Card Types: Paint, Patterns, and Decals

Yesterday may have been Thanksgiving for those of us in the US… but, thankfully (see what I did there?) Roadhouse and IGP are Canadian based.. so Chris C took the time to crank out another Developer update for MechWarrior Tactics.

This one covers cosmetic cards:

Paint, Patterns, & Decals.

We got a first look at the paint cards, and, how they’ll work.  I must say, this is totally different then how I’d expected paint (and other cosmetics) to work.. I think it’s a good system, and it’ll be interesting to see how it gets tweaked during beta.

Here’s a paint card:

Since paint cards are purely cosmetic, we don’t get any of the “combat” stats that are on the other cards we’ve seen.  The silhouette of the ‘Mech on the inlay, shows how the ‘Mech will be painted with this card is applied.  Here’s how Chris describes the Black Omen paint job:

The base color of the Mechs are very light, but the color on the card will be the paint color for that location. We have separated arms, legs, torso and head. The Black Omen paint card will make your ‘Mech’s head, torso, and arms nearly black and the legs a rust color.

Personally, I think a free form painting tool would have been better, as it would (potentially) allow a little more freedom (neon green head, yellow arms, etc..etc).. but, by the same token, that could open up to some very garish paint schemes that would be “immersion” breaking.  Chris covers some of the reasoning for not opening up the entire pallete in his post:

You may be wondering to yourself why we didn’t give full control over to players to apply whatever colors, patterns and decals they wanted to each of the body parts.

It’s a good question and really it boils down to limiting player choice to maintain a consistent feel to everything you see in the game. Personally, I wanted to take this opportunity to show new players the breadth of how the MechWarrior Universe looks from the perspective of all the creators of the canon.

We have a ton of options in Paint colors and combinations and I want most, if not all, to be something that is anchored firmly in the canon. If you’re new to the whole franchise, trust me, the options are vast.

Also, I want to avoid decals on ‘Mech butts.

The other ‘half’ of the paint scheme, is the pattern card.  This is where we’ll get our stripes, checkerboards, etc..etc.. Here’s the current ‘checkerboard’ pattern card:

It sounds like the MWT team is looking into giving us as many patterns from BattleTech canon as they can.

The last customization card we got a peek at, is the decal card.  This is where we’ll (probably) start to see unit insignias, individual ‘Mech artwork, etc..etc..

Here’s one of the sample decal cards.  This one is in the style of the ‘pinup’ girls that have historically been used as nose art on Bombers, and other large military planes over the years.

Using decal cards, you can apply decals to places like shoulders, legs, and torsos (much like you see in all the TRO artwork, novel covers, etc.).  Decals is where I’d really, really like to see some user generated content allowed in the future.  I’d love for people to be able to buy a ‘unit decal’ card, and be able to upload their own decal for their BattleTech Mercenary Unit (I figure House units will be covered by the devs).  Obviously, to ensure no copywrite infringement, or obscene decals got through, there would have to be an approval process from Acronym (perhaps a community ‘review’ board takes first whack at it?).

As an extra treat, Chris gave us a glimpse of the ‘Mechbay, and how you apply the customization cards in there.

Here we get a look at a Dragon, sporting the Shamrock paint scheme, double stripe pattern, and a couple of Shamrock decals:

(Note, Chris has also shown us we’ll have the ability to rename our ‘Mechs as well).

And the last little treat… was an glance at how the above Dragon looks in game (and, for comparison, the rest of the lance is unpainted, so you can really see the difference).

 

Chris closes with a question for the Community:

I’ll leave you with a question that is likely to stir up the hornet nest: Would you rather buy your cosmetic customization options outright, find it in STACs or both?

I want them to be purchased via the cash store.  If I need 4 each of paint, decal, pattern to ensure my lance looks the same.. I want to be sure I’m going to get them, even on day one.  I can see maybe having some of the customization cards in STACs, as ‘samplers’ to try and drive traffic to the store… but I think it’ll be a more enjoyable experience to just be able to drop a little cash, and get the cards I want for the appearance of my unit.

What are your thoughts?