Merchants & Cruisers in Stock

[Stainless]

I just need to scan and upload them to a graphic site I can link to.

If you aren't already a member, the MGT Aids Yahoo group will readily accept your deckplans.

http://games.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/MGT-Aids/

It is also very easy to upload files to GoogleDocs (just Google it to find the link!)

A good free file host that allows you to link images directly into forums is Imageshack;

http://imageshack.us/

Thanks for your comments also. I've had similar thoughts about Mongoose Publishing myself and eventually came to the conclusion that the strict sense of the definition of professional is that you get your full living from the activity. Thus, MP are a professional publisher. However, competence doesn't by necessity follow. Remaining and succeeding in business does that, and that doesn't mean simply maintaining a certain volume of output, although that is necessary for continuing financial viability.

One way around the Mongoose deckplan issues would be to have fan-made deckplans (including variants) that conform to the published ship stats. Even if these were simply better re-renderings of the published deckplans. MGT-Aids would be the perfect vehicle for coordinating and compiling this.

 

[DFW]

If you don't like Andrew's or Ian's art style, then offer something you think is better. Maybe you can get published next!
.

Many of us have. So, either keep up with postings here or, quit babbling on about what you are ignorant of.

 

[phavoc]

Ford made the Pinto. It had an unfortunate problem with exploding on impact. So people decided to not support Ford by buying inferior products.

In general the Big Three auto manufacturers allowed their quality control and designs to slip because of their arrogance and complacency. The Japanese swept in and dethroned the US guys with better quality and designs. This has forced the US guys a) first into bankruptcy (cept Ford), and b) to make better stuff.

While Mongoose gaming products sucking are not going to be equivalent to a life-threatening explosion due to a rear-end conclusion, the same thought process is still applicable.

Quality and well-made products help you sell more stuff and gain more customers as well as gaining customer loyalty. Obviously by the comments in this thread there have been comments both pro and con. Going back to the Pinto example, people still bought the Pinto, but in much less quantity than WOULD have if it were not a death trap. Mongoose COULD sell more M & C books if they had better production quality.

Whether they choose to do so in the future is up to them. By doing so they will gain more business (at least from me). By not doing so, they will lose my business. Everyone is going to have their own threshold of acceptance. I have stated mine, others have stated theirs. I'm going to let the marketplace decide the rest.

(PS - If anyone wants to talk coimparisons about the Gremlin start a new thread!)

 

[zero]

I havent seen any of Ian's deckplans, what they like compared to the ones in the MGT Core?

I base my own on the MGT Core but a little more "boxy" (unless theyre streamlined). Theyre the same otherwise visually and I draw mine with ol' fashioned pen and paper :wink:

I'm not sure about the Cstars deckplans, although they look awesome at first, theyre kinda fitted around the exterior of the ship, rather than the exterior based on the deckplan - I dunno, I kinda do the opposite.

Btw, I have no opinion on the deckplans in this release as I havent seen them :roll:

 

[barnest2]

Ians are damn good generally, better than the core books plans. They are smoother, and just feel more like a real ship than the ultra-squareness of the core books plans.

 

[zero]

Hopefully he sees this and posts a small sample

 

[barnest2]

I'll ask him too if you want.
or rather I'll ask him if has anything he can show off

 

[apoc527]

Phavoc, the problem with your analogy is that the sci-fi RPG market isn't the automobile market. If Mongoose stops making Traveller, then you can't go buy it from someone else, there will simply be no more Traveller!. Well, unless you count T5 (insert derisive laughter here).

Now, M&C is nowhere near as bad as some of you are making it out to be. By and large, the only ugly deckplans are the small craft with very little detail. When you get to the larger ships, they really aren't too bad (of course, unless you buy the book, you won't know this).

So maybe Mongoose put up a bad preview, but once you get past the small craft, it's much better.

Finally, there are amazing pieces of art in the book. I NEVER expect 100% of any RPG book, even a full color D&D 4th Ed book, to fully appeal to me. I often buy it anyway.

This entire thread is proof that you can never please everybody.

And DFW, I've seen examples of others' ship designs and deckplans. They don't fill me with confidence that anyone else could have done this book better under any kind of reasonable time and pay structure.

 

[rust]

They don't fill me with confidence that anyone else could have done this book better under any kind of reasonable time and pay structure.

This is a point which tends to be ignored quite often, better art takes more
time and therefore is more expensive. Artists, like writers, have to make a
living with their skills, they cannot work "for love" like fans, and so art is
either inexpensive or good, but very rarely both. Sure, many fans make
truly excellent deck plans, but if they had to sell them at a price based
upon the number of hours they worked on them, there would hardly be a
publisher able and willing to buy them.

 

[middenface]

Ians are damn good generally, better than the core books plans. They are smoother, and just feel more like a real ship than the ultra-squareness of the core books plans.

About a 5th of the size and a hell of a lot smaller file size.

 

[zero]

Very nice, like taking the best bits of the MGT Core and Cstars designs in one. I'm sold

 

[barnest2]

Hey it looks better up close
Nice work Ian

 

[apoc527]

They don't fill me with confidence that anyone else could have done this book better under any kind of reasonable time and pay structure.

This is a point which tends to be ignored quite often, better art takes more
time and therefore is more expensive. Artists, like writers, have to make a
living with their skills, they cannot work "for love" like fans, and so art is
either inexpensive or good, but very rarely both. Sure, many fans make
truly excellent deck plans, but if they had to sell them at a price based
upon the number of hours they worked on them, there would hardly be a
publisher able and willing to buy them.

This is doubly true when you talk about needing to fill a 128 pages of ships, most of which are NOT huge capital ships with deckplans taking up 6 pages (YMMV on the value of those plans too). THIS book has the most ships of any previous MGT ship book and only two guys did it, neither of whom do it for a living (yet).

So, we either get the book in a reasonable time frame or we get one that has "perfect" art and it's either $100 special order or comes out Q4 2023. I'm happy with what I got NOW.

 

[phavoc]

Phavoc, the problem with your analogy is that the sci-fi RPG market isn't the automobile market. If Mongoose stops making Traveller, then you can't go buy it from someone else, there will simply be no more Traveller!. Well, unless you count T5 (insert derisive laughter here). .

Lol. You are aware of the history of Traveller, right? It's been pretty much published by one publisher or another since it's initial release by GDW. If Mongoose were to stop making Traveller, the license would be revoked and another publisher woud have the opportunity to publish material.

I stopped counting the different versions of Traveller a long time ago. I am glad that Mongoose is actually contributing to the rich base of tech and adventure lines that exist already for Traveller. It's a much better thing for all of the fans of Traveller than merely republishing pre-existing works.

And you are correct, without purchasing the full volume I may never see the "good" deckplans that you reference.

You make it sound like those that are critical are somehow in the wrong, that we should be more tolerant and accepting of poor work. And by saying "This entire thread is proof that you can never please everybody" you are clearly illustrating, in my opinion at least, that you have yet to refute my core point.

You say "So maybe Mongoose put up a bad preview, but once you get past the small craft, it's much better". To me, you are acknowledging that my position is both true and factual - that some (and I never said all) of the illustrations are indeed of very low quality (I used "crap", but I'll be nice here). To me that means you will accept poor quality work if some of it is acceptable.

And to that I ask why? I'm not saying you have to like or agree with every deckplan and ship build-out. What I am saying is that the illustrations that they put in the book should all be of equivalent quality (i.e. good quality).

I am still waiting for someone to actually come back and say why it should be acceptable to praise a commercial enterprise for selling low quality products.

 

[DFW]

And DFW, I've seen examples of others' ship designs and deckplans. They don't fill me with confidence that anyone else could have done this book better under any kind of reasonable time and pay structure.

Then you haven't seen the better examples. So what?

 

[DFW]

Phavoc, the problem with your analogy is that the sci-fi RPG market isn't the automobile market. If Mongoose stops making Traveller, then you can't go buy it from someone else, there will simply be no more Traveller!.

Incorrect. With the SRD ANYONE can publish traveller.

 

[rust]

Incorrect. With the SRD ANYONE can publish traveller.

Incorrect. :wink:

With the SRD anyone can publish material for Traveller, but attempting
to use it to publish the core rules of Traveller required to use that mate-
rial would be a fast lane into serious trouble.
In the case that Mongoose would give up on Traveller, as they did with
Runequest / Glorantha, the only ones able to produce a replacement
for the core rules, or to give someone a license for doing so, would be
once again FFE.
I am fairly certain that this would mean that the Mongoose Traveller sys-
tem would be replaced in the more or less far future by T5 or something
based upon it, which I would hesitate to see as an improvement.

So, be nice to the Mongooses, what would replace them could well be a
lot worse. :lol:

 

[GJD]

I've just downloaded the PDF from DTRPG and I'm 3/4 bitterly dissapointed and 1/4 very happy.

I'm afraid the 3/4 bulk of the deckplans are, in my opinion, very substandard. I appreciate that somones hard work has been put into them, and I'm sorry to be a harsh critic, but I feel that this style of deckplanning is blocky, ameturish and badly executed.

The icons for the location of various systems are intrusive and illogically placed in many examples, and the actual design of the ships are basic to the extreme - this big square is the power plant room, as it has a PP icon in it - this big square is the jump drive room and so on.

Compare the dire passenger shuttle on page 4 with the excellent luxury shuttle on page 18. They are, excuse the pun, worlds apart.

This is, of course all my own personal opinion and aesthetics are very much a matter of personal opinion, so you may well feel differently to me.

However, the biggest sin is one that isn't a matter of personal opinion - it's that the interior of the PDF is in B&W, so the walls of may of the deckplans meld into the 1.5 meter grid and I'm left with a few iris valves and hatches floating around on a sterile grid here and there with no idea of the actual location of the interior walls. This renders plans that I may have disliked the styling of but could use as a resource completely useless to me.

I'm also doubtful about the utility of a fighter mounted flame thrower, but not so much that I wouldn't want to throw it at my PC's as a "What the hell???" moment.

G.

 

[DFW]

Incorrect. With the SRD ANYONE can publish traveller.

Incorrect. :wink:

With the SRD anyone can publish material for Traveller, but attempting
to use it to publish the core rules of Traveller required to use that mate-
rial would be a fast lane into serious trouble.

The SRD is the core rules for MRB, HG & Merc. You can publish as they are in the SRD or change.

A good example is the D&D 3 SRD & "Castles & Crusades".

 

[rust]

The SRD is the core rules for MRB, HG & Merc. You can publish as they are in the SRD or change.

Yes, you just cannot name it "Traveller" or market it as "Compatible with
Traveller" or use any of the typical terms of the Third Imperium setting,
and so on, without explicit permission from FFE. What you can publish is
a game which works like Traveller, but has a different name and uses a
different setting, a Traveller clone in the same way as Mongoose's Way-
farer will be a Runequest clone.

If you doubt this, here is the paragraph from the OGL:

7. Use of Product Identity: You agree not to Use any Product Identity,
including as an indication as to compatibility, except as expressly licen-
sed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of each element
of that Product Identity. You agree not to indicate compatibility or co-
adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction
with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed
in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or
Registered Trademark.