| From: | Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: World Map |
| Date: | Thu, 3 Apr 1997 22:29:48 +0100 |
<gurth@******.NL> writes
>It's only logical to do it in two languages,
Careful Gurth, you might start something here <g> I'm not that fluent
in other languages to cope with it, I'm okay with German, and maybe a
small smattering of Japanese, but whole lumps, phew <grimace>
It is a reasonable idea though, but a teeny bit impractical for many.
>IMHO... Not many people
>outside Japan can read Japanese (I know I can't... I wish Tamiya would use
>more English on their boxes :)
Agreed. Darn but I hate those characters. finding matches and making
sense out of them takles way too long. <grin> (Not that I try too hard)
>Anyway, I'll have to look for the URL somewhere. There's a link on Paolo's
>page, right?
Yep, however, just for simplicities sake, I dug out the link for you. It
takes you to the initial Sourcebook site, and other links to other pages
from there. :)
http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~timd/japanlinks.html
Hope that helps some.
>It looks like that's changing a bit. Where NAN vol. 1 has only one person
>listed as a writer (Nigel Findley), California Free State has four, plus
>six and a "special thanks to" under "Additional Writing."
That is an encouraging sign and hopefully will be the form of future
releases, even though some things still get screwed a tad. As far as
the CFS book goes, I'm split 50/50 on that, some I like, some I don't,
but then that's nothing new. <g>
>I talked about the London Sourcebook (why isn't it called "UK Sourcebook"
>or something anyway?)
Probably for the same reason the Germany sourcebook isn't called the
"Europe Sourcebook". Essentially it isn't.
>remember all that much of it, but in short, he thought it could have been
>done a lot better. He was from Newcastle, and IIRC didn't agree with the
>treatment the city got at all.
Treatment of cities os always going to be questionable, people have
ideas how the city is going to be, and there's no possible way FASA
could manage to predict all the variations. If the book had stuck to
just being a _London_ sourcebook, after all it is the capital and
there's more than enough material there to fill one book. Leaving the
rest of the UK to a seperate book, it *might* have been better. I've
often voiced my opinions on the mistakes in the book, so I'll not bore
everyone by repeating them here, yet again. The same for Europe I feel.
The Germany sourcebook should have stuck to Germany. If we can have
books on Aztlan (Mexico) Seattle, Denver, and individual themes,
Corporate 'files, Cybertech, etc, then the books could have been limited
to the country/city they concerned. That they were allowed to wandcer
out, and cause so much damage, is not only (IMNSHO) silly and wasteful,
but guaranteed to anger people living in those areas.
>That's the Trekkie habit of finding explanations for everything, no matter
>how unbelievable it may sound :)
Are you accusing me of being a Trekkie?
<growl, snarl, slavver>
>They tried to pull the license on the ST:TNG CCG, didn't they?
I have no idea.
>an explanation, but I don't think there are many western countries that
>like to have a huge toxic wasteland where one of their major cities used
>to be.
As you said, if they could do it, why aren't they doing it? Again,this
is where the initial series of sourcebooks have dug a very deep hole for
FASA, and somehow they are going to have to claw their way out of that
pit before the world will be sorted to fit the game, and not some warped
view of a cursed earth.
>strike would be an effective way to end a war. If it were, then all modern
>conflicts would end by wiping out the general staff the day after the war
>starts IMO.
Precisely, also, the way they destroyed Europe, I'm frankly stunned that
there was sufficient forces to stop a Russian army, and of course
there's the Russian fracturing that is occuring now, after the 2012
incident, VITAS and UGE, what are the chances of the USSR being able to
stage an invasion of Europe. It was dealt with in the wrong way, and
the way the areas are described almost directly contradicts the whole
concept. A great shame, as with a little thought and care, the mistakes
could have been so easily avoided.
>OTOH, if there had been a nuclear war then we'd have a good reason for
>the destroyed areas of the globe...
But there wasn't, and apparently won't be.
>be to have two books and put a plastic wrapper around them, like for
>example the Hot Spots set for BattleTech/MechWarrior. It would at least
>save the price of the box.
Talsorian shrink wrap their books, TSR shrink wrap, Palladium shrink
wrap, FASA don't. I know it adds a little bit to the cost of producing
the book, and they've been prety dilligent at keeping hte price of their
books down to very competitive prices, but if two books were to come, a
GM book and Players book, shrink wrap is a perfectly acceptable way of
doing it. IIRC the only box set from Talsorian was the Home Of the
Brave, adventure, I suspect they found the same thing as FASA, it looks
good, it's a nice product, but doesn't sell too well, books take up less
space than boxes. OK, shrink wrap is environmentally unfriendly, yeah
so, I don't see too much in the way of that anyway.
>I'll get the book anyway, and see if I'll ever use it. Most of the stuff
>from newer sourcebooks I don't use at all, the few times a year it seems I
>actually get to GM/play anything these days.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much of the newer books I'd use either.
I've not really used much of anything for the game since VR2, maybe
later, when my players catch up with the timeline (even though they're 5
years ahead of it)
>Can you believe some providers actually encourage you to do this sort of
>thing?
Yes I can. Demon, my ISP, encourage it as well. <ho-hum>
>take a look at http://people.zeelandnet.nl/ and go for the "spelregels"
>link.
OK, I'll poke around, why not <g> Am I going to enjoy this? <s>
>All corporations are sinister, it's part of the definition :)
I think I've got into enough trouble without qualifying this remark with
the kind of answer I have to hand. Some people don't like my thoughts
<grin>
>game company web sites I've looked at only advertise their own products.
Isn't that the main idea of it though? With the massively increasing
presence of people on the net, more secure methods of financial
transaction, and more potential customers browsing around, it's only
logical to present the product first. Many fans will produce their own
stuff, like most of the people here, so why worry about doing something
for the game? It's a nice step that FASA have introduced a Shadowtalk
area on their site, but it's so stagnant as to be almost useless. Not
at all what I expected from that area. However, that no doubt will
change once Mike gets a firm grip of the helm. (I hope).
>> really to write an adventure myself. I suppose, if I really put my mind
>> to it I could, but... I don't like doing it.
>
>Me too, I get bogged down really fast. Most self-designed adventures I've
>run in recent years started with two or three ideas that I wrote down, and
>then winged it from there, basing much on off-hand comments from the
>players.
Off the cuff, although more anarchic, is a lot more fun. I can think of
nothing worse than getting bogged down reading vast chunks of "Tell it
to them straight" spoiling the continuity. Also, as my players have
said on several occassions after the game is over and they look through
the module "We wouldn't do that!"
A point in case was in one book, where the "TITTS" (is that a Freudian
slip on the part of FASA?) had the players walk through the main doors
of a company and try to gain access to an elevator, in full view of
security measures and personnel. My players went pure white just
thinking about it. <g> Things get changed a bit. But to sit down, and
plan out a module in "FASA format" is not something I enjoy overly. A
freeform adventure, with the characters governing the paths they follow,
is more fun for me, and them.
>I don't like the way compensation lawsuits are on the rise in Europe...
>But that's not related to SR :)
No it isn't, except in a very gerenalised way. It is saddening though.
>As we've seen it's morelikely to be the other way around -- look at what
>T$R did a few years ago.
Oh yeah, wasn't _that_ a joke, and to screw themselves over in the same
suit... <snigger, smirk>
>would probably tell them where they could stick their game... IMHO it's a
>good thing FASA is much more relaxed about this sort of thing than T$R.
TSR have lightened up a tad. They've got their own sight now, official,
as well as unofficial, and they're easing up on the fans a bit too. It
seems that initially they were panicking over the size of the net, and
believed that everybody would be trading in TSR material, thereby
cutting their profits and making the game into a "free priacy" thing.
They obviously believed *all* the bad press about the net. - At least
that's the company line anyway. I'm inclined to think there was a
certain amount of militancy mixed up in there as well.
>I think email is also cheaper, money-wise, than printing hundreds of pages
>and sticking lots of stamps onto the package.
Ultimately yes it is. Even in areas where one pays for the time on
line, or/and phone call, it's going to work out cheaper in the end. I
don't know how many companies do accept electronic submissions, but with
the rise of personal computers, powerful software for writing, and the
increase in electronic communication, those who stick to the old regimes
will quickly fall behind the more "advanced" companies.
>As for the bandwidth,
>hardly anybody complains about the massive bandwidth taken up by all those
>graphic WWW pages...
Really? You listen to different areas than I do Gurth. <g> The latest
complaints that I've heard are about massive pictures on pages, huge
Java scripts that don't run, producing all manner of errors, scripts and
other things that make browsers choke... But I get your mening :)
>Hah! In the 1980s, computers were claimed to reduce the amount of paper
>used in offices. It only gone up since then...
It most certainly has, with the amount of waste generated by printers,
people still insist on printing everything out onto paper, when they
have the document on the machine in front of them. After paying a
vicrosoft UK, I was frankly stunned silly by the complete lack of piles
of paper in their offices. Paper is taken in by the postal department,
scanned and sent to the individuals over mail, efficient and friendly,
and makes for a very clean environment, however.... that's Microsoft,
and they have a funny idea of the world anyway. :)
(The above comment was not an invitation to start the MS bashing theme
in here again, nor the PC-vs-Mac theme, any culprits who indulge in
commenting either way, and starting the thread again will be savagely
flamed.)
>Well, not really "finally." It was more like the first idea I ever sent to
>a game company...
I said it before, I'll say it again.
Good Luck.
Congratulations, I hope it all works out for you :)
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