299 replies to this topic

[Ramius Hazen]

Hard to recall that far back =P I had been playing Steve Jackson games as a kid in the early '80s after a convention in my hometown of Urbana, IL. Ogre, GEV, Car Wars, etc. An evolution from playing D&D. My first RPG. Quickly learned I was more about big stompy robots (well... tanks. Can tanks be stompy?) than swords and sorcery. I'm pretty sure I stumbled on the original BT table top in a hobby shop by accident shortly after that. The rest is history. Novels, miniatures, tech readouts, 1/35th models, Crescent Hawks, Btech3056, MW series, MPBT. All of which I have exactly zero of now. A product of my rinse & repeat lifestyle. (Except for MPBT: 3025. Out of my control. FU EA!) But all fond memories. Let's hope MWO gives us all several more years of fond memories.

Wow. That was too heartfelt. I need to go find another thread in which to be glib.

Edited by Ramius Hazen, 16 July 2012 - 10:21 PM.

[William Boone]

I played Battletech back in the 80s and 90s. I don't remember the exact year. Effects of age I suppose.

I started playing it with some of the same guys I played AD&D with and Champions with. I have not gotten to sit down and play them in a few years, but this might bring back memories.

I wish it was going to be a persistent world, everyone in the same universe like EVE, Mechwarrior would be interesting that way, though I can understand them sharding because it is easier to do.

[shuboy]

I saw the toy commercials for the cartoon on TV and thought they were really cool (now I just find it odd that hitting a Mech in the crotch will make the pilot eject). Wound up learning about the game after I played Mechwarrior 2. It was years later that I finally caught the show on Youtube and despite the liberties taken with the universe found it pretty good.

[WANTED]

Cool Topic! Started playing in the mid 80's when I saw the Battletech box with the Warhammer on the front at a local comic shop. I had to get it cause my friends were into D&D and I just couldn't get into that as much as mechs. I was also influenced by the Robotech cartoon series at the time so the Warhammer was taken right out of those designs. Next I got my best friend interested in trying it out and the rest is history. His best friend got hooked and we all played the hell out of the Table top with our painted miniatures. After this I bought anything Battletech, which was City Tech, Aerotech and even that Axis and Allies clone called Succession Wars. Still we pretty much stuck to CityTech and Battletech with our other friend being a GM.

I was in Dallas, TX at the time and I would go to these events called Mini-cons which was a small comic con every couple of months in the mid to late 80s. I got into the Battetech tournaments and I actually ended up winning a King of the Mountain tourney with my Grasshopper mech.

Then I played mainly the video game versions and wrote a random number generator script on my Atari computer to help track turns for each mech when we played the table top version.

One of the few books to keep my interests in reading as a teen was Decision at Thunder Rift. Loved that book and probably got me to read to this day.

I kinda lost interest in the games and board game when they introduced the CLANS. I never really liked that aspect of the game.

[Dor Kolger]

In '87 I found the game in a hobby store. The store owner was talking up a board game called BattleTech, released by FASA. The concept sounded good to me so I bought it, introduced it to a few friends that I played other board games with, and as they say, the rest is history. I also collected and painted almost all the pewter 'mechs.

[Wolvers]

The group I was playing 1st Ed D & D with was also playing BattleTech

[Aliexster]

I always liked big stompy robots, being a big fan of Robotech and Voltron, so when I was searching through the sci-fi section of a local book store, I found one that had Kyhron's commander's pod on the cover and decided I had to have that. This was when I was something like 14, and I didn't even know what an RPG was, and just enjoyed the history and drawings not understanding what all of the numbers meant. Then when we got our first computer, it came with a copy of Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries that I ate up like nobody's business, especially the variation in mechs, the customization, and the story was just phenominal. Once I put two and two together, I went to our local gaming con at college, and there was someone there playing the 3rd game's intro and joined my first game soon as I could purchase the books. I would say that a good portion of my college career was spent playing Battletech, even willing to do so in the middle of a tornado to properly blow up my enemies in PPC Death.

Then unfortunately life came about, people moved away, the clubs dried up a bit for more 40K tournaments, and I just had a good deal of my books to fall back on, and a few forum games to keep my lust for heavy metal action going.

[phelan]

Love that this thread is still going. And dig hearing everyone's stories!

[Teemo41]

Walked into my neighborhood hobby store with $20 in my pocket, saw it on the shelf and thought "That looks kinda cool." That was 25 years ago* and I'm still hooked.

*The weapons list has one flavor of autocannon on it.

[Flecks]

I saw the game on the shelf when I was 14.. I had just began playing table top games. Mostly D&D but also some Axis and Allies and Blood Bowl. I was instantly hooked. I have played almost every incarnation of the game on every platform. Including one that ran on a 486 50 mghz PC with 2 Megs of Ram... I know it was a great machine : P. I had all but given up on gaming when I stumbled on to this site. I can't tell you how happy I am. I have ran Battletech gaming clubs and mechwarrior clubs. I have been a GM and designed untold numbers scenarios and situations in the Universe. I just want to say thanks to the dev's for picking this up. I am excited, truly excited, to play this game.

Flecks,
Leon

[Mad Mortigan]

A friend of mine gave me a copy of Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception for my Amiga 500. Loved the video game and then found out about the table-top game. Been playing everything battletech related ever since.

[Elbola Ierocis]

Grade 7, was given a battletech novel figuring it would be to my tastes, since I liked mecha other things. Natural Selection...it had a bit in it where a kid had a Battlemaster miniature. I figured that would be really nice to have one too. Found out THEY DID HAVE THEM! Then the race was on to gather a regiment and play all things battletech/mechwarrior. From Cresent Hawk's Inception to MW4: mercenaries...from battletroops to battlespace. Great times.

[Gettothechoppa]

I played the first computer game of it and was hooked, I started reading the fasa novels and I was hooked on those as well. I read just about every novel published on mechwarrior stuff.
They all disappeared and so did FASA, I am glad to see the founders of that empire have re-emerged.
Since the first computer game version of it, i have played every pc mechwarrior game published so far.

I heard a few years ago they were going to reboot the genre and I have been waiting since then to see it happen.

[Rock n Rolla]

Even though I was pretty young, I was already an experienced role-player and table-top gamer when I found Battletech in the mid eighties. I was also already a huge mech fan thanks to Robotech. I'd seen some of the BT novels on the shelf at the local book store and eventually decided to read one just for the heck of it. Not knowing where to start, I just grabbed one. The book that I ended picking up was Wolves on the Border by Robert N. Charrette, and I couldn't put it down. I instantly fell in love with the BT universe and began buying gaming material like it was going outta style. Still got all of my old books and never stopped playing since.

[Capn yoaz]

It was the 90s and a buddy of mine took me to the flea-market were we both picked up a 3rd edition boxed set for around $10 each. We tried to teach ourselves how to play, but it proved too difficult for us, and turned to MW2 instead for our giant robot gaming. We always played other table games(d&d, shadowrun, etc.) but we never played battletech. I recently pulled my old boxed set of the self and started thumbing through it and started cleaning up the plastic minis. I'm probably going to paint them this week because my weekly gamng group is closing this campaign of AD&D and is starting a mechwarrior/battletech campaign. I'm getting excited more and more each day.

[GreyTemplar]

It was the early 90's for me. Maybe 92-93, I don't remember why, but i was drawn to a novel called "Lethal Heritage." I think we all know the one. And that started my spiral. I wasn't able to get into the tabletop game at the time, money constraints (my family didn't make a lot). Then it kind of faded from my memory until 94 when the Battletech Animated Series aired. I would wake up at 5am on the dot every Monday morning to watch it on my local cable station, and it re-invigored my love for the series, and i went out and bought more of the novels.

95 rolled around, and mechwarrior 2 came out. Bought the game with money I had saved up from allowances and went nuts over it! I got into Magic the gathering around the same time. 96 rolled around, and WotC released the Battletech CCG and I gave up magic for the game. At this time I also had convinced my mom to buy me the Battletech TT Starter set and got a friend into both the CCG and TT. Me and my friend went through REAMS of paper and ink printing out mech sheets, creating mech designs. Pouring over the tech books filling our heads. playing the mechwarrior d10 RPG along with our tabletop games. That continued into the Clix TT "Mechwarrior Dark Ages" That pretty much continued until 2001 when we both graduated HS, went to college, AND the CCG went out of print.

Once 2005 rolled around I joined the navy, put everything BT into storage and never met a fellow player while in the service.

Well now we've come full circle with MWO.

I do miss those old days though. Playing the CCG and original hex TT. (Dark ages was fun, but not quite the same)

[Beazle]

I got my hands on a copy of the original TRO 3025 and was hooked.

The combination of super-scifi robots presented in a nuts-and-bolts fashion, with a bit of Mad Max post apoclaypse thrown in hit all my major buttons in one swing.

@GreyTemplar

You should've gone Army instead. I met tons of players in the service(ok, maybe a bit over a dozen). I've got 5 i still play with on a regular basis. (which is why i love MegaMek, I have one campaign that contains a guy in Korea, and a guy in Alaska, with me in Hawai'i)

[Karen Tupolov]

Hmm, well I recall walking into a games shop to find Yugi-Oh cards (dumb, right?) when I was about seven and remember seeing a display case full of 'Mechs. I practically salivated over the whole thing! I told myself that I was going to get some of those and force myself to learn whatever the game was, and sure enough, I came back a month later and purchased the starter set for Dark Age and two Fire for Effect boosters. The clerk told me to come back the following Wednesday since that's when they did game nights, and the guys let me watch and taught me how to play.

I have to give them credit for having the patience to teach a seven year old, but they were incredibly helpful and really awesome people. Initially I started out with a small Spirit Cat army, and later expanded to Dragon's Fury and Bannson's Raiders. I also had a few Stormhammers briefly, but I traded any other faction pieces I had gotten. Only played until I was thirteen, by that point, most of the players moved on and the game was no longer hosted at the store.

[Dual Face]

It all started with my Dad, He's into video games and wargaming. I would always spend time painting models with him (or breaking them when I was a kid) and playing games with him.

At some point, he introduced me to Battletech and MechWarrior 2 on the PlayStation.
Combine Battletech, MechWarrior, and my love for science fiction and giant robots and you have a couple hobbies that will last you a lifetime

[Eizel Crow]

I started with the book "Warrior Coup", in '85. then I found the game in box form with the cardboard cutout mechs. I played that until I had to write the names on the mechs because they were worn so badly. Then I started playing mech warrior with friends as a senior in high school a couple years later. After I moved out and got my own place I found the table top version and set up my own gaming club with the lead miniatures. I played that for a few years as I was reading everything Battle Tech or Mech Warrior. Then I found the game online and I am proud to say I served with the "Gimpoids" as Lightbow_Gimpoid during the tournements. My favorite mech was and still is the Shadowcat. In 2003 my job caused me to be gone for a year at a time and I longed to play again. I had my Table top set shipped to me and found out that there was still a huge following of the game. We played when we could. When I stumbled upon the MWO advertisement a couple of months ago I was elated. I am a Recon pilot by trade and this game brings me back to my carefree youth. I now have a Legendary membership and play almost everyday. I am currently reading the Mech warrior Dark Age series, just started book 8 of 25. Love the game and the universe. Thank you for bringing this girl some happiness once again developers and designers.