I received the same email yesterday as well. I hope Decipher will eventually appease us. You would think that they would have said something by now.
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I received the same email yesterday as well. I hope Decipher will eventually appease us. You would think that they would have said something by now.
After the previous two years' experiences? No, actually, I wouldn't be inclined to think that at all.Quote:
Originally posted by jeffearley
I received the same email yesterday as well. I hope Decipher will eventually appease us. You would think that they would have said something by now.
Hey, guys, just something to think about.
One of the RPGs I used to play back in the day a lot was the classic Marvel Super Heroes RPG from (then TSR) WotC. Much like Trek, Marvel's had a rough go of it in game licensing, as every subsequent attempt to do a Marvel game gets aborted after shorter and shorter a shelf-life.
Here's my point though:
At present, you can download practically all the core rulebooks for classic MSH off the web. For free.
Not only that, but there was an (unfortunately aborted due to lack of interest) attempt to develop a new edition of the game for free download.
I guess what I'm saying here is, given that the license holder ceases to mind, doing something along the lines of what everyone's postulating is possible to some extent.
Of course, the larger issues that Don and D.S. have brought up are still paramount, but I just thought I'd throw that out for everyone.
--mac
Just a quick note; slightly off-topic, but close enough to scrape by.
Don: I decided to check your Abulia Savant site today and noticed that you mentioned discussions with the Decipher upper-echelon on e-publishing the ENT work you'd done for them. Does this form of release apply to the rest of the queued works as well?
I recall that pretty much this same discussion was held with Wizards back in Sept. '00, after Decipher:rolleyes: had picked up the licence. While that proposal, obviously, was not followed through on (God knows why), does it look as though there's been any progress on this end? E-publication, quite honestly, seems to be the best possible solution for all involved at this point: it gets the work out there at - as you stated - minimal cost; they can charge a fee per book that would keep them in the black; and it shuts the ravening horde of consumers up and lets Decipher close the door on this matter forever.
I went to ADB's "Prime Directive" rpg :)
they have already come out with "Empire of Steel"
i.e. The Klingons
next up..The Romulans
see www.starfleetgames.com
:cool:
Question to the professional writers here.
How much would you like to write professional quality netbooks?
Question to the professional layout artist here.
How much would you like to do the layout of those text?
I ask those questions because I understand perfectly that a line has to be drawn better a fan involvement in writing and a professional spending hours writing to pay the rent. On the other hand, I would gladly contribute a few bucks (and probably more) so that the people creating the netbooks get the reward they deserve in addition to the eternal thanks of the fans.
Any other here who would contribute?
If enough can contribute to meet the costs, would the writers and artists be interested in the project?
Mike
i don't see how any of this can be legal but i'm all for it!
(assuming it's legal ;)
"I went to ADB's "Prime Directive" rpg
they have already come out with "Empire of Steel"
i.e. The Klingons
next up..The Romulans"
Well, ADB hasn't released a Prime Directive product in two years, either, so I don't see how they're a better prospect...
Speaking as someone who's still using the ICON system, and who used FASA for years after it went out of print, I'm definitely of the opinion that you don't need a current line of products to play. I mean, sure it'd be great to have a steady (or even sporadic) stream of new product out there, but if it isn't going to happen, there's no real need to freak out.
Frankly, there's more source material out there for Trek than any other fictional milieu (and that includes Star Wars.It's not really that difficult to apply game mechanics to that material.
I'm used to having game systems I like yanked out from under me, but it's never stopped me from continuing to play.
Fan support in the form of Netbooks and websites is a marvelous idea. I do think however that introducing monetary incentives into the mix beyond web-hosting costs and the like is asking for trouble from the licensees and licensors... While the lack of payment does not guarantee that an endeavour of this type will slip through under fair use, financial compensation virtually guarantees attracting unwanted legal attention. Remember, we live in litigious times.
Also, remember, the flip-side to the whole "if they don't release Trek RPG materials don't buy any of their stuff" is that if they do release them, buy them. Positive reinforcement goes a lot farther than boycotts.
IOW, buy less or no CCG from them, buy more RPG from them.
That's what I do with Wizards' selection of wares.
actually buying more ccg from them may allow them to use some of that profit and support a less profitable or losing product line like rpg ;) plus trek 2nd edition ccg is so fun.
Module Prime Alpha and Klingons were both released in the second half of 2003, so I'm not sure where you get the above idea from.Quote:
Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
Well, ADB hasn't released a Prime Directive product in two years, either, so I don't see how they're a better prospect...
I totally agree with this.Quote:
I'm definitely of the opinion that you don't need a current line of products to play.
What's more rummaging around in second hand bins or hunting for stuff on eBay gives one access to everything produced for FASA/PD/LUG/DEC/GPD, that's five systems worth of material to cherry pick for senarios, backgrounds, ideas, etc.
"Module Prime Alpha and Klingons were both released in the second half of 2003, so I'm not sure where you get the above idea from."
From their website - Klingons is listed, but the last update was in 2002. So, in other words, their own website isn't any more reliable than Decipher's, eh? Hmmmph. (Earth to games publishers - if your website isn't complete, accurate and up to date, you might as well not have one...)
I can't say; I don't know the particulars of the contracts. My gut reaction is no; a standard Decipher Work For Hire agreement is 25% on acceptance and 75% 90 days after publication. (Be it in printed or electronic format.)Quote:
Originally posted by D.S.McBride
Don: I decided to check your Abulia Savant site today and noticed that you mentioned discussions with the Decipher upper-echelon on e-publishing the ENT work you'd done for them. Does this form of release apply to the rest of the queued works as well?
My being paid for ENT entirely upfront was something of a rarity, meaning that any other books that would be published (i.e. Klingons et al.) would incur Decipher additional costs in payment to writers and artists.Expense versus revenue. There's no point in taking of the expense and headache of even an electronic distribution and payment to authors and artists on a line that you know you don't want to continue. (Editors Note: This is exactly what I said when the studio was first closed; no Line Developer = no intention of printing anything.)Quote:
I recall that pretty much this same discussion was held with Wizards back in Sept. '00, after Decipher:rolleyes: had picked up the licence. While that proposal, obviously, was not followed through on (God knows why), does it look as though there's been any progress on this end? E-publication, quite honestly, seems to be the best possible solution for all involved at this point: it gets the work out there at - as you stated - minimal cost; they can charge a fee per book that would keep them in the black; and it shuts the ravening horde of consumers up and lets Decipher close the door on this matter forever.
Plus if you're trying to sub-license or sell the property do you think it increases or decreases the value of the property to include a dozen nearly-complete products in the deal or not? Yea, exactly.
They're not gonna see print through Decipher, folks.
Since you have already been paid for the Enterprise book and the additional costs for selling it as a pdf online are negligible it should seem reasonable even to Decipher that this would be the best course of action.
Moreover, the Enterprise book could be considered a test run to see how much resonance they can expect.
I'm afraid, however, that, since the Enterprise book hasn't been updated for quite some time, the sale figures would make you underestimate the number of people willing to pay for the other unpublished books, like Worlds or the Klingon sourcebook.
I believe a preorder option might solve this problem. Decipher should be able to calculate how many people would have to preorder the book so they make a profit (after paying those outstanding 75% (Bastards! :D). So, after enough people have preordered a certain book, they could decide about whether to make it available or not, without the risk of loosing any money. Do you think this could work?
No, because they're shopping the line. They want out, they don't want to publish more books.Quote:
Originally posted by Ergi
Do you think this could work?
The RPGs made Decipher money, they just didn't make Decipher enough money. Decipher isn't going to spend any more time (or money!) on these lines. Even an electronic release takes man-hours and time; time that could be spent on more profitable products like CCGs. Why else are they releasing 2+ year old adventure re-treds?
Don: Thanks for the clue-in and update. Wasn't aware of those particulars regarding the contracts, pay-outs, etc.
With this information at hand, I've accepted as fact at this point that any further Coda-system publications - be they Trek or LotR - are going to have to be the work of a third party, if they ever see the light of day at all. And, quite frankly, I've got to agree with Ineti that the chances of that little miracle happening are dwindling into the black hole's event horizon as I write this.
My feeling, back in late January, was that Worlds had a roughly fifty-fifty chance of getting out; the others - expletive deleted - might as well have been given up for lost even then. I am now revising my opinion to include Worlds in that missing-and-presumed-dead file; it's all up to us, now. While, as you indicated in another forum, Don, we'll have to wait a bit before Decipher announces the official time of death and pulls the sheet over the corpse, we might as well start getting organized and ready to roll as soon as the word comes through.
So, who's next in line for picking up the Trek license? Time to start the rumor mill. :)
That would be a bad business model, IMHO. Any smart Ferengi would know that you eliminate the weakest sale and focus on your strongest sale. If you have to take profit from one product to support another product that is not taking in as much profit to support itself, you cut your loss and fast.Quote:
Originally posted by jened
actually buying more ccg from them may allow them to use some of that profit and support a less profitable or losing product line like rpg ;) plus trek 2nd edition ccg is so fun.
For Decipher, who started their business as a CCG publisher, it's not too difficult for them to drop the studio.
Well I don't think we'll see another ST RPG for a while, if ever. If someone decided to pick the licence and start a new line I don't think it would work; prospective players will just assume that the line will last a year or two, like LUG or Decipher's lines. And I said "if ever" because let's face it, the Star Trek franchise is nowere near as popular as it used to be, except now for a few die-hards as ourselves. I think that the best time to have released a ST RPG was in the early '80s when ST, because of TNG, was hugely popular- that was when ST almost became 'mainstream'. A new RPG then would have also been able to pick up where FASA left off. But nowadays the end of an RPG line isn't that bad in a sense because of this wonderful invention called the internet. We can trade ideas, make our own sourcebooks, etc. With the powerful tools that are available today we can even make very professional looking products at home. Lastly, the major difference with Star Trek as a RPG licence is the huge amount of non-RPG reference material that exists. So in essence all you need is a few core books (starships, worlds, creatures, etc) and you should have pretty much all you need to play. And going back to net ressources nowadays it is much easier to recover old material from defunct lines. For instance, there were a few FASA products I was hunting in the early and mid 90's and I was only able to finally find them a couple of years ago through the net. Ah and speaking of FASA it is still today my favorite ST system. If I'd play again (haven't played in aged!) that would be my system of choice. Too bad they don't award prizes for digressions, I'd win.
Question is: Who would want the cursed ST line? As a long time Trek fan and a bandwagon fan of LotR since 2001, I would venture a guess that WoC might want Star Trek line.Quote:
Originally posted by Ergi
So, who's next in line for picking up the Trek license? Time to start the rumor mill. :)
I couldn't bring myself to purchase ST in the D20 setting. Setting 16 on phaser doing 3D8 damage and crits on a 19-20. :rolleyes:
With all due respect, I doubt WotC would want to touch that with a reach weapon after what happened years ago. Of course, business is business, but they already have two sci-fi products to support (currently Star Wars and the upcoming d20 Future for d20 Modern releasing this year -- one of which Don's SG-1 colleague is co-designing).Quote:
Originally posted by Capt. Anderson
Question is: Who would want the cursed ST line? As a long time Trek fan and a bandwagon fan of LotR since 2001, I would venture a guess that WoC might want Star Trek line.
I couldn't bring myself to purchase ST in the D20 setting. Setting 16 on phaser doing 3D8 damage and crits on a 19-20. :rolleyes:
A third-party publisher with a second-generation d20/SRD rules engine will have to bid for it, assuming the the IP is still popular with the current consumer market.
And yes, I can bring myself to purchase a d20 Trek. :p
Funny stuff! :DQuote:
Originally posted by REG
With all due respect, I doubt WotC would want to touch that with a reach weapon after what happened years ago.
Well, never say never, right? :)
I mean, it isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility that someone changes their minds and something happens (on the Trek front). Or, perhaps some company picks up the rights and loves the Coda system, picking up from where Decipher left off.
My point being that until a decision/announcement is made -- of any kind -- we really don't know for certain what's going to happen.
ADB's Prime Directive line is still going.
As noted above they had two releases last year. This year has three things planned, a Deck Plan pack (similar to the GURPS Traveler deck plan packs with a sheet of cardboard Klingon heroes) of the Klingon Fast Patrol Ship should be late May.
Of the other two products for 2004, Prime Beta and Romulans, Prime Beta was originally due early this year, and Romulans late this year.
However, with the announcement by SJ Games of Gurps 4th edition, both of these have been pushed back to August so they can be released as 4th edition products.
I know their website is rarely updated, but if you check their BBS or their on line ordering cart, you will have up to date info. The on-line ordering cart is always kept up to date, and the BBS is the best place to get info on product statuses.
My thoughts:
If we try to do it ourseleves by creating Netbooks, webzines etc... I think some form of council should be formed to decide what projects the board will support the most. This way we don't have 12 people starting 12 projects at the same time and thinning what is at best mearger resources i.e. talent, time, energy etc... for the projects. This creative council could be formed by:
1.) Don appointing a teller for nominations
2.) on a specific day we all PM the appointed teller with our nominations for members to sit on our creative council, the person must be say a member in good standing of the boards and have posted at least 500 posts for example.
3.) Once nominations are done, should last two or three days, to make sure everyone gets a chance to nominate some one the top ten with the most nominations are selected.
4.) Those top ten are then listed in a normal poll style thread and everyone votes on them, the top five vote getters then make up the creative council.
The council would be in charge of appointing editors for the net books who will inevitably also be the guy who came up with the idea. They can also rule on /outline matters of format so that the books will look as if they are part of a line. We all will submit to the councils decision so if the council decides that enough netbooks are in the works we don't go off and start another one expecting to use the boards resources i.e. people. As well as understanding if the council pulls support due to lack of effort i.e. the book produces no results after a matter of time, we abide by the decsion.
Each netbook if possible from Don could be given a private topic area like the Cardassian/Spacedock/Bajoran book had eons ago and only those who are working on the project can access that area. In aiddition those who have the courage to go off and write there own netbooks all alone can submit the book to the council for support in the way of profreading and playtesting.
In addition the council could (in should my opinion) be the ones who actually come up with the idea for projects then "advertise" for editors who would then be in charge of forming and managing there writting/creative staffs.
Just some ideas on how we could do this and be professional about it.
Yeah, but they have their own kind of fanbase that don't mind the deviation from the popularly known contemporary Trek universe. But I'm guessing by comparison there are less PD roleplayers than there are SFB wargamers in the pool ... including those that play both games.Quote:
Originally posted by nickgb
ADB's Prime Directive line is still going.
True, but we like brainstorming scenarios, from best-case to worst-case. That way, when the news is finally out and confirmed, I won't go out and loot the town and turning over cars ... even if I'm the only one causing the riot. :DQuote:
Originally posted by Don Mappin
Well, never say never, right? :)
I mean, it isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility that someone changes their minds and something happens (on the Trek front). Or, perhaps some company picks up the rights and loves the Coda system, picking up from where Decipher left off.
My point being that until a decision/announcement is made -- of any kind -- we really don't know for certain what's going to happen.
It would be interesting if they're willing to relinquish copyright of the CODA System. Any smart Ferengi would just license it out, if it is possible.
Random aside: Get a group of gamers with capital and a little business sense and bid for the Trek RPG and CODA rights. Then publish it yourself and make what you can out of it. :)
What is to become of the site then? Almost hate to ask. Will we at least see it restored? And does anyone know what the status of the LOTR CODA will be?
Who are they shopping the line to, exactly?Quote:
Originally posted by Don Mappin
No, because they're shopping the line. They want out, they don't want to publish more books.
true but even with their ccgs, certain ones don't make as much money as others. trek for example. decipher kept printing 1st edition expansions even when it was making far less money than expected. thankfully lotr ccg was doing really well so it helped trek ccg come along for the ride. i'm sure sales have picked up with trek 2nd edition, but we'll see. there's other dynamics like owning the fan clubs as well.Quote:
Originally posted by REG
That would be a bad business model, IMHO. Any smart Ferengi would know that you eliminate the weakest sale and focus on your strongest sale. If you have to take profit from one product to support another product that is not taking in as much profit to support itself, you cut your loss and fast.
For Decipher, who started their business as a CCG publisher, it's not too difficult for them to drop the studio.
You're killing me here, REG. Absolutely killing me! :DQuote:
Originally posted by REG
True, but we like brainstorming scenarios, from best-case to worst-case. That way, when the news is finally out and confirmed, I won't go out and loot the town and turning over cars ... even if I'm the only one causing the riot. :D
Okay, get right on that, Jim. ;)Quote:
Originally posted by Ineti
Random aside: Get a group of gamers with capital and a little business sense and bid for the Trek RPG and CODA rights. Then publish it yourself and make what you can out of it. :)
Uh...Jim? You still there? :p
Can't/won't discuss in this venue. Sorry. :(Quote:
Originally posted by GenesisWeapon
Who are they shopping the line to, exactly?
That's because they hoped (and did) transition a lot of those players to the new STCCG 2nd Edition.Quote:
Originally posted by jened
true but even with their ccgs, certain ones don't make as much money as others. trek for example. decipher kept printing 1st edition expansions even when it was making far less money than expected.
Quote:
Originally posted by Don Mappin
Okay, get right on that, Jim. ;)
Uh...Jim? You still there? :p
I have at least 75 cents in my piggy bank, maybe even 1.00 in change. :D
Tease. ;)Quote:
Originally posted by Don Mappin
Can't/won't discuss in this venue. Sorry. :(
I dunno. If I were being wooed to license it from them, I wouldn't. I'd wait until their license expired, and then get it from Viacom at a discount. Give it a year or two, and I rather imagine Viacom will have no grounds to charge exorbitant fees for the Trek license.
If somebody went the "license it now" route, Decipher might renew said license, thus potentially screwing the RPG community out of regular Trek products for another five years.
Right.Quote:
Originally posted by Ineti
Random aside: Get a group of gamers with capital and a little business sense and bid for the Trek RPG and CODA rights. Then publish it yourself and make what you can out of it. :)
All I need now are the Powerball numbers...
Originally posted by GenesisWeapon
I dunno. If I were being wooed to license it from them, I wouldn't. I'd wait until their license expired, and then get it from Viacom at a discount. Give it a year or two, and I rather imagine Viacom will have no grounds to charge exorbitant fees for the Trek license.
But there is always the possibility of Star Trek XI being the best movie of all times, increasing the license fee by the factor x. :D
If somebody went the "license it now" route, Decipher might renew said license, thus potentially screwing the RPG community out of regular Trek products for another five years.
Why should Decipher want to renew the licence. I don't think they ever want to have anything to do with RPGs again. Besides, I doubt that Viacom would give the licence to somebody planning to sublicense, because this would be similar to a real estate agent hiring another real estate agent to sell his house, they would reduce their profits.
i've done a few searches and can't find how long the license is supposed to last. is this public knowledge? i'd imagine decipher would have gone for a long term license to compliment their trek ccg and fan club licences. i found the lotr rpg license goes until 2006 so that fits a long term license on that property.
edit: oops found it. trek rpg license agreement was for 5 years:
http://www.trektoday.com/news/101000_05.shtml