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Entire Mechcommander Series Now Free

arstechnica.com — You can now download the classic Mechcommander 1,2 and Gold for free, along with PDFs of the manuals. Mechcommander is an RTS game set in the Battletech universe, and it includes multiplayer play. You can find opponents via Gamespy.

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  • last12exile, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6That is pretty cool!
    • ActiveMatx, on 10/12/2007, -31/+4Is this legal..... doesnt look official. Be weary...
    • Blarion, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Do you mean wary?
    • merlinicorpus, on 10/12/2007, -9/+7Somehow I doubt that Microsoft (or any other legitimate entity releasing old games for free) would use a proxy for their registration and GoDaddy for a registrar. Based on that information alone, I'd say this isn't legit. Of course we've effectively killed them by reducing their bandwidth to around 10k/sec, so it's not like it really matters.

      Domain ID:D120537483-LROR
      Domain Name:MECHCOMMANDER.ORG
      Created On:16-Apr-2006 01:01:08 UTC
      Last Updated On:18-Jun-2006 22:03:52 UTC
      Expiration Date:16-Apr-2007 01:01:08 UTC
      Sponsoring Registrar:Go Daddy Software, Inc. (R91-LROR)
      Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
      Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
      Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
      Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
      Registrant ID:GODA-019322939
      Registrant Name:Registration Private
      Registrant Organization:Domains by Proxy, Inc.
      Registrant Street1:DomainsByProxy.com
      Registrant Street2:15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
      Registrant Street3:
      Registrant City:Scottsdale
      Registrant State/Province:Arizona
      Registrant Postal Code:85260
      Registrant Country:US
      Registrant Phone:+1.4806242599
      Registrant Phone Ext.:
      Registrant FAX:
      Registrant FAX Ext.:
      Registrant Email:MECHCOMMANDER.ORG@domainsbyproxy.com
      Admin ID:GODA-219322939
      Admin Name:Registration Private
      Admin Organization:Domains by Proxy, Inc.
      Admin Street1:DomainsByProxy.com
      Admin Street2:15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
      Admin Street3:
      Admin City:Scottsdale
      Admin State/Province:Arizona
      Admin Postal Code:85260
      Admin Country:US
      Admin Phone:+1.4806242599
      Admin Phone Ext.:
      Admin FAX:
      Admin FAX Ext.:
      Admin Email:MECHCOMMANDER.ORG@domainsbyproxy.com
      Tech ID:GODA-119322939
      Tech Name:Registration Private
      Tech Organization:Domains by Proxy, Inc.
      Tech Street1:DomainsByProxy.com
      Tech Street2:15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
      Tech Street3:
      Tech City:Scottsdale
      Tech State/Province:Arizona
      Tech Postal Code:85260
      Tech Country:US
      Tech Phone:+1.4806242599
      Tech Phone Ext.:
      Tech FAX:
      Tech FAX Ext.:
      Tech Email:MECHCOMMANDER.ORG@domainsbyproxy.com
      Name Server:DNS1.TCLN.COM
      Name Server:DNS2.TCLN.COM
    • steelmaverick, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Hasn't it been free ever since BitTorrent came out?
    • steelmaverick, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Oh yeah, they make you download an ISO. Yup, its legal. Sure.
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+26No, this is free and legit. Would you like the source code for the game as well?

      http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6D790CDE-C3E5-46BE-B3A5-729581269A9C&displaylang=en
    • caliform, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Link to torrent (finally)

      http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3255088/MechCommander_DesperateMeasures_Gold
  • TankerSV, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Great to see, now if they would just make some new Mechwarrior games!
  • Rikkochet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3My download is roaring along about as fast as the slow, chubby mechs :(
  • CornMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2wow, sweet! this brings me back to the days of yore before i started playing starcraft. my roommate and i loved playing MC.

    but can someone tell me what MC gold is? is that a more recent version than MC2?
    • spitfire6006006, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1mc gold was the first game + an expansion and some bonus stuff, i actually found it and bought it at big lots a few years ago, its pretty fun
  • vedichymn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9These aren't in any way legitimate releases.

    Microsoft released the MechCommander 2 source, but the shared source release is apparently incomplete and doesn't include multiplayer (according to all the info I can find), so this isn't based off that.

    And that still doesn't cover MechCommander 1 or MechCommander Gold, as they weren't released by Microsoft.
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1MS is strangely silent about the whole thing. Here is one official comment I found in an old forum thread:

      If you install MC2, you will see the EULA as part of the installation process. In addition, the EULA is in the "MechCommander2 Source" directory.

      It is offered as a Shared Source Limited Permissive License.

      David Weller,
      Community Manager,
      Microsoft Game Technology Group

      --

      If it's illegal to distribute the compiled games, then I'm sure MS will do something about this site soon.
  • igutekunst, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Mirrors anyone?
  • ravenofwinter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I'd rather play MechWarrior. Damn that game was sweet.

    • gamer31, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I got a copy of Mechwarriors 2 installed on my machine right now, but i cant get it to run...If somone can help me ill host a torrent of the ISO.
  • doolin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Sweet Jeebus, where are the torrents?
  • Koskun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Agreed on the torrents. The servers are getting hit hard or aren't that big.

    Luckily the ISO's are rather small, but still, 7 hours to get less than 500meg is a bit much.

    All in all though tis nice to see a classic being released for free.
  • ActiveMatx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6These dont look like legal releases......
    • Leo55, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2it don't really matter!
      These games are going to rot at anyway!
      I can see the potential for a reboot of the series after this release.
    • sjk8990, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Leo55, you're not familiar with the U.S. legal system, are you?
  • borsdy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Needs more Mechwarrior.
  • Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2First off........somebody needs to start a torrent of these things ASAP

    Secondly, I'm not really sure if this is legal in any sense of the word. The game is owned by Microsoft, and you know how vigilant they are about protecting their intellectual property.

    Nonetheless, I'm downloading them right now :)
  • Serinox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1hurray for 10k/sec
  • TheGreatPenguin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1may god bless all free games on the net, and especially War rock, one of the best games ever
  • Stwo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19.3KB/sec
  • rhedrick, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I'll DIGG it, as soon as I'm finished downloading.
  • Megatog615, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Once someone figures out how to get these working in Linux(through Wine), I'll be set.
    • Murphious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah, does anyone have an ideas on how to run on Ubuntu (or any Linux Distro?)?
  • Gundam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4These ARE illegal, but as long as Microsoft doesn't sue their pants off we can leave them in the gray area.
  • NismoDrift, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2i found this out a long time ago, now im jus asking myself why did i wait for my demos to finish downloading when they always dl fast when i coulda dled this when it was pretty fast.
  • Stwo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I Would have downloaded this and seeded it before I posted the link on digg
  • SnyperVash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25.8KB/s....yeah....i just absolutely LOVE dial-up
  • TechnoRabbit, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1200k/s ... n00bs
  • timmage89, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'll defiantly have to download this, I used to be obsessed with mechwarrior 3 back in the day. ahhhh memories......

  • Hmmmsigh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I downloaded this when it first came out. I have XP. It was quirky and crashed a lot, and the virtual CD drive caused issues with my machine.

    Proceed at your own risk.
  • lolage, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Free things are always good.

    Edit: Except for diseases and such. Hmm. Good things that are free are always good. :]
  • SelfAppointedMe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I downloaded this last night but couldn't get it to work properly this morning so I said screw the virtual drive ***** and burnt the iso to a cd-r and then it still wouldn't work after the install. It kept telling me that I needed to insert the correct disc to play so I just hunted down a no cd key and now it works like a charm.
  • COYOT3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The original Mechcommander has cd copy protection in the disk images, it's been too many years to remember which type was used.

    Mechcommander/Gold were WICKEDLY good games with great story and a very engaging playstyle and enrvironment.. Unfortunately the MSN Gaming Zone won't support them anymore so it's not really possible to play multiplayer, but I remember scores and scores of hours playing this game online with my rail-gun geared J madcats doing hit&run missions..

    MC2 sucked compared to MC1 and gold, though.
  • crashflow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1is anyone else getting a 404?
    • JimNoble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yep. Guess they pulled the plug due to digg effect...
  • Stwo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2somone please seed this.... would be great to get a chance to play this classic game
  • llewner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's alive and well at 96kB/s on Demonoid. Suck it Trebek!
  • springah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can't get into the ftp :/
  • sohiln, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i got mc1 & mc gold and they work fine(i didn't download mc2 yet) PS: i think that alot of people liked the mechwarrior's better than mechcommander's so MS said "what the heck?everybody hates it anyway! lets make it free!" and made it free so its legel.(think about it, its way more fun to be in a mech than command one)
    • Popperdude, on 03/26/2008, -0/+0Good point, this ain't that good. It's missing a big part of RTS, BUILDING!!! So it's RTT (Real Time Tactics), which is not nearly as good
  • Popperdude, on 03/26/2008, -0/+0go to http://www.mechcommander.org/modules.php?name=Down ... for the M2
  •  

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