Amazing.
Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:41 pm
I never would have imagined there was still Mech2 activity in the world, let alone an updated demo playable on Windows XP as we approach 2009. That's 13 years after I first bought MechWarrior 2. Totally amazing.
Yes, it was 1996, I was 17 years old and my grandfather had just bought me an IBM-PC as a "starting university" present. My family had owned an Amiga 500, and I was therefore something of a joystick-using gamer. Thus I found myself with a need, the need of a joystick to use with my brand new PC. I found one at a local department store. It was a joystick called the "sidewinder" and it was made by Microsoft, a company name I only knew because it appeared when I booted my new PC and loaded windows 95. I still remember the windows 95 startup chime.
As it happened my new joystick came bundled with what looked to be good game based on what I saw on the box (which was all I knew of it at this point). It was called MechWarror 2, and the name alone grabbed my interest. It was the very first program I ran on my new computer. As soon as the intro movie ran I was hooked. I had never seen anything like this before.
I explored everything about the game. I had already poured over the detailed manual on the bus ride home. I read every single page of the in-game archives. I played the entire game thorugh as Wolf, then Jade Falcon. Then I did it again. Meanwhile I was learning about this thing called the Internet. Using Netscape and alta-vista, I found out much more about Mechwarrior. I discovered Netmech, and after much pain configuring what, IIRC, was called "Mech PPP" I finally found my way into the game lobby, where I saw a player by the name of Ed.au. Being a fellow Australian I began chatting and playing with Ed regularly from that point on.
When Mercenaries arrived I jumped on it. At this point the timeline starts to get fuzzy. Was I already using Kali to play Netmech? In any case, I had my group of playing buddies, which now included Ed and a group of players from the States, two brothers by the names of Hammer and Jammer amongst them. I had also read an article by what turned out to be my now good friend Ed. It gave instructions on how to "decompile" the multiplayer missions, edit them, and add new missions to the game. Was this the first game to offer user-created content? It wasn't built into the game, but Ed had figured out how to do it with some help from activision's OneManArmy, Mr Dan Kegel.
Well, this sparked an interest in me I hadn't previously had much chance to explore: programming. I dove in head first. I had nothing with which to compare the experience. I had never used an IDE, I had never seen game code before. So when I learned that in order to, say, add a geometry object, like a mountain, to my map I had to write a line of text with the name of the object, its X Y and Z world position, its X Y and Z rotation, its X Y and Z scale, and a whole mess of other things I can't remember, then run the game, load my map (assuming all of the other necessary files had already been created), and visually check, in game, where my object was... whether, in fact, I had picked the right object to begin with... well, I just assumed this was what programming was all about.
In the end I spent a very, very large amount of time making Mercnet missions. I think I made 7 of them by the end, but the only mission whose name I can remember now was called "Mechathalon". I think the rest of the missions may well have been named after Guns and Roses tracks.
And the rest is history.
Anyway, that's my story. I am, or was, known by a few names, Psychlone was my main smurf name. But my most commonly used handle, and the one I used in the names of my mission files, was "Axe".
PS: Shoutout to ShadowWolf and James!
Yes, it was 1996, I was 17 years old and my grandfather had just bought me an IBM-PC as a "starting university" present. My family had owned an Amiga 500, and I was therefore something of a joystick-using gamer. Thus I found myself with a need, the need of a joystick to use with my brand new PC. I found one at a local department store. It was a joystick called the "sidewinder" and it was made by Microsoft, a company name I only knew because it appeared when I booted my new PC and loaded windows 95. I still remember the windows 95 startup chime.
As it happened my new joystick came bundled with what looked to be good game based on what I saw on the box (which was all I knew of it at this point). It was called MechWarror 2, and the name alone grabbed my interest. It was the very first program I ran on my new computer. As soon as the intro movie ran I was hooked. I had never seen anything like this before.
I explored everything about the game. I had already poured over the detailed manual on the bus ride home. I read every single page of the in-game archives. I played the entire game thorugh as Wolf, then Jade Falcon. Then I did it again. Meanwhile I was learning about this thing called the Internet. Using Netscape and alta-vista, I found out much more about Mechwarrior. I discovered Netmech, and after much pain configuring what, IIRC, was called "Mech PPP" I finally found my way into the game lobby, where I saw a player by the name of Ed.au. Being a fellow Australian I began chatting and playing with Ed regularly from that point on.
When Mercenaries arrived I jumped on it. At this point the timeline starts to get fuzzy. Was I already using Kali to play Netmech? In any case, I had my group of playing buddies, which now included Ed and a group of players from the States, two brothers by the names of Hammer and Jammer amongst them. I had also read an article by what turned out to be my now good friend Ed. It gave instructions on how to "decompile" the multiplayer missions, edit them, and add new missions to the game. Was this the first game to offer user-created content? It wasn't built into the game, but Ed had figured out how to do it with some help from activision's OneManArmy, Mr Dan Kegel.
Well, this sparked an interest in me I hadn't previously had much chance to explore: programming. I dove in head first. I had nothing with which to compare the experience. I had never used an IDE, I had never seen game code before. So when I learned that in order to, say, add a geometry object, like a mountain, to my map I had to write a line of text with the name of the object, its X Y and Z world position, its X Y and Z rotation, its X Y and Z scale, and a whole mess of other things I can't remember, then run the game, load my map (assuming all of the other necessary files had already been created), and visually check, in game, where my object was... whether, in fact, I had picked the right object to begin with... well, I just assumed this was what programming was all about.
In the end I spent a very, very large amount of time making Mercnet missions. I think I made 7 of them by the end, but the only mission whose name I can remember now was called "Mechathalon". I think the rest of the missions may well have been named after Guns and Roses tracks.
And the rest is history.
Anyway, that's my story. I am, or was, known by a few names, Psychlone was my main smurf name. But my most commonly used handle, and the one I used in the names of my mission files, was "Axe".
PS: Shoutout to ShadowWolf and James!