Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?

[JDbigmoney]

Dude

It is suppost to be battletech....hence using the name

And it was garbage.....want proof? Try and find a game.

[YingJanshi]

Dude

It is suppost to be battletech....hence using the name

And it was garbage.....want proof? Try and find a game.

Try finding a game of BattleTech....  ::) 8)
(Or even better, try to find a game store that actually stocks BattleTech...)

[Easy]

cleanup

[cavingjan]

(It was looted by it creator so I'm not sure how much it could be called looted.)

[Talen5000]

For me...DA had problems because it got rid of the established factions, didn't provide enough answers on tje nackgrou d quickly enough and had the RNG aspect.

The game itself was decent and the models great; it was a pity they weren't to the same scale as minis but you can't have everything. But the background with its lack of established factions and some silliness in the story...including the IMO awful Fortress Republic deus ex machina...turned me off the DA.

I also dislike the idea of destroying factions. These are entities players become invested in and which have a history. I don't like seeing the Comguards wiped out, I want the missing Nova Cat ships to turn up in the Protectorate and reform the Nova Cats and I didn't like the idea of the Free Worlds League being gone.

So....there was nothing truly major about why I didn't like DA. It was a decent game with much to recommend it. But it also had enough small irritations that it put me off.

And it wasn't BattleTech. So...in addition to the problems with the universe and background, it also wasn't the same game.


 

[Wrangler]

Functionally is was decent game for fast fighting.  I believe at heart one of the problems was handling of fixing rules or mechanics during its run and ultimately need for more profits at heart of it.  They had to come up more units to add to the game.  Admittively for me i like the mystery in the box thing, it added more buying the game trying get what you wanted.   

However, as normal Battletech player, alot of liberties were taken with what older units look liked.  That completely didn't meet the aesthetics regular Battletech.  Example the Panther.  It went from sleek and attractive Light Mech to something rather blocky and certainly not very good looking at all.  By CHANGING that unit's appearance, due to way CGL and franchise works  our good looking machine HAD to become that outright ugly thing of the future.   Before method/mechanics were inplace, alot of Clan OmniMech units part of the initial introduction of the game were rendered into normal BattleMechs (this is before fluff was made to explain why they weren't Omnis)  because the game mechanics didn't handle them.  I had HUGE problem with MWDA for that, which in-turn made this CANON fact.  Thus why initially it appeared suddenly there were NO more (visually in the DA Novels) no OmniMechs to speak of or dared mentioned in fluff.  Why confuse new person with concept they can't touch?  Also, the first batches of releases of units that included that Dossier (some that didn't) for the mechs, had bad tendency on very very new design to undergun those units Battletech stats wise verses MWDA.  On the Dial despite being undergunned in Total Warfare, the unit firepower was reasonable if facing likewise similar unit that may have been better armed.   Look at the Storm Raider or the Cuirass of examples of these.

IF that stuff hadn't messed up Dark Age related stuff, i won't have had as many issues with the game.  It was effect and handling of it by WizKids that i had the initial issues with it.  I got over some my problems with it, collected and played the game off and on until it's demise.




EDIT: Sorry, if my initial post was messed up. My normal computer isn't with me and this crap box i'm using interface is really lousy so it posted before i was done typing.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Dude

It is suppost to be battletech....hence using the name

And it was garbage.....want proof? Try and find a game.

Technically, it didn't use the name "Battletech". It used the name "MechWarrior".  And, much like the video games aren't often the most literal adaptation of the Battletech tabletop game rules, MWDA took liberties.

Personally, the game itself, in its first incarnation, was a bit odd in terms of rules, but that wasn't entirely surprising for a new game out of the gates.  I think what did it in for me mainly was the change in aesthetics for some of my favorite units, but even more than that the nature of being a collectible miniatures game.  There was nothing quite like the feeling of buying a booster pack (I had about $200 into the game when it debuted), opening it, thinking, "c'mon, Panther..." and getting another ForestryMech (non-mod) instead.  I wanted to be able to build my own army my way, which was a pain in the neck with a CMG, requiring more effort than, in the end, I was willing to put forth on a game that had a number of other areas where I found it questionable.

[Death by Lasers]

  Am I the only one that didn't have a problem with MWDA?  I bought a booster pack, thought it was kind of neat but never got into it.  I never begrudged its existence though.  Truth be told I was mostly happy they were still making Battletech novels.  I thought the first MWDA books were meh, but the later ones were actually very good.  Admittedly, I was also fine with Mechassault even though I've never played it and enjoyed the Battletech cartoon :P. 

  I'm even *gasp* ok with the Republic.  Yes, the Republic was written for the Dark Age as a noble faction of knights and paladins but once the Dark Age clixgame had its successful run and Battletech began to inevitably absorb it into canon I knew it would get a more three dimensional treatment and the sourcebooks did not disappoint.  I've pretty much been waiting since a Bonfire of Worlds to see what happens to it.  So far its been a decade but I'm hopeful the next decade we will see a conclusion/continuation Republic story arch.

[worktroll]

No, you're not the only one. Far from it.

[JDbigmoney]

Don't give me this "technically not Battletech" crap

Mechwarrior was and is still a registered trade mark....you know....what evidently murdered FASA in the first place.

It is/was a do-over in attemp to make a re-envisioned game without having to find a market

Imagine a terrible knock off of 40k and calling it Space Orks

Same shit, different pile

[YingJanshi]

Don't give me this "technically not Battletech" crap

Mechwarrior was and is still a registered trade mark....you know....what evidently murdered FASA in the first place.

It is/was a do-over in attemp to make a re-envisioned game without having to find a market

Imagine a terrible knock off of 40k and calling it Space Orks

Same shit, different pile

Um...Just to be pedantic here, FASA closed shop before Jordan Weisman (you know, the guy that created BattleTech in the first place) started WizKids.

Also, however I feel about how MW:DA was run and played, it's undeniable that we would not be buying brand new BattleTech products right now if it MW:DA hadn't kept the franchise going. In fact they gave FanPro the licence to finish up the few products that FASA had left and then after a year or so to create brand new product (at least, that's how I understand the deal to have been). And FanPro was the direct predecessor to Catalyst.

Also, Weisman had invented the "Clix" mechanic...why shouldn't he use it as another avenue to keep his universe alive? (He did the same thing with his Crimson Skies universe as well, to better effect I think though.)

At the end of the day, who has more right than the creator of a game/universe/intellectual property reimagine/redo it? We can argue till we're blue in the face about the merits of the game (personally I still think it was very badly handled in some ways); but I do believe in giving credit where credit is due: and WizKids/MW:DA saved BattleTech.

[E. Icaza]

As an avid fan of HeroClix, I was excited about the prospect of "Mechwarrior Clix".  I bought a starter box and a crapload of boosters.  What killed my enthusiasm was the massive number of IndustrialMechs you got in the first wave or two of boosters.  Also, the factions seemed very much watered down or completely contrary to the ones that I have come to love (or love to loathe) and the backstory wasn't presented very well IMO.  I read the novels up to "Scorpion Jar" (which was actually very good), but by that point my interest had waned.  Most of the novels leading up to "Scorpion Jar" were pretty terrible and one novel wasn't enough to salvage my interest in the game.

I still have all of the minis though and will break them out from time to time to use in Alpha Strike and the like.  CGL has done more to get me interested in the DA/AoD time period than all of the materials from the Clix game combined.  While I still have some problems with certain aspects of it, I find it entertaining and engaging at least.

[trboturtle]

As an avid fan of HeroClix, I was excited about the prospect of "Mechwarrior Clix".  I bought a starter box and a crapload of boosters.  What killed my enthusiasm was the massive number of IndustrialMechs you got in the first wave or two of boosters.  Also, the factions seemed very much watered down or completely contrary to the ones that I have come to love (or love to loathe) and the backstory wasn't presented very well IMO.  I read the novels up to "Scorpion Jar" (which was actually very good), but by that point my interest had waned.  Most of the novels leading up to "Scorpion Jar" were pretty terrible and one novel wasn't enough to salvage my interest in the game.

Ironically enough, the novels get generally better after The Scorpion Jar.....

Craig

[Talen5000]

MWDA was a reboot that never should have happened.

There's nothing wrong with a reboot if done right....and it easn't exactly a reboot.

Next time there is a time jump, however, I think it needs to be a good bit longer than 60 or 70 years. 6 or 7 hundred, allowing time for major changes, people to die off, technology and setting to change and so on would be better.

One of the big reasons for such a reset would be to remove a big barrier to entry so new players can join up without feeling overwhelmed by the games history.

Of course, in a game like CBT, the downside would be that the existing playerbase would want the existing timeline to move forward and eventually you'd have the dreaded "kill off the factions" moment.

Maybe the cold virus could mutate and wipe out a huge portion of humanity. We could call it the Snow Plague and have the nations go back to building hovertanks.

MWDA as a game in its own right....worked.
It was relatively fast and simple, it had nice minis, it looked good, played well and essentially saved the franchise. It had flaws...but it worked.

But....the existing BT crowd was not its target audience. And it showed. There were new factions, poorly explained. The game emphasised combined arms....not the King of the Battlefield.

Which is good because more varied units makes the game more interesting. But some didn't like it. But if I were to be honest....the King of the Battlefield probably should be the tank. Even in 3150.

There were a lot of niggling minor points that irritated many BT fans. Some more than others. There wasn't any one smoking gun as to why many BT players didn't like MWDA...

But it can be boiled down to.....it was simply a different game with different factions and different gameplay.

[E. Icaza]

Ironically enough, the novels get generally better after The Scorpion Jar.....

Craig

Oh, I know.  The problem was that I got pretty much disillusioned with the setting and stopped reading them.  I'll try to find the later novels and read them someday, but it isn't high on my list of priorities.  A big factor is I pretty much hated all of the "iconic" characters, with the exception of Tucker Harwell.

[Wrangler]

All the later novels were superior to most the earlier novels. They found their nitch and were written by folks whom wete more intuned with both games and how they work so they make senses to readers whom play.

[Death by Lasers]

  That's the thing about the Dark Age timeline is that it wasn't made for old Battletech fans but to gain new fans for its Clix-Based system.  It seems pretty standard that old franchises tend to separate themselves from the established canon to build a new fanbase.  Star Trek did this with TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise and Mechwarrior: Dark Age did this as well.  As far as I can tell it did this in two ways, by isolating itself from the old factions (like Voyager) by centering its stories in the Republic and by jumping the timeline forward (like TNG).

  Truth be told it probably would have made more sense to get rid of the old factions in the time jump but I think this would have been too traumatic for the Battletech player base.  Making the Republic the setting of the universe and allowing the rest of the factions to exist outside of the main setting was an elegant solution.  I have a feeling the Republic was meant to be primary scope of the universe as it was in the very first novels but it wasn't very long before it shifted away from the Republic to the old factions we know and love.

  As to Battletech's future I'm not sure if a time jump is the best plan.  It depends on if the goal is to try and bring in new people or appease on old fan base.  A large time jump could streamline the setting and cut into the huge log of technology that exists now (seriously how many kinds of laser are there at this point?) and bring things to a point where huge amounts of prior knowledge aren't necessary to understand what is going on.  The problem is you then alienate the older fanbase because now their massive collection of miniatures and dusty rulebooks are effectively obsolete in the brave new world of Teltatae Phaser Firing Grav Tanks™ and 10,000 ton Wolverine Light Sword Wielding MegaMeks™.  I don't have a dog in this fight either way but I imagine its a tricky position to be in when deciding what to do with a well established franchise like Battletech.

[cavingjan]

The Republic was supposed to die after two years.

[Empyrus]

The Republic was supposed to die after two years.

What?

[Death by Lasers]

The Republic was supposed to die after two years.

  I had no idea :o.  Considering it's fifteen years later and the Republic is still alive (for now) I wonder what changed. 

P.S. Was it also the plan to shift the story from the Republic splinter groups (Dragon's Fury, Storm-Hammerers, Highlanders, Spirit Cats, Steel Wolves, Swordsworn) to the Successor States and Clans? 

[cavingjan]

They became popular. They were not intended to get any game pieces except a few LEs in the first few sets. No regular game pieces were originally intended for them. Obviously they changed plans and slowed the destruction.

[Empyrus]

So, basically the idea was kind of let the players to experience the dissolution of the "Star League", perhaps? How curious.

[Nanhold]

I personally loved the game, though not all aspects of the game.

It was easy to pick up, I personally like MOST of the mini's (not all by any means), and it made battletech fun to play for me again.

That being said, there were some simply BROKEN mechanics, such as "Tank Drop" that broke the game for many people.

Yeah, the "Tank Drop" went a bit too far for my suspension of disbelief as well, even though it at least seemed to be somewhat realistic when done with heavy transport VTOLs. But a light wheeled transport vehicle being able to pull a 100 ton tracked tank as if it was a mobile home? That just ain't how it's supposed to be!

[Marc C]

For someone who had no clue what BattleTech AND had never bought a miniature wargame before, was it was a great entry point. Sure the game had issues but you could start playing in 15 minutes. No glue no paint. We had tournaments going in stores. It was great fun for a good two years.

We solved the random booster problem by doing group buys of booster crates, then opening each booster individually and splitting by faction. One faction per customer.

[koalabirb]

We solved the random booster problem by doing group buys of booster crates, then opening each booster individually and splitting by faction. One faction per customer.

I kind of think this was the idea. My assumption as a kid was that they were trying to build the same kind of community that you find in MtG.

[wolfcannon]

my problem with the Fedcom civil war, Jihad and Dark Ages was the general lack of design quality of the new units being produced, and seemingly lack of maintaining current looks of many of the favorite 'Mechs such as the Panther, Firestarter etc.   And the general idea that after hundreds of years of warfare that even the vaunted SL couldnt change, all the sudden everyone drinks kool-aid and voila everyone is turning swords into plowshares Clans and Great Houses, was something i couldn't understand and felt was a concept being pushed over what all the great fans of this game was expecting.

[Wrangler]

my problem with the Fedcom civil war, Jihad and Dark Ages was the general lack of design quality of the new units being produced, and seemingly lack of maintaining current looks of many of the favorite 'Mechs such as the Panther, Firestarter etc.   And the general idea that after hundreds of years of warfare that even the vaunted SL couldnt change, all the sudden everyone drinks kool-aid and voila everyone is turning swords into plowshares Clans and Great Houses, was something i couldn't understand and felt was a concept being pushed over what all the great fans of this game was expecting.

The looks were changed, since people in Wizkids wanted in my opinion to change it up. Effectively uglified classic mechs, canon wise were stuck with them.  Some came out ok, most did not.  Thankfully were out those woods.

[Orin J.]

i'm literally always surprised reading this thread. locally, i saw no problems with the game, but the community......eegh. i always assumed that the thievery and scammers were game-wide and it was bad blood that made most people dislike it, excluding those people that were just against the game system (unfair) and the blind-box practices (fair).

[James Bedford]

I don't think anyone who actually played this game disliked or had serious problems with it.  I remember complaining about playtesting, or new abilities not being thought out enough, but never outright dislike.  Dislike seems to mostly come from the old BT grognards who didn't like it because it was a new thing.

[DarkSpade]

From what I've seen, a lot of the hate seems to come from people who gave it little more than a quick glance.   You hear things like, "they threw out the original factions," and complaints about how it ruined battletech.  Or my favorite, "this isn't want the creators of battletech would have done!" oh really?  ;D

     I played it through it's whole run, and me and a friend even tried to come up with our own 3 edition rules after it it was canned.  Through that we figured out that the clix game's greatest weakness was the dials and there was nothing we could do to fix that.  Not the mechanic of the dials, but rather what was printed on them. 
     Every unit in the game had a glass jaw.  If you took too identical units and had them fight it out, whoever got the first hit was very likely to be the winner because the wounded unit would have a harder time hitting back, do less damage if it hit, and be easier to get hit again.  Lose of any specials would make this even worse.
     This is why tank drop, VToL swarm, pog spam, the twins, and almost all the other cheese was so powerful.  They let you get that first hit in.  It's also why you rarely(not never) saw assault mechs.  One decent AP hit and they weren't any better than a medium that costs half as many points.  True, there were gimmick dials, like the wolf hunters, where that first hit would make you better, but most players knew where the sweet spot was on the dials for the popular units and would make sure they knocked you right past it.


     I think what hurt the game early though was they over did the ICE mechs. The first set had 24 of them!  I remember hearing from a few people who were really curious or even excited about the game, but lost all interest when their first 3 boosters were all ICE mechs.