I am downloading now. They are going F2P as well, so I thought it’d be a good idea to check them out and see what they’re going to do. They’re much smaller than SD and this is their first game, but they’re going BIG and F2P. Should be exciting to see if they’re succesful or not.
I’d rather be playing DB right now, but as it’s 11pm in Seattle, there’s nobody online to play with. 
NEED MOAR N.A. ALPHA TESTERS!
Yeah, I too hope for more alphas anytime soon. But as for your thread here; There’s allready a HAWKEN thread in the regular forum in the Off Topic section. Since the Beta is open I think I can finally express my opinion on that game even though it(the game) might have changed quite a bit since I’ve last played it in the closed Beta. My first and most obvious impression was, that the game is extremely clunky; surprise, surprise, I know. For a mech fan it might be quite fluid and fast, but for someone who’s looking for fast response and little to no inertia FPS this game is a nightmare. I was and I’m still intrigued by its visuals. And it’s certainly a great game if you happen to be part of the actual target group.
I’ll go and check out the open Beta, just to see what they’ve changed, but for now I’m quite sure I won’t play it regularly; again, even though it looks great. But I found out I’m no mech guy when it comes to fps. Though I wish them, that they’ll really succeed with this game. And maybe I’ll change my mind after I played the open Beta or the release version.
[QUOTE=.FROST.;414051]Yeah, I too hope for more alphas anytime soon. But as for your thread here; There’s allready a HAWKEN thread in the regular forum in the Off Topic section. Since the Beta is open I think I can finally express my opinion on that game even though it(the game) might have changed quite a bit since I’ve last played it in the closed Beta. My first and most obvious impression was, that the game is extremely clunky; surprise, surprise, I know. For a mech fan it might be quite fluid and fast, but for someone who’s looking for fast response and little to no inertia FPS this game is a nightmare. I was and I’m still intrigued by its visuals. And it’s certainly a great game if you happen to be part of the actual target group.
I’ll go and check out the open Beta, just to see what they’ve changed, but for now I’m quite sure I won’t play it regularly; again, even though it looks great. But I found out I’m no mech guy when it comes to fps. Though I wish them, that they’ll really succeed with this game. And maybe I’ll change my mind after I played the open Beta or the release version.[/QUOTE]
Did you get any idea about their F2P stuff? That’s what I’m really interested in. How are they gonna make $$$?
On a pure personal note I’m surprised this game gets given the “indie” label by so many people. They have a lot of VC money to work with.
Yeah, I don’t blame their VC’ers though. The game is amazing. If I had BIG money to invest in this game and be a VC, I would. I just finished playing over the last 2 hours. It was fantastic.
They are doing the usual F2P stuff. You start with a tiny mech with basic weapons. You play for an hour or two, and earn squat for “cash”, except XP which unlocks some things for your mech. Each mech has 25 XP levels to unlock (I think). There are a few basic weapon choices per mech, but it looks like the weapons come with the mech standard, you can’t buy extra weapons just new mechs and XP unlocks their weapon choices (I believe). The “other” stuff for sale is like different style mech parts, accessories (like Jet packs, turrets or “perks/abilities”, etc).
If you drop $50 you can buy a LOT, not everything, but a couple of mechs and outfit them the way you want. They have a $100 credit purchase that might just buy everything NOW, but I see these guys definitely releasing more content soon so your $100 will be gone fast and you’ll have to invest more for the new stuff. Sounds about right. If you love the game, then pay for stuff and support it. As long as the new stuff doesn’t outclass the old stuff you purchased, then I don’t have a problem with it.
One good marketing idea is that they have two custom model mechs that you can try for free until the 21st or something. One small fast scout mech and one HUGE mobile rocket base mech. The thing looks like a walking fortress and has some HEAVY weapons. I think that’s a GOOD idea: Let people try out the nice stuff for a short time to give them a taste of what they’re missing. Either they can play for weeks/months to earn it with credits or just pay $5-$10 now to unlock it. Smart move.
I actually did pretty well with my crap-box free mech and had a lot of fun. I see myself probably dropping the $50 and loading out a couple of mechs. Although, I may wait to see what the forums say. Maybe someone will buy it all and give their 2 cents on what’s good for what sort of play style.
And, the game looks AMAZING on my i5-3750, 8GB RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670. Got the video setting maxed and at 1080p it runs like a champ even with the PhysX particles turned on. Absolutely gorgeous. The environments, and lighting and effects are all top-notch.
Oops, I should have put this in the other thread. Will do…
Well, they have it now, but up until the first promo vids went viral they pretty much worked on their own personal budget. They’ve started out as a 5-6 man/woman team and developed it completely on their own. Then they employed 3~4 additional guys and little over 9 months later they put their first two promo vids of the alpha version of the game in the i-net. And after that they got the attention of their present publisher, Meteor Entertainement. That actually pushed Hawken out of the indie corner; but nevertheless, the game started as a indie project, with all the risks involved with it; I’d find it not fair to not give them credit for that.
