User talk:Trifler

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*******Be Bold*******

Unseen/Reseen

Hi Trifler,

first off, thanks for explaining your position. Please don't consider my input an attack against you.

I think there is an underlying misunderstanding here regarding the definition of "reseen" based on what you wrote in the Wolverine article:

"The (original) Wolverine was one of the Unseen Mech designs. It was re-released with new artwork as one of the Reseen, but is otherwise identical."

...because that's not correct. It wasn't re-released. The Projec Phoenix 'Mechs are new, additional variants. And they aren't identical, they - being advanced variants with 3067 technology - have quite different stats from their unseen parent designs.

BattleTech's original Wolverine is the Succession Wars-era WVR-6R. Its visual appearance and that of its contemporary variants is that of a Dougram T10B Blockhead, and FASA agreed not to use this artwork after 1994. As a consequence, the Wolverine continued to exist in BattleTech but it could not be shown anymore in FASA publications. As a way out of this dilemma FanPro's 2003 Technical Readout: Project Phoenix established that around the year 3067 a new, upgraded version of the Wolverine appeared, the WVR-8K. It looks very different from a WVR-6R (which continues to look like it alyways did, and thus remains unseen). The important part here is that the WVR-6R and WVR-8K are two different 'Mechs, the latter being an evolution of the former and not a re-release. In the timeline past 3067, Wolverines would usually be of the -8K variant or derivative variants. Since they looked differently, they could be shown. That was the ooc reason behind the whole TRO:PP.

Now what is a "Reseen"?
At first people called the Project Phoenix (PP) 'Mechs "reseen" - because they were variants of the unseen that, because of their visual changes, could legally be shown anymore and weren't unseen anymore.
But since then some events muddied the waters: Around 2009, CGL thought for a brief time that they had secured the rights to the unseen imagery. All "unseen" 'Mechs were "reseen" again. So now the term "Reseen" applied to both the PP 'Mechs and the original unseen.
Next, CGL found out that they had not, in fact, (re)acquired the rights to some of the original unseen. As a consequence, some (but not all) became unseen *again*. Of these, the Ostscout, Ostroc and Ostsol were later deemed to be visually sufficiently different from the contested images that they became un-unseen *again*, and in this sense, "reseen".

MWO is not in a position to add canonical content to the BT universe so their treatment of the issue is not a valid argument.

Hope that clears it up a bit. :) Frabby (talk) 07:30, 18 August 2014 (PDT)

Thank you for your first line there. I was indeed feeling rather attacked. That has helped relieve some of the tension.

First I'd quickly like to mention that I think it's more accurate to describe PP as new "variants" rather than as new "mechs" since it says that the TR provides "the in-character explanation that the designs had been modernized (and, hence, been brought back into the spotlight with a different outer appearance). If nothing else, they do have the same tonnage and the same name. I would agree that those with a different name and/or a different tonnage were new mechs (Marauder II, for example).

I do understand what you're saying about the Reseen being considered "new" 'mechs released further down the timeline, but my original point was that they still need to be mentioned somewhere. It's not like this wiki has a separate article for each of the newer Reseen variants. That being said, I much prefer to list them on the same page, possibly under a special heading or something. Your point about them having a different loadout is something I hadn't sufficiently considered, but I still think it's valid to add a Reseen section to each 'mechs page, with the Unseen and Reseen variants separated into their appropriate sections.

I suppose my preferred definition of "Reseen" for the purposes of this wiki would be something like as follows:

• Anything that was classified as Unseen due to legal reasons and later became legal again, using the same variants, in the same place in the original timeline, with the same artwork, would lose the Unseen status and simply be neither Unseen nor Reseen. We don't need to know the "original" Unseen if the status is no longer relevant, just the ones that are Unseen as of today. Maybe it could be mentioned in a history of the 'mech section or something, but not at the top of the article.
• Anything that was classified as Unseen, then had new variants released further down the timeline (ala PP) would have Unseen variants (ala WVR-6R) and Reseen variants (ala WVR-8K). The current Wolverine page has one piece of artwork. Perhaps a second image could be added for the proposed Reseen section.
• Does that cover all of them? I'm not sure. Let me know if there's a third category.

I believe my main underlying concern is that regardless of what's true or not, a great many people out there equate an Unseen label as being illegal to use, including game developers. When these 'mechs are labeled as Unseen on their wiki pages without anything to indicate that they are legal now, a lot of people see them as unusable. I think pains need to be made to avoid this confusion. Having cool legal mechs left out of a game because they thought it was illegal is a tragedy, and these days, pretty much anyone who doesn't own the technical readouts themselves, comes here.

It would be nice if CGL would release a new official technical readout that supercedes all previous, as was done before, and covers from 2750 to 3067. They could provide a nice list that eliminates the whole Unseen, Reseen, Unseen again, un-Unseen business and we could all say "to hell with all this mess." --Trifler (talk) 22:59, 18 August 2014 (PDT)

Well, personally I'm in the grognardy old "take the unseen away and you'll lose me too" camp. Anyways, I've been meaning to write a comprehensive series of articles on Unseen, Reseen and the various lawsuits involved in the matter. It's really an important matter for BT that is woefully under-represented (in both volume and quality) here on Sarna, despite us aiming to be the premier BT wiki. It's just something so big that I simply didn't get round to properly go about it yet. Part of that effort would probably include the creation of a tag with a suitable text for "unseen" 'Mech, i.e. those which have an unseen variant.

(Sorry for replying so late, but my rl workload just exploded two days ago so I'll not be very active on Sarna for a week or two to come.) Frabby (talk) 00:11, 22 August 2014 (PDT)

I wasn't suggesting taking away the Unseen, just removing the label for the ones that are no longer illegal. :) For example, a 'mech that was labeled as Unseen, but then returned to the same time period with the same artwork. The ones that remain illegal would keep the Unseen label.

It sounds like we're working towards some agreement on Reseen, so may I remove the delete tag? Especially if you plan on writing an in-depth article... Good luck with your RL workload. --Trifler (talk) 18:14, 22 August 2014 (PDT)

Hello, I'm still getting used to the communications on this site and missed your talk page when looking for guidance on the Unseen. I'd like to get these terminology issues ironed out in order to put up the most complete (or least confusing) article possible. Can I invite you to take this discussion to Talk:Unseen? Thank you. - Cache (talk) 15:10, 26 November 2014 (PST)

MechCommander

Thank you for helping out with the video game work. If you want you can go over to the "project page" and put which games you have so we can figure out who will do what. Unless you don't want to spend the time on it now, which is perfectly fine. -BobTheZombie (talk) 10:26, 5 October 2014 (PDT)

Watched pages and notification

Hi Trifler, I saw at Talk:Unseen that you said you don't get notification for changes to pages you're watching. Just to clarify, a page you're watching will be highlighted in bold when checking the "Recent Changes" and you can also go to your "Watchlist" page (upper right screen) to see a digest of recent changes to pages you're watching. The Wiki system does not, however, positively alert you to changes to these pages. Frabby (talk) 06:18, 28 November 2014 (PST)

Really? That sucks... Every other wiki I've worked on (more than a few) would e-mail me when a watched page was edited. Good to know it's not just me I suppose. --Trifler (talk) 23:42, 28 November 2014 (PST)

MC2 Feedback

I looked over the pages and liked what I saw. I think that the structures perhaps should have their own page as we could then link to their headings (like for the weapons), or we could go more in depth, like I plan to with MechWarrior 4. I noticed a general lack of links but I could add them when I proofread it. It could perhaps be more organized (i.e. divided into relevant groups, etc.). I think that if you swapped the bold headings for ===These Headings=== it'd look a lot better. I'll go through and proofread/fact check it, but after my quick glance over it it looked good. This reminds me I need to get moving on that MCG work that I've put off. I should have more time closer to Christmas to work on the wiki. Thanks very much for your continued help! I can't imagine how long this would have taken if I would have done it alone. Thanks again! -BobTheZombie (talk) 14:39, 9 December 2014 (PST)

• I only added turrets. That's why I put them on the Vehicles page. If you want to add all of the structures, then I see what you're saying. I didn't link the turret names since there are no BattleTech versions of them, and there really isn't anything to say other than what I wrote in the description column.
• All of the vehicle weapons were verified by pausing and selecting an enemy vehicle from within the game. However, the armor isn't listed in the game and I took that from an online FAQ. Presumably that person got the info from within the game files.
• Oh... If you're referring to the bold headings such as "Reactor Explosion" then I preferred the way I did it to using ===These Headings===, so that was deliberate.
• You'll have to be more specific when you say "dividing it into relevant groups."
• I could see a link to the Jump Jet page, maybe to the Heat Sink page... but I'm not sure what else. What all were you thinking of?
• Glad you like the content. I played through the entire campaign again to gather everything and test several things. I'm glad Alt+Tab worked with this game or it would have been impossible. There's a FAQ on the 'net that says that armor plates can't get critical hits, but my testing disagrees. For the BattleMech Range section, what I wrote isn't 100% of the time. I found that on a rare occasion, a medium or long range 'mech will sit immobile during a fight no matter what unless the player issues a move order. It seems to be glitch though as it seems to work they way I tried to describe it 90% of the time. --Trifler (talk) 18:37, 10 December 2014 (PST)

Sorry I missed your response; it must have slipped past.

• The turrets are fine as is; once we get the rest of the info/stats down we can worry about what to do with them (make specific pages for each turret, make specific pages for all of a game's turrets/structures, etc.)
• There is an "Encyclopedia" section of the game, and I thought that info might be in there... perhaps not.
• I just like the aesthetics of the headings vs. the bolding. Once again, we just need to move the raw data and can worry about final touches/formatting later.
• I meant a different page for turrets... kinda... I dunno.
• Yeah, there aren't too many, I just noticed it looked kinda barren; I'll go through it soon
• That's dedication, man. Thanks for all the work you put in! -BTZ

I feel dumb now for now thinking of the in-game Encyclopedia. :P I'll double-check the vehicle armor against that. At least my 'mech armor data wasn't for naught. --Trifler (talk) 04:34, 16 December 2014 (PST)

No worries; that's just the first thing I'd check; if it's not in the manual/encyclopedia/gameplay, it may be in game code (if you can reach that), and if it's not in the game code, use a third-party source and cite it. -BobTheZombie (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2014 (PST)

Confirmed. All of the vehicle armor checks out. --Trifler (talk) 03:11, 22 December 2014 (PST)