605 replies to this topic

[CoffiNail]

Mike Silva, on 04 February 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

But I don't even mind all of that by itself. I only really mind it because the Clans were clearly a result of the Battletech writers running out of good ideas so they did something drastic and lazy. Hundreds of years of Succession Wars and then in 20 years we get socially backwards, evil inbred space commies with unbeatable, magical technology and a bunch of all knowing religious fanatics with nukes.

Umm... the Clans had been in the writers minds from early on. I just finished reading Wolves on the Border, which takes place WAY before the Clans. The Wolf's Dragoons in the book... yeah, you can tell that they are Clan, and that they were slowly dropping out some foreshadows. Jamie Wolf uses Clan terms at points in the story.

They have 'sibkos' who are raise from a young age to be pilots for the Dragoons.
Pilots who were not 'raised' in the Merc unit are fosters
Their main 'escape plan' for when the Combine really started to F them up was called Hegira
In the end he mentions 'When we returned to the Inner Sphere'
A few other times in the novel, very Clan like.

It was not that the writers ran out of ideas... they had these ideas forming since early on. Wolf's Dragoons mystery, no one knew where they came from, even sourcebooks had it vauge. The SLDF and their exodus. A lot of it was set up from the start.

Your concept of time is a little off. Maybe the couple months the IS commanders had no idea what was going on, but it was no where near 6 months before the IS Commanders started knowing what was up.

As well, the Clans were never unstoppable. They just always ended up winning the planet. It is not like they never lost pilots or Mechs. Hell one of the first CGB encounters in the IS had them lose a trinary, due to not expecting the noon sun of a desert planet to over heat them to the point it did. No invincible, just better pilots than the IS.

Hell going back to Wolves on the Border, the Dragoons where considered better pilots, and that a equal playing field vs the Combine, the Dragoons always won out. Better pilots, more intense training, etc.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Mike Silva, on 04 February 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

Lore? lol

Didn't sneak attack? Did they declare themselves to the Inner Sphere governments early enough so that they could redeploy their forces to the Clans' invasion corridor? Nope, they rolled up to a planet and said....

Clans: we're going to take your planet, what are you going to defend with?
IS: uh wtf, who are you?
Clans: negotiations over, we send you three fluffy bunnies and two cuddly teddy bears to take your planet, prepare to die
IS: wait, what kind of crazy crap is this? What's a trinary?

That same dialogue probably happened for six months to a year before the IS had any real idea wtf they were dealing with, at which point the war was about a 1/3 of the way over.

But I don't even mind all of that by itself. I only really mind it because the Clans were clearly a result of the Battletech writers running out of good ideas so they did something drastic and lazy. Hundreds of years of Succession Wars and then in 20 years we get socially backwards, evil inbred space commies with unbeatable, magical technology and a bunch of all knowing religious fanatics with nukes.

I enjoy this game for what it is, walking robots with guns, and have ever since I started playing as a kid. But the story-line is kinda dumb.

Have you read over what you typed? That is not a sneak attack. Let me highlight your mistake. A sneak ATTACK means you attack sneakily. The Clans issue a batchall. They let you know you are in danger & strike up a dialogue. They request information on the defenders assigned to the planet & will even let you choose where the fight will take place. Then on top of that sub commanders bid amongst themselves to reduce the number of warriors YOU will be facing. Not a shot has been fired yet.





You cannot call hovering for a week, issuing a challenge then waiting two more days (allowing the defenders AMPLE time to get their **** together) a sneak attack.


Meanwhile in the Inner Sphere, you wake up to the sounds of explosions & before you get out of your bunny slippers & into your combat boots, half your **** is blown up.

See the difference?

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 04 February 2013 - 07:17 AM.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

CoffiNail, on 04 February 2013 - 06:21 AM, said:

Umm... the Clans had been in the writers minds from early on. I just finished reading Wolves on the Border, which takes place WAY before the Clans. The Wolf's Dragoons in the book... yeah, you can tell that they are Clan, and that they were slowly dropping out some foreshadows. Jamie Wolf uses Clan terms at points in the story.

Planting the seeds of a plot line in a story is not the same as being a lazy writer. Mike didn't claim the clans came out of nowhere from the writers. He claimed the execution of that plot arc was drastic and lazy. Seeing as how the clans integartion into the universe has come with some serious headaches and balance issues, I agree with him. They may have been a cool idea at the start, but FASA completely botched the design aspect which in a TT game matters more so than the fiction.

[qultar]

also the clans won one world with a football game
talk about a true superbowl were who wins changes your life

[Mike Silva]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 04 February 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

Planting the seeds of a plot line in a story is not the same as being a lazy writer. Mike didn't claim the clans came out of nowhere from the writers. He claimed the execution of that plot arc was drastic and lazy. Seeing as how the clans integartion into the universe has come with some serious headaches and balance issues, I agree with him. They may have been a cool idea at the start, but FASA completely botched the design aspect which in a TT game matters more so than the fiction.

I'm not going to get drawn into arguing over tiny details drawn from this novel or that, because Aaron expresses my dislike for the whole thing more clearly than I can and in fewer words.

I respect that people enjoy the Clans, and the whole Battletech universe is probably more popular because of their inclusion. But the way they were implemented leaves a lot to be desired.



A small detail I do care to argue....

Jaroth, just because the Clans are magical and can actually advance and conquer a quarter of the Inner Sphere in two and a half years doesn't change the fact that prior to their implementation in the Battletech universe that it took many months to move small numbers of those 20-100 ton pieces of equipment along with all the necessary supporting equipment and personnel. You also realize that the transmission time for an HPG communication could take up to half a year to get from where the Clans first "landed" to the center of the known universe, right? That means the Clans were more than half way through their invasion before the other side of the Inner Sphere had any idea there was a new war in the first place.

So to redeploy hundreds of battlemechs to meet the incoming invaders? Years, easily. So saying that a single planet got a week to prepare as a counter to my point that the Clans surprised the Inner Sphere is laughable. A week is nothing when it takes a year for an electronic communication to get from one side of the universe to the other.

This is why the Clans were a jump-the-shark moment for the Battletech story. Because the whole idea of the Clans breaks so many of the very basic rules established in prior canon that it's hard to take seriously. Yeah, they hinted at the idea early on in many of the books, but when they formally introduced it they broke the game.

Which is why now I don't try to learn more about the story. I just strap in and shoot stuff.

Edited by Mike Silva, 04 February 2013 - 10:04 AM.

[dal10]

Mike Silva, on 04 February 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:

I'm not going to get drawn into arguing over tiny details drawn from this novel or that, because Aaron expresses my dislike for the whole thing more clearly than I can and in fewer words.

I respect that people enjoy the Clans, and the whole Battletech universe is probably more popular because of their inclusion. But the way they were implemented leaves a lot to be desired.



A small detail I do care to argue....

Jaroth, just because the Clans are magical and can actually advance and conquer a quarter of the Inner Sphere in two and a half years doesn't change the fact that prior to their implementation in the Battletech universe that it took many months to move small numbers of those 20-100 ton pieces of equipment along with all the necessary supporting equipment and personnel. You also realize that the transmission time for an HPG communication could take up to half a year to get from where the Clans first "landed" to the center of the known universe, right? That means the Clans were more than half way through their invasion before the other side of the Inner Sphere had any idea there was a new war in the first place.

So to redeploy hundreds of battlemechs to meet the incoming invaders? Years, easily. So saying that a single planet got a week to prepare as a counter to my point that the Clans surprised the Inner Sphere is laughable. A week is nothing when it takes a year for an electronic communication to get from one side of the universe to the other.

This is why the Clans were a jump-the-shark moment for the Battletech story. Because the whole idea of the Clans breaks so many of the very basic rules established in prior canon that it's hard to take seriously. Yeah, they hinted at the idea early on in many of the books, but when they formally introduced it they broke the game.

Which is why now I don't try to learn more about the story. I just strap in and shoot stuff.

with sufficient priority if it takes more than a day to get the message out comstar is being a ****. your second point about the troops is valid. concentrating enough jumpships to move troops en masse would have taken 6 months at least plus at least another 3 to get them to their destination. and even then i doubt there were enough resources to move everything at once. which just makes the clan invasion that more rediculous. like how they make a union that fits 12 mechs fit 15.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Mike Silva, on 04 February 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:

I'm not going to get drawn into arguing over tiny details drawn from this novel or that, because Aaron expresses my dislike for the whole thing more clearly than I can and in fewer words.

I respect that people enjoy the Clans, and the whole Battletech universe is probably more popular because of their inclusion. But the way they were implemented leaves a lot to be desired.



A small detail I do care to argue....

Jaroth, just because the Clans are magical and can actually advance and conquer a quarter of the Inner Sphere in two and a half years doesn't change the fact that prior to their implementation in the Battletech universe that it took many months to move small numbers of those 20-100 ton pieces of equipment along with all the necessary supporting equipment and personnel. You also realize that the transmission time for an HPG communication could take up to half a year to get from where the Clans first "landed" to the center of the known universe, right? That means the Clans were more than half way through their invasion before the other side of the Inner Sphere had any idea there was a new war in the first place.

So to redeploy hundreds of battlemechs to meet the incoming invaders? Years, easily. So saying that a single planet got a week to prepare as a counter to my point that the Clans surprised the Inner Sphere is laughable. A week is nothing when it takes a year for an electronic communication to get from one side of the universe to the other.

This is why the Clans were a jump-the-shark moment for the Battletech story. Because the whole idea of the Clans breaks so many of the very basic rules established in prior canon that it's hard to take seriously. Yeah, they hinted at the idea early on in many of the books, but when they formally introduced it they broke the game.

Which is why now I don't try to learn more about the story. I just strap in and shoot stuff.

Maybe you used the wrong words but jumping into a system, hovering for a week, issuing a challenge then waiting an additional two days is NOT a sneak attack. My point stands. Now taking your other points into consideration, they are true but there is no dialogue in a sneak attack. There is no announcing yourself & waiting days before you actually begin an offensive. Sneak attack are the words YOU chose, I have provided proof to the contrary. Laughable? I think not.

[Gammanoob]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 03 February 2013 - 09:15 PM, said:

Everyone points at the Capellans for being essentailly Space North Korea, and everyone chuckles. Someone calls the clans space commies; and the anger comes out....

I was hilariously TKed a couple of day ago by some "honorable" Clanners on my team.

After we, two premades managed to stomp the enemy team, they started gloating, typing in chat, "Bow to the might of Clan _______."

Naturally, I don't find it fun to insult PUGers especially when they lost to two premades who ended up on the same team. So jokingly I typed in chat, "I don't bow to Space Nazis." Then they TKed me and my comrade in arms one after another.

Some people clearly need to evaluate how seriously they take RPing in this game and how it is possible to have sense of humor...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jaroth Winson, on 04 February 2013 - 07:17 AM, said:

You cannot call hovering for a week, issuing a challenge then waiting two more days (allowing the defenders AMPLE time to get their **** together) a sneak attack.

Actually, I disagree, it's not a sneak attack but it still is nowhere near enough time to mobilize all your forces or to prepare.

For example look at our world it takes several weeks if not months for a country to mobilize for war.

Edited by Gammanoob, 06 February 2013 - 07:45 AM.

[Wu Ming]

I think it would be intresting to know when people found out about Battletech / Mechwarrior.

For exapmple,
there is the tabletop game, more then a few versions of it too, could be older then 30 years... Like Warrhammer. I dont know if the clans were in this version on the game from the get go...

there is the Role-playing game, as in like D&D, real dice, characters, Gamemaster... Again, not sure when the Clans came into this branch of the game...

there are the novels, which were written based on the tabletop and Role-playing, but the Authors at times went outside the bounds of lore. I came in with the books, I know they are older then 20 years... Now I know the Clans were here, the Jade Falcon Trilogy was my hook.

there were the first , early solo computer games, pilot sims, Real time strats, Turn-based. I can even think of an old NES Mechwarrior. Mechwarrior 2 had you playing as a Jade Falcon, the Ghost Bear, then they came out with theMechwarrior2: Mecrs where you are taken captive by the Clans and must earn your mech again ( which is pretty much a storyline taken from the novels already a few years old at that point, just to make clear what came first). Yes you could play with friends and co-op these, but that was in the day when online gamming was in its infancy, finding and linking up was hard... I use to just move my computer to my friends house, much simpler...

there has been a good bit of online play, via Mechwarrior 3-4, Mechcommander 2 and way better online services, I am almost 100% that either PS2 or Xbox had one on their online network 7-8 years ago... Never played them, not sure how much the Clans were in these...

I skipped the TV show, I kinda knew about it, but I never saw it. Sounds like it was just one of the Novel plot lines made into a show...

and now there is Mechwarrior:Online. Which I will say that they are not spinning anything new, just using what is, what it is. Not that I feel they need to make new stuff, I would prefer to see the old stuff done well.

Now for myself, getting to know the Clans via the Novels, I don't see how they "broke" the game. I dont think their code of combat would work... unless you give a lot of credit to a group of military people setting up a system of contest/conquest without hatred as their form of government.
I like to think the Clans fight each other like sports teams fight each other. Its serious, but its a game with rules.
They might not always like each other, but they tend to go with the strongest makes the rules, rather than resisting till the bitter end. Not saying they dont go bitter some times, i jsut mean they Clans do feel they are all on the same side at the end of the day.

As to Clantech "breaking" the game, I would say that almost all the real examples of that were poorly implemented in past computer games. I have no idea if the tabletop gamers might have a similar feeling. I will trust the Devs this time have plan to use Clantech in game without ruining the options/value of useing something cheaper or "lowtech".

Edited by Wu Ming, 06 February 2013 - 08:47 AM.

[Skylarr]

dal10, on 04 February 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

with sufficient priority if it takes more than a day to get the message out comstar is being a ****. your second point about the troops is valid. concentrating enough jumpships to move troops en masse would have taken 6 months at least plus at least another 3 to get them to their destination. and even then i doubt there were enough resources to move everything at once. which just makes the clan invasion that more rediculous. like how they make a union that fits 12 mechs fit 15.

Comstar was feeding them intel, and they were not transmitting messages for the IS.

They sided with the clans. In exchange they would be allowed to govern the IS planets for them.

Edited by Skylarr, 06 February 2013 - 09:00 AM.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Gammanoob, on 06 February 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

Actually, I disagree, it's not a sneak attack

Thank you for disagreeing

[Jimskiavic]

Gammanoob, on 06 February 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

Actually, I disagree, it's not a sneak attack but it still is nowhere near enough time to mobilize all your forces or to prepare.

Pretty sure that'd be called 'good strategy'. It's not like people usually announce "just letting you know, we're going to attack here in a bit - though we ought to give you a heads up so that you can organise all your forces to meet us". The only thing like that I can think of would be batchalls...

[Gammanoob]

Yes, of course it's good strategy and I would never advocate anything different than striking your enemy when they were least prepared for it.

However, it certainly isn't "honorable" or giving the opponent a fair chance. Though again, I am not suggesting that any war should be conducted with the goal of fighting fairly, but it strikes me as silly that the Clans claim they are giving their opponent a chance when they often rig the game in their favor before hand or fight foes who are clearly not in a state conductive to fighting.

Edited by Gammanoob, 07 February 2013 - 08:37 AM.

[Jimskiavic]

Firstly, I don't think the Clans chose their invasion corridor because of considerations regarding likely levels of resistance. Rather it was simply the shortest path to Terra. Indeed I doubt they would have been bothered one way or the other on how well it was defended.

Secondly, I'd take issue with your inference that the area of the invasion corridor was weakly garrisoned. This was right the way down a border between Steiner & Kurita space, with an entire state (FRR) in the middle. Sure, the periphery edges would've been less defended, but more so than periphery edges in the middle of (say) Steiner space would've been. Short of invading along the border between Davion & Kurita, there probably wouldn't have been a tougher route to take from the periphery to Terra.

As to the honour in one-sided odds in battles for individual battles, that's where the Clan bidding system comes in: to try to make it as fair a fight as possible.

[Gammanoob]

Jimskiavic, on 07 February 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

Secondly, I'd take issue with your inference that the area of the invasion corridor was weakly garrisoned.

I'm not suggesting it was weakly garrisoned, but rather that showing up to a planet, giving said force a very short amount of time to prepare for a battle isn't exactly what you do if you want to face your enemy at it's best.

Even a large army is going to be in trouble if they aren't ready...

Edited by Gammanoob, 08 February 2013 - 04:39 AM.

[Ashla Mason]

Gammanoob, on 08 February 2013 - 04:37 AM, said:

I'm not suggesting it was weakly garrisoned, but rather that showing up to a planet, giving said force a very short amount of time to prepare for a battle isn't exactly what you do if you want to face your enemy at it's best.

Even a large army is going to be in trouble if they aren't ready...

See, this doesn't really jive past the first month of invasion, since (barring the use of pirate points which are difficult to aquire) transit from the jump point to the planet usually takes several days at least, during which the locals have ample time to prepare and send communications elsewhere (comstar was still sending messages for the IS, just not as quickly as they could have).

Besides that, the clans were consistently explaining what forces they intended to attack with and announcing their pressence when any other nation in the BT setting wouldn't have been so polite.

[DrnkJawa]

Hey clanners, just a simple reminder Operation Bulldog!

[Stormwolf]

DrnkJawa, on 08 February 2013 - 05:17 AM, said:

Hey clanners, just a simple reminder Operation Bulldog!

Operation Bulldog

I hope you guys realize that you are nothing more then the pawns of the Warden Clans.
Why do you think that they were helping you?

[DrnkJawa]

Stormwolf, on 08 February 2013 - 05:23 AM, said:

Operation Bulldog

I hope you guys realize that you are nothing more then the pawns of the Warden Clans.
Why do you think that they were helping you?

we sent their leaders 50 strippers and a pound of blow

[Jaroth Corbett]

Gammanoob, on 07 February 2013 - 08:34 AM, said:

Yes, of course it's good strategy and I would never advocate anything different than striking your enemy when they were least prepared for it.

However, it certainly isn't "honorable" or giving the opponent a fair chance. Though again, I am not suggesting that any war should be conducted with the goal of fighting fairly, but it strikes me as silly that the Clans claim they are giving their opponent a chance when they often rig the game in their favor before hand or fight foes who are clearly not in a state conductive to fighting.

What part of a batchall can you not comprehend? How is it rigged? They alert you to their presence, they let you know you will be attacked & ask for detailed listing of your troops. If you give it to them, they willingly reduce the number of warriors you will have to face. They give you time to prepare. This is in direct contrast to the IS who just start shooting. Come on now. This is getting ridiculous.

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 08 February 2013 - 05:45 AM.