Based on the BattleTech board games by FASA, MechWarrior HI stood the
Internet gaming community on its ear, reaching a level of popularity
seldom achieved. With MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries, Activision has erased
all fears of a sophomore jinx. An improved game engine, a free gaming
network, MercNet, and a revamped plot makes the game a surefire hit with
fans of its predecessor. Cool Site of the Day is pleased to present the
MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries production team leaders Tim Morten and Jack
Mamais as this weeks [AGENTS of COOL].
Be sure to check and see if you are one of our [Quiz Winners].
You could win a MechWarrior ball cap.
But first meet the creators:
DIRECTOR - Jack Mamais
Jack Mamais' interest in gaming began back in the days of Pong, but his love
for games was cemented the first time he rolled a pair of Dungeons and
Dragons dice back in 1980.
Having served as lead tester on MechWarrior 2 and as associate
producer on MechWarrior 2 Expansion Pack: Ghost Bear's Legacy™,
Mamais felt right at home in the director's seat of MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries.
After graduating from the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism,
Mamais went to work as a creative director/writer for a cable advertising
company. He then was production manager for Southern Cable Advertising (SCA)
and later vice president in charge of production for SCA's spin-off Southern
Cable Productions.
Prior to taking the position of producer on MechWarrior 2:
Mercenaries, Tim Morten served as the key programmer on Activision's
revolutionary 3D combat-action game MechWarrior 2. Additionally,
he was the associate producer on MechWarrior 2 for Win95, NetMech,
and the MechWarrior 2 Expansion Pack: Ghost Bear's Legacy.
Before joining the MW2M team, Morten served as the programmer for
Activision's popular Return to Zork and worked on Microsoft's
Windows NT 3.1.
Morten holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and Music Technology
from the University of California, San Diego. When he is not in front of
his monitor, he can be found scuba diving and white water kayaking.
Agents of Cool's Richard Grimes and Wes Kilgore recently interviewed
MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries Producer Jack Mamais and Director Tim Morten. In this excerpt,
Mamais and Morten discuss the game's conception, creative motivations
behind game features including cumulative damage and repair situations, and networkable play.
AOC: What do you guys exactly do in terms of taking a game from nothing
to something?
T. Morten: It usually starts with some technology and a creative
concept. The hard part of course is getting the two things to agree, so
there is a long period of modifying the creative concept to fit what we
can technically pull off and expanding our technology to try to satisfy
the creative ideas of the design team. It's a pretty long process. On
MechWarrior 2 we spent two-and-a-half years on the product and on
Mercenaries it took basically a year.
AOC: So who came up with the idea on Mercenaries of having the damage
become cumulative and having to buy stuff after each battle?
J. Mamais: We knew after MechWarrior 2 the Clans and Ghost Bear's
Legacy, a lot of people were asking to play the Inner Sphere side of
things. In the Battle Tech Universe the Inner Sphere side is run a lot
differently than the Clan side, and to best illustrate that point we
wanted to make the Mechs more geared to the players. So we decided that
we would enforce a cumulative damage and repair situation so they would
have to basically take care of their Mech armies themselves rather than
just having access to a huge stable of Mechs with any type of weapons.
It was in response to people's desires and also something we could do to
remain true to the Universe.
AOC: You know, I'll be honest, I thought it was going to kind of an
annoying feature, but its actually one of the most enjoyable parts of
the game.
J. Mamais: I'm glad you like it. After spending $1.5 Million T-bills
customizing their Mech, we wanted to make sure that they were very
scared about losing that Mech....We wanted the Mechs to become more dear
to them. In the BattleTech Universe, Mechs are almost considered
artifacts because they're so valuable and so hard to get a hold of. So
we wanted to try to instill that spirit in the game.
AOC: Right. It certainly takes the Rambo out of you when you realize
you have to actually pay to get it fixed afterwards. You now include the
ability to play over the Internet. Is that going to be available in more
of your games?
T. Morten: Absolutely. Mercenaries was the premiere of that technology
from us and we will be including it in a lot of games. Right now, we're
working on making our server side more sophisticated so we can do things
like track player scores from game to game. Now there are players
waiting on our servers to play pretty much all times of the day so you
can get matched up with other people around the world who want to play a
Mercenaries game. But there is no sense of longevity in terms of your
scores or ranking, so we're going to continue to develop that
technology.
AOC: It's really hard to get four or six of the people you work with to buy
this $50 game to play with you. Are you looking into bundling this
access a little differently?
J. Mamais: Well, actually all you need is one copy of Mercenaries and eight
people can play because it spawns other copies. All you need to do is
find friends on a network and install Mercs on their machine and it will
run fine.
AOC: Do you have a Mac version of Mercs coming out?
J. Mamais: I don't think it's planned right now.
AOC: Can you network a MechWarrior game between a Mac and a PC?
T. Morten: Unfortunately not yet, but that's something we've had a lot
of requests for, so we're looking into that technology.
AOC: Any chance you're gonna have any titles available on the new
Nintendo 64?
T. Morten: We haven't announced anything yet, but there is definitely a
good chance that we will.
