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New kickstarter idea: Buy the IP and put Ice, Smilodon, and Hudson back in rules development.

But then Robert and Dave will have to start a HG complaint thread on dakka!?!

Firebreak wrote:New kickstarter idea: Buy the IP and put Ice, Smilodon, and Hudson back in rules development.

I'd back that !

warboss wrote:But then Robert and Dave will have to start a HG complaint thread on dakka!?!

... I'd back it just to see this !

 Firebreak wrote:
New kickstarter idea: Buy the IP and put Ice, Smilodon, and Hudson back in rules development.

I'd be interested in the IP, but only to do it as a ground-up revamp. There's some good ideas out there, and some really nice designs, but all of them need to be modernized. If I had the cash I might seriously consider a bit... but I already have a well paying job and was more than a little burned by the entire process. If I knew artists that I could harness to generate new designs, maybe... but I'd be more likely to try to do my own thing, honestly. I love the world of HG... but I'd like to evolve the setting, like HG did with Votoms, more.

C'est la vie.

Heh, calling multiplication and some division Calculus is a bit of an exaggeration. Does make me roll my eyes a bit when people call it hard. We never, ever needed or used a calculator during any of our games. Also, adding a constant to two numbers, then taking the higher of those two numbers is the equivalent of taking the highest number and adding the constant to it.

That said, a lot of the other complaints are completely valid and I totally agree with =)

Roll and Check was dumb, I'm glad that wasn't you Ice =) It's just super confusing the first time I read through it, and it looks like I'm not the only one. One unified system would've been better.

Movement has always been tough, if you do it wrong, then tanks end up either crazy slow, or crazy agile, and they should be fairly fast, but not very good at turning. Same with gears in SMS mode, to a lesser extent. Do it wrong and there becomes no reason to ever use walker mode. I think they probably could've kept it as turn costs, and maybe just tripled or quadrupled turn costs at top speed.

Concealment and cover, yeah.... ugh, the old system was awful, (especially concealment!), and the new system I wish could've been simplified further. I kind of like the Mech Zero or whatever it is called, where it just gives cover if the defender is within like 2" of a piece of terrain, and that terrain is between the attacker and defender. No LoS check required, or proxy model or whatever.

It uses to be Strider/Gear, and that was it, and they looked fairly obviously different, Strider's tended to not look anything like the humanoid Gears, but then they added Gearstriders, which just straddle the line and confuse things. (Oh and Tankstriders, but really, they are just striders, no different rules or anything)

As for 40 year old equipment, that happens in real life too, gak gets re-used quite a bit. (The B-52 is still in service, and it's from 1952) So I'm completely fine with some of the poorer factions having old, outdated gears.

Though yeah, the army building was broken, and the stupid TV system was awful, you either needed to spend as few points as possible on certain models, like the Asp, or you spent just a wee bit more than the standard default Hunter, and got bad ass models, like Arrow Jags.

Also in total agreement with the stupid MBZK, which they exacerbated by adding rules to let you take one on every single model in a squad.

I haven't checked the rules overly much, but last I knew, the Railgun was a really big gun, and only mounted on the heavy tanks, so yes, it tends to kill things very well.

 IceRaptor wrote:

 Firebreak wrote:
New kickstarter idea: Buy the IP and put Ice, Smilodon, and Hudson back in rules development.

I'd be interested in the IP, but only to do it as a ground-up revamp. There's some good ideas out there, and some really nice designs, but all of them need to be modernized. If I had the cash I might seriously consider a bit... but I already have a well paying job and was more than a little burned by the entire process. If I knew artists that I could harness to generate new designs, maybe... but I'd be more likely to try to do my own thing, honestly. I love the world of HG... but I'd like to evolve the setting, like HG did with Votoms, more.

C'est la vie.

Oh, absolutely. I am still devotedly passionate about the setting, though I agree it needs an overhaul. The Black Talons may have been what got me into the game, but I think everything post-Interpolar War could and perhaps should be entirely redone. There's a consistency in the older material that disappears later on.

But I suspect you meant something more sweeping than that. What would you like to see modernized? Where would you take the setting, to do to it what HG did to Votoms?

ferrous wrote:

Roll and Check was dumb, I'm glad that wasn't you Ice =) It's just super confusing the first time I read through it, and it looks like I'm not the only one. One unified system would've been better.

I deserve some blame for not sticking to my guns, but hindsight is 20/20. *shrug*.

ferrous wrote:

I think they probably could've kept it as turn costs, and maybe just tripled or quadrupled turn costs at top speed.

Very likely the route I would have followed. Top Speed doubles your move but adds +4" to any turn would probably have fixed the issue outright, but I never got around to testing that.

ferrous wrote:

Concealment and cover, yeah.... ugh, the old system was awful, (especially concealment!), and the new system I wish could've been simplified further. I kind of like the Mech Zero or whatever it is called, where it just gives cover if the defender is within like 2" of a piece of terrain, and that terrain is between the attacker and defender. No LoS check required, or proxy model or whatever.

Cover at one point was fairly simple. For non-humanoid models, if you weren't completely covered, your had no cover. If you were a humanoid model, you needed to be in base contact with cover, but anything that covered your base counted as cover. We went back and forth on that one quite a bit, as lots of people didn't like that there was no significant difference between '5% covered' and '95%' covered. Or that your tank that was showing 5% of it's turret could be shot like it's in the open. Tanks could benefit from 'Hull Down' to mitigate that somewhat, but it still ended up being fairly unpopular and we abandoned it.

I'm still not happy with the way cover worked out; by adding dice, it helps models with high augment ratings (2+, 3+) significantly more than models with low augments (5+, 6+). At some point we simply called it 'good enough' though I was never satisfied with it. It should probably instead count like the old hull down did; cover just gives you a flat value (to mitigate rolling poorly). I've made some changes in that respect which works better, IMO; but that's after the split.



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 Firebreak wrote:

But I suspect you meant something more sweeping than that. What would you like to see modernized? Where would you take the setting, to do to it what HG did to Votoms?

I would change up several of the presumptions about the setting, that give it a quasi-WW2 feel for combat. I feel like the NECAF as conquering power is rather stupid; I think instead what you'd get would be a heavily developed solar system enriched by materials harvesting from the outer colonies. I'd made Caprice the 'hub' of a much larger web of exploitable planets, which acts as a factory system for refined goods heading to the Sol system. However, the Sol system wouldn't be unified; there would be enough resources built up that Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, maybe Venus rival Earth in terms of economic and military power. The NECAF would still come to power on Earth, but the interim conflicts would give the other planets time to solidify governments on their own. Caprice and the outer colonies would still be cut off from Sol at one point; but they wouldn't collapse as badly as they do, given the nature of the economic pipelines already laid down by Sol I'd probably dial back the years between today and TN, or have a significant near-extinction event occur to slow technological growth; I'm a big fan of the 'VR crash' as depicted in the "Unincorporated Man" books and would likely try to work that in to slow the explosive growth in technology somewhat.

I'd still have Terra Nova shut off from the outside for several centuries, which would allow their technology to proceed as it did. However, the other colonies would have a greater degree of cybernetics, quasi-AI and some of the lower-end of the sci-fantasy scale of technology to make things interesting. I would leave TN factions on the 'lower' end of the scale, with other factions (that suffered less during the fall) utilizing more of an quasi-autonomous combat suit / vehicles rather than manned ones. I think you could cover quite a bit of ground by making energy weapons / railguns / etc more prevalent in the other forces, and giving them toys like you see in Infinity. Earth forces would probably be mostly highly interconnected infantry backed by ground-effect vehicles, or possibly repulsion vehicles if you wanted to take it two notches towards science fantasy. Maybe add some basic kinetic energy 'bleedoff' shields, or charged particle 'shields' to let defense keep pace a bit with offense.

So yeah. Take what's been presented, approach it with a dash less hard sci-fi, and make the story 'bigger' and go from there. That's my intent, at least...

 HudsonD wrote:

Firebreak wrote:New kickstarter idea: Buy the IP and put Ice, Smilodon, and Hudson back in rules development.

I'd back that !

warboss wrote:But then Robert and Dave will have to start a HG complaint thread on dakka!?!

... I'd back it just to see this !

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that you'd hit the special characters modelled after various podders as a reward extra hard with the nerf bat?

 warboss wrote:

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that you'd hit the special characters modelled after various podders as a reward extra hard with the nerf bat?

You should know him well enough to know that they would not be nerfed, they would be nuked from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 IceRaptor wrote:

snip

I could get behind that. The economy of things definitely felt extremely weak, and the timescale stretched out. It would be interesting to see almost two wars going on - Earth trying to regain the colonies being one, and Earth using those resources to fight the other Solar powers as another.

One of the things that always attracted me to Terra Nova was "Why use a hovering tractor when an ox will do?" The planet is supposed to be hard to live on, and their technology rugged. That seems to have been forgotten, in recent years. I'd love to see Terra Novan tech as lower-end but sturdy, up against high-tech Solar and Colonial armies. I guess we've had a taste of that, but it felt like Earth showed up and anything Terra Novan about Terra Nova's tech was lost.

I just read the new Beta rules and also read through the last few pages of this thread. I've been a fan of Heavy Gear since the wonky card game that came in the VHS style box. I'm sad to see the enterprise I fell in love with is basically gone. What initially drew me in was the genre and Ghislain's illustrations. When the first book came out I saw massive potential. I was hoping it would eventually evolve in to a tight hex and counter game, maybe similar to ASL but streamlined and for modern warfare.

I was bummed when it turned in to a miniatures game. Having said that, I still think the original mechanics were good and well thought out, they just needed some streamlining to minimize bookkeeping. What was so wrong with the early dice mechanics and the Damage Multiplier vs. Armor Rating? I thought it was elegant and I liked the way vehicles systems could go out - all it really needed was more cardboard counters to keep track of stuff, which wouldn't be that cumbersome because vehicles usually didn't last long enough to rack up a bunch or status counters...

I really had high hopes for the game and the company. I feel now like that original game and company are already gone. I'm wishing the new incarnation the best though. If it's still around in 2 years and the player base has grown, I'll definitely play.

jamshaman wrote:
I really had high hopes for the game and the company. I feel now like that original game and company are already gone.

That company has been gone for a decade now. That's not a feeling, that's fact.

 HudsonD wrote:

That company has been gone for a decade now. That's not a feeling, that's fact.

Pre-painted minis sure, uh, struck a cord with certain individuals. Perish the thought, I guess.

This is the problem though- DP9 has no new player base and does little to nothing to attract new players. The new game was made basically by the existing fan base with play testing by the same fan base- no clear objectives or reasons why a new edition needed to be created. Consider this- NuCoal had been rolled out with a new way of building an army that was welcomed by all players. So DP9 spent a LOT of time and effort on a new army selection process and adjustment in TVs for everything in the game. At the same time, development on The North faction book and The South faction book was in full swing until something happened and the North book was dropped with basically no comment from DP9 at all (something about production delays and such, but I heard other rumors that have no place here). Instead, we got the South book, which was gorgeous in appearance and everyone I talked to liked it. Next up was supposed to be Peace River, and instead of a book, we got an eBook "resource". About this time, a new edition was suddenly announced.

I really thought the old system could benefit greatly from a revision- a major rework of army selection which they basically had in place thanks to NuCoal, clean up the cover/concealment rules, tweek the IF rules, and clean up the gears a bit to make them fit more inline with each faction. Instead, the new edition really, really feels like change for the sake of change with no real improvements over the old system. Army selection in the beta is better, but not as good as it was in the NuCoal/South books. The action resolution system uses more dice now then modifiers to dice rolls, but is essentially the same. More dice rolling was added now that I really think about it- before it was add up modifiers, throw a couple d6's, compare to a target number, count out success. Now, I throw more d6's with modifiers, the defender rolls d6's with modifiers, but the counting of successes is still the same. Basically, instead of a static target number derived from a skill and modifiers, it's a random number now. That's not a bad thing, it's just more of the same old system.

Movement is still clunky as hell- I'm really, really hard pressed to come up with any other table top miniatures game that makes me count out each inch of movement in a straight line, pay for a turn, and move in a straight line again. Every major game system has "free movement". It's more intuitive, easier to teach, and still adds tactical complexity to the game. This system just feels way too much like Battletech. Even Battletech moves further and further away from this kind of movement system with each iteration of the game (heck, Alphastrike completely does away with Hex maps and the movement system from Battletech). I mean, hey, great and all the power to a player that likes this kind of very formal, stilted, well defined movement. Myself, I like to envision my Gears running around, jumping over obstacles, shooting left at a target, then right at a target, and then crouching behind some cover. It's very dynamic and flows well. When I play HG, I just don't get that feeling. Instead, I get this feeling that my Gear is standing fully erect, that it moves forward a couple meters, stops, turns to face a new direction, then moves again, stops, shoots a weapon, stops, and then crouches behind cover. That's what the current movement/action sequence feels like to me. Very static, very calculated. Movement should be an easy thing to perform, but in HG, its complex, interrupts the play, and has no "contact" or "flow" with the rest of the game. It is relentlessly defined and forced to work with an abstract table with terrain and models that are not always scaled properly with that terrain. It causes major headaches in the "Cover/Concealment" phase of the game, forcing the game designer to use artificial silhouettes to represent models volume.

This is just one of the many examples I can use to illustrate the high barrier of rules a new player has to overcome to get into Heavy Gear. Comments such as "It's really not that bad when you actually play the game" do not help a new player to understand HOW to play the game. The Holy Grail of Game Design is clear, simple rules and fast, fun game play. Look at X-wing/Star Trek Attack Wing. Stupid easy rules, awesome fun games. 40K- again, simple rules, fun game play (it's GW mucking with the armies that cause so much conflict in that game), even with some of the rule "holes" present. Warmachine/Hordes- very tight rules, simple in execution, but long on complexity brings more and more players to the game all the time. What attracts new players to Heavy Gear? Artwork? It's very anime-ish, and anime seems to have a very polarizing effect on people- they love it, or hate it. The fluff? It's very, very good with a lot of detailed history and background. IMHO, some of the best fluff out there. Game play? This is where HG stumbles a lot. It's nothing innovative- movement is like Battletech, action resolution has an RPG feel to it, but it just feels clunky and uneven- something I would not expect from a game that has been out for over 20 years. Models? Oh, Heavy Gear has some fantastic mecha models that should appeal to a lot of people. Tanks and infantry for Flames of War type gamers, terrain for the hobbyists. I've found the Gears a really pleasant experience to assemble and paint. Conversions are a bit harder though, much like they are in Warmachine/Hordes. I think this is more GW's fault, as they encouraged and forced gamers to convert models for a long time (something that is sadly coming to an end, thanks Chapter House Lawsuit!).

Why would a new player want to play Heavy Gear? That's the main question that should have been asked from the beginning. A clear, concise, statement of what the game should be about needed to be written. Identifying market trends (who is playing what and why), incorporating those into the design process, and then following up with impartial testing and feedback should have been the route taken for the game. Finally, revision of the statement and core rules with the whole process starting over again should have been implemented. This would have given DP9 a VERY solid game with room to grow and attract new players.

Instead, this edition just seems to be made by the current player base for the player base. Where are the new players? I've tried to get new players into the game, and while some kinda liked it, they gave up and went back to Warmachine/Hordes, 40K, whatever. When I asked them why, it was always the same answer "The rules- so many rules..." Something to think about.

GW's cover rules, ever since TLOS, have always been a bit wonky, and runs into the same problems that Blitz does, and basically falls back on artificial silhouettes as well. Only real difference is a few extra modifiers.

It's only recently that DP9 has revamped the tanks, and IMHO, most are still fugly and overly boxy, even compared to tanks from earlier eras. Hovertanks not included, they've always managed to look pretty good.

 Tamwulf wrote:
NuCoal had been rolled out with a new way of building an army that was welcomed by all players.

What? No. No, it was not. That "new way" of army building was in some aspects worse than the older one, like for example how, due to the PL system's constraints, the best way of doing Gear (or armor, or whatever) armies was selecting any regiment but the one for the type of army you wanted. Or the way the "named loadouts" were confusing and stupid, due to not being the same between units. Or... well, it had loads of problems. And some people said as much, back in the day.

Instead, we got the South book, which was gorgeous in appearance and everyone I talked to liked it.

Oh, wow. You mean the book that made me forsake Heavy Gear? Yeah, everybody liked it. As attests the thread I did back in the day:

http://dp9forum.com/index.php?showtopic=14678&hl=%2Bthanks+%2Bfish

I know for a fact I was not the only one whose army was borked by the FiF book, and one of those actually started this very thread.

Army selection in the beta is better, but not as good as it was in the NuCoal/South books

...really. Let's just say I disagree. Strongly. And I don't even like the new army creation rules all that much.

The FiF book release murdered the southern player base, which did wonders to DP9 community and gross income...

It murdered the current player base.

Edit: Not future players.

I believe that's what Tamwulf is trying to emphasize.

-Brandon F.

BrandonKF wrote:
It murdered the current player base.

Edit: Not future players.

I believe that's what Tamwulf is trying to emphasize.

I don't think so, in this case, as he's framing it as "welcomed by all players" and "everybody liked it". I think it's more that he liked the army construction system of those books and he looks a bit irked that the Pod decided to not follow through with them.

@Al, Maybe.

I can say both PS and FiF were above-board on art and looks.

@IceRaptor, I like your ideas about quasi-autonomous weaponry versus manned weaponry for Gear-sized things.

Something a little bigger than Infinity's T.A.G.s, perhaps, like HG, but just as clunky or just as streamlined as technology will allow.

However, I wouldn't include much armor on the frames. Once you get to slinging armaments that break Mach 7, electronic warfare, chaff, and maneuvering capability (plus really solid mountains and hills for defilade) would be your best bet at survival.

-Brandon F.

BrandonKF wrote:
@Al, Maybe.

I can say both PS and FiF were above-board on art and looks.

Art and looks were never the problem (and they have never even entered in the discussion, up until now). Mason does good work. The problems were others.

BrandonKF wrote:
It murdered the current player base.

Edit: Not future players.

I believe that's what Tamwulf is trying to emphasize.

-Brandon F.

Believe whatever you want, as long as you take into account this has nothing to do with what was written. Tamwulf says the Southern book was a great success, when it actually crippled the southern audiences, which were the Pod's main source of income.
The new players didn't materialize in the two years since the book release, and the effect has been bad enough on the pod that they cancelled the next books in line, and are now trying to adopt a completely new army building system, the 3rd one in 6 years.
Feel free to call that a success if you'd like !

Edit :
Yeah, the art and layout were good, the actual content (writing and playability) ranged from mediocre to atrocious. The Pod can't even afford layout now.

@Hudson, Yes, I'm aware of what's been going on. That doesn't change me still putting the word out about HG.

Edit: At this point, the Kickstarter they are talking about might attempt to address the issue of the mini price, the availability, and also provide folks with coreach rules that can last

-Brandon F.

BrandonKF wrote:
@Hudson, Yes, I'm aware of what's been going on. That doesn't change me still putting the word out about HG.

Edit: At this point, the Kickstarter they are talking about might attempt to address the issue of the mini price, the availability, and also provide folks with coreach rules that can last

That's what the fans would like.
What DP9 will actually do is another matter, especially since it was supposed to be only for a rulebook, at first.

How successful has your recruiting drive been ?

I'm sharing as often as updates come, seems to be getting folks to have a look. Just met up with one of the guys here in Houston, so we might have some more stuff to put out for everyone. And you?

BrandonKF wrote:
I'm sharing as often as updates come, seems to be getting folks to have a look. Just met up with one of the guys here in Houston, so we might have some more stuff to put out for everyone. And you?

How many people did you actually get to buy and build armies and play games on a weekly basis ?

I haven't. And you? How many people have you played with on a weekly basis this last year?

None at all ? Well, I started a group of 7-8 people that played for a couple of years in Montréal, before DP9's incompetence killed it, so color me unimpressed.

These days though ? Well, I don't know anyone I dislike enough to recommend them a DP9 game.

So you haven't played.

Neither have you, by your own admission, and you didn't ask if I played, you asked if I've recruited.

To knowingly recommend people toward a business that I know first-hand as dishonest and incompetent isn't something I'm keen to do.