316 replies to this topic

[tyrone dunkirk]

Wow, it's amazing seeing everyone's Battletech stories! My thanks to this amazing community, and the Devs who have united us once again. Keep up the great work!
Just a little longer now...

[Larry Headrick]

My friend intrudeced me to the TT game back in 87? i think. I have ben playing ever since. I played the computer games but not much online. I live out in the sticks and have never had a great conection. I am hoping the phone upgrades thay did make it possable this time.

[John Flenaly]

I got grounded when I was 9 or 10. Dad figured I should be doing something useful, so he tossed at Battletech novel at me and told me to read the whole thing. Idea backfired as a punishment, and I've been a Battletech junkie ever sense.

[Adridos]

A CD from a gaming magazine had an MW 4: Mercenaries trailer on it. Pretty boring, isn't it?

[Rayah]

MechAssault 1 & 2 won me over and I worked my way backwards. =P

[Rayah]

John Flenaly, on 26 December 2011 - 10:33 AM, said:

I got grounded when I was 9 or 10. Dad figured I should be doing something useful, so he tossed at Battletech novel at me and told me to read the whole thing. Idea backfired as a punishment, and I've been a Battletech junkie ever sense.

Nice!

[Niftal]

I remember when I was very young I saw a really cheesy 'mech movie on television. Fell in love with 'mechs then but my Battle Tech adventure started when my parents bought the original Mechwarrior for the PC as a gift right after MW2 launched. It was pretty linear after that, MW2, MW3, Mech Commander 1 & 2, MW4, MW4 Mercs and looking forward to everything else Battle Tech.

[Soturi05]

I remember when i was around 6 or 7 years old i got a battletech Infiltrator battle armor toy that was pretty cool, it really wasnt until i got my first IBM pc back in the day that came with a mechwarrior 3 trailer/video sample that really sparked my interest in it and not long after that i was playing mechwarrior 2, now i have played every game from mechwarrior 2 through to 4 as well as reading some of the novels and learning all i could about the universe.

[WMC Gomez]

Not sure the year, but it was probably either '89 or '90 that my cousin got the box set and showed it to me. I has been downhill ever since. Played crescent hawk, all the MW games except the first one. I still have about 30 or so minis w/ a entire folder of variants that i made for those mechs. I also have every novel up to End Game because that was the last novel that came out before Wizkids took over and gave us that Dark Age crap w/ the clicks minis. Played MPBT when it was out and got to meet a lot more people that loved this little universe. Played the pods back when WoTC had them in Seattle and now can't wait for this game to come out

[RangerRob]

Gaming Convention. One of the smaller local ones that had only 6 ot 7 games going at once. Back in the Late 80's.

B-Tech table was by far the loudest one there, gathered quite a crew to watch. Picked up the TRO 3025 and a Ral Partha Medium Lance box.

[Conn Man]

I remember seeing the first Mechwarrior PC game at my cousin's house. Coolest game I had ever seen at the time. I was probably 13. He gave me his copy of Battletech: The Crescent Hawks Inception (on 5.25' floppy) which I still have on my shelf. Used to play on an IBM PC/XT that had a whopping 256kb of RAM. Had that computer for a long time. When it eventually died I did not have money for a new one, plus I was into other interests (music and photography, film, not digital). When I finally got another computer I had skipped from DOS 6 to Win2k.

In the meantime I remember occasionally seeing the TRO's in bookstores. I didn't have friends who played TT, and so knew nothing about that. I just liked the pictures of cool looking robots and reading their descriptions. I liked how it was all presented with an in universe feel, but I knew next to nothing about that universe at that time. Eventually started playing MW2......on Playstation. Don't laugh, it was my only way to get 'mech action at the time. It was here that I started to learn more about 'mechs and their specific roles. Also why it is bad to take a Maddog A and fire every weapon at the same time, twice in a row, while running. The game also had some funny quirks that I didn't understand until much later. Like an unlockable Tarantula variant with 4 PPC's and 4 Ultra AC2's. (This is why I don't like when people rag on MA players for their lack of universe knowledge. If it was their only connection with the universe, you can't fault them for that. If they want to learn more they should be welcomed, not spurned. This goes for all the MW2 vs MW3 vs MW4 vs TT as well.) Around this time I also started hearing about crazy awesome simulator pods, but they were only in Chicago. Being 15 years old on the East Coast and not even allowed to drive it may as well been a galaxy away.

Graduating from MW2 on PSX, I started playing MW3 on my 400 PII running W2K (or was it w98?). Dial up only and it was not cheap, so I never played online. Loved the campaign. I was also playing MechCommander II, but my life revolved around music at that time and gaming was a very low priority. That all changed in 2002.

Upon walking into my local D&B on my birthday, I found six things that looked like giant breath mints. Never seen them before, and it seemed like people were inside. Then the game must have ended as doors slid open on each 'mint'. Inside I could see a flight stick, throttle bar, foot pedals, multiple screens and what seemed like over 100 buttons. Then a mission review screen started and Virtual World splashed across the monitor. Looking up a huge banner proclaimed "Battletech:Firestorm". My heart started to race as I realized the simulators I had been hearing about for years were now ten minutes from my house. All the money I had for that day went into those pods. Something I continued to do for many years. Went to my first Invitational in 2004. Passed my first Master Trial in 2005. Made many, many friends all over the US and the world. Still involved with the community to this day.

Started playing MW4 Mercs to pass the time whenever I wasn't in a pod. I never played plain vanilla Mercs though. I started with MekTek MP1.1, and was on a team composed almost almost entirely of VWE pod pilots, New York Battle Tested. Several of those players had been playing TT since it's inception and that's how I finally came to learn how to play that game. First 'mech I ever ran on TT was the Grasshopper in a Coventry scenario. It was a steep learning curve, but I stuck with it and really enjoy playing. It helps to have friends who have almost every miniature, and that we get to play on one of these:
http://www.geekchich...rniture/sultan/

Over the years I have slowly gone back and played every BT/MW game I could find. I even have a set of Nova combat books. Each book was a 'mech. I have six. There was a Locust, Wasp, Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Rifleman, and a Warhammer. You would pick one, a friend another, and then duel each other. You would turn to the appropriate page to find out what happened each round. Pretty cool. The only games I haven't played at this point are Virtual World System 1 and System 2 Battletech, any of the MPBT games, any MUX, and the Mechwarrior RPG. So sorry that I completely missed the first three and now they are gone.

That's my convoluted story, and the short version at that! Thanks for reading this far. I hope to continue community building with MWO.

-CM

P.S. - A great book for checking out the history of this franchise. Includes a lot of artwork, fiction, listings of every official novel, rulebook and electronic game. (Doesn't have MWO of course.)
http://bg.battletech...-of-art-fiction

[Atlas3060]

Played MW2, Clan Wolf, for a few years when I was a kid. I then bought a 4rth edition boxed set but didn't make the Mechwarrior/Battletech connection just yet. Then I stopped playing with the boxed set for a while and watched shows like ExoSquad and Battletech (MY HOME PLANET! sorry it is obligitory for me.) I realised the Mad Cat there reminded me of a video game I played, but dismissed it later.

Then I picked up a book, Path of Glory, by Randall Bills and realised the connection finally and started to collect all my old games and toys. With that I picked up another boxed set (or two) and tore into the stories and lore from the sourcebooks.

Now I sometimes stop by the Battletech website looking at the pending releases and slapping F5 with futility knowing that won't bring the products to my doorstep any faster, but it does make me feel good from time to time.

[Goatkiller]

As with almost every game that I have played, I started in 1974 with D&D and it progressed to Call of Cthulhu and Battletech in its infancy.

[AceWreckingCrew]

Gawd most of you make me feel old. . . Oh wait I am! I've been playing Battletech since the early 90's 3rd Edition Boxset (with the original 14) Plastech and about $2,000 worth of minis. Love the game and still play it actively. I started in the electronic games with Crescent Hawks Inception and have played most of the games. I was disappointed in MW4. Not the game play, Just the way the mechs were, so not Battletech. This looks to be 9Q (Awesome for those not in the know)

[DEADTIME]

Bought the first boxed set released in the US as Battledroids at the local hobby shop then moved to battletech with miniatures. Played it for years with my friends, played a free version on the Amiga and the regualar boxed games on the PC.

Edited by DEADTIME, 02 January 2012 - 04:18 AM.

[Stone Profit]

When I was a kid, I picked up tech readout 3025 and have been hooked ever since. That was 20 years ago now, and I have all the tech readouts for casual reading material

[linxcat]

I started by playing the Mechwarrior 3 PC game, and I keep inevitably coming back to it periodically, year after year. I never got into tabletops because I live in a small retirement village, there aren't a lot of options.

[nostra]

I'm a child of the '90s....so basically I loved giant robots like Gundam and the like back when they still showed it on Cartoon Network, and somehow I stumbled across the Battletech cartoon show, and eventually found my way to the Mechwarrior computer games and so on and so forth.

[Grotonomus]

It was around 1992 when my best friend and I were in the local game shop and we saw a group of guys playing "robots" on a table top.
I was around 10 at the time, and saw my older cousin in the group. So I walked up to Bubba (Brian in RL all my family has odd nicknames my cousin Jeff is Animal) and asked him what was up. Well 4 hours and 3 Mountain Dews later I was hooked. My friend and I pooled our money bought the boxed set w/ some extra minis and away we went. later that month I bought the Warrior Series along with the Grey Death Saga Trilogy at a used book store. I've been a Battletech Geek ever since.

[Stone Profit]

yeah the warrior trilogy is a great read, michael stackpole is an awesome author