BTM Relaunch Discussion

[MrPig]

So, I have some good news, and I'd like to talk about operational relaunch and what we'd need. However, I also have a habit of getting ahead of myself on things like this, so I want to try and be transparent, and get people's consent before running into walls.

• The good news is that I received the OK from the admin of the Reddit Battletech discord to share the link there, when we're ready. I also have, near as I can tell, standing permission to share the link on the Reddit itself.
  
• I am also aware of other communities where we could take a sort of 'We want writers' approach rather than just 'Battletech roleplay'. I think we could do well both for our own community and for Battletech overall if we are able to get, say, fanfiction writers, or Warhammer & Firefly fans into the community. One of the things I love about Battletech is how it covers so many styles. One of my friends got into Battletech because of how similar it was to Legend of the Five Rings. I've gotten people interested with the pitch of "Game of Thrones with Mecha instead of Magic."
  
• I couldn't keep up with these recruitment drives because, well, it takes a lot of mental energy for me to do that sort of thing. I prefer to write content rather than weasel my way into communities hoping to recruit people. This community is near and dear to my heart, and I want to see it back on its feet, and I feel our greatest strength is our writers and our willingness to help people into the universe.
  
• I'm by no means saying we should shift our focus away from the Talitha thread; in fact I think if we do a relaunch, the Talitha thread is where we'd begin, and that the end of that thread is the canonical launch of the timeline.
  
• I got my hands on a blank Inner Sphere map with no faction borders, so I am now an unsupervised toddler with a crayon. We can make whatever maps we want. I’d like to be able to generate our own maps so we can add planets as we wish, instead of having literally thousands of worlds on our map.
  
• I’m still looking into such a solution; I think I can do it if I get my hands on Excel and grab a certain plugin, and then just run a modified version of Sarna’s compilation of coordinates and dates. I’d run those coordinates, excluding worlds we don’t care about, and add them as we please.
  
• One project I was thinking of doing was doing a sort of audiobook for the thread. I've got a decent microphone, and, I like to think, a decent voice. If folks are OK with it, I might do a recording of the posts of the Talitha thread and post & share it on Youtube.
  
• I also have a friend who is an ace with social media, and she said she'd be interested in handling & assisting BTM social media.
  
• I mentioned using Campfire to track units and our alt-canon, but if we do a site rehaul, I think we could use free Wiki software, and track everything that way, and enable players, writers, and readers to all contribute, instead of overloading site staff.

I have other thoughts, like how we could simplify processes, but that’s getting a few extra steps ahead.

What’re folks’ thoughts and feelings?

[ForwardThinking]

I'm an oldie interested in getting back into BTM, so this could be exciting. I'm watching this thread and will contribute when I come up with something.

[Rabbit]

I would like us to get more on our feet before we start pulling in people that were never a part of BTM before. Right now, we are limping along on our story... which I will definitely take my share of the blame and then some for. Yeah, I know... life and all that but I am not even going to excuse it, just apologize for it.

Please accept my apologies for dropping the story ball and making the "getting the band together" step take much longer than it should have. In the future, if that happens on my end, please feel free to take some liberties to get the story moving again. Yes, that includes writing my people to do so.

Back to the point of this thread... a relaunch of BTM.

As stated earlier, I would really like us to have our collective selves together before we relaunch. At the moment, we are just half a dozen or so writers tossing words into a story. While this is indeed our goal, we are not prepared at the moment to expand to anything beyond that. We do not have staff and we do not have admin rights to our current site. Moving to another site will indeed fix that, but then what do we do with all of this? We also would not have access to the BTM data, most especially all of the hardware data.

So, for right now, let us explore options but focus ourselves on getting a story together and moving. So, when people do come looking be they returning players looking to see if people are active again or new players wanting to know what's up, we have something to show them.

[MrPig]

There's two distinct issues here I'd like to point out. One, as you've said, progress on the thread has been slow. We should strive for at least two posts a week to show that there's activity at least.

The second is that the thread is buried in a part of the forum that isn't accessible to non-members. They have to register and log in to read what we've written. We should consider moving the thread into one of the visible forums so people can read it and judge for themselves.

I am concerned that without an agreed vision, that we'll falter and the thread will just be the end of things as it either finishes or falls off. If we can figure out at least a next step, it'll help us get back on our feet a bit quicker.

[Mcraven]

I became part of this community because of my love of Battletech and the lore behind it. I had just returned from Afghanistan, and this community not only offered me a forum to exercise my mind, allowing me to experience life within the timelines, it also let me grow a circle of friends not too unlike the men and women I served with. They (you) inspired me in ways that allowed me to normalize, and in my subsequent deployments, kept me sane in a world gone mad. I was in war torn and ravaged countries, and, believe it or not, was able to function by thinking through the submitted contract, making sure to schedule my patrols so I could be at a base, where I could submit my posts within the time limits put out by the managing staff. I built my company into a Brigade, with the help of several very talented writers, and several other contributors. I had to be propped up more than once, first, when my spouse died, and then when I had physical injuries that needed more extensive hospital time. Through it all, it was my love of this forum that kept me going, and brought me back.

I am just sharing my experiences because I don't think I would remain on this site or go to a new site that would allow other story lines outside of our community. Don't take this wrong, but Battletech already has that type of forum, as do several other fan fiction sites. Our attraction has always had to do with our unique approach. We have lost people, and are even now feeling the down turn of interest, but that is Real Life, or RL, as people call it here. Giving people a wider base of topics to write about might give a surge in the beginning, but is very hard to support, especially with limited staff. Building a structure of in game rewards alone would be daunting, even if we were fully staffed.

As far as logging in, and the guidelines that have become the rules of this community, for me, that has always been part of belonging. I still read through the forum rules prior to posting to make sure I am within the standard. Just another part of being in BTM. I'm sure if the Staff hadn't had issues in RL, they could provide their reasons for this forum more eloquently.

As far as the story line dragging, I haven't posted anything over the last week because I was waiting for submissions from others. We are at a point in the story line, let's call it the turning point, where other writers have introduced ideas, but are still either drawing up their characters, fleshing them out, or have had RL get in their way. So, a pause was necessary. To tighten up the "rules" to 2 posts a week, well, that might be detrimental to the people who want to contribute, or those just thinking about it. One post, every two weeks has always been the minimum.

Specifically in our story, Drakno wanted to introduce the space element, but hasn't been back since. Cool Hand is in the works on his unit, and let me know at the beginning of the week that he is working on the initial approach to Cloverdale, after his post last week. I myself have been waiting to hear more of Mr Pig's spacer ideas, so I can figure out if we have a large enough transport piece, if not, I will still need to push the story arc to try and "convince" the supply run to lift us all off world. I have never been one for outlines, or making people post, since we are here, or not, because we want to be. The sky's the limit!

Now, I am not anything but a contributing voice in this community, and I am all about supporting anything that will bring more writers into the fold. I would be willing to subscribe to whatever could help open the lines of communication. That said, I probably will not join another site to do what I get done, and have gotten done, here. I am an old stick in the mud, and have aspirations to continue with my own unit, once the community gets up and running again. Even if I am only running a company, I owe it to my characters not to just disband them. As with Grayson Death Carlyle in "The Price of Glory", when he rallies his personnel for one last push, As he starts his mech forward, he actually ponders "what if", what if his people don't follow? He, like me, would still push through to the bitter, yet inevitable end.

I don't know if I have made any sense of my feelings towards the relaunch. or if I am just that voice in the wilderness, speaking my thoughts out loud.

[ForwardThinking]

Just to be clear, so are units no longer writing separately on their own anymore? There is instead a join-thread everyone is writing in?

Thanks in advance for clarification.

[Mcraven]

Hello Forward Thinking, and welcome!

So, for right now, we are all writing in a group thread, expanding on a canon event in the timeline, as we wait for the return and new arrival of writers to our community. We have discussed resetting the timeline, but I for one expect and hope for a return to the units already established, as well as new units.

[MrPig]

Hello Forward Thinking, and welcome!

So, for right now, we are all writing in a group thread, expanding on a canon event in the timeline, as we wait for the return and new arrival of writers to our community. We have discussed resetting the timeline, but I for one expect and hope for a return to the units already established, as well as new units.

I suppose there's some confusion here then. I didn't know we were visiting an existing event.

I do like our setting, but the timeline is hard to read. Perhaps, alternatively to a reset, perhaps a backtrack? At the very least we should work to clarify the timeline.

Either way if we want to return to functionality, we're going to have to do some work and reclaim some resources. The website is unfriendly and out of date, and we'll need to get access to its functions, or replace them with new ones.

[Rabbit]

Mr Pig...

The BTM timeline starts at the end of the FedCom Civil War in a universe where the Jihad did not happen. Everything past that are things that were written out based on contracts, etc. and the paths that the staff took us down. There are things that did happen in the BTM timeline that happened in canon BattleTech to include the union of the Capellan Confederation and the Magistry of Canopis and the creation of the Rasalhague Dominion but many of the other canon events did not happen.

Currently, we are writing about what happened during Operation Guerrero, the invasion of the Federated Commonwealth by the Free Worlds League and Capellan Confederation prior to the FedCom Civil War in 3057. This operation and events within actually lays the foundation of the FedCom Civil War. We chose Talitha as our setting because it fell in the first wave of Operation Guerrero and there's not lots of canon information on the planet's conquest so we had room to play without messing something up. But, yes, this is a thing that happened in the timeline.

At to the BTM timeline, resetting it or going partway back will invalidate it as much as a full reboot. If we go back to 3075 (as a year that I just picked out of the air), then we lose about 25 years of BTM canon not to mention several major units would have never been created. Lots of things wouldn't have happened. I have no issue with a full reboot, but that's because I don't have any units that are considered active so have nothing at all to lose. But what about the Black Talon Phoenixes, who McRaven commands? They are active the last time BTM was. What about the units and MUCOs that want to come back? I have a hard time seeing the Rabid Wolves, Razan's Ronin, or the Restless Souls giving up WarShips to start a new company from scratch. We would lose a lot of veteran players in a reboot because they didn't want to start over and lose all their very cool toys. BTM could compensate them some for the new unit, but certainly not to the level they are at now.

In my mind, the biggest issue with rebooting everything is the same issue as getting back to "normal"... we don't have the people to do it, staff or writers. A lack of both has helped to put us where we are at right now. It was definitely helped by COVID, the chaos here in the US, and the Director being pulled away due to terrible RL issues but even WAY before that, it was a problem. I can say that as a player, MUCO, and former staff at all sorts of levels from the literal beginning of BTM.

Assuming things come back to a more "normal" BTM setting, then I don't think that anyone has any issues with creating separate units and doing your own thing. In fact, if you really want to make your own unit and just go with something instead of writing on Talitha, you are welcome to. We offer our current setting on Talitha because there are so few of us at the moment so this is chance for everyone to write together instead of being scattered to separate units.

That's my two cents and I hope it was helpful and not entirely just a rant.

[MrPig]

Okay, so no screwing with the timeline. I can get behind that. I took a crack at making it readable once, I can do it again.

I hear you in saying "we're not ready" to return to the way BTM used to run. True, not right now. My point is if we take no preparation, we never will be.

I have the tools to make new maps and such, and I think I copy pasted the hardware spreadsheets.

The question is, though, I suppose, do we want to? I assume we do - contracts and salvage and purchases and all that, we'll go back to doing all that, eventually. Or do we want to do something more freeform, write what you will?

I for one really liked that there was a sort of metagame to BTM, and would like to see something like that structure return, though I think it can and should be simplified.

I advocate for changes to the site not only because it's out of date, but because relying entirely on staff to keep it updated creates points of failure. If we lose our Loremaster, who's writing metaplot? Having the playerbase help maintain the metaplot and details in a tool like a Wiki should alleviate at least some of the workload from the staff. If we had just one staff member, we'd still be able to function at least in part.