77 replies to this topic

[Valhakar]

It was like 20 bucks in early 90s cash to play 2-3 games. 120 bucks could be spent in an evening of play.

Ah.. the bad old days!

[cipher]

You mean those simulators in places like Dave & Busters?

If so, yeah, never liked how they regulated that. Severely limited time killed it. And worse, there were no instructions on how to do anything, so you wasted all your time with trial and error. Honestly, I'm glad those days are behind us.

Edited by cipher, 19 June 2012 - 03:42 PM.

[Valhakar]

Then again, you could load up a LOKI for bear and blast enough people to get a "free game"

[Slade Bedlam Armstrong]

A friend and I would drive from Davis to Walnut Creek to hang out at a Virtual World back in the 90s. Some of those Clan mech loadouts were seriously OP (did you ever try the Loki that was all machine guns? Sounds stupid? No heat, insane rate of fire; it literally chewed up anything in front of it. Extremely short range and once you ran out of ammo you were worse than useless but until then you were an ambush-killer supreme!). I also tried a Vulture that was almost all SRMs. Again, ammo was a big problem but I played it like a trapdoor spider and waitied for something move past; they usually did not see what got them! Hmmm, I was big on ambush fighting, I guess, lol.

cipher, on 19 June 2012 - 03:41 PM, said:

If so, yeah, never liked how they regulated that. Severely limited time killed it. And worse, there were no instructions on how to do anything, so you wasted all your time with trial and error. Honestly, I'm glad those days are behind us.

The one we went to had an instructional video starring Joan Severance (I think its on Youtube somewhere) that told you all the controls and piloting plus you had about a minute to configure your weapons to the buttons in the cockpit/on the joystick.

[Major Tom]

Those are awesome, and they are still around in places.
The Airlock Kirkland, WA

[SUSTINET]

I miss those so much! What I wouldn't give to have a pod of my own, I would be in that thing 24/7! lol

[Nairdowell]

Think the Dave & Buster chain still has them.... used to play in Atlanta.... not as often as I liked, but often enough... lol

[Project_Mercy]

The pods have moved around some. I know our Chicago pods moved up to MN a while back.

I remember waiting in line at GenCon for 2 hours for when they had the $5 games.

http://en.wikipedia....tleTech_Centers

[SuomiWarder]

I was in the Walnut Creek location back in the day several times. It was cool how in the lobby there were screen with a top down, simple sat view showing the fight. You're looking up saying "uh oh, that Vulture is about to walk around the corner into a world of hurt".

Of course there was no BattleTech lore involved. Some sort of hack story about how you were going into a pod that gets teleported to a world full of battling machines. There was a Mars racing game too but I never played that.

However this was my actual first introduction to BattleTech and made we seek out the current MechWarrior games. (Number 2 I believe).

[Sabastion]

Very much so. Mine was in San Diego.

It was the main reason I learned to network computer games together when mechwarrior series came out.

[mullet steve]

I played in one of those things a couple of times in London UK... It used to be in the lowest level of the Trocodero at picadilly circus.... When it got sold to SAGA they shut down all the other computer game arcades and such because of the competition....

I miss those pods,

Anyone else know of any of these pods in th UK?

[P00T]

Valhakar, on 19 June 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

It was like 20 bucks in early 90s cash to play 2-3 games. 120 bucks could be spent in an evening of play.

Ah.. the bad old days!

I miss those bad old days! (And that Old Accura Legend...)

[PirateLincoln]

There was a Virtual World in Indianapolis back in the day. Loved it. Eventually it was absorbed by the adjacent Sega arcade and it went from being fun to being very pricey for very little time.

I know that there were about dozen pods at GenCon for a couple-few years in a row, anybody know if that's still happening? I would imagine so, considering they ALWAYS had a helluva line for them.

[Drenar]

mullet steve, on 19 June 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

I miss those pods,

Anyone else know of any of these pods in th UK?

So far as I am aware, there aren't any pods in Europe at the moment. The Airlock in Seattle has already been mentioned, there are also two sites in Texas at the moment, as well as multiple sets in private hands.

I also love the pods, I was/am a part of the community built up around them in Denver (our pods are currently not available to play, unfortunately) and I loved every minute of it.

SuomiWarder, on 19 June 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

Of course there was no BattleTech lore involved. Some sort of hack story about how you were going into a pod that gets teleported to a world full of battling machines. There was a Mars racing game too but I never played that.

The lore aspect really comes from the community you play with. We've done things like run Clan Wars, where we pick Clans, roll up Mechs, and then drop for a Star on Star fight. We had talked about (although never implemented) using the Pods as an accessory to the MechWarrior role-playing game, where instead of pulling out minis when it came time for Mech combat, we'd jump in the pods instead. Our group still gets together to play CBT on a regular basis, we're all really into the fluff, and we just generally have a good time.

You are right the Virtual World had it's own "fluff" which is played up with a lot of little touches in and around the pods, but it wasn't meant to completely supersede the fluff of BattleTech. At least, I don't think it was.

For anyone else interested in the Tesla Pods, check out http://www.mechjock.com

[Haldricht]

They were at Origins & GenCon for the past few years and at Origins this year. I expect they'll be at GenCon again. Great fun still, but it's essentially MW4M with mods now.

[Vandul]

I played at the center in Walnut Creek CA back in the late eighties. Then later at Dave & Busters in Denver CO.

Good times. Powered by Apple IIRC.

[Sputnix]

We had some in Montreal in the nineties... now I feel old for some reason.

[BitTwist]

I played at the one in Dallas around 95. Still have my battle printouts.

[Serevn]

What is this stone age stuff your talking about?

[Duncan Aravain]

Played at Chicago's North Pier. Had a bar next to it. Spend the first hour talking trash and trashing mechs. The second placing drink bets for most kills and trashing mechs. The third and fourth hour getting trashed and trying to pilot a mech. ahh...to be young again (under 30).