MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries

MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries
Developer: Activision Publisher: Activision Platforms: DOS, Windows Released in US: September 1996 This game has a hidden developer message. This game has debugging material.

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

Monochrome Monitor Debugging

With a copy of the game, edit the following line in MW2PRM.CFG:

ran0scn1 -b=launch.scr -cd=D

and add "-m" without quotation marks. After selecting "Instant Action" from the main menu, the player should then be able to see all sorts of debugging statistics on a secondary monochrome monitor.

(Source: ripsaw8080)

Hidden Developer message

At offset 00CED60 in MW2.exe, there is a gigantic block of text with messages from each of the developers.

Mercenaries Production Team
About Mercs
Jack Mamais
Matt Candler
Dustin Browder
Bill Ferrer
Mason Deming
Jerrett Farmer
John Keating
Daiva Venckus
Tim Morten
Ken Hullett
John Peck
Henry Yu
Smith Surasmith
Sean Kinnear
Jody Franzen
Dan Kegel
Hi MW2 Fans,
 
This is where everyone who worked on Mercenaries gets to share their thoughts and thanks.  Most of these people haven't left their cubicles in months, so if they sound a little crazy, forgive them.
So long for now,
Mercenaries Production Team
Well, here we are again.  It's been 9 months of pleasure and pain and we're glad to introduce the newest member of the Mechwarrior family: Mercenaries!   As a player of BattleTech from way back, it has been an awesome experience to bring the Inner Sphere side of things to Mechwarrior2.  I would like to thank my parents, Cynthia and Bill, who supported me in my crazy move to Los Angeles.  It looks like it turned out ok after all.  I would also like to thank my brother and sister who stuck by me the entire time we were going through development and production.
This game has been an incredible experience and it could not have happened without the best production team in the world.  Take my word for it, there are not any finer programmers, artists, designers and production people anywhere and it has been an absolute pleasure to participate in the creation of this game.
That's it until the next game, if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to write me at Jmamais@activision.com.
 
    It was a ton of long hours and hard work but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world. That being said, I'm off to Maui for some great R&R. I hope y'all are playing the hell out of the game.
All my thanks, appreciation and admiration to the MERCS team. These guys are the greatest. To make this game happen with half the resources of MW2 is just incredible. Thanks also to Jeehun, Scott G and Bill Black for the great audio work. Hope you enjoy all the new voices, fx and tunes. It is a awesome experience to fufill one's dreams. MERCS gave me that. Finally, thanks to Laura for being there and getting me thru all this
 
-- Matt Candler
    mcandler@activision.com
P.S. HFF, O.G. Bros Rule.
Dustin Browder - Lead Game Designer
 
Listen up, I know about your weakling little unit.  Do you really think you can make it all the way to Luthien?  I don't think so.
 
Special Thanks: The whole bloody team for working their butts off, Jenny for picking me up after the sun came up, Mark, Keith and Scott for all the Saturday night games, White Wolf Games for giving me my first chance, and Chad Findley for giving me this chance.  Thanks to my parents who bought me BattleTech for my 15th birthday.
 
I can be reached at unther@ix.netcom.com.
 
Hey big babies! The ultimate Mechwarrior product ever made is here.
 
I'd like to thank my parents, my brother, and the rest of my family for letting me follow my dreams and understanding my absence during the course of the game. I'd also like to say to my friends, "hey I'm done with the game you guys can call me now to go out!!!" =)
 
And I'd also like to thank the following: Puzzle Zoo, McFarlane's Spawn Toys, Toys R Us, Joe Madureira's art work in Uncanny XMEN for all the times I played with toys and comic books while waiting for the code to finish compiling; the FUGEE's for the ooooh la la la song, Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, NWA, TLC for all the late nite music; Johnny Rockets, Joe's Four Rivers, Davitas for the good food and company; Quake, John Carmack, Micheal Abrash, John Lemberger, and Chacko Sonny for the technical inspirations I had for Mercenaries; and Frank Ever's door for seeing me through the darkest times which usually was around 10pm - 3am. And last but not least, the Mercenaries' Team.  We can do anything as long it doesn't require a another WASM change. And I almost forgot, I want to say hi to "Lisa" whom I saw at Hurry Curry. ;)
 
If you think this is good then wait until CODENAME: PROJECT X.
 
Bill Ferrer
bferrer@netcom.com
Lead / 3D Programmer - Mercenary Programer?!?!?! 2 B continued.
 
I lead many lives .. in this .. i played the role of an assistant game designer.  In another you might see me weilding a massive ironbound mattock and smashing skulls in the frosty wastes of Danjirland, or perhaps sending undead back to their eternal rest for the Lords and Ladies of Liabo.  In any reality, i'm a pretty good guy.
 
If you can catch me in any reality ...
 
::laughs maniacally and sneaks back into his hole .. ::
 
Really .. i'd like to thank my fiancee, Stephanie, for putting up with these hours, and me in general.  I'd also thank my parents, siblings, friends, pets and all pseudo intelligent life forms the planet over.  (okay .. thanks to all the rest of you, too)
 
I hope you enjoy the way I painted the sym. I like my work on Mercs much more than my textures in the 3-D accelerated version of Mech2.
 
Helping to create Mercs was a very exciting and challenging experience.
 
Feel free to e-mail me and let me know what you think. Enjoy.
 
Jerrett Lloyd Farmer
TEXTURE PAINTER
jerrett@aol.com
 
#if IM_STILL_SANE
Southwest end of the building, 10th floor, about 5pm on a thursday. I open the metal blinds and the sun comes streaming onto my monitor making it damn near impossible to read.  The project is winding down - only the shell remains unfinished.  A few team members are wailing away at each other on Mercnet a couple of cubes away.  Test is doing their dead level best to break the code down on four and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no more bug reports come my way.  This is beginning to sound like a chapter from "Microserfs". Working on Mech II, we thought the game would be great but we didn't know for sure.  We're pretty damn sure about Mercs.  We've had the opportunity to do some of the things we only dreamed about during Mech - like eat more Chinese food from Four Rivers!  Thanks to Jack for asking me back to work on Mercs - I don't know whether to kill you or offer to bear your children.  Early on in the project, we all did stuff like weekend kayak trips, all day paintball games, excursions to Virtual World... luckily for you gamers out there, we stopped doing that about two months ago.  So, wanna make games for a living?  Man, I can't wait to get out of town.  You know, I've yet to see the Sequoias?
...
Oh, and Stan... remember the choo choo?
 
johnkeating@earthlink.com
#endif
Being the only female on the Mercs team working with all these studs has made it difficult for me to concentrate solely on the game. I kept running out of duct tape every other night. You know how demanding programmers and game designers can get.
 
It has been a pleasure working with an exceptionally intelligent group of individuals. Special thanks to Jack and Matt for having me on the team.
This game rocks--  Enjoy
 
Daiva
 
I love giant walking robots. Giant walking robots are great. I hope I can work on another giant walking robot game some day.  That would really be great.
 
Thanks to all those on the USENET who have supported me through the flame wars and supported Activision.  We really do care about our users, even if the USENET doesn't think so.
 
In case I haven't mentioned it, giant walking robots are great. What's Project X?
 
tmorten@activision.com
Tim Morten
 
Whew!  Another one nearly finished!  My name is Ken Hullett and I've been a designer on Mech2 and it's ancillary products for about a year and a half now.  It's been a rewarding experience, but it'll be nice to work on something that doesn't involve fighting robots for a change.
I'd like to thank the entire team for helping to create this excellent game.  I hope you all have a blast playing it.  If you're brave enough to try playing with the design tools, you can e-mail me with (some) questions.  It's a pretty compicated system and you're going to have to figure out a lot of it on your own.  There is some documentation included, but it's not nearly complete.
Have fun!
Ken Hullett
khullett@activision.com
freeman@loop.com
 
This is John Peck.  He is our AMAZING and the OG Shell writer.  He deserves much kudos because he worked so hard to bring the most kick ass shell of game history to Mercenaries.
E-mail: hyu@activion.com
 
Working on Mercenaries has been a wonderful experience, I enjoyed it immensely.
I would like to thank my family for being supportive, especially when I am working extra hours and being absent from home.  I would like to thank my wife and mother for being understanding, and especially my daughter, Jessica, for brightening up my days when I tire from overwork.
Special appreciation to all the Mercenaries team for putting all their efforts and support and to my assistant, Smith, for making this Bio possible.
If I were asked to do all this over again, I would at that instant, but after a short vacation in a far away place.
 
 -- Henry Yu
Smith Surasmith * Programmer for Windows95
 
I feel fortunate to have been part of an adventuresome team.  Being a newer part of the Mercenaries team, I want to thank everyone for accepting me with open arms and making feel welcomed.  I have to say that this is one great game, if not the best in its genre.  Working on it has been thrilling.
I would like to give props and appreciation for all the team members for working so hard in the face of long hours, inconsistent bugs, exhaustion, late nights and early mornings, and all the mind numbing anxiety.  I couldn't have made it myself without some words of encouragement and strong doses of caffeine.  Special props to the QA team for finding bugs that I wouldn't have even known how to discover.
I would like especially to give thanks to all my friends near and far who have been always supportive with all that I do, in all my ups and downs. I am obliged to you all.  I also thank my family for much of their support, and my little brother, who has been an inspiration, and to Henry Yu, who was kind enough to be my mentor.
 
Vivimos en el mismo mundo, viva en responsibilidad por nuestros hermanos y hermanas.  Viva en paz.  Ten fe en la humanidad.  Ciaocito!
 
feel free to write me at ssurasmith@juno.com
Hello out there
Again they ask me to write, and again, I write. You might recognize me from such titles as, Return to Mech, Mech Treasure Island, and of course Mechcraft. (this is a joke... it is only a joke). Well back to reality. It seems so long ago, that I started working for Activision on this game called Mechwarrior II. It was the most hair-raising thing I have ever been involved in. But that is history, this is now.
I do hope you will agree with me, that this is by far the best Mech product that has ever been released. To see it come together at the end, was most gratifying. Alot of really hard work and lots of sleepless nights went into this product, so you better like it. Oh, by the way please be carefull you don't hurt yourselves driving those big robots, O.K.?
I would like to thank my wife Sue, she has put up with me not being around, and coming home at all hours, I love you. To all my friends who don't know if I exist at all anymore. To all the local food places, for being there. To sparky, tweedledee and tweedledum for, well... nevermind. Metallica, Anthrax, Onyx, for helping me stay awake. Tim Morten and his guitar. The wonder drug Jolt cola. Netscape, for letting me keep up with the world. And finally to the team, whom I cannot stand anymore and planning to get rid of one by one. (tee hee).
In closing I challange all you wannabe Mercs to a battle to the death, if you can. If you want to mail me personally, my address is lovecraft@loop.com
Enjoy this game, please. Sean Kinnear(LOBO) 3-d artist/shell boy. peace K.
 
Yep...  Yet again, we've gone and tried to make some cute little blurb to show off our sparkling personalities.  Well, I'd much rather be spending this time sleeping so this'll be short.
 
I hope you all enjoy this labor of love...  It's been 4 months of non-stop hectic craziness, but I think it was all worth it.  Let me know what you think...  We've put everything that time and FASA would let us...  For all of you who wished to see the Battle Master, Warhammer, or other classics, sorry to dissappoint you, but I might be able to offer a hint or two on how to make your own...  That is, if the PTBs'll let me...  You know how they can be...  But enough of this. I'm going home now.  Type at y'all later!
 
J^2
AKA: J.J. Franzen 3D Artist(among other things...)
jfranzen@activision.com
 
Name: Dan Kegel
Rank: Tohuwobumeister
Cereal Number: 19
URL: http://www.kegel.com
E-mail: dank@alumni.caltech.edu
 
Thanks to Activision for giving me the chance to do the DOS networking for NetMech and MercNet.  It's fun being on the bleeding edge.
One of the fun things was arranging for MercNet to store each mission in a separate file, so people can create missions and share them.  I hope to put together a mission creation FAQ soon to help out the the brave and clever people who want to make their own MercNet missions.  Check the Mercs home page, http://www.activision.com/mechmerc, for more info.
 
Fragen auf deutsch sind auch willkommen.  Das heisst nicht, dass ich ueberhaupt antworten kann, aber ich lese ja gern Briefe :-)
This is boring!