483 replies to this topic

[Zakatak]

I just realized. Anybody notice how much the original Jenner looks like a frakkin' Cylon?



Frakkin' toasters.

[Planerunner]

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I'm pretty sure he is trolling. If not then why bother arguing with him? You'll get a better discussion from a cat.

Yes, he's trolling.

Edited by Planerunner, 27 January 2012 - 02:40 PM.

[Ghost]

Planerunner, on 27 January 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

For any newcomers to the BT universe, THIS thread is what typical BT fans are like. That's a compliment BTW. See, there ain't no making an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Nerdrage and trolling (as distasteful as they can be) on BT forums are typical and a sign of an active community.

Well, ah, we moderators have a thing or two to say about that with respect to the MWO forums. Grimm takes a dimmer view of trolling than I, but I would like to take the opportunity to remind everyone of the Official Posting Guidelines. Coming to the forums with a chip on your shoulder is a quick way to get your post deleted and a warning issued. Keep it civil, guys. (Though I would like to point out that as a whole, this community does a very good job at that.)

[Spunkmeyer]

Planerunner, on 27 January 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

...The new art should help unify all these different fan groups to some degree, due to the quality, if nothing else.

+1.
Hands aside, it will be nice to [hopefully] see different kinds mech designs out on the battlefield. I don't think the developers would limit mech choice to just Inner Sphere humanoids. It would be a disservice to both a huge portion of mechwarriors, and the vast amount of thought and art that has gone into making Mechwarrior truly something special.

[The unnamed one]

WhirlpoolBrewer, on 27 January 2012 - 10:27 AM, said:

I've been playing the computer games since Mech Warrior 2, and I have always preferred mechs that don't remind me of gundams... like alomst every inner sphere mech does. I prefer the war simulation side of it all, not the arcade Mech Assault meets Gundamwing thing that most inner sphere mechs scream. Nobody can claim that they want Mech Warrior to be more sim than Mech Assault was and like mechs with hands. For pete sake the last mech to come out had a Mohawk. It looks like instead of shooting me, he is going to pull a guitar out and play heavy metal rock.

There are respectable Inner Sphere mechs out there that I'm praying they come out with. I'm happy to hear about the catapult, and I really hope they put the uziel in as well. There are acceptable mechs on the Inner Sphere side, but whenever a mech with hands comes out everyone just gets all excited about it, and my hope for a good mech warrior game drops a little more.

Don't get me wrong I still plan on playing it, specially when Clan mechs become available, but until then its just a little depressing. Heres to hoping for less 50 ton jokes and more 50 ton machines of war.

the hands on mechs were for melee combat or moving heavy objects. some clan mech could be outfitted with hand acurators but lose the weapon port in the proccess. The Centurion is based off the roman soilder that wore helmets with hair on the top. o_o

[Datum]

I get what you mean, but don't fret too much.
The Inner Sphere designs are a little funky, but FlyingDebris is doing a great job updating them, and we still have a lot more mechs coming.
Besides, if the Unseens ARE included, we'll have Marauders, Warhammers, and Riflemen to keep things awesome.

[Planerunner]

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The real problem though is that FASA was still using Victor Musical Industries and Studio Nue for their designs. I've been told that neither of those groups were ever allowed to work on the Battletech line again after that point.

Although i love explaining this stuff, let's let wikipedia explain:

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Randall N. Bills explained that FASA had sued Playmates over the use of images owned by FASA, but received no compensation, even though Playmates was ordered to stop using the images in question. After realizing how the use of licensed images made them vulnerable to lawsuits and afraid that such a suit would bankrupt the company, FASA made the decision to only use images owned by them and them alone. The BattleMechs taken from the various anime sources were then considered "Unseen". When Fantasy Productions licensed the property, these "Unseen" images were expanded to include all art produced "out-of-house" – that is, whose copyrights resided with the creators, not the company.

So, in other words, any artwork that was not done in house was dropped due to potential legal issues. Victor Musical was dropped even though FASA had legal rights to the images. This policy still remains in force to this day. Notice the wikipedia article doesn't even mention Harmony Gold. See, FASA *did* get sued over this very thing. That lawsuit and settlement scared the bejezus out of them, I'm convinced jail time must have been threated at some point.

Meanwhile, back in the fandom, most fans at that time came onboard BECAUSE of anime mecha. Then suddenly, FASA didn't just pull those mechs. They stopped using *any* anime mechs. PERIOD. And they went with inferior in-house artists, the ones we all tolerated just to get to the anime mecha. This was likely the worst decision FASA ever made, but they were backed into a corner.

Anime mecha were hard to come by (outside of Japan) back then. There was no internet. You couldn't just access google and do a search for 'mecha'. You couldn't go to www.HLJ.com and order 10 Gundams. And you sure as hell couldn't watch video anytime you wanted to. You turned on a local channel at specific time in the afternoon for 30 minutes a day. That's it. That's all you got. Robotech and Voltron were cultural ad campaigns for mecha. It was cool, it was exclusive, and it was hard to find. You had to go to hobby shops and your memory to get this stuff. FASA was a gatekeeper for mecha accessibility, whether they realized it or not. When they cut off external art sources, FASA effectively left their fanbase. They never recovered and went bankrupt.

Fortunately, Battletech lived on.

[Kaemon]

If I can't reenact the final scene from the movie They Live with my mech..it is useless to me.

Probably can't link a vid to that on the forum.

/carry on

[Planerunner]

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I don't think the developers would limit mech choice to just Inner Sphere humanoids.

I can't wait to see the Clan mechs!

[Planerunner]

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Besides, if the Unseens ARE included, we'll have Marauders, Warhammers, and Riflemen to keep things awesome.

Good luck with that. We'll get the dougrams and such, but Macross is still off limits. For now.

[Solis Obscuri]

hoax, on 27 January 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

Forgive me for being a product of the MW2 generation and not having a solid grasp of the "history".

Edit: I think most of the incongruities comes from the fact that all of this is based on something that was created in the 80's. Of course what was dreamt of then is going to look crazy to us.

What??!?!?!?!?!!?!?

Marauder3D, on 27 January 2012 - 02:30 PM, said:

Look at a Stalker. I still don't see that working.

Hey, if I'm going to pilot a dick-ik-a-box-with-missle-racks-strapped-on-the-sides, I may as well be piloting the most awe-inspiring one!

[Razed]

Although asthetically I've always liked the whole arm ending in a huge barrel look I've always wondered how the pilots avoid plugging the barrel with dirt when they fall forward. Hands would prevent that from happening, or at least help.

[EDMW CSN]

Razed, on 27 January 2012 - 06:19 PM, said:

Although asthetically I've always liked the whole arm ending in a huge barrel look I've always wondered how the pilots avoid plugging the barrel with dirt when they fall forward. Hands would prevent that from happening, or at least help.

That is what an Atlas has to say about barrels for arms.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 27 January 2012 - 06:54 PM.

[Azantia]

Brillant. F***ing Brillant. Case closed. Love this picture.......

[RynCage]

I really don't care either way.
Devs can put all the hands, mohawks, hula girls and glitter they want on a mech. I'll save my displeasure for somthing more important, somthing worth putting time and effort into thinking about. Like gameplay for example.

Even if all the mechs in the entire history had fingertips, BT in general is still miles away from the sillyness of gundam.

[Rhinehart]

I simply can not believe that I am the first person to mention this very big reason why (If you could see the future) as an IS pilot you absolutely want functional hands on your mech.(Especially if the devs make them useable in game.)

The Clan Invasion is coming people. What's the advantage the Clans had in addition to mechs that were faster, better armored, more heat efficient and equipped with weapons that outrange and out damage their IS counterpoints?

That would be Elementals, people. The battlesuited armored troopers whose specialty (In both TT game Lore and the novels though they haven't figured this out in video games yet, though MWO might) was leaping on to your mountain of metal, inside the reach of any of your weapons and literally cutting the armor off your mech like a can opener to damage the internal systems within, or slicing through your cockpit to fill you with machine gun slugs or even just rip you in half with their metal claws. Remember due to heat inside the mechs mechwarriors typically wear a cooling vest, a neural helmet and as little else as possible to avoid passing out from the high temparatures.

Your defence?

Well if you are in a Mech with no hands you either jump and land hard or voluntarily fall, hoping to either crush the armored tick that's biting you or at least knock it off so you can shoot it.

If you have a mech WITH hands? You reach up, grab that armored tick and then crush him like the little Bloodsucker he is!

That's the reason that, once the Clan Invasion hits I'd trade my Marauder for a Black Knight. The Black Knight has hands.

Edited by Rhinehart, 27 January 2012 - 08:02 PM.

[Ryphus Trebo]

Physical attacks were one of the few advantages the I.S. HAD during the war. Picture says it all. Also I always hated the Wolverine, hated the way it looked, hated it's load out, hated using it. Hate it hate it hate it.

[Bigamo]

honestly, this tread is DEPRESSING!

Guys need to figure out one thing... what made Battletech GREAT was the anime like mechs. as soon as they get out battletech stoped being the huge sucess it were.

And i want my phoenix hawk with its proper hands and its proper DEATH FROM ABOVE!!!

PS: cmom, even a grasshoper can be fine!

Anime mecha >>> Chicken

PS: And the TT rule of get broken mech menbers to hit things is just TOO MUCH FUN!

[Gaizokubanou]

Rhinehart, on 27 January 2012 - 07:57 PM, said:

Your defence?

Well if you are in a Mech with no hands you either jump and land hard or voluntarily fall, hoping to either crush the armored tick that's biting you or at least knock it off so you can shoot it.

Or shoot it down from miles away with the more/bigger guns you have

[Leetskeet]

[EDMW]CSN, on 27 January 2012 - 06:53 PM, said:

That is what an Atlas has to say about barrels for arms.

I think you'll find that an Atlas isn't going to just walk up nice and slow at a snail's pace and just punch the **** out of whatever mech that is.

As pretty as the picture is, and as much as it inflates the OMFG ATLAS FTW HANDS SO GOOD SO USEFUL, an Atlas wouldn't even come close to getting an opportunity to do that. Hands make sense for industrial mechs to a point, but outside of something like a Solaris melee match, what are they going to do on military mechs? Getting past your loyalty to oldschool battletech and how the mechs originally had hands because that's the way mechs(Gundams) were originally envisioned, they plain and simple have no purpose on a battlefield full of ranged weaponry.

I don't know if you've played something like MWLL, but assault mechs, especially an Atlas, are giant targets that get completely hammered if they try something stupid like getting close. They're FAR too slow to be anything but mobile heavy weapons platform. They absolutely annihilate anything they can shoot at, but don't be fooled into thinking they're going to just walk into enemy lines and punch ****. You wouldn't have arms by the time you got in close enough to punch completely through a torso, which by the way, is ridiculous.

Do hands genuinely make sense to you on a BATTLEmech? Does it genuinely make sense that you can control individual fingers and joints, as well as make the complex motions involved in punching and swinging with joysticks? Or do they tell the mech what to do with their cute little neurohelmets like it's a gundam? Last I heard the mot the helmets were capable of was helping the mech balance and orient itself based on the pilot's sense of balance.

You have a Madcat(Timberwolf, whatever), which in it's more modern(read:logical) adaptations looks like it's a feasable(eventually) mech that could potentially function. You have a Blood Asp, which again is a walking behemoth full of guns that clearly was made to annihilate whatever it's pointed at.

Then you have this silly *** mech that's completely humanoid in form complete with hands, a rotating head, and even a damn handheld gun on occasion. Outside of the feeling of oldschool nostalgia from the good old days of battletech where everything was a gundam, that nonsense has abolutely no reason to hold any sort of weight in a game that's going for something a little bit more realistic.

tl;dr, hands, handheld guns, rotating necks, and overly humanoid mechs(as in it looks like a damn gundam) are relics from a past where battletech was essentially copying japanese mechs that they saw. If you wonder why Mechwarrior GAMES aren't rocking swords, axes, pistols, lightsabers, gundams, and jet-mechs, it's because that **** is absurd.

Edited by Leetskeet, 27 January 2012 - 08:36 PM.