As you can see, I’ve finally designed this place. A bit of a belated 1 year anniversary.  Thanks to some leeway with a school project I was able to set aside time to create something from scratch (instead of these unobjectionable, but rather generic templates). As I get up to speed with all things WordPress and keep staring at this I’ll be fleshing out and refining things here or there, so apologies for any dust. If you spot anything really off kilter, please toss me a screen shot and details (ian at flechs.net). For those using IE6 or earlier… please upgrade if you can. Contorting to satisfy to the idiosyncrasies of Microsoft’s browser is always such a headache. Though I will be doing my best to stamp out any related quirks in the coming weeks.

Results are in and can be viewed here. For graphs and charts go to Form > Show summary of responses (though it stopped working just now…). For the record this survey captures, if anything, the stats of a slice of the online Battletech community. In the future it’d be good to get some info on the people these individuals play with out in the real world.

I was a little surprised (and afterwards surprised I was surprised) at the dearth of younger and less experienced players. There’s any number of obvious  explanations for this so I’ll not conjecture too much. Suffice to say if you’re here (or out there) you’re probably experienced and there’s a good chance you’re responsible more often than not for running games.

Another note worthy item is the significant amount of people who play primarily online. As far as I know Megamek is the only venue for this.

Update:

PDF of results.

Not too long ago I was informed that Jack Mamais, who played various roles such as Lead Tester and Producer on the Mechwarrior 2 and Heavy Gear franchises (not to mention Lead Designer on Far Cry and Crysis) had joined the faculty at SCAD (my current home). I couldn’t help but drop him a line and ask a a few questions.

Read More…

Updated: Included the preloader so you’re not staring at a blank screen while the swf and xml loads. Also removed the yellow hilighting around the record sheets (accessibility feature), and fixed an auto-centering bug.

This most recent revision includes equipment bracketing and ammo quantities, some small interface changes, and a few bug fixes and copy changes:

• Stealth Armor, Targeting Computers, and one shot missile launchers now listed in equipment
• Non critable items now 50% grey on printout
• Clan Ultra 5 spelling corrected
• Fanpro logo replaced with Catalyst Logo
• Long names (ex. Autocannon 10 instead of AC/10) now used when possible for a variety of weapons & equipment.
• Heavy Gauss Rifle damage in equipment list changed to 20*

Also, when a sheet is being shown, press ‘escape’ or ‘delete’ to return to the selection screen. Next update will focus on the interface and usability.

Read More…

Because playing Battletech wouldn’t be half as fun if you knew who’d be publishing it next year. Apparently Catalyst has been successful, and so have those who like getting free money.

Original rumor-mill spawn point

Catalyst Game Lab’s press release (response)

ClassicBattletech.com forum chatter

There’s also word of several voluntary key departures including an operations manager, a book keeper and a lead (print) designer.

Adam Jury: No longer with Catalyst Game Labs/IMR

[originally seen on Scrapyard Armory]

(Updated with links)

(Updated with legal action 04/22)

http://mxyzplk.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/the-hammer-comes-down-on-catalyst-games/