On Joining a Clan...

Okay, you’re a devoted MechWarrior; you’ve conquered the game several times, or just come to love playing it, or just got it for Christmas. What’s next...?

Why, playing against human opponents online, of course. Whether on Kali, Mplayer, Heat or whatever service you prefer, fighting against human-controlled mechs is on a whole different level from playing the computer-controlled AI in the game. There are all manner of tactics, tricks and such that only time and experience online will teach you, and the best way to learn these things in a semi-structured environment is by joining a clan.

The Clans Online

It’ll be fairly easy to recognize clan members when you see them; they’ll have initials before their online handle (for example, in my career I’ve had the clan initials TGW, DL, SV, OA & DC in front of my "Cobalt" handle), and often there’ll be a room or 2 with the clan’s name on it in the game lobby, where that clan’s members will congregate. More often than not, the clans are out recruiting, looking for new players to join, and here’s where it can get a little messy.

As a ‘newbie’, you want a clan that will give you some training, teach you the basics of lag-fighting, mech customizing and other things; how do you know which clan will give you that? Some are so big that you may get lost in the shuffle, with no patience or time for the personal instruction you want. Others may just be start-ups, by a disgruntled former clanner looking to start his/her own outfit, which may or may not be a good thing as far as gaining experience before being thrown into the crucible of warring for honor points, etc.

So what do you do? How do you decide? Hang around for awhile; listen to the lobby chatter, maybe talk to some clanners you see, get into a game or 2. Observe how people treat you, and how they talk to you, and to others; if a clanner’s a jerk online, odds are good he/she’s from a clan of jerks. Believe me, jerk-ism shows itself, often sooner than later. In my first clan, The Gods or War (TGW), I hung out with them for about 2 weeks before deciding to join; they were, top to bottom, good and honorable folks, fun to hang out with, and the best MechWarriors I’ve ever met.

In essence, deciding which clan to join will take some time, but it’ll be time well spent.

The Online Gaming Services

On this topic I can only speak a little, as I’ve only used Mplayer, Heat and the MSN Zone.

Obviously ‘free’ is better than ‘pay-per-hour’, at least initially; who wants to spend money on something they may not like? Mplayer, Heat and the Zone are all free services; all you need is the download and set-up time, and you’re ready to go. The quality of the gameplay depends quite a bit on your modem/connection speed, your pings into the service, your phone line and the quality/reliability of your ISP (AOL is useless for this kind of gaming).

Of the three mentioned, Mplayer is the preferred choice for someone wanting to play Mech2. There are more leagues, more clans, more ‘newbies’ (like yourself), and just generally more things happening there. Heat offers more servers (thus better gameplay), and allows different versions of Mech2 (all the enhanced versions can be played there, as well as the DOS version), but the last known NetMech league there died some time ago; I don’t know that any others have sprung up since. The Zone is really the only place to play "Mech3", as you might've expected with Microsoft sticking their Borg appendages into the FASA/BattleTech franchise, and it really looks and plays beautifully there (again, depending on your modem speed, etc., etc.)

Kali and Kahn are both one-time-fee leagues that, I’m told, have excellent gameplay and thriving leagues. Since I’ve not tried either one, I can’t say much more about them.

So, there it is, in a nutshell. If you’re looking for a quantum leap in the Mech2 experience, you’ve gotta go online... to find the final frontier!!!)