The Big Bad by David McCallum #701548

Yesterday Patrick brought our attention to the future of Mecha Galaxy and the concept of aliens or not.


I'm going to weigh in on my views, and how I would go about it.


Now, at the end of the day, the game is about the mechs. Backstory is great, but its the mechs and the game-play that counts. That's the biggest thing that needs the revamp.


I'll explain my position.


If you examine other franchises, along with the heroes and all their associated imagery, their is also their adversaries.


Star Trek had Kirk, Spock, the Enterprise and on the opposition... the Klingons. When they became allies in The Next Generation, the recurring nasties became the Borg. Voyager tried to bring in a nasty  called the Kazon at the start of the series, which unfortunately didn't gel with the audience, so they had to trot the Borg out for another outing... fandom went wild.


Batman and the Joker. Doctor Who and the Daleks. Superman and Lex Luthor. The list goes on and on.


The thing is, they all have three things in common.


The imagery of the bad guy is iconic and easily recognisable, almost as much as the heroes are.


The heroes don't fight them all the time. They have other adventures and other adversaries.


When the arch nemesis turns up, everyone goes wild.


Sometimes, the bad guy even gets a victory.


And the point with that is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with players losing. Hell, every single one of us has tasted defeat at some stage, if not in KotM or PvP then in a clan war where somebody came out of nowhere to kick us all over the place. We've gotten to the stage now where the raids and missions are a grind to get loot, rather than a legitimate fight to be respected.


Drake and any other clone based army is a good gimmick, especially when we end fighting ourselves, but since he became an actual player, Drake lost his mojo as a bad guy. Scaly face and his minions Bismark and Xerxes just didn't have the staying power... we deride rather than respect them.


We need a new "Big Bad".


Easy to say, says you all, but how would you go about it?


Ah-ha, says I, I have a plan.... a plan so cunning you could, as they say, put a tail on it and call it... a weasel.


Step 1. Throw a competition. Its a mech game, so we need mechs. Sketch artwork for a distinctive mech, say 200 niodes for the one chosen. Something for Nick's staff to get their teeth into. Private submissions only. If it appears on the boards prior to release, the entry is disqualified. Sorry.


Step 2. From that the devs create 4 versions of a mech. Light, medium, heavy and BFM. These are now the iconic bad guys. Also create a line of weapons and perhaps equipment for them, again individual and iconic. Power wise, it should probably be in the same power - weight ratio that the Novum is... in other words, definitely worthy of being the powerful bad guy. If you really wanted to be evil, make it completely unique, like the Romulans cloaking device was originally. Acid attack, that gives 100% burn chance? Electrical arc for 100% freeze? Something our current shields can't mitigate....


Step 3. NEVER EVER SELL ANY OF IT ON THE OPEN MARKET. This stuff should be sought after prized possessions. No price, resale value of zero. If it can't be bought, it's also fair that players can't make a profit from it.


Step 4. The release. Obviously the big one will be in a raid, but the first inkling, the build up as it were would be in ultra rare mission drops. Not the frequency of new mechs we had at Yomi with the dino mechs, but with the frequency that Novum drops in Novum Delorum are currently. Scattered

through all the missions, the drops can be either mechs or the specialised weapons and equipment. All nice and mysterious, all to get the player base doing missions. And don't restrict the level like the Regis was, its going to be rare enough as it is. If a low level is lucky enough to get a BFM, let them keep it... its only going to want those at their level do the missions to counter it.


Step 5. The Raid. The very first time, I'd almost be inclined to lock clans and hit them with a surprise auto-started raid, like we were hit with just prior to FW1. Hell, make it so hard that it will be really difficult to complete. Let the bad guys have a victory. Make the players respect them. The raid itself of course should consist only of the new mechs, so we know exactly who we are dealing with. Sure, drop the weapons and gear and level appropriate mechs as raid prizes... 1%, maximum of 1.


Heck, the first time, we wouldn't even need to know who the enemy was or where they came from... the artwork and backstory can come later... keep up the suspense.


The thing is, to get the good stuff they have, we should want to play. Want to do the missions, want to do the raids, because there should be no other way to get this stuff which should be hard to beat and a prized possession to have. It should be an enemy we respect, and not one that shows up every five seconds. If its a hard raid to beat, maybe it will act as a deterrent for people bottom loading their clans with weak players to drive their level down. When we get word that the random drops are starting to show again, we should getting on guard for a bad time.


Give us something to band together for. Something to respect or fear. Make us work for it.


Give us a new "Big Bad".


And it all ties back to that very first competition, the artwork for the first mech. It could be awesomely alien. It could be animal derivative. Or Zombie mechs. Crystalline. Steam-punk. Anything really. But that imagery would drive the new Big Bad... anything goes.


As long as we fear it....




(all references to other franchises are copyright of their respective owners and is used here for journalistic purposes. No challenge to trademark should be implied in any way)


Submitted by David McCallum #701548