Friday night, Nvidia played host to MechWarrior Community day (link goes to Nvidia’s Facebook gallery from the night).. a gathering of MechWarrior fans to show off the first public playing of MWO. Â Part of the night’s events was a MWO Tournament with teams formed out of the folks that Nvidia invited to event.
The tournament itself was fun, you can see Gamespot’s coverage of it here (Gamespot also got some good interviews with Bryan about MWO, and Razer about the Artemis).  For the record, I was on Team 8, we made it to the semi-finals.  Not bad for a group of people who’d never played together before (You can see part of one of our matches on the Gamespot stream starting at about 42 minutes in… I’m piloting the one armed Centurion you see at about 47:30).  The winners of the tournament got a pretty damn good bag of goodies from Nvidia and Razer..The winning team was even nice, and gave the second place team part of their winnings (They gave the second place team the GTX 560s out of their prize bags… granted, the winners then got 680s -or will, Nvidia has to mail those out).
Everyone who attended did get a pretty awesome MWO T-Shirt:
The front simply says “The Future is War” (You can see quite a few shots of the front of the shirts in Nvidia’s gallery).. but the back, the back is where the good stuff is!
We got a nice full color picture of an Atlas with the Founder’s skin..
While the tournament was fun, the best part of the night, was getting a hands on experience with MWO..my first impressions are after the break…
- Graphics:
As we’ve seen in the various gameplay videos, and official screenshots.. the game looks good. Â On the Frozen City map, you can see individual snow flakes blowing by the windscreen..in one match, you see a snow storm roll in, and how it reduces the visibility while you’re in it. Â The game has a “Infrared” mode that I used when my team ended up on Frozen City..that one still needs some work, but you could see the glow of a hot ‘Mech, before you could see the ‘Mech itself at times. From listening to the Gamespot interview with Nvidia.. some cool DX11 features are coming to make the game even better looking. Â The ‘Mechs visibly react to the damage they receive (glowing where the damage was received, limbs falling off when destroyed, etc.). Â All in all, the PGI team has done a great job with the graphics at this stage, it’ll be interesting to see how much additional improvement the graphics system gets as the beta progresses.
- ‘Mechs
The ‘Mechs look good in game, the detail that PGI has put into the ‘Mechs is pretty impressive. Â The Atlas’ red flickering eyes are visible floating through the air before you can even fully see the ‘Mech itself (especially on the Frozen City map). Â There is a good variety of ‘Mechs in the game (based on what the ‘Mech lab on the practice and tournament machines showed). Â The ‘Mechs are identifiable as which model they are before the HUD identifies them, which is helpful to planning your strategies (and whether or not you need to run for cover and wait for help).
The physics seem to be implemented fairly well (from watching some of the matches there, collisions still need some work, saw some poor Jenner get knocked down every time he ran near another ‘Mech). Â Missiles raining down on your ‘Mech actually shook your cockpit.. potentially messing up your aim and ruining a shot. Â Jenners jumping took damage to their legs upon landing… a lot of good ground work has been laid for impressive physics.
I only got a few minutes to play with the customization options in the ‘Mechlab on one of the practice machines. Â MWO’s hard point system seems an effective compromise between the full out customization rules of TableTop, and keeping a balanced gameplay system for an online game. Â The ability to tweak armor values on each individual location is a plus, you can for example, strip some armor off a Centurion’s left arm, to reinforce the right arm holding your main weapon. Â I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty in the ‘Mechlab to see what kind of surprises you can cook up for your opponents.
- Sounds
The tournament machines, and the practice machines, were equipped with Razer headphones (Sorry, don’t know which actual model they were). Â The game sounded AMAZING. Â The couple of different ‘Mechs that I tried that night each had a unique engine sound.. they made noises when the torso twisted (or elevated), footsteps on the ground.. plus the weapons fire… oh man… Â A different sound effect from each weapon.. big throaty Autocannons, swarms of rockets for the missiles, lasers firing.. Â This is a game that deserves to be played over great a pair of great headphones, or by being piped into your home theater system..and cranked up…loud (turn the dial to 11!).
For a game still in Beta, and just receiving it’s first public ‘showing’… MWO is impressive. Â Being a Founder and now in Beta (and under NDA.. so no more comments about how the game plays, looks, sounds, etc..unless I attend another event, or get permission from PGI, and IGP).. after playing Friday night.. I totally feel that my purchase of the Founder’s pack was justified, and that the game is in good hands! Â I look forward to playing MWO for years to come…
P.S.. Nvidia, if you’re looking for somewhere to store one of those glowing green tournament systems.. I’d be happy to take one off your hands ;) Â Or, if you’ve got a spare winner’s pack, I wouldn’t complain about that either ;)
P.P.S. Â Thanks to Nvidia for hosting us, IGP for arranging this, PGI for developing (and bringing) the game.. it was great to meet other MWO fans, and Russ (didn’t get to meet Bryan.. he was busy interviewing all night).