Author Topic: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?  (Read 79669 times)

Kyryst

  • Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 187
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #150 on: 19 August 2020, 15:35:20 »
For me, it boiled down to the fact that I thought the Word of Blake won. I had been reading Battletech novels for a while, played Mechwarrior 3, 4, and X-Box, MC:1 and MC:2, had some background documents... And after reading the few MechWarrior books I could get my hands on, my thoughts were, "Holy S***, the Blakists won."

 I had read the Fedcom Civil war books, and the breaking of the 2nd Star League, where the WOB went crazy, and it had seemed like a steady decline in plausibility and continued breaking of in universe "rules" to force events according to an overarching timeline that twisted characters and arbitrary granting and removing of intelligence and character traits. Katherine Steiner-Davion, and Sun-Tzu Liao, Victor Steiner-Davion, Kai Allard-Liao, Isis Marik, Jaime Wolf, the WoBbies, so many characters suddenly had hyper-competency or incompetency, in multiple fields that they always or never had. I could not understand, it was a grinding uphill fight after centuries of stagnation and backsliding, but we had new weapons and mechs, and even warships!

But somehow, ignoring all restrictions on factories, warships, the loss of all military structure above regiment level, research and development, infantry support weapons or transports, the long grind to elite piloting, you had all of these arising from a faction that was usually regarded as incompetent and inexperienced. And even if you gave them an elite intelligence service and a small corp. of veterans, there is still no way to go from have a security branch penny-packeted around the Sphere with a Navy that kick-started itself at the discovery of the clans, to having what appeared in the Jihad. I mean, everybody remembered roleplaying as mercenaries and how much it sucked going from green or regular up to veteran. Not to mention the holy grail of elites (usually resulting in the BM/GM ruling that your "elite" pilot went on to greener pastures, leaving your mercenary band behind, because "elites are OP").

And this all happened in 20 years, from the discovery of the clans to the Word of Blake Jihad. The thought of what was the next incarnation of the Stefan Amaris Coup, winning... between that and IRL issues, kind of alienated me from the setting. I thought all the tech, and even the combined arms doctrine was cool, but the Republic drove me away.

You have the momentum of centuries, proud traditions of mercenaries, and then, it was all gone. No neat expanded universe, it was play in the sandbox of the republic or else. Reading the novels, it was like seeing major government propaganda everywhere, and these fanatic Knights of the Sphere, "Doing what must be done to uphold the Republic." Exarch Stone, who came out of no where, as far as I could tell, was upheld as the saviour of the Republic. And the Republic seemed to be an expanded Word of Blake Protectorate (Which seemed to eerily mirror the lost Terran Hegemony), the knights seemed to mirror the Manei Domini right down to the fanaticism, self-righteousness, equipment that seemed very Wobbly, and what seemed like cybernetic enhancements to me. Every body was disarmed, mechs were rare, nothing seemed to have gotten better in the civilian sector despite decades of peace (honestly seemed worse then worlds were a hundred years prior to me).

I didn't really notice the Hero clix Mechwarrior stuff, and certainly didn't realize there was background info explaining the jihad and formation of the Republic until later. And even then, all it seemed to be to me was a board wipe of everything that was being built up prior to the Jihad. I didn't really like Devlin Stone, David Lear, or the architects of the Republic- and I hated what Victor Steiner-Davion turned into. All I could see was how it killed anything I liked about the setting. And I walked away.

That is is why I dislike Mechwarrior: Dark Age. It was the final straw that ruined Battletech for me. I lingered, and watched the boards, and read anything that disregarded or took place prior or altered the Fedcom Civil War/ Breaking of the Second League. I completely ignore the Republic of the Sphere even now, which is why I don't even bother with AoD. I had tabletop games going before this whole COVID-19 mess, and a fair size collection of minis, and I would rather not acknowledge the existence of the Sphere in order to continue to play. Because, to me, the existence of the Republic of the Sphere, or something close to it, is why the WoBblies started the Jihad in the first place (Jihad, build up industry in the Protectorate, smash everybody else, Create nation, Profit?).

S2pidiT

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 480
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #151 on: 19 August 2020, 21:10:30 »
It's interesting to see other peoples views of Dark Age/Age of Destruction.

When I played, I was in middle school. A friend's dad invited me to join, told me about the factions (Steel Wolves were their favorite, and became mine during my time playing), and gave me a bunch of units they didn't use to get me started. As I'd only heard of BattleTech in passing, I thought this was some sort of spin-off. I had no background information on what was going on, just that there were big, stompy robots that shoot each other. We'd play matches at their house, and they were awesome enough to drag me along hours away to tournaments!

I think that was what made it good to me. I had a community that welcomed me, even though I was (and probably still am) a mediocre player.

MegaZipp

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 3
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #152 on: 27 October 2020, 09:29:06 »
While I would admit I should have been on here much sooner than now, I guess its never too late.

I was, like most a fan of Mechwarrior from their early video games. In early 2000's I took a much needed break from video games and ventured into Tabletop gaming. Beyond a star wars game, I was introduced to AOD version of the clix game and I absolutely loved it. Now, to my credit, I didn't even know about the battletech universe till I started playing the clix game, so I didn't really have much of a history beyond the video games. I did finally see some others play CBT at the same venue and I found it to be ok, but a far too long of a game to play. I could play 3 matches with the clix game and the CBT crowd would not even be close to a halfway point.

Knowing what I know now, I can understand why some may not like it. I still have all my figures: about 300+ or so. Can't recall exactly, but I won a factory set at a tournament and got a huge amount of the Raselhaque Dominion figures from others because they disliked the faction dials. It became one of my favorite factions to play as a result and I won a decent amount of matches because people underestimated me rather than the mechs themselves.

So, I have been thinking these past few month about trying to resurrect this game to some extent. Now, I am not talking about new figures or anything like that, but a new full set of rules.. House rules if you will, that will take all the best traits of the original game, but allow someone to play them without the worry of the clix side of things. The reason I say that is because a good portion of my own clix won't turn. My goal is to preserve the skirmish side of the game, but give it more flair and easiness to get into. These rules can also be applied to battletech minis as well, so it won't matter. Obviously since these will be house rules, they will be free for anyone to use as to do anything else would require licensing and all that kind of stuff. I would love to get feedback on this idea. My initial plan will be to create a Github project to put these alternate rules in, so anyone can see what I am doing and provide feedback.

I am doing this for a few reasons. 1. Because I like the idea of a skirmish style game, and I don't want to spend hours going through the existing books and trying to understand all of the current BT rules. I have some of the books already. 2. Because I have all these figures and I don't want to get rid of them. 3. One part of these new rules is a way to do single player, so it will include an AI element to it. In our current situation, not everyone can get together and play.

What do you all think?

Wrangler

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 25627
  • Dang it!
    • Battletech Fanon Wiki
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #153 on: 27 October 2020, 16:19:04 »
Welcome MegaZipp.

There is a skirmish style of Battletech.  Essentially, Alpha Strike. Heck you could use your AOD figures with it since the hexless version rules of the game works.

Not all players are into Alpha Strike, there version of the game where more units can be played with less time taken up. 

BattleMech manual can help you if you want do more traditional rules game, but with only the basic.  A 1 vs 1 or 2 mechs vs 2 mechs may not take as long as you think.  It's when get bigger.

There is only line simulator for Battlech made by fans called MegaMek you may want check out as well.   
"Men, fetch the Urbanmechs.  We have an interrogation to attend to." - jklantern
"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
"No, it's a "Most Awesome Blues Brothers scene Reenactment EVER" waiting to happen." VotW Destrier - Weirdo  
"It's 200 LY to Sian, we got a full load of shells, a half a platoon of Grenadiers, it's exploding outside, and we're wearing flak jackets." VoTW Destrier - Misterpants
-Editor on Battletech Fanon Wiki

MegaZipp

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 3
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #154 on: 27 October 2020, 22:22:37 »
I will check that out. I am familiar with Alpha Strike, but haven't read it yet. I mostly want to take the rules for AOD and DA and enhance the good parts and get rid of the bad. I have the Battletech Manual.. atleast the slightly older version and I picked up their free pdf's also. I am still in the planning stages at this point, so I haven't started creating documents or anything.

To be honest I have been a little hesitant to do this as I know it will be a lot of work to get where I would like it. I have some other tabletop games that I want to play as well, so its a matter of finding the time. I also was seeing how many people here were even interesting in the idea. I was going to put it on Github in document form, maybe have some people test it on their own time, even have contributors as well.

DarkSpade

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3717
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #155 on: 28 October 2020, 17:54:50 »
Me and a friend tried that.  After a few drafts and several playtests, we gave up.  The Shallow dials gave everything such a glass jaw that we couldn't control how powerful a first strike could be without the pain of record keeping for simultaneous damage.  And even that didn't help much.
Space Marines are guys who look at a chainsaw and think, “That should be balanced for parrying.”

Wrangler

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 25627
  • Dang it!
    • Battletech Fanon Wiki
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #156 on: 29 October 2020, 05:52:56 »
Yay. Megamek is able to most things played in the tabletop game. Including manage the campaign. Alphastrike and its associated spins off haven't yet been done.  There limit programers volunteers to keep it going. Megamek does all the work rules wise.

Skirmish wise I'd say it Alphastrike what u like. Unfortunately u would need Tabletop Simulator to actually run it.  Its why i hope Megamek get additional stuff added to it. The Larger BattleForce type rules and ASC rules is basic Alphastrike long epic level. With. Megamek sor5 game managing the game phases. It makes it overall more playable.
"Men, fetch the Urbanmechs.  We have an interrogation to attend to." - jklantern
"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
"No, it's a "Most Awesome Blues Brothers scene Reenactment EVER" waiting to happen." VotW Destrier - Weirdo  
"It's 200 LY to Sian, we got a full load of shells, a half a platoon of Grenadiers, it's exploding outside, and we're wearing flak jackets." VoTW Destrier - Misterpants
-Editor on Battletech Fanon Wiki

Jhousdan

  • Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 164
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #157 on: 31 October 2020, 15:10:38 »
For me it was a lot of things.  First, the new setting was not very well explained AT ALL... you opened booster packs, looked the dossiers and said "spirit cats? Swordsworn? Stormhammers? Who the hell are these guys?" Then there was the randomness of the packs, which did nothing but scream "money grab" like a collectible card game would. The creators lost a lot of honor in my eyes with that one. Lastly were the designs... almost universally,  the mech designs took a serious dump in quality and ingenuity.

The game mechanics weren't terrible, but I was past the idea of getting used to table grind, or how long it took to resolve each weapon in an alpha strike... it seemed oversimplified to me, I felt like I lost some of the finer controls I had over my mechs.

Characters I couldn't get invested in, in a time setting I couldn't reconcile with the setting I was used to, with mechs that looked (for the most part... this includes the project phoenix redesigns) like they were designed by third graders, I just didn't see the merit. It felt like progress for the sake of progress without a real goal for the franchise in mind.

It felt like an attempt to recapture the grittiness/ mad-maxism of the late succession wars that FASA slowly spent the 90s walking back to something gentler. (The irony being, theyd eventually do the same thing with DA "well, maybe things weren't reallyTHAT bad...")

The early novels didn't do anything to help either, and by the time they found their stride and gained any traction, most of us were dusting off second/third edition, digging out the compendiums, and getting back to legacy("classic") battletech.

I'm less ambivalent toward the setting now (since a progression has been established through the jihad, etc... not great work, but not terrible either), but i now have zero interest in learning who the ilclan will be. It feels like a story event that is happening about a hundred years too late to matter. It feels like taking the gold medal in the 100 meter dash in the summer Olympics after the stadium has been bombed to hell and the competition is too injured or lame to even race.
« Last Edit: 31 October 2020, 15:34:43 by Jhousdan »

MegaZipp

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 3
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #158 on: 03 November 2020, 14:14:52 »
Thanks for the feedback. At this point I am not sure what I will do with all of these figures. I have been looking at the new Clan Invasion stuff and I may just look more into Alpha Strike, or even consider taking a dive into Battletech. I have some of the older books, so I will read through all that, plus the free pdf's that are out. Alpha Strike may still be an option for me as well, whether I use my AOD stuff or get new stuff.

Jhousdan

  • Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 164
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #159 on: 03 November 2020, 18:58:41 »
Alpha strike would be great for those figures... they also fit on a standard hex base, even if they're larger than their ral partha/iron wind counterparts. One of the guys at our table uses a few DA figures that he's re-based and repainted.

Darzoni

  • Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 152
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #160 on: 07 December 2020, 11:03:14 »
In my case, I didn't dislike ClickTech.  I was extremely confused about the setting and the gap because there wasn't much to go on.  There was an availability issue with most non-RPG hobby games in my area at the time, so getting anything outside of MTG or D&D was very difficult.  Clix of any kind were just really hard to come by, and my main issue with ClickTech was I didn't get enough stompy robot figures in the boosters when I could get them.

I do remember being very stoked at how cool the Bannson's Raiders Centurion looked though.  I admit to being very pleased to see that design get canonized as the Centurion Omni.

worktroll

  • Ombudsman
  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 26036
  • 504th "Gateway" Division
    • There are Monsters in my Sky!
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #161 on: 07 December 2020, 13:13:52 »
The earlier paintschemes were very well done, IMHO, for commercial pre-paint. Bannson's, Highlanders, Capellan, and civvy factions for Kurita & Steiner, all very attractive looking, with base, contrast, metallic detailing, and a little dirt shading on the feet/legs.

The later cartoonish jobs (Feds & Lyrans) - bleh!
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

PuppyLikesLaserPointers

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 1996
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #162 on: 08 December 2020, 12:49:57 »
Well. The setting is neo-feudal worlds, but there was a rule. And the Blackout throws the whole world into a 'real' dark age. Ha, I don't think that most of you will enjoy the situation. No HPG to communicate? No one to trust? Some Factions are struck hard with no hope arise? Oh....

I think that that's enough to earn the hatred. If you heard that 'the world you have seen is no more' then most of you will say "What the hell?" first.

Also, the concept of Blackout and the chaos in Inner Sphere resembles the sencibility of end of the 20th century era, that post-apocalypse was a thing. Such genre do exists, but it's out of fasion right now. Also, if you want this you may play the early horror of Succession War era instead. Then you heard that 'your furture is now butchered.' So most of you will say again, "What the hell?"
« Last Edit: 09 December 2020, 23:57:42 by PuppyLikesLaserPointers »

Valaska

  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 97
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #163 on: 09 April 2021, 19:12:17 »
It's pretty simple...

Classic Battletech is pretty high fiction, with amazing political intrigue and deep characters and stories that make sense. Up until the Jihad (the beginning of the fall of BattleTech writing standards), you can literally track armies, characters, and mercenary outfits across the galaxy and through the timeline and it is a damn near bang on. And then in Jihad, we enter the starting comic book writing...

BattleTech (age of war) to Civil War are seasons 1-6 of Game of Thrones. Jihad is a weird mix of season 7 and 8 at the same time... Dark Age is season 9 and the showrunners doubled down on the worst aspects of S8.

Jihad.

The bad.
Jihad you see wholesale destruction of everything build up before the series, and this was in the new creative directors whacky/zany attempt to "revitalize" Battletech, which at the time was doing fine still. It wasn't growing but it wasn't dying... but someone figured a shakeup would create growth. Instead of keeping Battletech at a sustainable interest level, it ended up beginning the slow march to BattleTech's death. The director dubbed "the lord of nukes" would go on to turn factions like Jade Falcon into comic book villains, random clans would completely about-face and would become completely different entities. The deepest characters with amazing potential and ongoing stories were all killed in a shitty peace summit scene, the best 'Mechwarrior in the galaxy at the time was wiped out in a shuttle explosion on said summit (Diana Pryde) with every single fan reading her story now left with "she died in an explosion."

All while the "lord of nukes" literally gleefully laughed when he admitted he forgot about the GDl and wiped them out with a nuclear-armed Urbanmech... because he forgot they existed. Jihad put a knife in the collective back of the longtime fans. It turned into comic book writing, and comic books are crap. It read like cheap fan fiction and the intent was clear. The "lord of nukes" had no idea how to continue the setting and was not the correct creative director of the setting. If you need to destroy everything people loved just to start your own fan-fiction level storyline maybe you shouldn't be the one taking creative control.

It represented a complete knee-jerk reaction from morally grey characters, realistic politics, to unrealistic one-note comic book villains. MOST factions turned into either GI Joe or Cobra. There wasn't the same nuance as there was before. I'm going to use Jade Falcon as an example again because they were the faction to suffer the worst at this hands. Jade Falcon was a Crusader clan and they were pretty agro, they went after the InnerSphere, they wiped out garrisons, AFFCs, they were involved in very shady politics and tore Wolf into two factions with Marthe Prydes brilliant maneuvering. But InnerSphere populations didn't mind being under them very much... why? Because despite being Crusaders they were pretty chill with civilians. They even had a merchant cast, Marthe Pryde made a semi-elite unit with Freebirths and even gave a Freebirth Mechwarrior the go-ahead (and a pep-talk) to fight for a blood-name. They even came to a diplomatic resolution to stop attacking the Lyrans to the Tukayyid line so long as they had a planet to fight with the Lyrans over, the planet changing hands month after month depending on who won the fight that month. They had some nuance to them before the Jihad, they refused to outright nuke or slaughter civilians and they HATED Smoke Jaguar for doing so.

And then the Jihad happened and you had Jade Falcon slaughtering civilians left and right, wiping out all of their scientists (despite the fact they specifically set bloodnames aside for scientists and Marthe Pryde had a deep relationship with a scientist caste member and respected her greatly), crashing Soyuz' into planets and nuking people. Some of the competent writers tried their darndest though, more on that later. They had some Falcons' objecting, and they tried to make believable justifications for their actions... but they all fell far short because none of the reasons given were believable for one of the most nuanced political entities to slip so far into GI Cobra territory.

The good.

Later. Jihad kept a few characters alive... not all the best ones mind you, those were wiped out not for narrative integrity but to make it easier to start new storylines. This was... awful. But enough characters that were recognizable and many who already had satisfying ends to their stories were kept around and now forced to get back in the saddle. Enough of these were good, and some of the competent writers did their best to keep the old spirit of Battletech alive. Luckily enough was recognizable that some fans stuck around but without denial, this was a massive population loss in Battletech. Tournaments, MegaMek, etc, you saw a lot of Battletech fans leave.

Dark Age.

The Bad.
My god... the bad. That's... putting it lightly. Where Season 7/8 of Battletech had some redeeming qualities of a few notable characters and a bit of nuance left to the story. Dark Age saw fit to completely wipe any nuance out of the setting, to erase every remaining character, and to be a shameless cheap marketing tool to sell gacha-level plastic. Honestly, Dark Age was made to be the most predatory and hellish version of a tabletop. I saw people spend more on Dark Age models than they did for WH40k, IN A MONTH... in a desperate attempt to get just a playable unit down on the field. Scalped figures online were insanely expensive, there were normal Battlemechs on ebay for Dark Age which was brand new, outselling Ral-Partha lead models. Dark Age was extremely effective at a short-term success, though we saw how fast the tournament and playing scene died for it (In Germany I can only find venues running Dark Age for 3 years max, where-as Classic BattleTech is still played to this day.)

And the entire fiction/canon was written with one objective. Sell. Plastic. To. Teens. That's it. There was no nuance anymore, there was no political intrigue, there were no grey characters etc, I know people tease Michael Stackpole for black hat and white hat characters and he deserved some of that teasing for his work in CBT. But Dark Age was so black hat vs white hat it was embarassing. It was like reading a cape hero comic book about stompy robots. I wasn't a teenager anymore but a young adult.

Dark Age didn't mature with its audience, it immatured. In an attempt to attract younger players instead of adults it kiddified the stories and simplified the characters, and invented extremely predatory sales tactics that I have still never seen a board game ever replicate in the same way Dark Age had. There are D&D miniatures sold in blind boxes right now but they are ASSURED to at least have one useable model in them. I wasted $800 and got NINE useable battlemechs. To this day I feel like a complete sucker and an idiot for doing that, especially since I hated how the game played and I hated the stories I hated the novels I hated everything about Dark Age but I wanted to get a little bit of that old Battletech glory and feel... I love Battletech, more than any other fiction ever. I have re-read Freebirth, Falcon Rising, Exodus Road, Grave Covenant, Operation Audacity, Prince of Havoc... many times. I have some of my favourite BattleTech books on display to my left right now. I feel that Dark Age was an outright betrayal.

Let's go back to Jade Falcon as an example. There were justifications for what they were doing to the scientist class in the Jihad, however weak they may have been. They were still not evil, not by a long shot, but they were getting there into the comic book levels of evil. Jade Falcon in the Dark Age are sunday morning cartoons evil in Dark Age. Seriously, Jade Falcons feel like a 6 year old pitched these ideas.

"We will have some bad guys, with birbs, the birbs are big'an green with a sword. They are the bad guys. This girl, she's evil and nasty, girls are gross, and she becomes the boss of the jade falcons. So they launch these missiles at ALL the planets and they go like KABOOM and wipe out everything! And now they just stop because they have no space ships now but they blew up everything'an now the good guys they are going to build up their good guys faction and the good guys they are gonna go beat up the bad guys who wait, and there will be like the traps and more big missiles and giant robots twice the size of other robotts and then they fight and the evil girl will be really mean to all the people and then KABOOM blow up HER OWN PEOPLE! An then the good guys win a few fights but she get away."

Tell me that's not exactly what happened. Someone talked to their 6 year old and asked them what they would like to see in BattleTech and the kid said exactly that I guarantee that's what happened. The entire direction of the story feels like it's directed by a 6 year old. And no matter how many competent writers you hire to handle the meat of it, if the foundation is ridiculous and comical then it's always going to seem like a pale imitation of what we once had before the Jihad era of battletech. Whereas Jihad could be redeemed with re-writes and re-direction, there's nothing salvageable in Dark Age, and I will never- in my life contribute a singular damn cent to Dark Age ever again.

Also, I sold those 9 battlemechs for $80 apiece and the huge bucket of pointless worthless units for $100 so I at least made my money back on plastic. I had to just throw the books out for Dark Age. They were the first books in my life of any kind (including instruction manuals, I have instruction manuals for things I don't even own) that I literally just threw in the trash. But seriously... $80 a piece, that's how awful Dark Age's business model was. It actually taught me a lot about buying limited edition/rare things and selling them for a profit, I am sitting on over $40,000 of pokemon cards right now. So I'll thank Wizkids for that at least it was a very valuable lesson.

Actually, it taught me another lesson. Never to really love any kind of fiction that is an ongoing series. Because it will become awful. It's why even though I really enjoyed game of thrones I could never get into it and love it because Jihad and Dark Age are always in the back of my mind. Dark Age literally killed that youthful love of stories and writing for me. I wanted to be a writer even after Jihad uselessly killed characters like Diana Pryde off with. I wanted to do better. When I read Dark Age... I literally lost all the will and love in writing, I didn't even use my scholarships for English literature, I went into the military and criminology after that.

Luckily I actually recovered that, eventually. It took a long time for me to trust any written literature after what Dark Age did to me... I write for video games now, and I promise any of my readers I will NEVER betray them as Jihad or Dark Age did. We authors have a MASSIVE responsibility and duty to our fans not to completely and outright backstab them. The "lord of nukes", D. Benioff, D.B Weiss, O.S. Card, never learned that lesson. I remember "the lord of nukes" even laughing at people when they said how hurt they felt about the Jihad and how they erased their favourite characters for seemingly no reason. That taught me to respect my readers... respect the audience. Because it could be like BattleTech, and kill the love people have for your franchise off. Just like that Star Trek discovery show or, the JJ Abrams movies, or the new star wars movies.

It's a late post... but Battletech is the most important bit of fiction to me and was the last time I could let myself fall in love with fiction the way I did. So, I really needed to get this off my chest.

I believe it was disliked because they tried moving away from mech vs mech and more to combined arms combat.
I dont think a lot of the fan base was ready for that type of move.

Err... no? Everyone in our club was playing combined arms. Almost a quarter of the players at my club actually only played infantry and armour, without any battlemechs at all (a Hells Horses and FedSun player). Even as a FedSun, then GDL, Jade Falcon, and Fedsun player, I rolled combined arms in every single outfit.

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

Multiple venues kept running BattleTech here, it was ironically Dark Age that killed BattleTech games. It gutted us, the entire community of loyal fans. We felt like nothing more was coming for BattleTech and at the time were right, there was nothing going to come no progression, no new models. We felt abandoned, so we moved on to WH40K, Heavy Gear, etc.

But guess what? BattleTech started to pop up again. Annual games kept it alive, then we started doing it every once in awhile, and tournaments kept going. Dark Age lasted 2 years in North America for tourny scene here, three years in Germany which is a far more concentrated and dedicated market. Guess what? BattleTech tournaments and venues never stopped in Germany. Here in Canada we're still playing it. So yeah, I can find a game of BattleTech. I can't find find any for Dark Age... and to be honest, that's a good thing in my eyes. Dark Age killed my favourite universe and board game.

I didn't really notice the Hero clix Mechwarrior stuff, and certainly didn't realize there was background info explaining the jihad and formation of the Republic until later. And even then, all it seemed to be to me was a board wipe of everything that was being built up prior to the Jihad. I didn't really like Devlin Stone, David Lear, or the architects of the Republic- and I hated what Victor Steiner-Davion turned into. All I could see was how it killed anything I liked about the setting. And I walked away.

My gosh, I don't even want to get started on what they did to Victor Davion... I don't think it's hyperbole to say that literally, every decision with the canon they made was trash writing only rivalled by how terrible GoT fell apart. There are MANY series that have worse writing etc, but few take something so amazing, so fun, so well thought out and deep... thought-provoking, and then just... ruin it. Completely, and without any regard or care for what they are doing. And then you have people going "hey don't be mad about this! You're just being sour!" You're darn right I'm being sour. And when people go "it didn't kill Battletech!" no it literally did, do you not remember how long Battletech just languished and slept until this Kickstarter directly after Dark Age? It was MEANT to kill BattleTech, I have no doubt about that. It was MEANT to erase BattleTech, and it nearly did.


/// EDIT ///

I wanted to, after quoting that last quote in an edit... I was too glum in the ending. I am now for the first time really hopeful that BattleTech can once again rise above the damage that Dark Age has done. I'm introducing avid Warhammer40k players to both CBT and Alpha Strike and they are coming around. Ten players here backed the Kickstarter, and I not only backed Galaxy Commander pledges, but a merchant one just to give people free lances and starts that are local to get them into the game. And keep all the extra goodies for myself of course... haha.

My dream would be for them to completely retcon all of Dark Age, move it off into its own universe. And begin re-writing the Jihad era from the end of Civil War, don't just kill off people's beloved characters. Don't betray their backstory and make them into completely new and alien people either... and don't make factions go nuts for little-to-no-reason. Honestly, there's an easy way to jumpstart this series again from Clan Invasion and move into Civil War again.

You could write new books in the Civil War era easily without interrupting too much with the core framework. And then re-do a Jihad era, move it way WAY, way forward, and don't just have WOB win as they did, have them needing to ally with someone who would align with their goals *cough* Liao *cough cough* Capellans *cough* and write in political divisions and maneuvering between the two factions and give them more solid motivations than the WoB was written to have in Jihad. Ditch the all-out "nuke erases this inconvenient character/faction" and give people the endings they want for their characters. Archer Christiphori died, and it was a FANTASTIC story and an amazing narrative element to it. Characters can die but it has to be earned.

I'm sorry to fans of Dark Age... but some people even here are suggesting we treat it like an "alternative universe." Hell yeah, I'm down for that. Let's do that.
« Last Edit: 09 April 2021, 20:34:40 by Valaska »

Colt Ward

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 29465
  • Gott Mit Uns
    • Merc Periphery Guide- Bakunin
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #164 on: 29 June 2021, 09:18:02 »
So . . . most of what you wrote is wrong, but yeah it is those misconceptions that caused the problem.  So really a good example all in all.
Colt Ward
Clan Invasion Backer #149, Leviathans #104

"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

Frabby

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 4310
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #165 on: 29 June 2021, 14:17:30 »
So . . . most of what you wrote is wrong, but yeah it is those misconceptions that caused the problem.  So really a good example all in all.
I was going to say the same thing. Only one thought to add: It doesn't matter why people are unhappy with how the Jihad and Dark Age played out - they have that reputation now and CGL is wise to rush into uncharted territory with the ilClan era for a fresh start.

And I know that I am in the minority here, but I have to say this once again: For me, the BattleTech became stale and broken no later than during the Civil War era. I (unwittingly) skipped MWDA completely and came back just after the Jihad had started. I opened the first book and saw Wolf's Dragoons finally getting their teeth kicked in for good. I was sold immediately!
As a reader of fiction, that is. When it comes to boardgaming, I rarely venture beyond 3025 and if I were to start a new BattleTech RPG campaign I'm dead set on the late Succession Wars. Jihad and Dark Age didn't improve the game for me. But I liked the Jihad story as it unfolded, even when it just backfilled the holes left by the weak DA storyline.
Sarna.net BattleTechWiki Admin
Author of the BattleCorps stories Feather vs. Mountain, Rise and Shine, Proprietary, Trial of Faith & scenario Twins

mvp7

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 445
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #166 on: 29 June 2021, 17:04:57 »
I was going to say the same thing. Only one thought to add: It doesn't matter why people are unhappy with how the Jihad and Dark Age played out - they have that reputation now and CGL is wise to rush into uncharted territory with the ilClan era for a fresh start.
Indeed, literally suffocating the last vestige of Jihad/Dark Age with a pillow to to usher in the ilClan era does seem like an act loaded with symbolism ;D.

deogg

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 15
  • #TheTapperOfTomorrow
    • My YouTube channel: Tapper Dan
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #167 on: 16 April 2023, 21:08:36 »
Now, I'm one of those that actually liked DA/AOD. I saw it and was like "hey, more Battletech. I'll take it!" (For further context, I also played Mage Knight and Heroclix before DA hit)

The problem: I was the ONLY person in my area that played anything Clix at the time. So, for me, it died out merely due to nobody else playing at the time.

The thing I REALLY dislike NOW about DA/AOD: I've had to deal with a lot of stuck dials (both stats and heat dials) and stat decals (especially the heat ones) peeling off from the dials. I've had to pop open and fix a lot of dials over the last few years.
"You ain't seen the best of me yet. Give me time, I'll make you forget the rest."

CranstonSnord

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 884
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #168 on: 17 April 2023, 08:49:07 »
I haven't gone thru mine in years, but I wonder if you've noticed any oily residue leaching out of the plastic? I've heard that's become an issue with the Aurora dropships, so I'm curious if they used better plastics in the minis...

worktroll

  • Ombudsman
  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 26036
  • 504th "Gateway" Division
    • There are Monsters in my Sky!
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #169 on: 17 April 2023, 15:14:14 »
Never ever seen that, and I have and use several hundred or more DA mi is.

I expect the Aurora was made differently.
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Colt Ward

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 29465
  • Gott Mit Uns
    • Merc Periphery Guide- Bakunin
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #170 on: 17 April 2023, 15:28:45 »
Yeah, I have them sitting in boxes and sitting out on the shelf . . . heck, I have painted up some tanks and BA for TW use.  No problems with them.
Colt Ward
Clan Invasion Backer #149, Leviathans #104

"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

DarkSpade

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3717
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #171 on: 17 April 2023, 15:51:05 »
The Aurora was made out of some of the driest and most brittle plastic known to man.  I can't imagine anything ever leaking out of it.
Space Marines are guys who look at a chainsaw and think, “That should be balanced for parrying.”

JAMES_PRYDE

  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 953
  • Stephanie & Jiyi Chistu "Restoring Honor to CJF !"
    • Clan Jade Falcon:  SWTOR
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #172 on: 01 August 2023, 08:51:40 »
As a collector, more than a miniature player, I mainly liked DA/AOD miniatures because they were bigger, and we relatively easier to get in a pre 3d printing world.

And also they were easier to paint as they were bigger lol

And now certrain models for collectors can be worth quite abit, kind of like original Star League Source Books and original Clan Invasion Battletmech blueprints

TimberwolfD

  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 60
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #173 on: 13 February 2024, 02:31:17 »
I both like and hate MW:DA. AoD fixed many of my biggest complaints, but I still prefer BT/TW rules.

The rules and balance for clickywarrior still annoy me to this day. The DA rules made infantry so over-powered relative to Mechs. Later, it was artillery that caused issues, particularly the application of the armor piercing special ability to artillery. There were so many points in DA rules that AoD showed could have been better from the start. Things like pilot and equipment cards added that bit of customization that made clickywarrior feel more like BT.

The more I've thought on clickywarrior over the years, the more I think the idea could have been better implemented and created less animosity. One place things could have been better implemented is in the scale of Mechs' life. The default 3 inch Mech dials only have 17 useful clicks (click 18 is always death). So everything from a Locust to a Jupiter has to fit into those 17 clicks and that makes it very hard for assault Mechs to feel heavy and powerful when a Locust might have 8-10 clicks. Especially when vehicles could have up to 11 useful clicks (12 was always death). Imagine two different size Mech dials, the standard 3 inch dial for lights and mediums and a four inch dial with an additional row for weapons and more clicks (~28 by my guestimate) for heavy and assault mechs. Something similar could have been done with vehicles for the big bois but I don't think vehicles were ever as problematic as Mechs life-wise. Another place things could have worked better would have been to better develop the split of defense, armor, and clicks/life.

Ultimately, my friends and I got together a couple of times a year to play clickywarrior for years after the game died. Eventually, I got most of them into BT/TW play and now we play some big games (>20,000 BV) every couple of months.

Knightmare

  • BattleTech Developer
  • System Admin
  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 584
  • Wrench'in it
    • BattleTech.com
Re: Why is Dark Age/Age of Destruction disliked?
« Reply #174 on: 22 February 2024, 10:23:53 »
And now certrain models for collectors can be worth quite abit, kind of like original Star League Source Books and original Clan Invasion Battletmech blueprints

This is true. I still have an Ares and an Aurora NIB, and they're worth a decent penny these days, and don't get me started on the limited edition three Ares box set. I'm still looking for one.
BeemerCon Summarized. Knightmare, end of turn: "How come none of my weapons fired?"
Look, dude, when you are a real mechwarrior you don't need to get all dressed up in cooling suits and cool helmets to work on your mech. You just strip down to your 1980s panties and crop top vest and start wrenchin' it.
Yen Lo Wang = David Lo Pan