True but that game was at the very least paused, by a lawsuit from harmony gold, the company that holds the american rights to Robotech. So, while there may be something happening there, Smith and Tinker/Piranha Games have to go back and rework some of the art from the gameBlasted wrote:Except for announcing the battletech 3015 game and releasing intro from that game.I would like to point to this http://www.smithandtinker.com/news/smit ... sa-ips.php from back in '07. Unfortunately nothing has become of any of those IP's in 3 years.....
The Shadowrun Situation
Moderator: Moderators
...why yes, I am an Asshole
Like I said, most phones in California are unlisted. Including mine. Which I've had for nine years. Even when I didn't live in Santa Cruz.TheFlatline wrote:First I have to find a copy of the Santa Cruz phonebook... then you'll be mine all mine!!! Hahahaha!
Anyhow, haven't we known that section of designs were plagiarized for the last fifteen years?
Why would anyone use the old damn pictures, anyhow?
-Crissa
Given the current number of designs which they're not allowed, I'd be very surprised if there was a speed bump at all. Reworking art can be done relatively quickly, hence the intro is almost always available before any actual gameplay footage.True but that game was at the very least paused, by a lawsuit from harmony gold, the company that holds the american rights to Robotech. So, while there may be something happening there, Smith and Tinker/Piranha Games have to go back and rework some of the art from the game
The real time is almost always in the code. And the code should not have been affected. If they were smart, they would replace the designs with the phoenix designs, in which case they don't need to make any other changes.
If it were paused or cancelled, the harmony gold crap would be barely a consideration.
This thread moves too fast - I keep having to add the quotes
Last edited by Blasted on Tue Jun 08, 2010 6:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
I thought I would jump in on the speculation about Battletech and what changes would be needed to the game to make it attractive to more players. Just to give a forewarning, I stopped really following the franchise in 2004, and played my last pickup game around 2007, so I haven't played all of the recent changes (particularly Total Warfare). However, I have casually followed what has happened to the line over the last few years, and some understanding of what aspects CGL changed.
Now, I am not privy to the inner workings of the gaming industry, but I think it is a bit unfair to try to force Battletech to fit a conventional RPG
business model. I believe, particularly in the 90's, Battletech was more of a multimedia franchise that had a large number of consumers who were not interested in the tabletop game. I know that the Mechwarrior computer games generated large amounts of sales of both Tech Readouts and novelized fiction for FASA. I have heard it stated at least once by someone affiliated with one of the companies handling the IP that the Tech Readouts actually sold better than the rulesets (although based on the way that the Tech Readouts have been pumped out by CGL I doubt that is true anymore). Many people like to say that the Whizkids buyout was when BT started to go downhill, but I would have to say that the decline really began when Microsoft stopped producing new Mechwarrior titles, as the computer games were what really brought new customers in.I think that the ultimate fate of Battletech will be based on how well the new Mechwarrior game is received, and if the company with the Battletech license will be able to capitalize on the publicity generated by a new game;
particularly producing products that tie into the video game. More on that
later, however.
Anyway, from the outside looking in I believe the business model for Battletech was based on introducing new weapons and equipment and then publishing new Tech Readouts. We have the Clan invasion and the reintroduction of Star League Tech starting around '90, which lead to Tech Readouts 2750, 3050, 3055, and 3058. The first set of Field Manuals and original Battletech Master Rules around '98/'99, where we get Tech Readout 3060. Around 2001 we get the rest of the Field Manuals and BMR revised, IIRC right before the FASA crash and Whizkids buyout. The customers then had to wait a couple of years for 3067.
While we may want to critique this strategy, it seemed to work very well up until FASA's collapse delayed 3067 and the other products in the pipeline. As stated above, I think more money was made on the Tech Readouts than the actual rule books (IIRC, BMR cost about the same as a Tech Readout, and people would own one copy of BMR and several Tech Readouts). So I would say, at least money wise, the big cock-up wasn't keeping the same rulesets for too long; it was going for three or more years at a stretch not producing a new Tech Readout.Still, that doesn't mean that the Battletech rules aren't badly in need of a revision; the original BMR is the only set that I can consider to have done any real revisionary work. Even so, BMR had only minor simplifications, most of the revision was in the clarification of ambigious rules. BMRr primarily added the weapons from the second set of Field Manuals to the BMR rules, while Total Warfare claims to be a simplification which from what I have seen would just make an already slow game run glacially.
But before we get into game mechanics, I want to mention a few other factors that have helped bring BattleTech to the situation it is in today:
1. Poor Artist Choice and Direction
2. Milking story arcs until the players were sick of them
3. Adhereing to an arbitrary future storyline (the Dark Age setting) that was extremely unpopular even after there was no longer an obligation to follow said storyline
4. Tying up every single loose plot thread of the series (and we are talking
about them digging stuff up from material published in the '80s) together to make the entire setting into one giant (and wholely unbelievable) conspiracy theory / Deus Ex Machina
5. Bringing nuclear weapons into the storyline that can utterly destroy any
conventional force with minimal effort, thus totally negating the point of the game
1. As we all know BT started by ripping off several of the more impressive
designs from a handful of Mecha anime, which about a decade down the line became entangled in a copyright infringement and had to be removed from the game. However, just as much of the credit for the overall artistic feel of the franchise has to go to Duane Loose, who did the artwork for much of the '80s material (including Tech Readout 3025) and was brought back for Tech Readout 3058. 3050, outside of the Clan designs, were mostly reposings of his 3025 work, and 3055 was bizarre animesque material (IIRC done by an out-of-house contractor) that likely only survived because it was sold at the height of Battletech's popularity. By the time 3060 rolled around Loose had moved on to greener pastures and a number of mediocre to poor artists were brought in to fill the gaps. I didn't really pay attention to every single one of these guys, but I will single one out as an example.
Now, I do not hold a grudge against the guy I am citing, nor do I even think he is a bad artist. What I do think happened is that after FASA came apart whatever art direction there was vanished (and I don't think even during the FASA period it was very tight, based on the uneven quality of the material they produced). Anyway, those of you familiar with Tech Readouts 3060 and 3067 will remember that a guy who went by the name of Plog drew that clan mechs and vehicles. The stuff that went into 3060 was passible, although several of the vehicles looked overstylized and unrealistic. However, by 3067 his work absolutely did not fit in with the established artstyle (or even the styles of the other artists at the time, many of whom also made some goofy stuff). We are talking vehicles with turrets bigger than the chassis, gun barrels that would have been three meters wide when scale was accounted for, and all these wierd assymetrical bumps and baubles that had never appeared on a previous design. A good art director would send his proofs straight back and tell him to alter the work to fit with the overall design of the franchise, as BT has always went for a clean industrial look over the stylized comic book themes. Instead we have these godawful looking clan mechs, including (notoriously) one with what appear to be breasts.
The thing is that the guy isn't a bad artist, after 3067 he did some
reconceptions of the 3055 mechs that actually improved their appearance and made them fit in better with the overall style of the franchise. It is obvious that no one reviewed his 3067 work, and just threw it in the layout. As I said before, it isn't just limited to this one artist either. Throughout the FanPro era the artwork was inconsistant at best, even the covers. In particular I remember the Classic Battletech Companion (which was actually oriented towards the Mechwarrior 3rd edition RPG, with the first published set of Battle Armor construction rules thrown in towards the end) had an astonishingly terrible cover; the artwork itself was bad (its obvious that each subject was drawn or computer rendered seperately, and then collated together in Photoshop), but they smeared about a half dozen Photoshop effects on top to make the thing look more glitzy. The ugliest part is, while the Companion may be the worst example, this hacked together style was the norm for Fanpro covers.
2. I believer FASA intended the FedCom civil war arc to last two years or so in real world time. In reality it took four, and by the end of it all but the most hardcore zealots was desperate to get past the "Steiner vs. Davion!" crap that had been everywhere. IIRC there were a half dozen novels focusing on the actions of Victor Davion as the primary character during the civil war, most of which consisted of "Victor conquers another planet, but has more angst about his dead wife." There were at least the same number of novels on peripheral characters in civil war situations as well. The most egregious thing about these was that they all had the same plot: "Davion and Steiner forces are on the same planet and declare non-hostility towards each other, but Steiner pulls a dirty trick and almost destroys the Davions, who only recover in the last two chapters to lay the righteous smackdown on Steiner."
Although I left around the first rumblings of the Jihad were starting to show up in material, apparently the developers managed to run the storyline for what must be getting close to six years now. The Jihad storyline consists mostly of developers using their Deus Ex Machina pet faction to run roughshod over the entire Inner Sphere. Again, just a slog for the players after about two years (much less six), made doubly so because everyone knows exactly what the outcome is...
3. As anyone familiar with the franchise knows, when Jordan Weisman bought back the Battletech IP he thought it would be a great idea to try to bring the series back to its roots, where mechs were highly prized, elite, fighting units that ruled the battlefield. Unfortunately his brilliant storyline to acheive this result (co-written by the same Michael Stackpole who people have been venerating in this thread) involved some Mary Sue character creating an interstellar version of the UN that convinced all of the nations that have been at each other's throats for centuries to disarm. When this storyline (along with MWDA, which was originally meant to completely supplant BT until Weisman saw the immense fan backlash*) was first announced I would say that at least a quarter of the established fan base for Battletech just up and walked out on the franchise.
When Whizkids still had the IP they mandated that BT's storyline eventually merge with the new continuity. When they went underwater the BT developers had no obligation to continue on this path, and could rewrite the future of the franchise as they saw fit. However, rather that tossing away this albatross hanging around the neck of the property, the developers continue to plod along towards an unsatisfying, foregone conclusion (mostly because all that is left are hacks who couldn't write anything better).
*If Weisman had just announced MWDA (or Battletech: Phoenix Rising as it was originally titled) as a companion game to BT, set in a different era, he probably would have gotten plenty of BT fans to try out his clickteck game. Of course, he was arrogant enough to think that what he thought was best for the franchise was what the fans wanted, which sounds a bit similar to a certain developer today...
4. I believe Frank made a point in the earlier thread on CGL's shenanigans that attempting to connect every hanging plot thread to validate the current storyline is the height of writer laziness. I would go further and say that it is the pinnacle of author arrogance, as any visit to the CBT forums will show. The individuals involved in putting together the storylines are very smug that they were able to justify their Deus Ex Machina creations by referencing plot hooks from ten years ago or more taken out of context. Especially considering that at one point someone involved with (IIRC) FanPro noted that FASA had plotted out approximately two real world years worth of preliminary material and story in advance, meaning (based on my projections) they had plotted out to the end of the FedCom civil war when they closed shop. If you base it on the real world, that means FASA only plotted a little over half way through the civil war. The developers, rather than writing compelling plotlines appropriate for the setting, instead have produced a bunch of hack grade schlock they retroactively justify by digging through old sourcebooks for open-ended references.
5. I think we all know what exactly is wrong with introducing nukes to a war game that is supposed to be based around fairly small scale tactical
skirmishes. A bigger problem is that nukes are yet another tool of writer
laziness. Want to shock the reader? Drop a nuke on a fan favorite unit. Which is not to say that there weren't a number of units (particularly pet projects of certain authors) that just needed to be wiped from continuity because they had become ludicrous (i.e. Wolf's Dragoons, a mercenary unit that owned their own planet, controlled the mercenary hiring throughout the Inner Sphere, and produced their own clantech equipment). However, authors can at least give them the respect of a dignified fight, not just "I dropped a nuke because I can't be bothered to write any more, and people will find the use of a nuke SHOCKING!"
Anyway, I have other things I need to do, so I may come back tomorrow and post the rest of my inane ranting (mainly how BT the tabletop game could be improved). The synopsis:
1. Reduce the number of charts that need to be consulted during gameplay
2. Remove all of the dice rolls that take up large amounts of time but don't
really add anything to the game (piloting skill rolls I am looking at you);
replace some dice rolls based contingent on previous rolls (like missile hits) with a MoS/MoF table
3. Condense all of the core rules into a ~20 page booklet (this wouldn't be
that hard to do)
4. Handle new equipment by adding it via an advanced equipment book (the big benefit to this is that you can add more weapons without have to dick with the core rulebook)
5. Make more equipment effects and rules "optional," so those who like them can play them, yet beginners aren't overwhelmed (stuff like aimed shots) Possibly integrate these into the advanced equipment book
6. Bring back the "level" system of play, where L1 is the basic ruleset, L2 is "tournament legal" advanced equipment, and L3 is potentially unbalancing rules
7. Make crippled mechs easier to kill, so games don't go on forever with the winner trying to finish off some mech with both its arms blown off jumping
around shooting a small laser
8. Distance the storyline better from the mechanics, so a new player does not need to understand 25 years of plot to play a pickup game (one facepalm moments observed is Total Warfare's placement of fluff material in the core rulebook, interspersed with the rules)
9. Speed up the weapons phase (maybe allow group firing, as described dozens of times in the fiction and portrayed in the video games)
10. Retain broad compatability with the previous versions of the game (not that hard, the main things you need to keep compatability with mapsheets (no brainer), and the record sheets (again, not that big of a deal)
11. Give the license to a company that won't blow the profits on hookers and blow
And now I await expectantly for someone who is actually in the know to blast my little boat out of the water...
Now, I am not privy to the inner workings of the gaming industry, but I think it is a bit unfair to try to force Battletech to fit a conventional RPG
business model. I believe, particularly in the 90's, Battletech was more of a multimedia franchise that had a large number of consumers who were not interested in the tabletop game. I know that the Mechwarrior computer games generated large amounts of sales of both Tech Readouts and novelized fiction for FASA. I have heard it stated at least once by someone affiliated with one of the companies handling the IP that the Tech Readouts actually sold better than the rulesets (although based on the way that the Tech Readouts have been pumped out by CGL I doubt that is true anymore). Many people like to say that the Whizkids buyout was when BT started to go downhill, but I would have to say that the decline really began when Microsoft stopped producing new Mechwarrior titles, as the computer games were what really brought new customers in.I think that the ultimate fate of Battletech will be based on how well the new Mechwarrior game is received, and if the company with the Battletech license will be able to capitalize on the publicity generated by a new game;
particularly producing products that tie into the video game. More on that
later, however.
Anyway, from the outside looking in I believe the business model for Battletech was based on introducing new weapons and equipment and then publishing new Tech Readouts. We have the Clan invasion and the reintroduction of Star League Tech starting around '90, which lead to Tech Readouts 2750, 3050, 3055, and 3058. The first set of Field Manuals and original Battletech Master Rules around '98/'99, where we get Tech Readout 3060. Around 2001 we get the rest of the Field Manuals and BMR revised, IIRC right before the FASA crash and Whizkids buyout. The customers then had to wait a couple of years for 3067.
While we may want to critique this strategy, it seemed to work very well up until FASA's collapse delayed 3067 and the other products in the pipeline. As stated above, I think more money was made on the Tech Readouts than the actual rule books (IIRC, BMR cost about the same as a Tech Readout, and people would own one copy of BMR and several Tech Readouts). So I would say, at least money wise, the big cock-up wasn't keeping the same rulesets for too long; it was going for three or more years at a stretch not producing a new Tech Readout.Still, that doesn't mean that the Battletech rules aren't badly in need of a revision; the original BMR is the only set that I can consider to have done any real revisionary work. Even so, BMR had only minor simplifications, most of the revision was in the clarification of ambigious rules. BMRr primarily added the weapons from the second set of Field Manuals to the BMR rules, while Total Warfare claims to be a simplification which from what I have seen would just make an already slow game run glacially.
But before we get into game mechanics, I want to mention a few other factors that have helped bring BattleTech to the situation it is in today:
1. Poor Artist Choice and Direction
2. Milking story arcs until the players were sick of them
3. Adhereing to an arbitrary future storyline (the Dark Age setting) that was extremely unpopular even after there was no longer an obligation to follow said storyline
4. Tying up every single loose plot thread of the series (and we are talking
about them digging stuff up from material published in the '80s) together to make the entire setting into one giant (and wholely unbelievable) conspiracy theory / Deus Ex Machina
5. Bringing nuclear weapons into the storyline that can utterly destroy any
conventional force with minimal effort, thus totally negating the point of the game
1. As we all know BT started by ripping off several of the more impressive
designs from a handful of Mecha anime, which about a decade down the line became entangled in a copyright infringement and had to be removed from the game. However, just as much of the credit for the overall artistic feel of the franchise has to go to Duane Loose, who did the artwork for much of the '80s material (including Tech Readout 3025) and was brought back for Tech Readout 3058. 3050, outside of the Clan designs, were mostly reposings of his 3025 work, and 3055 was bizarre animesque material (IIRC done by an out-of-house contractor) that likely only survived because it was sold at the height of Battletech's popularity. By the time 3060 rolled around Loose had moved on to greener pastures and a number of mediocre to poor artists were brought in to fill the gaps. I didn't really pay attention to every single one of these guys, but I will single one out as an example.
Now, I do not hold a grudge against the guy I am citing, nor do I even think he is a bad artist. What I do think happened is that after FASA came apart whatever art direction there was vanished (and I don't think even during the FASA period it was very tight, based on the uneven quality of the material they produced). Anyway, those of you familiar with Tech Readouts 3060 and 3067 will remember that a guy who went by the name of Plog drew that clan mechs and vehicles. The stuff that went into 3060 was passible, although several of the vehicles looked overstylized and unrealistic. However, by 3067 his work absolutely did not fit in with the established artstyle (or even the styles of the other artists at the time, many of whom also made some goofy stuff). We are talking vehicles with turrets bigger than the chassis, gun barrels that would have been three meters wide when scale was accounted for, and all these wierd assymetrical bumps and baubles that had never appeared on a previous design. A good art director would send his proofs straight back and tell him to alter the work to fit with the overall design of the franchise, as BT has always went for a clean industrial look over the stylized comic book themes. Instead we have these godawful looking clan mechs, including (notoriously) one with what appear to be breasts.
The thing is that the guy isn't a bad artist, after 3067 he did some
reconceptions of the 3055 mechs that actually improved their appearance and made them fit in better with the overall style of the franchise. It is obvious that no one reviewed his 3067 work, and just threw it in the layout. As I said before, it isn't just limited to this one artist either. Throughout the FanPro era the artwork was inconsistant at best, even the covers. In particular I remember the Classic Battletech Companion (which was actually oriented towards the Mechwarrior 3rd edition RPG, with the first published set of Battle Armor construction rules thrown in towards the end) had an astonishingly terrible cover; the artwork itself was bad (its obvious that each subject was drawn or computer rendered seperately, and then collated together in Photoshop), but they smeared about a half dozen Photoshop effects on top to make the thing look more glitzy. The ugliest part is, while the Companion may be the worst example, this hacked together style was the norm for Fanpro covers.
2. I believer FASA intended the FedCom civil war arc to last two years or so in real world time. In reality it took four, and by the end of it all but the most hardcore zealots was desperate to get past the "Steiner vs. Davion!" crap that had been everywhere. IIRC there were a half dozen novels focusing on the actions of Victor Davion as the primary character during the civil war, most of which consisted of "Victor conquers another planet, but has more angst about his dead wife." There were at least the same number of novels on peripheral characters in civil war situations as well. The most egregious thing about these was that they all had the same plot: "Davion and Steiner forces are on the same planet and declare non-hostility towards each other, but Steiner pulls a dirty trick and almost destroys the Davions, who only recover in the last two chapters to lay the righteous smackdown on Steiner."
Although I left around the first rumblings of the Jihad were starting to show up in material, apparently the developers managed to run the storyline for what must be getting close to six years now. The Jihad storyline consists mostly of developers using their Deus Ex Machina pet faction to run roughshod over the entire Inner Sphere. Again, just a slog for the players after about two years (much less six), made doubly so because everyone knows exactly what the outcome is...
3. As anyone familiar with the franchise knows, when Jordan Weisman bought back the Battletech IP he thought it would be a great idea to try to bring the series back to its roots, where mechs were highly prized, elite, fighting units that ruled the battlefield. Unfortunately his brilliant storyline to acheive this result (co-written by the same Michael Stackpole who people have been venerating in this thread) involved some Mary Sue character creating an interstellar version of the UN that convinced all of the nations that have been at each other's throats for centuries to disarm. When this storyline (along with MWDA, which was originally meant to completely supplant BT until Weisman saw the immense fan backlash*) was first announced I would say that at least a quarter of the established fan base for Battletech just up and walked out on the franchise.
When Whizkids still had the IP they mandated that BT's storyline eventually merge with the new continuity. When they went underwater the BT developers had no obligation to continue on this path, and could rewrite the future of the franchise as they saw fit. However, rather that tossing away this albatross hanging around the neck of the property, the developers continue to plod along towards an unsatisfying, foregone conclusion (mostly because all that is left are hacks who couldn't write anything better).
*If Weisman had just announced MWDA (or Battletech: Phoenix Rising as it was originally titled) as a companion game to BT, set in a different era, he probably would have gotten plenty of BT fans to try out his clickteck game. Of course, he was arrogant enough to think that what he thought was best for the franchise was what the fans wanted, which sounds a bit similar to a certain developer today...
4. I believe Frank made a point in the earlier thread on CGL's shenanigans that attempting to connect every hanging plot thread to validate the current storyline is the height of writer laziness. I would go further and say that it is the pinnacle of author arrogance, as any visit to the CBT forums will show. The individuals involved in putting together the storylines are very smug that they were able to justify their Deus Ex Machina creations by referencing plot hooks from ten years ago or more taken out of context. Especially considering that at one point someone involved with (IIRC) FanPro noted that FASA had plotted out approximately two real world years worth of preliminary material and story in advance, meaning (based on my projections) they had plotted out to the end of the FedCom civil war when they closed shop. If you base it on the real world, that means FASA only plotted a little over half way through the civil war. The developers, rather than writing compelling plotlines appropriate for the setting, instead have produced a bunch of hack grade schlock they retroactively justify by digging through old sourcebooks for open-ended references.
5. I think we all know what exactly is wrong with introducing nukes to a war game that is supposed to be based around fairly small scale tactical
skirmishes. A bigger problem is that nukes are yet another tool of writer
laziness. Want to shock the reader? Drop a nuke on a fan favorite unit. Which is not to say that there weren't a number of units (particularly pet projects of certain authors) that just needed to be wiped from continuity because they had become ludicrous (i.e. Wolf's Dragoons, a mercenary unit that owned their own planet, controlled the mercenary hiring throughout the Inner Sphere, and produced their own clantech equipment). However, authors can at least give them the respect of a dignified fight, not just "I dropped a nuke because I can't be bothered to write any more, and people will find the use of a nuke SHOCKING!"
Anyway, I have other things I need to do, so I may come back tomorrow and post the rest of my inane ranting (mainly how BT the tabletop game could be improved). The synopsis:
1. Reduce the number of charts that need to be consulted during gameplay
2. Remove all of the dice rolls that take up large amounts of time but don't
really add anything to the game (piloting skill rolls I am looking at you);
replace some dice rolls based contingent on previous rolls (like missile hits) with a MoS/MoF table
3. Condense all of the core rules into a ~20 page booklet (this wouldn't be
that hard to do)
4. Handle new equipment by adding it via an advanced equipment book (the big benefit to this is that you can add more weapons without have to dick with the core rulebook)
5. Make more equipment effects and rules "optional," so those who like them can play them, yet beginners aren't overwhelmed (stuff like aimed shots) Possibly integrate these into the advanced equipment book
6. Bring back the "level" system of play, where L1 is the basic ruleset, L2 is "tournament legal" advanced equipment, and L3 is potentially unbalancing rules
7. Make crippled mechs easier to kill, so games don't go on forever with the winner trying to finish off some mech with both its arms blown off jumping
around shooting a small laser
8. Distance the storyline better from the mechanics, so a new player does not need to understand 25 years of plot to play a pickup game (one facepalm moments observed is Total Warfare's placement of fluff material in the core rulebook, interspersed with the rules)
9. Speed up the weapons phase (maybe allow group firing, as described dozens of times in the fiction and portrayed in the video games)
10. Retain broad compatability with the previous versions of the game (not that hard, the main things you need to keep compatability with mapsheets (no brainer), and the record sheets (again, not that big of a deal)
11. Give the license to a company that won't blow the profits on hookers and blow
And now I await expectantly for someone who is actually in the know to blast my little boat out of the water...
-
TheFlatline
- Prince
- Posts: 2606
- Joined: Fri Apr 30, 2010 11:43 pm
Fair enough, but we A) Haven't heard jack shit about the game, andBlasted wrote:Except for announcing the battletech 3015 game and releasing intro from that game.I would like to point to this http://www.smithandtinker.com/news/smit ... sa-ips.php from back in '07. Unfortunately nothing has become of any of those IP's in 3 years.....
B) when we saw the initial trailer, it quickly got yanked for having an Excalibur in it from Macross.
That was the last we heard of the game.
-
Clutch9800
- Master
- Posts: 207
- Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 5:38 pm
SNIPI thought I would jump in on the speculation about Battletech and what changes would be needed to the game to make it attractive to more players. Just to give a forewarning, I stopped really following the franchise in 2004, and played my last pickup game around 2007, so I haven't played all of the recent changes (particularly Total Warfare). However, I have casually followed what has happened to the line over the last few years, and some understanding of what aspects CGL changed.
Okay,
Troll that I am supposed to be, I feel I have to step in here.
I am sort of the Bobby Derie of BattleTech. I own every word ever printed for that universe and know it and its history like the back of my hand.
I can tell you that the Word of Blake Jihad was absolutely planned at FASA. I can tell you that most of what you call Deus ex Machina was carefully planned and is being carefully executed. It only looks like Deus ex Machina because you don't know everything yet.
Everything else you stated I pretty much agree with. I love Duane Loose artwork, and I only wish we could get Steve Venters back to do some more BattleMech paintings. It was his color artwork that really set the BattleTech hook in me.
I also disagree with the concept that every single planet in the Inner Sphere has some kind of ultimate BattleMech generator on it. Too much tech, too many 'mechs.
Clutch
Last edited by Clutch9800 on Tue Jun 08, 2010 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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setmonster
- 1st Level
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:31 pm
- Location: London
True. All this is confirmed by Randall Bills in his lengthy introduction to Dawn of the Jihad.Clutch9800 wrote: I can tell you that the Word of Blake Jihad was absolutely planned at FASA. I can tell you that most of what you call Deus ex Machina was carefully planned and is being carefully executed. It only looks like Deus ex Machina because you don't know everything yet.
Clutch
Although, given the revelations of the last few months, I'm not sure how much reliability should be accorded to the words of Mr Bills.
Last edited by setmonster on Tue Jun 08, 2010 11:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
I would be not at all unhappy if the Harmony Gold guys all died from syphilis. The way they have and are continueing to screw over BattleTech and Macross fans is nothing short of abominable.Blasted wrote:Given the current number of designs which they're not allowed, I'd be very surprised if there was a speed bump at all. Reworking art can be done relatively quickly, hence the intro is almost always available before any actual gameplay footage.True but that game was at the very least paused, by a lawsuit from harmony gold, the company that holds the american rights to Robotech. So, while there may be something happening there, Smith and Tinker/Piranha Games have to go back and rework some of the art from the game
The real time is almost always in the code. And the code should not have been affected. If they were smart, they would replace the designs with the phoenix designs, in which case they don't need to make any other changes.
If it were paused or cancelled, the harmony gold crap would be barely a consideration.
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Stahlseele
- King
- Posts: 6008
- Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
- Location: Hamburg, Germany
No, they should NOT replace them with the Phoenix-Designs.
The Phoenix-Designs are, for the most part, fugly as all hell.
And in the Fluff, they appear about 50 years after the time the game is supposed to be set in.
The Phoenix-Designs are, for the most part, fugly as all hell.
And in the Fluff, they appear about 50 years after the time the game is supposed to be set in.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Username17
- Serious Badass
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Saying that The Jihad was planned out years in advance even back in FASA days is essentially a laughable claim. Not because it's necessarily false, but because it doesn't matter if it is true.
The reality is that writing the metaplot doesn't actually work that way. There isn't a master timeline flow sheet where all events, or even all major events are set in stone. There's just a pile of ideas, and until those ideas get scheduled into books, that's all they are. Even once scheduled, they are still subject to change right until the get sent to layout. As we've seen with Corp Guide, even being sent to layout isn't sufficient to keep them from being in flux.
Let's consider the plotlines currently on the table over in Shadowrun land for a moment. New Horizons? Gaia Rising? The Corruption? All of those have been kicking around for years and even had people writing in little teasers for them here and there during that period. But there's o guaranty that they will ever see print, and even if they do see print they have seen hundreds of suggested modifications and the chances of the final product looking anything like any of the proposals that have ever been on the table is actually pretty slim.
Let's take a short walk through some New Horizons suggestions for the big reveal:
So when Randall Bills says that the plan for some Battletch event or another goes back to the nineties, that's the kind of statement that just isn't right even if it's true. Because during the entire period leading up to the actual dropping of the Word of Blake, there were a dozen or more proposals of things to do instead, and the smart money might have been on any one of them being the thing they actually did at any time before the plotline actually hit the streets.
-Username17
The reality is that writing the metaplot doesn't actually work that way. There isn't a master timeline flow sheet where all events, or even all major events are set in stone. There's just a pile of ideas, and until those ideas get scheduled into books, that's all they are. Even once scheduled, they are still subject to change right until the get sent to layout. As we've seen with Corp Guide, even being sent to layout isn't sufficient to keep them from being in flux.
Let's consider the plotlines currently on the table over in Shadowrun land for a moment. New Horizons? Gaia Rising? The Corruption? All of those have been kicking around for years and even had people writing in little teasers for them here and there during that period. But there's o guaranty that they will ever see print, and even if they do see print they have seen hundreds of suggested modifications and the chances of the final product looking anything like any of the proposals that have ever been on the table is actually pretty slim.
Let's take a short walk through some New Horizons suggestions for the big reveal:
- Horizon has a bunch of bugs in it.
- Horizon is the next phase of the plans of the Banded Otaku.
- Horizon attempts to improve humanity and it all goes drastically wrong because Communism doesn't work.
- Rogue AIs steal human bodies and run amok in them.
- Horizon performs a subliminal brain hack to turn media consumers into their army.
- Horizon's subliminal brain hack goes wrong because Communism doesn't work, and people turn into zombies and rampage.
- Horizon is working with a group of pixies and immortal elves to conquer things on Earth for Avalon.
- Horizon is a horror puppet org.
So when Randall Bills says that the plan for some Battletch event or another goes back to the nineties, that's the kind of statement that just isn't right even if it's true. Because during the entire period leading up to the actual dropping of the Word of Blake, there were a dozen or more proposals of things to do instead, and the smart money might have been on any one of them being the thing they actually did at any time before the plotline actually hit the streets.
-Username17
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Clutch9800
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There is wisdom here, but the statement isn't entirely accurate.So when Randall Bills says that the plan for some Battletch event or another goes back to the nineties, that's the kind of statement that just isn't right even if it's true. Because during the entire period leading up to the actual dropping of the Word of Blake, there were a dozen or more proposals of things to do instead, and the smart money might have been on any one of them being the thing they actually did at any time before the plotline actually hit the streets.
The wisdom being that real world events can and do have an effect on the way things play out. That's just a given.
The BattleTech metaplot as layed out in 1998 has been followed closely enough that I can consider it "following the plan". (Your mileage may vary).
That said, BattleTech is different than Shadowrun. It's created differently, it's imagined differently. I know I'm being Captain Obvious here, but the fact of the matter is that Shadowrun being "near future" and BattleTech being "far future" it's probably a bit easier to plan and stick to a metaplot for BattleTech than it is for Shadowrun. In 1989 we had cordless phones with big assed antennas on them and though we were future-fucking-reffic. Not too many people were looking at how ubiquitus wireless tech would ultimately be. That was at least one of the reasons behind the changes that came about in SR4. There ain't much chance that the Terran Hegemony is going to pop up anytime in the next ten years.
Clutch
By the by, a lot of the ideas for New Horizons sounds like "Blip-Verts" to me. My daughter works with a guy who was a PA on Max Headroom. He's the exec producer now, but that reminds me that I need to ask him about the Max Headroom days.
PPS: Did I say "New Horizons? I got oil spill on the brain these days.
Last edited by Clutch9800 on Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I need to be more clear. I'm not saying that the WoB Jihad was not planned at FASA, what I am saying is that the way that the developers have executed this storyline has been done very poorly, with a lot of Deus Ex. I think that the devs had written themselves into a corner with regard to the WoB (there was no believable way the group would be able to directly threaten any of the major powers of the Inner Sphere with the assets the group had accrued since the schizm with Comstar), so instead of actually writting an interesting plot involving subterfuge and deception by the WoB in pursuit of a Fifth Succession War the writers bring out nuclear weapons, superhuman cyborgs, and "hidden" fleets of warships going around annihilating entire worlds. Hell, even if such a plotline was written in detail at FASA (which, as Frank pointed out is highly unlikely) it is still poor plotting and hack writing.Clutch9800 wrote: I can tell you that the Word of Blake Jihad was absolutely planned at FASA. I can tell you that most of what you call Deus ex Machina was carefully planned and is being carefully executed. It only looks like Deus ex Machina because you don't know everything yet.
EDIT: Again, even though I am an outsider, from the published material that I have it seems very much like WoB was taking up the mantle of the old Comstar, and secretly plotting how to bring about the Fifth Succession War. Instead we got a storyline based around the WoB attempting to destroy interstellar civilization with armies and technologies that magically appeared out of thin air.
Definitely true, and I think the solution was to have the wars that were always raging have an actual impact on the game world. As anyone knows, in the real world one of the most important strategic objectives of any campaign is the destruction of the industry that supplies the enemy's war effort. In Battletech this never happens. While this made sense in the succession wars (when working industry was so rare that capturing it for your own use was more important that denying it to the enemy), by the time of the clan invasion building new factories is not a big deal. Thus we should see some designs become obsolete when their production facilities are wiped out and never rebuilt, or retooled to produce other designs.Clutch9800 wrote: I also disagree with the concept that every single planet in the Inner Sphere has some kind of ultimate BattleMech generator on it. Too much tech, too many 'mechs.
Clutch
The developers didn't need to pull nukes or some half-baked UN out of their asses to reduce the industrial capacity of the IS, all that was necessary was the Fifth Succession War which they had been setting up since the end of the clan invasion.
Last edited by Tiberius on Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:41 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Clutch9800
- Master
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Your opinion is very widespread. So widespread that it has become kind of a mantra for a lot of fans of the game.Tiberius wrote:I need to be more clear. I'm not saying that the WoB Jihad was not planned at FASA, what I am saying is that the way that the developers have executed this storyline has been done very poorly, with a lot of Deus Ex. I think that the devs had written themselves into a corner with regard to the WoB (there was no believable way the group would be able to directly threaten any of the major powers of the Inner Sphere with the assets the group had accrued since the schizm with Comstar), so instead of actually writting an interesting plot involving subterfuge and deception by the WoB in pursuit of a Fifth Succession War the writers bring out nuclear weapons, superhuman cyborgs, and "hidden" fleets of warships going around annihilating entire worlds. Hell, even if such a plotline was written in detail at FASA (which, as Frank pointed out is highly unlikely) it is still poor plotting and hack writing.Clutch9800 wrote: I can tell you that the Word of Blake Jihad was absolutely planned at FASA. I can tell you that most of what you call Deus ex Machina was carefully planned and is being carefully executed. It only looks like Deus ex Machina because you don't know everything yet.
EDIT: Again, even though I am an outsider, from the published material that I have it seems very much like WoB was taking up the mantle of the old Comstar, and secretly plotting how to bring about the Fifth Succession War. Instead we got a storyline based around the WoB attempting to destroy interstellar civilization with armies and technologies that magically appeared out of thin air.
It's a "Green Eggs and Ham" type of situation. I wish you would try it, I can try to convince you to try it, but unless you do, you'll just never know.
Clutch
It doesn't matter if FASA had written every word of the storyline and FanPro and CGL just published it, it is still out of context of the previously established gameworld and is poor writing. And it drove fans away from the game in droves, which cannot be denied. The line of thinking you present (satisfy the developers, not the fans) is one of the reasons why Battletech is in dire straits.
Last edited by Tiberius on Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:47 pm, edited 3 times in total.
This. The Jihad was fucking ridiculous on every scale, due to WoB secretly building up huge armies out of nowhere, while the collective intelligence communities of the IS apparently had their thumbs up their ass.Tiberius wrote:I need to be more clear. I'm not saying that the WoB Jihad was not planned at FASA, what I am saying is that the way that the developers have executed this storyline has been done very poorly, with a lot of Deus Ex. I think that the devs had written themselves into a corner with regard to the WoB (there was no believable way the group would be able to directly threaten any of the major powers of the Inner Sphere with the assets the group had accrued since the schizm with Comstar), so instead of actually writting an interesting plot involving subterfuge and deception by the WoB in pursuit of a Fifth Succession War the writers bring out nuclear weapons, superhuman cyborgs, and "hidden" fleets of warships going around annihilating entire worlds. Hell, even if such a plotline was written in detail at FASA (which, as Frank pointed out is highly unlikely) it is still poor plotting and hack writing.Clutch9800 wrote: I can tell you that the Word of Blake Jihad was absolutely planned at FASA. I can tell you that most of what you call Deus ex Machina was carefully planned and is being carefully executed. It only looks like Deus ex Machina because you don't know everything yet.
EDIT: Again, even though I am an outsider, from the published material that I have it seems very much like WoB was taking up the mantle of the old Comstar, and secretly plotting how to bring about the Fifth Succession War. Instead we got a storyline based around the WoB attempting to destroy interstellar civilization with armies and technologies that magically appeared out of thin air.
Still waiting for Clutch to tell me what happened with Cassie Suthorn.
Last edited by magnuskn on Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Clutch9800
- Master
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- Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 5:38 pm
It's neither. It's actually pretty elegant. It also fits the established gameworld way more perfectly than you'll ever know.is still out of context of the previously established gameworld and is poor writing.
And just to let you know, I'm not being a "Nah-Nah-na-na-na I know and you don't" kind of asshole. That always drove me crazy when the writers would do it. It's just that your mind is made up and there's nothing I can do to change it.
But I think we're wandering off topic here.
Clutch
Last edited by Clutch9800 on Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
This thread is about CGL's woes, Battletech is produced by CGL, we are discussing the mismanagement of the Battletech franchise, thus this discussion is on topic for this thread.Clutch9800 wrote: It's neither. It's actually pretty elegant. It also fits the established gameworld way more perfectly than you'll ever know.
But I think we're wandering off topic here.
Why do I get the feeling that you were involved in writing or developing this material? Face it, most of the fanbase thought the plotline sucked and bailed on the game as it was unveiled. Any sane developer would say "Wow, our clever storyline is pissing off fans and losing business! We should at least make some adjustments to it to make it more acceptable to our customers." Instead, the developers told anyone who didn't like the new storyline that they can just play in an older setting, which alienates the fans and doesn't sell new product to them because minimal material is being written for the older settings (and none at all for the most popular, the clan invasion and succession wars).
That is a surefire way to run a franchise into the ground. And just shows the arrogance of the developers. It doesn't matter how "elegant" or "perfect" this plot arc was in the developers minds, the fans thought it was bullshit. And in the end, its the fans who buy the game.
Last edited by Tiberius on Tue Jun 08, 2010 3:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
wow, lots of crying about battletech. When did this return from the grave to be a decent wargame?
My expereince with it was when it was at FASA and it was slow and building forces was confusing. However, it was cool and really the only game in town of its type.
Now there are lots of people with games about fighting mechs. Heavy gear is faster and includes plenty of cool stuff. Oh well, times they are a changin.
My expereince with it was when it was at FASA and it was slow and building forces was confusing. However, it was cool and really the only game in town of its type.
Now there are lots of people with games about fighting mechs. Heavy gear is faster and includes plenty of cool stuff. Oh well, times they are a changin.
I fear the last thing companies tend to do is publicly acknowledge that they made a huge mistake and take appropiate steps to address fan outrage. The normal reaction seems to be to double down, use doublespeak to imply to that fans are "overreacting" and plunge ahead. See: Anakin Solo in the Star Wars EU.Tiberius wrote:This thread is about CGL's woes, Battletech is produced by CGL, we are discussing the mismanagement of the Battletech franchise, thus this discussion is on topic for this thread.Clutch9800 wrote: It's neither. It's actually pretty elegant. It also fits the established gameworld way more perfectly than you'll ever know.
But I think we're wandering off topic here.
Why do I get the feeling that you were involved in writing or developing this material? Face it, most of the fanbase thought the plotline sucked and bailed on the game as it was unveiled. Any sane developer would say "Wow, our clever storyline is pissing off fans and losing business! We should at least make some adjustments to it to make it more acceptable to our customers." Instead, the developers told anyone who didn't like the new storyline that they can just play in an older setting, which alienates the fans and doesn't sell new product to them because minimal material is being written for the older settings (and none at all for the most popular, the clan invasion and succession wars).
Seems like Clutch isn't as well read in BattleTech lore as he claims to be, if he cannot say what happened to Cassie.
As the resident starwars nerd, I would like to know what exactly you mean by this, so I can either tell you how much I agree with you or how much I hate you.magnuskn wrote:The normal reaction seems to be to double down, use doublespeak to imply to that fans are "overreacting" and plunge ahead. See: Anakin Solo in the Star Wars EU.
Unrestricted Diplomat 5314 wrote:Accept this truth, as the wisdom of the Crafted: when the oppressors and abusers have won, when the boot of the callous has already trampled you flat, you should always, always take your swing."
Eh, what I said. Huge protests over Anakins death, due to his popularity and the general level of suck that Star by Star was ( for some, others loved it and Anakins death ). Afterwards Del Rey was coy in the extreme about if they planned to bring him back, frustrating lots of people.Kaelik wrote:As the resident starwars nerd, I would like to know what exactly you mean by this, so I can either tell you how much I agree with you or how much I hate you.magnuskn wrote:The normal reaction seems to be to double down, use doublespeak to imply to that fans are "overreacting" and plunge ahead. See: Anakin Solo in the Star Wars EU.
And if you hate me for liking Anakin, go right ahead. I got plenty of heat back then from the "Get over it" brigade.
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Clutch9800
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Heavy gear is faster and includes plenty of cool stuff.
Heavy Gear sucks all of the seeds out of ten foot cucumber. DP9 has always had "'Mech Envy". They'd have to stand on a chair to kiss BattleTech's ass.
Cassie is fine. Vic Milan has her chained to his basement wall.Seems like Clutch isn't as well read in BattleTech lore as he claims to be, if he cannot say what happened to Cassie.
Oh, and by the way. I feel that the Jihad is fine and cool and fits the universe. I do however, hate the "Dark Age" concept.
So don't think there isn't common ground, there is.
Clutch
Last edited by Clutch9800 on Tue Jun 08, 2010 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I was hoping for some actual information on her, rather than a pithy one-liner. But never fear, my own research indicates that she lived long enough to spawn, since her grandson apparently turns up in a Dark Age novel. I wonder if Jonny Tchang or Ninyu Kerai was the father.Clutch9800 wrote:Cassie is fine. Vic Milan has her chained to his basement wall.
Oh, and by the way. I feel that the Jihad is fine and cool and fits the universe. I do however, hate the "Dark Age" concept.
So don't think there isn't common ground, there is.
Clutch
And, yep, Jihad sucks. Saying that giant fleets of warships materializing out of nowhere makes perfect sense does not really make me trust your opinion.
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setmonster
- 1st Level
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Agreed. There is a noticeable God-complex at work amongst the developers to straight-jacket BattleTech into a very rigid aesthetic. A prime example is Herb Beas' antipathy for WarShips. He hates them so much, that he's used his power as Line Developer to virtually eradicate them from the universe.Tiberius wrote: This thread is about CGL's woes, Battletech is produced by CGL, we are discussing the mismanagement of the Battletech franchise, thus this discussion is on topic for this thread.
Why do I get the feeling that you were involved in writing or developing this material? Face it, most of the fanbase thought the plotline sucked and bailed on the game as it was unveiled. Any sane developer would say "Wow, our clever storyline is pissing off fans and losing business! We should at least make some adjustments to it to make it more acceptable to our customers." Instead, the developers told anyone who didn't like the new storyline that they can just play in an older setting, which alienates the fans and doesn't sell new product to them because minimal material is being written for the older settings (and none at all for the most popular, the clan invasion and succession wars).
That is a surefire way to run a franchise into the ground. And just shows the arrogance of the developers. It doesn't matter how "elegant" or "perfect" this plot arc was in the developers minds, the fans thought it was bullshit. And in the end, its the fans who buy the game.
So, if your're the type of gamer that likes playing a "31st Century Interstellar Game of Combat" with any type of Combat Jumpship, well, sorry, mate - you're shit out of luck. CGL has decided for you that that is too much like badwrongfun.