Oh dear - maybe they can exist after all

[MR TEK]

Back to three D printers.

At least one open license printer has a user base that has a build party.

The parts to build a printer are provided with the provision that they go to a "party". The gathering is an assembly party for the recipient, but they gather a group of friends, acquaintances, or people who want a printer, and once the device is built, the first job is to "print" the components except motors and electronics for each participant to build there own.

So yes, it is Quite common to print your own 3d printer.

 

[Dragoner]

Not abandoned... Willfully ran away from.

A terrible business decision and using the the very definition of deus ex machina: a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.

This very nicely sums up all the things that I didn't want in Traveller.

Another terrible business decision, GDW didn't realize that their continental customers would be alienated by an idea of "let's blow it all up and start over."

The reality is that games are an industry, video games know this and have a definite separation between the business side and creative side, something Traveller never really had or has now for the most part. Amazing too, considering it could really be a gold mine if handled properly.

 

[Tobias]

Another terrible business decision, GDW didn't realize that their continental customers would be alienated by an idea of "let's blow it all up and start over."

By the way: Does anybody know TNE's sales figures?

The CT reprints have print run totals in them, so I have a good grip on how many (or rather how few) CT products were sold. But I don't have comparable data about any other versions of Traveller. Do any of the CDs have this information?

 

[Dragoner]

By the way: Does anybody know TNE's sales figures?

The CT reprints have print run totals in them, so I have a good grip on how many (or rather how few) CT products were sold. But I don't have comparable data about any other versions of Traveller. Do any of the CDs have this information?

I have actually looked for figures and never seen any, it would be a crucial part of reviewing the financial statements; but Mongoose followed what was obviously going to be the most sucess in picking up CT, same as Steve Jackson Games did.

 

[BytePro]

Yeah, but the issue is what happens if we somehow (nanotechnology maybe) end up in a situation where if you see someone has a nice car and you fancy it you can have a copy of it without affecting the original car.

So you go online, download the plans for the car from The Pirate Bay of the Future, feed them in to your home nanofabricator and bing! New Car.

So physical items have the same issues of 'ownership' that music and software does today.

Ah - but that basically exists today...

We call it Taiwan!

At one time 'currency' used to be based on a 'gold standard' for a large part of the western world (which is a the smaller part of the overall world, but what little I know of it is in that part) - derived from the human labor required to obtain the resource. (Of course, the 'explorers' from Spain found a ready supply given a lot less labor - i.e., that physical theft thing... but I digress.)

Today, virtual valuations are attached to 'currency' via government regulations (and the manipulations of big banks - several of which are government controlled).

In a future where product manufacturing is a non-labor intensive thing - the currency will likely be based on the resources. Your personal Build-O-Matico 9000 might be capable of making that deluxe, passenger extended, military version Hummer - but somehow you need the material and/or energy resources... that will be the valuation basis of the 'currency'. (Assuming we don't blow ourselves and most of the biosphere to smithereens first! )

And, of course, people eventually become bored by things that are not a challenge to acquire.

 

[aramis]

There was exactly as much as I wrote in my original post. Or maybe less, because I am not certain at what point in 1979 JTAS began publication. The idea that there was some coherent "Small ship universe" before HG is retroactively applied nostalgia without any basis in fact. There was a bare-bones background-less RPG that was continually being expanded upon - rather quickly, by the way. Your "OTU" lasted about one and a half years I guess. Of course, the preceding "OTU" which was "wiped" by Mercenary lasted less than a year.

The OTU only grew into a consistent gaming background in the early 80s. I'd set the publication of "Library Data, N-Z" as the point where the basics of the OTU had been established.

The CT rules from 1977 posit some setting elements. Ones which make it very much NOT generic.

Many chose to go the generic route, rather than read the setting that was implied strongly in the rules. My mid-80's (1983-1985) run slowly added OTU materials, but the basic game gave us a setting that was very OTU without anything but Bk1-4 & S1-4. It was a very different OTU, but it was the OTU still. Given that a viable Bk5 was not present unti 1981....

The Bk5 issue is small potatoes compared to the changes in TNE. From the outside, it looked very much like Traveller was being coopted to be T2K in space on many many levels.

And while I don't know if they actually paid attention, but snail mail to GDW was at least read and responded to.

Even our rant about Survival margin got a note back. (postcard, read "thanks for your feedback.")

And yes, EVERY boxed game had a feedback card.

So GDW did listen - at least somewhat. Proof is in removing "Traveller" from the title "Traveller:2300" for the second edition.

 

[David Johansen]

I think it's important to remember that TNE was a reaction to the incredible popularity of Vampire and Warhammer 40000 at the time.

Virus was a way to introduce primitive cargo cult worlds worshiping and maintaining ships and later on whako cyborgs with chainsaw arms. Vampire was more a target for mockery, as in the Regency sourcebook. Though I'm sure I'd find other references if I went back through the books.

The RCES in tights was a shot at a Buck Rogers look. Something TSR was doing around the same time.

I think the real way to think about TNE is GDW spinning around wildly looking at their competitors and trying to figure out how to make a buck in this crazy industry. It's hard to say how much they knew about what was really going on at TSR. The story's mostly out there now and I'm sure people talked back in the day but TSR had a pretty elitist / fortress mentality going so maybe not.

Perhaps instead of realizing Lorraine Williams milking TSR for everything she could get, GDW figured that if Buck Rogers was getting all that attention and production value then Buck Rogers was popular and making money.

 

[LeperColony]

Whatever the origins of TNE might be (I actually like both Vampire and 40k too, for very different reasons from each other, and from Traveller), I think it introduced some interesting themes that either were absent or not particularly developed in Traveller up till then.

In particular, for the rest of Traveller, technology is an enabler, it's a friendly force. More important, by the 57th century it is so omnipresent and so reliable that people have become utterly dependent on it without realizing it. Virus turns that stable universe on its head. Technology is no longer a force for good. Now when your ice maker isn't trying to kill you, your TED government is oppressing you with relic weapons or high tech slavers carry off your friends and family.