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Multiplayer BattleTech: 3025 Developer Diary, Part I

Submitted by Grond on 15 March 2009 - 9:41pm.

This is part one of a two part interview with Dave Marsh and Tony Van, the senior producers of the EA version of 3025 after development was ratcheted up after EA's acquisition of Kesmai in 2000.

Mountain Dew. Lots of Mountain Dew. That's the best way to describe the last two weeks of development of Multiplayer BattleTech: 3025 here at Kesmai Studios, an online game division of EA.com and located in Charlottesville, VA.


Not that inhaling massive quantities of caffeine is any different than any other game shop when it comes to crunch time. Certainly it's expected of us. Encouraged even. "Come on, there's only 35 more bugs. You can do it-take a swig of this!" We're in crunch mode on MPBT: 3025 and the programmers and lead artist have been going 24/7. Lots to do before the game goes Live.

Before we get into the specifics of what's new in the game, let's talk a little bit about what the game is, it's history, and then onto where it's going. So what is it' The game is a massively multiplayer, persistent world action and strategy game based on the hugely popular BattleTech license. Basically, thousands of players fight for control of 120 planets in a section of space called the Inner Sphere using giant war machines called BattleMechs. In the process, players gain experience, go up in ranks and buy bigger, badder 'Mechs to win more battles.

What's the history-The game has been on the books as a successor to MPBT: Solaris for nearly 5 years now. Kesmai has always had a development team here working on it but it wasn't until EA.com acquired us that the game really got the attention it deserved (and needed.) The game's graphic engine was entirely re-written, 'Mech animations redone, Strategic game added, pre-combat shell revamped, UI simplified, sounds and music added, web sites created, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! It's really been the last 6 months that the game has really taken shape. The biggest challenge has been to juggle the core design philosophies with the comments from EA.com AND the input of the ever-faithful existing MPBT community. Oh yeah, and get it Live.

Three weeks ago, the game officially went into Closed Beta. Since then, we've been deploying game servers, analyzing data, making adjustments, reading feedback from the beta testers, and making more adjustments. The response and success of our Closed Beta Test has been unbelievable great. It's an awesome feeling: you work on the game day in and day out, attempting to anticipate how people will play your game. But you never know what will happen until it real people actually get in and play it! There are a number of things we've learned and have put into the new version'

We've been comparing how long it takes players (both average and fanatical) to go up in rank and which 'Mech variants he/she is buying (and not buying.) It's important that players always feel some sort of advancement, and are rewarded when they do something decisive in a battle. This info has helped us tweak the leveling numbers so that players don't go up too quickly or too slowly, and pointed out some changes that were needed in the scoring mechanic. We've also adjusted the 'Mech prices to encourage players to purchase more 'Mech variants. We've found that the original pricing of the 'Mechs were grouped too close together, and many good 'Mechs were being skipped since a slightly better one was maybe 1 or 2 battles away. This re-pricing also benefits the new player experience, as slightly more experienced players can't get to substantially better 'Mechs as fast as before. In addition, the environments on the planets have been adjusted to have more of an effect on the 'Mechs cooldown rates. Players will want to have different 'Mechs to increase success when battling over the desert plains vs. the arctic mountains.

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