Version 4 of the game

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I understand your point but I think 2013 shot itself in the foot at least once and that didn't help things much. By that I mean the restrictions they put on people for contributions to the development - I seriously considered submitting information but when I saw the demand for proof of military service by submittal of your DD 214 Form (or equivalent) I decided not to do so.
I completely understand that they wanted to weed out the wannabes but for us in Australia, you can't just send military documents to foreign nationals and besides that, Army Reserve members didn't get discharge papers when they finished their service.

Among some potential contributors that approach created a feeling that there was some sort of elitism going on and they decided not to get involved. The timeline/history that 2013 provided deserved some criticism, for example it failed on some points of geography that would have been very easy to check with a simple internet search.
Having said all that, the rules were (and still are) good and a lot of the support material was equally as good.
But 2013 lost a lot of goodwill when the head honcho blamed die-hard fans of T2k for 2013's lack of success - purely military themed rpgs have always been a niche market, I don't recall any that have ever sold as well as T2k except perhaps Palladium's Recon/Advanced Recon game. So any new military rpg was never going to sell in large volume and 2013's release was around the same time as D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder were getting the lion's share of publicity and the hype for D&D 4 was building up.

[Legbreaker]

As I indicated earlier, market research when developing a product, ANY product whether that be a new design of shoes, confectionery, or a game is absolutely VITAL to it's success. With T:2013 that didn't appear to have happened, as as SSC has mentioned, what little external input they accepted was heavily cherrypicked.
With this new version we've heard absolutely nothing, even though (we presume) development has been going on for quite some time. This does not bode well at all for a successful release and acceptance by the gaming community. All we know for sure is there is a "press release" scheduled for publication sometime in the 3rd quarter of this year.

[Raellus]

I get it what y'all are saying, but I'm not sure that asking the 400-odd fans of a dead system what they want out of the new version of their favorite old-school RPG is the best path to developing a marketable new RPG, c. 2019.

I think that the whole point of developing a new version of the franchise is to move outside of the echo chamber of established fandom. Will this alienate fans of the older versions of the game? Probably. Will this ruin the chances of the new product making money. Probably not.

-

[Legbreaker]

Considering we are the majority of the market for them, it's sheer idiocy not to find out isn't it?
They don't have to cater for everyone, but don't you think it's a smart idea to at least try and cater for the majority?

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Considering we are the majority of the market for them, it's sheer idiocy not to find out isn't it?
They don't have to cater for everyone, but don't you think it's a smart idea to at least try and cater for the majority?

If we are the majority of the market, then there's not enough of a market to turn a profit on a new product and the project should be shut down.

My expectation is that they may try to broaden the scope to be a post-apocalyptic survival RPG that still has a lot of military backgrounds but also has more emphasis on the civilian side, to broaden the market. Essentially, look at what 2k13 did and do the opposite, because they narrowed the scope so much that they had no market. There's room in the market for PA games, and given what's out there, I think it's enough of a differentiator to have a serious game based on realistic tech (as opposed to a far-future PA with wondertech or the comic-book style mutations of Gamma World) without also pigeonholing players into strictly military backgrounds. The trick is to find enough of a differentiator to stand out without becoming so niche that you artificially limit your market.

That said, if it is going to Modiphius' 2d20 system, I'm almost certainly out of their market because I don't like that system. I'll just stick with my collection of GDW T2k and continue adding to it as I find old product in used book stores.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

If we are the majority of the market, then there's not enough of a market to turn a profit on a new product and the project should be shut down.

We are the majority of the current market. That market may well expand, but where do you think most of the earlier reviews are going to come from?
With all my years of product development, sales, etc, I can't think of a worse way to approach this than they appear to be doing.

If they're changing the background, the rules, and setting it in a different time (say 2025), can it really be called Twilight? Why not just call it "Armageddon" or something like that and be done with it? Is it just an attempt to ride on the coat tails of the earlier games?

Of course all of this is pure speculation. We know virtually nothing at this point and may well be pleasantly surprised when the first official information is published (due in about 4-6 months I believe). Personally though, I'm not holding my breath.

[Olefin]

Well we know there is obviously some kind of decent market out there or the works that I did and Raellus did wouldnt have had many sales at all - and keep in mind that they were only offered at one place - i.e. got me how many fans never go to drivethrurpg.com at all or who are only interested in actual printed material and not pdf's. (i.e. I'll just stick with my collection of GDW T2k and continue adding to it as I find old product in used book stores.)

The real question is how much remains of the original market and does the new release managed to be released in such a way that it can really build an enduring and large enough fan base to make it profitable to pay people to write new material for it and make a profit

i.e. there are only so many people like Raellus and me who did it because we love the game versus working authors doing this for a living and thus having to sell enough product to be able to pay them and still make a profit

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

We are the majority of the current market. That market may well expand, but where do you think most of the earlier reviews are going to come from?
With all my years of product development, sales, etc, I can't think of a worse way to approach this than they appear to be doing.

If they're changing the background, the rules, and setting it in a different time (say 2025), can it really be called Twilight? Why not just call it "Armageddon" or something like that and be done with it? Is it just an attempt to ride on the coat tails of the earlier games?

Of course all of this is pure speculation. We know virtually nothing at this point and may well be pleasantly surprised when the first official information is published (due in about 4-6 months I believe). Personally though, I'm not holding my breath.

One thing I am hoping the new licensee/owners are smart enough to do is to allow people to still write for and release material for the old versions as well. That would also expand their releases - i.e. this month its V4, next month you get a "classic V2.2" release, etc..

Sort of what Star Trek has done - i.e you have books now being written on both the reboot Star Trek and the classic Star Trek and both sell well.

Thus I couldnt see why they couldnt embrace what I or Raellus wrote or what Leg is thinking of writing as part of what they are doing as "classic releases" instead of for the the new canon.

Still very much canon but now canon for V2.2 versus canon for V4

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I understand your point but I think 2013 shot itself in the foot at least once and that didn't help things much. By that I mean the restrictions they put on people for contributions to the development - I seriously considered submitting information but when I saw the demand for proof of military service by submittal of your DD 214 Form (or equivalent) I decided not to do so.
I completely understand that they wanted to weed out the wannabes but for us in Australia, you can't just send military documents to foreign nationals and besides that, Army Reserve members didn't get discharge papers when they finished their service.

Among some potential contributors that approach created a feeling that there was some sort of elitism going on and they decided not to get involved. The timeline/history that 2013 provided deserved some criticism, for example it failed on some points of geography that would have been very easy to check with a simple internet search.
Having said all that, the rules were (and still are) good and a lot of the support material was equally as good.
But 2013 lost a lot of goodwill when the head honcho blamed die-hard fans of T2k for 2013's lack of success - purely military themed rpgs have always been a niche market, I don't recall any that have ever sold as well as T2k except perhaps Palladium's Recon/Advanced Recon game. So any new military rpg was never going to sell in large volume and 2013's release was around the same time as D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder were getting the lion's share of publicity and the hype for D&D 4 was building up.

This very much. I’m an international politics major/history minor with a background in research and intelligence analysis and have done contract work for the NSA but they dismissed my offers out of hand. When this attitude was brought up on (I think) Yahoo Groups they were less than courteous. I looked over the finished project and found the whole background premise somewhat laughable.

[Benjamin]

The issues I worry about for V4 are...

1. that the Timeline will be too politicized given our current social climate.

2. it will be just generic PA game with no real Twilight War focus.

3. It will very quickly become dated with a background that almost immediately feels wacky.

4. It will overlook the longer conventional war that led into the Twilight, thus lacking leftover forces serving overseas and the foreign and abandoned feel of the original

5. It will lack a good vehicle combat system and all of the in depth vehicle descriptions

What I would really like would be for the designers just to suck it up and make it an alternate history background set in the same time period as the original. Look at how popular the Team Yankee table top miniatures game has become. Maybe do a tie in with that game if possible. Twilight 2000 with integrated miniatures rules and cool minis would be great. A generic Post Apocalypse game is totally worthless to me.

Benjamin

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

The issues I worry about for V4 are...

What I would really like would be for the designers just to suck it up and make it an alternate history background set in the same time period as the original. Look at how popular the Team Yankee table top miniatures game has become. Maybe do a tie in with that game if possible. Twilight 2000 with integrated miniatures rules and cool minis would be great. A generic Post Apocalypse game is totally worthless to me.

Benjamin

Thats why when I wrote the East Africa/Kenya sourcebook for the canon I set it in the same time period, with mentions of multiple other modules and events (Going Home, the RDF, Kings Ransom among others) to tie it completely into the current timeline. Extended the timeline a month or so - i.e. my "now" is around mid-May 2001 - but otherwise it fits. Even made sure that if I mentioned real world events they took place in the context of the timeline instead of breaking it.

Hopefully the new writers will do something similar

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Thats why when I wrote the East Africa/Kenya sourcebook for the canon I set it in the same time period, with mentions of multiple other modules and events (Going Home, the RDF, Kings Ransom among others) to tie it completely into the current timeline.

I'm writing the ANZAC book so it can stand alone without tying in too closely to any of the other books - the only connection really will be to Korea where I intend to send about a Brigade of Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Islander forces to join the UN mission there.
Haven't settled on the date as yet, but likely mid 2000.
Hopefully this new edition won't impact what I've already done too much, and they won't be overly protective of their edition and will actually allow the community to add quality work to the base materials. It'd be even better if they published my work and I actually got paid!

Originally Posted by CDAT

Um is Team Yankee still even a game?

I've never even seen it myself, let alone know of it being played anywhere in the whole of Australia. It's possible though I suppose....

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I'm writing the ANZAC book so it can stand alone without tying in too closely to any of the other books - the only connection really will be to Korea where I intend to send about a Brigade of Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Islander forces to join the UN mission there.
Haven't settled on the date as yet, but likely mid 2000.
Hopefully this new edition won't impact what I've already done too much, and they won't be overly protective of their edition and will actually allow the community to add quality work to the base materials. It'd be even better if they published my work and I actually got paid!



I've never even seen it myself, let alone know of it being played anywhere in the whole of Australia. It's possible though I suppose....

I tied mine in to other books to explicitly make sure it showed it was part of the canon - i.e. it was part of the canon, just an area that hadnt been covered before - thus the events of the canon were tied in to it to show that what happened in Kenya didnt happen in a vacuum

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

...

What I would really like would be for the designers just to suck it up and make it an alternate history background set in the same time period as the original. Look at how popular the Team Yankee table top miniatures game has become. Maybe do a tie in with that game if possible. Twilight 2000 with integrated miniatures rules and cool minis would be great. A generic Post Apocalypse game is totally worthless to me.

Benjamin

Um is Team Yankee still even a game? At least in my local area (5 games stores all with places to play) none of them even knows anything about it. We had one member of our local group pick some stuff up for it, but then they killed the forums and that killed what little interest there was in my group. But I have never seen a game played, or even heard of one being played with in at least two hours of where I live, lots of other games that I know nothing about. But if that is the definition of a popular game I think we might be in trouble. As "dead" games have more talk around here than Team Yankee. (Dead games I am talking about are like AOG Babylon 5 Wars, and even Twilight 2000).

[Olefin]

There has been new modules released for Twilight 2000 including one new canon module - thus there are new releases for it that are "in print" - i.e. you can buy new material for it instead of having to depend on either a used bookstore or a pdf of material released years earlier

Thus technically the game was revived from the dead back in 2017

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by CDAT

Um is Team Yankee still even a game? At least in my local area (5 games stores all with places to play) none of them even knows anything about it. We had one member of our local group pick some stuff up for it, but then they killed the forums and that killed what little interest there was in my group. But I have never seen a game played, or even heard of one being played with in at least two hours of where I live, lots of other games that I know nothing about. But if that is the definition of a popular game I think we might be in trouble. As "dead" games have more talk around here than Team Yankee. (Dead games I am talking about are like AOG Babylon 5 Wars, and even Twilight 2000).

I’m referring to the newer table top skirmish game. It just came out with a new book “Oil War” which covers armies in the Middle East.

https://www.team-yankee.com/

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

I’m referring to the newer table top skirmish game. It just came out with a new book “Oil War” which covers armies in the Middle East.

https://www.team-yankee.com/

I knew what game you are talking about, I just did not know that it was popular game. As I have never heard of anyone playing it, any store stocking it, or anything like that. As I was saying even games that are thought of as dead (regardless of if they really are or not) are more "popular" than that active game. At least in my area after you take out the card games (Magic and such) probably the next most popular games are Warhammer, and Battletech, followed by Star Wars Armada.

[vihkr]

Originally Posted by CDAT

I knew what game you are talking about, I just did not know that it was popular game.

North American Nationals 2017--it's pretty big.

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

This very much. I’m an international politics major/history minor with a background in research and intelligence analysis and have done contract work for the NSA but they dismissed my offers out of hand. When this attitude was brought up on (I think) Yahoo Groups they were less than courteous. I looked over the finished project and found the whole background premise somewhat laughable.

Had a similar experience, and they were even less impressed because I'm a civilian and always have been.

[Olefin]

Better yet would be to just pick either V1 or V2.2 timelines and then make possible rule changes (i.e. incorporate changes to the combat system, make the fuel more realistic as to what kind of energy you can get out of ethanol or methanol, show JL8 jet fuel as what the military was using as a distinctly different fuel than high octane general aviation gas, correct some of the issues in game play that people have found over the years) and then either have the releases be during the current timeline (i.e. up to April 2001 and have them occur during the period that the games covered) or better yet extend the timeline and take it forward thru 2001, 2002, etc..

When I was told they werent looking at Africa or Australia it immediately made me think this was going to be a very North America or Eurocentric game and not expand it to include events all over the world like Raellus and myself did and like the Challenge articles did.

Frankly all we dont need is another aborted Twilight 2013 type launch

FYI as to political views - check out Frank Frey's facebook sometime - not exactly conducive to anyone who is either Christian or voted for Trump or Bush (either one of them) - but he checked his political views at the door when he wrote back in the 80's and 90's and they really didnt impact his work in a noticeable way - same with most of the other canon authors

Hopefully the new writers will be able to follow in their foot steps

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

This very much. I’m an international politics major/history minor with a background in research and intelligence analysis and have done contract work for the NSA but they dismissed my offers out of hand. When this attitude was brought up on (I think) Yahoo Groups they were less than courteous. I looked over the finished project and found the whole background premise somewhat laughable.

As a man who has had "boots on the ground" in a number of places including The Middle East, South America (as a Civilian tourist in the bad parts of town no less), and Africa, I almost laughed OUT LOUD when I saw the number they attributed to suicides in the intro. The people in Africa live in INHUMAN conditions and aren't killing themselves. That number would have been more realistic if it had been attributed to murder and cannibalism in order to survive. The human animal is "hardwired" to survive and only a small percentage of humans choose to end their lives through suicide. The numbers may seem large when you look at them without context, but the number TW2K13 quoted was like (and I'm guessing because I don't have my copy with me) 2 BILLION(?) who committed suicide. That is a ridiculously large number. ALSO, keep in mind I'm talking about people who actually KILL THEMSELVES NOT people who think about it and don't go through with it in the end. Two billion is a ridiculously large number of people to die by their own hand.