32 replies to this topic

[NameTheftVictim]

So the jibe I'm getting from fans is that the Dark Age line was a step in the wrong direction. Now I myself have only played the MechWarrior games, and not tabletop BattleTech, and I'm just starting to read the sourcebooks (as of this post, I'm in the middle of the Lyran Commonwealth book), so I don't know much about MechWarrior: Dark Age, other than the general idea of an Inner Sphere in the 32nd century with an HPG network that doesn't work.

So what was the fandom's response (mainly to the fiction) when the game was released? Why is it hated? Are there any sourcebooks relating directly to it? Are there any elements of the game and storyline that were well received by fans? How were the new 'Mech designs received? Is there any website where I can get more info on the game? What is your own personal opinion on it?

[William Petersen]

It was rife with uncharacteristic illogical things. Clans agreeing to disarmament? ARE YOU CHARLIE SHEEN CRAZY!?

Not to mention the whole Devlin Stone thing is so "been there done that, but on a larger, more meaningful scale" (See. The Exodus). And the HPG net collapse? Why? I seem to remember reading they eventually get most of it working again, and STILL don't know who/what caused it? Talk about a contrived way to cause chaos.

The whole thing just felt like really, really bad story-telling to me. But then again, the Jihad wasn't really that great either...felt like Marvel's (or was it DC?) Civil War thing. Bleh.

[Tremor]

Overall, the storyline lacked plot. Personally, I really enjoyed some of the new Canon, while other parts made me cringe. For example, while I found Clan Sea Fox and Clan Jade Falcon was done justice, my heart pains for all of the other groups which were early on depicted as splinter factions (steel wolves, spirit cats, swordsworn, ect). By the time the developers shifted units back to houses and clans it was too late.

And that's all not including the ever shifting quality of game play and inaccurate models. By the time they revamped the newest remake of the Atlas I was glad the series died.

I do know that they did release a sourcebook for the TT based on new mechs added by Canon, such as the Mad Cat III and Eyrie, but I think that was about it. I heard about players blowing up old Battletech hexgrids and playing Battletech rules with the figures, so it makes sense that they released it.

Overall, there was a lot of mixed reviews. While I played and tried to enjoy it, I definitely felt for the hardcore battletech fans.

[Arctic Fox]

I have only read some of the later Dark Age fiction, and not the more infamous early novels, but the usual complaints I hear about them are these:

1. The novels focused on factions inside the Republic of the Sphere, which had been created after the Jihad which WizKids completely skipped over when they started the Dark Age line. Most fans of the original timeline didn't seem to find these new factions which came out of nowhere very interesting.

2. Because of the apparent disarmament following the end of the Jihad, and because the novels focused on small factions inside the Republic, the early novels featured very little actual BattleMechs, hence leading to the larger amounts of the infamous armed IndustrialMechs.

3. Some of these early novels have a really bad reputation. Most notably, the Proving Grounds trilogy and The Ruins of Power are quite often cited as the worst BattleTech novels ever. Again, I haven't read them so I can't comment, but that's their reputation.

The series is considered to have considerably improved about halfway through as it moved away from the Republic and to the older factions, and of the few late novels I've read I haven't really seen any major difference in quality compared to the Classic line (They were mostly writted by the same people, after all).

William Petersen, on 28 March 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

Not to mention the whole Devlin Stone thing is so "been there done that, but on a larger, more meaningful scale" (See. The Exodus). And the HPG net collapse? Why? I seem to remember reading they eventually get most of it working again, and STILL don't know who/what caused it? Talk about a contrived way to cause chaos.

I really don't see the similarity between Devlin Stone and the Exodus. Actually, they're pretty much the exact opposites. As for the HPG net, this is incorrect, it's still borked. One of them major plot threads of A Bonfire of Worlds is about various factions and characters trying to find out what happened to the HPG network, who caused it and how to fix it.

Tremor, on 28 March 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

I do know that they did release a sourcebook for the TT based on new mechs added by Canon, such as the Mad Cat III and Eyrie, but I think that was about it. I heard about players blowing up old Battletech hexgrids and playing Battletech rules with the figures, so it makes sense that they released it.

Last I heard CGL is planning to catch up the BattleTech timeline with the Dark Age and start to release material for that next year (They just finished the Jihad last year and they're focusing on the Star League era this year).

[Octobit]

[Belial]

Hardcore BT fan here, and I loved it for years. Still have my figures, too (although those are about to be put on hex bases for the true TT).

Unlike MechAssault, I never got the "dumbing-down" vibe from DA/AoD. I was able to introduce a ton of young players to the world of MechWarrior through this game, and eventually point them towards the PC games and tabletop and novels. I for one was quite thankful for the ability to throw away the record-keeping and just straight up play a combined arms match that took as little as an hour or as long as an afternoon.

The lore itself didn't bother me, although the whole "we don't know who did it" got annoying after a while. In fact, a few of the Dark Age books were some of the best books I've ever read, period. My personal favorite was the one called "Patriot's Stand." I also read "The Ruins of Power" in one night. I've heard very good things about later ones, particularly "Hunters of the Deep" and "Surrender Your Dreams." I ended up stopping after book #11 "Blood Avatar." Sorry, never have liked Ilsa J Bick's writing.

The real issue arose when WizKids starting releasing sets of figures every few months; you would barely get into one set and the next would be whisked out. Not to mention those strange Solaris VII packs, Officer Club and other things that were too much, too fast, too late. The quality of the sculpting got better (it was good to begin with, minus the weird Atlas design(s)). But it tried to ride its own high horse even higher and ended up like the over-extravagant dinner host who scares away his numerous guests with too much "exciting" stuff going on. The marketing at the end was atrocious and, as Tremor just said, by the time they finally had less tumultuous storylines and 'Mech's weren't rare antiquities, people had found other things to do.

[Stormwolf]

Dark Age was too disconnected from the BT storyline we've been getting since Blood of Kerensky trilogy and onward.
There wasn't really a jumping on point for the oldschool players IMO.

[Belial]

Octobit, on 28 March 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

As a kid, I didn't mind this one. I was 14, I didn't care, I had a mothatrukkin' Atlas. Now I look at this and cringe. At least other designs were pretty much spot-on.

[Kifferson von doober]

Reading through the early dark age stuff now and i've gotta say the mech action is kinda light. we're talking 3 to 4 battlemechs a side supported by conventional forces and converted industrial mechs for major planetary assaults! I think thats alot of the problem especially if you've just come from the previous books dealing with the climax of the fedcom civil war.

[Petroff Northrup]

I feel like it was an attempt to bring everything back to it's roots but was done by someone who did not really know Bt lore and did most things from what they read on Sarna so you had the sort of closed off worlds Md max thing again with industrial mechs and ad hoc units but it just felt different than BT did back in the day. There are some good and some bad things in DA but one thing which I despise them for is the portrayal of some of the clans, particularly the Jade Falcons, they were one of the most inconsistent parts and quite frankly felt nothing like the clan, I know they were supposed to have changed and adapted over the years but I felt the CJF stuff was just stupid.

[Kifferson von doober]

I also get the feeling that i've missed a trick or two with the jihad era. I know more or less what happened Kinda.
But it all seems a bit sketchy like i've missed alot of background work or something?

[Kifferson von doober]

Petroff Northrup, on 28 March 2012 - 02:19 PM, said:

I feel like it was an attempt to bring everything back to it's roots but was done by someone who did not really know Bt lore and did most things from what they read on Sarna so you had the sort of closed off worlds Md max thing again with industrial mechs and ad hoc units but it just felt different than BT did back in the day. There are some good and some bad things in DA but one thing which I despise them for is the portrayal of some of the clans, particularly the Jade Falcons, they were one of the most inconsistent parts and quite frankly felt nothing like the clan, I know they were supposed to have changed and adapted over the years but I felt the CJF stuff was just stupid.

Still on the proving grounds so i've got that to look foreward to but the steel wolves don't seem to be terribly scary.

[Requital]

I tried getting through the dark age novels...but...between the bad writing and just some very...poor...choices for storylines, I put down more dark ages books than I actually read. I never played the Dark Ages tabletop game, but if it was as questionable as some of the novels, I can understand why it wasnt a massive success.

[Tremor]

Honestly I didn't mind the first Atlas model. The second one made me physically violent. Oh yeah? A rotory autocannon carried seperate from the mech in it's hand? Also, the first Shadow Cat and Ryoken models were stupid big and barely even fit on their bases, plus they butchered the Black Knight and Dasher. And don't even get me started on the Ares 'collossus class' mech.

I decided to edit this to give some good perspective too, as I overall enjoyed the game. Clan Sea Fox was always my favorite of the clans, and really was done justice by the books and the game. In addition, the Mad Cat III 55 ton medium mech came about in Canon during this time, and it is my personal favorite. Not everything MWDA and AoD touched was bad, just some of it was god awful.

Edited by Tremor, 28 March 2012 - 02:45 PM.

[Petroff Northrup]

Kifferson von doober, on 28 March 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

Still on the proving grounds so i've got that to look foreward to but the steel wolves don't seem to be terribly scary.

Steel Wolves i liked, there are a few hiccups later on with their development but overall i cannot complain about their arc really, especially once they get going as they fit well into the universe, they feel kinda like wolves gone feral almost in a way.

Tremor, on 28 March 2012 - 02:38 PM, said:

Honestly I didn't mind the first Atlas model. The second one made me physically violent. Oh yeah? A rotory autocannon carried seperate from the mech in it's hand? Also, the first Shadow Cat and Ryoken models were stupid big and barely even fit on their bases, plus they butchered the Black Knight and Dasher. And don't even get me started on the Ares 'collossus class' mech.

I decided to edit this to give some good perspective too, as I overall enjoyed the game. Clan Sea Fox was always my favorite of the clans, and really was done justice by the books and the game. In addition, the Mad Cat III 55 ton medium mech came about in Canon during this time, and it is my personal favorite. Not everything MWDA and AoD touched was bad, just some of it was god awful.

Too true, within DA you can really see what potential was there but so many people got outraged over the major blunders made.

[Perfecto Oviedo]

I think the DA/AoD storyline has potential, but none of the books I've tried to read (admittedly few) kept my interest.

I will say this:

I was reading (or trying to read) Flight of the Falcon, and watching how the Jade Falcons were acting, and I couldn't keep shaking the warnings about the path the Clans were heading down that Joanna brought up in I Am Jade Falcon (I think). I kept thinking "wow...Joanna was right, the Clans really have departed from what made them the Clans...and she totally called it.

As annoyed as I was that the clans became just another faction, I was impressed how that connection was made.

In summation, lots of potential, but couldn't draw me in.

[Strumtruppen]

i truly enjoyed the atlas design for mech warrior i been playing since i was 7 so i never knew what a atlas was supposed to look like. now that i have an idea i can say that they messed up bad. loved mech warrior more then battle tech easier to play with my more simple friends

Edited by Strumtruppen, 29 March 2012 - 11:51 AM.

[Exilyth]

The mathematics are quite easy: Battletech + Wizkids = Broken Base
MW:DA was too different too fast, ignored the established canon and
didn't even care to explain logically most of the new stuff it introduced.

Still, I like Dump Trucks (Mining Mech MkII).

Edited by Exilyth, 29 March 2012 - 03:18 PM.

[Jack Gammel]

A lot of what has been said here on the thread pretty much covers the issue, so I don't really have anything original to add. But just to summarize my own opinion:

Dark Age followed some very strange narratives. The rise of Devlin Stone and the Republic of the Sphere was a little tired IMO, but I could sort of accept it. I never really believed that all of the Houses would cede large portions of their domain to build a Republic of the Sphere, but whatever. The disarmament itself kind of went beyond believability. The collapse of the HPG network felt completely contrived (although I would totally believe Liao would be the first to start invading Republic space).

I think a lot of the dislike for the narrative comes from a failure to try and produce a believable story. The Jihad itself already bothered a lot of people, and the Dark Age timeline went even further, introducing new ideas and new entities which just did not make any sense to many people. I think WizKids had the idea that they could introduce a bunch of new factions and sell models, but it seems clear that it didn't work out for them. I'm not saying that everything about the Dark Age was nonsensical (obviously the Free Worlds League was going to be in trouble after the Jihad), but enough of it was so out there that many old BT players no longer recognized it as their franchise anymore.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 29 March 2012 - 03:48 PM.

[Arctic Fox]

Jack Gammel, on 29 March 2012 - 03:46 PM, said:

I think a lot of the dislike for the narrative comes from a failure to try and produce a believable story. The Jihad itself already bothered a lot of people, and the Dark Age timeline went even further, introducing new ideas and new entities which just did not make any sense to many people. I think WizKids had the idea that they could introduce a bunch of new factions and sell models, but it seems clear that it didn't work out for them. I'm not saying that everything about the Dark Age was nonsensical (obviously the Free Worlds League was going to be in trouble after the Jihad), but enough of it was so out there that many old BT players no longer recognized it as their franchise anymore.

Actually, the Jihad timeline only got written several years after the Dark Age line started (and just finished last year). I think that was also a major part of the problem; the actual story of how the Republic of the Sphere came about and everything else that happened between the Classic timeline and the Dark Age was completely skipped and left as backstory, so fans were left with what basically amounted to a handwave of how the universe changed. I also think that a lot of the hate the Jihad timeline itself gets is simply because of association with the Dark Age.

I'm not absolutely certain about this, but I recall it being mentioned that the skip to the Dark Age and resulting introduction of new factions was done because WizKids wanted their new game to draw in people who weren't already BattleTech fans, which is also the reason they skipped over the Jihad.