WEBVTT

NOTE
Podcast: Der dicke Preusse spricht
Episode: Battlepod: ComStar Newsflash Oktober 2025: Interview with Randal Bills
Publishing Date: 2025-11-09T20:49:41+01:00
Podcast URL: https://derdickepreusse.de
Episode URL: https://derdickepreusse.de/battlepod-comstar-newsflash-oktober-2025-interview-with-randal-bills/

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Hello and welcome to the new episode of BattlePod. Today live from the PhoenixCon.

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And with me is the Jan from the Phoenix Guard. Hello Jan. Hi.

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And the Meldrick. Hello Meldrick. Hello.

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And then our special guest Randall. Hello Randall. Hello.

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So, we're going to do this interview in English.

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Dementsprechend is the rest of the following in English. I wish you all very

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much fun and see you later.

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So, Randall. For the people in Germany or all over the world, who are you?

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So I'm Randall Bills. I'm currently the creative director for Catalyst Game

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Labs, who currently publishes the Battletech game.

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I have been working on Battletech for a very long time now and playing Battletech for even longer.

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So I do you want me to tell the whole story because it could take up a little

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bit of time I'm fine telling the story but tell us the special interesting.

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Well I so I'm 13 and saw.

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Robotech for the first time and even before that going back to GeForce and,

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uh, spaceship Yamato and Voltron. So I already loved space science fiction.

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I already loved giant robots. I saw Robotech and my mind was just blown.

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Uh, we recorded it on VCR tapes and I just endlessly rewatched it.

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Um, and then I was at a, at a game store at that time in the U S there weren't really game stores.

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It was a hobby store that had like model trains, uh, remote controlled airplanes.

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And then in a little tiny corner was a couple of game books.

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And I saw the battle tech.

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Actually, the first thing I saw was, um, the Fox's teeth, uh, adventure pack.

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Oh, okay. With that totally torn up Mac that even today you can't quite tell

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what it is. It might be a shadow Hawk. It might not, you're not sure.

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And I'm like, does that look like Robotech? I wasn't sure.

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And then like a week later, I was at another place and saw the second edition box.

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And I'm immediately like this, why is this, this is Robotech.

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Like it's got the STF symbol right on the leg, but it was called Battletech.

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And so we, I took me a month to buy it because I was doing a paper route because

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I'm like 14, 13 at the time.

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It was a fair amount of money to buy at the time.

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And we raced over with my friends on bikes. We bought it.

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I got home. We immediately tore through the rules, played it totally wrong,

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but I played it once and that was it.

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I, you know, never, never can go back. So I've been playing it for almost 40 years now at 39 years.

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And then fast forward 10 years and I've been playing it that entire time loving

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it to death just like you're doing here we were running local conventions running

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Battletech I was living in Phoenix,

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Mesa, Tempe, Arizona the southwest part of the United States,

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running local game conventions there and Brian Neistel who was the Battletech

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line developer at the time,

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was brought out as a guest just like i'm here um and

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he he was walking around with the

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technical readout 3057 under his arm and

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it hadn't been released yet and so i remember all of us trying to like figure

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out how we could steal it without stealing it because i wasn't gonna steal but

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can i just look at the can i just look at it yeah um and we had a great old

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time and i had made a variant of the Succession Wars board game.

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So the Succession Wars is a large-scale board.

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It used a whole bunch of old-school chits that you would put on the counters you'd put on it.

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Yeah, we played it all the time. Every convention, we would play it till sunup Saturday night.

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And I had made a 3039 version of it.

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So the Comstar clock was added to it. There's a little sideboard with Comstar

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armies, hidden armies, of course.

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Um and i jokingly said hey would you

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like to play this game um and

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he said yes and of course now i'm terrified that he's going to

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sit down the baltic line developer is going to sit down and play my game so

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we played it all that all night long he told he and the rest of my friends totally

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teased me about how terrible it is and it is terrible i still have it somewhere

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but i had done it right i had made the whole thing uh i had every counter hand

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made and drawn up the whole thing.

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Um, and so then the next year we had gone out to Gen Con, we then went down

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to FASA and here I can tell you the geekiest thing that I may have ever done in my entire life.

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So we're at the FASA offices and I'm trying to say to myself,

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I need to be calm. I need to be cool.

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And we walk in and of course it's the FASA offices, right? This is where the magic happens.

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These are all these, all these people that are creatives and doing these great

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things and come to find out.

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So this is 93, no, 95.

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And so the clan homeworlds maps had not been published yet.

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Um, and he had a, and Brian Neistel had a hand-drawn version of it up in his cubicle.

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And so we were literally distracting him. So one of our friends could draw it

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onto his hand so that we could sneak out this crucial data that no one had ever

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seen before for in Battletech.

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Uh, and so then right after that FASA started to say, you know what,

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I think we need a line developer, uh, or an assistant line developer,

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somebody that could help all three lines. So at that time, it was Battletech,

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Shadowrun, and Earthdawn.

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And they started asking around local. And of course, they're paying nothing

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because it's the gaming industry. And so no one wanted it.

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And then Brian was like, well, hey, what about that one guy that came out and visited?

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And of course, they're all like, you mean the guy that just ran around screaming

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and like, oh, I can't believe I'm here.

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And this is the moment I get to once again thank Brian, because if he had not

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said, you know what, I had another convention with him. I walked around with him.

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I think he might be the guy. I don't base it just on him coming here.

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And I give a big thank you because without Brian saying that, I wouldn't be here.

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And so then they, you know, emails were sent out and I came out for the interview and I accepted.

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And then, so literally this coming February 1st will be 30 years.

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So February 1996, since I started.

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And then I've just kind of followed it everywhere it goes.

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I do a lot of other things. I develop other games. I help the whole company. I've helped Shatteron.

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Leviathans was my game that I did. I'm working on a My Hero Academia game.

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So I do lots and lots of different things.

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But one of my primary still concerns is to help a Battletech get out the door.

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And I love it to death. uh i always give a shout out

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to ray rostia and aaron cahill who are the current

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line developer and assistant line developer and i just do

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all i can to empower them to get cool stuff out

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the door and then i get chances to do this go all over the world and sit down

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with amazing this unbelievably amazing community we have and talk about this

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thing we love and roll some dice and mine will betray me and i will lose and

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you know that's that's how it goes yeah so there's my kind of I could go on and on and on about it,

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but that hopefully it wasn't too long to tell you the long story to get here. Yeah. So, um, um,

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One of our biggest questions is when we go to Battletech in Germany and Europe.

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So the license was with Ulysses Spiele.

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And after they lost it or they haven't done it anymore.

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Our question is, do you have or Catalysts have plans for making an own?

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Will you publish an own in different languages?

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Or uh are you still searching

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for partner or do you have any plans we

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are uh so we absolutely um

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are looking and searching um i think

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it actually hurts my soul because i've been coming to germany for a

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long time now i think the first time i came to essen was

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97 um and

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uh all the years at fan pro when

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i came over as well um and so germany is literally the hat over the years has

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been the second largest community after the united states so it hurts my soul

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that in this giant renaissance that we're having right now there isn't a localized edition of the game,

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part of that is that we have talked to quite a few publishers um and they just

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don't want to do it because, and it's primarily because of the plastics,

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doing minis is just complicated.

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You almost always have to do manufacturing overseas and that makes it more complicated.

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But here at the show, I had some new interviews.

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I can't really say who, but absolutely we had some new interviews and are starting

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negotiations to figure out if we can find a partner to localize and get the

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game back in German, absolutely.

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So, we talked in our podcast a little with MacForce Germany.

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They tried to get a license. Could you tell us, I don't know if you can, why it didn't happen?

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Um, there's a lot of back and forth on that.

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Um, I don't feel very comfortable actually answering that directly.

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Uh, I will say that they are one of the groups that we are still talking to,

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to see whether that might not work or not.

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Um, but a lot of it was just, you know, a lot going on in the world.

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Uh, and then the year that I was traveling that, you know, I traveled for almost five months.

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Um, was that last year? It was last year.

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Uh, and so that was as amazing it was, and it was fantastic to travel everywhere.

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I, I crisscrossed Germany constantly.

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Uh, the number of times I had to fly through Frankfurt was kind of crazy.

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Um, but that also just meant that some of the things that suffered was some

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of these meetings and some of these negotiations.

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So with me not traveling nearly as much, it's making it a little easier to get some of that back up.

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So hopefully we'll have news sometime by the end of the year.

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Oh, great. We would love to be able to finally make that happen and get this out in German.

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Okay we're thrilled yeah so um

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medrick do you have a question um yeah

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actually i have written down some uh had some

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uh it was quite a surprise for me to actually join this

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interview so it was not that much time to figure out

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questions but that sounds like a lot of questions well just uh

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just showing up that's when i start saying um well

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um the first thing that came to mind was

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when we were talking uh downstairs um there is

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kind of an official app for alpha strike

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i think right now and i would like to hear your

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thoughts on what is the future of uh the how

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is it going to continue the app business everything and how does an app become

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an official app i'm asking for friend uh well we are we are always well i mean

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first i guess answering on the back end first we're always willing to sit down and talk with people.

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Right? I'm always willing to take an email.

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Sometimes it can take a while because we're all just incredibly busy.

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Um, but I'm all, we're always willing to talk, look at something.

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Uh, the presentation you did was fantastic. I would love to take further.

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It's part of why I want to see it in action.

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Uh, cause there's, you know, there's some really cool possibilities there.

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Um, I will say that the digital side is probably our weakest side of things.

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Uh, that's why it often just takes longer for us to do those projects and get

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them out the door because we're often, um, outsourcing that.

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That's not something we can do ourselves. We don't, we don't have that skillset.

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And when we've attempted to do it, it hasn't happened very well.

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Um, and so, yeah, every time you see one of the, like the, the Shatter and Dice

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Roller apps, uh, or the Battletech Alpha Strike app, uh, that's always done

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in coordination with another company.

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Often,

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People come to us and say, hey, we would love to do this because they're seeing

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that Battletech is exploding.

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Hey, this is great. We totally want to be a part of it.

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And then you start showing them what it will take to make an app that will work for Battletech.

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And nearly all of them will slowly back out the door just because of the sheer

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complexity and the hundreds and hundreds of pieces of equipment and how it all

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is put together, the dozens of types of units,

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the thousands upon thousands of variants.

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And so it always ends up being a little more complex than anyone coming to the table expects it to be.

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So we continue to work. We're hoping to still provide that support for the AlphaStrike app.

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In fact, I believe I just saw an email that there's another batch of the sheets

00:14:49.975 --> 00:14:52.015
that are being generated to put into it.

00:14:52.395 --> 00:14:54.235
So we do want to support it.

00:14:54.675 --> 00:15:00.175
It just doesn't get nearly the support perhaps that the community may not or

00:15:00.175 --> 00:15:04.515
the community may want just because it's always done outside of ourselves.

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And so then we have to connect into that and help make it happen.

00:15:07.935 --> 00:15:12.015
Yeah. As a follow-up for that, as a developer of an app myself,

00:15:12.335 --> 00:15:17.695
I'm always wondering how changes would come about, for example,

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if most of the apps that I know and the one I developed as well is depending

00:15:23.475 --> 00:15:25.355
heavily on the master unit list, obviously.

00:15:25.535 --> 00:15:28.055
Yeah. We cannot keep all the data ourselves. That's too much.

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And it's a very logical thing to rely on one central database.

00:15:33.395 --> 00:15:37.635
Yeah. Now there's talk in the internet about Master Unit List 2.0,

00:15:37.755 --> 00:15:41.095
and everyone is wondering when will it come, what will it do,

00:15:41.275 --> 00:15:45.975
how will it look like, and nobody knows anything really substantial.

00:15:46.175 --> 00:15:51.535
So the Master Unit List is nearly done, I've been saying that for a while,

00:15:51.635 --> 00:15:55.435
but part of that was just, I don't want to get into specifics,

00:15:55.775 --> 00:15:57.755
but there was just a lot of real life stuff.

00:15:59.709 --> 00:16:05.009
Real life crap that happened. I don't know any other way to say that for the people involved in,

00:16:05.709 --> 00:16:10.189
uh, that we're working on it from, you know, some floods that destroyed houses

00:16:10.189 --> 00:16:14.769
of some of the developers that were working on it to, it just, it was unbelievable.

00:16:15.189 --> 00:16:19.749
Uh, so every snake eyes that can be rolled for the, the, the upgrade of this has happened.

00:16:20.249 --> 00:16:23.089
Um, we are getting very, and you know, even,

00:16:23.309 --> 00:16:29.009
even now we're now running into some server issues where one of the last ones

00:16:29.009 --> 00:16:33.169
that came out that out of nowhere, the server is having problems and then trying

00:16:33.169 --> 00:16:37.489
to update it's, I could go on and on. Uh, but it is, it is happening.

00:16:38.029 --> 00:16:42.989
Um, it, it primarily, uh, it's twofold.

00:16:43.169 --> 00:16:47.889
One is that the current is one was just made many, many, many years ago.

00:16:47.929 --> 00:16:50.789
And so it is painfully slow.

00:16:51.369 --> 00:16:57.429
Um, and so part of it is just rebuilding up from scratch so that it's just incredibly fast.

00:16:57.429 --> 00:17:02.509
It can be, you know, accessed from anything from a mobile device to a laptop

00:17:02.509 --> 00:17:06.809
to a table and have it be really quick.

00:17:07.309 --> 00:17:14.389
Um, it is the force builders that are provided in it, uh, work a lot better.

00:17:14.529 --> 00:17:18.289
There's a, there's a force builder in the one right now, but it's kind of finicky.

00:17:18.889 --> 00:17:23.489
Um, every time I'm building one, I almost have to open up multiple tabs to keep

00:17:23.489 --> 00:17:25.549
trying to go back and track things appropriately.

00:17:25.929 --> 00:17:29.489
Um, so the force builder has been extensively expanded.

00:17:29.789 --> 00:17:34.589
Uh, the thing that I'm actually most excited about is that the classic record

00:17:34.589 --> 00:17:37.329
sheets are all incorporated into it.

00:17:37.409 --> 00:17:42.329
So just like now where I can go up and look up, I can go up and build my force

00:17:42.329 --> 00:17:47.409
and then hit print and it'll immediately PDF out all of the alpha strike cards

00:17:47.409 --> 00:17:51.989
and then print from there that it'll do the exact same thing for the classic record cheats.

00:17:52.269 --> 00:17:55.149
So there's no, which even I'm

00:17:55.149 --> 00:17:59.909
excited because every time I want to run a game at a, at my local store.

00:18:00.718 --> 00:18:05.718
To then get the record sheets, I have a whole separate set of PDFs that then

00:18:05.718 --> 00:18:07.358
I have to go hunting through.

00:18:07.758 --> 00:18:09.318
And, okay, where was that one variant?

00:18:10.258 --> 00:18:13.058
So I totally get how annoying that is.

00:18:13.178 --> 00:18:17.598
And that, I think, is one of the most exciting aspects of the 2.0,

00:18:17.678 --> 00:18:22.618
is just that you'll have them all at your fingertips, all built right into build

00:18:22.618 --> 00:18:24.318
the force, print them out right from there.

00:18:25.058 --> 00:18:29.258
Another follow-up on that, if I may. Yeah, of course. the i'm

00:18:29.258 --> 00:18:32.498
asking for all the developers out there uh the point is that all

00:18:32.498 --> 00:18:35.478
the apps that are developed are developed against the

00:18:35.478 --> 00:18:38.618
interface of the master unit list so you're requesting

00:18:38.618 --> 00:18:42.298
a list and you get it back in a json form and

00:18:42.298 --> 00:18:45.218
every developer i know would like to know if that format is

00:18:45.218 --> 00:18:49.038
going to change because then you have to change everything that is

00:18:49.038 --> 00:18:52.198
a level of detail that

00:18:52.198 --> 00:18:57.418
i don't know but email me and then i can go talk to the guy who's heading that

00:18:57.418 --> 00:19:00.938
up and i can get that response for you but off the top of my head it's just

00:19:00.938 --> 00:19:05.058
a level that i don't know and i don't need to know so they don't tell is that

00:19:05.058 --> 00:19:09.578
is that george is that still george uh no no no okay yeah that might explain

00:19:09.578 --> 00:19:10.818
why you did answer my mails yeah,

00:19:11.629 --> 00:19:16.809
Again, feel free to drop me an email. Please wait a few days. All right.

00:19:17.749 --> 00:19:24.689
I need to get home, relax for a day, uncurl from the fetal position, get into emails.

00:19:25.049 --> 00:19:29.989
But I'm happy to dig that information up. I just got to go talk to the person who's setting that up.

00:19:30.389 --> 00:19:34.189
Well, there are plenty of possibilities there. For example, if you say that

00:19:34.189 --> 00:19:35.389
you have a force builder.

00:19:36.069 --> 00:19:39.449
For example, if the format is well-defined, like the

00:19:39.449 --> 00:19:42.869
answer that you get from the interface would be a well-defined json uh

00:19:42.869 --> 00:19:45.769
we can all for example use the force builder in the

00:19:45.769 --> 00:19:49.049
master unit list and export all the units in the force right

00:19:49.049 --> 00:19:52.289
into an app for example yeah where you don't have to do the manual

00:19:52.289 --> 00:19:54.949
uh putting the the units into the app

00:19:54.949 --> 00:19:57.889
yeah that would be fantastic and that is possible if we

00:19:57.889 --> 00:20:00.609
have a well-defined information of how it

00:20:00.609 --> 00:20:03.409
will work okay so i would definitely drop you yeah

00:20:03.409 --> 00:20:06.089
um i have a question about the

00:20:06.089 --> 00:20:08.909
master unit list yeah for the people who don't know what the

00:20:08.909 --> 00:20:11.749
master unit list is what is the master unit list

00:20:11.749 --> 00:20:15.129
so the master unit list is just a online database

00:20:15.129 --> 00:20:18.949
of all the gameplay units um

00:20:18.949 --> 00:20:23.929
and if you you know type in the atlas maybe that or the warhammer is the first

00:20:23.929 --> 00:20:27.609
thing you know it's going to bring up an illustration right out of the one of

00:20:27.609 --> 00:20:31.969
the tactical readouts it's then it's then going to have a line data for every

00:20:31.969 --> 00:20:36.629
single variant and some of these mechs have you know, 12, 18,

00:20:37.109 --> 00:20:39.369
25 different variants that exist.

00:20:39.629 --> 00:20:44.269
And it'll have, you know, tonnage, battle value, all the basic data that you

00:20:44.269 --> 00:20:45.829
need as you're building your force.

00:20:46.389 --> 00:20:50.809
You, the currently right now, if you happen to be playing Alpha Strike,

00:20:51.149 --> 00:20:54.889
then the Alpha Strike card is right there. You can print it right out.

00:20:55.169 --> 00:20:59.169
When the 2.0 comes out, then you'll have a classic Battletech sheet that you'll

00:20:59.169 --> 00:21:00.149
be able to print right out.

00:21:00.549 --> 00:21:08.489
You can plug it into a force builder. It's just, it is the most used thing.

00:21:09.063 --> 00:21:12.723
Bits of data from anyone in the community and

00:21:12.723 --> 00:21:15.643
particularly on the alpha strike side because those cards

00:21:15.643 --> 00:21:18.923
are available uh i know anyone

00:21:18.923 --> 00:21:21.643
involved in alpha strike play is using it all the time

00:21:21.643 --> 00:21:24.823
because it's just the simplest easiest way uh to

00:21:24.823 --> 00:21:27.963
force build to get that data and so yeah so

00:21:27.963 --> 00:21:31.603
once it's updated it's just going to be that much easier to

00:21:31.603 --> 00:21:34.723
use that much more having players

00:21:34.723 --> 00:21:37.463
whatever they want to do the whatever type of

00:21:37.463 --> 00:21:40.923
game they want to play hopefully that database is

00:21:40.923 --> 00:21:44.423
being used in a really good way to empower whatever you

00:21:44.423 --> 00:21:47.703
want to do at your table no okay thanks yep

00:21:47.703 --> 00:21:51.083
so you got to nothing yeah keep coming

00:21:51.083 --> 00:21:54.203
popping up that's what i'm here for um about

00:21:54.203 --> 00:21:57.143
the master unit list there was a discussion on the discord server and people

00:21:57.143 --> 00:22:00.763
were wondering i was wondering um recently

00:22:00.763 --> 00:22:03.703
we have seen colored versions of the artwork for the

00:22:03.703 --> 00:22:06.423
units for the next and um they are on if you if

00:22:06.423 --> 00:22:09.563
you buy the premium um classic uh

00:22:09.563 --> 00:22:12.303
record sheets there are images of the

00:22:12.303 --> 00:22:15.363
units and they are not the black and white drawings

00:22:15.363 --> 00:22:20.583
they are full colored versions and we had the discussion i thought that um or

00:22:20.583 --> 00:22:26.243
i was asking myself will there be those pictures for all the units and could

00:22:26.243 --> 00:22:32.603
it be uh could they be accessed for example like an in an app like mine to just

00:22:32.603 --> 00:22:35.003
show them in connection to the unit.

00:22:35.872 --> 00:22:40.292
Sorry, some people say there's only a subset of all units made.

00:22:40.492 --> 00:22:49.352
There is only a subset because basically what those are is once a unit has moved

00:22:49.352 --> 00:22:55.012
through the redesign process for our modern styling and then has an STL that

00:22:55.012 --> 00:22:57.592
is being turned over for manufacturing,

00:22:57.592 --> 00:23:00.532
a clean render of that is made.

00:23:00.552 --> 00:23:04.932
And then we have one of our artists go through and put a digital paint on that.

00:23:04.932 --> 00:23:08.432
So those full colored only exist

00:23:08.432 --> 00:23:12.112
for the ones that have new stls

00:23:12.112 --> 00:23:15.692
made for them now at this point we're at 200 plus

00:23:15.692 --> 00:23:18.612
and climbing but it's still you know

00:23:18.612 --> 00:23:24.032
a small subset of the total amount and so we can't do it all at once it's just

00:23:24.032 --> 00:23:29.872
not possible um but we we've got a really good starting point and it'll continue

00:23:29.872 --> 00:23:34.272
to go from there but there is no way to just go hey let's do this the amount

00:23:34.272 --> 00:23:38.272
of time and effort would be astronomical to just try to do it all at once.

00:23:38.512 --> 00:23:40.612
The goal is to get them all. Sure. Yeah, right.

00:23:41.778 --> 00:23:45.258
Um i could go on oh so let's

00:23:45.258 --> 00:23:48.718
uh yeah so

00:23:48.718 --> 00:23:52.198
one question at a time so um at

00:23:52.198 --> 00:23:57.778
the moment there's a new uh playtest for the new battle tech rules yep so uh

00:23:57.778 --> 00:24:03.898
you're right there will be no uh 2.0 version so it it's it's also it's more

00:24:03.898 --> 00:24:11.358
like uh an updated version of the current yeah so for If you've been playing a really long time,

00:24:11.738 --> 00:24:17.918
because Total Warfare, I can't believe it's already almost 20 years old since

00:24:17.918 --> 00:24:19.998
that came out. It just blows my mind.

00:24:20.378 --> 00:24:27.118
But even I, just because it's been almost 20 years, had kind of forgotten until

00:24:27.118 --> 00:24:28.518
I went back and really looked.

00:24:28.978 --> 00:24:32.538
There was actually quite a few changes made heading into Total Warfare.

00:24:32.658 --> 00:24:36.898
Even outside of the inventory and vehicles that were radically redone.

00:24:36.898 --> 00:24:40.398
There was a fair number of tweaks made um

00:24:40.398 --> 00:24:43.998
and we've kind of forgotten that right um so

00:24:43.998 --> 00:24:47.038
the the new rulebook which

00:24:47.038 --> 00:24:50.478
we don't have a name for yet uh the new rulebook is

00:24:50.478 --> 00:24:55.638
very much in that same vein that it'll be a total warfare level uh of changes

00:24:55.638 --> 00:25:03.158
so the vast majority of the game stays the exact same uh i will say that there

00:25:03.158 --> 00:25:08.258
are a few things that we're looking at like uh the possibility of removing those side tables.

00:25:08.498 --> 00:25:12.878
They probably would be the biggest changes that have ever been made in Battletech,

00:25:13.078 --> 00:25:20.338
but it's still a small, thin slice of the total experience in Battletech. And...

00:25:21.181 --> 00:25:26.101
Part of the reason for doing these playtesting is because we want to ensure that they work.

00:25:26.261 --> 00:25:29.441
And then the majority of players really love what we're doing.

00:25:30.081 --> 00:25:33.781
You know, the side tables might not happen. That's the whole point of doing

00:25:33.781 --> 00:25:34.981
these public playtests.

00:25:36.021 --> 00:25:40.641
And it's actually kind of amazing because when I did Total Warfare,

00:25:41.041 --> 00:25:46.201
that was back when the community was a fraction of the size of what we have now.

00:25:46.761 --> 00:25:53.041
It was all on forums and little subreddits and local playtesting.

00:25:53.781 --> 00:25:58.181
So what we were able to do playtesting compared to what we're able to do playtesting

00:25:58.181 --> 00:26:00.481
now, it's order of magnitudes bigger.

00:26:00.761 --> 00:26:05.821
And now because of the explosion of the internet, because of all of these,

00:26:05.941 --> 00:26:09.721
where Battletech is at now and how many people are playing, you know,

00:26:09.841 --> 00:26:11.221
hundreds of thousands of players.

00:26:11.221 --> 00:26:14.441
Um it gives us this opportunity

00:26:14.441 --> 00:26:17.741
to play test these changes at a scale that Battletech's

00:26:17.741 --> 00:26:21.321
never had in the past so it's actually really incredible uh

00:26:21.321 --> 00:26:25.921
so yeah like the packet three I think just dropped on Monday uh and then there's

00:26:25.921 --> 00:26:32.041
a fourth packet as well as a coming uh Battlefield support aerospace packet

00:26:32.041 --> 00:26:40.281
uh and so yeah I mean on the whole um I think they've been very well received uh and,

00:26:40.921 --> 00:26:42.381
we're continuing to work on it.

00:26:42.561 --> 00:26:47.901
It's awesome to be able to run this scale and really get the feedback from the community.

00:26:48.501 --> 00:26:52.421
Like I said, Bialtrix has never been able to do that before. So...

00:26:53.202 --> 00:27:00.742
For me, as a player who don't play this long and don't know the changes,

00:27:01.062 --> 00:27:08.562
it would be nice if I can know which Total Warfare version are out there.

00:27:08.862 --> 00:27:16.362
So I talked to someone who played this 20 years, so it could be other rules than I know.

00:27:16.882 --> 00:27:20.062
So if I can't make a wish, please,

00:27:20.262 --> 00:27:22.942
when you make a new version, um make it

00:27:22.942 --> 00:27:26.662
2.0 or whatever so i can i know that's

00:27:26.662 --> 00:27:34.522
the that's the version that's um the state of the art um well usually like every

00:27:34.522 --> 00:27:40.102
single printing of total warfare has an edition or has a you know eighth printed

00:27:40.102 --> 00:27:46.562
edition and nine printed edition on the credits page yeah um so it should do that Just like,

00:27:46.682 --> 00:27:49.702
I believe I saw down on for the Alpha Strike tournament,

00:27:50.042 --> 00:27:55.422
the, it noted this, so we'll use the seventh printing of the rule book.

00:27:55.662 --> 00:27:59.722
So usually we do try and incorporate that in there. Okay, great.

00:28:00.584 --> 00:28:03.504
Um the it's only for the

00:28:03.504 --> 00:28:06.444
total warfare so for classic uh will

00:28:06.444 --> 00:28:09.884
you make a rewrite for alpha strike um

00:28:09.884 --> 00:28:13.724
we have plans on and i

00:28:13.724 --> 00:28:16.724
don't know if we've said this publicly so maybe ray won't get upset

00:28:16.724 --> 00:28:19.984
at me uh but yes the current plan is

00:28:19.984 --> 00:28:22.664
a a new alpha strike rulebook will be

00:28:22.664 --> 00:28:25.964
coming in the next year or two um the

00:28:25.964 --> 00:28:29.264
plan will be this this next year gen

00:28:29.264 --> 00:28:32.664
con is the new rule book um and then

00:28:32.664 --> 00:28:36.284
once the playtesting is done for this

00:28:36.284 --> 00:28:41.384
new rule book we'll then spin up a year's worth of play testing for alpha strike

00:28:41.384 --> 00:28:46.964
um and the nice thing about that one is there's a lot of really great tournaments

00:28:46.964 --> 00:28:52.324
that are running strong for alpha strike and so we can work with those communities

00:28:52.324 --> 00:28:55.084
all over the world to, you know,

00:28:55.204 --> 00:29:00.524
have them fold in playtesting as part of the events that they are running.

00:29:01.164 --> 00:29:04.824
So we can have a whole year of just some amazing data to make it the best it

00:29:04.824 --> 00:29:07.404
can be. And then that will become a future Warburg.

00:29:07.824 --> 00:29:10.144
Yeah. Great. Nice. So, yeah.

00:29:12.084 --> 00:29:17.604
Just while we talk about the Office Strike book, at the last half year,

00:29:17.744 --> 00:29:23.924
I began to play Hinterlands with my community. and we'll play it with Off-Strike

00:29:23.924 --> 00:29:26.144
and it's a real nice book.

00:29:26.304 --> 00:29:31.864
You had time with the translation to get in it okay, but it's really streamlined

00:29:31.864 --> 00:29:38.484
and nice and how would you go forward with these campaign books?

00:29:39.864 --> 00:29:48.264
Do you mean... It's a really short timeline you can play and Do you mean for the Force Mania's?

00:29:49.772 --> 00:29:56.412
Hint on it yes yeah we we have another book already being made uh draconis reach,

00:29:57.092 --> 00:30:00.212
hotspots draconis reach which does the same treatment but

00:30:00.212 --> 00:30:06.812
goes between uh the house cruder and house davian border um and then uh we're

00:30:06.812 --> 00:30:10.792
just continuing to do that same thing that you know the the hinterlands book

00:30:10.792 --> 00:30:17.212
went over phenomenally well sold like crazy which is awesome a lot of good excitement about that.

00:30:17.352 --> 00:30:20.592
And so we're just going to continue to do more of those books,

00:30:20.592 --> 00:30:25.312
allowing you to kind of hop around the inner sphere and choose which sections you want to be in.

00:30:26.097 --> 00:30:29.157
Did that hopefully answer the question? When will the expo come?

00:30:29.977 --> 00:30:35.497
The Dragon's Reach? Yeah. It should be next year. Yeah. Yeah. Should be next year.

00:30:36.077 --> 00:30:38.357
Great. Doesn't matter. Oh, okay.

00:30:40.777 --> 00:30:44.477
Coming back to the tool side of things. Yeah.

00:30:46.537 --> 00:30:50.557
What are your thoughts about supporting a streaming community,

00:30:50.817 --> 00:30:55.937
like, for example, people who stream on Twitch or on YouTube for tournaments?

00:30:56.097 --> 00:30:58.397
That are done in Alpha Strike or in Classic.

00:30:59.017 --> 00:31:04.737
How would you see us providing support for that?

00:31:04.957 --> 00:31:09.797
I don't know, maybe having art packs with logos or anything that can be used

00:31:09.797 --> 00:31:12.637
to design overlays and stuff like that.

00:31:12.917 --> 00:31:18.277
Oh, so just packages where we would give out a free use these templates?

00:31:18.277 --> 00:31:21.137
For example, or support them by

00:31:21.137 --> 00:31:24.077
maybe making them the

00:31:24.077 --> 00:31:26.877
official streamer for a specific tournament for example

00:31:26.877 --> 00:31:29.817
for the european championship it would be a really nice

00:31:29.817 --> 00:31:32.557
thing if you had a twitch channel somewhere where you

00:31:32.557 --> 00:31:35.357
can point everyone who's not able to come here

00:31:35.357 --> 00:31:38.937
but still want to watch it and then you can just say here this is the official

00:31:38.937 --> 00:31:48.997
channel and um is there anything or have you thought um it is the the problem

00:31:48.997 --> 00:31:52.577
with labeling something as official.

00:31:53.897 --> 00:32:04.257
Is that that means that if it kind of goes off the rails, then that's on us, right? Yeah.

00:32:04.837 --> 00:32:11.657
And so we have to, it doesn't mean we can't do it. It just means that we have to be careful about.

00:32:12.224 --> 00:32:16.984
That the, the, the people involved, that what they are doing,

00:32:16.984 --> 00:32:20.384
it just requires more oversight on our side.

00:32:20.624 --> 00:32:24.364
Sure. And so it's, it's, it's more work, it's more time.

00:32:24.364 --> 00:32:32.144
It also often sometimes can mean less freedom and flexibility on the side of

00:32:32.144 --> 00:32:34.464
those that are running the streaming.

00:32:34.464 --> 00:32:37.504
Um and you know so for example

00:32:37.504 --> 00:32:40.744
you have the um the

00:32:40.744 --> 00:32:43.924
penny arcade has been running a

00:32:43.924 --> 00:32:47.184
alpha strike mech warrior destiny campaign

00:32:47.184 --> 00:32:50.204
we've been coordinated with them to do the

00:32:50.204 --> 00:32:53.644
black remnants force pack that we released but technically

00:32:53.644 --> 00:32:56.484
we've never said this is an

00:32:56.484 --> 00:32:59.604
official thing that is official battle tech

00:32:59.604 --> 00:33:02.384
um because they want to be able to go off

00:33:02.384 --> 00:33:05.364
sometimes and do weird wacky stuff that maybe doesn't quite

00:33:05.364 --> 00:33:08.224
fit um so we're open to

00:33:08.224 --> 00:33:11.244
having those discussions but just be aware that

00:33:11.244 --> 00:33:14.164
that's part of why there's not a lot

00:33:14.164 --> 00:33:19.664
of official attached out there just because it requires a lot more time and

00:33:19.664 --> 00:33:24.064
effort and and the guidelines are a lot tighter and often people don't want

00:33:24.064 --> 00:33:28.544
that right they want to be looser they want to do more crazy and wild things

00:33:28.544 --> 00:33:32.924
that really wouldn't be appropriate within what is an official thing yeah i'm.

00:33:33.461 --> 00:33:36.041
Well, maybe there's a possibility to have some corporations,

00:33:36.221 --> 00:33:39.341
because you said there are a lot of people playing Alpha Strike,

00:33:39.481 --> 00:33:44.341
there are a lot of tournaments, and it's an explosion of people who are actually interested in it.

00:33:45.681 --> 00:33:50.601
Maybe there would be a possibility to do corporations, maybe not with the official

00:33:50.601 --> 00:33:57.541
stamp, but just like a corporation to stream such a championship like this one.

00:33:57.661 --> 00:33:59.681
To show what the community does.

00:33:59.821 --> 00:34:06.501
So it's not on you, you're only You only give a window for the community to

00:34:06.501 --> 00:34:14.041
show what they do themselves and others to watch, to get ideas,

00:34:14.301 --> 00:34:16.761
to get in contact.

00:34:17.241 --> 00:34:21.261
So that would be another one. I'm probably going to remember this anyways,

00:34:21.321 --> 00:34:25.861
but put that in an email and I can take that over to our events coordinator.

00:34:27.061 --> 00:34:32.741
And see, is there a way to kind of thread that needle?

00:34:33.021 --> 00:34:40.881
Meaning it's not necessarily us creating a whole bunch of official support,

00:34:40.881 --> 00:34:46.161
but instead you're coming to us and then we're simply boosting the signal, right?

00:34:46.301 --> 00:34:51.301
We're just making all of the communities where, hey, they're doing this event.

00:34:51.701 --> 00:34:54.721
You know, you guys may want to just watch this.

00:34:54.721 --> 00:34:57.421
I'm actually not a streamer so it's not for me

00:34:57.421 --> 00:35:00.361
but oh no sure but it's uh i was just thinking for

00:35:00.361 --> 00:35:03.561
example we when we have the official no sorry again

00:35:03.561 --> 00:35:06.821
that were uh if there's the european um alpha

00:35:06.821 --> 00:35:09.581
strike championship or classic um that would

00:35:09.581 --> 00:35:12.321
be perfect if there would be a stream yeah of someone who

00:35:12.321 --> 00:35:15.321
is commenting on it yeah and you being here

00:35:15.321 --> 00:35:18.281
having a commentary on it yeah on the

00:35:18.281 --> 00:35:22.941
stream that would be kind of an official touch because you were here yeah and

00:35:22.941 --> 00:35:27.641
still it would be a personal thing of the streamer who's doing it yeah so something

00:35:27.641 --> 00:35:31.241
like that would be awesome i think absolutely we can we can take a look at that

00:35:31.241 --> 00:35:36.701
i have no problem having that discussion seeing what we might be able to work out cool,

00:35:37.548 --> 00:35:45.968
Great. So, my next question is, is there planning for new computer games,

00:35:46.088 --> 00:35:49.348
PC games like Battletech from HBS?

00:35:50.388 --> 00:35:56.748
We know that PGI, MacRawyer, Five Mercenaries, Clans, they are working still on it.

00:35:57.168 --> 00:35:59.568
So, are there plans for other games?

00:36:00.308 --> 00:36:06.328
I'm not aware. As far as I'm aware, the only ones continuing to work on the computer games are PGI.

00:36:07.968 --> 00:36:12.828
Did that drop yet? They had a new expansion, the Ghost Bear expansion,

00:36:12.888 --> 00:36:14.348
which I think is out. Yeah.

00:36:15.288 --> 00:36:18.348
And then they're, had they announced?

00:36:18.588 --> 00:36:20.728
I know they're working on another one. I can't quite remember.

00:36:20.968 --> 00:36:22.948
I think that one is also out already.

00:36:23.128 --> 00:36:27.808
Is it already out? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, they made a new for the mercenaries.

00:36:27.968 --> 00:36:29.968
Shadow of Kerensky. Yeah, Shadow of Kerensky.

00:36:30.768 --> 00:36:35.668
I know, I'm not going to say what it is, because I don't think they've announced

00:36:35.668 --> 00:36:40.008
it yet, and I don't have the right to, I can announce our stuff all I want if I want to.

00:36:40.348 --> 00:36:46.648
They are working on even another expansion after that. So they're continuing to do that.

00:36:47.348 --> 00:36:51.168
That I'm aware no one else is working on other computer games.

00:36:51.568 --> 00:36:56.468
I'm actually incredibly grateful that PGI is still doing a great job.

00:36:58.808 --> 00:37:03.148
I loved the clans. I just thought it was fantastically done.

00:37:03.828 --> 00:37:08.728
Voice acting was great. Uh, we, in fact, uh, me and my team,

00:37:08.948 --> 00:37:13.188
my, like my son, his friends had played through it and we were just re-talking

00:37:13.188 --> 00:37:16.948
about, I, if there was one small critique, I wish it had been a little more difficult.

00:37:17.328 --> 00:37:22.448
Um, but the, when you're trying to get a whole hero off, um,

00:37:22.668 --> 00:37:27.068
before they, uh, on, uh, on Edo, that was a fantastic mission.

00:37:27.188 --> 00:37:28.588
It was great to like, see it, um.

00:37:30.130 --> 00:37:34.330
And, uh, but, you know, outside of that, it's nothing else is going on.

00:37:34.350 --> 00:37:37.510
Uh, but you know, we're, we're all here for the long haul.

00:37:37.910 --> 00:37:43.590
Uh, and it always comes in cycles. You know, there was a good 10 to 15 years

00:37:43.590 --> 00:37:45.070
where absolutely nothing was happening.

00:37:45.270 --> 00:37:49.110
And then suddenly PGI came a lot. Well, let me be clear. MechWarrior Online

00:37:49.110 --> 00:37:52.710
was there the whole time, but there wasn't a lot going on, right? It was that one style.

00:37:52.890 --> 00:37:56.090
Yeah. Uh, and then suddenly MechWarrior 5 comes out. So you have MechWarrior

00:37:56.090 --> 00:38:00.390
Online, you've got MechWarrior 5 and all those expansions and And PGI's biotech

00:38:00.390 --> 00:38:02.070
game was just phenomenal.

00:38:02.810 --> 00:38:06.790
So yeah, we don't have any say in that because that part of the license,

00:38:06.790 --> 00:38:09.050
we have no control over whatsoever.

00:38:10.850 --> 00:38:15.290
They were usually really good at trying to work together.

00:38:15.610 --> 00:38:22.390
So the team at Piranha does a fantastic job of coming to Ray and the team and

00:38:22.390 --> 00:38:25.030
saying, hey, here's the lore that we want to do. What do you think?

00:38:25.110 --> 00:38:26.410
And then we comment on it.

00:38:27.130 --> 00:38:30.350
But we just don't have any ability to go, You know, I would love to,

00:38:30.450 --> 00:38:33.030
you know, press play and get another Battletech version.

00:38:33.490 --> 00:38:37.970
Uh, or my dream would be to have like, uh, you know, a Stellaris,

00:38:37.970 --> 00:38:41.190
uh, meets Europa Universalis, right?

00:38:41.350 --> 00:38:46.730
Like some crazy Succession Wars style game. That would be, I could lose a month

00:38:46.730 --> 00:38:48.890
of my life, I think, to play that.

00:38:49.390 --> 00:38:52.550
Um, but yeah, so I'm not aware of anything else going on, but,

00:38:52.690 --> 00:38:56.030
you know, again, very grateful Piranha is still giving us some really cool expansions.

00:38:57.191 --> 00:39:01.391
At this point, um, more for the fun, uh, when, uh, did you, uh,

00:39:01.551 --> 00:39:05.991
know anything when we will get the Battletech movie or the Netflix series?

00:39:08.191 --> 00:39:13.731
Oh, that's, uh, that's complicated. Uh, well, the first answer is once again,

00:39:13.851 --> 00:39:16.151
that's part of the license that we don't own.

00:39:16.371 --> 00:39:22.591
Um, so, so for those who are actually curious, uh, almost any long lasting IP,

00:39:23.771 --> 00:39:25.851
it gets complicated, right?

00:39:26.011 --> 00:39:28.371
It gets, parts of it get sold and cut up.

00:39:28.811 --> 00:39:34.171
So in, you know, I think it was 99 FASA Interactive Technologies,

00:39:34.751 --> 00:39:41.251
which was a company that Jordan and Ross had made as sister companies to FASA

00:39:41.251 --> 00:39:46.511
to make games and that was sold, or to make computer games, that was sold off to Microsoft.

00:39:46.691 --> 00:39:55.391
So Microsoft owns the electronic gaming rights to everything Battletech and

00:39:55.391 --> 00:40:01.231
Shadowrun related and they still own it to this day the movie rights then are

00:40:01.231 --> 00:40:03.811
currently owned by a company called Tornante,

00:40:05.051 --> 00:40:11.551
and that was you know because it was owned by Topps and then the licensed Topps

00:40:11.551 --> 00:40:16.911
was WizKids then Topps it's now owned by Fanatics it's this whole complicated

00:40:16.911 --> 00:40:22.751
skein so ultimately we have no say or input on anything like that.

00:40:22.991 --> 00:40:26.771
I myself have read, I think, three different movie treatments,

00:40:27.211 --> 00:40:30.851
one of which was actually pretty good, and it went nowhere.

00:40:32.391 --> 00:40:40.011
That being said, the reason why it's never happened is,

00:40:40.681 --> 00:40:45.841
Um, and this is, this is me putting together a supposition. I don't know.

00:40:46.101 --> 00:40:51.761
Uh, but I think my supposition is, is really accurate, which is Hollywood likes

00:40:51.761 --> 00:40:56.261
to be able to sign one thing and they like to then have it all right.

00:40:56.661 --> 00:41:00.981
And with the contract divided up amongst multiple companies,

00:41:00.981 --> 00:41:06.601
um, that makes it complicated and, uh, lawyers don't like complicated.

00:41:08.421 --> 00:41:14.421
And I think that's one of the biggest parts. Could you ever get it all unified together?

00:41:14.781 --> 00:41:19.641
Once again, I don't know if that's possible because companies at the scale of

00:41:19.641 --> 00:41:22.961
Microsoft, they never sell anything off. They don't need to.

00:41:23.801 --> 00:41:28.141
It's better to just sit on it and not let somebody else make money off of it, unfortunately.

00:41:28.681 --> 00:41:33.581
So I would love to see that. Once again, I've talked with like two or three

00:41:33.581 --> 00:41:38.061
Netflix executives, and we've talked about that both Battletech and Shadow would

00:41:38.061 --> 00:41:42.321
make amazing animated series or movies, whatever you want.

00:41:42.941 --> 00:41:45.961
There's so much. There's so much and it doesn't happen.

00:41:46.121 --> 00:41:50.281
And so the only consolation, because of course, who doesn't want an amazing

00:41:50.281 --> 00:41:51.401
Battletech movie, right?

00:41:51.681 --> 00:42:00.441
The only consolation I have is that it's always a terrible roll of the dice

00:42:00.441 --> 00:42:04.821
of whether it will actually be good or not and instead we might get you know

00:42:04.821 --> 00:42:06.801
the halo tv series which was,

00:42:07.441 --> 00:42:11.721
terrible beyond belief or anything that happened to stumble yeah exactly right

00:42:11.721 --> 00:42:17.021
so there well so so i would argue not boy we could fall down that rabbit hole

00:42:17.021 --> 00:42:22.181
i think there is a few amazing pieces of new star wars work like i think and

00:42:22.181 --> 00:42:25.501
your is phenomenal there's a whole pile of.

00:42:26.683 --> 00:42:31.143
Just awful stuff. Right. And so that's always the gamble.

00:42:31.323 --> 00:42:35.423
And so really, of course, I still want the movie badly, but I console myself

00:42:35.423 --> 00:42:36.983
with the fact, yeah, but it could be terrible.

00:42:37.823 --> 00:42:41.263
So that's a long winded way of trying to say, cause everyone asked it.

00:42:41.383 --> 00:42:45.283
Cause of course we all want it, but I kind of have to tell a little bit of the

00:42:45.283 --> 00:42:50.383
story about why it's so complicated and why it's really hard to see it happen.

00:42:50.383 --> 00:42:54.103
And I just don't know because of all of that, if it ever really will.

00:42:54.863 --> 00:43:01.863
I just know some of them, what you told about, I think at this point,

00:43:02.023 --> 00:43:05.463
if I wouldn't ask, we would be asked, why wouldn't you ask?

00:43:06.983 --> 00:43:12.443
Literally everywhere I went, all over the world, that was one of the questions. I totally get it.

00:43:12.883 --> 00:43:16.123
So we got presents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Absolutely.

00:43:16.923 --> 00:43:20.503
On that note, did you see the Hyatt Steel animated?

00:43:21.023 --> 00:43:23.683
Yeah, absolutely. What do you think about those? I loved them.

00:43:24.103 --> 00:43:27.703
Yeah. Yeah. Well, they went, enough set. Yeah. No, fantastic.

00:43:28.363 --> 00:43:32.503
There might've been a little tear as I'm like, Oh, Fulman, we can do this.

00:43:32.643 --> 00:43:35.603
We're, we're right there. The technology exists. Oh, they did a great job.

00:43:35.803 --> 00:43:36.763
Yeah. Really loved them.

00:43:37.583 --> 00:43:39.223
Great. So, uh,

00:43:40.538 --> 00:43:43.958
the line hello and welcome back our

00:43:43.958 --> 00:43:47.618
uh device uh the

00:43:47.618 --> 00:43:51.578
card was full so i saved

00:43:51.578 --> 00:44:01.038
uh what we uh talked uh now and um i make new batteries in and uh we have a

00:44:01.038 --> 00:44:08.058
clean memory card i just take another look because I don't trust my device.

00:44:08.678 --> 00:44:17.938
Yeah, so it looks fine. So my question was, in the US, after 75 years,

00:44:18.758 --> 00:44:23.998
the copyright is gone.

00:44:25.838 --> 00:44:31.998
But Microsoft or the other company still hold the license.

00:44:31.998 --> 00:44:37.418
And do you know how long it will be until the 75 years are over?

00:44:37.758 --> 00:44:43.018
Well, I mean, we just celebrated 40 years, so 35 more.

00:44:43.338 --> 00:44:48.298
But yeah, there's a difference between the ownership of the copyright and then

00:44:48.298 --> 00:44:50.358
the protection of the copyright.

00:44:50.618 --> 00:44:56.458
And at the end of 75 years, unless you have interesting ways to kick the can

00:44:56.458 --> 00:44:59.218
further downstream and give yourself a couple more years,

00:44:59.218 --> 00:45:05.998
it then falls into a common usage and one can then be able to use it.

00:45:06.338 --> 00:45:10.958
Yeah. Um, so, uh, I mean, I guess I could look to be that old,

00:45:11.058 --> 00:45:13.258
but if I, you know, who knows?

00:45:13.578 --> 00:45:18.518
Luckily that is far future needs problem. And so for now, we'll just have to

00:45:18.518 --> 00:45:24.318
deal with the fact that Microsoft owns that and Tormante owns the movie and television rights.

00:45:24.318 --> 00:45:28.738
And we'll just keep making it and have an awesome tabletop games. Yeah.

00:45:29.278 --> 00:45:34.758
We all hope that Catalyst will gather all the license back together.

00:45:35.198 --> 00:45:37.638
That would be a dream. Yeah. It would just be a dream.

00:45:38.791 --> 00:45:41.671
Alright, you have another question.

00:45:42.331 --> 00:45:47.611
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about something I was wondering about for a couple of years, actually.

00:45:49.671 --> 00:45:56.191
It is obvious that it is an accepted fact that fans are using a lot of assets

00:45:56.191 --> 00:45:57.551
from Battletech, like pictures,

00:45:57.831 --> 00:46:05.811
faction logos and Mac pictures and everything, for creating websites and maybe things like this.

00:46:07.231 --> 00:46:12.011
Can you talk about that? Is there a problem in any way concerning copyright

00:46:12.011 --> 00:46:17.191
stuff or anything that comes to mind for you about that?

00:46:17.731 --> 00:46:21.111
As always, it's a little complicated.

00:46:23.151 --> 00:46:30.591
The copyright laws in the U.S., they tend to work in a way that if you are aware

00:46:30.591 --> 00:46:34.971
that somebody is violating the copyright, then you must pursue that copyright.

00:46:35.811 --> 00:46:40.011
And you must protect it. So it kind of forces you to be proactive.

00:46:41.991 --> 00:46:46.451
And so there are other companies in our industry, shall we say,

00:46:46.531 --> 00:46:53.091
known for being much more strident in trying to stop people from doing that.

00:46:54.091 --> 00:46:59.271
I try really hard, Catalyst tries hard not to go that far.

00:47:01.291 --> 00:47:05.831
If you look at the example of, say, Lucasfilm and Disney, Um,

00:47:06.531 --> 00:47:11.171
there is a good decade or more when they were, they'd sue everyone under the sun.

00:47:11.311 --> 00:47:15.671
The second, somebody put a website up, uh, and they finally came around to a

00:47:15.671 --> 00:47:19.251
point where, unless you're trying to make money off of it.

00:47:19.995 --> 00:47:23.355
Or you're just being really terrible with how you're using it,

00:47:23.595 --> 00:47:30.695
the strength that the community gives to each other through the use of that,

00:47:30.875 --> 00:47:37.715
uh, those types of images in websites and paraphernalia for conventions and merch and all that,

00:47:38.095 --> 00:47:41.735
that it's far better for the community to be able to do that.

00:47:42.055 --> 00:47:48.775
Uh, and so, uh, yeah, there, it's very rare that we come out and have to tell

00:47:48.775 --> 00:47:50.255
somebody, you can't do that.

00:47:50.675 --> 00:47:54.755
Uh, it's really the dividing line is I'm going to do this and then I'm going

00:47:54.755 --> 00:47:57.975
to start making money off of it. I'm going to start making money off of it.

00:47:58.375 --> 00:48:03.335
Then we need to look at, well, you either you can't do that or you have to have

00:48:03.335 --> 00:48:04.855
a license to be able to do that.

00:48:05.435 --> 00:48:10.155
Outside of that, if you're just making it up for yourself, then you're all good.

00:48:10.375 --> 00:48:11.735
It's not going to be a problem.

00:48:12.395 --> 00:48:14.075
I'm sure a lot of people like that answer.

00:48:15.098 --> 00:48:20.678
I know a lot of people who do fan webpages of a specific clan or specific faction,

00:48:20.858 --> 00:48:23.618
and they use tons of images and stuff.

00:48:24.198 --> 00:48:30.778
And again, by the absolute letter of the law, we probably shouldn't allow that.

00:48:31.918 --> 00:48:37.678
But again, we believe strongly in how much that allows the community to feel

00:48:37.678 --> 00:48:42.738
enmeshed and empowered to be a part of it and help others be a part of it.

00:48:42.738 --> 00:48:48.078
And so, uh, it's just really important to allow, to figure out a way to draw

00:48:48.078 --> 00:48:53.658
a careful line, uh, you know, and, and push it way up next to that line for

00:48:53.658 --> 00:48:57.278
us, which is you can't make money off of it and also your official license.

00:48:57.558 --> 00:49:02.578
Yeah. If you're out on that other side, then awesome, vote it out and make fun stuff. That's great.

00:49:03.378 --> 00:49:08.138
Yeah, it helps to keep the, uh, the community a lot of it. Absolutely.

00:49:08.838 --> 00:49:13.758
Absolutely. Yeah, I've been wondering because I had a website up and I was always

00:49:13.758 --> 00:49:17.278
wondering, is that kind of legal what I'm doing here because I do not own any

00:49:17.278 --> 00:49:19.438
of the copyright or whatever.

00:49:20.058 --> 00:49:24.238
But I have the feeling that many people in the community just are testing the

00:49:24.238 --> 00:49:28.098
waters, nothing happens, and then they continue doing it because it helps the

00:49:28.098 --> 00:49:31.238
community and that's fine. Understood. Okay, that's a good answer.

00:49:32.661 --> 00:49:36.921
Okay, I have two more. Okay, then I will have a small one.

00:49:38.521 --> 00:49:41.701
There's an alternative Battletech rule set.

00:49:43.121 --> 00:49:46.321
It was known as Destiny. I just forgot the new name.

00:49:47.621 --> 00:49:52.441
Network? No, no, he's talking about... No, no, Override.

00:49:52.921 --> 00:49:56.641
Override. Yeah, Destiny Override. Do you know it?

00:49:56.881 --> 00:50:01.081
I will be able to know that name. Do you know Omega from Death from the Battle?

00:50:01.521 --> 00:50:11.101
Okay, yes. Yes. So they make the small child of Total Warfare and Alpha Strike.

00:50:12.441 --> 00:50:18.921
And my question is, do you think or do you ever plan about it to make it an

00:50:18.921 --> 00:50:21.221
official third rulebook?

00:50:22.321 --> 00:50:26.341
We've thought about it because you will. uh i

00:50:26.341 --> 00:50:29.201
have run into people around the world uh in

00:50:29.201 --> 00:50:32.381
the tour and then i did that are like you know biotech's too

00:50:32.381 --> 00:50:35.061
much office strikes too little i want to just wait in the

00:50:35.061 --> 00:50:38.561
middle uh and so we've had those conversations uh

00:50:38.561 --> 00:50:42.201
and to date um we've

00:50:42.201 --> 00:50:45.821
kind of felt like it mixes

00:50:45.821 --> 00:50:48.681
the pot it mixes things up it

00:50:48.681 --> 00:50:52.241
muddles it a little too much if they're too close no um

00:50:52.241 --> 00:50:55.041
and right now we don't seem to

00:50:55.041 --> 00:50:58.321
have any problem with people playing games

00:50:58.321 --> 00:51:01.061
with people grabbing uh the the rule

00:51:01.061 --> 00:51:04.101
books and the and the new plastic bottles and so

00:51:04.101 --> 00:51:07.461
i'm not going to say never but we don't have any current plans

00:51:07.461 --> 00:51:12.221
to try to do a middle ground rule set okay plan

00:51:12.221 --> 00:51:18.381
okay sorry something i wanted to ask also for a very long time i would be interested

00:51:18.381 --> 00:51:26.061
in how would you describe the the process of um developing the main story of

00:51:26.061 --> 00:51:31.221
battletech how does that work uh very chaotic um.

00:51:32.220 --> 00:51:39.660
Usually what ends up happening, and this started way back in mid-facet years,

00:51:39.980 --> 00:51:43.480
usually what will happen is every three to four years.

00:51:44.320 --> 00:51:52.980
All of the line developer along with the top novelists will all get together for a weekend.

00:51:53.620 --> 00:52:00.620
And everyone will have come in kind of reacquainting themselves to storylines

00:52:00.620 --> 00:52:01.940
and everything that's gone before.

00:52:02.220 --> 00:52:05.260
Uh often the line developer will have

00:52:05.260 --> 00:52:07.980
developed a whole bunch of plot threads that they

00:52:07.980 --> 00:52:11.500
want to see happen and then we literally

00:52:11.500 --> 00:52:14.380
lock ourselves in some rooms for like two

00:52:14.380 --> 00:52:17.460
straight days of you know 12 18 hour days

00:52:17.460 --> 00:52:20.820
sliding pizza under the door um and

00:52:20.820 --> 00:52:23.920
like the last one we were at there was maps all

00:52:23.920 --> 00:52:27.460
over the door there was probably 200 sticky

00:52:27.460 --> 00:52:30.040
notes uh that were constantly you know

00:52:30.040 --> 00:52:33.880
this character being moved into this storyline or into this storyline and

00:52:33.880 --> 00:52:37.580
so it's really a kind of a free-form brainstorming of

00:52:37.580 --> 00:52:40.400
all these creative people crafting what we

00:52:40.400 --> 00:52:43.040
want to see happen and then coming out of

00:52:43.040 --> 00:52:47.980
that the line of our developer will then generate a you know big set of documents

00:52:47.980 --> 00:52:54.800
this is what we agreed to but really that plan then never survives contact with

00:52:54.800 --> 00:52:58.440
the enemy like I would say 60%

00:52:58.440 --> 00:53:02.140
of that plan will end up being what transpires over the next few years.

00:53:02.680 --> 00:53:08.360
But just the nature of once, you know, we'll have a line that's literally,

00:53:08.620 --> 00:53:11.380
you know, okay, we've got this storyline novel right here.

00:53:11.860 --> 00:53:15.420
And then the novel's written. And when the novel's actually written,

00:53:15.580 --> 00:53:20.380
some of the things that happen, you're like, oh, this is way cooler because

00:53:20.380 --> 00:53:23.460
it went a little bit up here and that's going to bridge over here.

00:53:23.460 --> 00:53:25.340
So that's going to change this whole line.

00:53:26.018 --> 00:53:30.138
And oh my gosh, that's great. That's a new whole direction that we didn't think of in that meeting.

00:53:30.358 --> 00:53:37.198
And so you always want to be flexible to allow the novelists to not feel completely shackled, right?

00:53:37.358 --> 00:53:42.718
Like they're painting within certain lines, but they still get a fair amount of freedom.

00:53:42.878 --> 00:53:46.578
And that freedom can allow them to create things that suddenly adjust.

00:53:47.538 --> 00:53:53.418
And so then, you know, once again, three or four years will go by and you'll do the same thing.

00:53:53.418 --> 00:53:56.098
We'll all get together and we'll see how much did we

00:53:56.098 --> 00:53:58.918
shatter and not use at all and how much can we put back

00:53:58.918 --> 00:54:01.758
together and so it's and it's been that way like i

00:54:01.758 --> 00:54:04.698
said since the first one the first

00:54:04.698 --> 00:54:09.038
one that i'm aware of i think was in 93 or 94

00:54:09.038 --> 00:54:14.818
right before i started and then in 96 i was at the second one right after i

00:54:14.818 --> 00:54:20.178
got hired and really the reason they had the first one is because they did the

00:54:20.178 --> 00:54:21.878
clan invasion they did the the

00:54:21.878 --> 00:54:25.618
blooded prince food trilogy it was awesome everyone's having a great time.

00:54:26.603 --> 00:54:31.423
And they had kind of painted themselves into a corner of, well, then what do we do now?

00:54:31.763 --> 00:54:38.363
Right? Like, where did we go? And so if you, for those that like were fans reading that material,

00:54:38.743 --> 00:54:44.443
there was almost a five-year gap when very little large scale happened because

00:54:44.443 --> 00:54:47.123
they hadn't planned, they had planned the Klan invasion.

00:54:47.123 --> 00:54:50.343
And then once that was done, it actually took them a while to realize,

00:54:50.483 --> 00:54:52.503
wait a second, we're, we're painted in a corner.

00:54:52.763 --> 00:54:55.463
How do we get out of that? and then part of

00:54:55.463 --> 00:54:58.263
getting out of that was the whole twilight the clan series that then

00:54:58.263 --> 00:55:01.483
was developed in uh was developed in

00:55:01.483 --> 00:55:04.363
like 95 and then the first novel started

00:55:04.363 --> 00:55:12.343
coming out in 97 or 98 for the twilight the clan series and so um uh and again

00:55:12.343 --> 00:55:17.703
that's just kind of a natural up and down uh of these so if you know anyone

00:55:17.703 --> 00:55:22.823
who loves reading all the star wars novels or all the Star Trek novels, any of these big,

00:55:22.963 --> 00:55:28.663
huge shared universes, you'll see times when there's weird down times that like

00:55:28.663 --> 00:55:33.123
not a lot seems to be happening or some novels will come out and you'll be like,

00:55:33.223 --> 00:55:36.323
wow, that didn't seem quite connected as well as it should have been.

00:55:36.823 --> 00:55:42.543
Uh, and some of that is just the nature of dealing with this gigantic thing that we've created.

00:55:43.003 --> 00:55:48.203
Um, and you have all these, uh, very passionate people working on it.

00:55:48.843 --> 00:55:52.283
And that means sometimes it just doesn't go quite the way you wanted it to.

00:55:53.163 --> 00:55:57.463
And sometimes it goes fabulously well.

00:55:58.163 --> 00:56:04.443
So that was a very long-winded answer, but hopefully that shows you just how

00:56:04.443 --> 00:56:08.043
it's kind of really chaotic, but then you can create some really cool things

00:56:08.043 --> 00:56:09.463
out of it and how that's done.

00:56:09.983 --> 00:56:12.203
Kind of reminds me of how I'm developing things.

00:56:12.704 --> 00:56:20.764
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, it's really what almost everyone does in any type of setting.

00:56:21.184 --> 00:56:25.004
And it's very interesting because you said that when the clans came in,

00:56:25.124 --> 00:56:29.584
there was this gap and people thought, wait a minute, what are we going to do with it now?

00:56:29.584 --> 00:56:33.824
We had this discussion in one of the previous podcasts also where people said,

00:56:33.924 --> 00:56:37.244
well, if the clans would have continued the way they were described in the first

00:56:37.244 --> 00:56:40.784
three books, they would have gone straight to terror without any opposition

00:56:40.784 --> 00:56:41.864
because they were too good.

00:56:41.864 --> 00:56:44.664
And so they had to be written down a bit

00:56:44.664 --> 00:56:48.204
and you had the feeling in the coming novel in the following novels that

00:56:48.204 --> 00:56:51.324
there were desperately or the authors were desperately trying

00:56:51.324 --> 00:56:54.224
to to write them back a little so that there's something

00:56:54.224 --> 00:56:57.204
yeah okay so i i read that you read

00:56:57.204 --> 00:57:00.084
it correctly yeah absolutely i uh i came around

00:57:00.084 --> 00:57:03.064
i i love the clans i mean i at the noah cats

00:57:03.064 --> 00:57:05.924
i love them to death i've written plenty of times right

00:57:05.924 --> 00:57:09.204
lots of love there but there were

00:57:09.204 --> 00:57:13.144
so many things done for the clans from a story

00:57:13.144 --> 00:57:16.404
perspective that were fantastic but from

00:57:16.404 --> 00:57:20.344
a game perspective were terrible yes right um so

00:57:20.344 --> 00:57:24.864
for example like the double names um when

00:57:24.864 --> 00:57:27.864
you're reading lethal heritage and you're reading the

00:57:27.864 --> 00:57:32.304
whole he names it a mad cat and then it switches back over and you find out

00:57:32.304 --> 00:57:39.544
that it's a timber wolf and like that was so cool and felt very realistic right

00:57:39.544 --> 00:57:45.164
like think back in world war ii when Both sides were naming the other tank, their own thing.

00:57:45.404 --> 00:57:47.884
And then you didn't know what it was called until sometime late.

00:57:47.984 --> 00:57:49.364
It went, so it's very authentic.

00:57:49.824 --> 00:57:57.544
I love that. What it means is that then you have two names for every single unit out there.

00:57:57.624 --> 00:58:00.984
And if you're bringing new players in, it confuses them to death.

00:58:01.613 --> 00:58:05.053
30 years later, and we still deal with people totally confused.

00:58:05.313 --> 00:58:08.893
Wait until you get the German translation of that. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:09.173 --> 00:58:13.233
There were four names, so that's even worse, right?

00:58:13.613 --> 00:58:19.293
Yeah. And so there's basically seven data points that make up a weapon.

00:58:20.153 --> 00:58:25.453
And you could have taken four of those data points and tweaked them and made

00:58:25.453 --> 00:58:28.633
them really powerful, and instead, they took all seven.

00:58:29.213 --> 00:58:32.473
And not only did they make them really powerful, but in some things they just,

00:58:32.573 --> 00:58:34.793
oh, we're just going to double the range. Why not? Right.

00:58:35.773 --> 00:58:41.373
And so what that then creates is, again, it created a situation where the flavor

00:58:41.373 --> 00:58:44.113
didn't exactly match the mechanics.

00:58:44.613 --> 00:58:47.573
So when Brian and I developed the heavy,

00:58:47.873 --> 00:58:53.213
large lasers that were in the Field Manual Crusader Clans that were really close

00:58:53.213 --> 00:58:58.853
weapons that did tons of damage close, That was kind of our homage to what we

00:58:58.853 --> 00:59:00.253
felt the claim should be.

00:59:00.753 --> 00:59:05.833
Honorable, single combat right in your face. As opposed to, I remember when

00:59:05.833 --> 00:59:11.433
3058 came out and it had the Fire Falcon V.

00:59:11.753 --> 00:59:17.573
So here's the Fire Falcon that walks eight and has two ear-large lasers on it.

00:59:17.713 --> 00:59:20.553
So 25 hex range with a targeting beer.

00:59:21.733 --> 00:59:26.053
75% of heavy and assault.

00:59:26.473 --> 00:59:31.893
Oh, throw the salt max out there. 75% of all the heavy maps don't move,

00:59:32.273 --> 00:59:33.953
don't run faster than eight.

00:59:34.413 --> 00:59:38.033
And that's, uh, at that time we were playing with rolling maps.

00:59:38.253 --> 00:59:41.633
So if you're moving, you're going to put out another map. And then I realized

00:59:41.633 --> 00:59:43.633
the fire Falcon could just walk backwards.

00:59:44.726 --> 00:59:48.526
And just kill anything. You would never be the entire industry force would never

00:59:48.526 --> 00:59:50.706
catch it. And it would just slice you up.

00:59:50.846 --> 00:59:55.006
And that was just the antithesis of everything the client stood for.

00:59:55.246 --> 00:59:59.566
And so there's always been this interesting disconnect between the mechanics

00:59:59.566 --> 01:00:06.686
side of how it was done, uh, and the flavor side that haven't ever really, um, meshed very well.

01:00:06.806 --> 01:00:11.526
I think in my head, um, now, obviously the game's doing fantastic right now.

01:00:11.706 --> 01:00:14.446
We're still here four years later. uh but it's

01:00:14.446 --> 01:00:17.266
just again to my mind it still comes back to when you're

01:00:17.266 --> 01:00:20.306
creating a shared large game large

01:00:20.306 --> 01:00:23.106
universe you're just going to run into these

01:00:23.106 --> 01:00:26.426
times when things don't quite all work together yeah

01:00:26.426 --> 01:00:29.306
and that's just the nature of you know

01:00:29.306 --> 01:00:32.246
a beast like this yeah yes they still have a lot of people running

01:00:32.246 --> 01:00:35.046
around saying everything before the clan is battle tech and

01:00:35.046 --> 01:00:38.586
then i just fade out and don't want to know about that they're

01:00:38.586 --> 01:00:41.946
they're all around so it's

01:00:41.946 --> 01:00:45.266
an other theme yeah so i will say and

01:00:45.266 --> 01:00:48.586
i have run into that as well uh you know the the

01:00:48.586 --> 01:00:51.346
the question i always get so right after the when is

01:00:51.346 --> 01:00:54.186
a movie ever going to happen the next question is you

01:00:54.186 --> 01:00:57.166
know what is your favorite mech and then the next one's what's

01:00:57.166 --> 01:01:00.386
your favorite era you like to play in and luckily

01:01:00.386 --> 01:01:03.306
i love it all you know whatever

01:01:03.306 --> 01:01:06.086
era it's the era that i throw some dice on the

01:01:06.086 --> 01:01:08.846
table and i'm playing um i think each of

01:01:08.846 --> 01:01:11.926
them bring very different styles and different fun

01:01:11.926 --> 01:01:14.646
and things to enjoy uh but ultimately at the

01:01:14.646 --> 01:01:18.506
same time we have this giant huge universe

01:01:18.506 --> 01:01:24.506
uh and if you want to play just in the succession wars you know awesome uh you

01:01:24.506 --> 01:01:30.326
know there's a million mechs to buy and enjoy um we try and still support that

01:01:30.326 --> 01:01:34.766
with source books and novels every now and then that touch on these various eras.

01:01:36.006 --> 01:01:39.866
I personally think you're missing out on some fun that other eras bring,

01:01:40.066 --> 01:01:44.606
but you know, each of us are going to find that thing that we enjoy the most, and that's awesome.

01:01:46.256 --> 01:01:53.636
It was really fun that you can play with the Succession Wars mechs in the newest era.

01:01:54.376 --> 01:01:57.716
I also mostly played the Succession Wars.

01:01:58.016 --> 01:02:03.016
I really liked the old tin mechs.

01:02:03.296 --> 01:02:12.996
I mostly liked the Succession Wars designs and I didn't get into the clan era,

01:02:13.576 --> 01:02:21.396
and then also because there are so many mechs I didn't really like.

01:02:22.236 --> 01:02:26.716
That was a point for me, the miniatures, that I didn't get into play.

01:02:27.736 --> 01:02:34.496
This changed for me with the new plastic miniatures and now I start to play

01:02:34.496 --> 01:02:38.916
in the newest era, and mostly with Alpha Strike,

01:02:39.156 --> 01:02:43.116
because it shuts the complexity down.

01:02:44.116 --> 01:02:48.776
But you can play there with your old necks.

01:02:49.389 --> 01:02:57.589
Because I went to the European Championship and made my list in this era for Alpha Strike.

01:02:57.829 --> 01:03:07.449
And I got all my old mechs because I wanted to play with painted mechs and grab the new variants.

01:03:07.889 --> 01:03:15.529
And so that was really cool in BattleTech that the miniatures continuous could be used.

01:03:15.689 --> 01:03:20.189
Yeah, you lost some and there can be plenty new, but that's cool.

01:03:20.369 --> 01:03:26.209
No, that was a huge kudos to Ray because that was his, Ray Rust is the current

01:03:26.209 --> 01:03:29.669
Maltec Blaine developer and he was the one that came up with the idea and the

01:03:29.669 --> 01:03:35.329
rec guides to make sure that in addition to the new mechs that always come along,

01:03:35.609 --> 01:03:42.149
that you're, we're putting modern era variants that exactly match the weapon

01:03:42.149 --> 01:03:47.049
configurations of the mechs from the Succession Wars and the Klein Invasion.

01:03:47.709 --> 01:03:50.729
And we have heard that over and over again

01:03:50.729 --> 01:03:53.469
the number of people that are now playing in the

01:03:53.469 --> 01:03:59.129
new era because it felt good that they could take this mech they've had forever

01:03:59.129 --> 01:04:03.509
and pull this thing over and go oh what's this new stuff and and still feel

01:04:03.509 --> 01:04:08.429
like it invited them into play instead of you must go buy the new thing and

01:04:08.429 --> 01:04:13.349
so yeah huge kudos to wait for that yeah you saw a lot but.

01:04:14.249 --> 01:04:16.849
But they hardly need paint.

01:04:18.569 --> 01:04:22.289
We all have our piles of shame. Oh, yes.

01:04:24.354 --> 01:04:27.994
Or as one of my friends, Jared, he's like, I don't know, Piles of Opportunity.

01:04:28.414 --> 01:04:30.694
Yeah. Yeah. Match practice.

01:04:32.214 --> 01:04:35.914
Yeah. It's just piles to play with. That's right. Piles play with.

01:04:37.394 --> 01:04:40.694
Will there be new plushies? Yes.

01:04:41.434 --> 01:04:47.294
Yeah. Actually, we've been. So we, the company that made the previous ones,

01:04:47.414 --> 01:04:51.314
it's just been really difficult to try and get new ones out.

01:04:52.394 --> 01:04:55.354
And there's actually very few companies that make plushies

01:04:55.354 --> 01:04:58.474
as many as there's like billions in the world it feels like there's

01:04:58.474 --> 01:05:01.534
just not a lot of companies that do it um but we

01:05:01.534 --> 01:05:04.534
are absolute negotiations with them

01:05:04.534 --> 01:05:08.874
uh we want to do some client max because i really need a client plushie but

01:05:08.874 --> 01:05:14.734
yeah we those will absolutely be coming also the catapult uh i can't tell you

01:05:14.734 --> 01:05:20.054
which max okay i can just tell you that more are coming okay so he will write

01:05:20.054 --> 01:05:22.914
in his mail that you should catapult.

01:05:25.092 --> 01:05:31.392
I really like doing stuff for the conventional.

01:05:31.932 --> 01:05:38.632
Also, I need to, anytime I need fonts, is there actual Battletech fonts,

01:05:39.512 --> 01:05:44.752
like the actual Battletech signing with an E?

01:05:46.912 --> 01:05:49.952
There's an old Battletech font that you can find.

01:05:50.172 --> 01:05:55.552
Oh, I don't think it's an actual font. I think it was created. Yeah.

01:05:55.832 --> 01:05:59.712
So the, the battle tech that we're currently using was actually made by Herbine

01:05:59.712 --> 01:06:01.652
schemes for the battle tech game. Yeah.

01:06:02.032 --> 01:06:05.272
And it was so fantastic that we just took it and adopted it.

01:06:05.372 --> 01:06:10.112
And I don't believe that is its own unique, its own fault that we purchased.

01:06:10.112 --> 01:06:11.612
It was something that was created.

01:06:11.872 --> 01:06:19.052
And so you're just asking, um, could we put out some digital assets that people

01:06:19.052 --> 01:06:22.392
could use, including that logo?

01:06:22.572 --> 01:06:25.532
Is that what you're asking? that add that to the email

01:06:25.532 --> 01:06:28.412
that you're sending to me i will follow

01:06:28.412 --> 01:06:31.152
up with the appropriate people i don't see why we

01:06:31.152 --> 01:06:34.032
could do that uh but i'll need to ask some questions of

01:06:34.032 --> 01:06:37.472
some people and and we can do that i built

01:06:37.472 --> 01:06:43.112
for myself i built some more letters uh that looks like the same phone yeah

01:06:43.112 --> 01:06:49.932
to to get other words was the same feeling and uh but it's uh yeah that's a

01:06:49.932 --> 01:06:54.072
lot to do and If there would be a font that would be great,

01:06:54.192 --> 01:06:56.852
I will ask. That's a great question.

01:06:58.400 --> 01:07:01.600
Yeah, I have one last one, actually, off my list.

01:07:03.080 --> 01:07:08.160
You know that the people in Battletact are incredibly enthusiastic and they

01:07:08.160 --> 01:07:10.120
love the whole franchise and everything.

01:07:10.300 --> 01:07:12.720
And there are a lot of events going on.

01:07:12.940 --> 01:07:20.780
People organize cons like this, but also tournaments like 2v2, things, whatever.

01:07:21.020 --> 01:07:25.140
Also online with MechWarrior Online and different games, not only tabletop.

01:07:25.140 --> 01:07:28.100
Of course there are also blood name

01:07:28.100 --> 01:07:31.300
tournaments for example in mc warrior online we organized a

01:07:31.300 --> 01:07:35.440
couple of those and there's always this discussion controversy

01:07:35.440 --> 01:07:41.780
or no whatever that word is um when is a blood name a real blood name is it

01:07:41.780 --> 01:07:46.840
official is it certified can i actually use that name or is that a false name

01:07:46.840 --> 01:07:50.580
or correct one an official one whatever this discussion is going on forever

01:07:50.580 --> 01:07:52.400
Do you have an answer to that?

01:07:52.920 --> 01:07:59.640
Um, I don't off the top of my head because I'm not sure I've recently had that

01:07:59.640 --> 01:08:02.100
discussion with Ray to see if he has a,

01:08:02.180 --> 01:08:08.020
a new set of rules that he applies to that, add that to the email list.

01:08:08.160 --> 01:08:12.940
All right. I will discuss with Ray and see if we can't come up with a definitive

01:08:12.940 --> 01:08:16.280
answer that we could actually publish and let people know. Because yes,

01:08:16.320 --> 01:08:20.540
it actually has been messy and chaotic for decades.

01:08:21.040 --> 01:08:26.780
It seems like we have to make a new meeting to discuss your answers.

01:08:27.560 --> 01:08:32.400
I have to be honest here. I'm coming along. But I heard something that there

01:08:32.400 --> 01:08:37.720
are CGL agents that are, you know, certifying those tournaments or the results.

01:08:39.540 --> 01:08:45.440
I believe that is the case. But once again, that's one step beyond who I really deal with day to day.

01:08:46.320 --> 01:08:51.400
And so I can follow up and get those questions answered. All right. So that was...

01:08:52.135 --> 01:08:55.855
On my list actually okay i have a few more um

01:08:55.855 --> 01:08:59.915
so uh will you sell

01:08:59.915 --> 01:09:02.955
um um max already

01:09:02.955 --> 01:09:05.875
painted in the future as some uh

01:09:05.875 --> 01:09:08.795
we are playing around with doing

01:09:08.795 --> 01:09:12.515
a full force pack that's all pre-painted um

01:09:12.515 --> 01:09:15.135
i think we've decided we're going

01:09:15.135 --> 01:09:17.935
to do that i'm not exactly sure um but yeah

01:09:17.935 --> 01:09:20.895
the putting the the single pre-paints in the four star

01:09:20.895 --> 01:09:24.255
league boxes was just a total experiment and

01:09:24.255 --> 01:09:26.995
to see how it would go uh so far it's gone

01:09:26.995 --> 01:09:29.935
over wonderfully well and so yeah we want

01:09:29.935 --> 01:09:33.115
to play around with that at the same time we want

01:09:33.115 --> 01:09:36.395
to be very careful because we know

01:09:36.395 --> 01:09:40.155
how much the community loves painting and

01:09:40.155 --> 01:09:43.135
so um you know for example

01:09:43.135 --> 01:09:46.075
the first two mechs that

01:09:46.075 --> 01:09:52.515
we painted already had those models out and then the last two were new models

01:09:52.515 --> 01:09:56.975
that hadn't been released yet and so then we're gonna release those unpainted

01:09:56.975 --> 01:10:01.835
models in the near future um so there's always kind of a balance between there's

01:10:01.835 --> 01:10:03.735
some people that love to buy the pretty painted,

01:10:03.955 --> 01:10:05.995
but plenty of people don't want to be able to paint.

01:10:06.375 --> 01:10:08.915
And so there's always a bounce between those, but absolutely.

01:10:08.915 --> 01:10:14.055
We're looking at doing a full force pack, all pre paints and see what happens. Oh, great.

01:10:15.135 --> 01:10:18.055
Okay. Um, there was a, um.

01:10:19.080 --> 01:10:27.400
A Battletech era, I've got the name right, the Dark Times, where new figures.

01:10:28.800 --> 01:10:30.880
With wheels under the mechs.

01:10:31.720 --> 01:10:35.780
What's Dark Times? Dark Age. Dark Age. Dark Age. Dark Age.

01:10:35.940 --> 01:10:40.180
So are you planning something to do with that?

01:10:41.160 --> 01:10:49.680
No, because all of those, the click base and the wheel and all of that is actually

01:10:49.680 --> 01:10:52.760
copyrighted by WizKids, they own that.

01:10:53.020 --> 01:10:55.680
So then we would have to go and work with them.

01:10:56.180 --> 01:11:01.000
Um, and so far we just haven't felt the need for that.

01:11:01.120 --> 01:11:06.720
Again, it seems like we can barely keep up with, uh, what we're doing now. Yeah.

01:11:07.320 --> 01:11:12.280
Um, we, uh, and unlike some of the previous areas, like the jihad,

01:11:12.440 --> 01:11:15.440
the dark age was very well covered in novels.

01:11:16.280 --> 01:11:19.080
Um so that doesn't mean that some you know every

01:11:19.080 --> 01:11:23.280
shrapnel almost has a dark age story and we're still touching on the story side

01:11:23.280 --> 01:11:28.440
but i don't think we have any desire to go back to the to the to have some type

01:11:28.440 --> 01:11:37.560
of releases with the clipness is it all okay um do we know the uh mega mac the uh pc.

01:11:38.980 --> 01:11:40.580
Do you play it? Do you like it?

01:11:41.040 --> 01:11:43.140
I have played it, yes.

01:11:43.720 --> 01:11:48.340
I have some friends of mine from clear back in high school that have been playing

01:11:48.340 --> 01:11:52.580
almost every week in a campaign for like years at this point.

01:11:53.522 --> 01:12:02.062
Um, I'm, I'm really lucky in that my kids play battle tech and I have a player group around me.

01:12:02.142 --> 01:12:05.502
And so whenever I want to play battle tech, it's pretty easy to just sit at the table.

01:12:06.122 --> 01:12:11.642
Um, but I have used it. It's very cool for what it does. Absolutely. Oh, great.

01:12:12.662 --> 01:12:21.562
Um, so, um, what is your, um, your project in the battle tech universe? What you love the most?

01:12:23.142 --> 01:12:27.262
Oh goodness um i mean

01:12:27.262 --> 01:12:31.482
it's a couple things one those meetings

01:12:31.482 --> 01:12:34.422
where we you know lock all

01:12:34.422 --> 01:12:37.822
of us together in a room for a couple of days and it's

01:12:37.822 --> 01:12:41.062
just us bringing all of our passion for

01:12:41.062 --> 01:12:43.762
this universe all the creative ideas that we

01:12:43.762 --> 01:12:47.162
have in our head and then uh you

01:12:47.162 --> 01:12:49.922
know literally sometimes all those yelling at each other no you're wrong

01:12:49.922 --> 01:12:52.822
my idea is better like just and figured out

01:12:52.822 --> 01:12:55.742
how to get through all of that to come out the other side with

01:12:55.742 --> 01:13:01.342
a really cool story and being able to look back and see those moments with you

01:13:01.342 --> 01:13:06.642
know the entire twilight of the clans series and then the the various eras um

01:13:06.642 --> 01:13:13.582
that is just one of the best experiences that i have um i think another.

01:13:14.342 --> 01:13:17.742
Thing that i find really amazing is

01:13:17.742 --> 01:13:21.802
that you know i've been doing this um longer than

01:13:21.802 --> 01:13:26.542
almost anyone else has ever worked on this game there's there's a few novelists

01:13:26.542 --> 01:13:33.822
that um are longer than i am uh stackpole for example but so far as being on

01:13:33.822 --> 01:13:38.742
the other side on the game development side There's no one that can do as long as I have.

01:13:39.102 --> 01:13:46.482
And so to still sit here and still be able to do a new thing in the universe

01:13:46.482 --> 01:13:53.882
that allows players to experience it in a new way, that's incredibly exciting to me.

01:13:54.062 --> 01:13:57.982
So for example, when the Battle Mac manual was published.

01:13:58.987 --> 01:14:03.507
Um, the, uh, the battlefield support rules that are in that,

01:14:03.687 --> 01:14:09.327
uh, I was able to go in and draft those because I had seen so many players that

01:14:09.327 --> 01:14:12.547
are like, I love the idea of combined arms,

01:14:12.847 --> 01:14:17.967
but just don't want to pull out all the record sheets for, and all the extra

01:14:17.967 --> 01:14:19.747
rules for vehicles and infantry.

01:14:19.747 --> 01:14:22.807
Um and then basically alpha strike

01:14:22.807 --> 01:14:26.667
showed that you could have all that really well in a

01:14:26.667 --> 01:14:29.527
combined arms aspect but they wanted in a classy

01:14:29.527 --> 01:14:32.547
battle tech and so the battlefield support rules were

01:14:32.547 --> 01:14:35.687
that vision and then the latest one is actually aces

01:14:35.687 --> 01:14:39.227
um which is there's um

01:14:39.227 --> 01:14:42.747
there's been plenty of rpgs of

01:14:42.747 --> 01:14:45.607
board game rpgs like say bloomhaven that have

01:14:45.607 --> 01:14:49.267
an incredibly good um ai

01:14:49.267 --> 01:14:52.167
system that you solely or

01:14:52.167 --> 01:14:55.067
cooperatively are playing against there's been

01:14:55.067 --> 01:14:58.047
a couple of tabletop miniature games that are

01:14:58.047 --> 01:15:00.887
okay but there's never been one

01:15:00.887 --> 01:15:03.927
that's just phenomenal in my mind um and

01:15:03.927 --> 01:15:07.147
so to be able to bring that experience

01:15:07.147 --> 01:15:10.567
not only to battle tech but what might just you

01:15:10.567 --> 01:15:13.767
know talking with pure hyperbole

01:15:13.767 --> 01:15:16.867
here might be able to actually change tabletop

01:15:16.867 --> 01:15:20.947
miniature played completely as hopefully

01:15:20.947 --> 01:15:23.807
we're bringing in a whole new crowd of people that have only ever played

01:15:23.807 --> 01:15:27.227
board games and i've always wanted to try tabletop

01:15:27.227 --> 01:15:30.887
miniature games but it's always pretty intimidating uh and

01:15:30.887 --> 01:15:35.107
because most board games the most successful board games of the last decade

01:15:35.107 --> 01:15:41.607
or even two decades have all been co-op and so then like versus is icky which

01:15:41.607 --> 01:15:45.107
personally i don't understand because i love slaying my enemies across the table

01:15:45.107 --> 01:15:47.307
right but most people really like the co-op.

01:15:47.427 --> 01:15:52.887
And so this idea that a, that an incredibly well-crafted AI engine and a co-op

01:15:52.887 --> 01:15:57.687
play something that might have a whole pile of board game players playing battle tech, that just.

01:15:58.483 --> 01:16:01.623
Blows my mind right that just makes me smile and so

01:16:01.623 --> 01:16:04.603
30 years on i can still be a part of bringing something like

01:16:04.603 --> 01:16:07.343
that out that's just magical for me

01:16:07.343 --> 01:16:13.443
uh actually there was a kickstarter not a while ago that they just uh kickstarted

01:16:13.443 --> 01:16:22.523
this idea where what for who i i had to look but um yeah they got small magnets

01:16:22.523 --> 01:16:25.863
with chips and the camera you use a camera,

01:16:26.963 --> 01:16:34.943
upside the battlefield and with the chips they already know where the miniatures

01:16:34.943 --> 01:16:39.743
are and then you can move it and they say it go to this location.

01:16:40.063 --> 01:16:48.763
So I'll have to hunt that out. I have yet to see a digital merging of Tim Tump

01:16:48.763 --> 01:16:51.163
manage games or war games that really works.

01:16:51.723 --> 01:16:55.563
Most of them end up just not feeling very good.

01:16:55.783 --> 01:16:59.743
Um, and so then they die. There's been quite a few games that have tried it.

01:16:59.923 --> 01:17:03.923
Uh, it'd be amazing if somebody actually managed to pull it off. So I'll do a lot for that.

01:17:04.303 --> 01:17:08.383
I don't know if they finished it. I just saw the price and say,

01:17:08.443 --> 01:17:13.063
okay, I want it, but, uh, at the moment I don't have the money and then I forgot

01:17:13.063 --> 01:17:15.903
about it till now. Yeah. Ultimately the.

01:17:17.171 --> 01:17:22.251
There's nothing inherently bad with trying to create a digital merger into the

01:17:22.251 --> 01:17:27.471
board games, but I think too often they're missing the point.

01:17:27.691 --> 01:17:33.231
Like some, there's a, um, there was a, uh, Arkham horror app,

01:17:33.371 --> 01:17:36.891
which is, I don't know if you guys have played Arkham horror.

01:17:37.011 --> 01:17:42.331
It's a giant board game and the app just helped you keep track of things.

01:17:42.451 --> 01:17:43.751
So it actually was pretty useful.

01:17:43.911 --> 01:17:50.591
I've used it. But too often they're trying to replace parts of the board game

01:17:50.591 --> 01:17:52.231
or the tabletop miniature experience.

01:17:52.391 --> 01:17:55.111
That is the whole reason I'm at the table.

01:17:55.691 --> 01:18:00.411
Don't take my dice away from me. Like the physiological, like,

01:18:00.431 --> 01:18:03.291
you know, rubbing the dice and hearing them hit the table.

01:18:03.931 --> 01:18:06.791
That's part of why we're here, right? Don't take that away.

01:18:06.951 --> 01:18:13.051
And so too often they remove what is part of a whole reason why we play these

01:18:13.051 --> 01:18:15.231
games. And when you do that, I think it's when they fail.

01:18:16.731 --> 01:18:24.311
That's what you sometimes have a feeling or a wreck for players who play Mega Mech.

01:18:24.671 --> 01:18:30.871
They say, oh, the rolling of the diesels was so bad or so hard.

01:18:31.731 --> 01:18:34.891
I said, did you mention our last board game?

01:18:36.291 --> 01:18:38.691
Our last Battletech round? What

01:18:38.691 --> 01:18:47.931
happened there? There were so much stories about worse or lucky dices.

01:18:48.491 --> 01:18:52.871
And it comes also when you play it on the board.

01:18:53.111 --> 01:19:02.331
But on Mega Mech, you play much faster and you get more of these incomes in a shorter time.

01:19:02.571 --> 01:19:07.991
I think that's a strange feeling, but it's nothing so different.

01:19:07.991 --> 01:19:11.891
And it's sometimes filled.

01:19:12.608 --> 01:19:16.028
Well, it's really fascinating because it's,

01:19:16.408 --> 01:19:24.848
you know, think back over the last 10 stories of a game, not Battletech,

01:19:24.948 --> 01:19:30.208
some other game, that you told to somebody else, family, friend, another gamer.

01:19:31.308 --> 01:19:35.208
And how many of those were victories and how many of those were failures?

01:19:35.208 --> 01:19:37.948
And having talked with a ton of people and asked

01:19:37.948 --> 01:19:41.068
this question everywhere almost everyone are

01:19:41.068 --> 01:19:43.768
like yeah it's mostly if i did really well i'm not

01:19:43.768 --> 01:19:47.528
going to tell them what i did bad and i'm like okay now switch that to battle

01:19:47.528 --> 01:19:52.948
tech and how many times do you share a story and it's actually in the crazy

01:19:52.948 --> 01:19:58.888
defeat that you most often tell the story and most of the time it's in the crazy

01:19:58.888 --> 01:20:03.168
defeat And it's actually one of the things that makes, I think,

01:20:03.368 --> 01:20:11.128
Battletech really unique in that it tells a story every time you roll the dice.

01:20:11.588 --> 01:20:18.388
And often the best stories that you love are those unbelievable defeats, right?

01:20:18.468 --> 01:20:24.408
You walk on and the crazy BB straight into the Atlas with the floating crit,

01:20:24.748 --> 01:20:27.988
three engines dead, first turn, right?

01:20:27.988 --> 01:20:31.308
Um and any other game right they're

01:20:31.308 --> 01:20:34.648
like flipping the table they're stomping away and don't

01:20:34.648 --> 01:20:37.388
get me wrong we all can get a little mad about that but most of

01:20:37.388 --> 01:20:40.568
the time we're just laughing our heads off and then telling that story over

01:20:40.568 --> 01:20:45.848
and over again right um and that's just kind of amazing to me that there's something

01:20:45.848 --> 01:20:51.448
about that shared story that happens when rolling dice in battle tech which

01:20:51.448 --> 01:20:54.828
is why it's you know four years later and i'm sitting here in germany be talking

01:20:54.828 --> 01:20:57.268
together about this, because it's just phenomenal.

01:20:57.608 --> 01:21:02.028
And the way it builds communities and has us all being here together.

01:21:04.729 --> 01:21:09.889
I don't know if you know, Decent 2, the latest version of the Decent board game,

01:21:10.009 --> 01:21:16.509
they made a companion app, and we played it, and that's what's really nice,

01:21:16.589 --> 01:21:18.529
because it doesn't take anything away,

01:21:19.369 --> 01:21:25.409
and only add the part,

01:21:26.289 --> 01:21:30.769
some more info digital,

01:21:30.769 --> 01:21:33.789
yeah but i have everything on

01:21:33.789 --> 01:21:36.909
the board my my miniatures the

01:21:36.909 --> 01:21:40.049
enemies the trees everything and i

01:21:40.049 --> 01:21:45.729
think they did a really good job to to add the the extra so that you can play

01:21:45.729 --> 01:21:50.449
a co-op and don't have a dungeon master like a decent one yeah absolutely that

01:21:50.449 --> 01:21:55.829
that can be made to work yeah um but again that's still not a tabletop miniature

01:21:55.829 --> 01:21:59.469
game i'm not sure i've ever seen a tabletop miniature game,

01:21:59.709 --> 01:22:03.869
bring the digital side in in a way that actually works.

01:22:04.269 --> 01:22:07.289
Um, and you know, maybe someday, someday I'll figure it out,

01:22:07.329 --> 01:22:13.989
but there's something about just moving the models and pulling your string or the laser round, right?

01:22:14.089 --> 01:22:19.029
It's, it's just such a visceral feeling that you want the physicality.

01:22:19.109 --> 01:22:22.769
And if I'm playing digital, you know, I can go play Scaram all the time, working on this case.

01:22:23.269 --> 01:22:26.089
Here's a great scene to battle tech. Yeah. Okay.

01:22:27.909 --> 01:22:34.289
Yeah. One other one. How do you play city maps? How do I play city maps?

01:22:35.609 --> 01:22:41.989
Go to the streets with the hexes, so a building has a full hex.

01:22:42.989 --> 01:22:55.529
Or sometimes we make the watchlines like the buildings are painted on the maps, printed on the maps.

01:22:56.440 --> 01:22:58.580
I've done it every which way.

01:23:01.840 --> 01:23:05.840
It's almost like the combined arms that I was just talking about with Battleforce.

01:23:06.380 --> 01:23:12.180
I love the idea of playing upon Battletech maps with buildings.

01:23:12.640 --> 01:23:17.840
The implementation of playing with buildings often is so time-consuming to track

01:23:17.840 --> 01:23:23.540
damage at every hex that I usually just kind of sidestep it or the further all

01:23:23.540 --> 01:23:26.140
Castle Brian hexes so nothing can be destroyed.

01:23:26.700 --> 01:23:31.260
Um, no, I've printed out like the, the buildings that are on our city maps.

01:23:31.520 --> 01:23:36.980
Uh, I have giant tubs filled with those ridiculously giant buildings and you

01:23:36.980 --> 01:23:42.320
put it down there and it looks awesome, but to actually interact with them and blow hexes up and stuff,

01:23:42.540 --> 01:23:47.180
it's one of the parts that is just really hard to do. Um, yeah.

01:23:47.980 --> 01:23:53.020
And, uh, um, the point was, uh, how did you use the line of sight?

01:23:53.260 --> 01:23:58.000
You have, uh, also two options. You can set only the building,

01:23:58.200 --> 01:24:03.880
it's printed blocks, a line of sight, or the whole hex. Oh, sorry.

01:24:04.740 --> 01:24:08.260
We do the full hex. The full hex. Yeah.

01:24:08.860 --> 01:24:14.840
Because if you do only the building, my reasoning is, well, then why are you

01:24:14.840 --> 01:24:17.120
not doing that for tree hexes?

01:24:17.580 --> 01:24:21.180
And so for me, it's like it's considered to be filled the hex.

01:24:21.680 --> 01:24:25.740
And that's part of the little idiosyncratic parts of the Battle Tuck.

01:24:26.625 --> 01:24:30.185
Okay. The size of the miniatures,

01:24:30.845 --> 01:24:39.025
are they now, especially the size between the Macs, are they now the real different

01:24:39.025 --> 01:24:45.165
size or do you plan something that the Atlas is much, much bigger than the Locust or something?

01:24:45.165 --> 01:24:52.965
Uh no when we were doing the new these new plastics that came out starting in 2018 i think,

01:24:53.485 --> 01:24:57.605
um a lot of time and effort went into locking

01:24:57.605 --> 01:25:00.305
down this is what the size is this is what the

01:25:00.305 --> 01:25:03.105
scale and doing the sizes all the way up

01:25:03.105 --> 01:25:06.105
at each time and then as each one comes

01:25:06.105 --> 01:25:11.765
out it's carefully slotted in like there's a they'll do the dimensions and the

01:25:11.765 --> 01:25:17.985
volumetrics and then even when all of that's done and the STL is done and we'll

01:25:17.985 --> 01:25:24.525
then drop it in between the max where it's supposed to be in a set of renders of the max,

01:25:24.605 --> 01:25:28.265
just as one final look to go, no,

01:25:28.485 --> 01:25:32.065
I think it needs to be just a little bigger, a little smaller.

01:25:32.285 --> 01:25:35.985
So no, a lot of effort goes into trying to scale those exactly right.

01:25:38.364 --> 01:25:42.784
I've got two more questions from my co-host.

01:25:43.544 --> 01:25:51.164
One is, when you do the next law meeting, it would be nice if you make the German

01:25:51.164 --> 01:25:53.864
podcast battle pod something in-game.

01:25:57.544 --> 01:26:00.544
Keep that in mind. Yeah, he will write it in the mail.

01:26:08.604 --> 01:26:15.824
Okay, and then the last question is, what is your feature vision of Battletech,

01:26:15.964 --> 01:26:19.444
or how do you see Battletech in like 10 years?

01:26:20.224 --> 01:26:22.124
That is a great question.

01:26:25.144 --> 01:26:35.064
So, when we launched the Mercedes Kickstarter at Adepticon 18 months ago, 18 months, 24?

01:26:35.904 --> 01:26:40.684
Anyways, when we launched the hit mercenaries, kids started at Adepticon and we just.

01:26:41.564 --> 01:26:45.584
And this time again, the card was empty.

01:26:45.744 --> 01:26:53.424
I'm really, really sorry, but it was the last question and his answer was clearly good division.

01:26:54.004 --> 01:27:04.464
His version was when someone came into a building store, he looked for something, uh, for a kid.

01:27:05.064 --> 01:27:15.264
And he knows like Star Wars or Star Trek or tabletop war humor is that he not

01:27:15.264 --> 01:27:17.004
only knows these traits,

01:27:17.604 --> 01:27:20.784
but he knows Battletech as well.

01:27:21.304 --> 01:27:24.944
So Battletech is one of the best.

01:27:26.684 --> 01:27:32.484
Yeah, I don't know what else. I don't know what else.

01:27:33.557 --> 01:27:36.737
Really sorry that the card was empty again

01:27:36.737 --> 01:27:40.497
and checked it too late just after this

01:27:40.497 --> 01:27:43.617
question I was gonna say goodbye

01:27:43.617 --> 01:27:50.957
to him so I have to do it now I'm really sorry for the inconvenience I'm sorry

01:27:50.957 --> 01:28:00.977
for my English and we make a follow-up podcast with Renner we talked about that he set yes,

01:28:01.277 --> 01:28:04.817
and we will add it to our mail.

01:28:05.237 --> 01:28:12.497
So thanks for joining us. Thanks for taking your time and here's this podcast with Rwanda.

01:28:12.797 --> 01:28:20.797
If you have any questions or something else, just tell us and we'll see what we can do.

01:28:21.177 --> 01:28:28.277
So have a good night, have a Good day, good evening, and till next time,

01:28:29.077 --> 01:28:30.717
and now something in German.

01:28:36.483 --> 01:28:42.763
SD-Karte was I was about to do 30 seconds later or a minute later I was not

01:28:42.763 --> 01:28:50.803
getting now it looked like it was good on any way it was a very,

01:28:51.583 --> 01:28:58.243
nice conversation with Rumble, the film was also nice, we have another episode about it,

01:28:59.143 --> 01:28:59.803
Fragen,

01:29:00.443 --> 01:29:06.143
Wünsche Anregungen normal, you can see us wieder zukommen lassen.

01:29:06.223 --> 01:29:07.003
Ansonsten noch eine Info.

01:29:07.083 --> 01:29:09.383
Wir hatten jetzt leider ein paar technische Probleme auf der Website.

01:29:09.863 --> 01:29:12.703
Die sollten jetzt gelöst worden sein.

01:29:13.623 --> 01:29:18.183
Ich danke euch alle für die Aufmerksamkeit für eure Zeit, die ihr genommen habt.

01:29:20.423 --> 01:29:24.003
Falls ihr sagt, okay, hier, ihr wollt mal was in den Hut werfen,

01:29:24.063 --> 01:29:28.103
das war uns ein besseres Mikrofon für außen holen können, als das,

01:29:28.263 --> 01:29:31.823
was wir jetzt genutzt haben oder auch für den einen oder anderen von uns ein

01:29:31.823 --> 01:29:33.283
neues Mikrofon besorgen können.

01:29:33.623 --> 01:29:37.723
Wir haben ja Patrons study, or us also so schreiben.

01:29:38.943 --> 01:29:44.023
I thank you all for the Ausnahmsenkeit and until next time. Bye.