Lake Stevens, Washington -- Catalyst Game Labs (An InMediaRes Productions, LLC company) announces the return of novels for Classic BattleTech, MechWarrior, and Shadowrun. The re-launch of these perennial lines will include an amazing selection of authors--including New York Times' Bestselling Author Michael A. Stackpole.

"The triumphant return of three of the most seminal adventure gaming book lines heralds a great next step for all the brands," David M. Stansel-Garner, Operations Manager for Catalyst Game Labs said. "We're really excited to bring these novels back to thousands of eager fans who have been waiting patiently for their return."

"An estimated 25 million people having played a game or read a novel set in the BattleTech Universe since its inception almost 25 years ago," Stansel-Garner continued. "Throughout that time BattleTech alone has inspired over a dozen video games, a cartoon, a collectible card game, a collectible miniatures game and several toy lines. Additionally, it has amassed one of the largest fictional universes in the sci-fi genre, with over 170 gaming products and almost 100 full-length novels (with much of that translated into over a dozen languages world-wide). Tie that together with the hundreds of thousands of copies of Shadowrun's 120 game sourcebooks, video games, and 50 novels (also translated into numerous foreign markets)... we have a lot of eager fans chomping at the bit for these new books."

Bestselling author and owner of InMediaRes Loren Coleman will return to pen more novels in the Classic BattleTech line. "In 1994 I read through the Warrior trilogy in a single weekend. I've been a devoted fan ever since. I expect to feel much the same way as I pick up the new storyline installments. Working with top writers on a compelling storyline is one of my greatest joys as a writer. Coming back to it now--and with Mike back on board as well--it's like our favorite park has just been reopened. I'll bring the green army men. He'll supply the fireworks."

Look for the first MechWarrior novel, "A Bonfire of Worlds" by Steven Mohan, Jr. in November 2008, followed by the first Classic BattleTech novel, "Shadows of Faith" by Loren L. Coleman in December. The first of the all-new Shadowrun novels will appear in January 2009.

To all fans of the now considered "legacy" mechwarrior titles: MW2, 3,(including Pirate's Moon) 4 (vengeance) maybe titanium trilogy, Mechcommander and Mechcommander2....

The Mech3 Community Project, mech3.org, is considering hosting multiplayer lobbies for all of these titles through SlideGamers. They have multiplayer lobby client software that is nearly identical to what the Zone used to be. So, in light of this, we're wondering how much support there would be from the fans of these games. We'll need to run them all solely on donations at mech3.org., and that is the support we're looking for. (in addition to having ppl actually play of course).

Please give us your replies to this thread, we want to see all opinions and weather or not you'd be someone who is willing to contribute.

Mech3.org has been around since 2003 and we have existed as a non-profit entity since then and have relied only on personal donations to keep us going. We are most likely going to start the project with at least 1 lobby each for Mech3 and Pirate's Moon, and we believe our membership will be able to help us. But adding all the other lobbies is going to bring up the cost, so we're fishing for support.

Please visit us at the link on my sig, stop by the forums and say hello