162 replies to this topic

[Seabear]

To me, the background of the MW universe is what makes it so interesting. I realize that there are many who just want to pilot big robots and kill things. There is room for all kinds of people in the game. If you just want to pilot mechs , do not get all hot and bothered because some of us see the game in a way similar to role playing immerssion: that is where we find our enjoyment. Likewise, canon fanatics should accept those who are not interested in anything but piloting a mech without regard to the canon implications. The MW universe is the framework upon which the game hangs. It is the source of the challenges and the limitations.
As far as posts go, there needs to be a mutal respect between all members of this community. Every one makes mistakes, and everyone was a beginner at some time. We are all new to this game.

[Woodstock]

The 'experts' are experts cos they played from the beginning ... which means they are older and more balanced

[Vandul]

Ta hell with 'em. Read, and dont accept the first thing you read as gospel.

Also Sarna wiki is valuable. There is a website with all the tech readouts to peruse. Its name escapes me.

[Crankey]

To the OP and anyone else out there

The amount of depth you want from the game is quite simply your choice.

In simple terms, this is a warfare game with different chassis for vehicles which can then be fitted out with various weapon armour and support system loads. Different maps and different style of chassis and weaponry allow you to play the war game in many different styles. thats it ................

HOWEVER for the fans both new and old who already have or wish to dig deeper there is a lot of material out there in the form of novels tabletop support booklets previous mechwarrior game releases that can satisfy even the the most drool crazed fan. A lot of the background material is I suspect going to be nice 'fluff' where-as other aspects will be integral in the game though I'm guessing will go right over the head of most casual gamer's who just want to "shoot stuff!"

I for one am I guess an average informed fan who has played all of the PC games and a few tabletop games but my knowledge of the mechwarrior universe (Factions/Alliances/timelines) is limited to the story-lines told in the games as well as my poor memory probably forgetting most of that info over the years.

As I want to know more I have ordered some of the novels and will be enjoying reading them prior to launch.

My only concern atm is having no idea what faction or merc corp I should be joining as my knowledge I feel is insufficient to make an educated decision.

[Project_Mercy]

There's always going to be people who just like big robots and don't really know or care what "Battletech" means. As long as they play the game, have fun and aren't disruptive, I'd like to think everyone would be cool with them. More people = more people to shoot and more $$ coming in = better game.

The following is less on-topic with the OP, but more to some of the responses since:

What I do find though is the people who are new are disdainful of arguments based on past experience. Battletech has had 28 years to work out various things. Games (especially video games) are a dicey affair in regards to players. If you don't hook them, they never play. If you do hook them, and you upset them, they may leave. Once gone, it's difficult to get people back. In fact, baring friends nagging at them, it's unlikely they'll ever come back. Once people start leaving, the game is degraded and it turns into a snowball. You drop from 10's of thousands of users, to thousands of users in the matter of months or weeks.

Many of the long time Battletech fans have been waiting for another Mechwarrior for quite some time. To see it fail is just a nail in the coffin. Catalyst/Fanpro isn't really large enough to push BT out to the masses, so without things like this, there will be no more Mechwarrior, no more Battletech. So, if MWO makes bad game decisions, the game's dead. If MWO diverges from Battletech/Mechwarrior too far, then it's not really Battletech anymore, so basically the game's dead.

So, while there's a few people who are a bit.. overzealous about canon around here for the sake of zealotry, I think you'll find more often than not if people are referring to older MWs or TT, it's usually due to some experience that says "It was done this way because it worked. To change that causes a flaw the system as a whole, which needs systemic changes to balance." or conversely "It was done this way in the past, and it really didn't work well."

Edited by Wraeththix Constantine, 25 June 2012 - 08:30 AM.

[Jost]

There's a huge difference between experts and asterisk-heads. Here's a handy guide to distinguish between the two:

• If a response seems knowledgeable, helpful and courteous, the writer might be an expert.
  
• If a response is insulting, condescending, or derogatory, no matter how knowledgeable the writer seems, they're an asterisk-head.

Fear neither. Experts will help. Asterisk-heads are with us everywhere. Learn to ignore them.

Enjoy the game.

[ApocalypseTroll]

I'm not sure if this is going to be single-shard, like Eve, but in the absence of an RP server one could not be expected to know anything except how to play.

[Menkare]

yngvef, on 09 June 2012 - 04:22 AM, said:

My point is: I hope we casual Battletech-fans, or even just "big-robot"-fans are welcome, despite not being able to recite the entire line of succesion in House Steiner.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just, whatever you do, do NOT mention PONYs.......

[Tombstoner]

Jost, on 25 June 2012 - 08:39 AM, said:

There's a huge difference between experts and asterisk-heads. Here's a handy guide to distinguish between the two:

• If a response seems knowledgeable, helpful and courteous, the writer might be an expert.
  
• If a response is insulting, condescending, or derogatory, no matter how knowledgeable the writer seems, they're an asterisk-head.

Fear neither. Experts will help. Asterisk-heads are with us everywhere. Learn to ignore them.

Enjoy the game.

I would also like to add the grammar nazi. The person who will pick apart your spelling and sentence structure but add nothing
about your content or the conversation.

[ScientificMethod]

Wraeththix Constantine, on 25 June 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

There's always going to be people who just like big robots and don't really know or care what "Battletech" means. As long as they play the game, have fun and aren't disruptive, I'd like to think everyone would be cool with them. More people = more people to shoot and more $$ coming in = better game.

The following is less on-topic with the OP, but more to some of the responses since:

What I do find though is the people who are new are disdainful of arguments based on past experience. Battletech has had 28 years to work out various things. Games (especially video games) are a dicey affair in regards to players. If you don't hook them, they never play. If you do hook them, and you upset them, they may leave. Once gone, it's difficult to get people back. In fact, baring friends nagging at them, it's unlikely they'll ever come back. Once people start leaving, the game is degraded and it turns into a snowball. You drop from 10's of thousands of users, to thousands of users in the matter of months or weeks.

Many of the long time Battletech fans have been waiting for another Mechwarrior for quite some time. To see it fail is just a nail in the coffin. Catalyst/Fanpro isn't really large enough to push BT out to the masses, so without things like this, there will be no more Mechwarrior, no more Battletech. So, if MWO makes bad game decisions, the game's dead. If MWO diverges from Battletech/Mechwarrior too far, then it's not really Battletech anymore, so basically the game's dead.

So, while there's a few people who are a bit.. overzealous about canon around here for the sake of zealotry, I think you'll find more often than not if people are referring to older MWs or TT, it's usually due to some experience that says "It was done this way because it worked. To change that causes a flaw the system as a whole, which needs systemic changes to balance." or conversely "It was done this way in the past, and it really didn't work well."

I completely agree with you. If this game tries to cater to the crowd that only plays Halo or CoD it will lose a lot of what makes this series what it is and the other games developed in this series have worked out a huge number of balance issues. Ignoring the progress of the past would mean the developers abandoned their core player base and created a huge amount of balancing work for themselves.

I say core player base because the fans that worry about cannon are the ones that will be here regardless of nearly anything else. Casual fans may outnumber us but there are at least 4 other new mech titles they're just as likely to play.

Edit: I hope I didn't sound unfriendly. I just hope that people will learn to enjoy this game for what it is instead of wanting it to be more like other things they've played.

Edited by ScientificMethod, 25 June 2012 - 09:12 AM.

[Fl3tcher]

yngvef, on 09 June 2012 - 04:22 AM, said:

My point is: I hope we casual Battletech-fans, or even just "big-robot"-fans are welcome, despite not being able to recite the entire line of succesion in House Steiner.

Hey, don't worry, you don't need to know anything about Battletechs long and complicated history to enjoy the game. I've been playing the TT version for half my lifetime, I've never touched the novels, know nothing about dark ages and isn't Jihad a kind of curry?

Just enjoy big stompy robots with guns

[FFK ClouD]

Wraeththix Constantine, on 25 June 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

There's always going to be people who just like big robots and don't really know or care what "Battletech" means. As long as they play the game, have fun and aren't disruptive, I'd like to think everyone would be cool with them. More people = more people to shoot and more $$ coming in = better game.

This is true. For me the backstory would be kind of cool but I really don't care it's more about the game itself. If i am elitist it's because I stomped people in MW3 days. That doesn't matter now because it was so long ago. I know the names of some of the mechs and weapons and kind of remember how most of them worked. Don't know anything about the universe or lore and will never really care. In some ways I wish MWO wasn't bound to these kinds of rules.

"Wouldn't it be fun if..."
"NO! because. universe."

I'm poking fun here so don't take it personal :c)

It's still intriguing to see people get really pumped about the universe so by proxy I am excited for them too.

As far as the people talking about MW4 killing a generation Well I would have said something like that YEARS ago...but I'm much more mature now, I think we can have opinions without trash talking. I stated my case (i think respectively) here:

TLDR version:

"and MW4 came out with better netcode but it also removed the following:"

• speed
  
• maneuverability
  
• the ability to move the Crosshair
  
• a reason to use small mechs
  
• my heart <3

"I wanted a game that gave MORE in those areas compared to Mech3 but that's not what Microsoft released with MW4....Still I look forward to giving MWO a try and I'll probably enjoy it for what it IS and NOT what I wish it could be."

full: http://mwomercs.com/...hy-i-hated-mw4/

Edited by FFK ClouD, 25 June 2012 - 09:30 AM.

[Sychodemus]

Vandul, on 25 June 2012 - 07:40 AM, said:

Ta hell with 'em. Read, and dont accept the first thing you read as gospel.

Also Sarna wiki is valuable. There is a website with all the tech readouts to peruse. Its name escapes me.

You probably mean mechground.com

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

I am here because of MW4 vengeance, yes I love the the mad cat/timberwolf (I know timberwolf should be the name, I simple got to know it as the mad cat which frankly sounds better imho)

As for lore I pick up a thing or two, the tech is really simple figured most of the basics out already.

Anyhow anyone starting to hammer me about any of the above or I am wrong with some lore I just send them some love (In the form of cannon, missile and laser fire!)

[Project_Mercy]

Chiyeko Kuramochi, on 25 June 2012 - 10:15 AM, said:

I am here because of MW4 vengeance, yes I love the the mad cat/timberwolf (I know timberwolf should be the name, I simple got to know it as the mad cat which frankly sounds better imho)

Technically you're in the right Right now we're all technically IS pilots. As a result, when the first Timberwolf shows up, it's going to get named a Mad Cat.

Personally, I prefer most of the IS names. Probably because some savvy Kuritan named all the cool ones.

[PoPuP]

yngvef, on 09 June 2012 - 04:22 AM, said:

I am a random poster, mostly lurker, on this forum. I am no expert on Battletech. I have played Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries when it was rereleased for free by Mektek, and I've read a bit on sarna.net, but when people are discussing the finer points of the "Jihad" or something, I don't know what they're talking about.

This i obviously quite ok. I like learning new stuff and reading up on the canon of the "universe", even though I don't have the time to read thick books on the subject.

I do however worry that some players and forum members have a "fear" of the experts that make them scared of saying "the wrong thing". There are many established "truths" about BT that most of us "novices" don't know much about.

I for one, like mechs like the Argus and the Hauptmann, mostly for their looks. If they were included in MWO, I would probably choose them because of this. I have no idea if this opinion is "wrong" in some way.

Another example: I thought MW4:Mercs with mekpak was a pretty good game. I actually liked the single-player campaign, and I'm not ashamed to say so. I've read many places on this forum that "MW4 has ruined a generation of mech-players" or something like that. The only reason I was attracted to MWO was because I learned about mechs and battletech through MW4, so it can't be that bad.

My point is: I hope we casual Battletech-fans, or even just "big-robot"-fans are welcome, despite not being able to recite the entire line of succesion in House Steiner.

Just have fun, the more the merrier i say. i have no desire to be scribe of knowledge in BT, I can say i am fan of the computer games .. not so much the the table top.

Edited by PoPuP, 25 June 2012 - 10:26 AM.

[ConanTheGamer]

I played the board game back in the late 80's, early 90's. (Yes, I'm old.) Beside other mech games (mostly other video games) I have been out of it for 20 years. When I quit playing it the clans were just starting to come out. But I am ready to hop back in.

[Steffenximus]

I've been playing MW games for a very long time and I can tell you one thing : I don't give a damn about the politics. Let them wage their little wars, more work for me as a mercenary. The only reason I like Steiner is because of how their mechs are built. I don't support them.

Edited by Steffenximus, 25 June 2012 - 10:40 AM.

[Steelo]

Sallll gravey man

[Deathz Jester]

I dont care how long you've liked battletech, or how many books you've read, or how many rulebooks you've read, or how many table top matches you've played, or how many hours you've logged in MW:4 mercs or any other mech game.

You cant be an expert of a game that you haven't played, even if you've been in the beta, I'd hardly call you an "expert" for playing a couple months earlier than everyone else.


I'll call you an Expert when you start going to MLG tournaments and winning prize money from competitions.