Mechwarrior 2 was close enough in the areas that matters the most to me.
Well said. That's my point.
Find me a single part, one weapon or piece of equipment that weighs different, has a different damage level, or range, than its boardgame counterpart.
All of them had different damage, heat and recharge ratings. All of them had different ranges, if just because range worked peculiar in the game. LRMs worked exceptionally different, as did PPCs. Just makes a field of slow moving balls, that acts as a mobile minefield. And what about splash damage?
Heck, ammo explosions worked differently as well, as did crit damage. Frankly, NOTHING worked the same way it does in the board game, it just seemed that way superficially.
All Mechs had peculiar hit boxes, which certainly was exploited to great effect in the online campaigns I played in back in the day.
the biggest divergence I can think of, in MW2 is the way you can skate and strafe on jumpjets.
A pretty big problem, I'm sure you'll agree? To be competitive online, many developed the skill of JJ-hovering forward, firing LRMs over the shoulder of their enemy, where they'd arc and strike the rear armor. Then JJ backward still mid-air to avoid the same problem. Certain mechs were especially vulnerable to this because of how their hit boxes were laid out.
But honestly, if you only care about tons and crits, looks like MWT has you covered FAR better than MW2 ever did.
Sure as hell did. Not all into the right torso segment, but all of them body hits. and my foe still kept coming. and it was damn near impossible to build canon configs in that game with its hardpoints.
Definitely no disagreement on the hardpoints. I rather liked that element, meant a missile mech actually had to bring a lot of missiles. MW2, everyone basically makes the exact same energy boat, all the time. Just SPL emitters with some LRM racks.
On damage: you're definitely remembering that wrong, or something odd happened. Yes, damage worked differently, not denying that even slightly, but 6 GR hits that all strike the CT cannot be survived by any Mech in MW4 that I'm aware of.
Money isn't everything. I'd much rather have a good game that wasn't just a means to make money, like we have with battletech, than the way things are with Games Workshop. You can tell me with a straight face that their methods and tactics aren't straight up abusive and designed to squeeze their fans for money?
Money IS everything. Without money, CGL has to end making BT. Money is the point. CGL doesn't work for free. In order for BT to grow, CGL has to be increasingly more successful in making money. Or it will FAIL.
That doesn't mean they have to become such utter ruthless bastards as GW, but it also means they have to keep an eye on the bottom line. Numerous products covetted by the old guard are financially unsuccessful, so they have to die. House Handbooks: failed. Scenario packs: failed. There's other examples.
You can't close your eyes to that reality. CGL isn't a charity, despite the ENORMOUS sacrifices made by the people running it or BT over the decades.
But we'll never get it. Not when people are willing to accept whatever random changes they make in the name of making things easier for new players, or for the sake of balance, or variety.
Not while sensible businesses have cause to want to make changes to cast a wider net, catch a bigger audience, etc.
Can mistakes be made that way? Absolutely.
Are they doing something wrong by trying? Absolutely not. And it's unreasonable to think otherwise. The status quo is deadly for all businesses, all the time. The nature of business demands you keep seeking change.
WHICH IS ALL THE MORE REASON, That I'd like to see an official, commercially produced product, that does the same thing with a better user interface.
Do you really believe a company wouldn't have gotten a proper license from Microsoft and then sought to acquire MMek if they thought it had any economic potential?
What does that mean? That EVERY company on the planet for the last 25 years is idiotic? Going as far back as MW1 or Virtual World? You know how tight the latter guys are/were with BT, right? You know the Timberwolf and most Clan Mechs, heck, the OmniMech as a concept exists because of the pod game, right?
So, you really believe that everyone just doesn't see that something like MMek could be profitable? Everybody's stupid?
Some of them, surely. But logic dictates that a couple of them have brains. It's the law of averages. Probably those who make money. And those few with brains do not consider it a worthwhile investment.
They're almost certainly right. BattleTech is a UNIVERSE. It's not a RULES SYSTEM. Not every rules system translates to a computer game. Not every computer game translates to a board game.
Paul