New MechWarrior Announced, MechWarrior4 To Be Distributed Free

Vamman writes "In light of the recent announcement of the new MechWarrior game, Smith and Tinker has granted our online dev team MekTek.net (which has been supporting MechWarrior for almost a decade now) permission to release MechWarrior 4 entirely for free using the same type of distribution model that id Games used for Quake3's free release.

Comments

All of MechWarrior 4 will be free

[Gwarsbane]

Everything, will be free. Vengence, Blackknight, the packs and Mercs. It will also include a whole bunch of maps and MekTek's own MekPaks. It will all be one download more then likely via bit torrent, the ISO image maybe as large as 3 or 4 gigs.

Re:Woo-hoo

[Bakkster]

So the developers laziness or technological limitations are just cause for forcing players to choose specific loadouts?

No, it's the game canon. Most Mechs are not intensely customizable. They have some hardpoints for mounting, and it makes sense that some hardpoints might not have the hardware to accept any old weapon. Energy weapon hardpoints will have large power and coolant conduits. ACs and Missiles will have smaller energy/coolant conduits, and ammo feed mechanisms. Additional modifications would not be within the realm of possiblity for a mercenary lance or other small combat group.

It seems a fair assumption that the MadCat designers (in canon) would not find the need to place ammo feeds into the arms (where the PPCs were located) or high-power conduits to the missile pods.