BT can't survive selling stuff to the same group of 30-50 yo guys who already have a sizable BT collecting and other obligations.
Accurate.
I have ran into a alarming number of old hats online who seemingly rather see BT die with them than embrace the change needed to gain new player. While I commend them for supporting the game for all these years, they are now hurting the game
Highly accurate. And don't underestimate the effect that the loudest voices can have on the decision-making process.
Of course what that illusive “change” is could take up a whole other thread and more.
And has, many times.
The question for me is can CGL appease the nostalgia crowd that seems to be keeping the game barely above water while bringing in new players?
One of those things brings in money to allow continued business, and the other doesn't. People-pleasing and revenue-generation aren't mutually exclusive, but they can't be prioritized in that order.
I do think there still limited writing staff.
This is not the bottleneck. (And isn't really true.)
The first acts of the line developers have been to cancel supplemental material for alpha strike (the faction manuals) create basically a new 3025 tro and rulebook, design the classic mechs to look as close as they can to the orginals and bring back the old novels.
You're conflating a whole bunch of things.
BattleMech Manual and TRO Succession Wars were in the works before Brent and Ray were appointed. BMM in particular was (as I understand it) the hard work of a freelance contributor that management got behind, not an effort that derived from management
of that time.
Likewise, the Classics redesign has been an effort that goes back years, before the Brent-Ray era of leadership. Though both played a role in that process, they didn't initiate it when they took over. Same for the Legends series of e-pubs, that's been going for a little while now.
I've few very bad cases of getting hyped and end result being... disastrous
I think I understand: you're saying that you feel hype for a particular BT product over-promised and under-delivered? It's definitely a bad move to market something as being more than it is. But the "under-delivered" part is always going to be subjective.
And I think a lot of our lack of product at present has to do with the HG lawsuit derailing the 3 or 5 year plan since BMM, TRO Succession Wars and new Box Sets would have been a soft relaunch.
I've seen this idea starting to get into the water supply around here, and to the best of my knowledge, it's simply
not true.
Products are still in the pipeline, with every intention of releasing them later this year. I've worked on several of them, and on very quick turn-around deadlines--not a situation at ALL of "go ahead and do the work, but we'll see whether we can put them out." More like, "can you get this done by the end of the weekend so we can keep things moving."
I understand why people think this. Post hoc ergo propter hoc; there's a lawsuit, we haven't seen anything new in a little while, therefore... But my personal experience has been that there's a lot going on--it just needs to be communicated. I'm hoping to work on that, too.
It is more than time for people to move on. This obsession with the classics/unseen is hurting the development/advancement of the game.
Only my own opinion, but I'm absolutely with you here. It's a fixation for sure.
Additionally I feel that TRO:SW was aimed at slimming the 'Mech lineup going forward.
It was aimed at being a companion of some kind to the BattleMech Manual. I'm not sure how any product, especially one set in the SW era, could ever "slim the lineup" given how many TROs and XTROs are out there.