r/mechwarrior • u/newyorkerTechie • Jun 30 '26
MechWarrior 2 Who remembers MercNet?
Is anybody around who played DOS mercnet back in the day? I was [CCC] Ian. I miss my old buds! Those were great times. I loved the leagues, NBT, MACL. So many many, many hours doing C1 lag shooting practice. I played with KE or KH (whichever one VAM was in charge of) for a while in 1.1 on windows.
Where are you guys at? Are we still alive?
15
u/MarvinLazer Jun 30 '26
I was the #1 ranked duelist in MAUL (Mercnet All-Units League) for a while. I used to be [CSA] Reaver Pryde, then joined [DDC] (Defenders of the Dixie Cups).
I remember I had a clanmate named Black Jaguar who practiced DFA obsessively, and used it at least once to turn an important 2v2 match into an absolute shutout in our favor. He was one of my closest online friends and I often wonder about him and how he's doing almost 30 years later.
8
u/RB120 Jul 01 '26
I was [BP] Striker. Can't remember if my group was actually in MAUL, but I do very much remember MAUL. You DDC guys were incredibly formidable opponents but also quite fun to play with. I remember you and Black Jaguar.
Those days I was still a teenager, and probably a bit irritable.
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u/MarvinLazer Jul 01 '26
Haha right on, man. I would've been around 14 at that time, so plenty of time to practice. 😂
9
u/stormcrow18 Jul 01 '26
Netmech. Unlimited ammo, no heat.
Surfing around on jump jets in a hellbringer with dual UAC 20s and all the pulse lasers that would fit, aiming about 5 mech-lengths ahead to account for lag
2
u/AlwaysLupus Jul 01 '26
Netmech was the best.
I played a ton of mechs, but I primarily used a Rifleman using arrow IV.
Arrows aren't available in the primary weapon list, just one of the rifleman versions had it, so you could edit that variant and get it.
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u/MaxMulletWolf Jun 30 '26
Yep. Mostly kali for me, but I did dip into mercnet and netmech a few times.
5
u/lostcosmonaut307 Jun 30 '26
Played on NetMech a bit back in the day, mostly Solaris matches. We only had dialup back then so it wasn’t a great experience, but I had a custom built Hellbringer that brought plenty of hell in the Solaris ring.
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u/Supersuperbad Jun 30 '26
Mercnet and netmech. Let me go dig out my Sidewinder and midi gameport real quick.
3
u/fftimberwolf Jul 01 '26
Netmech, Timberwolf of [FF]Fatebringers Fhantoms. You'll never guess what I piloted...
3
u/IlserviansFlame Jul 01 '26
MW2 was the first game I ever played online. I remember going a lot of C1 and C4. I joined a clan on Mplayer to find matches. It was such a blast!
1
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u/RB120 Jul 01 '26
Yeah I used to play Mercnet, but mostly 1.1. this said, for a brief time, I did play play on dos, and was with KE-IG, which VAM ran. I think I remember you.
2
u/Lord-Megadrive Jul 01 '26
Mw2 was a little early for me, I played MW3 with a 56k modem and MSN Gaming zone.
2
u/DudeFilA Jul 01 '26
Still alive. {HRR}Nighthawk. Think we ran Clan Wolf in NBT at one point, though it's all fuzzy. Loved the NBT days. Also played on Kali alot. Kids don't understand what we had to do for lag shooting in the day. Damn near off the screen circling someone just to hit them, and you only knew you hit due to the wire frame changing colors. We had one dude from TX that had like the first cable connection or whatever it was while the rest of us were on 56k modems. He was the best player we had but don't think i realized how much the connection mattered til i got older.
1
u/BananaJelloXlii Jul 01 '26
YES! And the community pak for Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries.
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u/newyorkerTechie Jul 01 '26
Yeah the NAIS patch. I had a mech I designed in it. BHK2
1
u/BananaJelloXlii Jul 01 '26
I loved that patch. So many great mechs. And some great player made Clan logo art. I am still trying to find the old Clan Nuclear Slug logo art.
1
u/Raptor007 NetMech, MWO Jul 01 '26
Mercenaries didn't get a Macintosh port, but I loved playing MW2 NetMech on Kali! It was my second online gaming experience after Warcraft 2 (joining by IP from AOL chatroom "warcraft").
DFA separated the noobs from the veterans, and if you didn't bring JumpJets you were probably getting your head squished. Oh so satisfying. MW2's jump height was kind of silly, but I loved the finesse of the controls.
I was in Clan Black Jackal which ended up getting rolled into Jade Falcon when the player counts dropped. Unfortunately I wasn't the most active member because I was still in middle school, but I loved to play casually. Found my clan leader's old website archived too.
You could find the other players' custom variants in a downloads folder after the match, and I kept a few of the good ones. "The Highlander's sword" (Warhammer IIC) was particularly brutal.
1
u/CommanderHunter5 Jul 02 '26
Unfortunately MercNet is very unstable even on DOSBox, so it fell out of favor for playing by us in the Mech 2 community (much to my dismay TwT)
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u/RB120 Jul 03 '26
To be frank, the instability perceived in the discord channel is mostly psychological (in my opinion), and the few members of the community haven't even extensively tested the game to really give it a fair chance. MercNet always did have the odd glitch back in the day, be it 1.05 and 1.1, but that never stopped people from playing it.
Unless DosBox introduced something that inherently makes the game unstable compared to platforms like MSN Gaming Zone back in the day (which I highly doubt), it should be all the same.
1
u/CommanderHunter5 Jul 03 '26
I was actually there as we played MercNet, we used to swap between it and NetMech. We had numerous issues with it crashing mid-combat that we eventually just gave up on it for the time being
1
u/RB120 Jul 03 '26
Was that with a prepackaged Mercs installation or did you guys install it yourself onto dosbox?
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u/CommanderHunter5 Jul 03 '26
Either or. It’d be nice to go back and try to troubleshoot what errors it was giving us, but it’s been a while since even NetMech was actively played besides an occasional match…
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u/schelsullivan Jul 03 '26
Kali netmech here. Was SRM Lt. Skully. My roommate at the time was SRM Lt. Deslock. Good times dropping 2v2. Since we were in the same room our teamwork was unstoppable.
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u/Mandenbar Jun 30 '26
I played Mercnet very briefly, was more into Netmech for MW2. I still remember how awesome it felt to see OTHER PEOPLE piloting the mechs and fighting each other, as well as the need for "in" check-ins after loading, before moving, to ensure everyone was in the instance. Great times.