72 replies to this topic

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

So I'm just wondering why so many people around here seem to absolutely hate the jihad era of Battletech. I've seen no video game that actually covers that era, closest being MW4:Mercs referencing it in a couple of the endings. I somewhat wish for a game that would have started us off after the events of MW4:Mercs, possibly still as Spectre, and battling against the WoB.

So I'm just wondering, would any of you other guys like to see a video game come out with a focus based on that era, and if not why? Also, what if MWO still lives 5+ years down the road, what are your thoughts on the timeline creeping into jihad territory?

[Kasumi Sumika]

Didn't Mechassault series are placed during Jihad?

[FupDup]

Kasumi Sumika, on 13 February 2017 - 03:57 AM, said:

Didn't Mechassault series are placed during Jihad?

Yes, although I'm fairly sure that most people who hate the Jihad hate it for different reasons than that.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Kasumi Sumika, on 13 February 2017 - 03:57 AM, said:

Didn't Mechassault series are placed during Jihad?

Ah, I never had an xbox to play that.

[Bombast]

It was haphazardly executed, introduced a lot of weird, often confusing stuff, story and tech wise, and it killed most of everyone's favorite stuff.

Fan favorite units were nuked from orbit or killed in embarrassing, frankly offensive ways in a hamfisted attempt to clear the board so they could start from absolute zero. Specific characters get the same treatment - Victor Steiner-Davion gets' assassinated. Outside of a mech. At the age of one hundred and ****ing four. There's no good reason for him not to just die in freak'n bed, or in combat, besides '**** Davion, it's time for new stuff.' And then there's what they do to the Federated Suns as a faction - Granted, as a FedRat, I freely admit that the faction deserved some time in the penalty box after spending most of the novelized time frame as the uber hero faction, but it's done so poorly, both in execution and result, that it's almost painful to follow.

Tl;Dr - Didn't respect the fans, didn't respect the previous eras, and worst of all, it was just badly done.

Edited by Bombast, 13 February 2017 - 05:00 AM.

[Crazed Marsupial]

To give a point of comparison - imagine that they took Star Wars and killed off many of the main characters, supporting cast and protagonists in a variety of barely believable ways.

Then that the Empire and Rebellion virtually get wiped out by a hidden zealous sub-faction within a zealous sub-faction of the Ewoks who suddenly turn out to have WMDs. Said new faction declares war on everyone and everything that isn't an Ewok or Ewok supporter. They were in hiding until then - who knew?

Oh, and everyone goes back from using blasters, turbo-lasers (the really cool stuff) to the technological equivalent of air rifles to fight their battles because all of a sudden the galaxy has a collective bout of amnesia as to how anything bigger than an abacus works (despite humanity's past penchant for making great technological progress in times of war) and those who did know are all dead (see first sentence).

Worst of all, they take some of the greatest and most threatening antagonists in BT (genetically-diddled-homesick-loony-warriors from beyond the Inner Sphere - you have to love it) and essentially eclipse them with a set of even more far-fetched villains. (Word of Blake makes them look almost civilised by comparison). Sorry chaps, the Dark Lords of the Sith aren't actually that bad - Ewoks are worse as it turns out....

Now imagine how daft and stupendously frustrating that sounds - and how much people would go ballistic if they did that to Star Wars and Star Trek. The Jihad/Dark Age more or less knobbled Battletech in a similar way.

Jihad explained - NEXT!


(That may have been a rant there - but you get the idea),

Edited by Crazed Marsupial, 13 February 2017 - 04:56 AM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Interesting points.

In general my knowledge of things after about 3068 is rather small other than Jihad, Dark Age, people gaining technology back, happened in that order and that's about it. Its interesting to me to hear about it, even though its apparently a train wreck.

[Kasumi Sumika]

Crazed Marsupial, on 13 February 2017 - 04:55 AM, said:

-whoosh-

Thanks for making Jihad timeline in nutshell.

Honestly my knowledge lore of Battletech universe are between Clan Invaion. I not yet familiar with timeline before Clan Invasion and after Clan Invasion.

[Battlemaster56]

Kasumi Sumika, on 13 February 2017 - 03:57 AM, said:

Didn't Mechassault series are placed during Jihad?

It did but the story was you and your small crew against the rise of a WoB splinter group, and resurgence of the said splinter group while collecting some ancient data cores from the Star league and using to upgrade their ai controlled Ragnaroks to take over the WoB and then Inner Sphere.


That's what I got from it, been a long time since I play that awesome game.

[Karl Streiger]

I admit I'm a big fan of this era - not because of the "high" tech or the cyborg aspect - but because of the beautiful tragedy of noble deeds and their ultimate failure.

you know the saying? "Who doesn't fight can't win, who fight already has lost?" No? But you should - because fighting evil you will become evil - Nietsche scale

The WoB became the bogeyman and they realized it - instead of stepping down and accept the judgement of the so-called "leaders" (nothing short of annihilation and vultures fighting over the corpse) they went full "Nero" causing almost a destruction the IS hasn't seen since the 2nd Succession Wars - but still hardly the scale of the 1st SuccessionWar.

Why its not loved? CBT fans are pencil pushers the change from MadMax post-apocalyptic fighting robots to clans and everything is available was bad - so every change is bad. However the "CBT" changes of Dark Age and Jihad were much better balanced when compared to Intro Tech to SDLF or even Clan Tech.

Hey and the killing of "vanilla" heros and units (?) was necessary.

[jjm1]

Crazed Marsupial, on 13 February 2017 - 04:55 AM, said:

To give a point of comparison - imagine that they took Star Wars and killed off many of the main characters, supporting cast and protagonists in a variety of barely believable ways.

I don't think we'll need to imagine if that's the plot of the next film.

[Metus regem]

My biggest issue, was the introduction of the UM-AVI, tactical nuke Arrow IV equipped Urbanmech's...

Second to that is this Stone guy getting the credit for beating the WoB, when really it was the Ghost Bear Dominion. I mean the Stone's forces were losing untill the WoB picked a fight with the Ghost Bears....

[Nik Reaper]

As far as I'm concerned a few great novels happen in the dark age period, they really nail the isolation of a barely working HPG network and the bring back the fact that mechs are rare and powerful, really love the one with the miners using renovated mining mechs to defend the planet from "crazy evil" people who hired mercenaries .

But yeah, the transition to that point ... not so much x) .

Edited by Nik Reaper, 13 February 2017 - 06:49 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Dakota1000, on 13 February 2017 - 03:35 AM, said:

So I'm just wondering why so many people around here seem to absolutely hate the jihad era of Battletech. I've seen no video game that actually covers that era, closest being MW4:Mercs referencing it in a couple of the endings. I somewhat wish for a game that would have started us off after the events of MW4:Mercs, possibly still as Spectre, and battling against the WoB.

So I'm just wondering, would any of you other guys like to see a video game come out with a focus based on that era, and if not why? Also, what if MWO still lives 5+ years down the road, what are your thoughts on the timeline creeping into jihad territory?

A mixture of things.

First you have the old School Inner Sphere Grognards (of which I sort of am one), who hate anything post 3039, and even better it should be 3025 Eternally. So this represents the Apex of CheezeTech and MarySue Storytelling to them.

A lot of ClanBois get their butts hurt because of the War of Reaving, and such, meaning a lot of their favorite status quo got overturned.

This marked FASA's closing of the doors.... so all we got was a build up to it... some hints dropped in the Civil War Novels... and a Bloody Handprint at the end of MW4...... then nothing.

Then we get fast forwarded to ClickyMechs, and the Jihad is the cause of all the changes (mostly for the worse)... but we get next to no info on it for well over a decade after it occurred. CGL has been backfilling it a fair bit of late, but even so there are huge swaths of WTF?

And now that we are getting info... a lot of people's pet units are destroyed, the status quo everyone was comfy with upturned, and well... let's just say, the overall amount of plot armor used, and the stretches in story telling that are basically explained as "Because Reasons", has left it feeling very poorly written and played out.

CGL is focusing a lot on the era though, and I am hoping that now, maybe with a lot more storytelling being done DURING the Jihad, it might get a more favorable response. There was the recent novel (Embers of War) with the Dismal Disinherited and such that was actually pretty good, and I believe more Jihad novels coming.

But because of FASA's financial realities, and the mediocre handling of the product line thru FanPro and WizKids... the era has a lot of stink still associated with it to overcome.

Still... we seem to be coming into a Golden Century for Battletech, with the awesome new Novel on Clan Wolverine (Betrayel of Ideals), the beginning of the Jihad (Embers of War) and Stackpole's set of Novellas (Starting with Heir Apparent), lots of well written Historical and Era Reports coming out, CGL hiring real artists for their products, and of course, the timeline shift here in MWO (along with the upcoming Battletech 2017 and MW5 games), that I think a lot of things will soon be viewed more favorably.

You'll always have your intractable Grognards, who still insist that the Dragoons were never part of the Clans, etc... but I mean...I still have an Aunt who insists that man has never been to space...because the Bible says "the Heavens are the dwelling place of God"...... so I mean.... *shrugs*

[McMurl]

Metus regem, on 13 February 2017 - 06:45 AM, said:

My biggest issue, was the introduction of the UM-AVI, tactical nuke Arrow IV equipped Urbanmech's...

Second to that is this Stone guy getting the credit for beating the WoB, when really it was the Ghost Bear Dominion. I mean the Stone's forces were losing untill the WoB picked a fight with the Ghost Bears....

[Bishop Steiner]

McMurl, on 13 February 2017 - 07:19 AM, said:

...the image you are requesting does not exist or is no longer available.

Well.... if a picture is worth a thousand words, I feel a little shortchanged.

[Bishop Steiner]

Probably Not, on 13 February 2017 - 07:51 AM, said:

The nuking of Outreach and the near-destruction of Wolf's Dragoons are sore spots for people (and rightfully so).

why? Because the Mary Sues and their Plot Armor were finally breached? I was a Saltier about the way they destroyed the GDL during the Civil War than the whole Dragoons thing. If anything, I wish the destruction had rained down on the Kell Hounds and Clan Wolf in Exile just as heavily.

Hell, the FWL is shattered, Theodore Kurita's legitimate lineage eventually get's erased from the galaxy, House Steiner's royal family gets whittled down to the cadet branches, half the clans get absorbed or annihilated, and yet the Kell Hounds and CWiE skate through virtually untouched.

Pathetic.

[Bishop Steiner]

Probably Not, on 13 February 2017 - 08:08 AM, said:

FWL being shattered is the most interesting thing that's ever happened to it (also fairly inevitable). Won't argue about the Steiner thing, because for all their faults the Lyrans are at least interesting.

I liked Wolf's Dragoons, so sue me. (Surprisingly, I don't hate Waco though.)

Wolves on the Border is one of my favorite Battletech Novels. The original Wolf Dragoons and Black Widow Company Sourcebooks, amongst my favorites.

That said, latter day Dragoons just got too big, too "good" to really be interesting, IMO. They really lost a lot of the drama, and one of the best things that can happen to a "hero" over the course of a narrative is to suffer defeat. Wolf was ancient, and going to die soon, regardless, most likely. Here, he got to go down as a clan warrior should, and took the misguided fool Waco down with him.

I'd have to say out of the units impacted, destroyed, etc in the Jihad, they were still treated pretty favorably, overall, at the end of the day. Try being the Black Thorns, who were such a footnote that even the Line Developers didn't realize they had wiped them out until someone was proof editing one of the sourcebooks and realized...oh yeah.. that planet we annihilated with WMDs... that unit was posted on it at the time according to some older sourcebooks....

(mind you, I felt the Black Thorn novels were pretty meh, your typical pulp fiction schlock, but that's still a pretty harsh way to go for a "published" unit, lol. Pity Archer Christofori and some of the other Mary Sues couldn't have been on planet at the time.)

[Battlemaster56]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 February 2017 - 08:05 AM, said:

I wish the destruction had rained down on the Kell Hounds and Clan Wolf in Exile just as heavily.

Just wondering how Bad is Clan Wolf in Exile, still looking for some cheap Battletech novels to read, so can you fill me on how badly written they are.

[Bishop Steiner]

Battlemaster56, on 13 February 2017 - 08:42 AM, said:

Just wondering how Bad is Clan Wolf in Exile, still looking for some cheap Battletech novels to read, so can you fill me on how badly written they are.

they really don't get too much focus..they get some secondary mention during operation Bulldog from the Twilight of the Clans (and a few parts of the last bit of the FedCom Civil War, like in Endgame), the rest is mostly reference from the Sourcebooks and TROs.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 13 February 2017 - 08:57 AM.