Month: December 2016

January marked the beginning of a monthly patch cycle; a change from the bi-monthly (twice a month) patch cycle we had established way back in the days of our initial launch. While hot-fixes between our full patches remain a component of this live game, the number of fixes released in our monthly patches this year have had a drastic impact and range of improvements as a result of this cycle change.
January was also the first month following our launch onto Steam the previous year, on December 10th. Though many existing players continued to use our standalone client and patcher for launching MechWarrior Online, Steam has had a noticeable impact on the total size of the playerbase.

Subsequent months in 2016 saw a number of significant features and changes, many of which constituted either entirely new additions to MechWarrior Online, or types of additions not seen since earlier years, including:

• Two brand new Quick Play maps – Polar Highlands and Grim Plexus – along with full revamps or art updates for four existing maps: Frozen City, Viridian Bog, Crimson Strait, and Terra Therma.
• The introduction of four more classic and iconic ‘Mechs from BattleTech history, brought back into the fold of modern MechWarrior with the release of the Warhammer, Archer, Rifleman, and Phoenix Hawk.
• The release of the Domination Game Mode in March, our first Quick Play mode since the introduction of Skirmish in 2013.
• The 2K texture normalization, also in March, which standardized a high level of texture fidelity for all ‘Mechs.
• The completion of the comprehensive ‘Mech Re-Scale project in June.
• The release of the Command Wheel, also in June, empowering MechWarriors with greater communication abilities to maximize coordination.
• The release of the Decal system in July, ushering in a new era of aesthetic ‘Mech customization.
• The release of a dramatic quality-of-life improvement, also in July, in the form of sweeping optimizations to the MechLab saving systems.
• The release of Multiple Drop Decks for Faction Play in August, along with the addition of ‘Mech Favoriting, Supply Caches, and the In-Game Cart system.
• The long-requested release of Stock ‘Mech Mode in September, enabling players to easily run pure, stock Loadout matches through Private Lobbies.
• The release of another optimization pass in October, focused toward improving the responsiveness of an array of MechLab actions.

Faction Play Phase 4.1
Our latest major update to Faction Play releases in December, with significant changes to Factional warfare mechanics, a refocusing of the Faction Play interface, the introduction of a new Tug Of War system for active battles, the replacement of Long Tom Artillery with a Radar Jammer Planetary Upgrade, the integration of Quick Play modes into Faction Play, new support for special Faction Play events, and more. We’ve chosen to call this update Faction Play Phase 4.1, both to signal the start of a new development phase and to stress that this is only the first of future updates and improvements planned for Faction Play as we renew its focus in 2017.

Escort Game Mode
Escort, an all-new asymmetric Game Mode for MechWarrior Online, arrives in the December patch. Teams are split between Attackers and Defenders, each with their own victory condition. Defenders must ensure the AI-controlled Atlas ‘Mech reaches the Extraction Zone in time for evacuation; the Attackers must do everything in their power to destroy that Atlas and prevent its escape. While the Attackers must also contend with destructible Defense Turrets, enemy Support Towers can be captured to aid the attack with additional ECM and/or Radar support.
Outside of the MechWarrior Academy, this new Escort Game Mode features the first implementation of AI-controlled ‘Mechs in MechWarrior Online. The work performed to introduce this initial presence of AI also has some additional benefits elsewhere, which leads us to our next December feature.