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Author Topic: why have starship troopers dissapeard?  (Read 6988 times)

Offline Lowtardog

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 8262
Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #15 on: August 17, 2009, 08:40:09 PM »
To answer your question Wisecrack...e-bay is your best bet to be honest, yu might find the odd internet or bricks and mortar shop selling them but I doubt it.

Offline dijit

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3736
  • And when Eric eats a banana...
Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #16 on: August 17, 2009, 08:45:20 PM »
What made the SST system so good? How did its mechanisms work? And what exactly is battlefield evolution?

Offline The_Wisecrack

  • Mad Scientist
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Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #17 on: August 17, 2009, 08:54:03 PM »
thanks lowtardog, nice answer ;P

but yeah i looked around, im looking to pick up mayeb 30 of the main bugs. but there hard to get hold of cheaply.

TW
EZPAINTER.CO.UK/BLOG

Offline Col.Stone

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1864
    • The compound
Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #18 on: August 17, 2009, 10:09:40 PM »
It is and it isnt, the evo stats on the forum could be used as people ahve produced them for 3rd world countries

I have some rough bits and bobs pulled together Tomas perhaps we can pull it together-together :D

Sure =)
What made the SST system so good? How did its mechanisms work? And what exactly is battlefield evolution?
hard to say, it feels complete, and for me, it was the first system with Reaction mechanisms =)


Offline Lowtardog

  • Galactic Brain
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Offline Bako

  • Scatterbrained Genius
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Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #20 on: August 18, 2009, 12:00:06 AM »
Stuff like that. It is a real shame - the game system is a very good one IMO and only because some of Mongoose mini lines disappeared is not proof of the quality (or non-qulaity) of their rules.
I am working hard to re-establish some faith into the game system!

Utterly agreed. Good rules, but they jumped the gun with the miniatures and made the whole bottom soggy making it all fall out. Mongoose were good blokes, but a little out of their league, methinks.

Which is too bad really, there was a number of figures and sets I was eying intently back in those days when I didn't have money.

but yeah i looked around, im looking to pick up mayeb 30 of the main bugs. but there hard to get hold of cheaply.

I could get you 20 of my arachnids if you're interested. Never had enough bugs to play against my Mobile infantry (which I will be keeping, thank you) anyhow.
Everything is better with lizardmen.

Offline dijit

  • Scatterbrained Genius
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  • And when Eric eats a banana...

Offline Doc Twilight

  • Mastermind
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Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #22 on: August 23, 2009, 08:32:57 PM »
SST was a great game. The miniatures were pretty good (Ok, the Skinnies were ugly, but big deal, they could have been re-done, as was originally "Promised), and the game sold very well. Several friends in the industry told me that they felt that it was the first science fiction game in years that had the potential, and the clout, to challenge 40k. Andy Chambers was a big name author, and the mechanisms weren't just recycled 40k.

I'm  not sure what they were thinking, honestly, and I don't think anyone else was, when they decided to "Re-do" the rules. They were very popular, and simple errata would have done fine, but my best guess is that Matt and company felt that they could follow the 40k standard by re-releasing the rules every few years. The problem is that the Evil Empire was more established when it started doing this (initially, with Fantasy), and Mongoose was just getting its feet wet. They made a jump they weren't prepared to make. Oh, and lost Andy Chambers in the process.

Will the system come back? Doubtful. The last best hope for this was in the "Evolution" series of rules. Ignoring for a moment the initial and disastrous release of "Battlefield Evolution" with its pre-painted soldiers and out of scale vehicles... (yeah, right, that's an Abrams in 28mm. Let me sell you this bridge that isn't seeing much use over in London...), the "World at War" engine did re-ignite some hope, but it hasn't done well, for a variety of reasons.

1. It's a Mongoose product.  Unfortunately, that's like saying the name is "mud." Mongoose has been blacklisted by most American retailers and more than one distributor, and beyond even that, most gamers hear the name and immediately lose interest. Even roleplayers have mixed feelings about Mongoose these days. Which is unfortunate, but entirely the fault of the Mongoose leadership.

2. They took several months to publish the working version of the "Open License" for the "Battlefield Evolution" engine, by which time most independent developers had moved on to other things, because the interest in the game had simply died. As this situation developed, they were extremely close to the vest about how that licensing would be done, and didn't like discussions "off site". Several of us attempted to set up an independent group for sharing of ideas about how to stat up vehicles, develop scenarios, etc..  Matt of Mongoose was extraordinarily offended by this idea, and claimed that nothing without the "official" stamp of Mongoose could be relied upon, whereupon most of us questioned what exactly the point was of an Open License... Result was that both major developers and freelancers (like me) who had interest in writing supplements, lost most of our enthusiasm.

But, most importantly for Starship Troopers, specifically...

There was an SST "Evolution" book promised. First it was a pre-painted game, then it was simply a rulebook. This had a lot of promise, and was not entirely divorced from the old SST rules.  But nothing ever happened with it. And now, aside from comments in the forum, there are no references to Starship Troopers: Evolution to be found. An unfortunate end, but... unlikely to improve.

In my personal experience,having been a wargamer for many years and having written a number of gaming supplements myself (ok, four, but still, that's something), I have never seen a company so poorly run, or so determined to make false promises and repeatedly break them. In addition, the arrogance there is... to be put it bluntly, -overwhelming-.  

I do wish you luck with SST. It was a fantastic concept, and deserved a better shot. There have rumors that someone else has picked up a license, but these are just rumors. Hopefully if they pan out, we'll hear something.

-Doc


Offline DAWGIE

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 89
Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #23 on: August 24, 2009, 10:28:55 PM »


MONGOOSE killed themselves with multiple dull spoon disembowelments and  apparent group lobotomies among the folks who made decisions at management levels . . .


as a result, we no longer have the toys from both the  SST movie and CGI series. the skinnies were fine-they looked suitably alien, the bugs were excellent, the cougar and grizzlie powered armors the best ever designed and made for gaming.


 the SST rules i could live with out without, although i do think CHAMBERS did a good job on them.


i was one of the folks who believed, at first, that SST ws a serious possible threat to GDW 40K universe. 


sadly i was wrong.


DAWGIE
BFG-5000: DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT!

Offline Mr. Peabody

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2223
  • Canuck Amok
Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #24 on: August 25, 2009, 03:07:20 AM »
Dawgie, you back online!? I've been busy, I missed you coming back online, right?

Thomas
Television is rather a frightening business. But I get all the relaxation I want from my collection of model soldiers. P. Cushing
Peabody Here!

Offline DAWGIE

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 89
Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #25 on: August 27, 2009, 02:28:04 PM »


YEPPERS!


DAWGIE is back again as of the weekend (last), and prowlin' the www with pleasure!


i missed all of my buds from the www,muchly!


DAWGIE

Offline Dr. The Viking

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Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #26 on: August 28, 2009, 02:54:29 PM »
I've got about a tonne of the arachnid models. At least 5000 pts in the old rules.

The miniatures were funny, but the quality left a lot to be desired. Especially the brain bug was... rather poor!

The rules suffered from the same thing that any other rule set I've come across: If you play people who can't limit themselves, it's too easy to "crack the code" and make a completely broken list.

So in that respect it's no different than Urban War, Warhammer 40.000 or other armylist games.
My Empire - where everything I ever did is collected:

http://www.c0wabunga.com

Offline Andy H

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 163
Re: why have starship troopers dissapeard?
« Reply #27 on: September 16, 2009, 06:53:15 PM »
I imagine the real reason is the same reason most of their stuff disappears - their niche is in licenses, but they have to keep paying the renewal fee, or lose them. It's a truism of the games industry that products are subject to what's referred to as the 'hobby hump', whereby unless you really heavily support a product, people stop investing in it. That's fine when its your own IP and you can support it at your own pace, but if you're paying to use someone else's then you're on their schedule.

Now Mongoose are tied to Rebellion, who own Judge Dredd, we may see then stick at an IP they don't have to pay a license for though.

 

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