Inspired by a question in our forums, we found a follow-up from a couple of
weeks ago on
MekTek.net to the
announcement in early July that a free
release of
MechWarrior 4 was coming "soon." It turns out the announcement
was almost as unexpected for them as for the rest of us, and they have been
working ever since to remove DRM from the game, update their matchmaking
software that's taking the place of Microsoft's now-defunct Zonematch service,
and finalize the software that will allow the game to be patched after release.
Other issues must also be resolved prior to release, including completion of
legal paperwork and the completion of proper server infrastructure:
The
unfortunate aspect of all this great news is that all of these new developments
could have been ironed out before the announcement but they were not. Our
partners felt an initial announcement was necessary and so did we. We plan to
release Mechwarrior4 for FREE when developments are completed and considered
stable. We are also waiting on legal paper work from lawyers and as anyone out
there that has worked in the professional industry knows, something of this
magnitude takes time on all fronts. MekTek is not receiving any financial
support from the partners regarding this release and obviously no one can quit
their daytime job to get the job done faster either. The release has entered
beta status and will be delivered to the world very shortly. MekTek is supported
through donations from our community and thus far we have received 50% of our
goal to cover server infrastructure costs. We hope the community will continue
to support us during this very busy time to ensure we have the best possible
hardware in place for this release.