53 replies to this topic

[Insidious Johnson]

Yeah, Rome takes a sacking and keeps on ticking! Can hardly tell the difference between now and the Roman Empire. Still a marble ghetto. The heart of Rome died with the Republic. The rest of the 900 years of its survival was within a state of denial in which the glory of Rome was forever sought to be rekindled by one savior or another. They failed to realize one man in charge could never do it. It took the unified citizenry of Rome to create and kill the Republic, first with dilligence then with lethargy. Rome died in one day... the funeral took about 837 years.

[Soup_Bug]

When all is said and done. When the embers die and ashes are blown away. The teachings of one man still stand. Echoing in the darkness.

Remember Blake.

[Victor Morson]

lupin4, on 14 May 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

When all is said and done. When the embers die and ashes are blown away. The teachings of one man still stand. Echoing in the darkness.

Remember Blake.

Remember Blake?

Even many hard drinks can't make me forget he exists. The Mary Sue character to end all Mary Sues and the true poster child of "The Dark Age." I wish more people were aware of the Clan Genetic ****** Baby, because that fits Dark Ages away more.

Don't get me wrong, BattleTech's problems started before then. I couldn't even read the last book but the snyposis alone made me angry... and bad BattleTech fiction doesn't make me angry at all. I can't even get mad about Far Country. But this? This was more anger not because it was the toilet flush to my favorite IP, but because holy **** nobody should be subjected to a level of stupid that is just unbelievable.

I mean.. Katrina ends up with the Clans? The <CENSORED>? Yeah I'm sure they were all over accepting this treacherous aristocrat into their honor obsessed warrior society as something other than a prisoner or janitor. Yep, I see nothing stupid about that!

EDIT: It'd still been dumb but if she won the war and Victor joined them, at least that wouldn't have made me want to slap the writer. They have some common ground. Katrina is the symbol of everything they absolutely despise. She should have died from a trial of combat about 30 seconds after joining if they went through with it.

Edited by Victor Morson, 15 May 2013 - 11:53 AM.

[dal10]

honestly i liked some of the dark ages books quite a bit more than some of the books that people swear by. (not the steel wolves trilogy, pre-fall ezekiel tara campbell and anastasia sicken me. I do enjoy post fall ezekiel crow (Micheal Ritterson i think) the people from Patriot's stand, and some erik sandavol-groelle (or however you spell it)(mostly in fortress of lies) as well as raul ortega and sam donnelly. those characters were well written.) on the other hand the blood of kerensky trilogy was HORRIBLY written. The major character's were textbook mary-sue. (kai "i am going to kill everything once i stop hating myself" Allard-Liao (prime example), Phelan "i got like 1 actual battle under my belt but i am as good as any clanny(clans are mary-sue in their own right but that is an argument for a different time)" Kell/Ward (youngest person to ever win a blood name anyone (natasha held the record prior to that at 22)) and were also pretty one dimensional, (best character in the book was galen cox, cause he made sense. (Kai is the classic emo god of battle, phelan is the dropout uber fighter, victor is a short guy with a napoleon complex who is annoyed when people say he has a napoleon complex)

so yeah, flame on.

[Alex Warden]

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

I agree, battletech lost ALL interest to me around the 3060's.

that´s why i stopped there, and everything else simply doesn´t exist in my head...

[Pihoqahiak]

Azantia, on 26 April 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

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.

Wizkids had huge potential when they started out. Mage Knight started them off on a good note at first (I still have my Mage Knight Santa figure/tree ornament, lol). Unfortunately, they really dropped the ball on it after around the second year into it. The Mage Knight Dungeon expansion should've been amazing, but they made the poor decision to switch from their initial concept (which was sent out in the first round of advertising) of having packs of premade modular dungeon terrain (walls, etc...) to only having cheap paper maps. The items shown in their first advertising campaign looked great, then the product released and it was junk. They also had some glaring rule mechanic problems that had to be addressed which never should've made it through a competent quality and playtesting check. It was the beginning of the fall of Wizkids.
The Heroclix game was mediocre and then the Dark Ages was just awful. They had such an easy way to have made a much better version of Dark Ages (game mechanics only, I'm not getting into the ridiculous lore and story aspects of it). I was floored when I saw the first release of Dark Ages and they hadn't just made the figures with hex shaped bases to use them on a hex map system. It would've been such a better blend of their click system of figures for unit stats and combat tracking and the feel and play of Classic Battletech. In addition, they would've expanded their market to players not even interested in playing Dark ages, but wanting to use some of the Dark Ages figures for Classic Battlech play. It ended up a total lost opportunity to be something great.

[Anjian]

So called ex founder is Jordan Weisman. He started all things Battletech, Mechwarrior and FASA. The clix things were also pretty much his invention. In terms of importance to Battletech that would be like Gene Roddenberry is to Star Trek.

Dark Age was meh meh, but the era after that, Age of Destruction, was much better. Right down from everything about the art and production quality of the collectible pieces to the game play, albeit a bit more complex with pilot cards and special abilities further being added in. I actually prefer reading the Dark Age and Age of Destruction novels over those of the classic age as being darker, characters being more complex (think Caleb Davion) and far less Mary Sue. If anything the AoD novels were a bit better than the DA novels.

Many of the designs for the mechs were quite good. You may have already seen the Mad Cat IV people have posted images around, including one using the MWO backdrop. If you have compared the pieces of Dark Age, such as the Mad Cat 3, such as the highly prized Mason Dunne's piece, to AoD pieces like the Mad Cat 4, like Anatasia Kerensky's, or the RoTS Malice class assault mechs, there is an enormous jump in the quality of art design and craftmanship.

I won't call DA/AoD a commercial failure either. at least for over five years, that franchise continue to run. People were willing to shelve out over $400 to buy a complete box of boosters, then acquire the remaining uniques in eBay, the pieces can go up to $80 each in auction.

Age of Destruction though appears to be Jordan Weisman's saying "I erred with the Republic of the Sphere". The whole concept of the Paladins and the Republic seems a bit too Star Wars and Jedi. AoD literally almost dismantled all that.

Victor Steiner Davion died. His death marked the beginning of a new age of instability, as Clans and Houses were all not equally happy with the status quo and the RoTS.

The Liao, it turns out, didn't really fully abide the treaties of demilitarization. They kept armies of mechs stored in caves, bidding for the right time. They were the first to begin rolling over territories of the Republic, the armies led by Danai Centrella Liao, a 4 time Solaris champion herself, riding Yen Lo Wang. Compared to the classic era of Battletech, the Capellans were much more powerful, regained much more territory.

The Republic militias were reabsorbed to the respective Houses and Clans, such as the Steel Wolves back to Clan Wolf, the Spirit Cats back to the Novacats. This is reflected in the collections with the full return of the Clans (the Wolves, Jade Falcon, Ghost Bear, Novacats) and the Houses (Kurita, Steiner, Davion, with Liao already the first House to fully return late in the Dark Age). One faction, the Northwind Highlanders, remained staunchly loyal to the Repubilc, and became part of the RoTS, which now emerged as a full faction, with all black mechs.

As things started to fall apart on the RoTS, prefaced by disintegration of communications infrastructure, Clan Jade Falcon launched a full scale invasion. Knowing where it leads, other Clans and Houses began either grabbing pieces of Repubilc territory themselves, or pretend to ally with the Republic with the eventual intention of inserting daggers in the back and grabbing pieces among themselves. So yes, unlike Classic Battlech, the people here are no longer nice and Mary Sue. They are Machiavellian. And smart.

What remains of the Republic began a clampdown, creating a Fortess Republic that literally cut off the center core of the Republic (including Earth) from the periphery, leading what is outside the Fortress, planets, militias, otherwise, to fend off themselves.

The story was never completed. Where is Devlin Stone? Who knocked out the communications grid? Is the WoB really dead?

Because literally the story ends here, the rest going forward is a blank page. Hence I would have personally preferred MWO started right after the AoD for continuity. You have no problems adding every mech ever created and documented into the game, without worrying whether it exists in 3050 or not. The whole new history can be written freely, and there is no need to "conform" to some canon. You can add new mechs designed just for the purpose of the online game, without having to consider "canon" which may not translate correctly in balance from tabletop to online.

[ElfBasher]

First things first.

I have been playing and following battletech since the late 80's. I have loved every time frame so far. LOVED it when the clans invaded,even loved the the new weapons. Thought it was a little off on how they were stopped. ( I mean really you get 1 lucky victory and you can stop the advance of one invading army ??.) Operation bulldog was a cool story. The Fedcom civil war was for the most part good. Just kinda sucked that they spent so much time building up to it just to tear them apart so quickly. Would of been better if they could of gone on a longer rampage BEFORE splitting apart from internal forces. That would have been more natural, and allowed smaller conflicts to emerge and blaze a nice trail of destruction. Truthfully I really love the jihad timeline. Such followers of some crazy god burning everything in a big tantrum!!!! TRUELY epic. Loved the manei domina. Making war like it should be a no holds barred slug fist, last man standing because the other man has nothing left to give. Unlike the other wars that more or less ended like 2 old drunken men fighting and giving up because they suddenly sobered up. But over all like I said earlier that i liked every timeline....

Until I saw the dark ages timeline. There seems to be several issues here. First i cant believe that not one soul has said a word about it.... A forcefield that covers several solar systems??. What was the distance?. 30 light years across. WTF. Just imagine the Amount of energy such a thing would need. Maybe I am wrong maybe its not a forcefield. I hope so. Kinda hard to imagine it's not since not even 1 jumpship has made it in or out. And then there is this whole moving an entire nation thing the wolf clan did. Not very likely your going to be making anything your army needs anytime soon, since you lost ALL of your supporting economy. As in your not going to able to clone or make any new mechs soon, cause you left that behind or its in parts. Going to need years to rebuild if they even live that long. Could be that they wont . Maybe they become another dead clan. In that case ignore my little rant on that matter. I am sure there is more about this timeline I don't like, but can't remember right now.

Now with that
There is one thing I like about going into the dark age. The changing of the inner sphere map from a sliced up pie to a more...how should I say it? "Natural" looking map. Having nations that all look like wedges was just odd.. understandable fluff wise but odd.


Oh one more thing!!!
No matter how bad the dark age timeline is is better then having no moving forward. Like some other game we all know..../cough 40K....

[Anjian]

My understanding is that the Fortress Republic is not some force field, but a political line drawn across the sand. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out, no exception, no communication, no buts. Its a complete communication blackout and anything that will move in or out of the barrier will be intercepted and destroyed without any explanation.

Anyway, I like the Dark Age timeline more because it treats characters and societies with greater sense of complexity with less Mary Sueism, a better grasp of social issues. The one regret is that it ended where it is, with no resolution and continuation as to the final fate of the Republic, with full fledge incursions and invasions like from the revigorated Liao and the Neo Crusader Jade Falcons, and the fate and secret of Devlin Stone remained unsolved.

[Adridos]

Anjian, on 18 July 2013 - 12:31 AM, said:

Its a complete communication blackout and anything that will move in or out of the barrier will be intercepted and destroyed without any explanation.

I also think of it that way, but then, you know what happened to that Coordinator who jumped in with his flagship...

[General Pete]

The Boneshaman, on 26 April 2012 - 04:51 AM, said:

The only thing I liked out of the jihad was some of the mechs & vehicles, like the Celestial series Omnis and a few others. DA had some I liked to. I really HATED the lets use work mechs for war idea. "No let’s not take the Abrams MBT to Iraq. Let’s get some Bulldozers, Crain’s and Front-end Loaders slap some MG and AT missiles on them and call it good" I also have mixed feelings about the WOB making Cyborgs.

I know this is a bit of a non sequitur, but there are references to cybernetics as far back as the original 3025 tech readout book. Check out the Griffin pilots and there's a guy who kicks in cockpits of fallen mechs so they won't survive cockpit fires like he did. Can't remember his name, but he's 'more machine now than man, twisted and evil'.

[StompingOnTanks]

Just a suggestion: It would be totally possible to have the Dark Age officially un-canonized. That's what Star Wars fans did to the three prequel movies and we can do it to Dark Age too if we really tried. But I'm pretty indifferent either way, I'm just tossing the idea out there.

[Jacob Side]

It's called Dark Ages for a reason....

I refuse to believe that anything exists past 3055 era.

[Kyone Akashi]

I've enjoyed what I read about the Dark Age so far. Mind you, it wasn't that much - just two novels and a bunch WizKids background material, plus some of Catalyst's new sourcebooks - but it was enough to get a good grasp of what was going on. Perhaps better than some of the critics, given that I often hear arguments about things supposedly not making sense when it actually was explained somewhere. Hell, a lot of people are apparently not even aware that the Dark Age game with its militia forces and agromechs represented not the Inner Sphere as a whole, but an isolated region of space that was thrown into chaos.

Then again, similar to some of 40k's background (flawed comparison, as 40k does not actually have a canon, but still), perhaps a mistake may have been in how these things were communicated, because I'm sure not everyone will have read stuff like those in-character message boards on WizKids homepage, or the INN newsposts: http://bg.battletech...32-3134_INN.pdf

But I suspect the main cause for the divide is that it is simply something "different" that shook up the factions and the balance of power that various vets knew and got accustomed to. Change is always a difficult thing - without it you have stagnation, but with it you run the risk of upsetting those who like a setting because of how it looks now (I see this happening to myself when I'm once more ranting about JJtrek ... generational issue, and I promise you we will see the same debates about the new Star Wars).

It is the exact same thing that happened to Battletech when the Clans were introduced, and (as this thread shows, too) there are a lot of players who maintain that BT was best when it was just the Succession Wars. So, really, in terms of change the Dark Age is nothing but a second Clan Invasion, likely only even more infamous because by then, Battletime as a franchise had grown a lot bigger compared to the hard core of oldschool fans who have known only the Succession Wars ... which meant there were more people that were bound to be upset.

I suppose this is one of the big reasons for why I can enjoy any era of Battletech released so far - because I only really became a fan of this IP thanks to MWO and knew little about it before. I only see the "whole package", with all those different eras being equally important, instead of this supposed "3050s standard" that I see many players promoting as some sort of status quo to be maintained at all costs. No, to me, each of the established eras has its very own advantages and flaws, and I find that I like them all for what they bring to the table (or rather, my imagination).


On a sidenote .. as much as I liked the Blood of Kerensky trilogy by providing a more balanced and realistic portrayal of the different factions (as opposed to, say, the black-and-white Grey Death stories), Kai and Phelan really were horrible Mary-Sues. I'm glad that later novels have become a bit more mature and diverse.

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 01 December 2014 - 07:47 AM.