77 replies to this topic

[Ghostrider45]

You should see the new sems they have now they look great there selling them all over the place!!

[LordBeer]

I tried them once at the North Pier Chicago location. Wish I could of gotten to try them out more. I always get sad now when I see that building. It's so boring now.

I'm looking forward to gearing back up in a mech.

[Donald J Trump Kerensky]

We have the pods here in houston, i used to play all the time. the issue is the pods only run on win2000 and the on board rio chips are not compatible.
we tried to upgrade them. i wrote several drivers and we got some results but the boards are so propitiatory that its hard. Keeping the original software working and upgrading to new usb components is not an option.

So eventually they will die out or be upgraded.

[Valhakar]

No pods in AZ. :-(

[uglyman]

I own The Airlock, the pod site near Seattle that was linked earlier. P00T was here tonight and it makes me smile to see my favorite Star Captain lurking in this thread... VilliageID10T on the other hand... that guy has been slacking...

Let me know if anybody has any questions. There are lots of sites around still and if you don't have one near you you can likely find a convention near you at some point during the year!

Have fun, and never leave them anything to salvage!

[muerte]

Attention Pilots: the Virtual World Tesla II BattleTech Pods are still in circulation (literally) at convnetions across the United States. Go to GetInThePods.com to see the convention tour schedule. Maybe they will be in a town near you!

We will be in San Antonio this weekend for Texas ComiCon

If you're not in a town near the tour... find a BIG convention near you, contact the Convention Organizer(s) and tell them that as a convention attendee, you would love to see the BattleTech Pods at thier convention, tell them why and how you love the pods, and how you think people will flock to thier convention because the pods are there.

Then give them the link above to find out more about the convnetion tour and contact us.

I represent MechCorps Entertainment based in Houston, Texas and we are the crew that transports and operates the pods at conventions in the southern US. You can find out more about at MechCorps.com

You can also keep tabs on us via Facebook and Twitter:
facebook.com/MechCorps
twitter.com/MechCorps

Hope to see you at a con soon.

[Robert Hawker]

You can still find them everynow and then and honestly even being MW4M modded up it still looks decently good, the chairs still rumble, and all the additional monitors in the cockpit still work. If I had $12,000 I would buy a set and keep it in my basement

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

muerte, on 21 June 2012 - 04:54 AM, said:

Attention Pilots: the Virtual World Tesla II BattleTech Pods are still in circulation (literally) at convnetions across the United States. Go to GetInThePods.com to see the convention tour schedule. Maybe they will be in a town near you!

We will be in San Antonio this weekend for Texas ComiCon

If you're not in a town near the tour... find a BIG convention near you, contact the Convention Organizer(s) and tell them that as a convention attendee, you would love to see the BattleTech Pods at thier convention, tell them why and how you love the pods, and how you think people will flock to thier convention because the pods are there.

Then give them the link above to find out more about the convnetion tour and contact us.

I represent MechCorps Entertainment based in Houston, Texas and we are the crew that transports and operates the pods at conventions in the southern US. You can find out more about at MechCorps.com

You can also keep tabs on us via Facebook and Twitter:
facebook.com/MechCorps
twitter.com/MechCorps

Hope to see you at a con soon.

Seriously you guys need to strike some deals and get your pods out here to Arizona!

[MogCarns]

Early 90s, Atlanta had them in the pilot's bar at D&B's. Had a nice, closed atmosphere that kept it quiet, and a bunch of couches and monitors to watch battles you were not in.

By the new millennium, they had them out on the main midway floor, and a lot of the character was lost. They no longer showed the Joan Severance video, no longer needed the Virtual Geographic League membership card, and no longer had the patches and pins, or veteran and master ceremonies.


My most recent trip, they do not have the pods at all any longer. The formerly "state of the art" coin ops are still there... literally... the same machines. Somehow, there is a big difference between 12 linked Daytona USA consoles and 3. The gun games are there... with busted guns. Fighting games with giant projection screen above so everyone can see the action? Gone. Half the midway was removed to make room for a gift shop.

The entire place just feels run down, dated, and dirty. I thought it was the kind of place that would always be there. Sad to see a major part of my teens and early twenties slipping away. I waited forever for my own children to be old enough to enjoy it with me...

[Volume]

MogCarns, on 21 June 2012 - 05:28 AM, said:

Early 90s, Atlanta had them in the pilot's bar at D&B's. Had a nice, closed atmosphere that kept it quiet, and a bunch of couches and monitors to watch battles you were not in.

By the new millennium, they had them out on the main midway floor, and a lot of the character was lost. They no longer showed the Joan Severance video, no longer needed the Virtual Geographic League membership card, and no longer had the patches and pins, or veteran and master ceremonies.


My most recent trip, they do not have the pods at all any longer. The formerly "state of the art" coin ops are still there... literally... the same machines. Somehow, there is a big difference between 12 linked Daytona USA consoles and 3. The gun games are there... with busted guns. Fighting games with giant projection screen above so everyone can see the action? Gone. Half the midway was removed to make room for a gift shop.

The entire place just feels run down, dated, and dirty. I thought it was the kind of place that would always be there. Sad to see a major part of my teens and early twenties slipping away. I waited forever for my own children to be old enough to enjoy it with me...

That's really too bad, dude. "Nothing gold can stay," right? I hate when things like this happen, it's a real shame. We have what used to be a strip-mall in my town that had a great little arcade-style place that had one of those Mechwarrior 4 arcade machines in a Tsumo cabinet. Now there's nothing left there. 8 or 9 stores got taken down to 0 for years, whole plaza is basically dilapidated now. It's sad.

[PropWash]

We're not dead yet!

I'm so glad to see so many people with fond memories of the Virtual World "Golden Years" showing up and posting here.

There are some really GREAT sites out there still operating that are run by the most die-hard of the elite corps of MechJocks.

Also, the mobile sets mentioned at www.getinthepods.com are a sight to see. The sheer will and dedication it takes to take BattleTech cockpits on the road is astounding. Nevermind the upkeep and cost to do so! To date, there are 4 groups touring.

If you are truly a BattleTech fanatic, and you live near one of the current sites, you have to check it out and show some love.

We recently selected a new International SEC and should get events and the central website at www.mechjock.com updated soon.

(And if you like near Grand Rapids, Michigan, you have 12-16 cockpits going on-line soon if not already)

[Fallenbourne]

I remeber playing in the pods at North Pier, It was when I was just a kid and getting into giant robots, after that it was into the minatures game then the computer games.

[Gravitas]

Gravitas shouting out for the Dallas site here! http://www.vgcorps.com Come see us if you're in the DFW Metroplex. There's a few of us that remember the old Dallas site quite fondly. Heck, I had only gotten to visit it maybe 3 times before it was gone. I recently refound the pods here in Dallas area about 6 years ago and I've been volunteering with them since.


And bad PropWash, not putting a live hyper link to your site in the post. http://www.mechjock.com
MechJock.com is the national community website.

Edited by Gravitas, 21 June 2012 - 06:24 AM.

[Falcon Rainfeather]

I traveled to the north pier location in chicago on two different occations. the tesla simulators originally used five commodore amiga computers to run just one simulator. my favorite clan mech was the sumnoner. 1x 15lrm, 1x ppc,1x 10lbx, and 2xsrm5. btw there are afew place in the us where the telsa II simulators are still being used. http://mechjock.com/

[Hykelion]

muerte, on 21 June 2012 - 04:54 AM, said:

Attention Pilots: the Virtual World Tesla II BattleTech Pods are still in circulation (literally) at convnetions across the United States. Go to GetInThePods.com to see the convention tour schedule. Maybe they will be in a town near you!

We will be in San Antonio this weekend for Texas ComiCon

If you're not in a town near the tour... find a BIG convention near you, contact the Convention Organizer(s) and tell them that as a convention attendee, you would love to see the BattleTech Pods at thier convention, tell them why and how you love the pods, and how you think people will flock to thier convention because the pods are there.

Then give them the link above to find out more about the convnetion tour and contact us.

I represent MechCorps Entertainment based in Houston, Texas and we are the crew that transports and operates the pods at conventions in the southern US. You can find out more about at MechCorps.com

You can also keep tabs on us via Facebook and Twitter:
facebook.com/MechCorps
twitter.com/MechCorps

Hope to see you at a con soon.

I go by the callsign 'Observer' over at the Dallas site (VGCorps). Good to see Houston's team showing up on the MWO forums. The Dallas pods mostly stick to local conventions, A-Kon and AnimeFest being the big two.

For more information: http://www.facebook.com/vgcorps

[RABID]

Katt Man, on 19 June 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

a place in manhatten had it, i think it was called laserpark or something like that.

those all ended up in private hands when laserpark closed

[Roadkill]

I was the SEC at the Wizards of the Coast Game Center in the late 90s, and I'm the SEC for uglyman at The Airlock in Kirkland now. I think I had something like 2300 missions at the Game Center and something around 1200 now at The Airlock. So yeah, I've been around that block a couple of times.

http://the-airlock.com

[muerte]

Jade: Find me a big con and tell the organizers to contact me!

I'm up for an AZ roadtrip!

Jade Kitsune, on 21 June 2012 - 05:20 AM, said:

Seriously you guys need to strike some deals and get your pods out here to Arizona!

[Luciora Genki]

I really miss the Pods that were in Walnut Creek California and Milpitas California. I spend many a afternoon there gaming and even doing some tabletop games between matches with other players. The closest set near me now is in Modesto and I really don't have the desire to go there being in Oakland. I was very disappointed when Milpitas Dave and Busters dropped the pods. If I recall they took a pretty big hit to thier business too. Always makes me sad to look over at the area the pods used to be at.

[uglyman]

Luciora Genki, on 21 June 2012 - 09:51 AM, said:

I really miss the Pods that were in Walnut Creek California and Milpitas California. I spend many a afternoon there gaming and even doing some tabletop games between matches with other players.

Luciora Genki, I have no idea if there is still a Modesto set, I heard that place closed and haven't heard of those pods resurfacing yet. That said if you played at Walnut Creek maybe you knew Deadeye and Thunderbear? They have been up here to The Airlock a couple of times since they found us last fall. Basically they take a long weekend and fly up here, and we round up the gang and play all night. They like to play Martian Football so it tends to be a lot of that on those weekends. Last time we played until long after Thunderbear had fallen asleep in his pod!

If you are looking for a fun way to spend a weekend let me know! We will do our best to hook you up! If you like Football you could even come up the same weekend those guys come up!