Aside from the bad heat mechanics, Dark Age was awesome. WizKids did a good job with MageKnight/DarkAge and later HeroClix. I still have a few of these pins and that little black plastic MW ring in my box of minis, lol. Asking $250 for that is way too much though, I'd pay like $50, and only because Dark Age has huge sentimental value to me, heh.
I was just being a douche. I actually never got around to playing the game. The big turn off for me was how they tried to fit a square peg in a round hole in regards to the story line. It all just felt very contrived. Especially the bit about messiah-figure Devlin Stone and the whole HPG network going down. As far as I know, nothing was stopping them from continuing to use the same names from classic Battletech, but maybe I'm wrong. But ignore me... I'm just being a butthurt nerd.
If it makes you feel better, Victor Davion lived into the Dark Age timeline and was a paladin of the Republic of the Sphere until his assassination. So... they did have a couple of familiar faces. The big thing Dark Age did absolutly right was making mechs valuable and rare again. It wasn't uncommon to see things like agro-mechs get fitted with machine guns and used in armies.
Yeah, I read about that. Very odd they didn't do more like that. I was also one of the many who felt that the GDL in lore was completely mishandled. I could live with "the others" dying, but Grayson's son was just completely written out without any good reason at all. And yes, totally agree with the choice on making true battlemechs rare again. I actually did like the swords to plowshares thing they did to make that happen. From a game mechanics perspective, I also liked at least the concept of simplified rules that made it easier for new players to pick up the game. Actually attempting to recreate large mech battles with the old rules was a herculean effort reserved only for basement dwellers and madmen.
Oh come on... They were soooo less mary sue than the other famous mercs. Like I said, it didn't bother me what happened to them in the end (trying to avoid spoilers). What bothered me was that the writers essentially forgot about Alex Carlyle. I felt they could have done far more by continuing his story.
Did he become a Clan bondsman too? I honestly forget. I really did not enjoy the GDL contributions to lore. ZOMG SHIT FUCKED UP AND HOW WE GONE LOVE!? WHAMPOW LAST MINUTE GDL KICKSAVE NOSCOPE. In every book
Spoiler: spoiler alert The storyline ends on a bullshit cliffhanger with Katrina-superbitch forcing Alex to remain in the Lyran Guards to defend her from her brother Victor who is literally about to begin his final assault. The fucked up part is that she is indirectly responsible for the death of his friends and family. Maybe someone had intended to continue the story, but there was almost no resolution beyond GAMEOVER. ROCKS FALL. EVERYONE DIES.
That is why I like computers, instead of having a complex filing system of 20 folders filled with various data on your solar systems, planets and characters and going through it all every game turn and manually shuffling card decks etc.. You just press 'end turn'. Many preference! Now, once I get the Oculus kit (can't afford it yet) I'll be looking forward to creating stuff like tabletop-like strategy map where you get all the pieces and all the bs. is automated. Unless of course someone has an inner accountant who hates everything electronic and lives to sort folders by hand.
