The Story of BattleTech: What's wrong with it?

[Ganbare Gincun]

It won't happen, certainly all the time that Catalyst hold the BT licence. The Catalyst people go out of their way to avoid retconning stuff. The whole ethos of the 'modern' BT ruleset is that it is compatible with all of the editions that came before. So, essentially, BT is a mid-eighties board game, that can never truly evolve.

They should kick it into the future, then.
Or else they can just let the game die, strangled to death by neckbeards.

[Stahlseele]

They DID kick into the future . .
And the future was, once again, being bombed back to almost nothing.
Cue Republic of the Sphere (dumb) and people steering Gas-Powered Mechs . .

[Ganbare Gincun]

They DID kick into the future . .
And the future was, once again, being bombed back to almost nothing.
Cue Republic of the Sphere (dumb) and people steering Gas-Powered Mechs . .

Are you serious? That's utterly retarded. They need to advance the timeline - and for reals this time!

[Clutch9800]

Honestly, it's pretty bad when the tech in Battletech looks quaint and antiquated in comparison to the technology in Warhammer 40K. It's time for a revamp that updates the technology and makes the game play more like the giant robot anime that originally inspired its creation... but I'm not holding my breath for either of these things to happen.

It's supposed to look quaint and antiquated.

If BattleTech played like the giant robot anime that inspired it, it would suck more than a fluffer in a Jenna Jamison flick.

BattleMechs are just machines, nothing more or less. BattleTech is about people.

As far as it goes, I feel that BattleTech has drifted way too far from what it originally was, a universe where BattleMechs were rare and treasured items. Where "dispossessed" meant something. These days there seems to be a factory on every single planet cranking out 'Mechs like they're Hyundais or something.

I can't say I'm looking forward to the Dark Ages, because I don't know what they're going to be like, but I'm still along for the ride.

Clutch

[Stahlseele]

BattleMechs are just machines, nothing more or less. BattleTech is about people.

No.
Battletech is ABOUT TECH! And the Master-Piece of Battle-TECH is the Battle-MECH!
CBT and even MWDA/Clicky-Tech is a Game about Big 'uge Stompy Robots!
Not even about fast, elegant and agile Fighting Suits, but BIG 'UGE STOMPY LUMBERING TITANS OF WAR!
As is Mechwarrior the Computer-Game. And Mechcommander. Even the TCG. And Megamek. The only things in CBT NOT about Mechs are the Mechwarrior RPG(which deals with life between cockpit-time) and the Fanfiction known as the CBT Novels. And the other Battletech themed Boardgame, Inner Sphere Wars, which most people don't even remember about.

[magnuskn]

And the other Battletech themed Boardgame, Inner Sphere Wars, which most people don't even remember about.

Wasn't that Succession Wars? ^^ Also known as the boardgame you never have time to finish and for which hadn't enough space on the board for all the conventional units Liao was building.

[Clutch9800]

BattleMechs are just machines, nothing more or less. BattleTech is about people.

No.
Battletech is ABOUT TECH! And the Master-Piece of Battle-TECH is the Battle-MECH!
CBT and even MWDA/Clicky-Tech is a Game about Big 'uge Stompy Robots!
Not even about fast, elegant and agile Fighting Suits, but BIG 'UGE STOMPY LUMBERING TITANS OF WAR!
As is Mechwarrior the Computer-Game. And Mechcommander. Even the TCG. And Megamek. The only things in CBT NOT about Mechs are the Mechwarrior RPG(which deals with life between cockpit-time) and the Fanfiction known as the CBT Novels. And the other Battletech themed Boardgame, Inner Sphere Wars, which most people don't even remember about.

I don't know. Maybe there's more to my vision of BattleTech than there is to yours. My version of BattleTech was always about the people, not the machines. The machines were ancilary to the overall story.

Clutch

P.S. The Boardgame was called "Succession Wars". At least here in the USA it was.

[Red_Rob]

Classic battletech has a very unfortunate acronym.

I shudder to think how many innocent Battletech fans have had their mind blown whilst looking for places to talk about their favourite hobby

Clutch, if BT is all about the characters and the personalities, why are pilots only given 2 stats in the main game? You would think they would show off the capabilities of the characters if they were so central to the game.

I think what you mean is that the books you enjoyed and tried to emulate were about characters. Well, duh. That doesn't mean the game is.

[magnuskn]

I think what you mean is that the books you enjoyed and tried to emulate were about characters. Well, duh. That doesn't mean the game is.

QFT. The boardgame is for stomping other peoples Mechs into the mud. Roleplaying and personalities come into play in the RPG and the novels.

[Ganbare Gincun]

It's supposed to look quaint and antiquated.

If BattleTech played like the giant robot anime that inspired it, it would suck more than a fluffer in a Jenna Jamison flick.

BattleMechs are just machines, nothing more or less. BattleTech is about people.

Fuck that noise. The original Battletech designs were stolen from Super Dimensional Fortress Macross - if the mecha aren't even running at that level of performance, then there's something seriously wrong. And it's not like players are asking to run around with mechs out of Gurran Lagaan or Evangelion - they want to play a game with mecha (and vehicles) like in Mospedea, or Mobile Suit Gundam. And that would be totally awesome.

If BattleTech wants to attract new players, it's going to need to dig deeper into the roots that inspired the game. Your biggest potential new audience - anime fans - do NOT want to play big, slow, lumbering piece of shit mechs that have zero maneuverability and have to worry about heat management. If that doesn't change, Battletech will be deader then disco.

[Stahlseele]

I think what you mean is that the books you enjoyed and tried to emulate were about characters. Well, duh. That doesn't mean the game is.

QFT. The boardgame is for stomping other peoples Mechs into the mud. Roleplaying and personalities come into play in the RPG and the novels.

As i tried to make clear up there.
And yes, i got the name of the board game wrong . . i got to play it only one time, sadly . . it was much fun for me . . not very comfortable, as the frigging board took up the floor of the room we were playing in completely, but very much fun nonetheless . . and we did finish that game . . it took several hours, as does a company on company CBT game, that's true, but we did finish it . .
It's the same with the settlers board game too . .
And have you ever tried to do a regiment versus regiment or cluster versus cluster or regiment versus cluster? we tried. once. we did not finish. in one week. and we played every day . .
That's how it is with these games . .
But i would not want to change that for any reason . .
Battlemechs of 100tons are SUPPOSED to be slow and lumbering, not sprinting and jumping around doing fuck knows what kinds of acrobat.
That's kinda the whole difference to anime, where robots are more agile and acrobatic than any human . .

[Clutch9800]

Fuck that noise. The original Battletech designs were stolen from Super Dimensional Fortress Macross - if the mecha aren't even running at that level of performance, then there's something seriously wrong. And it's not like players are asking to run around with mechs out of Gurran Lagaan or Evangelion - they want to play a game with mecha (and vehicles) like in Mospedea, or Mobile Suit Gundam. And that would be totally awesome.

There have been Pen and Paper games created for those other Mecha universes and they all flopped.

While the original Mechs might have come from those universes, they were smart enough not to saddle them with the lame assed storylines those universes had. I honestly can't even watch that crap, because the sight of Mecha doing acrobatics and flying and other stupid shit makes me throw up in my mouth.

You can say what you like about BattleTech, but it does have a pretty solid fanbase and combined with Shadowrun generates at least enough income that 850K could be co-mingled and dissapear.

But hey, to each his own.

Clutch

[Username17]

There have been Pen and Paper games created for those other Mecha universes and they all flopped.

This is factually incorrect. The fact that something isn't being made anymore doesn't mean it flopped, it means that the people who made it are doing something else. They aren't making any more Harry Potter books, but that doesn't mean the series was a flop.

-Username17

[Juton]

There have been Pen and Paper games created for those other Mecha universes and they all flopped.

This is factually incorrect. The fact that something isn't being made anymore doesn't mean it flopped, it means that the people who made it are doing something else. They aren't making any more Harry Potter books, but that doesn't mean the series was a flop.

-Username17

Could you provide us with an example? I know there was a Robotech RPG floating around for a few years, but it never really took off in my area. Other than that I've never seen another mecha universe adapted to the north american RPG market.

[TheFlatline]

Could you provide us with an example? I know there was a Robotech RPG floating around for a few years, but it never really took off in my area. Other than that I've never seen another mecha universe adapted to the north american RPG market.

By "a few years" you mean fifteen for the original run, and a new edition which is still currently in print right? Old World of Darkness had a roughly similar run in length of time.

[krainboltgreene]

If BattleTech wants to attract new players, it's going to need to dig deeper into the roots that inspired the game. Your biggest potential new audience - anime fans - do NOT want to play big, slow, lumbering piece of shit mechs that have zero maneuverability and have to worry about heat management. If that doesn't change, Battletech will be deader then disco.

Welcome to what I said like, 15 posts ago.

If Battle-Tech wants to live it's going to have to take after the most successful Mech game out there right now:

Armored Core. They're up to a 5th game and coming out with a MM-fucking-O.

[Stahlseele]

Fuck and no.
Battletech needs to keep it's distance from the anime stuff.
There's too much Mecha-Anime allready out there.
The Mechs being slow and lumbering is a matter of style.
It's what differentiates Battletech from Gundam and so on.
If Smith and Tinker / Piranha Bytes really do get out Mechwarrior 5/3015, then we will se a huge influx of new players i guess.

[krainboltgreene]

It's what differentiates Battletech from Gundam and so on.

No, what differentiates Battle-Tech from Gundam "and so on," is that Battle-Tech is dead/dying and "and so on" sells pretty damn well in at least 3 nations.

[magnuskn]

Fuck and no.
Battletech needs to keep it's distance from the anime stuff.
There's too much Mecha-Anime allready out there.
The Mechs being slow and lumbering is a matter of style.
It's what differentiates Battletech from Gundam and so on.
If Smith and Tinker / Piranha Bytes really do get out Mechwarrior 5/3015, then we will se a huge influx of new players i guess.

Y'know, I must have missed where mechs which run at 50 km/h ( and those are among the slowest machines ) are considered "slow and lumbering". ^^ Hell, the fastest machines go at 200 km/h.

BattleTech is saddled with trying to be somewhat realistic. Of course that falls flat on its face as soon as you look even a bit closer at the technology, but it has a lot of physically pretty accurate stuff in it.

The anime crowd has their own niche.

[krainboltgreene]

Strategy:

1. Strangle out all the neckbeards.
2. Rebuild the setting from the ground up.
3. Draw people in with more modern/shiny designs.
4. Profit.

[Stahlseele]

Fuck and no.
Battletech needs to keep it's distance from the anime stuff.
There's too much Mecha-Anime allready out there.
The Mechs being slow and lumbering is a matter of style.
It's what differentiates Battletech from Gundam and so on.
If Smith and Tinker / Piranha Bytes really do get out Mechwarrior 5/3015, then we will se a huge influx of new players i guess.

Y'know, I must have missed where mechs which run at 50 km/h ( and those are among the slowest machines ) are considered "slow and lumbering". ^^ Hell, the fastest machines go at 200 km/h.

BattleTech is saddled with trying to be somewhat realistic. Of course that falls flat on its face as soon as you look even a bit closer at the technology, but it has a lot of physically pretty accurate stuff in it.

The anime crowd has their own niche.

Because Mechs don't do pirouettes and cartwheeling and if both feet lose contact to the ground you are in trouble allready. Even running on Pavement is dangerous, as you could simply slip and crash.

Strategy:

1. Strangle out all the neckbeards.
2. Rebuild the setting from the ground up.
3. Draw people in with more modern/shiny designs.
4. Profit.

Yeah. Sure. No.
That's making a completely new game and simply slapping on the Battletech Trademark . . Kinda like Micro$ucks did with the Shadowrun Ego-Shooter . .
Battletech was close to that with the Clickytech MWDA Debacle.

[krainboltgreene]

First: /facepalm over using "Micro$oft" and meaning it. This isn't the 90's and you aren't 12. Well, you might be 12, but this still isn't the 90's. Companies do things for profit. Quelle Fucking Surprise.

Second:

and if both feet lose contact to the ground you are in trouble already

I'm beginning to wonder if you're even playing the same Battle-Tech as us*. Did you just entirely miss the whole Jump-Jet thing?

[*] Except that no one plays BT anymore.

[Stahlseele]

I play more or less regularly with my buddies and via megamek.
Also, i am 26 Years old, thank you very much.
And no, i did NOT forget about jumpjets . . As long as you only use them to get from point a to point b, it's not so bad. well, unless hey, one of your legs or feet is damaged. or the gyroscope.
but try and use them for ANYTHING ELSE that involves losing contact to the ground and there's a GOOD probability of doing a Face-Plant with a several dozend ton heavy machine from several dozend meters up . .
Death From Above? Yeah, sure, let's see, under most circumstanced you get to roll . . let's be nice, 9 on your pilot roll. And even if you do manage to hit your target? Yeah, that's another roll that you are very likely to fail at. And you fall.

[magnuskn]

Anyway, re-making BT into some anime mech game, where mechs do somersaults and ignore gravity even more than "normal" mechs do is a bad idea in my book.

BattleTech can be a fast enough game, it all depends, as always, on the players. If you are capable of planning your movement ahead, rounds go quite fast. Of course about 50% of players are not able to do that, but those would slow down *any* game.

[Clutch9800]

[*] Except that no one plays BT anymore.

Then where is all the money coming from? Are you saying that people buy BattleTech, but no one plays BattleTech anymore. Because that's entirely possible.

But IWM is still in business too, and they make money almost exclusively through BattleMech miniatures.

Now, I am by no means saying that everything is peachy and nothing needs to change. All I'm saying is that your doom-n-gloom is a bit off the mark.

But, as always, time will tell.

Clutch

P.S. I watched the intro movie for Armored Core 4 on You-Tube, it was cooler than the other side of the pillow up until the point that Mecha started moving laterally at 200 mph. After that it sucked hairy donkey balls.