277 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

Timuroslav, on 08 May 2017 - 08:51 PM, said:

Maybe everything after the Fedcom Civil war needs to be retconned into a new Universe hell ******* Star Wars Retconned over 130 Canon books and the Fans still love it. That's why they're called Fans...Fanatics.

So they should retcon the only material in the BattleTech universe that is not crowded by Mary Sue über vanilla factions and heros?
When you ask me in wich era i want to play a round of BT I clearly can answer wich not - that is Fourth Succession War till end of Civil War.

THere are some exceptions - War of 39 and BrushWars are both very good Source Books - and the same quality you find in every other era book by Catalyst Game Labs (with some small lemons at the start)

While the Holy War doesn't have some logical flaws its story is not - where as the 4th Succession War is a magnitude of illogic and flaws - Its obvious that the DCMS as well as the ConFederation Capella were clearly better in military terms - compared with Davion and Steiner - and suddenly they behave like idiots?

The Campagin of the CCAF and the DCMS vs the AFFS clearly show how the 4th Succession War should have been played out. A war on two fronts plus the decentralizing by "strong" Dukes of their March.

[Anjian]

Got to keep Bandai's model kit business humming!

Gundam Twilight Axis takes place in the UC after the events of Gundam Unicorn and before Gundam F91.

Edited by Anjian, 08 May 2017 - 10:54 PM.

[Valhallan]

Eh don't worry about the giant robot in Bokurano, it's really more of a cosmic horror story (it'd fit right in with Lovecraft and wh40k) with mecha than anything else. So much so that the director toned it down (in an ok way imo). Here's a snippet from the manga that was cut/altered for the anime.

Spoiler

Yes the pilot does it, smoked kittens would be proud.

Edited by Valhallan, 08 May 2017 - 11:27 PM.

[Timuroslav]

Karl Streiger, on 08 May 2017 - 10:20 PM, said:

So they should retcon the only material in the BattleTech universe that is not crowded by Mary Sue über vanilla factions and heros?
When you ask me in wich era i want to play a round of BT I clearly can answer wich not - that is Fourth Succession War till end of Civil War.

THere are some exceptions - War of 39 and BrushWars are both very good Source Books - and the same quality you find in every other era book by Catalyst Game Labs (with some small lemons at the start)

While the Holy War doesn't have some logical flaws its story is not - where as the 4th Succession War is a magnitude of illogic and flaws - Its obvious that the DCMS as well as the ConFederation Capella were clearly better in military terms - compared with Davion and Steiner - and suddenly they behave like idiots?

The Campaign of the CCAF and the DCMS vs the AFFS clearly show how the 4th Succession War should have been played out. A war on two fronts plus the decentralizing by "strong" Dukes of their March.

You just proved my main statement. lol *smh*

The community complains about anything for any reason.

I also used the word maybe, but yes let's ***** about lore!
You're only proving me right.

Edited by Timuroslav, 08 May 2017 - 11:34 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Timuroslav, on 08 May 2017 - 11:33 PM, said:

You just proved my main statement. lol *smh*

The community complains about anything for any reason.

I did know that, when I did post it.

But in the light of your statement you shouldn't have posted such a proposal.
You know that this would cause reaction, correct?

BTW you complained about the complains - something that has a history too

Edited by Karl Streiger, 08 May 2017 - 11:45 PM.

[The Basilisk]

Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh, on 07 May 2017 - 02:47 AM, said:

Yes!
I dare to say this!
And before you'd say: "Mek, yet another your batshit crazy idea?" or "Did your lovely LURMsexuals hit you especially hard tonight?", let me explain myself.

As you know, the the only reason Battletech came to existence, was very old cartoons for little japanese boys, nowadays called mecha-anime.
When little Japan in late 70th can't hold all this mecha-madness, japanese robots poured into the world to conquer it.
So, whole Battletech (BattleDroids at birth) franchise was created on this mecha-hype to grab some cash on exploding fresh trend.
Even today all we suffering from BT-birth-trauma, which is up today is knows as "UNSEENs" a "RESEENs".

If anyone still do not know this peculiar fact, up till late 80th, the whole zoo of BT-mechs consist almost entirely of 100% authentic japanese-mecha designs, that were 'BORROWED' as an 'INSPIRATION', up till all the copyright mess starts, but this is a tale for an other time...

So, BT-franchise grew, matured, decayed and almost collapsed.
All we have today, is a phenomenally rich lore, which is ironically almost non-used in any actual products, related to franchise.
If only you are at least somewhat familiar with the lore of Battletech, all it's complex ant integrated rule-and-source-books, the only reasonable thought you should have, would toll in you head constantly: "How could it become, that such a rich and developed fictional universe has fo few yet so dull embodiment?!"



Years are passing, but the more time passes, the more Battletech-franchise fades away.
Last years with MWO and announces of MW5 and BT by Wisemann were undoubtedly a new born of BT for all old fans and newcomers.
Yet it is not enough and in long terms does not guarantees survival of franchise.
MWO smells not so well, MW5 is nothing, but a teaser with pitiful 85k of views, and Battletech game by HBS-games will be OK, I guess, still in terms on whole BT-francise this is a very shady perspective.

There is no further development.
There is no any conceptual changes.
In the end, there is no new blood.
All we have, is a rotting and decaying corpse of a cosmic giant Imir.

And as much, as I love whole BT-franchise and all it's parts, I am concerned about it's further destiny.
And I asked myself many times: "What could I do to be sure, Battletech would live and bloom and will have healthy franchise-sussessors?"
And tonight I was struck by this crazy idea.


What if...

TA-DAAAM!

WHAT IF BATTLETECH WILL GO BACK TO IT'S ROOTS?

As crazy as it sounds, it has a rational seeds inside.
Anime not so pricey in terms of producing.
Anime could retell all your favorite stories from BT-lore.
Anime could attract thousands of brand new fans.
Anime could become a platform to launch all the merchandise, toys and anything you could imagine from our lovely BT.
...
I can't see any other so onmipotential perspective as this one.
...

1. So, what do you think of this idea?
2. If you are agree with me, will you spread this idea all across the Internets until it will return to you on a Blue-ray with Battletech-anime series?

While I very much understand and support your way of thinking please remember that the turning away from kitschy japanese Macross, GunDam etc pp. was what Battletech once made an big franchise.
Robotech, later Battletech took incitements from those big kiza anime robots and took them into a modern western sciece fiction environment.
In a time where Blade Runner, end time scenarios as well as general cyber punk where on the rise Battletech hit a nerve.

To get this kind of boost you would have to incoorporate current themes into Battletech.

Problem is, except space faring and certain medical cybernetic developments we did surpass the tech level from early Battletech by far.
What is todays SciFi ? That is not an easy question.

[Vellron2005]

If you need to bring BattleTech to the masses, make a big hollywood blockbuster.

Make it good.

Use a good story from the lore, use Starwars / Avatar level budget and CGI quality.

Use a famous lead actor, and a bunch of less famous actors.

Make Scarlet Johansson play Natasha Kerensky, and keep the mechs true to lore..

And you have a big big Battletech revival..

[Lily from animove]

About Whitewashing, it is a tool to make a movie fit the audence youw ant to show it.

We once watched the Ring 2 and stopped watchign it because in the middle we were not able anymore to differ the female actresses form each other. Our European untrained Eye isn't used to differ Asian faces properly and even less the overmakeup movie faces. Thats also why many probably prefer anime as asian creations because desipte faces looking nearly identical the cloth and hairstyles is how you differ the characters. At least in the mainstream animes.

Vellron2005, on 09 May 2017 - 12:06 AM, said:

If you need to bring BattleTech to the masses, make a big hollywood blockbuster.

Make it good.

Use a good story from the lore, use Starwars / Avatar level budget and CGI quality.

Use a famous lead actor, and a bunch of less famous actors.

Make Scarlet Johansson play Natasha Kerensky, and keep the mechs true to lore..

And you have a big big Battletech revival..

this would mostlikely be the most working thing, as it would work with everything.

[Timuroslav]

Lily from animove, on 09 May 2017 - 12:24 AM, said:

About Whitewashing, it is a tool to make a movie fit the audence youw ant to show it.

We once watched the Ring 2 and stopped watchign it because in the middle we were not able anymore to differ the female actresses form each other. Our European untrained Eye isn't used to differ Asian faces properly and even less the overmakeup movie faces. Thats also why many probably prefer anime as asian creations because desipte faces looking nearly identical the cloth and hairstyles is how you differ the characters. At least in the mainstream animes.

Pretty sure that's just exposure because you don't look at people's faces? I work with Japanese people everyday and on my first visit to Japan I could easily distinguish different Japanese people. Remembering their names was a different matter.

Also whitewishing implies more of a Westernizing a movie and replacing actors with western ones. General is a defensive activity done to protect western culture. I consider it racist, but that's for the viewer to decide. Because Hollywood is secretly more racist than the American public. They really don't like Eastern Actors from most of Asia. Even movie theatres don't like showing East Asian films. That said Japanese people love the Ghost in the Shell movie because their self esteem is such that they want to see Westerners on the television screen not East Asians. But, their movie variety is better than ours because they watch anything from anywhere. In America you only watch Western movies and the ocassional Eastern movie, because Hollywood...

sorry for the tirade

I suck with names in all languages rofl

Edited by Timuroslav, 09 May 2017 - 01:51 AM.

[Anjian]

Vellron2005, on 09 May 2017 - 12:06 AM, said:

If you need to bring BattleTech to the masses, make a big hollywood blockbuster.

Make it good.

Use a good story from the lore, use Starwars / Avatar level budget and CGI quality.

Use a famous lead actor, and a bunch of less famous actors.

Make Scarlet Johansson play Natasha Kerensky, and keep the mechs true to lore..

And you have a big big Battletech revival..

Masses will not understand why you need giant robots to fight a role where you can have tanks. You cannot make a movie trying to explain all that. The vast majority of the masses don't give a hoot about giant robots or Battletech.

The best way to bring Battletech to people will always be a well designed game.

[Archon Adam Steiner]

Battletech may have pirated/borrowed/insert-word-here some aspects from anime, but the lore and world was shaped along entirely more quasi-realistic and Western-themed ideas; anime is not what this franchise needs, nor what it ever needed. Battletech is pseudo-Feudal warfare and politics alongside 'walking tank' machines, not (paraphrasing something Gman once wrote on Reddit) 'winged flying sword nonsense'. Arguably Batteltech flourished because at its height, it wasn't just trying to copy how the Japanese had done 'mechs, and it certainly doesn't need to pull a 180 on that now.

[Timuroslav]

But battletech, did have LAMs and battleaxes and swords...
Although I kinda get what you mean.
Can't deny a comic book or a show would help it though.

[Anjian]

Archon Adam Steiner, on 09 May 2017 - 01:55 AM, said:

Battletech may have pirated/borrowed/insert-word-here some aspects from anime, but the lore and world was shaped along entirely more quasi-realistic and Western-themed ideas; anime is not what this franchise needs, nor what it ever needed. Battletech is pseudo-Feudal warfare and politics alongside 'walking tank' machines, not (paraphrasing something Gman once wrote on Reddit) 'winged flying sword nonsense'. Arguably Batteltech flourished because at its height, it wasn't just trying to copy how the Japanese had done 'mechs, and it certainly doesn't need to pull a 180 on that now.

And that's basically why you have to let the Russians do it. They won't be encumbered by all the political correctness and they understand feudalism best. Not to mention they are outstanding in their special FX, and I bet unlike Hollywood, all that is achieved in a cost effective manner.

[Lily from animove]

Timuroslav, on 09 May 2017 - 01:42 AM, said:

Pretty sure that's just exposure because you don't look at people's faces? I work with Japanese people everyday and on my first visit to Japan I could easily distinguish different Japanese people. Remembering their names was a different matter.

Also whitewishing implies more of a Westernizing a movie and replacing actors with western ones. General is a defensive activity done to protect western culture. I consider it racist, but that's for the viewer to decide. Because Hollywood is secretly more racist than the American public. They really don't like Eastern Actors from most of Asia. Even movie theatres don't like showing East Asian films. That said Japanese people love the Ghost in the Shell movie because their self esteem is such that they want to see Westerners on the television screen not East Asians. But, their movie variety is better than ours because they watch anything from anywhere. In America you only watch Western movies and the ocassional Eastern movie, because Hollywood...

sorry for the tirade

I suck with names in all languages rofl

Well I think the regular asian without the tons of movie stereotypical makeup is mic easier to distinguis as well. I never had issues with chachie chan movies for example, but the Ring 2 (the japenese one) really blow our ability to differ these girls.

[Karl Streiger]

Anjian, on 09 May 2017 - 01:49 AM, said:

Masses will not understand why you need giant robots to fight a role where you can have tanks. You cannot make a movie trying to explain all that. The vast majority of the masses don't give a hoot about giant robots or Battletech.

The best way to bring Battletech to people will always be a well designed game.

You can explain it:

First the terror (AT AT in the mist) (and the ATAT is a walking tank with all its drawbacks)
Second when they are mobile enough they can evade were a tank can not
third more abstract a multi layer armor system with armored components - instead of just a armored hull alone
could try to explain it with WWII battleships armor systems - you had the all or nothing system of the modern allied warships and you had the combination of though and soft armor plates on the Bismark - the first should beat the shell before penetrating the later stopped it after some force was deployed to the outer layer.
Ok the first system hardly get real battle tested the later didn't matter at all considering the onslaught on May the 27th.

or in other words - tank = hummer - hard on the outside soft inside
Mech semi hard on the outside semi hard on the inside


last not least the usual consumer of hollywood films would not despair when bullets get stopped by a wooden table - but can destroy a helicopter

Edited by Karl Streiger, 09 May 2017 - 02:25 AM.

[Nesutizale]

Wasn't one of the points of mechs replaceing tanks that they could be used in more situations than tanks? Beeing able to cross more types of terrain, work in space and under water and beeing generaly more adaptable to other envoirments like swamps, heat, cold and so on.

When outfitting a tank the same as a mech, I think the tank would win...looking at the BT tanks. I mean when they changed the rules from "every hit is a critical" to "yah its a tank, you have to go through the armor like a mech" tanks became a real threat.
I used a "Von Luckner" quite successfully from what I remember.

So to me, Tanks have their place in open terrain, citys and some other envoirments but mechs can work everywhere.

[Lily from animove]

Timuroslav, on 09 May 2017 - 01:42 AM, said:

Pretty sure that's just exposure because you don't look at people's faces? I work with Japanese people everyday and on my first visit to Japan I could easily distinguish different Japanese people. Remembering their names was a different matter.

Also whitewishing implies more of a Westernizing a movie and replacing actors with western ones. General is a defensive activity done to protect western culture. I consider it racist, but that's for the viewer to decide. Because Hollywood is secretly more racist than the American public. They really don't like Eastern Actors from most of Asia. Even movie theatres don't like showing East Asian films. That said Japanese people love the Ghost in the Shell movie because their self esteem is such that they want to see Westerners on the television screen not East Asians. But, their movie variety is better than ours because they watch anything from anywhere. In America you only watch Western movies and the ocassional Eastern movie, because Hollywood...

sorry for the tirade

I suck with names in all languages rofl

Where are you from?
While for the cinema this may be true, Here in germany some Tv channels do also show Asian movies. But they aren't shown on the rather "main" channels, mosty, becasue they just want to boradcast their reality crap show stuff and whetever nonsense. They Show the Live action movies of Ruriuni Kenshin atm.

Anjian, on 09 May 2017 - 01:49 AM, said:

Masses will not understand why you need giant robots to fight a role where you can have tanks. You cannot make a movie trying to explain all that. The vast majority of the masses don't give a hoot about giant robots or Battletech.

The best way to bring Battletech to people will always be a well designed game.

yet masses did not cared about this in pacific Rim and people watched it. Good thing is also, Star Wars never had walkign robots right? because it would have totally failed seeing this confusing stuff in a movie about space wizards. Nearly no movie they show recently is making much sense. Avatar was stupid, Any X men was stupid. Pacific Rim was stupid. What matters if they are just entertaining within the universe they take place. Otheriwse Avaztar would have been a 2 minutes movie of:
Heres Pandora, lotsa ressources, theres the holy tree, here comes the orbital nuke, credits

Karl Streiger, on 09 May 2017 - 02:24 AM, said:

last not least the usual consumer of hollywood films would not despair when bullets get stopped by a wooden table - but can destroy a helicopter

Wait, it isn't? I thought in gun blazing murica everything is made bullet proof because every tard gets a gun? So those flipped couches they use to hide aren't made of kevlar?

Edited by Lily from animove, 09 May 2017 - 02:45 AM.

[Sjorpha]

I think an animated battletech series would be awesome.

Not sure if anime would be my prefered style, but at least it would be much better than some hollywood blockbuster type production.

The absolute best would be a well funded tv-series.

Now I respect some american productions, but the thing that ruins a lot of them is the american brand of sentimentality that plagues so much of their acting style, for example I think that completely ruined the last two seasons of TWD to the point of almost being unwatchable. If it could be done without any of that I'd be ok with an american production, but I think a european or russian production would be a safer bet to avoid it.

Edited by Sjorpha, 09 May 2017 - 02:49 AM.

[Metus regem]

Product9, on 08 May 2017 - 04:50 PM, said:

In any case, I really like Macross Plus, but I'm sort of a fan of Macross across the board, so in your eyes I'm probably already lost. I can put up with a lot so long as they at least try to explain it away and the feels are good. I'm a lot less tolerant if I don't like the characters.

Plus was good, the last truly good one...

7 was trash, like really wacky, cracked out trash....

Frontier was okay, but a bit too focused on the love triangle that was going on.... Kind of wish that it had kept up the tragic side for Sheryl Nome though, rather than fixing it with space magic.

Delta was just bad.... I kind of regret watching it. I mean one of the main bad guys, the counter Ace switches sides at the end, like in the last 5-10 minuets of the season.... Not good character growth for anyone... it was a shame as they threw away a possibly fantastic character in Mirage....

[Anjian]

For Battletech as a franchise to survive, it needs to move forward. And by moving forward, you have to take the base concept --- a turn based strategy and tactics game, with squad based elements --- and repackage that for the platform of the future. That means, not tables, not paper, not figures and not dice, but in digital form for the most ubiquitious hardware of today and the future --- the mobile --- the smartphone, the phablet and the tablet. PC and console game will erode. In fact, more and more of the gaming industry's revenues and player base, is now coming from mobile.

It takes years for a console platform to reach 20 million. The PC platform can move around 60 to 80 million units per quarter but that number is going down, and only a small fraction can support high end PC gaming. Mobiles on the other hand, including tablets, move over 200 to 300 million each quarter.

Mobile is where the future game franchises will arise. We got Angry Birds rising first, and now we got Candy Crush, Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. The Clash games might be the most popular games in the planet right now. Recently a mobile game called Monster Strike (yes its made into an anime, you can see it in Crunchyroll), achieved revenues of over 1.3 billion dollars, which is more than League of Legends, perhaps the top online game for PCs. Puzzles and Dragons is also huge, and turned into an anime of late.

Recently a game called Summoners War hit the top of Google Play charts. This game boasts over 70 million players, and the game is in the 50 to 100 million install category. Pokemon Go claims over 65 million players with over 100 million downloaded, and has achieved revenues of over $1 billion. Even various action games are fast rising. As mobile hardware becomes increasingly sophisticated, so are the games.

You really cannot ignore this trend. The Battletech franchise has adapted to different technology trends in the past. Moving from the tabletop to the arcade and the Battletech pods, to the PC, then to the Internet and the multiplayer era, even to the consoles, and finally to the massive online F2P revolution. The next revolution is already here, and this franchise needs to put its stake on it.

Edited by Anjian, 09 May 2017 - 08:23 AM.