TML Archives from WAY Back.

[aramis]

the TML was PROLIFIC

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Aramis:
the TML was PROLIFIC

Yes. Enough so that I got too many digests to read or individual threads to go through and so have never stayed subbed to it for very long. Signal-to-noise ratio did improve some in the last several years and some people left the list who were there IMNSHO to use the TML as a chat list and TML-Chat was created, not really related events. Personally I wasn't finding TML-Chat used enough.

Still there's some pure gold in those archives. Well worth the download and I hope Hunter can host and eventually integrate it into the mailing list search engine. Oh and get that search engine to consistently work.

I just prefer threaded web forums these days for such discussions. Less Black Hole of Quality IMO.

Casey

 

[clementk]

With the help of the Beowulf Down site I located the emails from when GDW closed down. Interesting stuff. There was even talk of a CD / PDF project back then that never came to pass.

FWIW the main files are TD960536.txt and TD960537.txt . There was also similar in the x-boat digests but I believe those are seperately available. Not sure where at the mo.

Casey

update - now I'm remembering why I bought T4 back in the day. There's still a good game and setting in there somewhere. o.o

 

[aramis]

Those were very heady days... T4 was a promising thing... until we got our hands on it. Then, it was just a let down, especially after MWM's excitement about it.

His 25 years Game designing and my then 15 years GMing came to very different conclusions about what makes a good task system... or ship design system... or personal combat system...

Surprisingly, tho, it was very playable PROVIDED the players didn't have a prior "Favorite Traveller Edition/Flavor". It played well enough, and ad enough in one place, bt as for erratta, it was, well, worse than MT. MT had erratta mostly in tables. T4 had erratta in rules, tables, layout, AND had Cris Foss art...

And it STILL did not give all marines Battledress...

(THose of us in the "Not all marines are BD troopies" crowd used to ram this fact down the throats of the "LKW-ist All Marines are BD Troops to the very last potato peeler" crowd. SOme on list, some off, and some over here... I basically pointed out that bit to Hunter, quite vehemently, in fact, so that the IM Class wouldn't FORCE us to modify it if we chose to follow the Non-Loren mode... Hunter, if I didn't apologize then, sorry for being SUCH a litigant about that... but it was an important inclusivity point. Thank-you...)

 

[clementk]

Miniphant Ai’xiao xiang-ci* saunters by and bumps the thread.

BUMP!

* "Low and Small Elephant that is Cute"

'Cos like the TML archives might make good reference with all the Ancients coming out of the woodwork lately.

Casey checking the stars to see if they are right

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Casey:

Casey checking the stars to see if they are right

And if you happen to be playing Fading Suns, they just might not be right . . .

 

[grymlocke]

not fading suns....used to play 'Other Suns' way back when...

 

[Jame]

Wow! That's a LOT of posts! Maybe it'd be more readable if I had once been a member - but it started when I was in my seventh year!

Looks like some members used to have websites, which have since disappeared (such as Shadowcat's site - oh, I really enjoyed that...).

 

[aramis]

I'm one of those who's website disappeared...

Back in my TML days, it was on the www.uaa.alaska.edu system... then disappeared when I went to a BBS-ISP, then reappeared when I went to a proper telco-ISP, then disappeared again (after 6 years up) when I decided to lower my bills, and found out webspace is no longer part of any package there...

 

[robject]

Thread Resurrect

Thanks to Bruce Johnson, we have all of the TML.

Now, does anyone have the Xboat digests?

 

[FreeTrav]

I might; let me check and I'll get back to you...

 

[Supplement Four]

Ah, the TML. A hotbed of Traveller lore, fantastic ideas, vicious flame wars, good friends, good times, and all things related to our favorite roleplaying game.

The This Is Hard rule, for the T5 task system was born about of a flame war that I started on the TML because of a peculiar aspect of the then T4 task system.

Tons of equipment, NPCs, vehicles, spaceships,adventures and just "stuff" was posted on that list.

I remember coming home every day just to see all the discussions.

And, unlike a board, a subscriber basically participated in every discussion--at least had a handle of every discussion, as it came in e-mail threads with topics.

I remember getting 200 messages a day, regularly, all about Traveller, and spending hours thinking and discussing the game.

 

[GM Joe]

I remember getting 200 messages a day, regularly, all about Traveller, and spending hours thinking and discussing the game.

Yep, those were the days. I was on there (and the X-Boat ML) from the mid-90s to after Imperium Games went bust. I should go through the archive some day. I don't even remember which email address I had back then. It was probably at iconnect.net or pyro.net. It would be fun to go back and re-read those conversations, when we were all so passionate about the way T4 was going.

 

[sayatmenace]

I miss the '90s-early '00s TML a lot. No offense to our hosts here, but this is a lumbering and dull beast by comparison -- as is the TML of today. I'm not feeling optimistic about the next decade of Traveller, whatever the weird press releases I get say.

 

[robject]

Yep, those were the days. I was on there (and the X-Boat ML) from the mid-90s to after Imperium Games went bust. I should go through the archive some day. I don't even remember which email address I had back then. It was probably at iconnect.net or pyro.net. It would be fun to go back and re-read those conversations, when we were all so passionate about the way T4 was going.

Yep, there you are.

                            TRAVELLER Digest 652
Topics covered in this issue include:
  1) Re: TL/Price issues
        by [COLOR=red]Joe Walsh <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>[/COLOR]
  2) Traveller Word Generator
        by "Vaclav G. Ujcik" <102726.2151@compuserve.com>
  3) The "New Traveller" Mailing List
        by FKiesche3@aol.com
  4) Re: The "New Traveller" Mailing List
        by Jeffery.M.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU (Jeffery M. Miller)
  5) Re: [T648] RICE Papers
        by jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (JEFF ZEITLIN)
  6) Re: The "New Traveller" Mailing List
        by "Christopher Weuve" <caw@intercon.com>
  7) Still time to vote!
        by "Harold D. Hale" <hdhale@smtpgate.read.tasc.com>
  8) Re: Tech/Price Differences
        by Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
  9) Re: Tech/Price Differences
        by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)

I think the TML lumbered back then just about the same as COTI now. The difference is probably that we lumber more now than then.

 

[aramis]

Yep, there you are.



I think the TML lumbered back then just about the same as COTI now. The difference is probably that we lumber more now than then.

And we don't see nearly so much of the "noise"... because of the foldering, most people don't see the areas they would rather not see, unlike the TML, where I found myself suffering through one after another "Kenji & Bruce" thread that bored me silly.

 

[GM Joe]

Yep, there you are.

Wow...a blast from the past. April of 1996...I was 27. Sheesh.

A few of those names seem familiar. Yeah, it'll definitely be worth going through that some day.

I think the TML lumbered back then just about the same as COTI now. The difference is probably that we lumber more now than then.

I think of us as having more of a sedate, dignified pace.

 

[jac]

Are these archives still available?

Thanks, I'll lumber over to the corner of the bar and wait quietly...