Pentapod earplug
Mongoose
Before going into any types of comments, I must say that I applaud the effort of bringing this unique setting back to life. Hope it will work out this time, and seeing the feedback here I dare to dream.
One thing that strikes me is the method of information gathering oon the forum. Have there been any polls? There were two distinct modes of playing this universe; the gung ho GI/explorer or the cyberpunk space piratey thing. While I to some extent enjoyed GM:ing the GI-variant, my players seemed to prefer the other and as someone else posted here, we created a very bladerunneresqe millieux instead of the merrier original tone. I for one did not see any problem with combining the Alien (the movie...) space-ship environment with the cyberstuff. I'm sure that this have been covered in depth, but I would find it interesting to see what playmode the writers here prefered.
On the starmaps, I fully agree that this was something that attracted me as a GM. (What attracted players, though, were lasers, subdermacomps, and monofilament garotes.) I could probably go into all sorts of debates on the social construction of scientific knowledge here, but Kuhn aside, I find the trade route construct essential enough to the feel of the universe to warrant minor modifications. At the same time I would feel a whole lot more enthusiastic if I knew that there had been some sort of update to keep my suspension of disbelief hanging there. Have anyone thoroughly tried modiying the jump distance yet? I've seen other modifications mentioned here that seem plausible enough to complement this. Just try to keep the feeling. For instance, make sure that travel times and costs are enough to make you consider a journey between stars carefully.
On the politics, the French hegemony was always a source of much amusement to me and my players so this is a definite must keep. At the same time, there was a strange global integration feel to the game. When I look at 2300 AD, I (as do most I'd presume) think of Napoleon. This was at the time a refreshing break from the mostly american game environments which did not feel quite as intuitive for me. I suppose coming from a very small european country, a contemporary american setting would be enough of a leap of faith without the sci-fi stuff added to the mix. In this vein I hope that we can see a truly global approach to the game and not a market appeasing boost of certain national characteritics. I would like to see a more even coverage of the globe(s) this time around. After all, we have been globalized now so they say...
Skipping the extreme transhuman probably goes without saying, judging from the many posts on the subject, so I won´t go there.
Finally, I concur with an earlier speaker on the lack of texture to the descriptions of otherworldly phenomena, such as smells, colours and textures. This I hope will be dealt with in a more modern way. On the other hand, one thing that made the game what it was was the rather dry, upfront presentation of data. In more recent games I often get a feeling that such things are to be kept as vague and fuzzy as possible. That I do not like, so if you could manage to keep the sober presentation of data whilst adding more flavour, that would be great.
Oh, and I liked the walkers and the hovercraft, plausible or not.
One thing that strikes me is the method of information gathering oon the forum. Have there been any polls? There were two distinct modes of playing this universe; the gung ho GI/explorer or the cyberpunk space piratey thing. While I to some extent enjoyed GM:ing the GI-variant, my players seemed to prefer the other and as someone else posted here, we created a very bladerunneresqe millieux instead of the merrier original tone. I for one did not see any problem with combining the Alien (the movie...) space-ship environment with the cyberstuff. I'm sure that this have been covered in depth, but I would find it interesting to see what playmode the writers here prefered.
On the starmaps, I fully agree that this was something that attracted me as a GM. (What attracted players, though, were lasers, subdermacomps, and monofilament garotes.) I could probably go into all sorts of debates on the social construction of scientific knowledge here, but Kuhn aside, I find the trade route construct essential enough to the feel of the universe to warrant minor modifications. At the same time I would feel a whole lot more enthusiastic if I knew that there had been some sort of update to keep my suspension of disbelief hanging there. Have anyone thoroughly tried modiying the jump distance yet? I've seen other modifications mentioned here that seem plausible enough to complement this. Just try to keep the feeling. For instance, make sure that travel times and costs are enough to make you consider a journey between stars carefully.
On the politics, the French hegemony was always a source of much amusement to me and my players so this is a definite must keep. At the same time, there was a strange global integration feel to the game. When I look at 2300 AD, I (as do most I'd presume) think of Napoleon. This was at the time a refreshing break from the mostly american game environments which did not feel quite as intuitive for me. I suppose coming from a very small european country, a contemporary american setting would be enough of a leap of faith without the sci-fi stuff added to the mix. In this vein I hope that we can see a truly global approach to the game and not a market appeasing boost of certain national characteritics. I would like to see a more even coverage of the globe(s) this time around. After all, we have been globalized now so they say...
Skipping the extreme transhuman probably goes without saying, judging from the many posts on the subject, so I won´t go there.
Finally, I concur with an earlier speaker on the lack of texture to the descriptions of otherworldly phenomena, such as smells, colours and textures. This I hope will be dealt with in a more modern way. On the other hand, one thing that made the game what it was was the rather dry, upfront presentation of data. In more recent games I often get a feeling that such things are to be kept as vague and fuzzy as possible. That I do not like, so if you could manage to keep the sober presentation of data whilst adding more flavour, that would be great.
Oh, and I liked the walkers and the hovercraft, plausible or not.
