Wow, things have gone downhill since I left...

I play Warhammer 40k now; Its much easier to actually find someone to play against, and is more enjoyable, if a little dumbed down.

I still have my mechwarrior stuff though, but I don't have the heart to sell it seing as even as nicely painted as they all are, they will only sell for about a quid each on E-bay.

Shame, Mechwarrior was fun while it lasted, I just wish I didn't spend so much money on it :P

excuse me? while it lasted? get off these forums, you have no place here anymore. go to the unregulated and messy 40k forums. go get your updated codexes, and go buy your minis priced by point value. and while you're at it, enjoy their prize support. oh, i'm sorry! they have none.

Money is meant to be spent. I have earned a lot of enjoyment out of collecting and occasionally playing the game. I regret many things in life, but spending money on something that I enjoy(ed) is never something that I can regret.

Funny you should say "while it lasted", mate. I've watched what was considered a Mechwarrior dead-zone grow into a thriving player community in the past 6 months because good players wanted somewhere to play in my area. I've watched our old stomping grounds bud out into other venues and continue to grow in the past year by players who wanted to increase interested players in their area.

I have respect for Warhammer 40k; I know it is a game that takes lots of patience, requires artistic skills and incidentally, a lot of dough. I'm not ready to tackle another gaming system right now, but I tell you that I at least don't sneer at other games in a condescending way (except Yugi-Oh, but only in jest) because of preconceived notions. If you want to really see how a game is doing, why not actually take your pieces down to the nearest venue you can find on WK. Drive a few klicks if you have to, but actually go out and see how the game is doing. But don't discount a game just because of what some anonymous guy (myself included) says is good or bad about a game.

Get off your bloomin' arse and go find out for yourself.

Cheers,

Schmitty

Cob-dobbit! My brother Norcross stays logged in on my computer sometimes! That last diatrabe was mine :-P

honestly, I'm happy for you if people still play it where you are, but people who play MW have always been thin on the ground in England, and now its just died off completely.

Its far easier to just walk into a Games Workshop and get a game than the veritable marathon that you have to undertake to get a game of MW in the UK, and even then you are lucky if more than one other person actually turns up.

Furthermore, if they do, then they are inevitably the ultra-hardcore rules lawyer types who have all the latest stuff so you don't really stand a chance against them - the days of being able to have a casual game are well and truly dead die to the diminished player base.

Hence "While it lasted" was an ego-centric comment. I meant while it lasted for me, not for you.

have fun :P

...for what it's worth, I wouldn't read too much into the absence of an announced MW convention exclusive in 2007. A lot of factors go into these kinds of decisions, and they are planned some time in advance of the season. And that's about as much as I know about the process since I'm not generally included in on such meetings.

I can also say that those of us who are helping out with MW right now aren't presently planning some sort of crazy restructuring that will spit out a game that makes you go '?'. We're players, too, and buy our Mechwarrior by the case like many of you. We get that there's questions of investment, play value, balance, etc. And we intend to answer those questions to broad satisfaction.

T-

But you have to admit, the lack of talk coming out of WK headquarter directed at us MW players has been really thin.
I thought the Action Packs would be out some time in the spring, and so far not even a sneak peak at the packaging. If it's coming out spring/summer wouldn't at least that sneak peak be out?
After what happened to MK, MW players have cause for concern.

LordNth,

And well you should. Mage Knight was THE game that carried WizKids for several years, and they made it a point to tell everyone how wonderful the game was. All other games were dwarfed by MK in attention, goodies, and advertising. Then Mage Knight 2.0 happened, WizKids' "improvement" on the Mage Knight game...and it all went downhill from there.

Now admittedly, Mechwarrior's "revamp" under Age of Destruction actually helped and breathed some new life into the game, but it was also done for cost-cutting reasons as well...

No more prize support in Limited Edition boxes, no more dossiers, which meant less space was taken up for shipping, less weight, resulting in lower shipping costs and lower production costs. Then we had a virtual elimination of LE battlemech pieces and a flurry of LE pilot / gear cards, which meant even more costs saved on production and shipping. We've seen the move to a two-mech, one vehicle, two infantry box, which was meant to increase the number of 'Mechs, but it changed the ratio of vehicles and infantry pieces received, which meant that collectors, and those who like vehicles and infantry, had to buy more boosters to get the pieces they needed in the quantities them wanted. We've had special Action Packs based on a Nintendo-DS tie-in which was an insult to those who loved Mechwarrior, but had no desire to buy a console game they didn't want. We've had book offers, Officer Club specials, all in the name of "giving the players what they want"...when in reality it was to increase sales of the game.

These cost-cutting, revenue-enhancing ideas have been all for the benefit of TOPPS to squeeze every drop of profit out of the game, regardless of whether or not they were the type of ideas that the players were interested in.

Personally, I don't want Mechwarrior to fail. I love Mechwarrior and I love the game as it currently stands. I support the game, I buy the pieces, I even try to get some of the goodies when I can afford them...but despite support from folks like myself who buy the boosters, and the dice, and the 3-d terrain, and the Ares action-pack, and the other stuff...we see WizKids (or should I actually say TOPPS) distancing themselves from us as a gaming community.

If it ain't cheap to make and ship, it seems that TOPPS wants nothing to do with it. Mechwarrior costs money to produce because the pieces are complex. With arms and torsos that move on 'Mechs, and cannons on vehicles that rotate, it costs more than your Pirates styrene cards to create.

Someone said earlier "If you support the game, then don't whine about the lack of information, they're working on it" or something like that.

Excuse me, but I'm the consumer of this product and I have a voice. If I have a concern, I'd like to have that concern addressed, not ignored for months at a time. I'd like someone in the WizKids hierarchy to take a minute or two and let us as the Mechwarrior community know that we've not been abandoned (and I don't mean the kind of responses we got in the Mechwarrior Chat last year. That was practically a fluff piece with the commentators acting more like cheerleaders than giving us any substantative information on the future of our game).

TOPPS acquires WizKids and promises to continue the great traditions that Jordan Weisman started with Mage Knight, Mechwarrior, HeroClix, and the other games.

...Mage Knight takes a dive with 2.0 and goes down for the 10-count.

WizKids promises new and exciting games.

...Creepy Freaks, Crimson Skies, and ShadowRun die almost immediately after their releases.

We hear about things shaking up in WizKids but are promised that it will not effect the great games that WizKids has released.

...More focus on HeroClix and Pirates with a flurry of releases while RaceDay fails to keep up with the Pace Car.

Rumors of a major shakeup at WizKids.

...we're told everything is okay, but then learn that Jordan Weisman has jumped ship (probably with a sweet golden parachute) and abandoned WizKids to the "tender mercy" of TOPPS who cares more about Sports cards then CMGs.

More rumors of shakeups at WizKids.

...we learn that the CORE staff of WizKids has been decimated (i.e. given their pink slips) resulting in chaos because no one knows whom to communicate with regarding gaming issues. Even painters who were with the company since the start are told to hit the road. Hardly reassuring news to anyone.

So I ask you...shouldn't we be concerned when TOPPS (through WizKids) announces changes in distribution methods and convention goodies, and the Mechwarrior gaming line, which was 2nd only to the now defunct Mage Knight line, and for years had ALWAYS been mentioned in ANY WizKids press release that dealt with CMGs, is left out in the cold with regards to any mention of the game whatsoever?

We're promised that "Action Packs" will be the theme for 2007 while they "revamp" the game for 2008...but where the hell do you find them, other than through eBay? Unless you have a store that will get you what you want when you ask them...or a dedicated gaming store that specializes in this kind of stuff...you won't. It isn't WizKids' failure to produce fantastic pieces that's the problem...it's their failure to broaden their distribution to markets that normal everyday people can find them and get interested in them.

WizKids used to have a special relations group who went out amongst the populace of the fruited plains and asked us what WE wanted to see, what WE thought of the game and how it could be better, what WE thought was WRONG with the way WizKids was handling Mechwarrior. ...but they probably axed those peoples' jobs with the recent purge. The Mechwarrior Chat last year had FEW real questions by the players answered. If you re-read what was posted, most of it was fluff by the folks running the Chat, pats on the back, and tidbits of hints of what MIGHT be on the horizon, but no firm information to give us hope that WizKids will continue to support the game.

So yes, we do have cause for concerns. WizKids has sent Mechwarrior to the back of the bus, made HeroClix its Golden Boy, and Pirates it's backup support.

Troy

I am sick of hoping for a shreds of imformation from wizkids here and there. I am going to still play now and if it dies, but more than likely with what I already have and just friendly games.

heck people said MW would be dead a few years ago, its still alive. so i wont go cry until that day finally comes, and enjoy playing games with friends (even after). all this negatism (even if true) doesnt do any good for the spirit and morale.

Then why can't WK speak up and address these issues? Why has they're site been down since the 12th of Janurary? All my concerns would be over if they would just answer simple questions. Even if those answers would be "we can't comment on that right now."

I've got a couple of comments to Marauder's post (I can't agree with it all but it was very well written and thought out. Kudos to him for one of the best posts I've read in a long time.)

MW was never second to MK. It was always behind HC. Sometimes it was behind MK also but that seemed to be 50:50.

What kind of comments do people want from WK? I ask this in all honesty. There comes a point in time when we the players are out own worst enemy. We sometimes force them into a corner that they cannot get out of without giving us bad information either due to evasive answers or answers that are correct at the time but a couple weeks later when it is changed for design and/or cost and or time frame reasons.

So we really only have 4 options here:
1. no or little information (what they currently seem to be doing)
2. give an honest answer but put plenty of comments about this being what it is at the moment and may or may not come through intact (tact they use at the chats that people complain puts them in PR land and calls WK being evasive)
3. give an honest answer (again with what it is at the moment) and then the minute it is released as something different (again see above for reasons), people cry foul and call them liars.
4. give an honest ansewr and then not change the product at all no matter how bad it is going to be just so they can avoid being called a liar.

I can sympathize with WK as I am the one responsible at work (small company) for planning all of our inspection trips six months in advance. Things don't always go as planned. Things change beyond what you can control and all it does is puts me in the exact positions I stated above.

The silence is deafening, and in the face of silence, rumors will grow and take on new forms. These rumors concerning MW's and WK's deaths will have an adverse reaction upon the fanbase and players if left unanswered.

Look only to the MW fiction. The inability to communicate and the unwillingness to communicate in Dark Age leads to strife and conflict. There is often truth to fiction.

WK's can learn something from its own fiction. Answer questions soon or the end will certainly be inevitable for MW.

I agree the silence is deafening. But in reality we had the Cadaver sneak
3 weeks ago. Now I know three weeks is an eternity in internet time, but
three weeks is really not very long if you figure people taking holiday
vacations or whatever into account.

And don't get me wrong, I would absolutely love to get daily or weekly updates
on what is going on, but I don't think that is going to happen.

Anything is better than nothing, so I will continue checking the web everyday
in hopes that something will pop up. I religiously check google news in hopes
of some tidbit about a new Mechwarrior pc game, and that's been going on
for a couple of years now.