Mech Tactical Simulation Abandoned

[G.C.I. Charles E. Maxwell]

Hot off the presses from BattleTech Mod Productions...

MTS Closed!

Hey everybody,

After much thought, and a long hard look at the project, the future, and our personal lives, me and Coralon have decided to close down the MTS project. A couple of issues were considered, and we really think this is the best option available to us.

First up, the engine limitations BF2 has, coupled with the less than adequate modding tools. Frankly, not everything that was promised came to be, and the engine is too set in stone for the BF2 type of game, not something that will push the envelope further.

Secondly, our increasing frustration with Battletech, it's direction, and it's out of date technology, conceived in the 80s, which works fine as fiction, but is starting to get a little dumb.

Thirdly, our tiredness with modding in general - with a mod, we are always limited by the engine we are working on, which cramps our imagination, and our creativity. This further ties in to the fact we are tired of Battletech, wishing to branch out on our own.

Fourth, the lack of support from EA, given to other projects and that has been a real letdown to us.

Fifth, the less-than-stellar production we are doing here, of which we are all to blame, a few more than others, but all overall, as work is slow-to-nonexistent.

I want to thank you all for having been a part of MTS, supporting it with your comments, emails, suggestions, critics, and friendship. Who knows, maybe someday we'll all meet again! So long, and good luck

- MaSaKaRi

The community discussion begins here.

[Captain Adam "Gunman" Wolf]

Well dang that sucks, MTS was the one main reason I was going to get BF2, I was even going to get a new video card just so I could actually play it, guess I dont need to bother now....

[Captain Benjamin Maxwell]

I'm trying to get discussion started over at BMP concerning the possibility of allowing the community to finish the project.

[Captain Adam "Gunman" Wolf]

cool, I'd love to see the mod actually get finished, I'd definately go and buy BF2 and a new video card just to be able to play MTS, it looked awesome.

[Captain Benjamin Maxwell]

From what I understand, the main reason behind the project getting 'canned' stemmed from the fact that a bit of misrepresentation was made on the part of Battlefield 2's programmers as to just how compatible the mod would be with the game. As I understand it, just to get the mod to work on a very basic level, with full compatibility a near-impossibility, a massive amount of re-coding (read: 3 years' worth) would have had to be undertaken. Couple that with a total lack of support, and in some cases, outright resistance from EA, and you begin to understand the level of frustration the programmers were dealing with.

Ordinarily, I would be upset that a project this massive and promising was being canned. But in this instance, my sympathy goes out to the programmers. Let's just hope this slap in the face by Electronic Arts doesn't hurt the modding community too badly.

[Commander Garrett Garland]

One of their people asked me to draw concept art for them .

Too bad I just heavily photoshoped a picture of a model to make it look drawn. Did the mod happen to allow players to choose their 'mech configs by any chance? And did you know that you can play as infantry in mekpak 3?

[Captain Adam "Gunman" Wolf]

I read through the some of the posts on the community boards over there, and I know what you mean about all the problems stemming from the BF2 engine itself. I too feel sorry for all the hard work the programmers did and am sorry to see it go. If this was an official microsoft or EA thing that they just decided to dump, I would probably be pissed, not that Microsoft or EA would ever want to bother making something as cool as MTS though, but since it was all done by modders and without pay AND facing rather serious sounding hostility from EA, at least in regards to support, I just feel bad for all the work those guys did and now they dont have much choice due to the short comings of the engine they are forced to use.

All I can say is that I hope someone can take their work, or at least part of it, as well as all the other BT mods that have been designed over the years, and make a full complete game from the ground up, or at least with an engine that will actually do everything the designers say it will do. If I had the time or expertise I'd try doing something myself, but I've got a lot of respect for what those guys do, and I truly sympathize with them at this loss.

[Captain Benjamin Maxwell]

madmonk said:

One of their people asked me to draw concept art for them .

Too bad I just heavily photoshoped a picture of a model to make it look drawn. Did the mod happen to allow players to choose their 'mech configs by any chance? And did you know that you can play as infantry in mekpak 3?

I hadn't heard that. But the problem there is, I hear that MekPak 3 is the final MekPak - I don't know what the future holds for that sort of project. I do know that M$ wasn't at all friendly to the programmers involved in the project, and was asking for rediculous 'rights' to the fruits of the programmers' labor, without any sort of compensation.

[G.C.I. Charles E. Maxwell]

The MTS has been picked up by another group...under the title Codename: Symbol.

[Captain Adam "Gunman" Wolf]

Awesome, I'm glad to hear that all that work isn't going to go to waste. I know they said its not a continuation of MTS, but I'm sure they'll use alot of the work/resources from it to create Codename Symbol.