47 replies to this topic

[yashmack]

Nathan Foxbane, on 18 December 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

From a lore standpoint they were less popular for piloting and gunnery reasons. The legs give them a bobbing or jerky, strutting gait when they move. Inner Sphere pilots are not particularly keen on that though most like them better than quads, though as long as it is bipedal most clansmen do not seem to have a preference as they are so well trained that they can control the 'Mech well enough those traits are smoothed out and a non issue. Remember, part of a pilot's ability to control a 'Mech comes from the neurohelmet, so with human like legs, piloting is more intuitive.

Stalker legs were always just a bit weird in the art. They were set so far back they seemed to almost need to be double jointed in the knee to actually walk and can you imagine how bizarre the leg animations would look for that?

this one shows the double jointing pretty well, hehe

http://www.sarna.net...STK-Stalker.png

Edited by yashmack, 18 December 2012 - 08:29 PM.

[Farmer]

Battletech also lost the rights to all of the Macross, Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeda designs, along with a bunch they stole for Dougram. They were stolen. Copyright infringed upon. Since then, we've goeent redesigns of most of them (project pheonix) and the Dougram, and a few others, have been re-licensed. The Robotch designs are the only ones we don't have, since three companies claim the rights to the designs and Harmony Gold-who in theory control the US rights (sort-of)- won't play nice with ANYONE. Go, yeah bro, I can google. Or, you know, use wikipedia. Or Sarna. Or any number of outher resources to look up the history of the unseen. I mean, hell, I've actually even SEEN all the unseen source anime.

[The Last Blade]

I never said I wasn't the minorty.. hence I'm saying "someone should say it" because, I'm insinuating, I am the minority and it should be said. Don't you think it's a bit pretentious to assume I was insinuating it was a "glaring critical issue" when it's clear I never even remotely claimed it was? And that I'm "raging" because I'm telling a random in a random thread he should man up and google instead of throwing around his idiocy in a knee jerk reply?

That being said, here's something google turned up for me in about 1 second:

http://www.something...3025.php?page=1

That first picture on the cover of 3035 indeed does send shivers up my spine. That's what a battlemech should look like, because, well, thats a battle mech, including the walking chicken trashcans the authors rip on in that article. You guys talk like PGI's version of battle mechs are what they are supposed to be, but you are seeing only half the picture, this is why I'm saying they need to insert the "rad" looking mechs rather than more garbage cans .....eventually, I hoping.

gregsolidus, on 18 December 2012 - 08:17 PM, said:

Admittedly, Shoji Kawamori was the principal artist for Macross and after owning multiple examples of his work I can tell you he didn't draw anything for BT. They may have copied his work but he never did it directly.

Ya I don't think anyone is going to google this. I tried just now and it's taking longer than usual so I'll try to pull it up since you seem like you legitimately care about this sort of thing. In my original post I was just blabbing some stuff off trying to give a very general idea of why pgi may be making mechs in a certain way and didn't think I would be called out on name dropping the difference on Robotech or Macross, but you guys seem like connoisseurs and expect more, so I'll see if I can pull up the article.

[Farmer]

Most of the non-unseen are very, very different. The art is much less nice on them. especially the pre-3050 stuff. If you want to see horrible, look up the stock Blackjack. Though I will say it's hilarious that you're using google to define what Battletech is to you, and using art from a nearly thirty year old TRO that isn't even used anymore, instead of Sarna.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

What books/lore are based on MWO

Not Battletech
Not Mechwarrior

But MWO (cause they are different)

Farmer, on 18 December 2012 - 08:37 PM, said:

Battletech also lost the rights to all of the Macross, Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeda designs, along with a bunch they stole for Dougram. They were stolen. Copyright infringed upon. Since then, we've goeent redesigns of most of them (project pheonix) and the Dougram, and a few others, have been re-licensed. The Robotch designs are the only ones we don't have, since three companies claim the rights to the designs and Harmony Gold-who in theory control the US rights (sort-of)- won't play nice with ANYONE. Go, yeah bro, I can google. Or, you know, use wikipedia. Or Sarna. Or any number of outher resources to look up the history of the unseen. I mean, hell, I've actually even SEEN all the unseen source anime.

Yeah and its ALL the well known mechs

[Farmer]

That's right. Whose favorite anime is Macross?

<---------------------This guy.

[Rofleupagus]

I love these designs.

[Bullseye69]

Here a list of some of the inner sphere design that are around in this time frame , some of them are chicken walker and some are non humanoid design this does not include in of the Clans mech since we don't know they are out there yet. I am sure I missed some and some are those mech that can not be named commonly called unseen. Check out Sarna and look under inner sphere and wold draggons and northwind highlander and they are listed with pics.

By the way nice skin on the stalker the Phracken one looks awesome.



Cicada
Champion
Catapult
Locust
Marauder
Marduader 2
Mercury
Hussar
Hoplite
Hornet
Firefly
Jenner
Crab
King Crab
Sentinel

[Dagger6T6]

is this the thread where i sign the petition for the Stalker to get humanoid legs?

[Farmer]

Dagger6T6, on 18 December 2012 - 09:04 PM, said:

is this the thread where i sign the petition for the Stalker to get humanoid legs?

It never had humanoid legs. It had weird double joints, depending on the artwork.

[Dagger6T6]

Farmer, on 18 December 2012 - 09:07 PM, said:

It never had humanoid legs. It had weird double joints, depending on the artwork.

negatory... you can not trick me into believe a Stalker strides on chicken legs

it hopscotches on humanoid legs that bend at the knee... pewter figurines do not lie! i demand an investigation!

[Karyudo ds]

Dagger6T6, on 18 December 2012 - 09:10 PM, said:

pewter figurines do not lie! i demand an investigation!

Indeed... maybe we can figure out why Hunchback IIC's are bigger than Madcats as well... by a large margin.

[Farmer]

If you look, even on the mini, the left leg is bent backwards a bit on the stalker. The art from FASA just hurts my soul.

EDIT: I will admit, it's worse on the newer mold, which is a bit larger and more awkward.

Edited by Farmer, 18 December 2012 - 09:28 PM.

[Dagger6T6]

Farmer, on 18 December 2012 - 09:22 PM, said:

If you look, even on the mini, the left leg is bent backwards a bit on the stalker. The art from FASA just hurts my soul.

EDIT: I will admit, it's worse on the newer mold, which is a bit larger and more awkward.

true... i've seen some bad renditions of the Stalker... and the one leg extended has always looked like a dumb pose, but i would like to see the in game model with humanoid legs just for comparison... right now I have renamed the Stalker as the...

Fatapult™

Edited by Dagger6T6, 18 December 2012 - 09:32 PM.

[Farmer]

There hasn't been one with legs like in the art. Every game artist who has ever tried to model the stalker took one look at the art and said, "This is stupid." MW2: MERCS used really short, tubby, stocky legs that were normal. But since then it's been backwards, all the way.

[The Last Blade]

Farmer, on 18 December 2012 - 08:48 PM, said:

Though I will say it's hilarious that you're using google to define what Battletech is to you, and using art from a nearly thirty year old TRO that isn't even used anymore, instead of Sarna.

Wow, so using google to define something is hilarious to you? time for you to go back in time and use a library then, Radness. I don't know if you knew bro, but battle tech in general is Old. Real old.

Here is something I dug up:
http://www.giovetti....btrobosuit.html

In this little article he is saying some guy "in rural america" made the original designs. I don't know if this is true, although he claims it is, but what I do remember reading not so long ago was that it was some japanese dude, had some designs, he either sold his designs like this guy is saying, or as I recall, made some designs for either macross or robotech, and this same artist made some designs in his youth at very close to the same time for FASA. These designs were later licensed in Japan and something happened, a different company in Japan picked up these designs or studo, and Fasa failed to License them for whatever reason, and time being a factor in this. None of what I am saying should be taken as Fact, I'm just trying to tell you what I remember. I read this fairly recently, and it may have had something to do with LAMs since I love those, and maybe a keyword to search would be Studio Nue, but from what I'm reading, Studio Nue's work has something to do with a failed Japanese version of battletech as an RPG referenced here: http://jubei.ceyah.o.../~jandrese/jbt/
but like I said, it may or may not have something to do with this, the history is all fuzzy and I was very young when all this was going down. Wikipedia is not the end all to everything either, it's made up of what people know, and relies on people updating it. It's not actual litigation or legal documentation, so if all the history is not there, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

and for the record, I like chicken walkers, much like that Marauder has. I just think the current MWO mechs look a little trashcanny like.

[Karyudo ds]

The Last Blade, on 18 December 2012 - 09:38 PM, said:

In this little article he is saying some guy "in rural america" made the original designs.

Yes rural America Japan maybe.

Google fail on this one. I told you who did some of the major ones, Kunio Okawara did Dougram, and Kazutaka Miyatake did the major Macross ones we liked. No one in America actually designed them though, that's silly. However one of Macross's sponsors did sell off rights (it didn't own) to several US companies and that's part of the story.

Edit:Well no American actually designed the Unseen specifically...the rest most likely of course.

Edited by Karyudo ds, 18 December 2012 - 09:44 PM.

[Farmer]

From Wikipedia (you know, a site that at least TRIES to maintain proper sourcing):

Quote

Original game
Chicago-based FASA Corporation's original, 1984 BattleTech game focuses on enormous robotic, semi-humanoid battle machines called BattleDroids.^[4] The name of the game was changed to BattleTech in the second edition because George Lucas and Lucasfilm claimed the rights to the term "droid"; the machines themselves were renamed BattleMechs from the second edition onwards. The visual design of the earliest line of BattleMechs were taken from Macross and other anime, including many signature images. In later years FASA abandoned these images, and it was common speculation by fans that the decision was the result of a lawsuit brought against them by Playmates and Harmony Gold [USA] over the use of said images.^[5] No official broke the silence until 2007, after FASA had sold the BattleTech intellectual property to WizKids Games. Under license from them, the Classic BattleTech line developer for Fantasy Productions, 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. Catalyst Game Labs has continued this practice.^[6] On 24 June 2009, Catalyst Game Labs announced that they had secured the rights to the "unseen"; as a result, art depicting the original 'Mechs absent from publications for over a decade, can be legally used again.^[7] An update on 11 Aug. 2009 has placed the unseen restriction on several designs once again. This update affects only the designs whose images originated from Macross. Designs whose images originated from other anime such as Dougram and Crusher Joe are unaffected by this change and are still no longer considered unseen.^[8] By August 2011, the remaining images that were considered to be unseen were returned to unseen status due to continuing problems with license agreements.^[9]

Edited by Farmer, 18 December 2012 - 09:44 PM.

[Karyudo ds]

Ack I forgot Crusher Joe... Poor Locust. Sad thing is I think the original Thunder Rift cover version was better.

http://www.mahq.net/ is also a decent source on the mecha/images from the other anime at least.

[Farmer]

Well, the locust is legit again.