Harebrained Battletech - Silly rabbit. Mechs are for kids.

[deathzealotzero]

So I just finished the Heavy Metal Campaign for Battletech and I must say it was really interesting. I really did want to salvage those mechs used by the Black Widows, and the Bounty Hunters. Like that Atlas that could do direct damage to your mech's internals and maybe the Black Widow's Warhammer. Also, I was quite lucky I did this Flashpoint Campaign after the end of the Restoration Campaign as I had some of the best Mechs and fully trained Mechwarriors of the game. Still, the Black Widows and the Bounty Hunters tore apart my lance. I only managed to have one mech alive at the end of the mission, which was completely trashed. I am just glad I didn't lose any of my fully trained Warriors in that fight. I knew that I could just let the two groups fight one another but I figured that was a bit too easy therefore waited till the Bounty Hunter Lance landed and then waded into the battle after that first turn between the two enemy lances. Sigh. Still got pummeled but managed to bring down five of the eight enemy mechs on the field, at the cost of three of my own mechs.

That said. Are there any other interesting Flashpoints besides the one with the Raven and the one with Justin Allard which was quite interesting? I know there are several others in the game but they seem to be just expanded regular missions.

[Luciora]

 The one with the parakeet is funny.  You can also tweak the autocannons to have that trait if you don't mind it being used against you,  via .json editing.

[Mendrugo]

The Tournament of Champions is not to be missed.

[Akamia]

The Black Widow Company and Bounty Hunters, I just shelled from out of sight with the Bull Shark’s Thumper cannon while I let them fight each other, then cleaned up what was left. ;D

Anyway, besides that flashpoint chain, I thought Red Hunt was pretty fun!

[Mendrugo]

For the Widow/Hunter fight, if you circle around the battle zone and put the crashed ship at your back, the Widows have to fight through the Hunters to reach you.  Just charging straight in from your starting point puts you in the crossfire between both sides.

[Akamia]

Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. I already knew what was ahead of me, mostly, so I just ignored the first lance and set up a position that puts me a safe distance from both enemy lances.

Amusingly, the Black Widow and the Bounty Hunter were the first to go down. ;D I don’t remember what each ‘Mech’s configurations were; I suspect the Bounty Hunter and Natasha were running their respective Hero ‘Mechs from MWO/MW5Mercs (despite Natasha not having any indication that she used a modified Warhammer in canon, but y’know, video games. ::)), but the other six ‘Mechs were completely unfamiliar aside from their chassis.

[Cyc]

And really just some confirmation of what has long been assumed :(

https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/175cqvr/80_percent_of_harebrained_schemes_staff_have_been/

[Akamia]

That's a shame. I hope a sequel gets picked up by someone else, at some point, and it's at least as good, if not better, than the first.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Also an all-too-common trend in gaming companies.

[Wrangler]

Wow, Paradox was greedy we're they?   They totally devalued the stuff they bought.  Then get it what made it functional game company.

Hopefully, Mitch Gitelman can capital try make another company. Its too bad it was sold to Paradox, but I'm not surprised that they would do that.

[Charlie 6]

Darn shame.  HBS made one of my favorite game.  I was happy to back the Kickstarter; I would do so again.

[Euphonium]

I'm disappointed, but I can't say I'm surprised 

[MarauderD]

Terrible news for HBS.  BattleTech was a gem of a game, music, feel, vibe:  they nailed it in a way I thought couldn't be done.  The Director from the game, Matt McCain left right after the game was complete to work on art projects, so I knew a sequel was highly unlikely.  I hope folks land on their feet, and maybe Mitch Gitelman does another kickstarter in a few years for BattleTech 2. 

I had the feeling that when Paradox bought them it would end up being a bad thing for us fans.  I didn't know Paradox that well, but big companies tearing apart small companies upon acquisition is part of our psyche at this point. 

[Bedwyr]

I had higher hopes because, while their pricing strategy is controversial, Paradox has a habit of supporting games long-term, providing a lot of stability for development pipelines instead of the usual boom-bust problem. I hadn't though that there would be a high--and near instant--bar to clear.

I don't begrudge Paradox their unwillingness to work with MS's IP. Especially for a larger publisher, it's a tricky position to be in with cross-purpose relationship entanglements that could complicate business strategies in the long term.

[S2pidiT]

Terrible news for HBS.  BattleTech was a gem of a game, music, feel, vibe:  they nailed it in a way I thought couldn't be done.  The Director from the game, Matt McCain left right after the game was complete to work on art projects, so I knew a sequel was highly unlikely.  I hope folks land on their feet, and maybe Mitch Gitelman does another kickstarter in a few years for BattleTech 2. 

I had the feeling that when Paradox bought them it would end up being a bad thing for us fans.  I didn't know Paradox that well, but big companies tearing apart small companies upon acquisition is part of our psyche at this point.

Awful news, 100%. BattleTech is one of the only TBS games I play. As you said, hopefully the folks there will land on their feet!

As for the game itself, I feel that it has enough replayability for me, between the vanilla game and mods. I do hope to see a sequel or the like someday. I wouldn't mind having these games move toward the ilClan era.

[Wrangler]

Only way this game is going to survive is through the modding community, unless someone else comes up. 

[truetanker]

Catalyst should try to buy it, for rights and all, possible income from sales.

TT

[shinr]

HBS and Paradox split up.

[Bedwyr]

Wow.

[MarauderD]

Wow.  Way I read that release, Paradox owns BattleTech (the HBS game)

Upon further thought, good news, is HBS can run another KS, and make BattleTech II?

[Rebel Yell]

They obviously didn't hit the financial goals they wanted for the first one, or they would have continued development (added clans, etc.) so I can't imagine that they'd even consider a second go around.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

As successful as the game was, if they failed to meet some financial goal it was because it was a wildly unrealistic goal.

Moreover, it's entirely too common these days for game developers to cite opaque "performance issues" as a reason to lay off staff after a game has been produced.

[Sartris]

Moreover, it's entirely too common these days for game developers to cite opaque "performance issues" as a reason to lay off staff after a game has been produced.

“We don’t have enough money to pay people and stay solvent. We had been hoping our new game would infuse us with enough cash to fund us until we made the next deal but it was a buggy mess and that didn’t happen.”

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

“We don’t have enough money to pay people and stay solvent. We had been hoping our new game would infuse us with enough cash to fund us until we made the next deal but it was a buggy mess and that didn’t happen.”

"Pay no attention to how much our top executives earned this year."

[Wrangler]

Yeah, I'm worried.  Does Paradox retain the rights to BattleTech & ShadowRun or can HBS continue on using the license.

[Bedwyr]

Yeah, I'm worried.  Does Paradox retain the rights to BattleTech & ShadowRun or can HBS continue on using the license.

It's not clear what the status of the license is rn. AFAICT Paradox retains the rights to sell the previous games.

[MarauderD]

Intellectual Property law sucks, but here is broad strokes how I read it:

1. Paradox gets to retain rights to sell BattleTech, a game made by HBS.
2. Microsoft still owns the rights to BattleTech computer games.
3. Microsoft will partner with those it thinks can make money by making another game by licensing those rights.

So, and these are absurdly large IFs:
1. IF HBS wants to make another BattleTech game, lets call it BattleTech II for sake of argument.
2. and IF HBS goes to Microsoft and asks them for a license to do so.
3. and IF HBS could rehire/find the right people (that all apparently got fired in July), they could make BattleTech II.

So my thought is:  I'm glad the state of the (board) game is so healthy.  Because it gives us something to do and think about while we wait for people to dip their toe back in the computer game space.  The BattleTech Universe is red hot right now, I'm hoping in the next 5 years we see something.  Pretty long odds on BattleTech II being soon and being made by HBS, which is a damn shame.

[Bedwyr]

That all hinges on the terms of the license. If the license is sustained past those games for a certain time, then it might be that Paradox retains that license and HBS makes other games. If the license was only for those games, HBS loses the continuing revenue from sales of those games, but can pursue new licenses using those IPs.

I'll repeat what I said elsewhere. Reading between the lines I'm a bit more hopeful. The layoffs appear to be strategic so that the studio would reduce down from the kind of thing Paradox was aiming for to something HBS could run independently. And they've shown before they can operate at that size sustainably.

I'm sorry that this appears to have been an attempt at growth that didn't pan out. One thing that's clear is that Jordan Weisman is a serial entrepreneur. He doesn't have the desire to manage growth at the mid-size and up and it seems clear he thought the Paradox sale would be a way to transition out... and it just didn't work out. Mitch seems to have the skills and patience for both sizes of company and hopefully has a good chance to rebuild the pipeline for something they can sustain over the long term.

As for me, I feel safe buying a game of most any IP from HBS. They've proven repeatedly they know how to make the sort of game I enjoy playing and I think they'll continue to do so whether it's the beloved Shadowrun/BT or not.