not a Vive fanboi. I'm a VR fanboi. Get it straight.

Panpiper
Honored Guest
There is another mech game, Dark Horizons: Mechanized Corps, that intends to implement Oculus support. Sadly it is not yet usable with it.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470