Heavy Gear

[Goldritter]

Yes, I am aware of the DP9 site and I drop by there occasionally. On the other hand now that the RPG supplements are no longer being published and old stocks are sold out (at least I can't find the books at my FLGS any more). So it is increasingly hard to introduce new players to those games.

Here Link, if you search the older books.
But only the Blitz books were realy PDFs, the older were only scans. But their quality is not all to bad. You can read them normaly.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?cPath=122

 

[Goldritter]

One Idea I can think of.

Mongoose can jump on to CORE Command.
These RPG was intruduced after Silhouette CORE, and so have 3e rules.
But it´s not so big, and there were only 3 books out (CORE Command, Weapons, and Big and Nasty Aliens).

And up to date there is no big story or meta plot. Only standart Informations.
And I think it´s on the last for updates or new books. First will come Heavy Gear, Jovanian Chrinicles, Tribe 8 and eventualy Gear Krieg.

 

[SnowDog]

Yes, Drivethroughrpg is a good place to get OOP books but I really can't read books from the screen. PDFs are cool when you need a reference and possibly print a small amount of the book (selected pages) for ease of character generation or when you can check it out from your laptop. Anyway, it's just my take on pdfs. Small files can be printed but even HG source books were so long that I am hesitant to print them at my workplace

CORE Command has the least support but I am afraid that it sort of steps on the toes of Traveller. I admit that CORE Command is even "higher" space opera than Traveller.

Anyway, SilCORE is OGL and can thus be licensed by anyone (I think) but I don't think that Mongoose will be going that way...

 

[Goldritter]

One like PDFs (me ) and others have problems.
I´ve sometimes Problems too to read PDFs on my Notebook. But sadly there is no ther way to get the Older Books (or look sometimes at e-bay, there you can find it too) .

I can´t think of an RPG which is more "high" ( ) as CORE Command. I think even Perry Rhodan is not so "high" (anymore).

I´ve thought, that Silhouette (and so SilCORE) is DP9 only ?
And so not so free as OGL. But I don´t think thats a big Problem if somebody whant to do some supplementals for a Silhouette "Universe" or want to use Silhouette for their own RPG or Tabletop.

And I`ve reade somewhere that D20 causes cancer .

 

[SnowDog]

PDFs are especially annoying when they follow the normal book format with two parallel columns of text. Then you have to read the page down and again scroll up to continue at the top of the page. Of course this works fine when the PDF is printed and thus this is how it is usually done.

Of course it is possible that SilCORE is not OGL not to mention freely licensed system. For some reason I thought that DP9 wanted to have their system easily licensed and I confuse things about it. I have to check out my SilCORE book when I get back home.

 

[Goldritter]

No it´s not like OGL. (I´ve read the first page of the SilCORE Rulebook.)

But again, DP9 is not Wizzard of the Coast and so I think, if Mongoose want to use Silhouette, it´s not such a big Problem.
And Robert is easily to contact .

 

[Goldritter]

And I´ve done a error , that I said, that Aurora is an "unofficial" Magazin.
It´s like Sign & Portens an official Online magazine, where you can find official Rules and other thing for all DP9 universes. Sorry .

 

[SnowDog]

OK, then I don't have to check that one

 

[SnowDog]

And I´ve done a error , that I said, that Aurora is an "unofficial" Magazin.
It´s like Sign & Portens an official Online magazine, where you can find official Rules and other thing for all DP9 universes. Sorry .

No problem It has good articles in it and it's nice to have an official e-mag for Silhouette as well.

 

[werwulf]

It's been out for a year or two now. The problem with DP9 is they don't know what scale they want to do their figs in! I mean DP9 has been around for 10 to 15 years now and the company has doen a scale change FOUR F***ing times! Now I guess some could say hey that's not that bad, but JESUS, if you have to spend say a $500 to build and army, and then have to spend that every time they change the scale?! They were on the right track a few months ago when the Sculptor tried to buy the company out. But, Robert Dubouis, the founder and CEO of DP9 is SO out of touch with his fan base that he said no. This in turn made the Sculptor quit and he has not done ONE original fig since. Granted they have released some new figs but these are figs that were released under the Minimaniac line a few years ago.
Needless to say I'm a SORE HG fan and IMHO what needs to happen is Mr. Dubouis needs to step back from the gaming aspect and let someone else take creative reign. Maybe Robert can manage the DP9 bodyguard/stunt man buisness better! Don't believe a gaming company can do it? take a peak and laugh with me:

http://www.dreampod-ent.com/

http://www.shadow-squad.com/

p.s. buy the way I am a proud Canadian and have and still do play HG just wish these guy's would pull their heads out of their asses!

 

[Goldritter]

The Scale for HG Minis is 1/144 now. And will be for as long as Blitz existst.
For Gears is no real big change since the last "Edition", except the Heavy Gears like Grizzly and Cobra, which were now 25- 50 % bigger.

The old Hover Tanks can you use as light Hover Tanks and there were new Minis (in scale) for the HT-72 and HT-62.
All old minis were remodelled (in better quality) and there were now new Gears which had no Mini in the past.

And now the Striders and Tanks were bigger and inscale to the Gears.


So if you posses old Gears you can use them for Blitz too. (Like I do it. I´ve up to 30 older Northern and Southern Gears which I can use without any problem).

 

[-Daniel-]

I would not want to see HG brought over. It is bad enough what DP9 has done to the line without allowing them any opportunity to touch Mongoose.

Daniel

 

[Goldritter]

Let´s see.
It looks as if DP9 has now a stable Line, and nearly every Month came new Minis out. From Striders to Tanks to new or redesigned Gears.

 

[-Daniel-]

Let´s see.
It looks as if DP9 has now a stable Line, and nearly every Month came new Minis out. From Striders to Tanks to new or redesigned Gears.

Yes, they are starting to catch up to where they were in the mid 1990's. Think of where they could have been had they not lost touch with the fan base back then. You are right, they have saved themselves from a total crash. I still would not want to see them brought over. Leave HG and DP9 to themselves IMO.

Daniel

 

[Goldritter]

Since HG Blitz they were more intouch with the "Fan Base".

You get Informations when special Minis were designed and give Ideas, or can "talk" with the designer and can ask questions.
Or Fan Art was used in some Blitz Books.
You can give Ideas for Rule changes, and so on.

Many Fan suggestions were used in the new Locked&Loaded, and they tried a new way to ensure that there were not so much errors in the printing version anymore. There will be some changes in spelling in the printed version of rules, which could be easily misunderstod (even some Fluff text will be changed to be more consistent). And so on.

I must say up to know it looks good.
And they had something learned from the past I think .

 

[-Daniel-]

Since HG Blitz they were more intouch with the "Fan Base".

<snip post> I must say up to know it looks good.
And they had something learned from the past I think .

I am glad to hear this.

Daniel

 

[jbuckmaster]

Scale change 4 times? WTF? DP9 changed scales ONCE, due to shifting figure production in-house and to make the figs a more reasonable size to use. And that was back in like 1997. And I should know, I'm the Heavy Gear Line Developer.

And no, the RPGs were not slowed down due to lack of ideas. I don't know who Jonathan was talking to, but they were wrong. Lack of new ideas is not something anyone can say about me. "Too many ideas," has been bandied about, along with "does your brain EVER stop?" The RPGs slowed down due to one reason and one reason only: sales. The wargame is profitable and self sustaining, the RPGs were not. If and when it looks like we can get back in and make money there, we will. However, given the current economic factors with the US dollar, that might be a while. However if Mongoose wants to talk with Robert (the owner) about that, they are free.

Anyway, as Goldritter says, we're more in touch with the fan base, but unlike the previous developer, I'm looking at increasing and broadening the fanbase. Mostly by making the games FUN and not getting locked into the cycle of appealing only to the same "hardcore fans" who bitch about everything and never buy new product.

If people are interested, the e-book of Heavy Gear Blitz: Locked and Loaded can be found here: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=55540&affiliate_id=1222 and any further DP9-related discussion should probably go on the DP9 Forums: http://www.dp9forum.com so we can stop bothering the nice people at Mongoose with this...

-John

 

[dsfrankevo]

I'm up for Heavy Gear Evolution & Gear Kreig Evolution -

Love the minis HG - especially the old 1/72 RAFM minis

Love the backstory and worlds

HATE HATE HATE the DP9 Mechanics

Did I mention that I HATE the Silloute system in all its incarnations !?!?!

I have tons of the bigger 1/72 scale gears & such - will definatley do my own stats for Heavy Gear / Battlefield Evolution unless Mongoose gets it done before I get around to it (which will be awhile) - in which case I'll be a huge supporter

 

[Autel]

Wow, who would have thought to have found a subject near and dear to my heart (see sig). As John said, Heavy Gear has only had two scales (HO and N scale). The HO scale was outsourced to RAFM and was used with the original ruleset. When second edition came out, they went to the smaller scale N-scale/ 144th. The Blitz line is still N scale, but resculpted with more details and poseability. The old tac scale (2nd smaller scale) works fine with the Blitzed stuff. In fact with the extra weapons in the blisters you can upgrade the older mini's for a snazzier look.

DP9's a really really small company. I think they have four maybe five employees tops. Maybe not even that much. But they've always been a small company even during their heyday. The settings are excellent and well illustrated and in a decent span of time they put out a large volume of RPG books. Terra Nova (the main setting for Heavy Gear) is exhaustively covered in a multitude of books. All good I assure you. As for Aurora, their Fan Magazine, its not just unofficial material. They do update it with official articles for their Blitz line. And it's a pretty good read too.

What I'd like to see is Mongoose do a Romance of the Three Kingdoms book using their excellent Conan system. I'm running a game right now using that system for the setting and it works perfectly for it. In fact I think I'll start a thread on it. :wink: