Announced at GenCon last year, MW4 is now available for free via MekTek!

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

Does it have a campaign mode or is it all multi-player?

I never played MW4 (My computer at the time it came out couldn;t run it), but if it's anything like MW2 and 3, it should have a campaign.

Also, Caine_Hazen is talking about setting up a server for Dumpshock, so... We can do MP that way.

Bull

It has a campaign mode, just don't expect this to work too smoothly . .
it made me jump through all kinds of hoops for several hours, and then without me changing anything all of a sudden it simply worked . .

Yuck. I can't even get their weird BitTorrent client to run properly. Why are all the game companies doing these awful 'launcher/platform' things these days?

page seems to be down.

Oh dear mechtek died. They knew they'd get a shit load of hits as well as they dealyed this a bit to upgrade their severs. Man this must have really hit the news XD.

Well, they should just give out the torrent as a free file. Instant server problem solved.

True I think they have/are but their site with the DL links ect is down dur to massive viewing.

Oh, that would be fun.

Yeah, apparently within an hour of the announcement, they got nailed with over 100K unique page views and 10K simutaneous downloads, and their page choked and died.

I do agree to an extent about the Steam-like thing they have going on, but... There's a convenience factor to it as well (When it works). Besides you being able to see a full list of the most recent programs and patches (Which for this is important, since they're incorporating a bunch of the Mektek created addons for it to boost the games options), it also looks like it acts like a connection hub (ala Blizzards Battlenet) to make setting up and running online games easier.

Right now, it's a problem with them not having the network in place to handle the demand. Hopefully it'll be sorted out in the next day or so. I know I'm having issues with it right now myself... I set it up to download, and went off to play board games last night. At some point, my computer rebooted. Now when I try and launch the MTX program, it keeps telling me it can't find an active internet connection and can't launch without one. Hopefully once the game is downloaded and installed I can ignore the MTX launcher and just play the game stright "offline".

Bull

Yeah, it's a real downer. The most irritating bit about all this is that the launcher error messages pop up REAL fast and also has a nasty habit of disabling the rest of the front end; You have to ninja the dang thing shut after hitting "Okay" in some cases because otherwise the darn error message will pop right back up and shut you down again before you can shut it.

And speaking of Steam-like front ends, I must say that the real Steam's latest UI changes upset me. Not because I think they are bad, per se, but because it lists how long you've played some of your games. Including how much time I've spent playing Civ IV. I gotta admit, the numbers are pretty harrowing when you consider that it doesn't even touch upon how much time I spent playing the previous games.

As the site is still down I dug these up for you guys.

Torrent Mirror

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AL579RW9

And You need the Mektek X to install the mtx file which is here

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1HD0ND6Y

Enjoy

i'm seeding the torrent.
with 10MBit upload, it should help a bit i guess . .

I will go back to seeding after installation.

Since this is a free distribution, this is one of those times that I would guess linking toa torrent would be ok

ANyone gota direct torrent link by chance?

Nevermind, I'm a doofus. That first Megaupload link IS the torrent. Heh.

And the .exe need to run it. I'll upload the torrents for the upadates to as I get them.

The MTX uploader is actually working for me now, so it may have evened out and gotten back online... I'm going to see if it will pick up the download where it broke off (I have about 800 MB downloaded from the original attempt)

Yeah I've noticed that the traker and such are up not the site is still down so my link to the .exe is still needed.

Gotcha. I had already downloaded mtx.exe, which is why it's working for me. I'm figuring it out now, slowly but surely

And it does look like my original download is intact. the MTX downloader shot up to about the halfway point pretty quick, then settled down into a normal download mode. More or less. Flaky wireless isn't helping any, but... That's normal for me. I'm hitting the torrent as well, just to be safe

Bull

The torrent tend to runfaster its the exact same torrent the program uses but just useing it via a diffrent client tends to be quicker.

Ok, just an update from my own perspective, everything is up and running again, for the most part, it seems. Caine Hazen and I both have it installed and have played a bunch. Fun stuff.

I'm going to poke at him about getting a Dumpshock server up and running at some point in the near future. I'd love to set up a few Lance on Lance fights

That would be AWESOME.

I rabidly went about playing MW4 for the last day or two. >.>

Also, MekTek came out with Patch .21 not too long ago, which is supposed to fix some problems.
Also, there's a complete .21 installer, so you don't need to apply all the patches. Just get the 1.78Gig download of the .21 Version and you are done.
Untill the next patch comes out, at least.

I still can't pick a pick a set of keybinds that works well for me.

Use Arrow-Keys up/down for faster/slower
Use numpad 0 for zoom
use mouse for sttering left/right.
use the insert, pos1, pgup, del, end, pgdown for firing groups 1 to 6.
user enter for jumpjets
use space for centering torso on legs.
left mouse button fires weapon.
use # to switch firing mode. all you need is either group or chain fire.
ignore everything else. you won't need it.
only other stuff you will need is the F-Keys for your lancemates.

Aye I have a Joystick though so I'm still experimenting to in clued that well. But yeah I think I might steal a bit from you there I have 11 buttons on my joystick though 4 of them aren't really acessable being on either side and hard to reach for those tasks you need to use quickly (I know this form my playing of X2-3).

Yeah, Joystick is nice and all, i just never got the hang of it . . even if it's toted as THE WAY TO PLAY MECHWARRIOR!

lol I'm new to MW so I'll expererment to death. I might even try to drom the kyboard totaly Joystick mouse only.

if you can aquire one, try to get one of the steel bataillon controllers and hook that one up ^^

I'm looking to pick up somethinf like this or this. As they both have a joystick plus all the other dodads that are handy for my space sims ect and would likely with some practice work nice with FPS and other sim games.

I actually have been playing with an XBox 360 controller (I'm really bad at keyboard controls, and I don't have a Joystick). Works fairly well, though I need to keep the keyboard handy for a few things, and I cannot figure out how to get it to recognize the right stick for Torso Twisting.

Bull

You forgot the coolant flush button and radar toggling.

If you have questions, ask. i'm glad to see new people playing mechwarrior again ^^

That looks really uncomfortable to me O.o I guess i'm just too old school to abandon my mouse and keyboard for something different <.<;,

BOOOO!!!! XD ^^

I usually leave that on the standard things.
IF i do change it, coolant flush goes down to left ctrl and radar to left shift.
much more important is the switching of stopping the auto shutdown from a combination of two buttons to just one button of your choice.
maybe switching the mission goals to something else too.
But usually, you really don't need these as much as you would think . .

For those that like a strategy version that is a direct throwback to the miniatures version, you may want to check out Titans of Steel.

Or, you could play Megamek (http://megamek.sourceforge.net/) or MechCommander (http://www.mechcommander.org/)

I never got to play MechCommander. I wonder if Caine has any of them kicking around (And if they run on Win 7)?

Bull

There's always XP VMs.

Tell that to the guy with a novacat and 3 ER PPCs.

Only three?
You can have 4 or 5 in some 'Mechs.

i think one or both of the mechcommander parts are available as vaporware or freeware or however that's called.
meaning you can legally download them. and with a bit of tinkering, i think they do work under windows 7.
if i can find some free time tomorrow, i will experiment a bit on my laptop, which runs windows 7 64.
and if that does not work and if you have a legal windows 7 version, you can download the XP Mode from Microsoft.
which is basically supposed to be a highly integrated windows xp virtual machine for free with serial . .

Novacat's only 70 tons. I'm a big fan of gauss rifles on my assault mechs.

i'm not. 7xER Large for me.
or for close in, 3xCUAC20.

In case you wonder, both of these are part of MicroSoft XNA shared source releases and are not pirated.

if that were not the case, i would not have posted these links out in the open knowingly.

still i cannot access with this one..how can i make it? i really dont know...i was keep on installing but still its not working

*sigh* yeah, there's still problems with this.
they are working on a complete full installer with an .exe file which you don't need the MTX for . . i hope they are successfull and soon . .

got it running...now for a month or so of practice and I'll see ya all in the field.

Have fun ^^

I bought that when it came out and I must say it is still the best mech simulator around. I do not recommend attempting to use the controller for MW though. Mostly due to it's large size.

*sigh*
i wish i could get one of those controllers somewhere around here . .
I'd be tempted to try and hook it up to my computer to run the Crysis Mod MWLL with . .
Or at least MW4 Mercs the Free Release ^^