53 replies to this topic

[Grendel408]

Kifferson von doober, on 26 April 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

Reading through Dark Age fiction now, gotta say its a bit of an adjustment. I'm on book 8 and it appears to be improving a bit (or i'm just getting used to it) But i think more detail on the jihad is needed. Ooh Devlin Stone saved us all then died but Victor steiner Davion is still knocking around!?! Feels like a weird jump. Still MWO is gonna have to last a good few years for any of the Dark Age problems to matter so its all good.

Keep reading it gets a better after book 10... Devlin Stone never died btw, he just left the Republic of the Sphere and said he'd return should the Inner Sphere ever need his guidence and leadership again... like Elvis, he just left the building

[Kifferson von doober]

Cool, I'll keep going. The series seems to have started out small on purpose, as long as it builds to something cool i'm there!

[Azantia]

I agree with the OP....250%....when the Jihad came I said : What the hell is this crap? When they announced Dark Age, I was excited....when i started reading the first few novels, I was like, eh, stackpole and the boys havent been writing in a while, they will get back into it.

As it progressed and things went from strange to wierd to straight stupid I hung my head to cry as I realized that Battletech was indeed on life-support once again and probably wasnt going to make it out.

I tried to play the Wizkids Battletech game....I thought that the mechs and infantry and vehicles looked great...but the game was absolutely horrible...pure disappointment, no soul, no depth.

[Vulpesveritas]

Things I liked about Dark Age...
...

.....
The novel Patriot's Stand.... That's about it...

[Malkenson]

I left / lost interest in the BT Universe right around the release of Dark Ages. From what I've seen and heard, I'm not all that interested in it. I'm actually hoping that in MWO, history will NOT entirely repeat its self. I'd truly LOVE to see a revision of what the "lore" says will happen, much like the revision of the old 80's TV series BSG.

Following a some what new path, with us, the consumers, having some input into what will happen, could really make a game with a great lore and history even better. I hope!

And if they follow the old history to the letter? Well, on a one to one time scale, it shall be a few years yet before the invasion gets deadlocked by Comstar... Which is not even a player faction yet. Hmm...!

[Victor Morson]

Just clarifying that again, I'm super happy MWO dodged this bullet entirely by setting in 3049. They'll never have to worry about this stuff unless they decide to timeline jump to it later down the road, but really they've setup a position where they won't be forced to do that and that's awesome. So totally good call on PGI's part.

DerangedShadow, on 26 April 2012 - 06:44 AM, said:

If it was not for the Dark Age, specifically the WizKids miniatures game, I would not have become such a huge fan of the game/genre in general.

Folks like you are actually the reason for the second paragraph in the OP: I have absolutely no ill-will towards people who stumbled into the universe through Dark Age and maybe even hold some nostalgia for it and am glad to have you aboard.

Really, I equate it to people who got into Star Wars because they saw The Phantom Menace. True most old fans hated and more new critics had serious problems with it, but the glimmer of something underneath got people to watch the originals and I can't possibly say that is a bad thing. Usually these sorts of comparisons are tough to make but I think this is actually pretty close to the same thing.

Verminaard, on 26 April 2012 - 04:04 AM, said:

I agree, battletech lost ALL interest to me around the 3060's. Mechassault 1/2 were sickening to me lore/story wise, The game play was ok (considering it was an arcade shooter imo). I want to see mechwarrior 2 gameplay and customization return, and a story that doesn't make me lose all interest around 3060. Hopefully they progress in "real time" for the game, aka 3060 will only get here in 11 years, That way I can enjoy the next 11 years in happiness before having to sadly walk away when the story gets insanely bad, and my interest of the timeline dies.

I think the very start of the civil war was well handled; characters were still written as fairly gray, with even Katrina not being a psychopath or Victor being the definition of Mary Sue. I think the original idea was that the Davion named character took after the Steiner while the Steiner named character took after the Davion, so everything surrounding it seemed like it could have worked. The difference between the Civil War and Jihad to me is that the actual actions of the Civil War - the basic concept and battle campaigns - didn't feel horrendously out of place: I could see these two empires splitting up and going at each other. The problem was purely with story elements; even the new tech introduced during this time was pretty neat (RACs, Heavy Lasers, some of the new 'mechs, etc.)

The big difference between that and every single thing that happened in 3070 onwards is that nothing about what actually happened (divorcing yourself from any fluff fiction and looking at it purely as a series of events) made no sense. I've been told it wasn't the case, but I honestly believe that had the whole Jihad been handled as a shadow war with ComStar by manipulating the FWL - whom they'd been getting control of by placing a puppet in leadership, taking over as the sole HPG network (talk about propaganda/manipulation possibilities), etc. - to attack the IS as they had been untouched by both civil war and the Clans, it could have actually worked on a lot of levels. Having what was now by far the most powerful house kick every other house while they're down and not even realize their true motivations for it could have been both interesting fiction and a fairly sensible campaign that fit with what came before. I'm honestly surprised they didn't go that route.

Having Word of Blake suddenly show up with an army and just start owning everyone without the collective IS coming down on them and ending it in all of a year was horrible.

Don't get me started on how they handled Outreach. Argh.

DirePhoenix, on 26 April 2012 - 07:55 AM, said:

Personally I felt the "lore" of this game started going to crap with the return of the clans to the Inner Sphere. They completely threw off game balance, and people not following game lore (ie, just playing the game to play the game) had absolutely no reason to not use Clan 'Mechs or Clan equipment in construction rules, and most of them couldn't follow the Clan style of 'Mech fighting anyway. The tech then started to follow this weird arms race where the IS started creating crazy tech that doesn't make sense and then it kept going back and forth to where we now have stupid things like XXL engines, Null-Signature cloaking devices, Industrial TSM (b/c apparently regular TSM wasn't enough) and laser-reflective armor.

I would have much preferred having MWO start way back in 3015 (when the single-player iteration of this game was supposed to be set). That would have players fighting in the midst of the 3rd Succession War, everyone would have basically the same level of tech (and lots of reason to fight), and the Clan Invasion is far enough away to not even be an issue (and possibly even enough time to get retconned from ever happening)

I have to say I agree with you on one thing in particular, which was the crazy tech-arms race; which was mostly invented to sell TROs. But honestly, I think it was a good thing up until a point - some of the new techs created new weapon niches and overall enhanced the game. I'll admit I enjoyed the mechanics for stuff like Heavy Gauss, RACs and the like; it's only when we started crossing into the really nuts stuff like Industrial TSM and freaking cloaking devices did we hit a problem.

Story wise, I hate how this is the exact point that where the idea of family 'mechs that could barely be maintained and held together with almost impossible to find tech on worlds so backwater they're probably using horses for transportation went down. For computer games, MechWarrior 1 and CSI captured the early era perfectly in that you'd have to shop around to even repair your gyros and parts since worlds might not even have access to the stuff; after that, this sort of thing went away. It's a level of detail that didn't have to go away, and I'm sad it did - to really see it look at one of the old Merc handbooks where every 'mech has quirks, most are damaged in some way, etc. compared to newer ones that just present pristine battalions and you can really see the shift clearly.

That said, I think a lot of people like the Clans and a lot of people like the new techs of 3049 (Gauss Rifles, for example) and I think it'd been a mistake to set the game in 3015 because of it. I don't think both our major problems that started around now (Massive increase in tech outside of core worlds / magic tech) had to happen just because the Clans showed up and could be handled far better a second time around.

[Arctic Fox]

Victor Morson, on 26 April 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

The big difference between that and every single thing that happened in 3070 onwards is that nothing about what actually happened (divorcing yourself from any fluff fiction and looking at it purely as a series of events) made no sense. I've been told it wasn't the case, but I honestly believe that had the whole Jihad been handled as a shadow war with ComStar by manipulating the FWL - whom they'd been getting control of by placing a puppet in leadership, taking over as the sole HPG network (talk about propaganda/manipulation possibilities), etc. - to attack the IS as they had been untouched by both civil war and the Clans, it could have actually worked on a lot of levels. Having what was now by far the most powerful house kick every other house while they're down and not even realize their true motivations for it could have been both interesting fiction and a fairly sensible campaign that fit with what came before. I'm honestly surprised they didn't go that route.

What would the motivations of the Word of Blake be in getting the FWL to fight a war for them? I'm geniuenly interested, since what you say could be an interesting scenario, but it doesn't seem to me like it would have actually helped the Word of Blake achieve their goals in any way.

Victor Morson, on 26 April 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

Having Word of Blake suddenly show up with an army and just start owning everyone without the collective IS coming down on them and ending it in all of a year was horrible.

Don't get me started on how they handled Outreach. Argh.

The Word of Blake don't usually 'own' anyone on less than equal terms except by using nuclear weapons. The only reason the Word of Blake's (very small, when you compare their economic capcity) force lasts so long is because of the White-Out and the various factions trying to take advantage of the situation by attacking each other; once that situation stops they rapidly disintegrate.

And what was wrong with Outreach, exactly?

Victor Morson, on 26 April 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

I have to say I agree with you on one thing in particular, which was the crazy tech-arms race; which was mostly invented to sell TROs. But honestly, I think it was a good thing up until a point - some of the new techs created new weapon niches and overall enhanced the game. I'll admit I enjoyed the mechanics for stuff like Heavy Gauss, RACs and the like; it's only when we started crossing into the really nuts stuff like Industrial TSM and freaking cloaking devices did we hit a problem.

I can somewhat understand why one can consider the 'cloaking device' (it's really just a chameleon system with fancy emission control, but whatever) out of place, regardless of the fact that mentions of it go back all the way to the '80s, but Industrial TSM? It's just a less effective and harder to operate TSM that works at standard tempratures, isn't it...?

Edited by Arctic Fox, 26 April 2012 - 01:00 PM.

[MonkeyDCecil]

OK I agree that anything after Fedcom civil war sucked. I hated the Jihad, and the dark ages. The Fedcom civil war novels could of been better written. That's for sure. But kill Victor Steiner-Davion. Would make me cry. He is one of my Battletech heroes, a long with Phelan Kell. I wish anything after Fedcom civil war never happened and the Fedcom civil war novels better written. Although the Jihad could of been, good if done right. No crazy tech, no WMDs, and no taking of territory so quickly by a small faction. I mean the setting for the Jihad goes back to about the end of the Clan invasion. Anyway could of been good, but they screwed the pooch on that and Fedcom civil war. Thats my two cents.

[Sal Trebov]

I've been a fan of BT since I picked up Mechwarrior 2 back in 95 or so. Never did get much into the lore until recently, though MW2 did have a set of archives maintained from the Clans' perspective, which was utterly fascinating to me back then. I've maintained a nominal interest in the series since then, but with some gaps in my understanding: Mercs was a cool ride until the Clans showed up and s#!t got real, and the intro to MC1 featured me going "Ah, cool! Those Inner Sphere dudes are fighting back. Right on."

I actually started brushing up on the backstory stuff later, when a friend wanted to run the RPG (never took off, sadly), so I was brought up to speed on the broad, overall history up to about 3060, right before the Fedcom Civil war. Then I heard some business about a Jihad, and then Dark Age showed up.

Originally, I thought "Oh, Dark Age. Must be the Succession Wars. Why else would they feature repurposed industrial mechs?" .... yeah, I know.

My take on it is very close to OP's: they tried to start fresh without a reboot, kinda like Star Wars with the Legacy comics. Actually, if they had gone a bit further, say another 200 years, and back-filled the history with a bunch of smaller territory wars, it would have worked to wipe the slate clean. But I'm pretty sure they'd still have enough standing forces to not have to slap an autocannon on a forestry mech (though it did look cool )

[Tadakuma]

Look there was a lot to like in the basic concept behind Dark Ages.

I felt that the scale of the battles was actually about right. A couple of mechs backed up by Tanks and company size infantry formations was about the right size for a battletech battle.

I also quite liked the idea of the Paladins of the Innersphere as it was tailor made for a roleplaying campaign. The issue is that the background for the new universe just wasn't as well formed or put together as I really could have hoped for.

The main issue is that the game seemed to have been designed first and then the writers were let lose to flesh out the universe, instead of them being integral to the design process.

The universe works best on a personal level, of the three books I red I quite liked Ghost War (Michael Stackpole) and Ruins of Power (Robert Varman). These both dealt with the universe from the prospective of somebody minor in the factions.

By Contrast Silence in the Heavens (Martin Delrio) tried to do the major faction stuff, unfortunately the main characters were pretty boring and uninteresting. I really didn't care about Tara Campbel and Anastasia Kerensky because they just weren't that interesting.I did end up caring about Austin Ortega and Sam Donelly.

I had some serious issues about the entire Stone the Messiah story arc, it just felt out of place in the battletech universe.
i think I've made my feeling about the Word of Blake Jihad clear on this forum before, but it is, in my opinion the worst writing done for the universe.

It just deosn't make sense on any level. The strategic decisions are stupid, the character decisions are stupid, the military outcomes and stupid and the reactions aren't in fitting with the canon.

I mean after the WoB let of one of their WMDs their mercenaries should have been deserting them in droves, and their allies would have been distancing themselves from them at a rate of knots. Basically they should have been finished after one of the incidences (I can't remember how many of these they did but it was certainly several times.

The Wolf Dragoons attack on Mars was one of the most boneheaded operations ever written. How is an organisation with the strategic and tactical know how of the Dragoons is just going to forget everything because it looses it's leader. It doesn't make sense.

Now I think MW:O online knows enough to distance themselves from that mess, but one of the reasons I have problems playing BT or MW in sleeply little Adelaide is I'm surrounded by people who love the Jihad story arc and they want to run stuff in that era.

My love of the original 3025 setting and the balance of the level 1 rules means that I can have an issue getting along with them.

( I mean I once spent an hour trying to explain to the leader player of these guys that not ever mech is improved by having an XL Engine and that I was quite happy sticking with my ENF-4R Enforcer)

[RotS Targe]

I think this point has been made before, but I think the point of MWDA was to put the "Beer & Pretzels" back in the game.
Not that I like either, but you get my point
I just got back from a great 1200 point game of Dark Age. I lost, but I don't care, I had fun, that's all that matters.
2 games in as many hours, all I brought was my units, gear, order tokens and 3 d6.
I've seen the people I play with have a game of CBT, there were papers every where, lots of dice, but they were still having fun.
I think there's a difference between CBT and MWDA more than the mechanics. MWDA is more for the casual gamer, it's dumbed down, sure, and I like that, if I want to play with a particular 'mech, I find the 'mech, and I have everything I need to use that 'mech, I don't need to search through TROs, I don't need to print out a thing, I don't need to buy, build, and paint the miniature, or be forced to use something that looks different because I didn't have the time to buy, build, and so on.
As for the story line, I got in on Dark Age novels, and I loved them, but as I read the older books, it was only then that I realized WHY the death of Victor was so important, just WHO the Clans were, just WHAT a Miraborg death was. As for all the new tech, I don't play CBT, so I really don't know how they changed the rules, so I can't really comment on that.
I feel this thread is akin to all the Jar Jar hate, the older players despising the new changes.
A part of me understands what you are all saying, as there were some very fundamental changes to the story-line, but another side of me disagrees, I can't think of the argument it is using, but that part of me is still there.
As for the OP's fear about us being on a set track, leading to the Dark Ages, I think some of the people working on CBT agree, which is why we are having detours to the past, like Operation Klondike, and the new release of Liberation of Terra, so sure, the track leads that way, but there are always different stops, so this will take a long time, if you let it.

[Nav]

I think the current timeline of 3049 is perfectly set, for many of the reason already stated.

I don't care if Clans bring in a massive imbalance, I want to feel what it was like to face the onslaught of the Clan war machine as it was in lore. Yes, I'm a fan boy, even if that means losing for a while!

And as the OP has pointed out, I really hope that MWO being a reboot will take the opportunity to undo the mistake of going down the Dark Age path.

Please Piranha, make it so!

[Kell Pryde]

Victor if I could buy you a beer I would. You have summed up my thoughts on the entire situation (minus four letter words which I would have failed at).
I am extremely excited for MWO!

[Gremlich Johns]

Grendel408, on 26 April 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

Devlin Stone never died btw, he just left the Republic of the Sphere and said he'd return should the Inner Sphere ever need his guidence and leadership again... like Elvis, he just left the building

Sounds like rehashed Kerensky and the SDLF that he took with him. Hmmm, nothing new there - just repackaging. Kerensky did not need to be asked, he knew the IS would need a kickstart.

[Insidious Johnson]

Careful what you wish for OP! Whose lap would this project fall in? Who is lead designer? <Shudders>

[Kell Pryde]

Well heck if we are living in a fantasy world I declare myself lead designer. The following changes are now immediate;

1) The timeline is now restarted at 3050, and the clans have just invaded.

2) All Inner Sphere source material goes back to the original house sourcebooks, and a few updates (war of 3039, and a smattering of others).

3) Like the Legend of the Five Rings card games what happens in the BTech universe will now be decided across the world with the results of mini-tournaments at the local game stores. Each store will play out scenarios, and the results of those battles will influence canon.

Go forth and conquer my sons (and daughters).

[Insidious Johnson]

That was NOT a rhetorical question. Paul Inouye is lead designer... have you MET Paul yet?

[Charles Martel]

Kezran Vrass, on 26 April 2012 - 03:28 AM, said:

*removed* clone baby ?

Alaric Wolf, see also, walking case of squick and proof that Katherine is Romano and Kali Liao-grade crazy.


That aside the setup is obvious, by 3150 or so we'll have the genocidal invasion by the Homeworld Clans and it'll take the houses and Inner Sphere clans working together to stop them.

Edited by Charles Martel, 29 April 2012 - 09:16 PM.

[Karyudo ds]

RotS-Targe, on 27 April 2012 - 09:24 PM, said:

I think this point has been made before, but I think the point of MWDA was to put the "Beer & Pretzels" back in the game.
Not that I like either, but you get my point
I just got back from a great 1200 point game of Dark Age. I lost, but I don't care, I had fun, that's all that matters.
2 games in as many hours, all I brought was my units, gear, order tokens and 3 d6.
I've seen the people I play with have a game of CBT, there were papers every where, lots of dice, but they were still having fun.
I think there's a difference between CBT and MWDA more than the mechanics. MWDA is more for the casual gamer, it's dumbed down, sure, and I like that, if I want to play with a particular 'mech, I find the 'mech, and I have everything I need to use that 'mech, I don't need to search through TROs, I don't need to print out a thing, I don't need to buy, build, and paint the miniature, or be forced to use something that looks different because I didn't have the time to buy, build, and so on.

This. Just this. This is probably my one true love for MWDA. IT WAS MUCH QUICKER. Battletech plays quick, if you have everything ready and everybody is fast on the ball but by default MWDA was set up so that you had one mech, maybe two, supporting a few tanks and ground troops. Probably more realistic visually in that sense. Sure the rules are more abstract but they work. A game doesn't have to be at FASA level micromanagement to be fun. Look at 40k, that sometimes gets bad but many things are abstracted like how much armor tanks have? No one cares, they just care if it's dead! So it worked, just in a different way. Though if they sold unpainted mini's that would have been nice, the sets were getting closer to that point but selling the game to a baseball card company was such a stupid idea.

RotS-Targe, on 27 April 2012 - 09:24 PM, said:

As for the story line, I got in on Dark Age novels, and I loved them, but as I read the older books, it was only then that I realized WHY the death of Victor was so important, just WHO the Clans were, just WHAT a Miraborg death was.

The plot was iffy with the whole new golden age brought about by extreme action and being ended with other extreme action. Don't think they ever even explained who-did-it anyway. I read the first book, didn't mind it, but not the best, never read the rest though.

RotS-Targe, on 27 April 2012 - 09:24 PM, said:

As for all the new tech, I don't play CBT, so I really don't know how they changed the rules, so I can't really comment on that.

They didn't really change any rules, they invented newer simpler ones. abstracted how things were tracked and how things were equipped. Instead of mounting a hatchet you got "melee weapon" or "rapid strike" which is just so generalist...but again, it worked. Maybe a bit to general but the CBT rulebooks look very different and are much more mech centric. You have non-mech units of course, just don't see people using them so much. One thing about MWDA though, I was sure able to find more people to play, so I had more fun with it because of that. If they could just dumb down Battletech to maybe War Machine levels though that might be nice. CBT rules are detailed, and I like that, just wish record keeping was a bit more optimized.

RotS-Targe, on 27 April 2012 - 09:24 PM, said:

I feel this thread is akin to all the Jar Jar hate, the older players despising the new changes.
A part of me understands what you are all saying, as there were some very fundamental changes to the story-line, but another side of me disagrees, I can't think of the argument it is using, but that part of me is still there.
As for the OP's fear about us being on a set track, leading to the Dark Ages, I think some of the people working on CBT agree, which is why we are having detours to the past, like Operation Klondike, and the new release of Liberation of Terra, so sure, the track leads that way, but there are always different stops, so this will take a long time, if you let it.

The detours are sad in my opinion. MWDA came out a decade ago and we're only at the Jihad thing...STILL. I think this is the most stagnant the timeline has ever been. I'd rather just have them flesh out the thing already. At least then they could move on. With MWDA already having progressed quite a bit I don't see why Battletech couldn't just pick up where it left off, salvage the concept and plot and move forward with it. It certainly wouldn't have to change rules or anything or even adopt MWDA's style of plot.

Victor Morson, on 26 April 2012 - 03:10 AM, said:

I think the game system (talking Table Top here) could use a serious retooling and modernizing, sure. It's got lots of flaws that have been solved by later war games; some weapons need balance changes here and there, and it'd be nice to get completely in the clear artwork for every single 'mech in the game as canon.

Some of the rules and systems still work but this is what I have thought for awhile. I would like to see more space efficient ways to track data, and maybe track less of it. Things like the record sheet are waists of space. Not to mention a more table top focus would be nice. Hex maps were cool but Battletech is hardly "table-top" beyond putting the map sheets over a table. While I wouldn't entirely take it in the direction of any popular table-top franchise I certainly would take some concepts here and there where I could. Have to be careful not to go into MWDA territory though. To much change is confusing I guess, whether it's even good or bad beside the point entirely.

[Bighelmet]

I have to agree with the OP. I first played BT in 1984 at Michicon. i loved it! I have played off and on since. I dislike the move to Dark Age. The time line was too fast and it destroyed too much. I have no idea how things could have moved so quickly, even the fall of Rome took centuries not even considering the Eastern Roman Empire...