Virtual MechWar launched in 2020, absorbing both the existing BattleTech Centers and MechWarrior: The Inner Sphere's player base. It combines the MMO experience with the thrill of advanced VR combat to provide a fully immersive game universe for its players. Here's how it works.

When you buy the Virtual MechWar player pack, you're basically getting three things:

- Your MechWarrior ID tab (a gizmo similar to one of today's flash drives), which stores an encryption key that notifies the VMW servers to pull up your player record. Player records are stored on a central server at VMW Headquarters in the United States. They include everything - name, handle, unit affiliation, rank, skill set, avatar parameters, 'Mech access list, eva'thang.
- Your first issue of ComStar Quarterly Report, the game's community magazine. This can be had online or as hard copy; future issues come as part of the subscription to the game service itself.
- The client software for the "home game".

The game itself is actually three games. The component that was inherited from MechWarrior: The Inner Sphere is a traditional MMORPG. You log on from your home system and wander around the world as an individual player character, interacting with other PCs and various NPCs, undertaking out-of-'Mech missions, and what have you. This can all be done the old-fashioned way, with a display and regular controls, or if you have a home VR setup you can use that for more immersion. A lot of VMW players never actually use this part of the game; they're just interested in the combat simulator.

The second part is the home version of the combat system. This works a lot like an advanced version of the real-world MechWarrior PC games; you drive your 'Mech around and blow stuff up. Home-client missions are instanced, and so require some coordination between players to undertake cooperatively. This version's considered a poor man's alternative to the real thing. For the most part, the only people who play in HC ("home combat") mode are the poor bastards who don't live close enough to a real city to have access to a BattleDrome. HC players can't fight alongside or against BattleDrome players; the superior equipment at the 'Dromes conveys such an advantage on the latter that the game's development team despaired of ever figuring out a way to balance it that wouldn't just piss off all the 'Dromers, so they said the hell with it.

The third part is the BattleDrome combat system, where you actually go to a 'Drome (there are 200 worldwide), climb into a pod, and go to it. BattleDrome pods are simulated BattleMech cockpits completely enclosed in a military-grade holographic simulation environment. VMW players who have had military or special-police training in things like battlemover operation report that the simulators used in that kind of training are no better, immersion-quality-wise. The 'Mech cockpits can reconfigure to accommodate a wide variety of different 'Mech types and weapon loads.

'Drome combat is optionally instanced. A player can choose to go it alone, facing (and assisted by, if the mission calls for lancemates) only virtual 'Mechs. Alternately, he or she can use the PodComm system to chat with people in other pods and try to set up either a duel or a cooperative mission. (Hardcore roleplayers don't like to do this; it breaks the metaphor.) Also, if there's already a mission in progress on the particular pod cluster you're logging into, you're automatically given the option of joining it, either as a friendly (if your unit affiliation is pro-the other guy's) or an enemy unit (if not). (Since there are 200 BattleDromes and an average of 20 pod clusters in each, doing this game-wide is kind of impractical.)

(Those of you who have played real MMOs may notice a kind of similarity between the way VMW handles out-of-'Mech/in-'Mech operations and the way Star Wars Galaxies handles running around on the ground vs. space combat. Not coincidental; SWG has had a lot of management problems, but the Jump to Lightspeed model for vehicle-based combat in what is otherwise an asschaser RPG system is probably the most elegant way of handling that. Some VMW players don't like that combat in "on-foot" mode is based on your character's skill level while success in 'Mech combat depends on the player's skills, but the other way around wouldn't be fun for anyone, so... )

Starting Virtual MechWar player characters get their choice of affiliation, which determines what equipment they start with. Inner Sphere MechWarriors can go to work for any of the Successor States or various merc outfits, or even go off on their own as singleton mercs (though that's almost always a recipe for disaster unless you're really good at the economic part of the game); Clanners get their choice of Clan. The inherent advantage of Clan technology is balanced somewhat by the fact that Clan PCs have a lot less freedom of action; the "on-foot" game for Clan pilots is largely nonexistent because Clan MechWarriors have no lives outside their military duties, which is the tradeoff those players make for initial superiority on the battlefield.

One of the main complaints VMW players have is that there are no other career paths for player characters; everybody's a MechWarrior. Those who think this is kind of a goofy complaint point out, with varying degrees of asperity, that the game is called MechWar, not So You Want to Be an Accountant in the BattleTech Universe. There are rumors that AeroSpace Fighter piloting may be introduced in the next major revision, slated for the fall of 2032; some of the newer pods have odd controls that don't seem to do anything, leading people to suspect that they're intended for the AeroSpace mode.

Also, there are wild rumors all over the InfoWeb about some huge stuff that's in the works for the 50th anniversary of BattleTech in 2034. 2024's "40 Years of BattleTech" was a popular special event, and everybody
assumes that the devs will try to top it for the 50, but nobody at VMW Central is talking - least of all lead developer Jim Everett, or as he is known on the VMW InfoWeb bboard, General Kerensky.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/