Is the Traveller Market Fractured

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Klaus:
To be honest, things like 1 week in jump and such stuff aren't that important, really.

Really?? It only defines what is the OTU and Traveller in general

Originally posted by Klaus:
You could create a setting that looks identical to it without it. Ship design, old school guns, Vargr, Hivers etc...

And a fun game it would be BUT it wouldn't be Traveller. Not in the sense that it might help build the brand, expand the fan base and bring more players into the RPG (which is the reason I thought it was being talked about in this thread).

If they play Traveller the MOG and then go "Hey, cool, there's a RPG too!" they are gonna be confused, frustrated and angry when it's not the same game.

And so since it's not gonna help Traveller why would it have (or need) Vargr, Aslan, etc. etc. Why not just make it cool from the start and avoid all the licensing issues and keep the whole IP for yourself and rake in the money.

 

[hurrahbro]

Must admit that I am an old school Traveller player (Little Black Books onward) and I keep returning to the old " 2 dice and pray" though I have a preferance for the megatraveller task system.

I buy the CDs, and the occasional Gurps supplement (Gurps supplements are often very good sources, I have never played Gurps, but I do like the supplements) and recently have been purchasing some D20 stuff online (usually with CT stats as well).

The background has issues because of the whole rebellion of the Megatraveller era (with Rebellion, No rebellion, Post rebellion, dawn of the 3rd Imperium strands) and multiple systems. I don't know about anyone else, but it can get confusing, but I never got into New Era, Only dabbled in T4.

The people I play with are firmly in the CT/MT camp so that eases the confusion. We all have our own flavours of Imperium (because its big), we often play on the edge of imperium space. Our Current Game (on haitus since late last year for some 2300 and 5 Rings) takes place in non-imperum space between the Imperium, the Hivers and the Solomani. so the official background is ther, just not being a direct influence (inless we really mess it up, then we can head for the border!)

 

[kafka47]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Okay Boss,

what does the 'MMO' stand for(I get the second half)? is that like a Major Monster Online RPG?

Multi-Media-Online RPG?

Liam, Liam, MUSH = Multiple User Shared Hallucination did they teach you anything in the Army?

 

[Scarecrow]

Yeah, the 1-week in Jump is a bit of a deal breaker as far as a MOG goes. You would have to get rid of it.

So a single player game may be a better option where the week can be bypassed with a cutscene.

It might not be too much of a stretch to remake the old Traveller PC games (Secrets of the Ancients?) but with shiny new 3D graphics not unlike Knights of the Old Republic!

I keep mooting the idea here at work but no-one's biting yet.

Crow

 

[Klaus]

Mass Effect is the one to watch this year...

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by kafka47:
Liam, Liam, MUSH = Multiple User Shared Hallucination did they teach you anything in the Army?

Sorry, we call that the EST (Electronic Shooting trainor) and its a computer controlled video arcade gallery.

darn civvy acronyms

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Great ... now I have an oncomeme* running around inside my head ...

"Make it interesting, and they will come!"

Thanks a lot, Flykiller!


(* - "Oncomeme"; from "onco" and "meme"; loosely translated as "Cancerous Thought.")

 

[Scarecrow]

Wait a minute, wait a minute!

Why can't interstellar travel be just a few minutes like EVE online? Information still travels at the speed of travel, it's just shorter than a week. Nothing is broken, it's just faster is all.

Crow

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
Wait a minute, wait a minute!

Why can't interstellar travel be just a few minutes like EVE online? Information still travels at the speed of travel, it's just shorter than a week. Nothing is broken, it's just faster is all.

Crow

Actually, it would only "matter" if you were chasing another group of player's vessel..

And if you calibrate the proggy just so..make so many jumps in a session, you actually "scroll ahead" in the game calendar year--
but you cannot escape the game calendar year, until a % of the online gamers have done as well.

Factor in misjumps, and overhauls..sooner or later the fast-jumping player group will be marooned waiting to get their ship fixed wherever it "seizes up" at..and the rest move onwards, catching up..

Or..you can make a "jump-space" time out in the hole...keeps you from WOW day-by-day addiction,

 

[kafka47]

The Ancients Trilogy, remember Secret of the Ancients (SoA) is merely the conclusion of a series of adventures. I think, that would make a fantastic background, but I would position them that SoA takes place in the backdrop of the Fifth Frontier War allowing some of the Spinward Marches Campaign to be incorporated in and add the dangers of the Rebellion era as they piece together those fragments.

It would make a great MMORPG but would I pay money to experience the whole thing Online...that is the question. Never really liked the idea of just sitting in front of a computer when a tabletop was free (plus, how to convince the wife I need the "downtime" to play this game, when I escape to Cons, it is usually gets truncated by "family responsibilities")...

The week in jumpspace is also problematic as I could see quests going on in Jumpspace from the routine mechanical fault to stranger things...

I wonder if the BITS and subsquent IG adventures might prove better - Long Way From Home & Gateway, the use of Stargates could cut down travel time for newbies and then present a logical reason why things have to 1 week for jumpspace.

 

[The Shaman]

Originally posted by far-trader:
Not answering for Crow, but one of the biggies that has to go, and would make it very un-Traveller, is the week in jump. You could get away with a couple minutes, like the transports in WOW, but no one is gonna sit in front of the screen waitin interminably for the week in jump to pass.

Ahhh, you're right, I forgot that Mmmmpmmmormmgggss are real-time.

Then again, you could bill it as the "healthful alternative" to other games: "The Traveller MMPORPG guarantees you can't spend all your time sitting in the dark in front of a computer - get outside, enjoy activities with real-life friends, and never miss any of the action!"

 

[Valarian]

The ship still exists in jump, you just have to restrict the area of the MMORPG that the user can access for a week to just the ship. Then you have the classic closed environment adventure. Someone could sit in their cabin for a week, or they can interact with the other players / NPCs on board.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
Wait a minute, wait a minute!

Why can't interstellar travel be just a few minutes like EVE online? Information still travels at the speed of travel, it's just shorter than a week. Nothing is broken, it's just faster is all.

Crow

No reason it couldn't, in fact I think it'd need to, but it won't be Traveller is all I meant

Which gets us off on that tangent again but rather than that I'll explain what I mean a little.

If we go with nearly instant jumps it affects a lot of Traveller notions.

Would you still be paying Cr10,000 for high passage if it only takes minutes instead of a week? And would you need a stateroom? Or a steward? Nope. So we'd need to redesign the ships and economics. They be more passenger airplane like than passenger ship like.

Would your ship need 4 weeks of operation duration and 2 weeks of full life support including meals? Nope again. So again we need to redesign.

And this is just a quick think on the issue. I'm sure there's even more fixing that would be needed and in the end it'd be easier to just build it from the ground up.

Which brings us back to why bother doing a Traveller MOG? It's not going to be anywhere near the RPG except in name and perhaps some terminology. You won't get Traveller RPG players flocking to the MOG for a fix of Traveller, and you won't get the MOG players getting into the RPG.

But if you make it a FPS with an engaging story (which doesn't have to be all about shooting) you can make it multiplayer and stick to Traveller exactly as it is. THAT will have Traveller RPG players wanting it and it may even get the FPS players into the RPG, especially if you filled the time between FPS releases with appropriate modules for the RPG.

Try floating that to the company next time Crow. I'd love to see it happen. Just ask me to help in the playtest

 

[Malenfant]

Plus, among all the other things people aren't going to pay a monthly fee when they could have a week of that sitting around twiddling their thumbs doing nothing. It's just not practical to have a week in jump in an MMO. You might find stuff to do for a few hours in there, but not the whole week.

 

[Scarecrow]

The week in jump space would have to go. There's no way round it. No-one is going to play a game where you're inescapably trapped in a location for a week of realtime.

To be honest, I think the biggest problem with pitching Traveller as a license for a video game is only a (comparatively) tiny minority of people are interested in it. From a company point of view, why pay for a license when you can just (metaphorically speaking) file off the traveller logo and make it your own IP?

I, personally would love to make a Traveller version of Knights of the Old Republic - A combination of puzzles, investigation, side-quests and combat with combat based around your stats, not your thumb and the option to talk your way out of situations not just shoot your way out - and I'll keep plugging the idea and the license for as long as I'm in the industry.

Crow

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

As has been pointed out to me on more than one occassion, the one-week-in-jump limitation is one of the key rules that makes Traveller Traveller.

Let's replace every Class-A starport with a network of inter-connected portals that allow near-instantaneous transfer of matter and energy anywhere within the network, and what would you have?

"Stargate, The RPG"

Okay... let's instead use a type of stardrive requiring massive amounts of energy -- say, from a controlled matter / antimatter reaction -- that warps normal space enough to allow FTL velocities in real space. What would you have then?

"Star Trek, The RPG"

Never mind. Let's stick to jump drive, and just tweak it so that transit time is inversely proportional to the amount of energy used and the efficiency of the engines. Let's also make the Zho's into a monk-like race dedicated to the protection of the galaxy. What would we have?

"Star Wars, The RPG"

My point is, that when one messes with the fundamentals of the game, one risks mutating the game out of recognition.

Besides, who needs another RPG with the word "Star" in its title?

Your opinions may vary.

 

[far-trader]

StarTraveller

 

[ravells]

The Great Games Experiment

This looks like a place to find like minded people who are interested in developing MMORPGs and other types of games. Just gone into Beta, I think.

http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/

 

[Valarian]

A lot of sci-fi scenarios can be played out in the closed system of a starship in jumpspace. Leave the week travel in, and set up limitations that the characters can't leave the location of the ship while in transit.

Alien - bug hunt
Who-dunnit - a murder on board. Can the culprit be found before more corpses show up
Event Horizon - jumpspace is affecting the people on board
Psycho - more violent variation on the who-dunnit
Bounty Hunt - the character is looking for someone who is on board (best done on a large liner)
Espionage - stop the spy reaching their destination
Sabotage - stop the saboteur before they strike

Alternatively, it could just be a quiet voyage where the characters on board interact and chat.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Is the Traveller Market Fractured Today?

Yes 80% (56)
No 14% (10)
Don't know 6% (4)

An interesting look of now 14 > 1 of the yea's vs. the IDK's, and 5.6 > 1 of the Yea's vs. the nays...

Is traveller a subset/ 'niche' market of the RPG overall market?

Yes 91% (64)
No 6% (4)
Don't know 3% (2)

Another revelation of 32 > 1 of those who know, and the IDK's; & 16 > 1 vs.those in denial...

Does having 6-differing rulesets & 5-eras balkanize the Trav fan base?

Yes 71% (50)
No 20% (14)
Don't know 9% (6)

A fascinating revelation appears of 3.5 > 1 of yeas vs. the nays, and 8.3 > 1 of yeas vs. the IDK's....


If fewer people bought Traveller, does the RPG market call it "dead" sales wise?

Yes 63% (44)
No 14% (10)
Don't know 23% (16)

The last result shows a greater dispersion of doubt or lack of knowledge of the market-forces behind the RPG-industry with the 2.5 > 1 of yeas vs. the IDK's, and a wider gap between the yeas vs. the nays at 4.4 > 1....

Other interpretations are in the reader's mind and individual perception..