epicenter00
SOC-13
I'm ... well barely even curious about this. MMOs (true MMOs) cost immense amounts of money to develop. I don't see these guys being able to raise that kind of money.
Perhaps they're going to make a game like EVE Online with a Traveller flavor.
But here's my question: Why Traveller?
Traveller does have a small and dedicated fanbase, but it's very heavily split between older grognards who aren't going to play it (the CT/MT crowd) and some younger players (the MongTrav crowd).
The grognard segment is going to hate anything they produce unless these guys are geniuses (which I have to say I doubt, unfortunately).
The younger players might like something they make, but ... I have to wonder what is so compelling about Traveller that they think that name would create a good MMO? Traveller's own universe works against making a good, fun MMO about it (one week jumps, small player ships in a High Guard universe is, as they say, "lol"). By the time they modify and develop the Traveller universe enough to make a fun MMO, they'll have done enough work where you have to ask, "Why didn't you just make your own setting?"
If they just want a flavor of tramp frieghters in space, do what Firefly/Serenity did: Make a universe that's Traveller with the serial numbers filed off that's sufficiently original that you won't get sued but still has 'tramp friegher in outer space' flavor.
I'd have been very interested if they wanted to make a single player CRPG, but an MMO? Not really interested.
Video games didn't really destroy the RPG hobby. I think plastic model making in the US and Europe took a harder hit from video games.
What almost destroyed the RPG hobby? Remember Magic the Gathering? Yeah, MTG and all of the CCG games that were like it in the early 1990s that glut the market at that point. Sufficient players were drawn away from TRPGs that most of the RPG companies that were around either outright closed their doors or "downsized" to the point where it was basically the founder(s) holding on to their IPs and little to no new development occurred on their games. GDW and R. Talsorian are casualties of it that I know of. I'm pretty sure FASA decided to call it quits around that time as well (WEG basically died when they lost of the license to Star Wars), White Wolf weathered the CCGpocalypse better than others by tapping into a different playerbase than other RPG makers but even they took a hard hit and when the millennium came and went their whole stick of "the millennial end of the world" popped and so did they for the most part. Sources, you ask? There's various interviews with GDW staffers discussing the death of GDW. There's also a quite recent interview with Mike Pondsmith (of R. Tal) literally a few weeks ago where he makes mention of it. TRPGs are a small, niche ecology whose wallets can get rapidly tapped out, and things like CCGs or MageKnight/*Clix can be killed by their own success like blooms of algae, often taking TRPGs with it.
Historicals? Yeah, you can make an argument video games contributed to their decline. I'd actually argue that fantasy and sci-fi miniatures games have contributed more to their decline as well as many of the historical periods that 'big tray' wargames are made of have fallen off the media radar - you don't many new movies or TV shows about the Napoleonic Wars or American Civil War these days for instance; and this is very important. One has to read books or see movies about these conflicts and that has to fire the imagination and make one wonder "wow, I wonder what it was like to fight during that period?" to get people into historicals. As a case in point, video games actually have increased the number of people with at least some cursory interest in historicals, particularly Ancients and Medieval Europe through games series like Total War. Some historical eras just are pretty out of vogue now (Napoleonics in Europe, American Civil War in the US for instance). Meanwhile WW2 era wargaming (Flames of War) has stirred some interest in the WW2 era within the last 10 years and modern miniatures wargaming is niche but thriving with multiple rules and lots of support recently (Force on Force, Spectre, Fireteam, Black Ops, etc.) has actually seen growth in the last ten years. One thing in common with both of these eras - they're still getting lots of media that keeps them in the public consciousness. But historicals, particularly in the US, have always been a niche market; traditional "big army tray" historicals is pretty much where the definition of grognard neckbeard comes from, they're not very interested in growing their hobby and they're not welcoming of younger players - they prety much grow old and die with their games. Plus there's that hurdle of buying / painting / storing these 15mm-20mm armies, the majority of which don't see play - it's hobby for middle-aged and retired men, not exactly a group with high growth. Historical miniatures wargames that concentrate more on things that skirmish-scale (cheaper to buy, faster to paint, and easier to store) and on subjects in the collective consciousness see more popularity these days. I don't think you can truly blame video games for that.
Perhaps they're going to make a game like EVE Online with a Traveller flavor.
But here's my question: Why Traveller?
Traveller does have a small and dedicated fanbase, but it's very heavily split between older grognards who aren't going to play it (the CT/MT crowd) and some younger players (the MongTrav crowd).
The grognard segment is going to hate anything they produce unless these guys are geniuses (which I have to say I doubt, unfortunately).
The younger players might like something they make, but ... I have to wonder what is so compelling about Traveller that they think that name would create a good MMO? Traveller's own universe works against making a good, fun MMO about it (one week jumps, small player ships in a High Guard universe is, as they say, "lol"). By the time they modify and develop the Traveller universe enough to make a fun MMO, they'll have done enough work where you have to ask, "Why didn't you just make your own setting?"
If they just want a flavor of tramp frieghters in space, do what Firefly/Serenity did: Make a universe that's Traveller with the serial numbers filed off that's sufficiently original that you won't get sued but still has 'tramp friegher in outer space' flavor.
I'd have been very interested if they wanted to make a single player CRPG, but an MMO? Not really interested.
The raging juggernaut of the video game industry almost crushed and destroyed the RPG hobby (and, likely, historical miniatures wargaming, for that matter) and, just for that, deserves a contemptuous smirk.
Video games didn't really destroy the RPG hobby. I think plastic model making in the US and Europe took a harder hit from video games.
What almost destroyed the RPG hobby? Remember Magic the Gathering? Yeah, MTG and all of the CCG games that were like it in the early 1990s that glut the market at that point. Sufficient players were drawn away from TRPGs that most of the RPG companies that were around either outright closed their doors or "downsized" to the point where it was basically the founder(s) holding on to their IPs and little to no new development occurred on their games. GDW and R. Talsorian are casualties of it that I know of. I'm pretty sure FASA decided to call it quits around that time as well (WEG basically died when they lost of the license to Star Wars), White Wolf weathered the CCGpocalypse better than others by tapping into a different playerbase than other RPG makers but even they took a hard hit and when the millennium came and went their whole stick of "the millennial end of the world" popped and so did they for the most part. Sources, you ask? There's various interviews with GDW staffers discussing the death of GDW. There's also a quite recent interview with Mike Pondsmith (of R. Tal) literally a few weeks ago where he makes mention of it. TRPGs are a small, niche ecology whose wallets can get rapidly tapped out, and things like CCGs or MageKnight/*Clix can be killed by their own success like blooms of algae, often taking TRPGs with it.
Historicals? Yeah, you can make an argument video games contributed to their decline. I'd actually argue that fantasy and sci-fi miniatures games have contributed more to their decline as well as many of the historical periods that 'big tray' wargames are made of have fallen off the media radar - you don't many new movies or TV shows about the Napoleonic Wars or American Civil War these days for instance; and this is very important. One has to read books or see movies about these conflicts and that has to fire the imagination and make one wonder "wow, I wonder what it was like to fight during that period?" to get people into historicals. As a case in point, video games actually have increased the number of people with at least some cursory interest in historicals, particularly Ancients and Medieval Europe through games series like Total War. Some historical eras just are pretty out of vogue now (Napoleonics in Europe, American Civil War in the US for instance). Meanwhile WW2 era wargaming (Flames of War) has stirred some interest in the WW2 era within the last 10 years and modern miniatures wargaming is niche but thriving with multiple rules and lots of support recently (Force on Force, Spectre, Fireteam, Black Ops, etc.) has actually seen growth in the last ten years. One thing in common with both of these eras - they're still getting lots of media that keeps them in the public consciousness. But historicals, particularly in the US, have always been a niche market; traditional "big army tray" historicals is pretty much where the definition of grognard neckbeard comes from, they're not very interested in growing their hobby and they're not welcoming of younger players - they prety much grow old and die with their games. Plus there's that hurdle of buying / painting / storing these 15mm-20mm armies, the majority of which don't see play - it's hobby for middle-aged and retired men, not exactly a group with high growth. Historical miniatures wargames that concentrate more on things that skirmish-scale (cheaper to buy, faster to paint, and easier to store) and on subjects in the collective consciousness see more popularity these days. I don't think you can truly blame video games for that.
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