A brief history lesson about another Mech game that was released prematurely...
Steel Battalion: Line of Contact was in development for nearly 2 years by a dedicated, financially backed, development studio (Nudemaker + Capcom Studio 4). The public beta for the game was limited to invite-only individuals and was primarily composed of players from Japan. During the beta in Winter 2003, numerous reports were submitted by Western players indicating that there were issues with network interconnectivity and maximum player limitations. These very valid concerns were not heeded by Nudemaker/Capcom because there was a pressing need to "get the game out" and it was released Spring 2004.
It was horribly and utterly broken (and still is). Instead of the promised 5v5 adversarial modes, most players outside of Japan were limited to 3v3 at best due to the massive networking requirements (and poor netcode) of the game. Additionally, the persistent economy was horribly flawed and could be exploited to no end. As a result, there was a huge void between the players that could spend all day in front of their consoles and the "casual" gamers that could only afford to dedicate a few hours a week to the game. By the Fall of 2005, Capcom pulled the plug on Campaign mode, essentially killing the game.
Moral of the story here is, I would rather wait another month, 6 months, whatever, and get something that is solid and playable than put any pressure on the dev team to rush something out the door to meet public demand.
Also, I'm sure there are more eyes on this project than just ours. My money says Microsoft is quietly keeping an eye on proceedings to get a feel for public reaction to a new MechWarrior game. Since Microsoft has quietly bowed out of PC games development to focus on the 360, any potential commercial development would fall to a licensed 3rd party developer. If the MWLL team pulls off something miraculous, wouldn't it be a dream come true to have the project get official financial backing and have a dedicated, full-time team?
Now, excuse me while I change my pants.
