Mechwarrior 2 and its expansions was the first game to draw me into its universe. It was the first game which I bought novels for. (I bought the Doom novel but didn’t pick up the sequel.) I knew about the game’s tabletop origins but I didn’t go down that rabbit hole. I wanted to find out more about the BattleTech universe and the novels helped flesh out the long history. It also helped shed some light on how life was in the 3050’s.
I have all but one or two of the Twilight of the Clans saga. There was too much drama and political nonsense. I wanted more cold hard facts but I kept with the saga out of boredom. No novel was able to capture the excitement of a mech battle.
I dropped anything BattleTech & MechWarrior related from the 2000’s until now. Now thanks to the sites like Sarna.net, Wikipedia and PDF articles like this, I’m reacquainting myself with the BattleTech history. I also learned that the timeline continued to march forward well after my departure.
Whether or not all of this helps me in Mechwarrior Online is debatable. Does it help me to know who Aidan Pryde is? Probably not. But it does help me to know about Endo Steel and Ferro Fibrous armor exists. Also know that Clan technology hasn’t be introduced yet keeps me from blowing wads of C-bills on all this Inner Sphere junk. As soon as the Timber Wolf/Mad Cat is available, I want to own one on day one.
P.S – I’ll be posting my impressions on Mechwarrior Online tomorrow.
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