Thread: Finally! Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries cleared for free distribution!

Finally MS let Mektek release MW4:Mercs for free!

http://www.mektek.net/forums/index.p...;#entry1214355

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/63431

The free release of MechWarrior 4 and its expansions has finally gained a thumbs-up from publisher Microsoft's legal team and is cleared for launch, its distributor-to-be MekTek has declared almost a year after the release was originally announced.

"After nearly a year since the announcement came, MekTek Studios is pleased to announce, that Microsoft Legal has given the all clear for the free release of Mechwarrior4," member 'Vam' writes. It's still not entirely clear what delayed the release for so long, though MekTek revealed earlier this month that Microsoft had required it "to insure our Studio at a premium rate to meet the Microsoft standard."

While there's still no launch date for the mech combat sim's free release--which will include all expansions as well as MekTek's own mods--it apparently "is now imminent."

A new, series-rebooting MechWarrior game is under development for PC and Xbox 360 in Unreal Engine 3 at Piranha Games, with plans for co-op and cross-platform play.

You will need to get the downloader from Mektek, which is sort of their own version of a steam style updater and also gives you access to their server searching program that replaces the now long defunct Microsoft system.
http://www.mektekdev.com/site/index....d=94&Itemid=96

Freaking awesome.

Will there be online play?

Originally Posted by jason_jinx

Freaking awesome.

Will there be online play?

Of course. Mektek redid the server finding software and run their own matchmaking server to find games with. This game is so old though that pretty much anyone can run a server for it without their processor getting to warm.

You can go ahead and download and install the MW4 files, but they won't be able to be fully installed until they release a patch this weekend which unlocks the free version. They also upgraded the game for support with widescreen monitors and high definition cards, as well as adding a ton of additional mechs and maps based on the old battletech tabletop game and also upgrading the textures on some existing models.

The only downside to the game is that there is no voip, but considering how old the game is it can be forgiven.

2002 actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechwarrior_4_Mercenaries

System requirements
700 MHz CPU,
128 MB RAM,
16 MB video card RAM,
8X CD-ROM drive,
DirectX 8.1,
1.0 GB available hard disk space,
Windows 98 Windows 2000 Windows XP Windows Vista works but is not supported.

The mektek release supports vista (i believe win7 too) and updates the game for Wide screen and HD resolutions.

Originally Posted by Hocus Pocus

Yeah that sounds right, I was actually really good at mw4 I played vengeance, blackkight, and mercs. My fav was vengeance though my old team did mercs though for competitive play.

They are going to have mercs out, but I think they are adding the vengeance and black knight maps to the mercs release. Evidently the veng and BK multiplayer uses some different net code or something, so they won't release that till some stuff gets sorted out.

grrr.... downloading now. But they use a custom bittorrent client for their download/installer. And the the upload limiter isn't working. So I'm getting it downloaded at about 150K/sec and it's destroying my upload bandwidth at about 700K/sec.

That won't do if the download speed don't climb I'm gonna have to stop it.

Originally Posted by Kanati8869

grrr.... downloading now. But they use a custom bittorrent client for their download/installer. And the the upload limiter isn't working. So I'm getting it downloaded at about 150K/sec and it's destroying my upload bandwidth at about 700K/sec.

That won't do if the download speed don't climb I'm gonna have to stop it.

Mine took a few minutes to climb up to speed.

Yeah it's coming down at around 2MB/sec now. Much better.