Does anyone know if Merc Units will be able to take and control areas?

Will there be ongoing wars for resource control?

Will this game be played on one huge single shard server like how EVE is ran?

Will it be free to play or subscription based?

Everything I have read indicates that MWO will be free to play.  It seems similar to World of Tanks in its overall model.  As far as how persistent the world may or may not be, I do not know for sure and will leave that for others to answer. 

So far I am pretty excited about this game and hope for the best.   I mean it is giant mech combat...that gives it a +1 right away in my book.  I also loved the old classic Battletech setting and novels so it is a good fit for me.

Originally posted by Teala

Does anyone know if Merc Units will be able to take and control areas?

Will there be ongoing wars for resource control?

Will this game be played on one huge single shard server like how EVE is ran?

Will it be free to play or subscription based?

 

 

It's F2P with a cash shop for things like garage slots, premium status for xp/money boosts, premium mechs (equal to same tier mech you can buy in game except boosted xp/money per match), etc.  They are promising no pay 2 win items but we shall see what they mean by that.

http://mwomercs.com/news/2011/12/44-dev-blog-1-community-warfare

Hope this helps answer your other questions.

I know this seems obvious, especially to an mmo veteran as yourself, but I'd highly recommend visiting and joining the official site. Lot's of good info there...answers to some of your questions are unknown at this time (map size, conditions of battle).

From what I've heard, the f2p is meant to be pretty much truly f2p...most anything in the game can be gained through earning c-bills via gameplay that can be gained in the store. The premium Mech variants aren't going to be more or less powerful than the stock variants in game terms. You may be able to tweak them to make it more powerful in your hands, but that same tweak may not make it more powerful in another pilot's hands. Comes down to playstyle.

Everyone seems to be focused on the f2p question.

From everything ive seen its a chat lobby and instanced matches, no open world.  Im sure those matches have large maps and a lot of people though.

It will have a persistant Universe where player actions influence the standing of their home realm or merc unit:
- Merc Units can claim worlds and get a valuable income bonus and maybe other special rewards.
- Borders can change.

Its not like EVE a game that centers itself about treason and resource gathering - it will be tactical combat and money focussed.
Also it is not that the whole Universe of several hundred of planets is a 3D modelled world like EVE as this is simply beyond any development capability atm.
The way it works is that it will have several different modelled high quality Battlefields where the combat takes place.
The combat ranges from 4x4, 8x8 to 12x12 and some 1x1 mode is planned.
The abstract Universe itself will be sort of a giant 2D Starmap where borders and worlds change when a house or unit won the necessary battles - there is stil room for interpretion of details.
Probalby, while the Devs will control the big houses and play their leaders true to their personality and goals there is room, especially as merc unit, to make your own history and claim a home world that is not a core world of one of the great houses.

The beauty of the mech combat is, that you pilot a devastating War Machine that you can tailor around (with a few limits) toward you favoured playstyle and choose from probably 16 or 20 Mechs in the early game with coming more and more Mechs implemented over the months.
The beauty is that there is no respawn in a battle so in each battle death has a meaning.
The beauty is that its not simply twitch based but you need battlefield awareness, tactical understanding and as Commandant also skills in leadership, and self control to stand in long range missle fire waiting for the best moment to either attack or retreat, or when to take fire to guard a comrade, or when to avoid it.
The beauty is tt has manually aimed and also guided weapons so even old and handicapped people can play it and support your team significantly.
The beauty is it will have standard mouse+keyboard control so no need for expensive Joystick hardware - though some people have crafted incredible well made Mech Cockpits in their hobby/computer room with pedals and sticks and surround view setups.

And as it is free to play you can decide yourself without any hassle if you like the gameplay or not and a VIP Account increases the xp and money you get of a fight but does not give you better weapons.

To me i feel it will be the best PvP experience i have ever had.

PS: Manually aimed weapons can hit specific parts of a Mech while guided weapons simply hit somewhere by random chance if they dont miss.
Guided weapons be Long Range Missiles and Streak Missiles and the LB-X 10 Autocannon is sort of a giant shotgun that even slow and eye handicapped people can use.

To get a feeling how giant the Universe is, what rich history it has and all the Mechs and Tech look here - the game starts in late 3049:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

This is a good summary of the 'Community Warfare' within the game, from the Devs themselves...

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/2247-dev-blog-1-community-warfare/

EDIT: dammit, just now saw the link posted, sorry

I might be lacking in english, cause I don´t quite get it. Will there be a actuall "world" to travel around in with borders and shit? Or will it just be random maps/matches? Will these borders just bee seen on some map, and saying "your faction now holds this area, and you get this ammount of c-bills extra from it" or will you be there and actually fight for it?

The "World" is abstract and displayed as 2D Starmap, borders change.
You fight on 3D maps, random or chosen to move borders for your realm and gain rank, or claim a world for yor merc unit.
Its not yet fully revealed how it works in detail and beta is still running though Founders can buy themself into the closed beta and get early access on august 7th afaik but i guess MWO is still not feature complett then^^

The Universe has "some 2000 inhabited Systems" and all cultural, political and economical, military data is known but these books be rare to get and some even be in foreign languages:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Atlas_der_Inneren_Sph%C3%A4re

So the Devs have a Sourcebook and only must translate it into Software...easy said - hard done ;)

MWO will simply show that PvP is best in games tailored around PvP with a small progression disparity thus having an almost close power gap between old and new, hardcore and casual players where everyone has the real chance to win against every other one.

Also its manually aimed weapons hit specific parts of a mech while guided weapons do random damage over all thus a skilled player will excel over unskilled players but its not all twitch, its twitch, management, tactic, awareness, teamplay and mechtinkering that brings the success and so there is a place for aswell twitch players and also tacticians and tinkerers and even handicapped players.

I dont think that there be much games out that offer such a broad range of niches and playstyles for all kind of players and i see myself the first time in almost ten years spend all my free time pvping.

I will probably even cut my time in TSW bcs i expect to have such a bigger fun in MWO.

Originally posted by Darth-Batman
It looks to be about as much of an mmo as Battlefield 3 is, maybe EA should have called that BFO instead and added an item shop. I guess they can save that for the next one. MWO actually looks pretty fun though, as long as you arent expecting an actual mmo experience.

no, its as much of an MMO as WoT, the community warfare will be close to WoT clan wars, with a little bit of Eve faction warfare

So if I understand correctly there wont be an online persistant world where you can travel around in, there will just be short lived combat maps which you win or lose and then gives you some points for your realm/guild/whatever?

Kind of like a MOBA where the outcome is used to "take over" areas, right?

Novel idea I guess, but not what I would consider an MMO.

Originally posted by Yamota

So if I understand correctly there wont be an online persistant world where you can travel around in, there will just be short lived combat maps which you win or lose and then gives you some points for your realm/guild/whatever?

Kind of like a MOBA where the outcome is used to "take over" areas, right?

Novel idea I guess, but not what I would consider an MMO.

OK man I played beta just to check it out let me clarify.

There is NO persistant world, you have a mech lab but its not like an actual place its just a 2d hub. Then when you are done you are zapped into a battle.  Its just like some of those other Arena only games which claim to be mmorpgs, to be honest playing mech warrior 4 is more persistent than the actual "mmo".

sorry but there is abosoluely no sign of a storyline coming in for this

great mechanics in game and the community isnt that bad compared to others

but the lack of actual game play other than 8 vs 8 (which gets very tired after 200 or so matches)

they need to put in the background and capture system for areas run a better social system

at the moment it is very much 'play when my other game server is down' 

IF they put in what they proposed in December 2011 wth worlds and factions this would be a god of a game

Originally posted by Darth-Batman
It looks to be about as much of an mmo as Battlefield 3 is, maybe EA should have called that BFO instead and added an item shop. I guess they can save that for the next one. MWO actually looks pretty fun though, as long as you arent expecting an actual mmo experience.

I just went on its website, and it does not mention "MMO" ... so it is not even marketed as a MMO.

And who says it needs to be MMO to be fun.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by Darth-Batman It looks to be about as much of an mmo as Battlefield 3 is, maybe EA should have called that BFO instead and added an item shop. I guess they can save that for the next one. MWO actually looks pretty fun though, as long as you arent expecting an actual mmo experience.

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I just went on its website, and it does not mention "MMO" ... so it is not even marketed as a MMO.

And who says it needs to be MMO to be fun.

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