Announcement from Free League Publishing

[Olefin]

Ok just got told the community releases wouldnt be canon - i.e. so fan releases or stuff released on the community boards arent canon - and that the only canon release so far besides the box and its contents is the ANZAC Sourcebook that Legbreaker is working on

I hope they get to work on more than that - i.e. one thing that made the game such a hit when it was originally released was how the world kept expanding with new canon releases that you could build on logically for a campaign

Thats why I could release my book the way I did - it builds on previous canon and is a logical part of the earlier "Iran" modules and cites the material released for the French in V2.2.

But in many ways it may not matter - frankly what Raellus has released even though its not "official canon" is just as good as anything ever canon released - and if there is anything you could build whole campaigns on and more releases on its his Korean Sourcebook

[Raellus]

Grain v. Chaff

Although it's disappointing on a personal level (I have a bit of skin in the game), crowd-sourcing content for T2k is a brilliant strategy by Free League. They don't have to lift a finger but they still get a cut of the profits. To be fair, this is fast becoming a standard industry practice, so they're just getting ahead of the curve.

A bigger, more general concern, though, is quality control. Are they seriously going to carefully vet every single fan-generated submission Even if they do, the signal-to-noise ratio could make it difficult to sort the good stuff from the bad.

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[Olefin]

Although it's disappointing on a personal level (I have a bit of skin in the game), crowd-sourcing content for T2k is a brilliant strategy by Free League. They don't have to lift a finger but they still get a cut of the profits. To be fair, this is fast becoming a standard industry practice, so they're just getting ahead of the curve.

A bigger, more general concern, though, is quality control. Are they seriously going to carefully vet every single fan-generated submission Even if they do, the signal-to-noise ratio could make it difficult to sort the good stuff from the bad.

-

I share your concern Raellus - especially since fan generated submissions could very well end up contradicting each other - a point in fact would be the Kenya submission you did in the original fanzine versus what I released later - or the fan content for the 7th Engineers that is on several fan canon modules on the Facebook groups. Its great work but the actual Engineering unit for the 7th Light Inf is the 13th Engineers - the 7th was assigned to the 5th in Poland - i.e. it was part of what got destroyed at Kalisz and was never in Korea - so you could easily get very contradictory releases

[comped]

Although it's disappointing on a personal level (I have a bit of skin in the game), crowd-sourcing content for T2k is a brilliant strategy by Free League. They don't have to lift a finger but they still get a cut of the profits. To be fair, this is fast becoming a standard industry practice, so they're just getting ahead of the curve.

A bigger, more general concern, though, is quality control. Are they seriously going to carefully vet every single fan-generated submission Even if they do, the signal-to-noise ratio could make it difficult to sort the good stuff from the bad.

That's the main issue with all community driven content sources - quality is often lacking to an extreme degree in comparison to official material.

[Tegyrius]

That's the main issue with all community driven content sources - quality is often lacking to an extreme degree in comparison to official material.

There's less of an excuse for that now than there was in the early days of fan pages (B.J. Zanzibar, anyone) and zines before them. Spell checkers are mature technology, grammar checkers are getting better every year, and the monthly licensing for Adobe Creative Cloud has put professional-grade desktop publishing software within the reach of almost any hobbyist. The tools can't replace professional training and experience, but past a certain point, low quality is the mark of a sloppy work ethic, inattention to detail, a fundamental failure to master high school language arts, or someone who just doesn't have very good ideas.

- C.

[comped]

There's less of an excuse for that now than there was in the early days of fan pages (B.J. Zanzibar, anyone) and zines before them. Spell checkers are mature technology, grammar checkers are getting better every year, and the monthly licensing for Adobe Creative Cloud has put professional-grade desktop publishing software within the reach of almost any hobbyist. The tools can't replace professional training and experience, but past a certain point, low quality is the mark of a sloppy work ethic, inattention to detail, a fundamental failure to master high school language arts, or someone who just doesn't have very good ideas.

- C.

And while that all may be true, if you look at the community markets for most of the major games that have them... the quality is somewhat lacking for the majority of the content up for sale. There's good, but the question is how much of it will be good

[Tegyrius]

And while that all may be true, if you look at the community markets for most of the major games that have them... the quality is somewhat lacking for the majority of the content up for sale. There's good, but the question is how much of it will be good

If you have to ask the question, the answer has already beaten you into resignation with comma errors, randomly-placed capitalization, sentence fragments, hoard/horde and ordnance/ordinance substitutions, and terminal inability to comprehend the difference between a possessive apostrophe-s and a plural -s.

- C.

[Olefin]

And while that all may be true, if you look at the community markets for most of the major games that have them... the quality is somewhat lacking for the majority of the content up for sale. There's good, but the question is how much of it will be good

And a lot of fan content and community releases have all kinds of continuity errors

Mexican troops that are armed with Soviet tanks and armored vehicles instead of what canon releases say they are armed with (City of Angels anyone)

No fact checking that produces units that were assigned to Europe being in Korean instead

Timelines that directly contradict canon in multiple ways or are alternate timelines but not presented as such and thus you have people going huh as they read it not realizing it was an alternate

Add in that kind of stuff and it very quickly gets to be a confusing mess about what is canon, what isnt and even what happened on what date and what unit is where and armed with what

[Legbreaker]

No fact checking that produces units that were assigned to Europe being in Korea instead.

In their defence, plans do get altered and units reassigned as priorities shift, so it's possible a unit intended of Europe pre-war could be sent elsewhere due to a pressing need for troops or transportation limitations/requirements.

However, units which have already been described in canon sources shouldn't be messed with. Tweak them a little, have detachments on long range patrols, etc, but don't go shifting them half a continent or more.

[Raellus]

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

Another Kickstarter stretch goal met = base-building rules unlocked.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I really am caught on the horns of a dilemma here.
Having checked out some of the other Year Zero games, I really do not care for the rules system (I thoroughly dislike the use of gimmick dice for example) and I don't see it being suitable for the depth of gaming that I want for a post-apocalypse setting such as T2k.
However I do want to see the material they create because it's a fresh take on the world setting and it can always be converted over to a system I would prefer to use.

So I'm quite torn - support the kickstarter for a rules set I don't like and would never use or give the whole thing a miss and pass on some potentially new and great material

And for the life of me (for reasons I cannot explain) I do actually like that metal box and want it!

[Targan]

I really am caught on the horns of a dilemma here.
Having checked out some of the other Year Zero games, I really do not care for the rules system (I thoroughly dislike the use of gimmick dice for example) and I don't see it being suitable for the depth of gaming that I want for a post-apocalypse setting such as T2k.
However I do want to see the material they create because it's a fresh take on the world setting and it can always be converted over to a system I would prefer to use.

So I'm quite torn - support the kickstarter for a rules set I don't like and would never use or give the whole thing a miss and pass on some potentially new and great material

And for the life of me (for reasons I cannot explain) I do actually like that metal box and want it!

I feel similarly to you, but I'm falling on the side of not going to support the kickstarter. I am interested in their take on the setting, but I'd rather pull out my fingernails with pliers than use that rules system.

[Olefin]

the more I think about that rules system and other things I have been hearing the more I am wondering just how many other changes have been made for V4 that may make it almost unrecognizeable from V1 and V2.2.

Also if this is going to be just a one shot release or an actual supported game with follow on releases that are official and not just depending on the fans to support the game

[comped]

the more I think about that rules system and other things I have been hearing the more I am wondering just how many other changes have been made for V4 that may make it almost unrecognizeable from V1 and V2.2.

Also if this is going to be just a one shot release or an actual supported game with follow on releases that are official and not just depending on the fans to support the game

Even from what is publicly available from previous settings, never mind what info they have on the kickstarter, points to the rules - at the very least - as being completely different, and far lighter, than anything we've officially seen before.

And, at least in terms of post-release support, their other games seem to have a few adventures for them, not really any traditional sourcebooks. So this might be, depending on the sales, only community supported - and officially on their marketplace, at least, depending on how long FFE lets the license last.

[Olefin]

and will be quite interesting how community content is seen by Tomas and the community as a whole - if there are few or no other canon releases after the initial set who will be the one that says what is canon and what isnt there have been a lot of arguments on here and other boards about that over the years

or will V4 be something that is more free form and after the initial release the canon is what you make of it as to the community releases - so for instance to apply it to current releases the 173rd could be in Kenya or Europe or Central America or never even been formed for V4 - it would all depend on what version of the community content you choose to use