LAST EDITED ON Sep-15-15 AT 10:08 AM (EDT) by pjmoyer (moderator)
 
> Most of the Sun Fang Dougram designs, for instance, I don't think
> needed a lot of messing with - they were never in Robotech and I'd be
> surprised if they were subject to the Harmony Gold nonsense

As the abridged story goes; everything that wasn't designed in-house has been subject to the Harmony Gold nonsense. Harmony Gold are the only ones who actually complained, and have notoriously been the most difficult* party to please with any given redesign attempt, but the other stuff has been subject to the same treatment regarding redesigns.

> MWO's version of the
>BattleMaster, for example, is just too dang wide for its
>height, as is my beloved Griffin (which no longer looks like
>something a man could wear as a powered suit).

If I'm honest, I think I prefer Battlemechs to not look like they could be something a man could wear as a powered suit.

>This is a common problem with the MWO versions of the Technical
>Readout 3025 'Mechs, in fact, even the non-licensed ones. MWO's
>Victor has exactly the same problem. They look like you're
>playing at a 4:3 resolution on a 16:9 monitor.

Funny thing I've noticed about a lot of the mechs gaining some rather unseemly width is where they quite notably do not in their concept art. The Centurion, in particular seems to be quite lithe in its concept art, but kinda squat once the model reached completion. Assault mechs, though, are apparantly just destined to be really broad in MWO. I guess to make them look heftier? I dunno, I was never much of an Assault mech fan anyway.

>
>It's a good-looking game overall, and I can certainly understand the
>designers' goal of making the 'Mechs all look like they belong to the
>same tech base. I'm just not sold on how they did it in a bunch of
>cases.

I think MWO's probably done some of the best jobs of making these 'mechs actually look the part. At least in initial execution - the variant weapon-port models sometimes make me cringe for being really weird choices (The torso LRM racks on the Awesome really, really ought to be round, y'know?) or failing to apply nicely (the changes to the Centurion's autocannon arm make me a sad panda) but on the whole, MWO has made a lot more of the mech designs look like awesome giant robots that might actually hold their own weight up in combat, and that's nice.

I should probably actually -play- the game again sometime soon.

~Silv'
*Well, second most difficult probably. The first, naturally, being the nostalgia-ridden fanbase.