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Wither Hunter and QuikLink Interactive

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Blue Ghost said:
Great, so essentially Traveller's going to hit another sink hole.
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I don't think so. Mongoose Traveller is selling well , although it may not be everyone's cup of tea (which version of Traveller ever achieved that?), and the SRD is available to third-party publishers. T5 has been no more than a possibility for me ever since I first heard about it - it will be a surprise if it happens, but not a disappointment if it doesn't. And the good news is that MWM seems to be looking at improving the Traveller reprints and CD-ROMs again (so I might finally get my hands on the MT CD-ROM).

T20 was never a lynchpin for the survival or otherwise of Traveller. In any case, with the other licenses except MGT and GT about to sunset over then next few years, it looked like Hunter had pretty much given up on T20 in favour of his conceptual generic SF game, before he disappeared.

Traveller will continue to be part of my gaming life for the forseeable future.
 
Sink hole?

Hardly.

Mongoose Traveller has already sold twice as many copies as T20 did. It's supported by a lot of new material and it's closer to earlier traveller than T20 was - T20 was always an offshoot, like GURPS traveller, because it was a conversion to a different rules paradigm. There was a chance for T20 to really be big, but as the d20 boom faded and QLI gradually spiralled into oblivion, that chance is long gone.

But no sink hole.

Apart from Mongoose, Avenger are still publishing. We've put out more Traveller material than QLI did, with no mysterious absences, no unfulfilled orders and no big talk about forthcoming awesomeness followed by the quiet collapse of a project.


T20 was doomed anyway, because of the license sunset arrangement. SF20 probably won't happen even if Hunter ever reappears. I know this will attract comment from some quarters but here's a fact for you - every project that QLI has delivered on involved someone other than Hunter. Mostly it was me, 2320 was Colin. On the other hand, Honor Harirngton and Legacy of the Aldenata did not involve me or Colin. Both projects died a good while ago.


Hunter is good at some things but he needs a partner like me or Colin to cover his weaknesses and drive the project through to completion. Both Colin and myself have pulled out and probably won't work with Hunter again. So I don't see any real chance of SF20 happening if Hunter is even interested in it anymore.


As I've said it could maybe be fixed, but Hunter needs to rebuild his relationships with people who can help him, and that would start with communication and fulfilment of obligations both to writers and to the public (I won't be writing something that I suspect will be paid for but not delivered to the customer; I'd have to be confident that the ordering issue was fixed before I did any more work for QLI).

It could be done, but it's not being done. Every day makes it less likely that anything will happen.

But you know what? The demise of a company that's not published anything significant in four years won't cause a 'sink hole' for Traveller. There's more material being published at present than there was during QLI's heyday.
 
NOTE: I said 'INVOLVED'

I am not suggesting that sole credit belongs to someone other than Hunter (though that might be the case with 2320; I don't know), I'm saying that those projects had significant input from someone else. Usually that was most of the actual typing-of-words, or at least a heavy edit and sections of text.

I can think of maybe 1 product from QLI that was Hunter's sole work, and that wasn't big. I'm saying he needs a partner to work with if SF20 or anything else is going to be pushed through to completion.
 
Well shit.

Well, either way, it's sad news.

I tried to get several writing projects for Traveller off the ground, but was always met with resistance or non-committance from the people I solicited to help me on the project. I realized I had weaknesses, and wanted someone there to back me up and vice-versa.

Turns out the guy was (is) a security-actor, but that's another story that I won't go into... it just really pisses me off that everytime I try to get a project off the ground for something I think has potential for success I find flakey help... or a goddamn flake who wants to know my personal habbit, and not participate in a project.

Again, it's another story. A long one.

Getting back to Traveller; I did ask Hunter whether he was publishing fiction at one time (the non adventure kind), and he said not at the moment, save for his own which was, at the time, incomplete. I waited, hacked out a series of short stories, wasn't satisfied with them, but figured they would be a good basis for the start of a published adventure.

Hell, what I'm hearing now is that that's never been the case because the whole operation was really f****d from the begining.

This is the kind of crap I expected out of working on movies (which I used to do, and am going back to), not from publishing, particularly a game that's grounded and created by military and scientific minds who are striving for some good accurate space-opera dynamics.

This really blows.

If it isn't Bill Keith stealing from Stewart Cowley, then it's that jerk who yanked the DGP material for his own aggrandizement, or some BS like Hunter's current situation.

I've been coming to this board on and off for a number of years now hoping, waiting, praying, thinking, believing, that Traveller would hit a new high-water-mark with all of the various licenses and its consolidation of participants on this BBS. And now that's not the case.

In case you can't tell, I'm pissed. In my previous career I had a lunatic pull a gun on me, I had a "friend" accuse me of having an affair with his wife, I had another guy try to steal my scripts, I had some jerk wine company use my copy in a radio commercial, and some snot-nosed BBC @$$shole "journalist" use a post of mine from another BBS as his copy for a radio broadcast. The list goes on.

And now I'll tack Traveller onto that list of horror stories. Wow. How dissapointing.

Don't get me started on what I went through in the last five years (part of the reason I took a year hiatus from this board a couple years back).

I grew up with Traveller, liked the game, liked the loose fictional basis, and now something dumb like this has to rear it ugly head.

UGH!
 
Blue Ghost, if you still have the Traveller writing bug, why not try something as a third party publisher using Mongoose's Traveller SRD? You can't use the copyrighted OTU terms, but you can create pretty much anything around that, with the serial numbers filed off, and with no real licensing issues to worry about. Publish in PDF form to start with, or even POD, and you don't even have capital start-up costs.

The last thing Traveller needs is people giving up on the game because QLI died, well, years ago.
 
QLI is NOT the whole Traveller experience. There's Mongoose and Avenger and SJG, all of whom have surpassed what QLI ever did or will do so soon. Talk to me privately over at the Avenger boards and we'll see what we can do.

We (Avenger) are working closely with Mongoose. We've delivered on everything we said we would, and we have a good relationship with Marc and his advisors. Maybe we can may something happen, maybe not. But it's not necessary to go writing off Traveller just because QLI failed.
 
Okay, this has pushed one of my buttons.

A lot of people seem to be fixated on QLI as the core and centre of all things Traveller. It's not and never was; it was just one of several companies that were working in the field. But I keep seeing people wailing and gnashing their teeth; 'oh no, Hunter Gordon is gone and we are undone for The Olde Game is no more!'. (Okay, so that might have overstated things a bit).

But here's a thing. I wrote the vast majority of the text on those T20 books. I commissioned and guided projects. I edited virtually everything or okayed it; even what I did not write. Hunter came up with a lot of good concepts and wrote the basic rules (which I edited and rewrote to make them... more accessible) but the fact is that I played as big a part as Hunter did in QLI's success.

And I'm still here. Never went away (other than to take Avenger out solo). I almost went bankrupt during Hunter's last absence because QLI was my sole job. I clawed my way back up from that by working three jobs and still managed to rebuild Avenger and my writing career. Oh, and I tried to hold the fort here on COTI so that hunter would have something to come back to.

I also kept on putting out Traveller materials.


You know what really annoys me? I see people advocating joining the moot because 'well, you don't really get much for it but it supports Hunter so it's good'.

*I* needed support but there was none. Nobody gives *me* free money for a Moot membership that's basically worthless. Yet I went through the same disaster as Hunter - and it was events in HIS life that caused it, not mine. I was just sidewiped into the bargain.

Do I deserve supporting? I do if Hunter does. Because I was just as important in creating T20 as Hunter was, and into the bargain I struggled to play fair by the fans. I even did some things that cost me money - yes, while I was fighting off bankruptcy - because they were the right and honourable thing to do.

(BTW - I did not leave QLI because I wanted to. I did so because I needed to make a living and with Hunter missing that simply wasn't happening. I lost a LOT of money through QLI's troubles and I've still not fully recovered).


And yet Avenger is still largely ignored (even though we're putting out product for Traveller) while people advocate supporting Hunter (who's giving them nothing). When the license sunset issue appeared, a petition went up. SAVE T20!!!! One of the reasons cited was all that great work done by QLI on the T20 line.

Nobody wanted to SAVE AVENGER!!!! though, even though it was the same people as did the QLI stuff. QLI was worth saving even though it was doing nothing; Avenger was not even on the radar even though we were at the time the main producer of Traveller materials.

For the record, I don't want free money and I'm not claiming sole credit for the success of QLI. What I'm saying is that it's about time folks realised that there is more to Traveller than COTI and QLI. Hunter Gordon is gone, yes. But I'm still here (though rarely on COTI these days) and Traveller is in print and selling.

Oh, by the way, Avenger is the only publisher able to do OTU materials other than Mongoose themselves. Nobody else is going to get a license for OTU stuff. So, if you're interested in writing in the OTU, talk to me or Matt at Mongoose.
 
MJD said:
And yet Avenger is still largely ignored (even though we're putting out product for Traveller) while people advocate supporting Hunter (who's giving them nothing). When the license sunset issue appeared, a petition went up. SAVE T20!!!! One of the reasons cited was all that great work done by QLI on the T20 line.

Nobody wanted to SAVE AVENGER!!!! though, even though it was the same people as did the QLI stuff. QLI was worth saving even though it was doing nothing; Avenger was not even on the radar even though we were at the time the main producer of Traveller materials.
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Seriously, let this one go. You have genuine grievances, but this one I don't see. It was a petition to save a game system, on the website to support that system. Some people don't like GURPS as a system, or the traditional 2d6 traveller system and liked having D20 as an alternative, complete with easy to steal stuff from other d20 sources. It didn't say SAVE HUNTER/SCREW MARTIN, it didn't say SAVE QLI/SCREW AVENGER it was a petition to save a game system, don't take it so personally.

Anyway the right place for a save avenger petition was on the avenger boards/rpg.net not the QLI boards.

Most fans don't know or care about what happens in the background of RPG production, and why should they; they have their own crap to deal with. They just wanted support and products for their game of choice.
 
I don't care about the petition* so much as the more general stuff that went with it. Folks were saying things like QLI needs to be saved because of all that good stuff they did, while some of the people who actually did that good stuff were facing the same crisis.

All I did back then was point out that if QLI was worth saving (in part because of the work I did for them) then maybe my current venture was worth saving too. I got attacked for saying so, which WAS personal.

And of course as you say, folks just want support and product for the game - which Avenger was producing and QLI was not.

The petition issue is symptomatic of a problem which I consider to be a legitimate grievance - Hunter is worth supporting by joining the Moot, apparently. Why? Because he needs it? So did I; I got nothing. Because QLI did good work? *I* did a lot of that work and I'm still doing it elsewhere. Because he provides a forum for Traveller discussion? There are others.

In short, what I'm still not happy about is the fact that Hunter gets all the credit for what QLI did. I got attacked before for mentioning that - words were put in my mouth saying I was claiming all the credit. I'm not; but I don't seem to get any of it and that seems unreasonable.

The truth of it is obvious though. I left QLI, and they stopped producing materials pretty much. I took Avenger solo and we've done loads of stuff (not just me involved though). Make of that what you will.




* All, what, 45 signatories of it. It's not going to make any difference so I don't much care.
 
MJD said:
And yet Avenger is still largely ignored ...
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I think this is not quite true. Perhaps it was so when Avenger started, and
I have to admit that I myself did not know Avenger not such a long time ago.

But when I take a look at the Traveller products I did buy over the recent
months, up to and including Type S (which I love), there is a lot of Avenger
stuff among it.

And when I talk to others about Traveller, Avenger and a certain MJD are
mentioned quite often.

So, while I think that I fully understand your emotions (I would bite bricks
out of the wall if something like that had happened to me), there really is
no reason to believe that people would ignore you, your work and Avenger.

Just a few thoughts ... ;)
 
MJD said:
I don't care about the petition* so much as the more general stuff that went with it. Folks were saying things like QLI needs to be saved because of all that good stuff they did, while some of the people who actually did that good stuff were facing the same crisis.





* All, what, 45 signatories of it. It's not going to make any difference so I don't much care.
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So don't mention the petition then. Drax was the first to be attacked, not you and the threads on Avenger and children of the earth were complete over-reactions to a harmless petition. You aren't going to fix the misconception problem by telling off those with misconceptions and attaching your argument to the rabid over-reaction to Draxs petition.

You say you don't care about the petition, but you are taking it too personally and reading too much into it.

There is no point getting upset and posting about this stuff. All you can really do is do your work, advertise it and let it speak for itself. Fans don't actually owe you more than the cost of your products. Just like you don't owe it to fans to produce stuff to exactly their vision. Giving out to them for not giving you enough credit is like you being lambasted in the past for "ruining traveller" with some of your work. They don't like work you've done. Sorry but at the end of the day, tough. It goes the other way too. If you don't get the credit you feel you deserve; sorry, but at the end of the day.....

I'm not trying to get on your back, or annoy you. Just offering some advice where it may or may not be welcome. Don't take it too personally; don't let it get under your skin. This type of thing can snowball. For your own sake, let it slide and move on.
 
Fair point.

We're doing okay and I personally am doing quite well. I've got contracts for four books and two partials right now plus any Traveller stuff I choose to do. The 'Traveller is doomed because Hunter's AWOL' thing just pushed my buttons.

BTW... I was on the guest list for Gencon UK for a few minutes, but now I'm not. My seminar on 'things that annoy me' would have been a masterwork...
 
Fans don't indeed owe me more than the prce of my books, which is all I've ever asked for. Yet quite a lot of people think they owe Hunter Gordon financial support.

That I don't get.
 
MJD said:
Fair point.

We're doing okay and I personally am doing quite well. I've got contracts for four books and two partials right now plus any Traveller stuff I choose to do. The 'Traveller is doomed because Hunter's AWOL' thing just pushed my buttons.

BTW... I was on the guest list for Gencon UK for a few minutes, but now I'm not. My seminar on 'things that annoy me' would have been a masterwork...
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Glad to hear things are going well. Traveller isn't doomed but T20 is. Perhaps they just mean their Traveller.

Rabid rants are usually a laugh. If you type it up do me a favour and PM it to me. I can picture you as Denis Leary and wet myself.

MJD said:
Fans don't indeed owe me more than the prce of my books, which is all I've ever asked for. Yet quite a lot of people think they owe Hunter Gordon financial support.

That I don't get.
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Meh. I don't get the concept of custard creams. Life is full of little mysteries. Maybe they feel you can look after yourself and Hunter can't. Maybe your cats ate their goldfish. It's not that big a deal. Mongoose Traveller has the momentum now. You are already more well-known than Hunter in most Traveller circles and that will only continue to grow.
 
I can explain custard cremes.

They're the work of the devil. Really. Just like Sprouts. Nasty little things.
 
Okay, I think this thread has reached the end of its useful life.

Yes, Hunter's absence is a problem. We are trying to contact him, but until then there's nothing we can do.
 
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