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*checks that it's not April 1st... nope... I think we're safe*

After many, many long years, the original BTech artwork, licensed from various Japanese sources, are returning to BTech for their 25th anniversary. Considering the lengthy battle that FASA had with Harmony Gold about this a decade or so ago, this is huge news.

With any luck they'll already have IWM on the case so we can get new/old Rifleman, Warhammre and Marauder models up and running.

Damn good to hear, the old artwork was fantastic.

H.B.M.C. wrote:*checks that it's not April 1st... nope... I think we're safe*

It is the first day of the Origins Game Fair though :-)

Funny that some of the best looking and most iconic Mech designs were "borrowed" from another universe.

That's nostalgia talking Noble. Take a look at the Goliath, Scorpion, Griffon, Wolverine and Thunderbolt. They're not pretty 'Mechs.

That's pretty cool news. I've always been curious what all the hype was about, so it will be interesting to finally see some of the images (and hopefully some new sculpts).

H.B.M.C. wrote:That's nostalgia talking Noble. Take a look at the Goliath, Scorpion, Griffon, Wolverine and Thunderbolt. They're not pretty 'Mechs.

*Digs up his well-worn copy of TR3025*

Ugh. Yeah, I clearly forgot about those. Plus there are plenty of awesome original designs, like the Atlas, Mad Cat, Grand Titan, and Behemoth. Still, when I hear Battletech the first thing that comes to my mind is the cover image of the 3rd edition box, with the glory shot of the sand-colored Warhammer.

Everyone has that image in their heads. And thankfully that image will be returning without fear of lawsuit!

So they are getting the rights to use the artwork they stole again?



Yay for artistic theft and reapropriation of others ideas! Yay for not being able to hire artists worth a damn (Until the clan mechs were introduced)! Yay for having bad art in general!

ShumaGorath wrote:So they are getting the rights to use the artwork they stole again?

Well, if by "They" you mean an entirely different company each time, and by "Stole" you mean "Aquired legally" then yes.

Neil wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:So they are getting the rights to use the artwork they stole again?

Well, if by "They" you mean an entirely different company each time, and by "Stole" you mean "Aquired legally" then yes.

Chicago-based FASA Corporation's original, 1984 BattleTech game focuses on enormous robotic, semi-humanoid battle machines called BattleDroids.[3] Their name was changed to BattleMechs in the second edition because George Lucas and Lucasfilm held the rights to the term "droid." The visual design of the earliest line of BattleMechs were taken from Macross and other anime, including many signature images. In later years FASA abandoned these images, and it was common speculation by fans that the decision was the result of a lawsuit brought against them by Playmates and Harmony Gold [USA] over the use of said images.[4] No official broke the silence until 2007, after FASA had sold the BattleTech intellectual property to WizKids Games. Under license from them, the Classic BattleTech line developer for Fantasy Productions, Randall N. Bills explained that FASA had sued Playmates over the use of images owned by FASA, but received no compensation, even though Playmates was ordered to stop using the images in question. After realizing how the use of licensed images made them vulnerable to lawsuits and afraid that such a suit would bankrupt the company, FASA made the decision to only use images owned by them and them alone. The BattleMechs taken from the various anime sources were then considered "Unseen". When Fantasy Productions licensed the property, these "Unseen" images were expanded to include all art produced "out-of-house" – that is, whose copyrights resided with the creators, not the company. Catalyst Game Labs has continued this practice.[5]

Yes, so they "acquired legally" the mechs that they stopped using because they would be sued into oblivion by companies ten times their size whose designs they used without asking. Got it. Yeah.

According to this from Randall it looks like reseen miniatures are still up in the air.

H.B.M.C. wrote:That's nostalgia talking Noble. Take a look at the Goliath, Scorpion, Griffon, Wolverine and Thunderbolt. They're not pretty 'Mechs.

The Goliath, Scorpion, Griffon, Thunderbolt, Battlemaster, Shadowhawk are all from Battle Armour Dougram. All are prettier than the macross 'homaged' ones.

The Locust and Galleon tank are from Crusher Joe, and likewise prettier.

Noble713 wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:That's nostalgia talking Noble. Take a look at the Goliath, Scorpion, Griffon, Wolverine and Thunderbolt. They're not pretty 'Mechs.

*Digs up his well-worn copy of TR3025*

Ugh. Yeah, I clearly forgot about those. Plus there are plenty of awesome original designs, like the Atlas, Mad Cat, Grand Titan, and Behemoth. Still, when I hear Battletech the first thing that comes to my mind is the cover image of the 3rd edition box, with the glory shot of the sand-colored Warhammer.

The Behemoth is one of those Unseen as well.

According to what, Ghaz, there are 9 pages in that thread already.

H.B.M.C. wrote:According to what, Ghaz, there are 9 pages in that thread already.

Randall's comments attached to the very first post

Bah. I thought you had something new.

H.B.M.C. wrote:That's nostalgia talking Noble. Take a look at the Goliath, Scorpion, Griffon, Wolverine and Thunderbolt. They're not pretty 'Mechs.

It may be nostalgia, but the newer versions of those mechs look so little like the originals that it's always seemed like blasphemy to me to call them by those names.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Yes, so they "acquired legally" the mechs that they stopped using because they would be sued into oblivion by companies ten times their size whose designs they used without asking. Got it. Yeah.

I see you've read Wikipedia, so I probably shouldn't argue.

Wikipedia wrote:This article has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page.
It needs additional references or sources for verification. Tagged since December 2007.

Well maybe I could. Like I could quote one of the court cases.

Harmony Gold v. Fasa, No. 95 c 2972 wrote:The original "Battletech" game included both robotic images and model kits based on the Macross designs. FASA claims to have acquired the rights to these model kits and images from Twentieth Century Imports ("TCI"), which allegedly acquired them from Tatsunoko.

The Alledgedly is (apparently) because Harmony Gold managed to make some of FASA's key evidence inadmissable.

Harmony Gold v. Fasa, No. 95 c 2972 wrote:Second, we cannot determine FASA's rights to the Macross designs without considering material outside the pleadings. Whether FASA obtained any rights to the Macross designs from TCI involves factual determinations not properly decided in a motion for judgment on the pleadings.

It's a legal grey area because japanese and american licencing laws are different. Which is to say, Japan doesn't (or didn't at the time) understand "exclusive liscences" as you have in the US. There were really really huge (by late 90's standards) threads about the case on rec.games.mecha.

Actually everything about Macross is a huge legal quagmire, in and out of Japan. The rights are held by at least 3 companies in japan, who have apparently all sued each other. It really comes down to Tatsunoko not knowing what the hell they were doing and accidentally selling exclusive all encompassing international distribution rights for all time to Harmony Gold for a (relative) pittance. If you want to search for more, look up "Studio Nue", "Big West" and "Tatsunoko". Tatsunoko are no strangers to legal quagmires, mostly due to being "too damn nice" (granting official liscences without much thought) and also not really understanding international law. Look at all the trouble with "Tatsunoko vs. Capcom" for example.



It's definitely not as simple as "They stole them".

Never let the facts* get in the way of a good Troll Shummy. I don't deny that they lost their cases (HG had the 'better' lisence agreement, having gotten it from the originator IP, rather than through someone else who got it from the oritinator of the IP) but to say they stole them is a lie.

The further comments are not hiring artists worth a damn and so on are simply personal opinions of yours that you are stating as fact (again) and have no bearing on the actual facts of the case. So give it a rest.

*scroll down. Full court desicion notes are all there.

The Reseen are staying around. The Unseen are the old, the Reseen are still upgrades/revisioning of the same chassis. Both will exist in the universe once 3060+ rolls around and Vicore industries produces the Reseen versions.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Never let the facts* get in the way of a good Troll Shummy. I don't deny that they lost their cases (HG had the 'better' lisence agreement, having gotten it from the originator IP, rather than through someone else who got it from the oritinator of the IP) but to say they stole them is a lie.

The further comments are not hiring artists worth a damn and so on are simply personal opinions of yours that you are stating as fact (again) and have no bearing on the actual facts of the case. So give it a rest.

*scroll down. Full court desicion notes are all there.

I just read down the harmony gold lawsuit. It looks like they never really bothered to consult the people that actually owned the IP of the designs, instead simply trusting a middle man.

Finally, the undisputed facts do not establish waiver. Contrary to defendants' assertions, the record does not reflect the intentional relinquishment of any rights in the Macross designs by Harmony Gold. Indeed, the correspondence between Harmony Gold and FASA provides strong evidence to the contrary.

I maintain the fact that every design they didn't buy in a backalley in japan before the omnimech designs were just bad figure drawings with lots of lines etched in non sensical locations. Oh, also perspective didn't exist.


Note how the forearms don't attach in any meaningful way to the upper arms. And that the shoulders don't make sense.
Of course the unseen are fan favorites. Before the clans showed up it's all they had that was even the slightest bit interesting or well designed.

Look at those feet!



But hey, I take what chance I can to get a good dig in. Especially when its about the return of a selection of heavily disputed designs better known as something owned by another company, and which totally go against the common design of every other similar thing in the game at that time. They stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a nice thumb, but it wasn't a thumb that went with the body and people were staring.

ShumaGorath wrote:


But hey, I take what chance I can to get a good dig in. Especially when its about the return of a selection of heavily disputed designs better known as something owned by another company, and which totally go against the common design of every other similar thing in the game at that time. They stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a nice thumb, but it wasn't a thumb that went with the body and people were staring.

Skilled troll trolls again.

efarrer wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:But hey, I take what chance I can to get a good dig in. Especially when its about the return of a selection of heavily disputed designs better known as something owned by another company, and which totally go against the common design of every other similar thing in the game at that time. They stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a nice thumb, but it wasn't a thumb that went with the body and people were staring.

Skilled troll trolls again.

Skilled? Surely being Shuma requires no actual skill.

I think FASA was attempting the strategy of making their stuff look so crappy that nobody would WANT to sue them over it.

Still, I'm suprised anyone cares. I thought Jordan had run that IP into the ground with his crappy plastic figures and horrifically aweful ruleset. I swear to God those idiots could were wilfully oblivious to the concepts of "fair" and "powergaming". They were certainly ignorant of the simple fact that collectors drive the sales of any collectible game. Jordan made several statements to the fact that he wanted to drive collectors or "speculators" out of his games. Looks like he got his way.

Can't say I care. In fact those early designs were what drove me away from BT, or at least forced me to play with proxies. Yes, all bipedal war machines are stupid on a conceptual level but those were stupid on a graphic level too. You can make something impossible or impractical look like it could work but with those, you could almost tell none bothered to do so.

But then I saw Mad Cat and I lost my soul (again).

The original Unseen designs were taken from Macross, Dougram Fang Of The Sun, and Crusher Joe as noted by Chromedog.

This gave them a (not perfect) degree of design consistency so that;

(A) They looked like they would 'work'
(B) They looked like products of several companies working in the same universe and era (except for the Locust.)
(C) The drawings were good because they were done by experienced Japanese artists.

They look like 1980s designs, very boxy like cars of the same period. That's a sort of spirit of the times.

It's not necessarily inconsistent with real engineering. Tanks of the 80s and afterwards look boxy because Chobham composite armour has to be made in flat plates. WW2 tanks often had moulded parts which were very round and complex.

Blah blah blah legal blah blah blah. Blah blah blah opinions blah blah blah.

[puts on nostalgia colored goggles]

I'm happy with this news!

If they put out Unseen minis, I'll be so broke. But I'll be doing the happy dance, anyway!

[leaves on nostalgia colored goggles]

Agamemnon2 wrote:

efarrer wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:But hey, I take what chance I can to get a good dig in. Especially when its about the return of a selection of heavily disputed designs better known as something owned by another company, and which totally go against the common design of every other similar thing in the game at that time. They stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a nice thumb, but it wasn't a thumb that went with the body and people were staring.

Skilled troll trolls again.

Skilled? Surely being Shuma requires no actual skill.

I basically shout at my keyboard. I really have no idea how the words get on the screen.

His Master's Voice wrote:Can't say I care. In fact those early designs were what drove me away from BT, or at least forced me to play with proxies. Yes, all bipedal war machines are stupid on a conceptual level but those were stupid on a graphic level too. You can make something impossible or impractical look like it could work but with those, you could almost tell none bothered to do so.

But then I saw Mad Cat and I lost my soul (again).

I find this funny. The Mad Cat doesn't work as a design any better. It couldn't support it's arms, and would have one of the most uncomfortable rides for a pilot ever felt.