For those who remember, what were the reactions to FASA closing in 2001?

[victor_shaw]

I miss the old Marketplace on these old boards... too many scams and cheats with resin / fakes to even bring back. But even if we can't get a great deal cause of liability, we should at least be able to link to IWM and other authorized dealers directly. Special deals with them and only them. I mean, things happen quickly in today's age, so if you miss out, sorry. Evil Bay is the norm. Hell I've seen BT items on OfferUp. Yeah, there selling minis and stuff.

TT

I may be misunderstanding your comment, but you do know that there is a link to both IWM and CGl store right on the front page of the website?

[truetanker]

Yes, but on the front page, not in a direct thread.

I understand why, it's the missing it part that's hard, the Marketplace.

TT

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

What the heck is OfferUp?

[worktroll]

Looks like a "sell local" site, but it seems to think Oz isn't local to it, oddly enough ...

[RanFelsnerAFFS]

Yes, but on the front page, not in a direct thread.

I understand why, it's the missing it part that's hard, the Marketplace.

TT

Still don't get it. Why would you want to have a link in a forum thread, which belongs to a more visible place (where it currently is).

Also nowadays, everybody should know where to find IWM its not 2001 anymore, where such companies hadn't a web presence.

[RifleMech]

Most of what you want is already covered in BattleTech Second Succession War sourcebook. And from that book we get that Downgrades where very haphazard and not truly regimented at all.
Another issues with this is what IMHO has been a major issues with Battletech for a while now, TRO overload.
There are already to many TRO, and way to many vehicles/variants in the game already, would players pay for TROs that have the same units over and over again with just slight changes to show tech loss?"

Not really. It gives guidelines to what techs would be doing to repair damaged units. It doesn't say what factories would be doing. The TRO part, while cool, only has three variants of reseen mechs. Three house downgraded variants out of how many units? I also don't see where it says if any completely new units were introduced or not even though factories were built. There's also new unit types and weapons that we don't see in the past even though they existed. If there are I don't remember them as they're in a sourcebook or RS. So there is still a lot of information missing.

And yes I do think players would pay for more TROs. Look at all the ones we've had. 3050 was an upgrade of 3025 and 2750. 3025, 3026, and 3050 were all revised. 2750 was revised and put in 3025 and 3050. Then we have 3039 which combined a lot of 3025 and 3026. And then there's all the Upgrades books. Now we've got Succession Wars, Clan Invasion, and the Recognition Guides. So yes, players will buy more TROs.

I also never said the period TROs had to cover the same units over and over. There's lots of units, many I'm sure we've never seen. There's already a list going for them and only imagination limits what we haven't seen yet. Look at all the units that have been "uncovered" or reintroduced. Their should be a good many more. And yes, some units would and should be covered multiple TROs. There'd be more than enough variants to keep them new. And if variant numbers are too high, look at real life vehicles. The P-51 has a could dozen listed on Wiki and that isn't all. So I don't think having variants would put people off.

[SteelRaven]

Sounds like another topic as Fasa did not seem interested at all in revisiting the SW era leading up to End Game.

[RifleMech]

Sounds like another topic as Fasa did not seem interested at all in revisiting the SW era leading up to End Game.

Probably and it is a shame they weren't since so many people still play in that era.

[Sartris]

Sounds like another topic as Fasa did not seem interested at all in revisiting the SW era leading up to End Game.

and a dead horse topic at that

[Insaniac99]

Still don't get it. Why would you want to have a link in a forum thread, which belongs to a more visible place (where it currently is).

Also nowadays, everybody should know where to find IWM its not 2001 anymore, where such companies hadn't a web presence.

I think he desires a used trade forum, which lets people get mechs for cheaper or pre-painted (or sometimes both) than buying from IWM direct.

[RanFelsnerAFFS]

I think he desires a used trade forum, which lets people get mechs for cheaper or pre-painted (or sometimes both) than buying from IWM direct.

I figured so, but in the same breath He was asking in his original post:

"we should at least be able to link to IWM and other authorized dealers directly. "

Which doesn't make sense for me

[truetanker]

What the heck is OfferUp?

OfferUp is a US only mini-ebay. Most items are either pick up or for a little change to have it shipped across country.

Now if you have friends, it might be easier to ship overseas, but you can get anything legal. Parts, clothes, heck even vehicles!

TT

[House Davie Merc]

FASA closing was a big punch to the gut , but finding others still into our hobby
was comforting .
It's hard to discuss this time period without remembering the unofficial sites
that kept Battletech alive for many of us . They are where we got our Battletech news ,
met other players, got painting tips from the pros , and all went crazy looking to fill
the holes we had in our collections !

I miss Lords Of The Battlefield and hope they are successful in restoring it .
When this place wasn't here-that was my refuge . There are several other sites
that have been around for a LONG time .  I think I'll spend some time to look them up
to see who's still around .

IIRC that's where I learned about FASA closing-and I imagine that many other players
found out on the unofficial sites that existed at that time .

[PyreLight]

For those who want to experience the old FASA website and the press release of them shutting down in 2001, here ya go: https://web.archive.org/web/20010205142800/http://www.fasa.com/pressreleases/PressReleases.html

It's cool to see the product list (https://web.archive.org/web/20010603232840/http://store.fasa.com/BattleTech/index.asp) used to include some pretty amazing mousepads (https://web.archive.org/web/20010629042904/http://store.fasa.com/BattleTech/index.asp?Level1=1042&Level2=1095). Wish I had snagged one of those!

[Dies Irae]

FASA closing was something of a gut punch. I was incredibly saddened that the game I'd played for so long was going away. I remember it being quite a stretch to actually find a copy of Endgame in a bookstore. Felt like the end of an era.

There was therefore quite some surprise and enthusiasm when WizKids announced they were going to make a Clix game from BattleTech, and even though it felt like a 'strangers in a strange land' situation, I gave it a shot. FanPro picking up publication was another thing that was met with something of a hurrah.

The irritation was the 'superior' attitude of a lot of the old school grognards that MWDA was for kids and they were playing 'real' BattleTech.
Made it incredibly difficult to get the new blood pulled in by the collectable game to transition to hex wargaming when all they got was derision.

[CrossfirePilot]

The irritation was the 'superior' attitude of a lot of the old school grognards that MWDA was for kids and they were playing 'real' BattleTech.
Made it incredibly difficult to get the new blood pulled in by the collectable game to transition to hex wargaming when all they got was derision.

I bought several starter packs and a couple booster packs.  I never did get to play.  Tried getting a couple coworkers that used to be battletech players to try it.  They were more interested in playing MW4 as a network party.  Finally ended up giving the stuff to a neighbor kid, and then saw the stuff for sale at their next garage sale.

[truetanker]

I went out and had bought two complete Starter Box ' boxes ' at close to $90 each, and three Booster ones. Then when the closure showed up, I ended buying another three, along with four more Booster Boxes, and several unopened packs for like $200 total.

Since no one plays Battletech CCG here, I still got every card, almost two complete sets! Along with so many uncommon... I have three Thor B, CO ed. cards.

Now if they remake the CCG, yeah I'll buy.

TT
( Hope they do! )

[bobthecoward]

At the time, I was 18 and thought cliktech and the dark age ruined the game. It took me until I was older to realize it was the same dude behind wizkids, and that some people think he was ruining the game since I was six (1989).

[Sharkapult]

I went out and had bought two complete Starter Box ' boxes ' at close to $90 each, and three Booster ones. Then when the closure showed up, I ended buying another three, along with four more Booster Boxes, and several unopened packs for like $200 total.

Since no one plays Battletech CCG here, I still got every card, almost two complete sets! Along with so many uncommon... I have three Thor B, CO ed. cards.

Now if they remake the CCG, yeah I'll buy.

TT
( Hope they do! )

Awesome! I hold out hope for a CCG reboot, even if it's on Android. I'd end up buying so many cards. Art was awesome too!

[durant]

The end of FASA was totally out of the radar in France (I'm french), maybe because there was not much traduction (except 6 books, the rulebook and an handfull of scenario pack). My roleplaying team was going to wargame (I confess I dislike miniature), so I decided to invest in this universe, because  it could be a bridge between roleplay and wargame. And the battletech universe is so rich, like every universe from FASA (Shadowrun and Earthdawn, wich as a player I was in love). Today we don't play anymore wargame, Shadowrun (shame on me) or Earthdawn (shame too), but after more than twenty years later we continue to play battletech as a roleplaying game. For me the end of FASA was the begining for Battletech.

Post scriptum : And today I need even more book setting.
And thanks to read my pitiful english.

[truetanker]

You know what?

IF we can convince our " Line Director " to consider a reboot, our parent company, Topps, can make that happen. Even with new art from the our esteemed ShimmeringSwords, I mean we have new art already, it should be enough to just run a new Kickstarter wave.

By buying a certain level, a free Booster pack, a few more : Starter box... all the way up for a complete " Supply Crate ". Such as X-amount of each in a bundle deal, with possible a " Reinforcements " type bundle of, say double everything?

We already have the MUL official pictures, why not make them both colorful with both AS and CCG stats? Kinda like real playing cards.

It'll both be easier to play a game on the same table,  one using AS rules, the other classic CCG.

Like in Magic - tap to fire, resolve damage, add counters to represent said damage, tap opposite to represent overheating and such. Hell include an AS damage card to the Starter box, that way every game can be played right away. But start somewhere, Clans are good, it should be noted that 3039 is the official game start in universe.

TT

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Do we really want to try taking Battletech back to the collectable market?  I thought that the heyday of collectable games was the 90s and 00s and these days it's really not much beyond Magic, a few other card games, and Heroclix.

[truetanker]

New art...

Bring more cash flow, ( after all it's Topps we're talking here, cards are their schtick! ) more players to the Tabletop.

Look what HBS did for us, video games to classic miniatures! And even if you still need ideas :

How many of us have had to described a character without visuals before?

Yeah, the cards can make visual AToW / Destiny games easier!

TT

[RifleMech]

I don't know about new art keeping money flowing in. I think constantly retconning the art will eventually turn people off. At least if the change in art doesn't have an in universe reason and even then it'd be a risk. Plus it expands the whole unseen issue.  And then there's having to get new minis for those that want them. Having to replace minis every couple years gets expensive. Just getting them is expensive. ( I really need to win the lottery.)

Now recognition cards I can see. There was a set for TRO:3050. I think they had art on one side stats on the other. I don't know why more couldn't be done. It should be easy for Topps to do. I would ask though that complete sets be made for those not interested in random packs.

[victor_shaw]

At the time, I was 18 and thought cliktech and the dark age ruined the game. It took me until I was older to realize it was the same dude behind wizkids, and that some people think he was ruining the game since I was six (1989).

To me it always seemed like Weisman never wanted the game to leave the 3025 era of lost-tech and feudal knights fighting on a futuristic midlevel battle field.
I talked with him once in the early 90's and got the impression he was not happy with the way the game was heading.
And was only going that way to make money.
So, Cliktech and its drop back into a dark age setting was no surprise to me. Didn't like it but it didn't surprise me.
I personally was fine with the early Clans unlike others, but the later Invasion era and everything after it (Jihad, Dark Age, Republic, Etc.) never agreed with me.

[CrossfirePilot]

Yeah i thought in the early 90s that they could have slowed down getting to the clan invasion.  I can see where Weisman would have wanted it to stay in the 3025 era.  I think that times would have been better served if they would have taken more development time to get from 3028 to 3048. I don't fault him for doing something to make money nor do I disparage him for it.  After all we all need it to exchange for goods and services its better than "my car has been repo'ed, house foreclosed, and I haven't eaten in 3 days. But alas 51% of my battletech fans are happy so i guess its all worth it"

[Charbok]

To me it always seemed like Weisman never wanted the game to leave the 3025 era of lost-tech and feudal knights fighting on a futuristic midlevel battle field.
I talked with him once in the early 90's and got the impression he was not happy with the way the game was heading.
And was only going that way to make money.
So, Cliktech and its drop back into a dark age setting was no surprise to me. Didn't like it but it didn't surprise me.
I personally was fine with the early Clans unlike others, but the later Invasion era and everything after it (Jihad, Dark Age, Republic, Etc.) never agreed with me.

I never spoke to the man, but I got the same impression reading what he was saying about Clickytech.  He wasn't happy with how the game had grown, so he'd claw it back to his vision in spite of what people wanted.

Grognards may swear by the Third war era, and the aesthetic of the descent into barbarism, but it's a lousy idea for a game that wants to grow and get new fans.  Driving a mech that gets progressively worse every game until you either become bankrupt or dispossessed might be somebody's idea of fun, but I don't play a big stompy robot game to enjoy the slow slide into financial ruin.

At the time, Wiseman reminded me so much of George Lucas; a creator whose work had grown beyond him that couldn't recognize the contributions of others and didn't understand why people liked that creation in the first place.

If anything, CGL has spent the last twenty years trying to undo the damage done to the game universe done because of his hubris.  It's fine to have respect for a creator's vision, but once it's out in the world, it's not just yours anymore.

[S.gage]

So when FASA announced it was going closing, I thought BattleTech would not continue. While I was saddened, I knew I had enough source material to last for game play for years. I did take note of Wizkids! purchase of the material, but ended up walking away for nearly a decade. But not entirely: My background for my work computer during grad school was the covershot from TRO: 3057 featuring the Leviathan-class WarShip, and I got a lot of questions about that, mostly positive.

Around that time, I was also graduating college, trying to get my friends interested in playing BattleTech (with photocopied record sheets from those wonderful books with all those variants), but not getting too far. I was also deeply involved in my college's anime club, and entering a PhD program which looked ready to eat up most of my time (it did). So even though I had spent a lot of time on BattleTech, I knew that for me time would be limited; I ended up using my newly freed time efficiently.

In terms of the BTU, I was also up to date with all of the fiction at the time the universe seemed poised to end.

Several years later, I was walking through "That's Entertainment" in Worcester, MA (shout out to them, btw, they claim to be New England's largest comic store, and if you ever want to meet Eastman and Laird of TMNT fame, this is where they used to be found on Free Comic Book Day in the mid-aughts). On their shelf they had a copy of Technical Readout: 3055 Upgrade (TRO: 3055 was my first purchase). I bought it, read it, and was intrigued to see a Solaris BattleMechs featuring technology from Maximum Tech. A few years later, I bought 3075, and then I was hooked again. The Total Warfare series of rulebooks were also very, very influential in bringing me back, especially as it eased entry into alternate periods in BattleTech history, which I had always considered a cool new angle on BattleTech play.

S.gage

[Valaska]

I was playing MechWarrior 4 at the time in the War!Online league and a guy said it over mumble and I just remember completely feeling... gutted. MW4 was really the height of MechWarrior on PC and it has never been that good ever since, only gotten worse with each game that came out after it tbh. At the time I kind of felt like the entire series would just fall off and die. The Jihad gutted CBT and just annihilated the local clubs that used to play and yeah I remember, everyone just... feeling completely gutted.

Luckily MW4 lasted quite a while and kept us together as friends, but after Dark Age released our physical club just broke apart. I kept playing MW4 for awhile and swapped over to NetMek and MegaMek (sometimes between MW4 league drops lol) but getting together to play a game that was just completely abandoned was a little hard.

Models got lost with time, others crushed and destroyed from my own negligence as a younger kid... all I can say is I am looking forward to the future now and I don't want to think about FASA's death anymore, or Jihad, or Dark Age, or MechWarrior Online. I am, for the first time in a long time, extremely optimistic for the BattleTech and MechWarrior universe. Harebrained brought out a GREAT game which I loved, the good days of BattleTech are coming back! Maybe we could even see the Jihad handled correctly this time or completely changed. I dunno, it almost feels like we're in the glory days again when we are all looking forward to seeing what FASA would do next with the series.

So, in that, I'm not really concerned with the sad events of the past. Now I'm looking forward to the future.