Well, 'mechs certainly aren't really there for rocketing, though the Jump Jets should be given a little more flexibility than they were given in Mechwarrior 3 and 4 ("Straight up in the air" is useful for poptarting assault 'mechs, but for most lights and mediums trying to use it to maneuver through rough terrain, it's often more trouble than it's worth), they're by no means meant to be flying like gundams or macross machines. That said, though, Lumbering is taking things a bit too far, as well. Even 100-ton machines can break into a run, and while it might not look much compared to a car going down the freeway, It's usually faster than your average residential traffic - hardly the "lumbering" that it's been depicted as in the Mechwarrior series. I think the whole image that mechs are big and sluggish were simply a biproduct of computer game code limitations, as well as the fact that those said games were often single player games that relied heavily on "Bigger is better" philosophy.
By extension, we're seeing a lot of that philosophy cropping up in the boards - people saying that 'mechs should be non-humanoid and should not have arms that serve as anything more than jointed weapons turrets. Admittedly, I'm seeing that as a cultural biproduct. While Battletech's roots are rooted in a handful of early 80s robot anime, the Japanese tend to have a different outlook on things in general. Much like the samurai's sword became his soul, other things, too, would become an extension of the wielder. What is more, in folklore, tools were believed to become sentient once they were 100 years old (See:
http://en.wikipedia....iki/Tsukumogami). This is likely partially why Japanese robots are preferred to be humanoid in appearance.
Meanwhile, in the west, we have no such beliefs. Tools are things - they are not an extension of the self, nor are they sentient. As such, by and large, while there are some humanoid robots that are popular in the west (Transformers, Iron Giant), these tend to be self-aware robots, and not a vehicle. Likewise, more humanoid designs with human pilots tend to only be accepted if it comes at the cost of the human body itself, or is worn as a suit of armor (Which tends to cater more to memories of knights from centuries past). Our vehicle-robot-warmachines, however, are rarely accepted as humanoid. We tend to prefer robots that separate themselves from us. AT-AT and AT-ST walkers from Star Wars, Hercs from Earthsiege, and even some of the more popular Clan Omnimechs in Battletech forgo the humanoid outlines, the faces, and limbs. However, to the Japanese, I could imagine these to seem impersonal to the point of appearing to be mooks.
Just as an example, look at Macross, one of the most often quoted sources as the original unseen.
What were the Hero-bots? The Battroids. In Battletech, they were the Wasp, Stinger, Phoenix Hawk, and Crusader. Overall, most of these were heavily ignored.
As for the really popular designs like the Marauder, Rifleman, and Warhammer? The Marauder was the Glaug Pod - the machine of choice for a villain character, and the Rifleman and Warhammer only appeared as extras, to be forgotten to history. Heck, the only non-humanoid looking design that showed up in every series consecutively was the Destroid Monster (Inspiration for the Behemoth/Stone Rhino), and it's purpose in almost every series was to be a faceless illustration of the horrors of war as it fired "Reaction weaponry" (Read: Nukes).
What I suppose this means is that, due to our cultural beliefs, it shifts the "
uncanny valley", making what would be appealing to the Japanese less so to a western audience - and vice versa.
While this information probably won't sway anyone's train of thinking, I thought it might be something interesting to consider - that your tastes are more likely shaped by your culture or upbringing, and won't always be absolute truths
Edited by ice trey, 28 January 2012 - 01:35 PM.