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Interview Jordan Weisman talks BattleTech at alistdaily

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Tags: BattleTech; Harebrained Schemes; Jordan Weisman

According to their website, Harebrained Schemes are formally announcing BattleTech at Gen Con today. The marketing-oriented news site alistdaily managed to grab a quick interview with Jordan Weisman before the announcement. Although most of the game's details are still up in the air, there are a few things here that are pertinent to RPG fans:

What Is Harebrained Schemes up to now, and why are you announcing it at GenCon?

We're announcing that we're going to be producing a modern turn-based tactical mech game, but we're being real tight-lipped about too much of the game itself because that will be coming out as we do the Kickstarter this fall. We wanted to announce the Battletech game here at GenCon. It's a little premature, but this is the audience where that game got started. These are the fans that helped build up Battletech from the beginning. This convention itself has been the hub of so many milestones for Battletech. We've been doing Battletech stuff here for a lot of years, and as soon as we were able to secure the rights to the game we knew this was the audience we needed to tell about it first.

What can you tell me about the game?

It's PC and Mac, and it's an open-ended mercenary campaign. Where you're going to be building your own mercenary unit. It's mixing a lot of turn-based tactical with a lot of RPG elements, because you'll not only be managing a lance of 'Mechs but also Mechwarriors as well. You have all their careers and their skill trees, doing the depth of story like we did in Shadowrun that we want to bring to Battletech. As we say, the feudal Machiavellian politics that was at the core of the Battletech universe.

Will you have fiction to go along with the game?


Fiction is an important part, both in the game and accompanying the game. We're working with the Catalyst guys so we coordinate with their fiction line. We're putting the game back in the original setting in 3025, because I think it played up the geopolitics really well and it lost some of the feudal nature later on. We want to sell the whole sweep of the story and sell the platform to do that.

What are you doing at GenCon for the game?


We have a teaser, just a paragraph about the game and a couple of pieces of concept art. For people that want to get involved early, we're going to have a Vanguard backing opportunity. They drop by the booth and we've made up dog tags from different mercenary units. They can pick those up and if they back later on, they'll get a variant of one of those 'Mechs. There are ten different types of mercenary units, and if someone wants to pick up all of them it's a $50 backing and then they get a free copy of the game when it comes out, the dog tags and the variant 'Mechs.

The benefit of crowdfunding is that you not only get financial backing for the game, but you also get guidance on the design of the game, as well as a tremendous marketing benefit, wouldn't you agree?

Part of the reason to announce now is that you have to make people aware that you're doing a Kickstarter, you can't just show up and hope people appear.

This will be our fourth game that we've brought to market with support from fans. The third Shadowrun title will ship August 20th, and all of those were funded by fans. The Golem Arcana game shipped last year at Gencon. We've really enjoyed that kind of cooperative, co-development relationship with our backers. Obviously the financial support has allowed us to grow and we wouldn't have done the games wthout that, but just as importantly the kind of emotional support and sounding board that they provide during development we've found to be a very energizing experience.

If we've done our job right and kept them happy during development, they're a great amnplifier for when the game launches. That marketing opportunity is really twice – once when you're doing the crowdfunding and making a lot of noise, but then a year and a half later or whenever you're shipping the title. If you've really worked collaboratively with your audience all the way through, they're a great help in getting the word out when the product comes out.
"A lot of RPG elements", "doing the depth of story like we did in Shadowrun". Yes, yes, this is definitely sounding relevant to our interests. And according to BattleTech fans, what he's saying about the timeline is good news too.
 

Zed

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I want to romance a Mech Warrior.
 

evdk

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We're putting the game back in the original setting in 3025
QF6jo0z.jpg
 

Crescent Hawk

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AS long as the game is not mobile crap like shadowrun I will be mostly happy with Front Mission Mechwarrior, or maybe a a ring of red style game.
 
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AS long as the game is not mobile crap like shadowrun

Which, coming just fresh from Dragonfall, reminds me: let's hope they will ditch Unity (ulikely) or at very least update to 5, because holy shit that game was unreasonable heavy and sluggish to manage, for what it offered on screen.
Loading times were especially unbearable.
 

Kiste

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:takemyjewgold:

I'd even be happy with it being "mobile crap like shadowrun" as long as it's at least as good mobile crap as Shadowrun.
 

Zetor

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Yea, as much as I consider myself a HBS fanboy, "pre-preorder our game that isn't even on KS yet" is pretty much "announcement to announce the announcement" territory. Come to think of it, pre-hyping kickstarters (which are supposed to be hype machines themselves) is pretty similar. KICKSTARTER... COMING THIS FALL!
 

Darkzone

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Basically we never had a BattleTech strategy game on computer that has a solo gameplay. I wouldn't count Mechcommander 1 and 2 as a real strategy game despite that it was attended to be a RTS. I remember only one or two mission and and they were not so tactical at all.
 

Kem0sabe

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Basically we never had a BattleTech strategy game on computer that has a solo gameplay. I wouldn't count Mechcommander 1 and 2 as a real strategy game despite that it was attended to be a RTS. I remember only one or two mission and and they were not so tactical at all.

BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception and the sequel.
 

Luka-boy

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It's PC and Mac, and it's an open-ended mercenary campaign. Where you're going to be building your own mercenary unit. It's mixing a lot of turn-based tactical with a lot of RPG elements, because you'll not only be managing a lance of 'Mechs but also Mechwarriors as well. You have all their careers and their skill trees, doing the depth of story like we did in Shadowrun that we want to bring to Battletech. As we say, the feudal Machiavellian politics that was at the core of the Battletech universe.
I was yearning for a setting like that for a game like that for a long time now but I never expected Battletech to return. What's so much cooler than Warhammer 40K? 40K Warhammers.
40kwarhammersbzrt1.gif
 

Darkzone

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BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception and the sequel.
The sequel is first good made RTS, but that excludes it from the original rule set of Battletech. The Crescent Hawk's Inception on the other hand was a turn based tactical RPG game that had somehow similar rules, but i don't remember anymore if this were exactly the BattleTech and Mechwarrior rules. So yes Crescent Hawk's Inception seem to disprove my statement. But i doubt that they had all the rules, like shooting in certain arc that is just from one of the arms. Or "Death from Above" jump or attacking with a fist instead of weapons or even ram someone. But naturally this was due to the fact that it was made in 1988. I think that cooling from water was in. Something about kicks with the foot i think also to remember in B:CHI.
 
Last edited:

Overboard

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Basically we never had a BattleTech strategy game on computer that has a solo gameplay.

U wot m8

The Crescent Hawk's Inception on the other hand was a turn based tactical RPG game that had somehow similar rules, but i don't remember anymore if this were exactly the BattleTech and Mechwarrior rules. So yes Crescent Hawk's Inception seem to disprove my statement. But i doubt that they had all the rules, like shooting in certain arc that is just from one of the arms. Or "Death from Above" jump or attacking with a fist instead of weapons or even ram someone. But naturally this was due to the fact that it was made in 1988. I think that cooling from water was in. Something about kicks with the foot i think also to remember in B:CHI.

Just because it didn't have the full rules doesn't make it NOT BATTLETECH. I played the fuck out of this game, it even had the code for weapons not used in the game, such as all the ACs or LRMs. Are you going to tell me Mechwarrior isn't a BattleTech game also because it doesn't have the fool rules?

First you complain there's no solo, then you change it to tactical, then you say because three rules aren't in it's not tactical. Make up your fucking mind, you're grasping at straws, so fucking edgy.
 

Darkzone

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Just because it didn't have the full rules doesn't make it NOT BATTLETECH. I played the fuck out of this game, it even had the code for weapons not used in the game, such as all the ACs or LRMs. Are you going to tell me Mechwarrior isn't a BattleTech game also because it doesn't have the fool rules?
First you complain there's no solo, then you change it to tactical, then you say because three rules aren't in it's not tactical. Make up your fucking mind, you're grasping at straws, so fucking edgy.
Before you go full retarded on me, you should read carefully:
The first statement that i have made is that we never had a BattleTech solo strategy game. This statement has been attacked by Kemosabe correctly with the example of Crescent Hawk's Inception. To which i state that he seems to be correct. But because i have played the game in 1988 which is very very long ago i do not remember if it had the correct BattleTech rules. And i state then that they lacked certainly some rules that are in the base board game, because it was made 1988, but on the other hand they had certain rules that are definitely are in the base board game. Here before you go more into certain space or overboard i will write it bigger and bold for you, perhaps you can then read it correctly:
I never state that Crescent Hawk's Inception was not was not a solo Battletech strategy game. I state explicite that Kem0sabe seems to be right and therefore i'm implicit wrong.
A real BattleTech strategy game is for me not only the BattleTech Universe, but it is also a certain set of rules that makes the BattleTech strategy board game. Minor deviations from the rules set, does not make it a NOT BattleTech strategy game, like the lacking of attacks to the upper part of the Mech with the fist or ax if you have a Mech with a hatchet.
But stronger diviations that are a change of the overall board game rules, does it for me. I remember that the movement in BCHI was not quite the normal rule set and i do not remember movement in hexes, but even that is not a problem if the other core elements are the same.
And yes i have also played several times B:CHI through, but because there were only few Mechs (3 + one Commando, Jenners only in the attack on the accademy and the Chameleon shouldn't be there in the fist place (no innerstructure only armor) and the Phoenix Hawk LAM only at the end as a picture) i have not played the hell out of it.
 

Kem0sabe

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Before you go full retarded on me, you should read carefully:
The first statement that i have made is that we never had a BattleTech solo strategy game. This statement has been attacked by Kemosabe correctly with the example of Crescent Hawk's Inception. To which i state that he seems to be correct. But because i have played the game in 1988 which is very very long ago i do not remember if it had the correct BattleTech rules. And i state then that they lacked certainly some rules that are in the base board game, because it was made 1988, but on the other hand they had certain rules that are definitely are in the base board game. Here before you go more into certain space or overboard i will write it bigger and bold for you, perhaps you can then read it correctly:
I never state that Crescent Hawk's Inception was not was not a solo Battletech strategy game. I state explicite that Kem0sabe seems to be right and therefore i'm implicit wrong.
A real BattleTech strategy game is for me not only the BattleTech Universe, but it is also a certain set of rules that makes the BattleTech strategy board game. Minor deviations from the rules set, does not make it a NOT BattleTech strategy game, like the lacking of attacks to the upper part of the Mech with the fist or ax if you have a Mech with a hatchet.
But stronger diviations that are a change of the overall board game rules, does it for me. I remember that the movement in BCHI was not quite the normal rule set and i do not remember movement in hexes, but even that is not a problem if the other core elements are the same.
And yes i have also played several times B:CHI through, but because there were only few Mechs (3 + one Commando, Jenners only in the attack on the accademy and the Chameleon shouldn't be there in the fist place (no innerstructure only armor) and the Phoenix Hawk LAM only at the end as a picture) i have not played the hell out of it.

People should bold my name more often, makes me feel important and appreciated.
 

Darkzone

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People should bold my name more often, makes me feel important and appreciated.
If you are right and i'm wrong, like in this case i will always point that out. I think that you brofist to posts ratio speaks more about the appreciation here in Codex, than to write your name in big and bold letters. ;)
And the funny thing about it is that BCHI made me to a BattleTech fan, despite in germany this was not popular at this time. I had to order some BattleTech books from England in 1988 to get more info about Battletech. Only in 1991 it became more popular in germany due to the Gray Death Legion and later the Warrior Trilogy.
But i had already bought the board game and the "add-ons" in an RPG shop in 1989. And despite that, i have forgotten about it as i made my false statement.
 

Morkar Left

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I just hope they use the original or a similar complex rules set and aren't dumping it down like the SR rules.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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Succession Wars RPG from the guys behind Dragonfall?

:desu:
 

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