Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries free release finally here

[jpublic]

Got this from the source, although Kotaku has an article on it.

Mektek.net/Smith&Tinker have finally gotten through the legal hurdles to get MW4:Mercs out for the free release. You can get it here:

http://www.mektek.net/projects/mw4/

Be warned: The server is being massively flooded right now, so wait a bit before trying to get to them.

[Adam Blue]

I've been trying since last night.

[J Arcane]

The servers are completely toast.

The client they force you to install it through is godawful, and it actually loads UI elements over the web, so it actually doesn't even draw correctly now that the server's bombed.

I downloaded the install file by ripping the torrent file out of the directory and opening it in uTorrent, but it's in their proprietary format that has to be opened within the client, which doesn't work because their servers are down.

Far be it for me to complain too much about free stuff, but this is a goddamn clusterfuck. Why couldn't they've just released an EXE installer and thrown it up on Filefront?

[jpublic]

JArcane, I agree with you. It's a clusterfsck. I'm not sure why, I suspect it may be some 'plan' my Mektek to turn this into a viable business.

[J Arcane]

It may also be required by MS somehow. I know Allegiance did the same thing with having their own special MMO-esque patcher/client thing.

Theirs actually worked though.

[Lance Uppercut]

I am disappoint, I've been looking forward to this for a while. I guess I can wait a while longer.

[Hotcod]

http://www.fileplanet.com/211699/210000/fileinfo/MechWarrior-4:-Mercenaries-(Free-Game)

alt download but it's not really going to be much help

I think i'll wait a few days until they've pulled there tumbs out of there ass

[J Arcane]

That's just the client, you still have to download the actual game.

[Hotcod]

hence why I said it wouldn't help much other than getting you the client while the site is down

[scythe]

I *think* it installed, but upon launching, it asks me to insert MechWarrior 4 Disc 2... which I obviously don't have. :(

[Ravenlock]

Things seem to be better now. The client is still horrible, but I'm getting 200KB/sec download speed on the torrent.

Somewhat hilariously, in the Options box, to test your port forwarding to make sure you're using an open port it actually opens a web browser and sends you to uTorrent's port test page. Classy.

[Panthera]

Yep, this is working for me too now. It sucks that they couldn't just post a torrent.

[Ravenlock]

Well, I mean, they could have, clearly. A torrent is a torrent - you could probably figure out what the tracker info is and load it into any torrent client, I bet the info needed is stored somewhere by their crappy manager.

Hopefully once the game is installed we can uninstall "MTX" and not deal with it anymore.

[J Arcane]

If you go into the mektek directory, you'll find a torrent file of you root around in there.

Open that up in a real torrent client, and it'll download a ".mtx" file.

You can then open that up from the File menu in the MTX client. It'll copy it over to the place in the client directory it would've otherwise downloaded it to, and then you can try again to install it, only this time it won't actually download the thing.

At least, this is all in theory. At the moment I'm stuck in the install process.

[CappinCanuck]

Hmm, I think I better wait a week or two until things get a bit more fleshed out :D

[Ravenlock]

Fully downloaded here, but it hasn't added anything to my start menu and it's moved Mech 4 into an "installed" section of the MTX Manager with a right-click "launch game" option.

Seems pretty clear that they intend for this to be run as a launcher like Steam or Impulse, which is kind of bullshit IMO for a years-old game you're distributing for free, but on the other hand, hey, free Mech 4.

I just hope I can easily get rid of it when I'm done with it.

[J Arcane]

I guess DRM has even made its way to free games . . .

[Ravenlock]

I have to imagine this is being used as a testbed for something else.

EDIT: It does appear to have put a shortcut on my desktop to launch the game directly, so that's something.

[Panthera]

It's intended for use for their other games/mods too.

[PathMaster]

I had a person give me a copy of MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries, but apparently it does not play nice with XP, I take it from the enthusiasm of COG that I should grab this? (Never played any of the games.)

[Panthera]

It's free. If you want to drive a big stompy robot, do it.

[Panthera]

http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2010/05/01/how-to-get-and-install-the-mektek-mechwarrior-4-mercenaries-release-and-get-it-to-actually-work/

Here's how to get it to work.

[J Arcane]

Awesome. If only I'd known it was that simple, I've had the MTX file in my torrent folder for two days now.

Next comes setting up my controls for the gamepad.

[MagGnome]

Any thoughts on the actual game yet, or is everyone still trying to download it?

[J Arcane]

Thanks to Panthera's trick, I have it. Seemed to run OK to me, but I need to spend some time setting up a gamepad control scheme. I'd also like a widescreen hack of some kind at the very least, and a graphics overhaul mod would be nice.

[nabokovfan87]

Any thoughts on the actual game yet, or is everyone still trying to download it?

I was just able to download it tonight, only 15 mb?

[Ravenlock]

That's the "loader" program, nab - when you run that, it loads up the torrent file and downloads the 1.7-something GB game. (Or you can download the torrent yourself given the instructions provided by Panthera above.)

[J Arcane]

Downloading it yourself by stealing the torrent file out of the MTX folder is the way to go. uTorrent is a much better client than MTX is. Plus, the tracker's been down for most of this, which means you're solely limited to peer-to-peer and DHT connections, which, again, uTorrent is way better at.

Change the resulting .mtx file extension to a .zip, unzip to the location of your choice. I didn't have to do anything to it after that but run the shortcut. Check Panthera's link if you do have any problems.

Enjoy your Mechwarrior!

[Scull]

Yeah, I just did exactly that and it works fine. Now to get the 360 controller working right and to figure out if I can get a better resolution than 800x600 :(

[Panthera]

Yeah, I just did exactly that and it works fine. Now to get the 360 controller working right and to figure out if I can get a better resolution than 800x600 :(

You most certainly can. Widescreen might be trickier though.

[Scull]

You most certainly can. Widescreen might be trickier though.
How? There is no option in the game that allows it. The resolution drop box is blank and appears to be inactive, and if I edit the options.ini directly it keeps defaulting to 800x600 no matter what res I put in there. Where can I change my res?

Not worried about widescreen either.

[Panthera]

Very strange. I'm guessing that's a bug.

[Xydarc]

Wow, this is really disappointing. After reading this forum and others, it seems that this "free" version of Mech 4 is just a trojan for MekTek's downloader. Thank God I still have my original discs. I think I'd rather tinker with them to get Mech 4 running in Win 7 than mess with this.

[J Arcane]

If the software doesn't recognize the resolution you've edited to as valid, it automatically defaults back to the last resolution you had it set to.

So in my case, I had it on 1280, and edited the INI to 1680, but on start, it defaulted back to 1280.

Looks like an actual hack is required to get widescreen going.

In the meantime, you could always run it in a window.

[Wally]

This is a game that should be enjoyed with a good joystick. Having 3 axis controll is completely worth it in my opinion. I use the Microsoft SideWinder Precision 2 and only need to use a keyboard to issues commands to squadmates if the desire presents itself.

[Panthera]

I've posted this before, but:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2660/3756329718_024770b5f6_o.jpg

This is how you play.

[J Arcane]

Is there an adapter to use one of those on PC?

[Panthera]

Yep. Any ordinary X-Box to USB adaptor will do, and those are cheap because XBox controllers are just USB with a strangely shaped plug. Then you have to install an unofficial driver, which unfortunately isn't available for 64 bit windows yet.

Then you use PPJoy and PPJoyJoy to customize the device, because most games don't know what the fuck to do with a 40 button joystick. Works great, though. It's just plain fantastic for flight sims because of how sensitive the main stick is.

[Ravenlock]

Wow, this is really disappointing. After reading this forum and others, it seems that this "free" version of Mech 4 is just a trojan for MekTek's downloader. Thank God I still have my original discs. I think I'd rather tinker with them to get Mech 4 running in Win 7 than mess with this.

...Really? I agree that it sounds like MTX sucks for a lot of people (and even though it didn't give me any trouble I still dislike it), but a "trojan"? They're still giving away a game for free, and there are posts in this thread about how to get the game installed without using the MTX stuff.

In fact, they've said themselves (http://mtxgear.mektek.net/MW4/) that they're going to be posting the torrent without MTX shortly:

*UPDATE*

We are very aware that some of you are having problems using MTX to download and install the free release of Mechwarrior4: Mercenaries. We are currently preparing a self extracting executable to install the game without using MTX.

This new release will require a new download, but should alleviate any of the issues of installing via MTX.

This new release will contain some bug fixes for Mercs, and we will prepare a patch for those of you who have been successfully installing and updating via MTX as well as executable patches to bring any version previously downloaded, up to date.

Once this new version clears our beta team, it will be made available for download in your BitTorrent client of choice. Please be patient as this may take a few days.

We will continue to work on ironing out the bugs in MTX, until then, we will provide an alternate way to acquire the game and updates through the self installing executables.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Good hunting.
The MekTek Team.

I agree that they kind of botched the release, but let's not paint them as villains here. They still managed to work out a deal that lets people who never bought Mech 4 play it legally for $0, and they're responding to peoples' problems with their new software.

[Lint of Death]

I jumped over all the hurdles necessary to get this game installed, patched, and working, and now I've hit the roadblock of being unable to join multiplayer games. How sad!

[NoName]

w00t, I have the torrent started. Go go uTorrent!

[MagGnome]

I've posted this before, but:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2660/3756329718_024770b5f6_o.jpg

This is how you play.

:eek:

Can I come over and play?

[Xydarc]

...Really? I agree that it sounds like MTX sucks for a lot of people (and even though it didn't give me any trouble I still dislike it), but a "trojan"? They're still giving away a game for free, and there are posts in this thread about how to get the game installed without using the MTX stuff.

In fact, they've said themselves (http://mtxgear.mektek.net/MW4/) that they're going to be posting the torrent without MTX shortly:



I agree that they kind of botched the release, but let's not paint them as villains here. They still managed to work out a deal that lets people who never bought Mech 4 play it legally for $0, and they're responding to peoples' problems with their new software.
I posted before I read their update. Trojan was a bit harsh, but why use their own proprietary software in the first place? Especially for a free release? They should have given users the option of a self-extracting download from the get-go. Still, it's good to see that you don't have to be tied to the MTX software and you can choose a self-extracting installer.

[Khrymsyn]

I posted before I read their update. Trojan was a bit harsh, but why use their own proprietary software in the first place? Especially for a free release? They should have given users the option of a self-extracting download from the get-go. Still, it's good to see that you don't have to be tied to the MTX software and you can choose a self-extracting installer.

Maybe because they went through all of the legwork of updating the game and going through the legal hassles of trying to get this game released for free, and figured, at least we can try to get something out of this?

[Xydarc]

Maybe because they went through all of the legwork of updating the game and going through the legal hassles of trying to get this game released for free, and figured, at least we can try to get something out of this?
You mean, beyond the additional exposure, press coverage, and web traffic (donations)? Yeah, they're not getting anything out of this.:p

I apologize for the jaded response, but in my opinion, this whole release has been handled poorly from the start. Seeing as I still have my original discs, I think I'll pass on this and wait for MechWarrior 5.

[Panthera]

No, I think it was just an incompetently implemented attempt to provide a utility to download and update their stuff for people who don't necessarily know their way around a torrent client.

I'm getting a freeze after making it past the intro movies. Meh.

[ThievesAmongUs]

Is it just me, or does this game run like shit for anyone else ?

[nabokovfan87]

It does, and it is a bitch to get working. Took me several download, hours for each, to realize the issue was norton deleating the .exe because it was marked as a trojan that (changes IE homepage). Why is it so hard to give this game away, I don't get it?

[Vandabo]

I played the crap out of this game back when it came out, I especially loved the Solaris matches. It's too bad it seems like everyone is having a really hard time running it.

Also, I want to buy an old Steel Battalion controller and build a cockpit around it and play mech games in it all day long.

[J Arcane]

Ran perfectly for me the first time. Didn't even have to do the "no video" thing that article mentioned.

[Panthera]

Ran perfectly for me the first time. Didn't even have to do the "no video" thing that article mentioned.

Oh. Duh. I forgot to check my own link. Now it works.

[kyrieee]

Is the distribution working properly now?

[Panthera]

It's not fast, but it's working.