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"Anyone remember Battletech 3025? Well, someone here does. We take you down memory lane to have a look at the greatest Massively Multiplayer Online Game that never was."

Direct Link:
http://www.futurelooks.com/display.php?i=277&p=1

ugh, it just makes me sick all over again that EA couldn't come to terms with MS over this. Supposedly it was the management of EA.com who didn't want to have to run everything by the BT IP holder (MS). That was back when both companies had bad blood between them. It sure wasnt a lack of players, they had thousands and the official website which didn't even officially open got 15,000 unique hits in its first few days. Then there was the financial meltdown at EA.com which was bascially the fault of bad management and that ridiculous game "Majestic" that never got off the ground.

The biggest tragedy is that this wonderful engine and back-end is just sitting and rotting away while MS focuses on its Mechassault property leaving PC BT fans stroking themselves.

Tell me about it, Bangy. :(

Firewire! I have loads of screenshots from way back if you had wanted them. :D

You can post them here and keep the game alive ;)

Inner Sphere (cropped bottom screen)

Biggest baddest mofo

Most weapons I think.

Know that 45tonner I talked aboot? :D

dual PPC's, quad med lasers :eek:

I had one of these. I think I sold it though.

Everyone had to have one of these :D

I'd say it was pretty effect at killing other light mechs, that is if you could aim ;)

This one didn't last long on the battlefield unless you were backed up by 3 other good mechs. ;)

Ooh.... this one.. I got it right when they announced that BT3025 was not going to go commercial. :(

I bought this one too just because there was no possible way to get anything higher (I would have needed to play well for 100+ battles to get what I really wanted ;))

Guess which light mech kicks ass and chews bubblegum? :group:

a devestating mech in the right hands... too bad I never owned one ;)

Had one of these. The PPC was awesome. It's basically the UT2k3/4 lightning gun.

Another awesome support mech. I've been in quite a few battles with these (either side). They're best known for the LRM's in these light mech battles.

Another Big Guy. I've seen only one in action. It was quite scary because the scale of the mechs were quite... terrifying. In my Javelin, I'd be about 1/3 the overall size. It was quite a thing to see in 3rd person.

Never saw this one in action ever. I think most people who actually got these went for the Classic Battletech variant (above).

This one was quite the beefcake with 26 heatsinks. :eek:

hehe had one of these. It was quite a funny mech to begin with, and I think it's the only one that looks "cute" with its garbage can look.

I also had one of these. I felt the super power of the AC20 was worth it for a couple fights. This was obviously a fire support mech.

Don't know why anyone ever bought this mech....

Definitely not worth it....

Weird head...

decent :)

not sure which variant was scary......this?...

or this?

LRM15 would save this guy...maybe.. it always depended on the other team's and the rest of your team's mechs.

Then again, I probably would have gone with this guy for the extra armour.

tough choice....

or is this better?

*cough* stupidmech*cough*

Trouble from afar...trouble upclose..

HMMMMMM............

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.... ............


(look at armour. Look at the weapons. Look at the prices. I don't think it gets any more obvious as to the :rolleyes: ;) )

Insert mega laser sound!


Interesting fact: Group shots do less damage than the sum of individual shots. ;) Individual shots are also a great way to keep the enemy under constant fire. Constant fire means that the enemy's screen will jerk around and make it hard for him to aim. :D

numero 2

man... this game had uber res textures for the time.

gonna miss this. :(

wow....

crossing the streams!!!!



Giant!!!!

stencil shadows! :D Take that Doom 3!

:eek:

BATTLE OF THE TITANS!!!!



.......titans ;)

Looks like the Atlas lost :eek:

Medium mechs go nuts

hm... from this angle, the Jenner looks like the mini-me of the Cicada. ;)

Round 1: Garbage Can versus Chicken Walker. Who will win the day?

I didn't know a panther could fly ;)

HA HA

Panther is too swift for the hesitant.

Take that Farcry!

ah... a favourity level. Anyone guess why? ;)

doooood what is he, like, shooting at?

Blackjacks do sorta have like... well... a very very weak mid section.

oh wait, this one comes before the one above....

This screenshot is very... wrong. I had to compress it heavily for some odd reason.

It's a neat level too with all the ruins lying around, and it's good for the close fighting as you can guess.

hm... not much going on here.

*cough*photoshopped*cough*

yes, I photoshopped it a long while back. I remember doing it exactly all those years ago...

Long range battles are very interesting to see.

AH NEED MO' MISSILES!

Chill out with the small lasers there! :lol:

Night battles were always a joy with the lasers.

Night battle 2

Pin-point accuracy!

oooh.... great shot!

ambush!

Gotta love the ground texture.

Originally posted by Firewire
You can post them here and keep the game alive ;)


You know what's really keeping it alive? MechAssault 2 on Xbox Live.

There's this Conquest Mode that sounds pretty much like BT3025 except it's around 3062. You battle on planets in the Inner Sphere, you make your own clan, but you join one of the Houses. It's like... totally awesome.

It won't be quite the same though because of all the tanks and helicopters that players can use.

Still, it's like those guys knew exactly what would make a Battletech game awesome, and they went and did it...finally without any IP problems.


oooh and instead of a plain map of the IS, it's a 3d map of some sort. :drool:

oh wait, it's just like a 2d map that you can zoom in on.

here's a pic

this is why I thought it was 3d.

I love MA and I'm sure I'll enjoy MA2 but its just not the same playing on a TV. 3025 had veterans playing who knew their stuff about BT, MA has like spoiled 12 year olds who think its high comedy to leave and shut down the game just before they lose. I won't even get into the downside of the voice-chat experience.

Anyhow, Thanks for all the pics SuperAl.

lol, I had fun posting them with my comments. :D

True, it won't be the same, but it's good enough for now :p

The Btech universe is HUGE.

I first started collecting them books from 1991. Stopped at the last book with Victor Davion's victory over Kathrina in book 56 :) (thats back in 2002)

Originally posted by Bangy
Supposedly it was the management of EA.com who didn't want to have to run everything by the BT IP holder (MS).
Nope.

Then there was the financial meltdown at EA.com which was bascially the fault of bad management and that ridiculous game "Majestic" that never got off the ground.
Yup. BT3025 was one of four MMO games EA was going to launch via their webpate. BT3025 was the only one that showed any promise. Unfortunately, it was not enough to support the infrastructure. So the plug was pulled.

The biggest tragedy is that this wonderful engine and back-end is just sitting and rotting away while MS focuses on its Mechassault property leaving PC BT fans stroking themselves.
It's a business decision. While I have enjoyed the PC games, I can understand why Microsoft is going the MechAssault route. It's usually cheaper to develop a console game, and the best of the console games generally sell better than PC games.

Originally posted by Shawshank
The Btech universe is HUGE.

I first started collecting them books from 1991. Stopped at the last book with Victor Davion's victory over Kathrina in book 56 :) (thats back in 2002)

Yeah man! daaamn... I only got as far as Omi's death...I think that's the latest I've read. It's after the whole Twilight of the Clans storyline right?

Mind summarizing about a thousand pages of story? :lol:

Oh and..what's up with the new Mechwarrior books?

Did Katrina die or something to do with JUSTICE?!?!? She was SUCH a........you know... grr....... :mad:

hm....just watched the intro to MA2 off of ign. Cortana from halo 2 (picture on halo2.com) looks like that woman in MA2. It's the hairstyle I think. :p

I'm still peeved M$ cancelled the next mechwarrior game. Apparently it didn't quite live up to what the developers wanted to do so they canned it.

Myself, I'd loved to see a BT game done like Steel Battalion with a custom controller and more emphasis on piloting and gunnery skill as well as teamwork - That coupled with the kind of gameplay that was BT3025 would be just plain AWESOME.

Big Battletech fan here :)

I think I have most of the novels and all from the main storyline. I also got most of the technical readouts and field manuals

Originally posted by Genyosha
I think I have most of the novels and all from the main storyline. I also got most of the technical readouts and field manuals

Mind summarizing 3063 to 3067? :D

Originally posted by SuperAL
Mind summarizing 3063 to 3067? :D

Sure.

SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT!!!!!

http://www.classicbattletech.com/cbt_cbt_history.html

Don't forget to check out the message board too!

thanks! that's a great help :)

Many many thanks to SuperAL, everyone who contributed to the article, and everyone who posted here. As one of the developers of 3025 It really feels good to see so many people remember the game so long after its demise.

One clarification, though. Please refer to Kesmai Studios as the developer of 3025, not EA. We were well into production when EA purchased us. Kesmai should get credit for all of the hard work that went into 3025.

The original goals for the game were pretty high-reaching. We wanted to create, in a 16MB download, a game with box-product production values, 25 animated 'Mechs, 512x512 texture and multiple animations for each 'Mech, a particle system, sound FX, a strategic gameplay layer, 4 distinct terrain types, and unlimited landscape generation options. I think the last beta client weighed in at 16.2MBs. It was an amazing piece of work.

We created a new 3D engine, particle effects engine, animation system, and audio system for 3025. At the same time creating all of those new art assets, UI elements, particle effects, and audio clips.

After EA shut Kesmai down (after a long time of bloodletting) about 8 or 9 of us started a small game company called Lodestone Games (www.lodestonegames.com). We managed to keep that going for a little over two years. Our biggest accomplishment at Lodestone was to help SOE get Planetside finished and deployed. After Lodestone five or so of us ended up at Mythic Entertainment, where we've been for about the past year or so.

Thanks for posting all of the screen shots! I'd forgotten about some of the official ones and it was great to see the 'Mech's I'd forgotten.


Jeff "Quarters" Hanna

:eek:!!!

Hi and welcome! :)

man, I don't even recall the download size, but after that little explanation, it truely was quite an achievement! :eek:

I really liked the UI. For a multiplayer game like that, it was quite easy to get around. :thumb:

(psst... I don't suppose you guys could extend the AI for those trainee bots and make a sort of MechWarrior Tournament 2005, eh? ;) )

I used to do the training mission when there was no one to fight during the odd times of day and try to get all the kills or let the lancemates do the work :p .

This game would have so rocked at lan parties if it had the option. :D



One clarification, though. Please refer to Kesmai Studios as the developer of 3025, not EA. We were well into production when EA purchased us. Kesmai should get credit for all of the hard work that went into 3025.


Sorry 'bout that. I know EA is the publisher, but I didn't know the developer name. Thanks for the clarification. :)



Originally posted by Quarters
Many many thanks to SuperAL, everyone who contributed to the article, and everyone who posted here. As one of the developers of 3025 It really feels good to see so many people remember the game so long after its demise.


I'm grateful you all made the game so awesome! :D


Thanks for posting all of the screen shots! I'd forgotten about some of the official ones and it was great to see the 'Mech's I'd forgotten.


You mean, you don't have them? :lol: ;)

I knew they'd come in handy some day. ;) A spectator mode would have been nice for taking screenshots.

Did those Comstar guys (you developers?) ever spectate or fight in battles? I was never sure what they were doing when I saw them hanging around. Moderating?



:eek: :eek: YOU'RE the guys behind the graphics in PLANETSIDE?!?!?

:eek: NICE!!



Thanks for taking the time to explain some of the details of what happened to the company. It must have been disheartening to get shut down. :(

16Mbs? to say that's qute a achievement is a understatement.

Ahh, Planetside, a good game but I just don't feel it really deserves the monthly bill they've tacked on it.

Lodestone did the host for Planetside. We also created the realtime weather system, from the moving storm fronts and rain/snow storms in game to the weather map system that would accurately predict the storms' vector and intensity. Our 3D guy also rewrote the graphics framework, but the 3D engine and all of the art/FX assets were done by SOE in their St. Louis office (which was moved to San Diego about a year ago).

Thanks for the complement on the PPC and your comparison of it to the UT2K3 Lightning gun. I did all of the particle F/X on 3025 (along with the powerup/power down animations, modeling the arctic research base, and some font work for the UI) I'd never done effects before that game. After generating the artwork I spent most of my time virtually measuring the travel distance of all of the weapons and tweaking the effect settings to make sure that every single weapon in the game had the fire-rate, velocity, and maximum range listed in the FASA source books. We were fanatically anal about accuracy to the source material.

One neat thing about the particle system was that when you destroyed a 'Mech we broke the dead 'Mech up into it's component parts (head, 6 torso pieces, upper & lower arms, etc... just like the hit designations) and applied a random, extremely strong, force to all of them. That's what caused the 'Mech to fly apart as the shock-ring when ripping across the landscape. We tuned that system so it would tend to project the force mostly towards the camera of the person who got the killing shot. It was always a blast to see 'Mech heads go flying by the camera or arms spinning through the air still firing off their lasers/PPCs/etc..

Fun fun fun.

Oh, that picture where you point out that we had stencil shadows 2-3 years before Doom3? Nice sentiment, but those are just projected polygons. We worked hard to make the shadows look really good.

3025 Wasn't even hardware T&L capable. The game was done in the era when TNT2 cards were cutting edge.

I had some of the 3025 screenshots, but not all of them. Thanks for filling in the holes ;)

Originally posted by Quarters

Thanks for the complement on the PPC and your comparison of it to the UT2K3 Lightning gun. ... *snip* ... We were fanatically anal about accuracy to the source material.


When I fired up UT2k3 demo, I immediately thought lightning gun = PPC from BT3025. At the time, it was like "maybe they had the same guy do the effect or something."

Now THAT's dedication. :thumb: I really digged the lasers. I was always hoping for a mech game where the regular laser was an actual beam that lasted a couple seconds and not some pulse as in MW2 or a .1 second blast in MW3 and 4.

The maximum range... hehe good stuff. The ranges in the other games are very odd with the scale of the mechs.



One neat thing about the particle system was ... *snip*...
Fun fun fun.



Neat! I never noticed that particular tendency for the explosion. I loved it when they flew apart though. :lol:


Oh, that picture where you point out that we had stencil shadows 2-3 years before Doom3? Nice sentiment, but those are just projected polygons. We worked hard to make the shadows look really good.

3025 Wasn't even hardware T&L capable. The game was done in the era when TNT2 cards were cutting edge.


oooh... Well, they looked great ;) It wasn't T&L? < darth >Most impressive </ darth> :D
I thought I remember playing on a geforce2mx, but I guess the engine was designed to run on DX6 hardware for the...masses? ;) ;)


I had some of the 3025 screenshots, but not all of them. Thanks for filling in the holes ;)
[/b]
Ooh... so you have more? :D

[Ooh... so you have more? :D

Yeah, over on my website (http://www.jeff-hanna.com). Go to the games section and scroll to the bottom. There's probably only 1 or 2 there that you'll find interesting.

man, those two shots look pretty amazing, even today. The texture and model work are just fantastic.

jeff, thanks so much for posting.

What happened to Kesmai is almost criminal IMO. How EA (or any other pub.) can disband a group that had as much experience with online communties/games as you guys did is beyond me. No wonder EA.com was in so much trouble, the management was brain-dead it seems.

Anyhow, I had heard you guys had even more ambitious things planned for the future for 3025. Just out of curiosity, what were some of the ideas ya'll were throwing around? It seems like the potential was almost limitless.

Another question, did EA get to keep the rights to the K3D renderer and backend? If so what a shame!

Lastly, I'm really disappointed that no group purchased the game and tried to keep it going seeing as it had a built-in fanbase ready to (gladly) pay a monthly fee and would be next to impossible to get MS to agree to liscensing the IP out like that again (I always thought it would've been a perfect fit for the "MS Zone" game service)

again, thanks for responding Jeff and I'm happy ya'll ended up landing on your feet :)

-Bangy

I too fondly remember BT3025 and I still get a sick feeling when I think about EA cancelling it before it really went live.

I'm surprised a 3rd party didn't keep it going.

Beertram HHoD

Did those Comstar guys (you developers?) ever spectate or fight in battles? I was never sure what they were doing when I saw them hanging around. Moderating?

The Comstar folks were the CSRs who were in the game to beta test, manage the beta, and get used to the in-game tools they would eventually use to manage the game when it went live.

I was in most every night. I was lvl 99 so I could take any 'Mech out and exercise it in-game. I had a lot of fun getting people to take Jenner's and follow me into a battle to see if they could gang up a lone Atlas. People really enjoyed seeing the 'Mechs they would eventually be able to buy.


Anyhow, I had heard you guys had even more ambitious things planned for the future for 3025. Just out of curiosity, what were some of the ideas ya'll were throwing around? It seems like the potential was almost limitless.

There were lots of plans to expand the strategic layer into something much more than the 4v4 lance battles and capture-and-hold planet game mechanics.

One graphical enhancement we had going internally was a revamp of the Inner Sphere map that was run inside of the particle system. each plantet was a particle in 3D space. We kind of just made up our own "heights" between planets since the canonical data doesn't really talk about them in anything but a 2D relative relationship. You could zoom in and out almost infinitely, and pan/fly around the system in 3D. The map interpreted network traffic and would do things like flash a planet red if your house held it and it was under attack, blow a shockwave out from a planet across the entire map if it was captured by a rival house, show supply lines, etc... It was cool and had a a lot of potential. There were never plans to implement it for the initial release, but I'm sure we would've put it in eventually.

We were also working on a stencil-mask system to allow players to recolor parts of their 'Mechs, apply unit badges, and potentially repaint them entirely.

More terrrain types (cities, for example), more terrain objects, actually implementing a shared radar mode for the Raven, lot's of additional 'Mechs, .... we had lots of ideas that were all attainable.


Another question, did EA get to keep the rights to the K3D renderer and backend? If so what a shame!
K3D and ARIES (Kesmai's unified hosting technology) both became property of EA.

K3D was built on top of a commercial engine called SurRender. Soon after Kesmai closed the SurRender developers stopped work on it and shifted their focus to other products. At that point K3D essentially became a dead product. We had written in the ability to move K3D from one engine layer to another, but by that time much more full featured commercial engines like NDL's NetImmerse and Criterion's Renderware had become available and included many of the featues we had put into K3D.

ARIES, in various incarnations, is still being used, I think.


Lastly, I'm really disappointed that no group purchased the game and tried to keep it going seeing as it had a built-in fanbase ready to (gladly) pay a monthly fee

Over the past few years heard rumors of various groups trying to buy Air Warrior and MPBT:3025 from EA. For various reasons neither game has left EA's hands. Whether there are IP issues with MS (over BT) or EA doesn't want to be made to look bad by another developer successfully running games EA viewed as worthless is anyone's guess.

From looking at Sir Bruce's published subscriber numbers for MMO's (http://pw1.netcom.com/~sirbruce/Subscriptions.html) every now and then I've never saw Motor City Online or Earth and Beyond achieve the numbers that we had in Air Warrior. To me that's really sad. Sim's Online surpased Air Warrior's numbers, but not by that much. I know MPBT:3025 woudl've done really well in the market place.





Shameless link to screenshots of the new Dark Age of Camelot expansion. (http://catacombs.darkageofcamelot.com/screenshots/) Many of the BT3025 developers have been working on it.

Hi!

One graphical enhancement we had going internally was a revamp of the Inner Sphere map that was run inside of the particle system. each plantet was a particle in 3D space. We kind of just made up our own "heights" between planets since the canonical data doesn't really talk about them in anything but a 2D relative relationship. You could zoom in and out almost infinitely, and pan/fly around the system in 3D. The map interpreted network traffic and would do things like flash a planet red if your house held it and it was under attack, blow a shockwave out from a planet across the entire map if it was captured by a rival house, show supply lines, etc... It was cool and had a a lot of potential.

hm... sounds eerily like what the MA2 developers are doing with the Conquest mode. Did they consult you guys at all? Pretty cool that you guys were planning on the 3D map.

Repainting mech's would have been great for distinguishing between the Houses in battle! (actually, I kind of wanted to repaint the Atlas' head. The red was too contrasting against the rest of the grey scheme.)

And more than 4v4? I think I would have failed school if you guys had continued with the game. :lol:


I was in most every night. I was lvl 99 so I could take any 'Mech out and exercise it in-game. I had a lot of fun getting people to take Jenner's and follow me into a battle to see if they could gang up a lone Atlas. People really enjoyed seeing the 'Mechs they would eventually be able to buy.

You know, I wonder if I might have seen you some of those nights. You weren't attached to a particular House were you?


Thanks for stopping by. :)


(and for the screenshot link ;) )

hm... sounds eerily like what the MA2 developers are doing with the Conquest mode. Did they consult you guys at all?

Nope. I've never spoken to anyone from Day One Studios.




I think I was playing for either Davion or Kurita during the beta.

ah well...

:lol: The only thing I remember about the Davions was that we were always fighting with them, like in the books. I think we both had the largest numbers of players too. Steiner was next.

I remember early on when we took all of Liao's worlds. That was pretty funny just to see. And I think there were even fewer Marik people... actually, now that I think of it, I think there were quite a few Marik players, but they didn't log on a lot. They once made a big push into one of the territories, but I can't recall anything else that they did.

It was pretty interesting to see Steiner and Davion talk to eachother and gang up on Kurita. These people were really fans of the story. I don't know about an early 3rd Succession War, but it sure seemed like it, except that they actually took most of our planets by the end of the day. ;)

hey, I remember jeff! I had just gotten my first light-medium and thought I was a big man around town. Then I see this Atlas join the game and everyone just stopped as we all couldn't beleive just how BIG the assault class mechs looked. I never played a BT game where the actual unit matched the description of the source so well. Truly fearsome as you knew just what your mechs capabilities were and no way you were going to approach that. No one, and i mean NO ONE was going to be *coring* any assault class from the cockpit of a light mech in 3025....and I loved that about the game (that and having to make due without weapon upgrading).

ack, I'm making myself more depressed... :bonk:

Anyway, thanks so much for posting guys. Maybe someday an opportunity will arise.....

BTW, do any of ya'll hear from Joe B. anymore?

The last day I was in town before I moved (April-ish) I ran into Joe in a Subway. He was doing well. I guess he's still in Charlottesville.

We have a Kesmai alum email list. I see him post occassionally.

Just curious, how did you come across my story?

Originally posted by SuperAL
Just curious, how did you come across my story?

It was an OpEd piece at Blues News.