52 replies to this topic

[Catharsis]

Question:

Would one of my trothkin please explain to me why this: (Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries design)
is this: (from Sarna: http://www.sarna.net...rer_(Hellhound) )


And I apologize for the first imagine being so large... I can not figure out how to re-size it. I just linked the URL from an image in google.

[Vexgrave Lars]

"It is noteworthy that the Conjurer is, for all intents and purposes, the Wolverine-IIC (and was even reported as such); it was designed off the original Wolverine, taking the concept and rebuilding it with advanced technology. However the Clanswould not retain the name of the Not-Named Clan for the redesigned 'Mech."

Knowing the inability of people getting licenses to use artwork the right way... I'm gonna lean towards real world legal issues with my bet.

[GaussDragon]

I wish it had a more competitive set of hard points in MW4: Mercs. It's one of the best-looking mechs IMHO.

[Roh]

Er the hellhound is an awesome mech for it's weight class in mw4. What exactly do you want on it? Quad ppcs and a couple ac 20s just for kicks? Its actually one of my favorite mechs period. As for the one on Sarna? Not really familiar with it.

[Stormwolf]

It is one of the better redesigns around, but unfortunately it complete misses the point like Vexgrave pointed out.

Roh, on 07 April 2012 - 04:12 PM, said:

As for the one on Sarna? Not really familiar with it.

That one is the canon design.

[Alaskan Viking]

The cannon design sucks. The MW4 one looks very nice though, the way a mech is supposed to look. Reminds me of a mech from Earthsiege.

[Gremlich Johns]

The one on sarna is just a reimagining of a Dougram or Roundfacer (also from Dougram:Fang of the Sun).

Indeed, the canon one design is meh.

The MW4 one was one of my favorites, as well. When it came out, a lot of players laughed at it, even my teammates. That is until I stuck an LBX/AC10, SSRMs and a Large Laser on it, I would be the first mech they would take out in practice because I made them die if I caught them quickly enough or alone. We even took on a team 7v7 with 6 hellhounds and one thanny (about 430 tons) against another team with a mix of one light, meds and heavies. they had maybe 20 tons on us. I was the last one standing with 3 kills with the rest of my teammates outlasting the first three deaths on the other side before starting to attrit to the heavies.

[Belial]

In my mind, the MW4Mercs one is the canon one. Especially since the original was one of the ripped-off anime designs. The newer one looks like a killing machine with its own identity; its silhouette can't be mistaken for anything else. This and my Uziel were my rides of choice when I wanted to tear up the medium circuit on Solaris VII.

[Oswin Aurelius]

Most canon designs suck. They need to majorly update all of their artwork, so we get awesomeness like FlyingDebris's designs, and not that crappy 80's bull.

[ethnic minority]

Actually the hellhound redesign for mw4 wasn't the result of licencing issues but rather for the expediency of mw4 mercs' game development. I believe somewhere on the mektek forums, the redesign artist David White stated that they needed him to redesign the hellhound to fit a pre-existing animation bones/skeleton/whatever (probably the uziel). If you check out his other concepts, you can see that the hellhound went through an especially wild redesign phase.

[Odins Reaver]

That middle one looks rather good, the third one is too much like a zeus.

[Catharsis]

Vexgrave Lars, on 07 April 2012 - 04:00 PM, said:

Knowing the inability of people getting licenses to use artwork the right way... I'm gonna lean towards real world legal issues with my bet.

Yeah, the Sarna design does look rather like a Gundam or something. I personally prefer the MW4 design, especially since I have grown to liking the mech. It has a lot of bite for a 55 tonner and looks awesome while doing so. I have noticed that many of the canon mechs have been redesigned to fit the MW games (not just art style, but entire structure), but this one probably is the most extreme change.

Oswin Aurelius, on 07 April 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

Most canon designs suck. They need to majorly update all of their artwork, so we get awesomeness like FlyingDebris's designs, and not that crappy 80's bull.

And yes, what we perceive as neat looking these days has certainly changed a lot since the 80s. That is bound to happen. I mean, look at all the sci-fi stories from the 40s and 50s with their radar dish ray guns.
I certainly am more of a fan of the militaristic and tank-like looks of mechs in the MW series of games, and I am especially liking the art direction that PGI is taking.

[Stormwolf]

All the mechs in TRO3055 suffered from having horrible art. The mini of the original does not look all that bad:

http://camospecs.com...ure.asp?ID=5240

I would personally like it if Flying Debris redesigned the original with bits and pieces of the MW4 redesign thrown in.

[Oswin Aurelius]

Stormwolf, on 08 April 2012 - 02:05 AM, said:

All the mechs in TRO3055 suffered from having horrible art. The mini of the original does not look all that bad:

http://camospecs.com...ure.asp?ID=5240

I would personally like it if Flying Debris redesigned the original with bits and pieces of the MW4 redesign thrown in.

I'm used to Games Workshop's miniature quality, so most of the minis are even worse looking to me than the artwork. :/

[Catharsis]

I just prefer the reverse joint chicken walker mechs over the humanoid ones. Personally, I would rather have an animalistic ED209 than a gundam.

That being said, there are a few humanoid mech designs that I do like. The Warhammer is awesome, of course, and Flying Debris' redesign of the Centurion looks pretty sweet.

Thinking from a logical stand point though, would not a chicken walker be better suited for battle than a human-shaped mech? Lower center of gravity and all that? My mechanical physics is a little weak...

[Oswin Aurelius]

Catharsis, on 08 April 2012 - 06:50 AM, said:

Thinking from a logical stand point though, would not a chicken walker be better suited for battle than a human-shaped mech? Lower center of gravity and all that? My mechanical physics is a little weak...

Legs like that aren't really made for walking, hence why only birds really have them. Or dinosaurs, so I don't know, I could be completely wrong.

[Catharsis]

Oswin Aurelius, on 08 April 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Legs like that aren't really made for walking, hence why only birds really have them. Or dinosaurs, so I don't know, I could be completely wrong.

Well actually most animals have them I would think. Horses, dogs, cats, rabbits; all of their rearlegs are reverse jointed. And they are all considerably faster and stronger than human legs are. Obviously we evolved our legs the way they are for a reason though. I guess it is because our legs make it easier to travel up surfaces. A cat has to jump to get up on a box, while we can simply climb to get up on top.

Also I suppose that, because the mech's sense of balance is derived from a pilots sense of balance, a mech with human legs might be easier to control.

I do not know.

Shall we go build ourselves a 60 ton war machine and find out? Haha

[Der Kommissar]

If you've got a problem with ugly mechs, Battletech's not the franchise for you. There's the door, kids!

As to the Hellhound's redesign, yeah, it was done because the design needed to fit prexisting animation skeletons, as previously stated. It actually has nothing to do with its looks. Considering that the Hellhound was one of those mechs a lot of people didn't even remember, its redesign was positively-received or not even noticed.

[Catharsis]

Der Kommissar, on 08 April 2012 - 08:00 AM, said:

If you've got a problem with ugly mechs, Battletech's not the franchise for you. There's the door, kids!

In my original post I was not actively complaining about the design on Sarna. My question was really just whether or not the two actually were related, or if it was just some mistake on someone's part.

BattleTech has its share of ugly mechs... and its share of sexy mechs. I am not complaining either way
Besides, it is not a glossy, fancy, fantasy world. As far as I consider, it is a gritty, and realistic universe where mechs are built to FIGHT not to win beauty contests. So yeah.

But really, being a game,you have to admit that one usually does consider a mech's aesthetics when choosing what to go into battle with. Obviously if we were really putting our lives on the lines, we would be picking the most effective mechs out of what is available to us, regardless of looks.

[Odins Reaver]

Yeah, a Adder is very ugly, that said I love that mech, one of the meanest lights until the cougar was introduced. I like the new Hellhound design more than the original like I stated.