Version 4 of the game

[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.

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[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]

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]

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]

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

[Legbreaker]

...what Leg is thinking of writing...

Which is about a third done at the moment, but on hold until we know more about this 4th edition and what they are doing with the game.
I can see both advantages and disadvantages with my work tying into the new version. One advantage is possibly tapping into professional artwork and printed hard copies (not to mention actually getting a decent financial return for all the hours I've put in). Disadvantages I've already touched on.

[Jason Weiser]

I will keep my powder dry till we get details. I do hope it respects the source material in some form or fashion. I think that's where 2013 went wrong IMO. That said, if V4 does that, and breathes new life into this old girl, I'd be happy.

[Benjamin]

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. Im 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

[ChalkLine]

This very much. Im 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

[Olefin]

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

[CDAT]

...

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).