Interview Jordan Weisman talks BattleTech at alistdaily

[veevoir]

Sadly no. The Dark Age is simply the Comstar network down, so that information is only transferred by JumpShips. But all houses retain their power etc.. And even House Marik is back, after the 3080 decline.
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Dark_Age

Hour of reading that wiki later - wow, there is a shitton of lore for Battletech, this was unexpected.
Given how HBS writes and that Jordan was creator of BT at least the lore will get the respect it deserves.

 

[Darkzone]

Hour of reading that wiki later - wow, there is a shitton of lore for Battletech, this was unexpected.
Given how HBS writes and that Jordan was creator of BT at least the lore will get the respect it deserves.

That is also the hope, besides the original BattleTech Mech Combat and MechWarrior RPG rules.
BTW. Poland was in space. Do you know why? Because the great wagon lacks its tires. The forth nationality in space was a pole taken by the russians for a ride. Russians were always supporting Space tourism.

 

[Drakron]

And what it makes it stupid is that they sacrifice the clan idea, to have the five houses form a second Starleague.

I dont like when RPGs became novels.

What you are asking would be wiping the slate clean and I dont think its stupid to maintain the status quo to a degree.

 

[Gozma]

I just checked and holy shit, there are over 100 full-length Battletech novels. So is there really a big tabletop community for this thing (hey, I took part in two tournaments in the 90's ), or are some of the novels actually good? Anybody here read any of them?

I read one when I was like twelve. My discerning tastes were not offended.

Actually I'm pretty sure they don't have the authority to reset anything. I was under the impression Battletech had been in a coma since the late '90s minus some action video games, but apparently they've been printing more shit the whole time and this is just a one-off for HBS.

 

[Darkzone]

I dont like when RPGs became novels.
What you are asking would be wiping the slate clean and I dont think its stupid to maintain the status quo to a degree.

It is a difficult thing. If you want to milk an franchise to its death then you will maintain the status quo, but if you want to tell an interesting story then you change it the whole time towards a certain conclusion.

I just checked and holy shit, there are over 100 full-length Battletech novels. So is there really a big tabletop community for this thing (hey, I took part in two tournaments in the 90's ), or are some of the novels actually good? Anybody here read any of them?

Beginn with the first story about the Gray Death Legion with "Decision at Thunder Rift", "Mercenary's Star" and "The Price of Glory". And if you like Micheal A. Stackpole, then read the Warrior Trilogy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BattleTech_novels

 

[Darkzone]

I read one when I was like twelve. My discerning tastes were not offended.

Actually I'm pretty sure they don't have the authority to reset anything. I was under the impression Battletech had been in a coma since the late '90s minus some action video games, but apparently they've been printing more shit the whole time and this is just a one-off for HBS.

Basically the decline of BattleTech beginns with stoping of the clans in my opinion. So i would point it to the mid 90s.

 

[Drakron]

It is a difficult thing. If you want to milk an franchise to its death then you will maintain the status quo, but if you want to tell an interesting story then you change it the whole time towards a certain conclusion.

Maybe but at the same time its kinda hard to wanting to invalidate previous materials and honestly huge shakedowns are kinda rare, you could have a Great House being broken in smaller parts or ceasing to exist but wide changing effects would be rare.

Hell the second Star League only lasted as long as the Clans were a present threat, falling apart with the Word of Blake coming into power leading to the Jihad.

Basically the decline of BattleTech beginns with stoping of the clans in my opinion. So i would point it to the mid 90s.

Thats about when FASA Interactive was created, not surprised ... there is more since FASA didnt ceased to exist, just ceased operations.

 

[Darkzone]

Maybe but at the same time its kinda hard to wanting to invalidate previous materials and honestly huge shakedowns are kinda rare, you could have a Great House being broken in smaller parts or ceasing to exist but wide changing effects would be rare.
Hell the second Star League only lasted as long as the Clans were a present threat, falling apart with the Word of Blake coming into power leading to the Jihad.
Thats about when FASA Interactive was created, not surprised ... there is more since FASA didnt ceased to exist, just ceased operations.

Perhaps they wanted to bring it all more down with the Dark Age, but it simply never developed. The reason for this could be perhaps because FASA ceased operations. Currently the story goes to 3130 and somehow to 3147 or so.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

I just checked and holy shit, there are over 100 full-length Battletech novels. So is there really a big tabletop community for this thing (hey, I took part in two tournaments in the 90's ), or are some of the novels actually good? Anybody here read any of them?

Start with something like Grey Death Legion Saga, its pretty okay. Some novels are good others are bad, its kinda like 40K. Except battletech universe is more Dune like and more grounded, if that can apply to a world where something like a king crab exists.

 

[Kiste]

Basically the decline of BattleTech beginns with stoping of the clans in my opinion. So i would point it to the mid 90s.

It actually began with Michael A. Stackpole rage quitting the BattleTech novels. They brought some other guy in to take over the "spine novels" and bring the arch to a conclusion. If Stackpole had remained... who knows in what direction the story would have gone.

 

[Darkzone]

It actually began with Michael A. Stackpole rage quitting the BattleTech novels. They brought some other guy in to take over the "spine novels" and bring the arch to a conclusion. If Stackpole had remained... who knows in what direction the story would have went.

Could be. His last novels fall into the years of 96, 97 and 98. Perhaps he had already lost the will to write more BattleTech novels in previous years, because he has moved already in his mind to Star Wars and he has just fulfilled his contract from 95 on. I have to admit that from 94-99 that was his time.

 

[Kiste]

Could be. His last novels fall into the years of 96, 97 and 98. Perhaps he had already lost the will to write more BattleTech novels in previous years, because he has moved already in his mind to Star Wars and he has just fulfilled his contract from 95 on. I have to admit that from 94-99 that was his time.

Stackpole was an EXTREMELY productive writer back then. In his prime, he could churn out 3-5 books per year, in addition to the other shit he was doing. IIRC, he banged out Assumption of Risk in less than a month.

I remember that he wrote a number of postings on why he quit BattleTech. It had a lot to do with FASA's constant cash flow problems and the resulting irregularities with the royalty payments, which were pretty meager to begin with. I remember something about FASA jewing him out of tens of thousands of Dorrar in royalties for foreign language sales. What finally broke the camel's back was FASA trying to cut back his royalties to an even lower level at a time when he was actually doing pretty well with his own stuff and his Star Wars novels.

Another problem was ROC Books, the publisher of the BT novels. They were constantly cutting back on the word allowance per novel to bring down printing costs, down to 80.000 words at the end. Most Stackpole's BT novels were 100+k words. Stackpole found that this artificial contraint impacted his ability to produce a decent novel. It also became clear that ROC didn't really give a shit about the BT novels anymore. In addition to the novels getting shorter, they even let some of the spine novels go out of print right around the time when they were doing a new edition of the Warrior Trilogy - which was downright moronic. Also, the cover artwork became progressively shittier. Case in point:

 

[Kem0sabe]

I got started on battletech with the grey Legion books, re-read those so many times as a kid, in English. Great education

 

[Darkzone]

Stackpole was an EXTREMELY productive writer back then. In his prime, he could churn out 3-5 books per year, in addition to the other shit he was doing. IIRC, he banged out Assumption of Risk in less than a month.
I remember that he wrote a number of postings on why he quit BattleTech. It had a lot to do with FASA's constant cash flow problems and the resulting irregularities with the royalty payments, which were pretty meager to begin with. I remember something about FASA jewing him out of tens of thousands of Dorrar in royalties for foreign language sales. What finally broke the camel's back was FASA trying to cut back his royalties to an even lower level at a time when he was actually doing pretty well with his own stuff and his Star Wars novels.
Another problem was ROC Books, the publisher of the BT novels. They were constantly cutting back on the word allowance per novel to bring down printing costs, down to 80.000 words at the end. Most Stackpole's BT novels were 100+k words. Stackpole found that this artificial contraint impacted his ability to produce a decent novel. It also became clear that ROC didn't really give a shit about the BT novels anymore. In addition to the novels getting shorter, they even let some of the spine novels go out of print right around the time when they were doing a new edition of the Warrior Trilogy - which was downright moronic. Also, the cover artwork became progressively shittier.

That explains quite good why he quit the BattleTech novel writing, and i have to say that his X-Wing series was the best Star Wars book series.