25 replies to this topic

[Siegfried Kircheis]

Dear PGI,

i'll take your recent news, to formulate a request: Give us the lore!


You advertise:

"Highlander IIC for MC and Hunchback IIC for C-bills"


There are the names of 'Mech variants and prices - but what else? Would it be so mindbending to provide a minimal background story? What kind of machine is it (Class, Tonnage etc.), is there a specific event, where it had its finest hour? ... That fluff would be quite a nice appetizer.

I miss it at all the store items. I recently bought some FRR faction camo. There are colors and insignia of that faction. But why? Why is there a viking helmet on the back of my 'Mech, why are there runes? Why ... You must at least thought, discussed ... about it, when you designed it.^^

The Battletech-Universe seems to be rich of background infos. Can't you use it? It would improve the overall game experience. The fighting is fun, but with more meaning even better. As a player you shouldn't have to go away from MWO, to gather the missing intell. It's a question of immersion and for you, in the end, about money.

So please give us the lore!

PS: What do you fellow players think about this side(?) aspect of the game?

Edited by Siegfried Kircheis, 02 March 2016 - 05:29 AM.

[JC Daxion]

If and when single player hits, which they have been talking about, and did higher someone for AI, Lore will start to be in the game..

that said, I think many mechs have had some lore stories added about them on the sales pitch,, though not sure where you can read all about them. I know i have had read many, just not sure if they all have um or not. Just reading about a mech with no story for me is boring.

Episodic faction missions, combined with CW to direct how the stories will go for the next sequence to me seams like something that would be a awesome edition to the game.

[Triordinant]

Siegfried Kircheis, on 02 March 2016 - 05:28 AM, said:

So please give us the lore!

PS: What do you fellow players think about this side(?) aspect of the game?

Lore is what makes MWO a BattleTech game instead of just a generic shooter, but if PGI is pandering to the eSports FPS crowd you won't see much lore because all that those bums are interested in are things like quirks, hardpoints (type, number and location), engine caps and hitboxes.

JC Daxion, on 02 March 2016 - 05:38 AM, said:

If and when single player hits, which they have been talking about, and did higher someone for AI, Lore will start to be in the game..

PvP (whether single player or co-op) is really the only way MWO will have any longevity (or depth, for that matter).

Edited by Triordinant, 02 March 2016 - 06:22 AM.

[Agent1190]

This could be a dumb question, so ignite your flamers now...

Does PGI have rights to publish lore, or more specifically, passages from the TROs and other books that clearly define the lore behind the game or 'Mech? I thought Battletech/Mechwarrior licenses were individual to each genre - Video game, table top, collectible.

I suppose they could write their own short synopsis on the 'Mech describing the history or origin of the design.

JC Daxion, on 02 March 2016 - 05:38 AM, said:

that said, I think many mechs have had some lore stories added about them on the sales pitch,, though not sure where you can read all about them. I know i have had read many, just not sure if they all have um or not. Just reading about a mech with no story for me is boring.

I believe all of these were submitted by a writer from Catalyst Game Labs.

Edited by Agent1190, 02 March 2016 - 07:03 AM.

[Johnny Z]

Story, atmosphere and character still totally missing from the game... so +1 for the topic.

[Mystere]

What is more lore-like than having Clan companies made up of 3 4-Mech lances?

[GRiPSViGiL]

Don't you guys read the books or something? Why is lore so important? You want to read instead of play?

I am being a bit facetious on the subject but I am not sure why a small blurp or two of text makes any difference in playing the game.

The games needs CW fleshed out so we can create our own lore:



Be careful watching it you might come to the realization that more mechs is not getting us any closer to this path.

[Sandpit]

Wan tot buy a mech pack?

[TLBFestus]

Careful though, if you assume everything about the design of skins has anything to do with lore, you will be disappointed.

Take the Kodiak for example. It's a Cool skin but it has nothing to do with lore.

PGI is a Canadian company based out of Vancouver British Columbia. BC has immense forested areas. Quite a awhile back, in a bit of inspired PR work one of the Environmental groups decided that to get more public sympathy for preserving a particular forested area they would give it a name.

Prior to 1994 it was simply called " North and Central Coast land use planning area or the Central and North Coast LRMP area" which admittedly is a boring name and doesn't create any attachment. So, they came up with the name "GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST". Much catchier and something you can work with to give it emotional appeal. It worked great. It's now called The Great Bear Rainforest and steps have been taken to preserve large parts of it.

One of the big things in calling it that was that it was the home of Grizzly bears, in particular some bears that wear genetically rare that are basically white and are called "Spirit Bears",

The patterns you see on it are west coast Indian designs, Haida if I'm correct, and they were instrumental in the campaign to get the forest recognized and preserved.

While the Kodiak itself may have some interesting lore, the skin they have made for it has it's origins in the story I just told above, nothing to do with Mechwarrior lore at all.

So there you have it, the "lore" behind the skin used on the Kodiak.

Edited by TLBFestus, 02 March 2016 - 10:05 AM.

[TheArisen]

Pgi should just make a program that reads and copies everything from Sarna or whatever official site. Lore fluff doesn't need to be difficult to add.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

GRiPSViGiL, on 02 March 2016 - 08:40 AM, said:

Be careful watching it you might come to the realization that more mechs is not getting us any closer to this path.

No but they do keep the servers on...

[Wolfways]

TheArisen, on 02 March 2016 - 10:09 AM, said:

Pgi should just make a program that reads and copies everything from Sarna or whatever official site. Lore fluff doesn't need to be difficult to add.

Wouldn't work for some things anyway...like info on how mechs are likely to be used in battle. Mechs in MWO are nothing like the mechs in BT except in looks (nearly).

[TheArisen]

Wolfways, on 02 March 2016 - 10:59 AM, said:

Wouldn't work for some things anyway...like info on how mechs are likely to be used in battle. Mechs in MWO are nothing like the mechs in BT except in looks (nearly).

Right but this thread is about adding lore fluff, not teaching ppl how to play.

[Bud Crue]

I white knight on a lot of issues but here I gotta let out my inner GRiPsViGil:

PGI I don't think is interested in the lore of battletech, mechwarrior or the stories related thereto. PGI is interested in such lore only to the extent that it might help to sell new mech packs. Other than the little vignettes that they include for new hero mechs, the only lore they have included in the actual game is the little blub they give each faction when you go to join one for CW. That is it. One could look to the planet description blurbs you get for some loading screens in CW matches but these are often wholly inappropriate to the map you are actually playing on or more often simply "no information available". Adding just a bit of "story fluff" or whatever you want to call it would go a long way to making some of the other shortcomings of CW a bit more tolerable, but even here they don't bother. Alas.

The only lore that this game offers is that which you bring to it. And those of us who do try to bring a bit of lore to our play are punished by game play mechanisms (no free mech bay for you unless you leave the faction to go on a tour ,etc.) or mocked by others (yeah its great that your kiddie TT game has Warhammer's with PPCs, but only an idiot uses them here, did you even notice how low the hardpoints are? Lrn2play scrub). Etc.

You want lore? PGI has made it clear that if you want it, you must bring it, and suffer for it like the rest of us.

Edited by Bud Crue, 02 March 2016 - 11:25 AM.

[GRiPSViGiL]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 02 March 2016 - 10:55 AM, said:

No but they do keep the servers on...

As stale as the game is at this point that doesn't even matter to me.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

GRiPSViGiL, on 02 March 2016 - 11:26 AM, said:

As stale as the game is at this point that doesn't even matter to me.

It does or you wouldn't post...

[thehiddenedge]

It's really sad how nonexistent the lore is in this game. Battletech has this huge, rich franchise with lots of background and character and PGI simply refuses to use it. They want to sell mech packs? Try giving the people who love the franchise, some of the actual franchise, instead of simply new stompy robots with different skins on the same maps playing the same games. Give us a world to use these new mechs in.

I mean we're supposed to be in the clan invasion, right? Nowhere does it say who the clans are, why they are invading, where they came from... They're simply the "bad guys" with lightweight tech and durable XL's and the Inner Sphere are the "good guys" with loads of quirks. I mean we don't have to go back to the Age of War and Reunification Wars, but some background would be nice.

[GRiPSViGiL]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 02 March 2016 - 11:30 AM, said:

It does or you wouldn't post...

Let me clarify. I wouldn't weep for MWO if the servers were shut off eventually because people stop buying mechs due to no depth or acceptable end game content.

[Wolfways]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 02 March 2016 - 11:30 AM, said:

It does or you wouldn't post...

Not really. I post a lot because of the hope I have for a better MWO because it has (had?) potential.
If the servers closed tomorrow I wouldn't care tbh. I'd just play something else.

[Wolfways]

TheArisen, on 02 March 2016 - 11:06 AM, said:

Right but this thread is about adding lore fluff, not teaching ppl how to play.

But sometimes the lore is about how mechs are supposed to be used. It's not about teaching people how to play but about how mechs should be played according to lore.

For example, from http://www.sarna.net...g_%28Vulture%29

"The Mad Dog is a heavy Clan OmniMech used for long-range indirect fire support. With hunched shoulders, a protruding head, and reverse-jointed legs, the Mad Dog resembles a vulture, so much so that it was codenamed Vulture and Hagetaka ("Vulture" in Japanese) by the Inner Sphere forces which first encountered it. The name also fit the battlefield role of the Mad Dog; the main role of the Mad Dog is to act as a support 'Mech, and it often holds a hill maintaining constant watch over the entire battlefield, like a vulture waiting for its prey."

and...

"Mad Dog pilots have been known for showering missiles on opponents before swooping down with a finishing blow from the lasers, much like a vulture swooping down for carrion."

Anyone who tries to use a Mad Dog the way it was intended in BT would hit nothing with their LRM's and be dead in seconds from long range fire.

I'm not against having more lore in the game btw. I'd love it if there was a lot more used, but I'd love it more if pgi actually made the game to fit the lore.

Edited by Wolfways, 02 March 2016 - 01:02 PM.