55 replies to this topic

[Merrick]

or a wasp, stinger or Pheonix Hawk. Sadly when FASA made they first runs of the game they used A LOT of robotech Mecha, since they were easily recognisable and would help bolster sales. They had only Leased the designs for 1 year though so when that ran out and no one renewed and Battletech took off, HG sued the ever loving hell out of them.

[Belorion]

Merrick, on 01 June 2014 - 08:50 AM, said:

or a wasp, stinger or Pheonix Hawk. Sadly when FASA made they first runs of the game they used A LOT of robotech Mecha, since they were easily recognisable and would help bolster sales. They had only Leased the designs for 1 year though so when that ran out and no one renewed and Battletech took off, HG sued the ever loving hell out of them.

That's not really the way it went down. Technically FASA could still make miniatures of every single one of the Unseen. HG doesn't hold the rights to make miniatures of the unseen. In fact their whole basis for owning the rights is pretty shaky... anyone with a couple 100 million dollars that wants to sue them on PGI's behalf would probably win.

Any takers?

[Keeshu]

LordKnightFandragon, on 01 June 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

But HG is why we will never see a Rifleman as well right?

At least with the Rifleman you can use a Jagermech and pretend it's a Rifleman.

[Lykaon]

Keeshu, on 31 May 2014 - 11:17 AM, said:

The original Marauder



Or the various Alt Configs for Marauder IIC?


Or are both of these unseen?


I ask this because if the second one isn't an unseen design? Would people be okay with using that? Personally I prefer that design, even though I grew up with Mech Warrior 2's Marauder IIC (which looks like the first Marauder). It also seems to make more sense for MWO's style of mechs.




Edit: Dangit, I also keep making the typo of "Maraurder" instead of Marauder today. Ignore the typo in the title.....

The following old school battlemechs are still unseen.

Archer
Warhammer
Ostroc
Ostsol
Ostscout
Longbow
Marauder
Marauder II
Crusader
Phoenixhawk
Valkyrie
Wasp
Stinger
Rifleman

All of these designs are based upon artwork originating with the Macross Animae series.FASA (first publisher of Batledroids/Battletech) purchased use rights to these images ages ago.

Some time after FASA's purchase of the rights to use these images from a Japanese company that held rights and made model kits and toys Harmony Gold USA purchased "exclusive" North American distrubution rights to Macross.

Everything was going along well enough until we fast forward a bit and FASA is shopping around for a toy company to make product in conjunction with the Battletech cartoon series.FASA approaches Playmates a toy company to possibly make Battletech toys.No deal is hashed out between Playmates and FASA.

A little while later Playmates is now making toys in partnership the Exosquad cartoon and in addition made some toys of Macross related mecha designs in conjunction with rights granted by HG USA.

FASA meanwhile sees some of the Exosquad toys as being disturbingly similar to some of the concepts shown to Playmates a year or so earlyer when FASA was shopping around for a toy production company for their cartoon.(essentially Exosquad toys are little dudes in power armor and that is awefully close to the Elementals in B-tech who are also dudes in powerarmor) FASA files a suit to defend property rights to defend ownership of the IP.

Harmony Gold USA counter files against FASA over the use of the Macross related mech designs.Back then international property rights was not as well defined and the courts were caught up on certain definitions like "exclusive" and "North American" While FASA had legally obtained the use rights for the images it was possible that Harmony Golds's "exclusive" rights over rules FASA's use of the images.

The resulting legal battle devoured (figuratively speaking) tons of cash and FASA was not on the side with the cheapest lawyers or bigger bundle of expendable cash.

FASA and Harmony Gold USA arrived at an out of court settlement (details of this settlement were not made public) Shortly after the out of court settlement all images purchased with the Macross images were pulled.

It would seem to me (guessing and speculation here) that only the Macross related images were covered by the settlement and the other "unseen" Battlemechs originating from other sources were pulled by FASA as a precaution and latter determined to be safe for use thus MWo's Phoenix mech releases using images based on the purchased rights FASA secured ages ago.

So,unless Harmony Gold relents or agrees to licensing use rights none of the Macross based mechs will see light of day because even with a complete redesign HG may (and probably will) produce a suit to defend HG's "ownership" of the images and of course draining buckets of cash and sending potentially hundreds of lawyers to comfy island vacations with the money spent on the legal defense.

[Bishop Steiner]

LordKnightFandragon, on 01 June 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

But in all seriousness, i like Bishop Steiner's submission the best. It looks the most like a Marauder.

Now, if only he could redesign the Warhammer. And in all seriousness, what was so...Harmony Gold about the Whammy PGI used in their trailer!? they made it look a fair bit different without looking exactly like the old WH models.

I had a toy of the Destroid Tomahawk thing when I was like 8. I saw it in a toy store and was like...oohh, cool a Warhammer, there was a Marauder looking thing beside it. I certainly didnt think Destroid or w/e when I saw it. And the WH we have in MW games is missing the missile pods in the torso. And the WHIIC like the one we get in Wizkids MW collectable game doesnt even look like a Whammy at all....


But HG is why we will never see a Rifleman as well right?

I got a few on the books, probably revisit again soon




but even though I prefer the WHM, always found the MAD more interesting to try to redesign.

[Keeshu]

Lykaon, on 01 June 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

The following old school battlemechs are still unseen.

Archer
Warhammer
Ostroc
Ostsol
Ostscout
Longbow
Marauder
Marauder II
Crusader
Phoenixhawk
Valkyrie
Wasp
Stinger
Rifleman


History lesson

Luckily I don't care for most of those designs. Marauder seems to be the only one that is the real bummer. Rifleman looks a lot like Jagermechs in the first place, and Hunchbacks+Hellbringers look quite a bit like Warhammers. It's not the same for the people who wanted to main Rifleman+Warhammer, but at least it's something.

Thanks for summarizing what happened with the whole Harmony Gold thing. Since I didn't know where to look for that.

[Black Arachne]

Shame the new marauder looks better.

[Asakara]

Wieland, on 01 June 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

Hmm, so HG has distribution and merchandise rights for macross but not for derivative work.
But, Robotech is a derivative work. It is made out of 3 different Anime, one of them beeing Macross.
Whole thing makes no sense.

In my interpretation, HG has rights to what has already been made and the elements within while Nue has the rights to make new stuff using those elements.

Edited by Asakara, 01 June 2014 - 04:37 PM.

[Atlasian]

I'm old school, so i prefer the original Marauder.

With due respect to Catalyst (In fact kudos to them for keeping Battletech alive), sometimes I can't help wishing a Big player comes in to tackle HG. The latter has been playing with this legal thingy over the unseens too much over the decades..

[SirLANsalot]

Keeshu, on 01 June 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

At least with the Rifleman you can use a Jagermech and pretend it's a Rifleman.

Firebrand is the only mech that can do it though. It has the energy in the arms along with the ballistics to mount the twin AC5/LL (or 2 AC2/LL if you so wanted).

[KhanCipher]

Atlasian, on 01 June 2014 - 07:31 PM, said:

I'm old school, so i prefer the original Marauder.

With due respect to Catalyst (In fact kudos to them for keeping Battletech alive), sometimes I can't help wishing a Big player comes in to tackle HG. The latter has been playing with this legal thingy over the unseens too much over the decades..

hasbro was in a position to do that... except there was a settlement because companys love having gray areas instead of having a straight black and white legal precedent.

[Fooooo]

Atlasian, on 01 June 2014 - 07:31 PM, said:

I'm old school, so i prefer the original Marauder.

With due respect to Catalyst (In fact kudos to them for keeping Battletech alive), sometimes I can't help wishing a Big player comes in to tackle HG. The latter has been playing with this legal thingy over the unseens too much over the decades..

Could always try a kickstarter


" Help us sue HG and make the founders / owners and anyone involved in HG bankrupt !! "


That will show them...


If I ever win big on the lotto i'd be very very tempted just out of spite.......

Edited by Fooooo, 02 June 2014 - 02:24 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Bishop Steiner, on 31 May 2014 - 11:39 AM, said:

Bandersnatch too. Rather liked the Bander. Dragonsfire was always overlooked due to it's horrid art, proabably.
Bandersnatch

Maelstrom

Dragonsfire


Gotta redo my NightStar, not at all happy with it......

Yes Please!

[LordKnightFandragon]

Keeshu, on 01 June 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

At least with the Rifleman you can use a Jagermech and pretend it's a Rifleman.

But it just doenst have the same feel.....

its like how the american's dressed up an M10 to look like a Panther...or the Germans did it, idk...it looks like a Panther but it just isnt...

Bishop Steiner, on 01 June 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

I got a few on the books, probably revisit again soon




but even though I prefer the WHM, always found the MAD more interesting to try to redesign.

Your artistic abilities are quite amazing. I like ur 3rd picture there the best though. Good work.

[Reno Blade]

A while (7 months) ago MoonUnitBeta created a contest for the Marauder, but even with the awesome re-designs you can find there, we probably wont see anything close to a Marauder but the MadCat/Timberwolf.

http://mwomercs.com/...official-ended/

Top5 designs of the contest:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2925686

Spoiler

[NextGame]

I think PGI & IGP should take part of all the money theyve made from founders/phoenix etc that has clearly not been spent on any sort of development for MWO and start buying up ownership (not license) of all the rights and preceived rights from companies like HG etc.

Edited by NextGame, 02 June 2014 - 03:53 AM.