I dunno. At the venues I go to, being 18 makes me the youngest/second youngest person there.

Holy craaaaaaaaaaaaaap. This is horrible. Absolutely freakin' horrible. .... I am just totally freakin' appalled. I want to vomit blood and rage right now.

I get milked out of a BUNCH of money to keep my fat, hairy butt in this game. And now to tell me that they are going to retire out my pieces that I play? Especially since I bought booster after booster looking for only 3 or 4 pieces?

Egads. I'm angry. I'm very angry. I can understand the game design/control point of view and I applaud that, but as a player, I hate the idea of buying a CRAPPY "insert uber unit here" clone because they retired the real thing. I hate it.

That said, I think it's an interesting idea and we'll see how it affects the tournament scene. I hope they continue to release at max 3 sets a year. I can handle that. If they release more than that, I'm just going to buy singles and screw trying to buy boosters.

It's late. I'm non-coherent. My wallet hates the phase out idea but as a player at heart, I kind of like the idea.

Last week my Battlemaster remarked that WizKids is moving from four official events a month to two. This would leave more room for unrestricted events. Thus, half of the time, you'd have to use just new units, instead of all the time. Not terribly bad...

well, i agree, the player in me thinks it is a good idea, but the wallet screams otherwise...

by retiring whole sets, it will keep the metagame changing and keep people on their toes adjusting to new tactics because of the strengths and weaknesses of various sets.

imagine the tournament game without peasants?

Amen brother, I have to agree with you on this. They'll just remake and reprint older units like Magic did when they come out with Oracle wording on the newer cards. It fixes any confusion that anyone would have on some of the newer units. They never said that they'd totally get rid of the unit, just come out with newer versions of them. Really, this whole "I'm quitting because I can't use any more of my older units" has really gotten out of hand. Talk about carrying things out of context. When they redo the base set, they'll probably put VTOL's and artillery in it and redo some of the things that have caused so much grief in the past 2 years of the game and probably fix some of the balance issues that people like to cry about all the time.

As I posted on another, similar, thread: who's really going to care if units like Shandra Scouts and Rangers, which never see match play anyway, get culled from the mix? And given how vocal the player base was in their loathing of Industrial 'Mechs, I suspect there wouldn't be all that much opposition to seeing them phased out either.

Removing under-utilized/unliked units from 'Approved Play' has little impact on the game. Further, it opens up slots for newer and better stuff. As long as the designers/WK keep the key 'Core' units viable for 'Approved Play' (by simply re-issuing it, in identical form to the previous releases) very few people are really going to have their collections of playable figures impacted.

The key here is the manner in which the designers/WK implement the re-issuing of the new 'Base' set. Personally, I don't have a whole lot of confidence in their ability to handle the process properly, but unlike the vast majority of those heaping abuse and ridicule on this proposal, I actually *can* see a way that it might be done that could be beneficial to the game.

It makes them more money.

OOPS! DID I SAY THAT OUT LOUD? :X

I know the people I play with will drop this game like a bad habit or just ignore the ruling....

Clown:

The point is that they are doing not one but two things that piss me off.

1] They are deciding for me what strategies are acceptable. For example, Tank Drop and Charge. Strategies in and of themselves are not wrong. In the real world there are things that work better than others and they get used. This is how the face of warfare is shaped. You learn to cope with these strategies or you lose. I don't like WK deciding that a strategy is "bad" and eliminating it via reactionary rule tinkering or by eliminating units that have fallen out of favor. This adds another level to the metagame that I can't begin to think about.

2] Grabbing for my cash. Ok, we all call this Plastic Crack for a reason. That doesn't make it OK for WK to start acting like a drug salesman. This is a cash grab and nothing more. Period. I have other things going on in my life and I can't make this game a fixed expense.

As someone said before, this is going to MK first. After people there start to get #### off by the whole thing, wk might have to think a little more before implementing this to mw...

But if it does happen, Im going to have to stop going to tournaments period. Do people actually have the $$$$ to keep constructing armies with nothing but pieces from the new sets? I thought mw was all about using different pieces from all sets and playing them to their strengths, and now theyre retiring them. $10 bucks a booster? $30 SS arrow IV? hell no. Im sorry wk, but this truly is the most ridiculous thing Ive heard of.

adorabilly, I can only hope that WK has designers as smart as you - this WOULD indeed be a great idea.

I'll tell you the reason behind my reaction, though it may sound lame to others: fluff. Pure and simple. Where do the Mechwarriors go? They disappear from the storyline all of a sudden? Ullers and Centurions (etc) are no longer produced, nor fielded?

And the biggie for a 'Mech-lover like me is the Lances. Now IF, as you suggested, pilots were to reappear in newer 'Mechs or upgraded versions, I would be totally okay with it as long as they can still be included in the Lances.

More to the point, though, I don't want WK to reissue ICE 'Mechs just to make a quick buck from the boosters. In short, if they do this, they better be D A M N smart about it!

Another thing to notice about this idea. Each base set would last about 2 1/5 years.

Guess what that means? Can we say Mechwarrior 2.0 maybe after falcons prey?

Would that be good or bad?
That would depend on how well they do it. From what I've seen Mk 2.0 is a vast improvement over the orignial. Maybe what many people have been after is being proposed, but they now are crying.... (change that sounds derogatory) upset by the proposed phasing out of older obsolete units.

Being a poor starving college student, I can also understand the bite on the wallet this game is taking. As a player I can see how this can improve the game.

People, make up your minds.

Imagine the next "Faction War" when Bannson's can't use their JI100s because they're "retired".

No more Spirit Cats or Swordsworn Hoverbikes.

No more peasants.

No Spirit Cats LE infantry.

No more DF tank drops.

I'll be honest, LaoCain, none of those really concern me. It'll change the game, to be sure, but I'd be the first to cheer if tank-drop disappeared entirely.

Still, I can understand how it could be distressing for some people.