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MechWarrior 4 Free Release Delayed By Microsoft
Vamman writes with a followup to news from 2009 that MekTek.net was going to release MechWarrior 4 for free after obtaining permission from Smith & Tinker, who licensed the MechWarrior rights from Microsoft. Now, almost a year later, the free release has yet to see the light of day, in large part due to Microsoft. Quoting:
"... the Free Release is held up at Microsoft and it is unknown to us and our studio when the Free Release will be given the final go ahead. Due to the demands placed upon us by industry lawyers to release the Mechwarrior4 Free release we were forced to insure our studio at a premium rate to meet the Microsoft standard. Our insurance policy is a one year lease and we are unable to tap out of this policy until next fall. In addition to our insurance costs we are also struggling with our server costs. Currently, our server fund has run dry and staff and beta members are paying out of their pockets to help keep MekTek online. At this point we don't know from month to month if we will be able to stay online."
Vamman adds, "MekTek has released a major update for their existing community, expansion MekPak 3.1. They are also promising their new expansion, MekPak 4, in a few weeks as open beta!"
Microsoft does have 'Free' allergy
Microsoft seems to be the antithesis of free especially when you look at their Xbox network. They don't allow user-generated content at all. Perhaps, just perhaps, they don't want people coming to expect that you don't have to pay for everything.
Shh.
Extinguish?
I'll come pay to play; Just give me a "Donator Mech" that can unload a Macross Missile Massacre at will and I'm in!
On the Fallout 3 forums it was specifically stated that the reason no user-generated DLC would be available on Xbox 360 was because of Microsoft's policies. Perhaps someone can dig up a citation?
Shh.
I had the thought of 'microsoft will NEVER put out anything free thats any good' back when they announced this.
I'm a big mechwarrior fan and i own all their games. And holy crap its a pain in the ass to install mech4 series with all the packs, keys, drm, patches, updates, and other hoops to jump thru.
A free all in one pack would make it so simple.
Mechwarrior is also what got me started on piracy. The retail version had that horrible copy protection running sucking up resources and causing crashes. Kill that during the game and it runs fine.
Till the next game looks for it. And you have to reload. But the pirated copy didnt have any of that problem.
So mechwarrior was the first game i owned that i pirated. because the pirate version ran BETTER!
Since that day its been pirate first. Buy if its worthy. (Looking back, there were not a lot of them worth buying. maybe 3-5 games a year max.)
I have to say, when Mechwarrior was owned by FASA it was an exciting universe, I had a lot of ideas. I played MW2 back in the day online. Was in a Merc group for online play and we did rather well. I mean think of it, there were clans, Federation groups, and merc groups. it had a money system and you could buy/sell things. They had planets setup that would produce so much a week, etc. it was a full economy that this gaming group did on their own. There was even travel time between planets, and you had to "own" your own ships.
I left it after a while, but I enjoyed it and thought that it was a fun experience. That is an MMO, IMO. Eve is okay in this area, but MechWarrior just had the stories and the background. When MW3 and MW4 came out I was hoping to see that they were still around. They kind of are, but not in the scale that I speak of above. People didnt like MW3 or MW4 in the dynamics it provided like MW2 did.
One day I hope for a MW Universe based off the MW2 online community, but it may never happen because WizKids made it the lamest piece of crap I have ever seen.
Sounds more like an insurance issue than Microsoft, but idiots tend to blame Microsoft the second its brought up.
And yes, even if Microsoft had nothing to do with this they would still have had to get that kind of insurance, thats insurance corruption morons.
"You fucked up! You trusted us!"
- Otter
Well, I'll be. You know, I hadn't even heard that anyone was planning on releasing this for free, so a few days ago I got it off a torrent. Looks like piracy was the way to go. Realistically, the game is already out there for free, no?
Is the release "free" for Microsoft?
I'm remembering when Stallone and Schwarzenegger used to have drinks & cigars to discuss release schedules so they wouldn't step on each other's toes. A free Mechwarrior is a game people will be playing instead of a bought game people would be playing. Either bought from Microsoft, or from one of Microsoft's partners.
Given that, I don't see any free game ever being released if it needs Microsoft's permission. It's directly against Microsoft's financial interest.
I mean, what, they're going to allow the release to generate some goodwill? Excuse me while I laugh my morning coffee against the monitor. Microsoft has built a huge business by never giving a damn about goodwill. Yeah, no -- it's not going to happen. Ever.
I've read the post and links three times. There is no statement of fact that makes any sense. At all.
I will now guess at what the problem is. The terms of the license from Microsoft require Studio MekTek to have some level of insurance -- possibly to indemnify Microsoft. MekTek doesn't have enough money to purchase said insurance. So the gating factor isn't Microsoft, it's Studio MekTek's lack of money.
And by the way, Studio MekTek doesn't have enough money to keep their servers running.
So what we have here is a plea for money.
I thought Microsoft said it would fully 100% support free and open source software including games.
Thank you for proving that you are jerks once again Microsoft by stopping this free Mechwarrior 4 release. It could have been good public relations and got you more business. Now we FOSS developers are going to have to speak against you for some bad public relations and hurt your sales and business and reputation.
Only Microsoft can beat Microsoft in this way and put themselves out of business by 2017, indeed!
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
With the advent of the open beta of Mechwarrior Living Legends, the "official" games may well be eclipsed by a fan-made total conversion mod for Crysis/Crysis Warhead. MWLL features, among other cool things, combined arms: air, mechs, infantry, and tanks are all playable and useful on the battlefield.
Battletech on the SNES was my favourite. It had a story line and you could customise your mechs for each mission. Mechwarrior I on the PC was clunky in comparrison, but it did have Inner Sphere Mechs which was great. Mech II had awesome cut scenes but no real customisability. FASA selling to MS sent it over the edge. I can understand the financial reasons, but the passion for the Battletech universe was never there. VR Battle Tech was fun, but it died in Australia. Never got to gain full control of the cockpit. I would play a game that had the tactical and build flexibility of the tabletop game but kept track of conditions etc.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Once they figure out how to make it free and overpriced at the same time they will release it.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
I'll wager that MWLL is as vulnerable in this situation as MekTek is whether they like it or not. Their agreement with Microsoft Canada was a game usage rights agreement which from what they posted long ago appeared to be a rather similar type of agreement to what MekTek has. These are vulnerable agreements for modders. If Microsoft can shut down the free release then Microsoft can shut down MWLL/Crytek pretty easily as well. Crytek took advantage and publicity and likely made some sales off it.
I am 20 years old software engineering student and moved away from home about a month ago. As I was packing my stuff and rummaging through all the crates, I found a dusty joystick. I remember using one of those when I was a kid (some of the older people here probably would still consider me to be one...). I used that controller so much in games like Descent and MechWarriors (I just checked the Wikipedia. Seems like I was about 10 when MechWarrior 4 came out)... And then forgot that it ever existed.
Finding that was extremely nostalgic. I'm going to install MW 3 & 4 soon and see if that still works. I doubt that people younger than me have ever used one, though.
Really? Still have that stupid icon?
Is it still 1995?
You're still saving bandwidth by not having photos on your blog? Just stupid icons like a borged bill gates?
The Borg and Bill Gates are no longer even relevant.
Much like this site.
I will remove it from my daily read list. Along with suck.com.
MS did give away a pretty good game for free. Here is the wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiance_(video_game). It is now community maintained. You can download and play it now. You can get the game at http://www.freeallegiance.org/
It's so not MW... just tripe for stupid FPS kids like your self. Stop smoking SO MUCH DICK.