Arbitration Studio’s November 2012 BattleTech Podcast – Return of the Gnome
On this episode of Arbitration we’ll review everything we missed: from the latest XTROs, Dossiers, and Interstellar Expeditions. It’s a huge round up of the latest BattleTech releases! In our middle segment, we’ll discuss the future of BattleTech: 3250, and for our final segment we’ll offer our listeners Taco Cannons, Russian Revolutionaries, and expensive cocktails in the Arbitration News Desk.
Oh, and High-Test is BACK.
All in this month’s PodCast from Arbitration Studios – the last word in BattleTech
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With regard to the ilClan: why choose between the two? Make it a Jag/Wolverine(/Blood Spirit) combo. Much easier then for the other Clans to kick off the new era by betraying the Third Star League.
With regard to pruning ‘Mech designs: if we’re narrowing the pool down to 100 ‘Mech designs, you’ve got to assume that half of those will be new, which leaves all of fifty to keep? Might be easier to pick out the five BattleTech-iest designs for any given TRO year.
That said, I think there’s some general groups that should have few (if any) representatives in the 3250 TRO: unseens, reseens, preseens, and anything else (2750, 3085/DA, Klondike) that has too much versioned art; omnis (maybe allow the Vulture, Loki, Thor and Mad Cat, no more than one per faction); anything that doesn’t sell well for Iron Wind Metals; anything described prior to the TR:Upgrades as on its way to extinction; anything that’s difficult to kill over the length of a typical game (no more than 5-6% of mech-count being 3/5/0 15+ tons armor, no more than 11% being 7/11+ or stealthed); alpha babies; most energy boats…
Of course, paring things down like this will be rather pointless unless they also stop writing so many variants (including “ONN” type sections and fluffless record sheet variants) per entry. (Really ought to refocus on ways to differentiate two machines of a single-same variant.)
Oh, and I would not at all mind seeing MWO’s Centurion or Shimmering Sword’s Rifleman under new names. Like how the video game Black Knight Omni seems to have become 3067’s Templar.
With regard to the podcast’s penultimate comments: ideally, people ought to explore the differences between opinions, and the thoughts that lead to each position, without looking to “win.” I agree that this ideal may not be possible in this instance.
Please continue being careful in how you present sensitive information. Saying there was a miscommunication (which I find easy to believe, having worked with Steve) is quite different from assuming someone was intentionally mislead.
With regard to FASA vs Catalyst fact-checking: your “Catalyst apologist” showing through again, I think. 😉 I hope that Catalyst takes the 3250 time jump as an opportunity to smooth out their own approach to continuity.
Oh! XTRO:Succession Wars was indeed a bit of a bright spot. I’ve only looked at the *preview* mind you, and I’d much prefer the original canonical stats, but the new stats and art look reasonable, and (importantly) the writing is better than I’ve come to expect from XTROs.
I suspect that quality is due to how little fact-checking was needed and how much freedom the writers felt they had – which makes the 3250 era all the more promising.
Wouldn’t that be grand? The clans betraying the 3rd Star League because the Wolverines win? This is an exciting idea, SkilTao.