| .............. Log on 8-13-05_Public.log started at Sat Aug 13 12:24:44 EDT 2005 ........... |
| Vairdic | Alright, we're about to go into Moderation lock-down. |
| Vairdic | Here's how it works, just type your question and hit "Ask" (the send button will change to ask). |
| Vairdic | The question will go to our Moderator, Andrew, and he'll forward it on to the appropriate speaker. |
| Vairdic | Today's speakers are Vairdic: David M. Stansel-Garner, Site Manager for BattleCorps.com |
| Vairdic | Tara S. Bills: Wife of the legendary Randall ;) and BattleCorps principle |
| Vairdic | Precentor_Martial: Randall N. Bills, BattleTech Line Developer, Author, and all around BattleTech Dweeb ;) |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | can I be more then just Randalls wife? |
| Vairdic | Ummm |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | covention support |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | battleshop manager |
| Vairdic | Hahaha, THAT was what I was forgetting |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | customer service |
| Precentor_Martial | My sanity |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | marathoner |
| Vairdic | Those too ;) |
| Vairdic | With that, we enter Moderation! |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>What's the one thing you hate most about BattleTech? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Wow, right out of the gate...fantastic question and almost a stumper. Mmmm...off the top of my head, I'd probably say from a Developer stand point, it is continuity. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE continuity...it's what makes BattleTech what it is and why (in my opinion) it is still around 20 years later and kicking. However, dealing with the continuity not only with fiction, but then also having fiction affect weapons and designs and so on...makes my job (and all those who work on the products) so much more difficult than a game company that doesn't have to worry about such things. A classic love/hate relationship. |
| EWRaven | <Q>An unanswered question from the Fedcom Civil War novels-- just what sort of Warship produces a nine-and-a-half minute jump signature? Inquisitive Snow Ravens need to know! |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Well that inquisitve Snow Raven will just have to wait a little while longer to find out...but that 'will' be revealed at some point. ;-) |
| Bytor | <Q>When will the next Jihad sourcebook be released? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Currently scheduled for December: Jihad Hot Spots: 3070. The bulk of the book is written and in development and we're in the final stages of playtesting the rules section (unlike DotJ, this will have 'hard rules' beyond the obligatory Chaos Unbound rules, for some new equipment premiering during this time period, as well as for things that go boommmmm. |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>Will the DA fiction ever focus (to whatever degree) on the Raven Alliance and Hells Horses, thus giving their fans insight into how they've developed since 3067? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>yes. |
| ATimson | <Q>So, GenCon's coming up. It's been hinted that there'll be a big announcement of sorts there. But what else will BC be up to? |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | <A> really hot topless men with big muscles. |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>Are the Jihad, and the Dark Age timeline Concurrent? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Not sure what you mean by that. MechWarrior: Dark Age is the future of Classic BattleTech. So as we begin moving into the Jihad, you will find more and more tied both forward and backwards, exploring many currently unexplored areas. Does that answer your question? If not, feel free to ask again with a little clarification. Thanks. |
| Bytor | <Q>What will be the next Historicals book after Operation Klondike? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Brush Wars. |
| ATimson | <Q>So, GenCon's coming up. It's been hinted that there'll be a big announcement of sorts there. But what else will BC be up to? |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | <A> oh you mean stuff being offered by BC. We will be helping FanPro run their both plus we are sharing space with IWM making it a one stop shop for all your CBT needs. We are offering prizes for games being run in the game hall as well as running demos at the both. there will be givaways each day, author signings, forums you won't be able to get rid of us, we will be in your every waking hour of GenCon. |
| ATimson | <Q>Having read Heretic's Faith, I have a question: are we going to see Kisho again anytime soon? Or are we just left to imagine the aftermath? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Oh no, Kisho will be showing up again. As with the characters introduced in say the Warrior Trilogy and then the 'young bloods' introduced in the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, the 'young bloods' introduced in Loren's Republic in Flames duology (Sword of Sedition and Fortress Republic) will be 'on stage' through numerous novels and storylines heading into the future. |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>Ok, it was my impression that Dark Age and the Jihad were two seperate events that were happening at the same time Thanks Randall |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>No problem. |
| ATimson | <Q>So, GenCon's coming up. It's been hinted that there'll be a big announcement of sorts there. But what else will BC be up to? |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | <A> Oh yeah and one last thing we have faction badges to sell. |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>Is the Battlecorps Regiment making any impact on the Battletech Universe? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>That's still up in the air. |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>What story in BT history would you most like to tell? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Snow Fire. hands down. Not sure why, but I've always loved that story and I've already got most of the cool twists and turns I want to throw into the story already sketched in my head...just need to find the time to start writing it. |
| ATimson | <Q>...wow. I completely forgot that Kisho wasn't new. Anything else that I should've known that I apparently need spelled out in flaming letters three feet tall? ;) |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>ahahah..As for what you should know...I'm going to plead the 5th on answering that...just too dangerous I might let something slip I shouldn't... ;-) |
| EWRaven | <Q>Lady Bills mentioned Swag last week. Just what sort of cool shiaznit could we realistically expect? Pins, keychains, window stickers (I'd love this), anti-Capellan license plate borders... |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | <A> well our plans were grander then our purse, but we have really cool faction badges made by a company called Odysseys (or as I like to call them the Triplets) if you got any of the old FASA Con Badges these look even better. Our shirts will be there as well as the posters. |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>What CBT mystery are you most tempted to "solve"? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>mmm...well, I've had fun solving some mysteries...some larger than others. For example the Liberator was just fun (me thinks not too many people remember that burried reference) and then the decision to go with the Invincible for the Jihad was a hot and heavy debate, but has taken most fans by storm...in a good way. ;-) As for other secrets, I'd probably come back to Snow Fire (not sure why i'm fixated on that, but it's just cool); i.e. we 'know' what happened...but do we really? ;-) |
| JordanN | <Q>Will we be seeing any variants of newer mechs during the Jihad period? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Most likely. |
| kit_Hartford | <Q>Can you say when the near-mythical Handbook: House Marik make an appearance? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>hahaha...sigh. Just writing up this month's BattleChat before this and am explaining that. Basically Marik got bumbed out of the schedule for SR4; i.e. one of the freelancers working on laying out SR4 dropped the ball and it was a mad scramble to pick it up, including pulling Dave (whose doing the layout) and me into the mess to make sure it makes Gen Con; while I would've loved to have Marik and Gen Con, it's critical to have SR4 there. With that in mind, fingers crossed the PDF of Marik will go on sale next week and the book will be available in print form in September. |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>Ok, I have a question about the Battleshop...Are there any definitive plans on when decals will become available? |
| Vairdic | <A> We're working with Brian over at Fighting Pirrannha to get a good selection of decals that we can have in stock and available. They've got so many great decals, that it's become a mess trying to figure out which to stock. We hope to be able to get things finalized after GenCon. |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>Is the BattleCorps site serving the purpose it was intended to, better or worse than expected? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Yes I think it is. The only 'worse' part right now is still one of market penetration...there is still just too many people out there (particularly the novel readers) who still don't know we exist. We've got some very exciting developments in the works to hopefully finally start addressing that issue...some of those will be announced at Gen Con during the BattleTech seminar. |
| EWRaven | <Q>A 'distant future' question. Armorcast mechs are out of price range or painting ability for most of us. Has any thought been given to, say, 1/72 scale plastic mechs at a realistic price point? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>That's more a case of a factory being interested in our product to produce them, which as far as I'm aware has not occured since the Twenty-Century Imports models. |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>Is the BattleCorps site serving the purpose it was intended to, better or worse than expected? |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | <A> that is a hard question. I think our original idea has changed since the beginning. I think we expected to have more members by now, I feel we expected to have more different things (like the ranking system) by now that we have not had the manpower to pull off yet. But the BattleShop is doing far better then expected andwe are doing convention support which was not in the original plan. Do we have more work to do #%@*!? yes. Am I disapointed by what we have done? no |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>Will any product ever go into the detail on the battles of the Jihad? DotJ was good but rasied a lot of questions....e.g. Case White (should it have failed? Was Dow really at fault?) and the Dragoons assault on Mars...not to mention Jaime Wolfs last stand. |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Well, as the Jihad sourcebook move on, they will provide more and more concrete info on what has occured as more of the 'truth' is revealed. Whether there will be one comprehensive FedCom Civil War-style sourcebook at the end to sum it all up, however, has not be determined yet. Still got a few years to decide that. |
| Bytor | <Q>Has the response to Dawn of the Jihad been what you expected? Better? worse? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Better. By far. I'm exceptionally proud of the book...probably one of the finest books I've had a hand in producing. Not just for what it accomplished, but because we pushed the boundaries on what has been done for CBT before in almost every aspect. As such, I was confident it would be well received, but I had no idea it would be so well received. Sure, there are thoe who don't like it for various reasons, but I think most of the complaints people have had so far will be put to rest in future Jihad Hot Spots sourcebooks. |
| JordanN | <Q>Similar question to Raven's - will we ever see plastic castings of miniatures as a cheap alternative for people who want to build large armies quickly without spending too much money? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Not in large numbers, no. But small...maybe.... |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>Question about DotJ Sourcebook... Is it actually available in print yet? |
| ATimson | <A> Yes it is. Should be at your FLGS, but it's also available in the BattleShop as well: here :) |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>Tie in question: In regards to getting more people into the Battlecorps site. For those of us who aren't able to make it to gencon, do you have any suggestions on how to drum up interest? Brochures perhaps? ;) |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | <A> Well if you have alocal Con try and get involved with it, we offer prizes and promotional material to any one who is going to run a game or 2 at their local Con. Also if you have an active game store getting a regularly scheduled game there and passing out info at them would help. (Look into becoming a comando through FanPro) I am all for more promotional material, and I liked the Pamphlete you created and posted. But, my experiance is that people do not read them, so I am not sure how to best use them. We are open to help and suggestions as the thread Loren asked to have started shows. We can not grow without your help . |
| Vairdic | Since we're getting more people joining late in the chat, we're going to extend it for another 30 minutes or so. For those who are just joining us, just type a question and hit the "ask" button. Andrew (our moderator) will forward the question on to the appropriate person. |
| Bytor | <Q>Randall, are we going to see a sequel to Tears of Blood in the future? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Absolutely. As soon as I'm back from Gen Con, I'll be diving into The Color of Rage, the sequal serial. |
| EWRaven | <Q>Shall the Urbanmech ever attain respectability? You could build a half-scale one for next year, paint it up like a beer keg... nice quick way of reaching 'market saturation'. |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>hahah...but it's so fun to mock... |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | <Q>should we let the new people know who they are talking to or at least have the option of talking to? |
| ATimson | <A> Good idea. We have, for your interrogation pleasure: Randall "Precentor_Martial" Bills, CBT Line Developer and BC/MWDA author; Tara "yesHISwife" Bills, BattleCorps Convention Support and Customer Service; and Dave "Vairdic" Stansel-Garner, CBT/BC Layout Monkey and BC... Person Who Does Lots of Stuff. ;) |
| Rote_Baron | <Q>Randall - when will you write the thrid novel of teh Clan - foundation? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>In process now. Talk about more difficult than I gave it credit... |
| Bytor | <Q>Any thoughts on when we might see the Star League SB in PDF? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>It's being worked on, but just not yet sure when we'll see it with everything else going on. As such, I'm just not confident of providing a guesstimate yet. |
| EWRaven | <Q>Has novelization ever been considered for MechCommander 1/Desperate Measures/2 ? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Not that I'm aware of, no. |
| P.Dupree | <Q>as battlecorps has RSSnews, will we see RSSnews for classicbattletech.com? |
| ATimson | <A> They already have one for the special announcements forum: here And one of their webmonkeys, roosterboy, is looking into adding one for the normal news area as well. |
| Valendrigian | <Q>what upcoming product are you most excited about? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Right now, probably Technical Readout: Vehicle Annex. I've really enjoyed being able to really push teh boundaries of what we've done before and cover areas never before covered (Combat Equipment with its Support Vehicle rules, Interstellar Players, Historical: War of 3039 (and the whole Historical series), the Handbooks and so on). As such, being able to dive into whole regions of fiction and visuals (with just some amazing knock-out illustrations from Doug Chaffee) not really touched on before really gets me excited and can't wait to see the fans reaction...it IS a chance I'm taking, after all, generating an entire TRO that doesn't really have any combat units in it. Course, I'm even more excited about next year's Gen Con product...but can't say anything about that yet, so... ;-) |
| JordanN | <Q>Will we ever see Record Sheets availbable as PDF's? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Yes. The TRO: 3055 upgrade record sheets (all the new variants) are done and under review and will hopefully see publication shortly after Gen Con. After that, we'll start to roll out more of them. |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>Vairdic: How long would it take (on average) to layout a CBT book? |
| Vairdic | <A>Oooh, complicated one... Alot depends on the book. A "Standard" layout, such as AT2 or the S7 Book can go real fast, as many as 3 to 4 pages an hour. However, when you get to products like the Handbooks, or Interstellar pages, it can take several hours for just one page to get it right (and that's not counting the colour sections which can double). I hope to be able to usurp one of Randall's BattleChat's on CBT for when he gets HB:Kurita to the layout stage. |
| Diedre_Lynx_Lancaster | <Q>As a big supporter of battletech, I have a question.. If i were to print up and distribute the brochure that I designed, would I be stepping on anyone's toes? |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | <A> anything that is done (avertising wise) in the name of BC needs to be aproved by us. We have legal text that we are required by our contract to use. You are welcome to submit your ideas to us for concideration but unless we aprove them they can not have our logo on them. |
| P.Dupree | <Q>will the unit logos from the new FM merc aun the supplementals be made available to download on cbt.com like it was done for the old sourcebooks? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>D'OH...ahaha. Yes, they will be. |
| Valendrigian | <Q>are there plans to place the upgrades of the classic Aerospace fighters from TR3025 in one of the new TR Upgrades (3050 or 3058)? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Not at the current time. I would like to see those appear at some point, though. |
| Arminius | <Q>Concerning CBT:RPG: Is there any update on when it is being re-released? Will it just be the MW3ed book with a new cover or are modifications being done in terms of rules/content/etc? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>It is not being revised. Beyond getting a new cover and the appropriate legal text and name changing, you can think of this as simply a reprint. The PDF should be available by the end of this month (fingers crossed), with the book available in late September early October. |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>What character do you most like to write? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Well I believe someone asked me that a while ago and I said that one of the most enjoyable characters I've written to date was Snow. I've almost never had such pure 'fun' when writing her dialogue...just flowed. |
| Skuggi_Sargon | <Q>i have never seen this many people in a chat yet lol |
| ATimson | <A> You missed our previous one, then. I think we hit 40 or so. :) |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>Has there ever been a story that just...refused to be written? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>You mean like the Foundation of the Clan series? Sigh. The first novel flowed pretty smooth and then I just hit endless brickwalls. Really hard to explain, expecially as other fiction I worked on during that time seemed to go just fine. I'm really not a believer in writer's block (you simply sit down and you type and you get over it), but my experience with those German novels would almost make me a believer. |
| Arminius | <Q>How are the BV revisions proceeding? Will we see a beta version sometime in the near future? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Just sent off a new version for the core authors/developers to bang around one final time before hopefully gettng a beta version out to the playtesters (fingers crossed, before Gen Con, but if not, right when I get back). |
| kit_Hartford | <Q>Has a character ever just refused to cooperate with you, prompting a shift in the story? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Yup. Not often, but it does happen. In fact, those are almost the moments I live for and why I go through everything I do to write...when your banging away and the character simply does/says/acts something you never thought he/she would do and yet it fits and makes sense and suddenly the character comes alive. Almost no better moment for a writer than those epiphany's...usually alone, at some horribly late hour...but it makes it all worth while. ;-) |
| Bytor | <Q>Will the BV revision be included in a BMR reprint or another product? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>In another, future product. |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>A while back you held a contest wherein users got to vote for one of four pictures and a story would be written about it. We were shown the winner but what became of the story? Did I miss it? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>mmm...not sure, to be honest. Can you send me an e-mail as a reminder and I'll go and hunt that down...after Gen Con, of course. |
| Valendrigian | <Q>Is there any event in battletech "history" that you wish hadn't happened, either because its too much of a pain to work around as a writer, or because you didn't like the effect on the universe, or whatever . . . ? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>I'm pretty open to almost any event in CBT history; i.e. I can't think of anything I wished had not happened. Now, the 'implimentation' of some events, I might wish were different, especially when it comes to the game mechanics. For example, I would've likely done the Clan weapons much different. For example there are 5 stats to a weapon. You increase two of them and you've got a much better weapon. You increase 3 and it is significantly better. In almost all cases, the Clans were better in all 5 stats, which even after all these years is a pain (some of the points of the BV system are still trying to take some of that into account). And of course one of my biggest game mechanic wishes...that DHS could not be 'mounted' in the engine. ;-) |
| Skuggi_Sargon | <Q>Has there been any thought to having a Jihad MWDA novel series, I'm thinking kind of like the Mechwarrior series was for the battletech novels. With the Jihad source books coming out, it would give flavor to having some games setup for that time. |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Roc/WK need to use all the novels currently in their contract/schedule to tell MWDA stories. As such, at the current time, there are simply no other options for producing CBT/Jihad era stories...hence why BattleCorps came into existence. |
| Valendrigian | <Q>what upcoming product are you most excited about? |
| Vairdic | <A> Interstellar Players 2. I had a BLAST laying out the first one, and I really look forward to the second one. Course, It's not 100% set on the list, but there is a tenative 07 slot for it. (pleasepleaseplease) |
| CoyoteWarDog | <Q>Randall: I thought in the last chat, you said there was a whole list of things you wish hadn't happened, or "don't get me started" or something like that. |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Again, that's more in implimentation. For example, I'm fine with the Jihad. I was there when it was being fleshed out and help to shape it...but the way it which it would've unfolded under FASA and how it is unfolding with WK/FP are very different and it has proven exceptionally difficult to 'make it all work.' But, then again, I don't think anything like the DotJ sourcebook would've been printed by FASA, so there's the balance. You have to take the good with the bad and work with it. |
| TenakaFurey | <Q>In that case, will there ever be a time when you'll ever streamline the game itself to iron out these little "peeves"? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>To a certain extent, I hope so. However, some things we just have to live with; i.e. and the better we can make the battle value system, the more I can 'live with' them. ;-) |
| Vairdic | We're approaching two hours folks, if you have any last questions, ask away! |
| Vairdic | Since tuesday's chats tend to get more people, and since it's our anniversary and we can. We've decided to make Tuesday's Pre-GenCon chat a public chat as well. Tuesday Aug 16th at 6pm (-8GMT) at this URL. |
| Skuggi_Sargon | <Q>can we have 2 more hours? :) |
| ATimson | <A> You can, if you go find yourself a timeturner. ;) |
| Bytor | <Q> Randall, you mentioned a Historicals: Brush Wars, what will that include? Will it be limited to I.S. or will there be Clan stuff as well? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>The current idea (this is close to a year away from publication still, so it's a little rough as yet) is that it will cover the 'small wars' that did not get appropriately covered in previous sourcebooks, from say 3025 to the current era. As for whether that will include Clan material, that's simply not decided, yet. |
| EWRaven | <Q>Any chance we can kidnap the Powers That Be and buy them some beers at Claddaghs this weekend? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Well if I knew what that was, and you changed it to a lemonade...sure. |
| P.Dupree | <Q>are their new mapsets planed in the future |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>Not for the near future, no. I've got one product that might include some maps kicking around in my head, but it's still too nebulous at this point to make any commitment. |
| ZeroConners | <Q>Is there any chance on reprinting or releasing the Mechwarrior RPG 1st and Second edition in either softcover or .pdf? |
| Precentor_Martial | <A>In PDF, absolutely. More and more older products will come available as time goes on. But they won't see a hard copy reprint, though. |
| Vairdic | And we're back live! |
| TenakaFurey | Already? |
| Vairdic | Thanks everyone for making this another successful chat! |
| ATimson | Well, that was interesting, as usual. Thanks, all three of you, for being willing to be pummeled mercilessly. ;) |
| Tara_yesHISwife_Bills | ok nap time thanks everyone. |
| Precentor_Martial | Wow...2 hours. You're welcome, thanks for joining us and hopefully you'll spread the news and we'll get even more people in the next public chat. But lunch and kids are calling, so bye all. See you next Tuesday! |
