...I've read TRO: 2800 dozens of times, read TRO: Shadows of War nearly 20 times (as best I can with google translator), and TRO: 3063 more than that after all the revisions and spell-checking.
Doesn't matter. Here it is - the end product of YEARS of effort, art worth THOUSANDS of dollars from his own pocket (and the donations from other fans) - WORSHIP THE SHEER EFFORT AND BALLS it took to finish it. And - it - cost - you - NOTHING!
...The man created something that will endure long after he quits. The number of people who have are vanishingly few. Someday I hope to be one of them.
There's too much thread drift here. If you haven't just read it and have already posted, go start a new one. You have no business here to other than read other people's first opinions and impressions.
Why not use the time to start your *OWN* project?
Let me be quite clear here, I have not and will not criticise the effort, as it is apparent from both the blog posts and end result that the effort was exceptional. I will respect the effort, not worship it, as blind faith is something I don't do.
As to actually working on my *OWN* project, at last count it had crossed half a million words, with 2GB of data backing up, mainly documents and spreadsheets, so I understand better than most what it takes to build such a work. I also expect feedback and nit picking, hell I hope I always get it, as it helps me to constantly improve what I am doing.
However, my issue was and remains the other poster’s comment:
"Enjoy it for what it is, as good a fan product as has ever been created without creating an AU (and arguably even then) and don't try to nitpick on why the designers did A or B."
My point was that if something with this much fan hype around it is published, then expect, accept and respond to the critique it will receive. For example, the follow quotes from Cent13's blog in May of 2009 clearly highlight what was intended:
“It is a standard BattleTech Technical Readout, produced by fans to resemble very closely the kind that…Catalyst Games produces.â€
“It must be carefully researched so as not to conflict with canon; that is, material already accepted in the Battletech 'universe' as accepted fact, history or whatever you want to call itâ€
“What our team has tried to do is insert war machines wherever and whenever we can in the established framework without contradicting the canon.â€
Therefore, the team set the bar high from the early phases, and when making such public comments regarding such a long running and well publicised project, people are going to look for that detail and accuracy in the finished product. However, it was good to see such goals set early, other Fan Projects suffer for lack of such long term vision.
“It may be that we will still make errors; the Battletech universe is a very, very big and complicated place. Lots of stuff happens and if you don't read every single word of every single page of every single publication, online and in hard copy, you will miss it. And someone out there will catch you.â€
And here is the crux of it, Cent13 understood that the fan community would go over things with a fine tooth comb, something that the other poster has seemed to miss. Cent13 has been good enough to respond to all of the comments, both here and on OBT, and I am sure elsewhere. However, the other poster’s comment was both narrow minded and short sighted, as it would deprive both the current and future works by the same group of constructive criticism, which could be used to improve both current and future endeavours.
So, like I have said, well done to the team that pulled this off, but as pointed out already, there are errors and they are being fixed, but no TRO has ever made everyone 100% happy or mad, so both positive and negative comments should be both expected, accepted and used to their fullest to improve things.
