KickStarter BattleTech Pre-Release Thread

[Athelas]

Sounds like they share the Codex's eternal struggle to define what an RPG is.

Like Shadowrun, they will not be "slaves to the tabletop rules". The ~feelz~ is what's important.

Fixed for accuracy.

 

[Infinitron]

Mitch seems upset that the popular perception of BattleTech is as a "game about big stomping robots". It's a fully-fledged campaign setting, "the Star Wars of gaming", full of cool stuff and cool stories, he says.

He's hoping all BattleTech fans join in and fund the Kickstarter on Day 1 to prove that. That's what the #alphastrike hashtag is about.

I suspect the funding goal is going to be higher than what HBS have done in the past.

 

[Night Goat]

Single player open-ended game with procedurally generated scenarios

please no

They're going to use MWO's art style for the Mechs "to present a consistent universe".

What? Why? Did anyone even play MWO? Is it even a thing anymore?

 

[Infinitron]

Note that each of those layers builds upon the previous one, so presumably those procedurally generated missions would be in addition to a campaign with fixed story missions.

 

[Latro]

Banner saga with mechs.

front mission with uh, front mission

 

[ArchAngel]

I hope they have 20$ early bird tier, I am too poor for more

 

[Trash]

Absolutely played the first Mechwarrior to death. Loved the mercenary aspect interspaced with the short narrative sections of the main plot. If they go for something like that then I'm all for.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The choice of art style is good. The two new promo wallpapers they've made are probably the best BattleTech artwork ever, especially the one with tanks and the King Crab, even though the other one showcases more on the setting's feudal techno-barbarism with the cloaked Federated Suns dudes. The mechs look leaner, meaner, and just plain more functional. I also like the kind of military porn pseudo-realism they got going on in the King Crab pic. Not to mention BTech has a long history of absolutely hideous art that should never have existed, it's like there's a black hole of highly-concentrated shit between the original loaned RoboTech artwork, the Japanese edition artwork that was decent, and what we're getting now.

I'm really excited for what they're promising, though I hope what they mean by that priority is that after the single player campaign with a good story showcasing the Succession Wars setting and having interesting stuff happen there, they'll put resources to a random gen "free roam" mode that co-exists as a part of it in single player, or maybe as a separate mode too. Especially good that they leave multiplayer as the lowest priority, good single player mech games are in really short order and I was really disappoined with Armored Core's shift towards more multiplayer in its development resource allocation.

 

[Infinitron]

http://harebrained-schemes.com/blog...ions-about-battletech-join-us-on-monday-9-28/

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

See the silhouette there? That's the sort of party/Lance I'd like the game system designed to encourage and accomondate through specialist skills tied to weight class and customization possibilities being linked to chassis.

 

[Excidium II]

I'm really excited for what they're promising

Careful to not end up like the Battletech's Sensuki.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I am more shocked that he thinks the art is the best ever and that the things they promise sound good.

Nigger please, have you ever even seen the old Technical Readouts?

 

[Ulminati]

What? Why? Did anyone even play MWO? Is it even a thing anymore?

I play MWO from time to time. It's pretty good for what it is. (World of Tanks with stompy robots). They really nailed the look and feel of the mechs.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I play MWO from time to time. It's pretty good for what it is. (World of Tanks with stompy robots). They really nailed the look and feel of the mechs.

Have they found new ways to show how much they hate their customers?

 

[Ulminati]

Vaarna_Aarne I'm not sure what you mean. Compared to wargaming.net and gaijin, the devs are very amiable. There's no bigass grind through a tech tree. you can pick the mechs you want in any order you like, and you don't get stuck with a mech that cant' do anything in a fight. you can even "test drive" many mechs you don't own and play as many games as you like on them.

The game mostly suffers from a lack of mission vareity and not enough maps. although the maps have gotten better. Also, they announced it and released the initial betas before the game was really ready to be shown off. So the playerbase is somewhat small.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'm referring to this little outrage from a while back that was pretty fun: http://loadeddicecast.blogspot.fi/2013/08/what-happened-to-mechwarrior-online.html

EDIT: Also, if anyone not in the know wants a good laugh at the most hilariously wrong piece of classic BTech artwork, check out Long Tom artillery vehicle from Tech Readout 3025.

 

[Abu Antar]

Battletech in-game screenshot

Spoiler

concept art

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Oohlala, I like.

 

[Hobo Elf]

in b4 it looks like a shitty mobile game.

 

[LESS T_T]

concept art

FYI, you can get bigger images by change filename:

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Everybody there is playing Crescent's Hawk Inception now.

Are they going to use it's phase based battle system as an inspiration?

Also there is countdown in the game's web site.
http://battletechgame.com/

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

in b4 it looks like a shitty mobile game.

If that happens, there will be blood.

 

[Tripicus]

Nigger please, have you ever even seen the old Technical Readouts?

What, you don't like your mechs looking like the Wickerman?

The vehicle art was okay, which may have been whoevers background, but the mechs looked like boxes with metal plates shingled onto them. Then combine that with the tendency for the artist to leave the lines uncleaned, and the result was well... see above.

I don't dip into video game kickstarters that much, but this is the first that has seriously caught my attention since Numenera.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The vehicle art was okay, which may have been whoevers background, but the mechs looked like boxes with metal plates shingled onto them. Then combine that with the tendency for the artist to leave the lines uncleaned, and the result was well... see above.

Nah, the vehicles tend to be hilariously bad as well, with most of them missing some or most of the details mentioned in their loadout or description. A good example of this is the Rotunda, which has a pic that makes absolutely no goddamn sense. Most of the tanks also look hideously dysfunctional with welded-shut turrets.

And of course, there's the Long Tom mobile artillery, which is just a hilarious huge fuck-up in the very basic levels of perspective and scale:

http://img.masterunitlist.info/Vehicles/Mobile Long Tom Artillery.jpg

 

[Tripicus]

Nah, the vehicles tend to be hilariously bad as well, with most of them missing some or most of the details mentioned in their loadout or description. A good example of this is the Rotunda, which has a pic that makes absolutely no goddamn sense. Most of the tanks also look hideously dysfunctional with welded-shut turrets.

And of course, there's the Long Tom mobile artillery, which is just a hilarious huge fuck-up in the very basic levels of perspective and scale:

http://img.masterunitlist.info/Vehicles/Mobile Long Tom Artillery.jpg

I don't see what doesn't make sense about the Rotunda. It's designed to look like a civilian vehicle for undercover purposes, and its hard mounts are hidden. It's like any number of spy cars we've seen in film, with rockets fired from the trunk and such.

And yes, there are a bunch of things wrong with the vehicle design, but they still don't suffer the issues to the extent mechs do. Non-matching load outs are one thing, but I'm more referring to just the overall art, where you get things like the Ostscout and Charger where I can't but help feel sorry for them.