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.
Of particular note for 2016 was the April release of Faction Play Phase 3, a major update to Faction Play which introduced the Career system, the Planetary Reinforcement and Planet Value systems, Loyalist War Planning, Leaderboards, and the release of the Faction Play Scouting Game Mode. Since then we’ve released incremental improvements, adjustments, and fixes to Faction Play systems, along with additional Quick Play maps receiving support for the Scouting Game Mode.
Even with the release of Phase 3 however, and the incremental changes and improvements seen in later patches, Faction Play still undoubtedly requires much additional work to achieve the goals that you the playerbase, and we at PGI, truly want from the feature.
Our next step toward realizing those goals – Faction Play Phase 4.1 – is releasing on December 13th 2016, with major work continuing on Faction Play in 2017.
The above selection of ‘marquee’ features only paints a portion of the total picture, however. A multitude of other additions, changes, and improvements made their way into patches throughout the year – far too many list here – and constant work was performed by our programmers, artists, and support staff in 2016 to resolve a significant number of issues; new and old, large and small.
2016 also saw a range of balance changes, such as the redesign of the Flamer weapon, the introduction of MASC, and an array of tweaks to ‘Mech Quirks, equipment, and weaponry throughout the year.
It must be said that 2016 has not been without its missteps and mistakes; some quite avoidable, others the natural result of working with a live, constantly-updated game. While we can’t claim mistakes and missteps will never occur as MechWarrior Online continues its ongoing development, we are resolute in our dedication toward addressing such issues when they do occur.
That said, it is not sufficient to simply acknowledge and accept that mistakes are inevitable, nor to assume they can simply be addressed after-the-fact; we must strive harder to prevent them from happening at all.
We are dedicated to MechWarrior Online, and we are dedicated to you, our fans and players. 2016 has been a year of great progress for MechWarrior Online when taken as a whole, and we have every intention of doing our best to not just mimic the same kind of progress in 2017, but to chart new paths and continue expanding the depth and scope of MechWarrior Online.
All of us here at Piranha Games would like to thank all of you for a stellar 2016, and for continuing to take to the battlefields of the Inner Sphere as a MechWarrior. We are extremely excited for the continued development of MechWarrior Online in 2017, and we hope you are as well.
So now, we look ahead to December and beyond.