A pre-interest Check: Battletech (it even rhymes ^.^)

[ArenaSnow]

Oh sweet mary joseph, why would we ever use game ranger? Evolve, hamachi, tunngle are all there, but you chose the one that doesnt work on my PC T_T

@6slyboy6

Hamachi is a load of... yeah. I've tried it a bit and I've found it lacking and probably not so easy in terms of getting this stuff up, I tried going the easiest route in terms of simplicity as I didn't expect to grab any tech geniuses by this... alas, it appears the first issues crop up ^.^. I suppose I shall give tech support... at what point does it not work? Loading, installing, joining games because it doesn't like your router?...

@ArenaSnowI am so very, Very, VERY interested! 100% on board. I've wanted to do a battletech RP for a while, but this method never really occured to me. If you wanted, I could gather some screen capture software for everyone, so we could post video footage of the battles here?

@Lord Coake

Sure! :)

jesus christ you guys mught have to hand hold me through this.

@boomlover

Any questions whatsoever, fire away, and I'll prep some more info this evening so we can knock off issues with the core of getting things together. A few preliminaries -

-If you have a mac or linux, speak now as Mechwarrior has always been a Windows game. It's not impossible to work around but it would be best to try and take that problem on early if it is there.
-Mention if Gameranger or Mechwarrior 4 won't work on your systems based on what you already know. I'll get some links up with my info update for those who don't have either on. I'd prefer to get those two to work as they are optimal on my system and used by a sizable community already of "old gamers" for Mw4 (who might be able to help with things in the RP if I can get them together and interested, they're not much of a roleplaying bunch unfortunately).
-As to why I chose Mechwarrior 4, it's new without being the massive and microtransaction loaded Mechwarrior Online. For that to work everyone here must either be a gamer by nature or already have it, and be willing to pay or sacrifice mech variety. And that game's big and system intensive. Older mechwarriors will almost certainly have issues as they are old and far from designed for today's systems, though if we had a big push to use Mechcommander that could actually be arranged... but in terms of mech variety I haven't seen Mw4 Mektek get beaten yet. The sheer variety = freedom that the other games don't quite offer. Gameranger is my choice but if we absolutely had to use another option... the alternative would need a pretty simple setup to make work. I'm trying to take as much of the tech out of this as possible :P

Edit: Oh, and for you BT fans, if you have an idea for the time/setting of the roleplay now's the time to post it. Mw4 Mektek mechs are designed for the Jihad era, though we could get away with FedComm, clan invasion, possibly some years before.

[sakurasan]

I am interested in this~ New for me but I might just try it! I don't know if you guys are still accepting though. (Newbie to the game)

[boomlover]

@ArenaSnow johad era? I only know invasion times adn those before that.

[ArenaSnow]

I am interested in this~ New for me but I might just try it! I don't know if you guys are still accepting though. (Newbie to the game)

@sakurasan

Perfectly fine, I'm not sure anyone in this thread is a vet :P Battletech, perhaps, but Mw4... it would surprise me. I'm thinking we could start off at a mech academy to get folks in practice a bit for the action, and anyone who may actually know the game can be a fellow instructor.

@ArenaSnow johad era? I only know invasion times adn those before that.

@boomlover

Then lets stick with invasion era, shall we?

[Shorticus]

Okay, so I confirmed it: my last exam takes place roughly two weeks from now.

Once that's over I'll happily walk anyone through basic mechanics and lore rundowns, and I'll also be ready to start this.

EDIT: Clan invasion era works for me, yeah. It's the go-to era for Battletech.

EDIT 2: Also, I used to play a TON of Mechwarrior 4 LAN, but not so much online play. I also love MWO. I wouldn't call myself a veteran MW4 player, but I run a mean close-quarters Uziel.

...except Uziels aren't available in the Invasion Era. fml. Oh well.

[ArenaSnow]

Okay, so I confirmed it: my last exam takes place roughly two weeks from now.

Once that's over I'll happily walk anyone through basic mechanics and lore rundowns, and I'll also be ready to start this.

EDIT: Clan invasion era works for me, yeah. It's the go-to era for Battletech.

EDIT 2: Also, I used to play a TON of Mechwarrior 4 LAN, but not so much online play. I also love MWO. I wouldn't call myself a veteran MW4 player, but I run a mean close-quarters Uziel.

...except Uziels aren't available in the Invasion Era. fml. Oh well.

@Shorticus

Well, you know, we could have, er, beta technology access or something ^.^

I don't suppose you could be open for an instructor slot, then?

[boomlover]

@ArenaSnow invasdion era will also offer the most chaos. And thereby more rollplay :). And we could do like the beggining of the invasion.

[Shorticus]

<Snipped quote by Shorticus>

Well, you know, we could have, er, beta technology access or something ^.^

I don't suppose you could be open for an instructor slot, then?

@ArenaSnow

I would be, I think. I'll brush up on MW4 mechanics and my lore before giving you a 100% "Yes" as an answer. For now, I'll summarize it as "Probably, but I'm not certain."

[ArenaSnow]

We are set, then.

Shorticus, for brushup I'd say chose a mech that is valid for 3050ish (yes, ish, feel flexible). I think one of the main either issues or concessions would be taking some of the older, but valid mechs and rolling back the tech to fit 3050 as mektek is designed for a little ways after the initial invasion.

[Shorticus]

We are set, then.

Shorticus, for brushup I'd say chose a mech that is valid for 3050ish (yes, ish, feel flexible). I think one of the main either issues or concessions would be taking some of the older, but valid mechs and rolling back the tech to fit 3050 as mektek is designed for a little ways after the initial invasion.

@ArenaSnow

Sure thing. I'll find a suitable mech.

I reckon we'll start off, since we're playing as a Merc Academy (right? or just rookies?), with light and medium mechs?

[boomlover]

@Shorticus we could also be a bunch of dudes who fucked up and are stuk on a desert planet? Gives us a lot of flashbacks :).

[ArenaSnow]

Academy could be a route if only for getting folks in practice... but if we got the basics down before the RP starts we could always just have a lance or so of rookies on patrol or defense :)

[Lord Coake]

@ArenaSnowSpeaking of: Do you have a link to where I can download the game? Everything I can find isn't working for me.

[sakurasan]

@ArenaSnow Yay! Glad to know there's still open space~ I'll be the vet then.

[ArenaSnow]

steamcommunity.com/app/342200/discussi..

A couple posts down, 1.6 GB download from dropbox. I've used it and it works perfectly (for me, anyways - might be a special scenario if you're using mac/linux). The game does not require much in terms of system capabilities.

You can't find good links because while the game is technically freeware, there's other technical BS that resulted in the developers taking the downloads off and thus leaving the downloads to folks who want to put them up... and you know how that can turn out. That said, the download is good and the fellow who posted it I know to be solid.

Anyone else who is interested, know that more folks may result in the RP being split up, possibly into two teams/threads under the same umbrella storyline. If folks here want to be on the clan side that's an option as well, we'll have some special conversations if that's the case.

Getting the game up and running, as well as getting in practice a bit is advisable at this stage. It'll be a while before the RP starts as some folks have nasty affairs (exams ^.^) coming up, and I'd like to keep them in - so I'll use the time to try and get folks up and running. Post here if you've got both Mw4 and Gameranger and we can do a test round.

[ArenaSnow]

In other news, I would call it a win to attract the interest of at least one person who by profile admission isn't usually into the sci-fi side of things...

[ArenaSnow]

@6slyboy6 @boomlover @Shorticus @Zorogami @Hjalti @Lord Coake @sakurasan

Post if you're still interested, a roll call if sorts just so I can start organizing. With the way it looks now we have 1.75 lances to work with - one more and we can have two lances of players. Or we can have 1 lance and some voulenteers to fill clan spots? There's two sides and bots make rather crappy NPC's... so doubling may be possible, and if you aren't active in one particular scenario you can still participate by being in another. So at this stage we can start defining who wants to be IS and who wants to be Clan. I know I'll be the NPC bosses unless I can find someone better to fill in as the really good clan pilots.

If nothing on the IS and clan bit made sense do say so and I'll explain a bit :)

If folks here have Mw4 and Gameranger we can arrange a test run from the moment I get a PM. The more folks that can be taken care of in this area the smoother things will run.

Eta for roleplay start... mmm. I think I'll base going the next level on when Shorticus has a little more free time after exams. Should give us good time for prep, eh?

Right now I see us with 9 players... a lance of inner sphere (maybe a couple more?) and a star (5) of clan "doubles" to form the other side. More or less as needed. We could very well make this a two-sided roleplay where half the players are clan, other half IS and see the roleplay from different perspectives...

[Shorticus]

Still interested.

With the way it looks now we have 1.75 lances to work with - one more and we can have two lances of players. Or we can have 1 lance and some voulenteers to fill clan spots? There's two sides and bots make rather crappy NPC's..

A note here: you could always have players rotate as the Clanners.

Eta for roleplay start... mmm. I think I'll base going the next level on when Shorticus has a little more free time after exams. Should give us good time for prep, eh?

If that's the case, less than two weeks to go.

[sakurasan]

Still interested but I won't be on right now, after this post. Going to a festival. I'll check back afterwards~

[boomlover]

@ArenaSnow as sad as i am too say this i am out. Exams man just exams.