43 replies to this topic

[Listless Nomad]

Since the clan forum seems to be picking up a little - I'll pose the question directly to you guys. As fans of BT who enjoy roleplaying as clanners - how would you most like to join the clans once they appear sometime in the next year? Bondsman? Trials? Go directly to clans?

[Jaroth Corbett]

Grayson Pryde, on 19 January 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

The main problem is you cant get a Bloodname when you are a bondsman from teh inner sphere.

Not unless you impress the hell out of your Khan as Phelan Wolf>Ward>Kell & can prove you came from the line of the original 800 warriors from the Second Exodus depending on who your Khan is.

[Adrian Pryde]

Phelan is the only person in the Battletech universe (I believe) who was taken as a freeborn as a bondsman from the Inner Sphere and proceeded to earning a blood name. This happened not because of clan values, tradition, or law, but because he had the power of being a main character. I pretty much hate that entire story-line because it completely breaks the believability of the setting. Meticulously create social structure and beliefs of a society all set aside because the author wanted them that way. I even like Michael Stackpole, and have read numerous books of his and yet still cannot let that go. He had a stupid idea which he forced upon the fictional world through absolutely narrow and heavily twisted logic. And the idea of this absolutely rare and abysmally created event being recreated over and over again even loosely through people becoming bondsman in this game is atrocious.

And yes, the Jade Pheonix novels have a similar rise of an out of place character, however it is clearly in-line with the created fictional social structure of the clans, as there was no externally place exceptional logic to rely upon, just a commander abusing his legitimate powers followed by adherence to clan law

Having trials to let characters switch over or for player admittance would be thematically consistent, and make sense in some ways with the lore. However, I feel like this is mainly asked for by the player base not to prevent people from heading to the clans en-mass but to largely preserve their idea of clan superiority. Clan pilots are supposed to be better than other factions, so we have to stop newbs from coming over just to get the shinies so that we can still feel like we are meant to be superior.

The only way that really makes sense is just to require players to make new characters. And if you want to limit clan characters to people who have enough faction points or are VIP's, fine. It makes sense, and it is how the vast majority of MMO's tackle this kind of issue.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Phelan was able to become a warrior, attain a Bloodname & rise all the way to Khan as well receive his own Bloodname because he was firstly a direct descendant of Jal Ward & he was an exceptional warrior. There are other freeborns who had Bloodnames created for them. They are noted in the Historical Turning Point: Operation Klondike sourcebook but the actual names are not listed. Also Ulric really had no choice but to create a Bloodname for him when you think about it logically. Phelan was Khan, he HAD to have a Bloodname.

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 24 January 2012 - 08:31 PM.