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.
Clutch
Battletech is glacially slow. It mecha is both old looking and boring. Its game system includes no command elements, no comms and coordination elements and limits you to a pretty small number of units to play in a single session. It doesn't include relevant offboard aritiliary or planes easily, and when you find somebody willing to play battletech with all the bells and wistles they don't play the new rules they play with the old faded blue Battletech Master rules. Its factions are reskinns except for the clans which nobody will let anybody play.
The big thing is that battletech died everywhere I have been able to game for the past 10 years and nobody gave a shit when it did. Hell at my FLGS more people play that STUPID starship troopers mini's game based off the movies than play anymecha wargame.
I have at least seen heavy gear played in places and have litterally not seen battletech on a table with people actually playing it in a decade.
However, I do have something to say that we can both agree on and that is that I wish people would play some actual god damn wargames and stop playing warhammer 40Krap. At this point I would play anything that was more complex than that WWI meatgrinder simulator.
magnuskn wrote: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.
And if you hate me for liking Anakin, go right ahead. I got plenty of heat back then from the "Get over it" brigade.
The problem with what you said is that it was very vague, and could apply to the Get Over It Brigade as well as Team Anakin Forever.
But yes, they way they decided to handle post Anakin's death (and even the way they made him the main character right up until they randomly offed him because of meta concerns with no real warning or place for the switch) was done extremely poorly.
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."
Kaelik wrote:The problem with what you said is that it was very vague, and could apply to the Get Over It Brigade as well as Team Anakin Forever.
But yes, they way they decided to handle post Anakin's death (and even the way they made him the main character right up until they randomly offed him because of meta concerns with no real warning or place for the switch) was done extremely poorly.
One of the coolest BattleTech characters ever. The mere complexity of the friendship between Theodore and Ninyu could have recieved a lot more attention imho.
Saying that giant fleets of warships materializing out of nowhere makes perfect sense does not really make me trust your opinion.
Of course it doesn't make sense, but that's because it didn't happen. You don't have to trust my opinion, but you do have to actually read the story of how it all went down in order to understand it. But like I said, I think your mind is already made up.
As far as Warships go, I've personally always felt that the Aerospace element has gotten the short shrift in BattleTech. When I used to actually be able to play a game or two I would always use an AT2 "Radar Map" that was on a magnetic white board by my play area. I glued magnets to the back of AT1 counters and we used them to have Aerospace Close Air Support avalilable to both sides, so long as they could penetrate the CAP over the battlefield.
It made the "King of the Battlefield" fear the terms "snake and nape".
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.
Having your own personal opinion of the storyline is fine. What must be understood, to comprehend the greater problems of the BT franchise, is that most of the fanbase did not like the way the Jihad plot was executed, and thus left the game. An easy way to track this is to look at the number of active Battletech forums on the web. In 2001, pre MWDA announcement, there were over a half dozen fan boards that were getting a couple hundred posts a day. Even after the MWDA announcement all of those boards were still active (though there was some traffic drop due to the number of players who quit immediately on hearing the news). However, after the Jihad storyline was first unveiled these fan boards began hemorrhaging posters, which really picked up when the FedCom civil war ended and the Jihad material first started entering circulation. These days the only active board is the official CBT board. I just checked some boards that, during their heyday, could have close to 1000 posts in a 24 hour period amongst all of their sub-forums, and found that they are lucky to have a half dozen posts in one day, which is for all intents and purposes a dead board. I remember when I left the game (which was right when the first Jihad material started publishing) that there were still four or five fan forums that could be considered reasonable active. Now I can't find a single one outside of CBT.
Clutch9800 wrote:You don't have to trust my opinion, but you do have to actually read the story of how it all went down in order to understand it. But like I said, I think your mind is already made up.
Clutch
I think plenty of us have read the story of how it all went down. It still doesn't make the Jihad arc, and the attendant ridiculous plot elements, any better. Hidden Worlds? Super-Space Cyborgs (whom you aren't even allowed to use a PCs - more badwrongfun)? A whole slew of iconic characters liquidated in a single bomb blast? A mysterious escapee from a re-education camp who everyone spontaneously decides should become Space Emperor?
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.
Having your own personal opinion of the storyline is fine. What must be understood, to comprehend the greater problems of the BT franchise, is that most of the fanbase did not like the way the Jihad plot was executed, and thus left the game. An easy way to track this is to look at the number of active Battletech forums on the web. In 2001, pre MWDA announcement, there were over a half dozen fan boards that were getting a couple hundred posts a day. Even after the MWDA announcement all of those boards were still active (though there was some traffic drop due to the number of players who quit immediately on hearing the news). However, after the Jihad storyline was first unveiled these fan boards began hemorrhaging posters, which really picked up when the FedCom civil war ended and the Jihad material first started entering circulation. These days the only active board is the official CBT board. I just checked some boards that, during their heyday, could have close to 1000 posts in a 24 hour period amongst all of their sub-forums, and found that they are lucky to have a half dozen posts in one day, which is for all intents and purposes a dead board. I remember when I left the game (which was right when the first Jihad material started publishing) that there were still four or five fan forums that could be considered reasonable active. Now I can't find a single one outside of CBT.
Well,
The quick answer is that prior to then there was no official CBT board. I would probably say that most of the traffic that had been going to disparate forums all over the place congregated there.
CBT.com's forums stay pretty busy, as far as it goes.
I'm not saying everything is fine, it's not. I have to be honest and tell you that I no longer have a dog in this fight.
No matter how things shake out, my toes are still tapping.
There's been an official CBT board since at least 2002, so that wasn't what killed the other boards. These boards were communities in themselves, so while many people also visited the official board they still remained active at the fan boards, where they had social connections. In any case, the output of the CBT board now is not even close to the overall output of BT boards even in 2004, much less in 2000/2001 when the internet BT community was at its height. The CBT forum may be reasonably active (I think they have a few hundred posts on a busy day) but there were individual fan boards in the 2000/2001 era that could easily break 1000 posts on a good day. I would say that the number of people with an interest in BT is less than 10% of the number of customers around in 2001.
Tiberius wrote: What must be understood, to comprehend the greater problems of the BT franchise, is that most of the fanbase did not like the way the Jihad plot was executed, and thus left the game.
One of my big pet peeves is when people project their own anecdotal experience as a universal fact. There is no evidence that what you are suggesting happened. Just because you left for that reason, does not make it true for everyone else.
Tiberius wrote: What must be understood, to comprehend the greater problems of the BT franchise, is that most of the fanbase did not like the way the Jihad plot was executed, and thus left the game.
One of my big pet peeves is when people project their own anecdotal experience as a universal fact. There is no evidence that what you are suggesting happened. Just because you left for that reason, does not make it true for everyone else.
Tiberius went on to provide evidence in the form of his observations of the large reduction in traffic to the various BT forums. Rather than responding to selective portions of his/her post, why don't you attempt to provide counter-evidence?
Tiberius wrote: What must be understood, to comprehend the greater problems of the BT franchise, is that most of the fanbase did not like the way the Jihad plot was executed, and thus left the game.
One of my big pet peeves is when people project their own anecdotal experience as a universal fact. There is no evidence that what you are suggesting happened. Just because you left for that reason, does not make it true for everyone else.
Tiberius went on to provide evidence in the form of his observations of the large reduction in traffic to the various BT forums. Rather than responding to selective portions of his/her post, why don't you attempt to provide counter-evidence?
Oh that? Seemed hardly worth it given that it was just subjective anecdotal bs, but ok.
First, using forum activity as evidence is fundamentally flawed because forums by definition are a form of self-selected listener opinion poll (SSLOP). There is no necessary link between a forum and the larger user base.
Even if we put that aside, the claims made about forum usage are cursory and highly subjective. I could just as easily point out how many newbies I see coming over to the CBT forums on a regular basis as evidence that the user base is growing rapidly, but that would be based on my own subjective point of view, which because of my pre-existing orientation, is predisposed to see the fan base as growing rather than shrinking.
Even if I were to grant the whole "forum usage as evidence," the argument is fundamentally unsound based on the years that Tiberious cited. If you are going to look at 2000-01 as the base, of course you will see a drop-off in the player base. This is right about the time that FASA folded and MWDA was brought into the picture as a replacement for Battletech. At that point in time it was not clear at all that Classic Battletech was going to continue. The real test of whether the current holders have done a good job is the extent to which the user base has been re-energized/expanded from what was clearly a nadir point in the early 2000's.
Tiberius wrote: What must be understood, to comprehend the greater problems of the BT franchise, is that most of the fanbase did not like the way the Jihad plot was executed, and thus left the game.
One of my big pet peeves is when people project their own anecdotal experience as a universal fact. There is no evidence that what you are suggesting happened. Just because you left for that reason, does not make it true for everyone else.
One of my big pet peeves is people who baselessly trot out logical fallacies whenever they don't agree with someone's argument.
Taharqa wrote:Even if I were to grant the whole "forum usage as evidence," the argument is fundamentally unsound based on the years that Tiberious cited. If you are going to look at 2000-01 as the base, of course you will see a drop-off in the player base. This is right about the time that FASA folded and MWDA was brought into the picture as a replacement for Battletech. At that point in time it was not clear at all that Classic Battletech was going to continue. The real test of whether the current holders have done a good job is the extent to which the user base has been re-energized/expanded from what was clearly a nadir point in the early 2000's.
Its true since 2004 as well, buddy:
Tiberius wrote: I remember when I left the game (which was right when the first Jihad material started publishing) that there were still four or five fan forums that could be considered reasonable active. Now I can't find a single one outside of CBT.
First, using forum activity as evidence is fundamentally flawed because forums by definition are a form of self-selected listener opinion poll (SSLOP). There is no necessary link between a forum and the larger user base.
You could discount any quantitative measurement based on your definition of "self selected."
Even if we put that aside, the claims made about forum usage are cursory and highly subjective. I could just as easily point out how many newbies I see coming over to the CBT forums on a regular basis as evidence that the user base is growing rapidly, but that would be based on my own subjective point of view, which because of my pre-existing orientation, is predisposed to see the fan base as growing rather than shrinking.
Nice way to try to insinuate that the BT player base is growing while leaving yourself an easy way out for when anyone calls you on it.
Last edited by Tiberius on Tue Jun 08, 2010 5:57 pm, edited 7 times in total.
Tiberius wrote:
Nice way to try to insinuate that the BT player base is growing while leaving yourself an easy way out for when anyone calls you on it.
I do think the player base is growing, you think its declining. The difference is that I willingly admit that my perception is based on my own anecdotal subjective impression and thus I don't trot it out as a god-given fact that I expect others to swallow.
Tiberius wrote:I provide evidence, you are a very obvious shill for CGL. End of story.
And there we have it. The ultimate in civil discourse. Kind of the internet equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ear and saying "nah-nah nah-nah."
When you start attacking me instead of my arguments, I generally take it as a sign that you have no decent counterpoint.
OK, lets look at the evidence. You registered for this forum on May 17th, and have only ever posted in this thread. All of the statements you have made in this thread have been attempts to derail the discussion by nitpicking other's arguments, or encouraging debates that deflect attention from CGL's woes. You regularly ignore evidence that is contrary to your claims, and have at every opportunity been an apologist for CGL, even in the face of official court records showing your argument points to be false. This is classic shill behavior.
There is no point in me holding a reasonable discussion with you, as conversation with you is not actually a discussion. Instead you will go to any lengths necessary to protect CGLs interests, no matter what the truth is. Your hypocritical piety is amusing.
Off the silly BT sidetrack and back onto how AH's is an asshat! He's now engaged in a public pissing match with the freelancer who redrafted his material. Good times.
Asbestos Underwear wrote:Off the silly BT sidetrack and back onto how AH's is an asshat! He's now engaged in a public pissing match with the freelancer who redrafted his material. Good times.
Well, it was fairly obvious Ancient History would make an issue out of this. All along he's had a low opinion of the scabs who are prepared to carry on writing for Hardy.
Asbestos Underwear wrote:Off the silly BT sidetrack and back onto how AH's is an asshat! He's now engaged in a public pissing match with the freelancer who redrafted his material. Good times.
Oh, Fuchs, you silly fool. Even Frank has said that AH is a bit off the reservation. I'm not sure whether your propensity for finding scary beasts of bias lurking in every shadow is charming or a sign or paranoid obsession.
In any event, AH is so full of hate and rage towards JMH that he's making a fucking fool of himself. Part of this is probably his annoyance at JMH's relentless effort to release an "official" alternative to his own PACKS system, which he was so obviously hoping to monetize through a new licensee, but most of it's personal pique. Now that the actual author has called BS on the claims, he's desperately trying to blameshift away from fellow writers and back onto his one true love. It's like watching a child trying to put toothpaste back in a tube.
Last edited by Asbestos Underwear on Tue Jun 08, 2010 7:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
