I guess the answer is yes.

DAMMIT!!!
Well, great job with Twilight 2013. In any case, you've helped keep my favorite game alive and made some interesting updates to the game world. I'm not free of criticism of certain parts of 2013 but overall I'm impressed. If 93 is closing the doors then there's good reasons for it and my only gripe is that it sucks that 93 is going away.

Group,

I thought I would pass along that DriveThruRPG is bundling most or all the T2013 material. If you have ten bones (USD $10.00) left over from buying Christmas presents, you can have all the necessary material to run Reflex with your T2K game (including Tegyirus' vehicle rules).

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/produc...s_id=64418{1}1

Tony

Actually, I'm not aware of Keith having published the vehicle errata in anything on DriveThru. That's posted in the core book errata thread on 93GS' forums. It's also available in my unpublished manuscript for Driver's Guide: Czech Your Engine, which I've made available for free on my own site.

Still, ten bucks for setting, rules, Everytown, and five Shooter's Guides ain't a bad deal.

- C.

Clayton,

Sorry, I meant to link your rules! They are not part of the bundle. Thanks for the correction, my mistake.

Tony

The background was flawed, yes, but saying that the background ruined the whole system is just wrong. I will take a superior game system with a crappy background over a crappy system with superior background 8 days a week. I end up modding most background info in whatever games I run, anyway.

The Reflex system is far and away the best small-unit combat rules system I have ever encountered. I suggest that any T2K fan would benefit from reading them.

Jason,

I'm sure there are people that somehow don't think they're wrong in holding the opposite opinion. (If I may joke, it's good you've finally settled the debate; now we know where we stand we can all get on with our lives!) Either way, if people want to pick up the system to have a look, it's available at a reasonable price.

Tony

Psst... it's also available for free.


Free!

Stich,

Sure, now you're going to tell me there's some "magical" way to download movies and music to your computer without paying for it either, using some kind of electronic medium. Heresy!

If you live in Canada, you can download the core rules for free legally (or for that matter, anything else as long as you don't resell it) but not in the USA. When locating pirated copies of T2013 on a file-sharing site, I tend to find that not a lot of the supplemental material is available or conveniently bundled together.

Like many things in life, I could be mistaken!

Tony

Late to give an opinion but...

They certainly made some bad choices but we all do. They might have underestimated the task. However, I would advocate that most gamers current attitude made the success unlikely not their initial choices. Too often, we simply want too much people.

As it was the case with the initial game. However, I would agree with the idea on the map. However, for my parts, I'm not even sure that most americans even know what a map is (and this is spreading fast to Europeans). After all, while I was studying in US, a US student (senior in international political studies) told me that he whished to drive down to Germany (we were in Vermont!!). Of course, you still can drive through Canada, the Behring strait (provided you are in full winter with enough ice), all of Russia and Poland but that might be tricky... If we didn't have to rewrite T2... backgrounds we wouldn't be here in the first place.

Didn't go that far, with two little girls and too little available time, I always found the rules too heavy. I made the same mistake on my own game design and I'm know correcting it. I'll be reducing the character design phase from 50 to 10 pages and the rules from 20 to 4-5. Meanwhile, I'll expend the background section and edit books focused solely on background. The best in this is that it takes a couple of days to write a background while it takes a bunch of months to design the rules.;)

When I was saying that we want too much. Without PDF, no RPG design is possible today. I won't do anything else, hard copy is nice but out of reach. Too expensive to make, Too expensive to send, takes too much place in your already full storage room, sending it to stores is also hell. I don't know elsewhere but, currently, in France, you only have two surviving so called rpg editors and these guys are only a bunch of incompetent lying a..h...s

Here is a huge mistake, I agree. In the initial exchange I had with smokewolf, he told me that they were going to develop sourcebooks on countries (I'm still waiting for it). When, I saw the sourcebook on firearms I ceased to visit 93gamestudios. I tend not to care about big guns and big guys (but that just me). Not enough on vehicles, planes, ships..., also

You too hard on this, I think. You forget one thing, when you put yourself to such a huge task, you have to make choices and assume them. Just too bad that they couldn't change path. Terminating the project is their only bad choice IMO. Put it on hold, make your money and start it all over again.

I have suspended my own game for five years (I understand personnal reasons). I restarted the distribution over last summer. The funny part is that I sold more copies in three months that any shop in 7 years. I had the same problem that they had but I'm now working at correcting them and I hope to release a new version in 2011 along with an english version (at last). The point was simple: i needed to make a living first and to organize my life (didn't I said that twice already?:p). I hope that 93gamestudio will be capable of doing something similar. About hard copy, if anyone wants one, no problem, just get your cash ready. It could be sold at 100$ for only 10$ in PDF.:D

Mohender,

We should really have a separate thread that goes like, "T2013 sucks! No, T2013 is awesome, YOU suck!"

Like it or not, this is a fan forum primarily for T2K. There is going to be an orientation in that direction from many people, although the list mods like Targan have made it clear that this forum has no real or implied anti-T2013 bias. In fact there's a lot of love for T2013 out there. Many would have been satisfied simply with an update and expansion of the rules if the background was largely unchanged, thus continuing a process stretching from v1 to v2 and v2.2 . I believe I understand some of 93GS's reasons for updating the background, although of course I wasn't party to the decision-making process in the slightest.

Although .pdfs are a boon to small companies like 93GS they do pose a problem in that it's relatively easy to pirate them. One could argue that free/pirated material is really no different than leafing through a book in a game store, and that people who actually want to run or play the game seriously eventually buy the books themselves. There's probably truth to both views, but small game companies simply don't have many cheap options.

Tony

Oh, very classy.

- C.

Do you want a copy?

Hopefully this asshat gets banned soon.

You can't win, Cavtroop. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

And don't call names!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111

I didn't do anything. Stop all the hatin.

Hey guys, the mod hat is on. Keep it civil. No name calling or blatant provocations. You're free to share your opinions here as long as you do so in a mature, respectful manner.

So we're going to ignore illegal activity and preach good manners, instead?

I'm sure most of us, if not all, have downloaded something copyrighted, but to preach to do so in a public forum? Isn't that a little much? Especially when two of the creators of the copyrighted material are semi-frequent members of this forum...

That was one of the "blatant provocations" that I was referring to. I will have a word with the individual advocating this as well.

Rae,

Maybe Kato or someone should add this into the New Member thread? It's hard to make a hard and fast rule on what is a gentleman's agreement.

That while it's recognised that copyright violation via file sharing is a fact of life, discussion or encouragement to do so with regards to T2013 is considered bad taste in this forum. In fact, all such discussion is best left to PMs or private emails.

Tony

Why only 2013? Is piracy of earlier versions OK or something?

I noted that there are 1,251 copies successfully downloaded from just one site. I then considered that since this forum is one of the largest online communities for this particular game I'm absolutely sure I am not the only person here who believes that information ought to be shared.

BUT! I shall stop about the illegal activity (even though I live in a country with more freedom than the actual "land of the free" and so it isn't illegal). No need to send the sheriff after me with a stern warning. I get your point and I'll just keep it under my hat.

You have my word.
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/1...3572145455.jpg

I think so. But that's just my opinion. Some people out there are interested in the game but can't afford the money to spare on a PDF, but costs 0$ for me to duplicate. If it means helping people enjoy the game (and participate in my online game) then I won't hesitate to do so.

I'm not going to encourage others to do the same, but I'm also not going to stop either. The more people with the opportunity to experience the 1/2.2 the better I think.

Snake,

There's more of a hot button issue with T2103 as Tegyrius and others have worked on it, and it's a more current product. In other words it's more of a direct affront to them, personally. Not some point of abstract legal principle that isn't universal, largely given lip service where it is but otherwise mostly ignored.

Give T2013 twenty years like T2K, we'll see if anyone cares at that point about who's pirating it any more than T2K. At that point, I would welcome it if there were still a dedicated community and fan base for T2013, even if not all have paid. At least they're playing it or otherwise keeping it alive.

In the end I don't think anyone would flip if I were to mention that I just downloaded scans of all the SPI Moves magazines, S&T #1-60 and Ares magazine. Score! :cool:

Tony

I think the issue with T2013 is that it's all just happened recently. The wounds are raw. Tegyrius and Keith just watched hundreds of hours of their hard work fall to pieces. They can still recoup some of their costs if people pay for the merch that they produced. This is not a cash cow. They'll be lucky if they break even. Actively undermining their efforts to recoup some of the costs on this forum is somewhat of a personal attack. That's what I don't want to see here. I'm not advocating that sort of wheeling and dealing here (I purchased both the v1.0 and v2.2 rulebooks- used- at over original cover price and I bought the original v1.0 box back in the day) but if you really must, please conduct that sort of business via PM.

As for earlier versions of T2K, the people that hold the liscenses and sell the PDFs had nothing, AFAIK, to do with the creation or sale IMO of the original T2K products. IMHO, it should all be open-source now (i.e. free), but that's not how it works. DriveThru and other "legit" sources must be making a killing selling PDFs since they cost nothing to produce. Whatever. I understand what Eddie and Snake are saying. We shouldn't be using a public forum to conduct activities that are technically illegal.

I guess somebody probably ought to check with Marc Miller and verify that pirating that other stuff is really OK with him. I'm sure he's cool with it. Not like there's any real money at stake.

Far Future Enterprises
1418 N Clinton Blvd
Bloomington, IL 61701 USA

Email: farfuture@gmail.com

http://www.farfuture.net

For the record, my name is on the Designed by: line as well. It's a little personal to me, too.

Snake,

When those mugs send me the T5 I pre-paid for, we'll talk. :p

(Not that I really mind, of course, my dough is going towards developing their future product.)

The truth is, I don't need Marc Miller to tell me what he thinks I should download, when or for what purpose. The laws and customs of where I live are different than yours, as all ya'all would say I don't have a dog in this hunt. Besides, I think we all use some copyright material without permission, it's not the end of the world.

As for T2013, I already bought two copies with real money, I'm encouraging others to do the same if they want, and there it is. Merry Christmas to you, and to everyone!

Tony

Before people start blaming Far Future Enterprises for anything, they should remember that it's a one-man operation. Marc Miller, by himself with a little help from family and friends. If your order is a little late, send him an email and ask what's up, it's really that easy and he's alway been very approachable in the correspondance I've had with him.

Before people start claiming places like DriveThru RPG are making a profit from old GDW products, they are an authorised distributor and their authorization comes from Marc Miller, the legitimate licence holder for those old GDW products.

Before people start spruiking free downloads for anything, they should remember that this is an international forum and in some countries what you're advocating is illegal or unethical and at times just outright insulting to the originators of that material.
It's all well and good to claim that information should be shared but when you start distributing the hard work of someone for free, you prevent those people from making any money from their legitmate efforts. Why the hell would they then want to make more material for a hobby that doesn't give them a big return for their efforts in the first place. You're not sticking your fingers up at some megalithic corporation like Ha$bro here, you're simply screwing over a very small group of people who had hoped to make some contribution to the gaming community and at least get paid for their efforts.

BAH humbug! It's the 25th of December and I hate people already :(
No wonder I like cats & dogs better :p ;)

Look at your copy's title page.

Look at my sig line.

Now think long and hard about the degree of uninformed dickery you just displayed.

No, you don't even begin to get the point. But you gave us a number. Let's talk about that for a second.

The PDF you advocate pirating is currently at Gold sales ranking on DriveThruRPG, the venue that accounted for the vast majority of softcopy sales. Gold ranking means that product has sold between 501 and 1,000 copies (this isn't privileged data, BTW... the Gold ranking is on the product page and the correlation of sales to tiers is available with a little digging). So, by your data, lost sales from piracy are greater than actual softcopy sales.

1,251 copies. At $20/copy. Assuming DriveThru takes 50% of the gross (which is implausibly high - I think it's probably around 30%), that's $12,510 in lost revenue.

$12,510 in lost revenue for a one-man company that, to the best of my knowledge, is shutting down for financial reasons.

Congratulations. Your belief that information ought to be shared is a direct contributor to the demise of Keith's dream and the cessation of work on Twilight: 2013. I hope you enjoyed what you got because that's all there's going to be.

Don't bother. You've already shown us your idea of integrity.

- C.