I should
preface this by saying that I've been a fan of SLA industries for more years
than I care to mention, I got my first copy of it bought for me by one of my
oldest friends, it was the game I spent more time on with my london group, I
met a lot of my extended network of friends through the game, I met my wife
through the Station Analysis mailing list, between 1998 and 2005 I put up
easily a million words of fiction, sourcebooks, ideas, concepts and support, most
of which can still be found at http://www.thedodd.com.
When
Nightfall made a special division and called it Stigmartyr to help with the
game, I was the first person promoted to agent
And in
2006-2007, I was made Line Developer and got a few books out before it was
taken back in house to be developed by Dave directly.
My
current email address is based on one of the characters from the game for gods
sake (And no, he wasn’t based around me, even if everyone believes to the
contrary)...
I just read a post by Jared indicating that they're not
going to go the Kickstarter route for a number of reasons, most of which
indicated that they didn't want to go massively overfunded and spend the rest
of forever doing SLA, or that whatever they produced might not be what the fans
were after, and they didn’t want to let everybody down and I was halfway
through typing all this into facebook when I realised that it'd turn into a
TL:DR and the point would be lost.
So I thought to put it here...
Jared, Dave, please take this as it is intended, from a man
who's put more into SLA than almost anyone, from a man who cares...
I
understand that you’re concerned about a variety of things for the development of
SLA and the production of things for it, but what you fail to understand (time
and again it seems) is that the very reason the game was taken back and put
under your creative direction is because you have a particular vision for the
future of it.
It is
that, and that alone, that the fanbase is interested in...
If you’d
wanted someone to throw tons of material out there, all true to the original
source material and coming out faster than artwork could be procured for it,
you had a man in place who could do it, but that’s not what it’s all about...
It's all
good throwing out a tidbit here, a new race there, couple of weapons, few hints
about something that never gets fully explained (see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoodleIncident)
but it's not that that interested most of us, it's the ongoing plot. No
one played the original game for the system, they played it for the world, and
with this, you've had at least four or five people over the years offer to buy
it out and do something with it and you've turned it down every time.
When someone actually started doing things with it, you took it back and
kept it to yourselves because his vision wasn't yours, and that's fine, all
people want is the vision, not the glimpses.
They don’t
want to be pleased, they don’t want to see their version of the game, and you’re
never going to please everyone, so stop bloody trying, be true to yourselves
and produce the game that you wanted to produce, not the game that you think
everyone wants you to make.
As for
the Kickstarter problem, I don't see the problem, it either makes stupid
amounts of money and provides you with the funding to do it full time and you
then get on with it, put in realistic goals, add enough to hire freelancers who
can get the writing done, outsource the things, build a directory of contracts...
and get it done properly
instead of trying to do everything yourselves, which will only have it drag on
forever, which no one wants. Alternatively, the Kickstarter sells one
copy from every one of the faithful, and that gives you enough money to give us
what we keep getting promised, but deep down don't believe that you'll ever
produce because you're all too busy with other things.
Or you’re
afraid that the faithful won’t actually like it...
And on the
subject of the faithful, sure, a lot of people will buy into SLA V2, and
nostalgia will account for some of that, but not as much as you might think
when money is on the line, and then there's the matter of the faithful, there’s
less of us now than there were seven years ago, and that's less than there were
ten years ago, wait another five years and there won’t even be that, there’ll
just be Mr Slayer, looking out from the office, at a city that died years ago
and didn’t tell him...
Which may
be true to SLA, but it’s not the ending any of us want...
You mention you don’t do
conventions?
Why Not?
*Waves Hand* Hi, I run the
organised play at the largest games convention in England, and the largest
games convention in London, and the most recent games convention in Eastbourne,
where most of the faithful are from or live around...
And I’m one of the faithful...
So tell you what, and I’m putting
this out so the world can see it and there’s no misunderstanding in what I’m
saying here...
Bring Out SLA 2
Show us what we’re missing, show us
the vision that you wanted to show us back in 2007 when it got taken off me
because mine was the wrong vision, give us something to believe in, stop
throwing chum in the water, get the bigger boat and get the explosives out...
And when you do, pick one of those
conventions, and in return, I’ll get you a table in the trade hall, I’ll buy it
myself, I’ll get you GM’s to run the new game, hell, I’ll even set up special
events to celebrate the re-release of this great game...
And you know something?
I won’t care that your vision isn’t
the same as mine was for SLA, I won’t ask you why you didn’t do things a
different way, I’ll look at it and I’ll have in my hands the thing that you
wanted to produce, not the thing you think you had to produce. Run the Kickstarter, if you end up making
millions and doing SLA forever...
SO WHAT?
Isn’t it better to be doing
something you love to do, wasn’t that the point of going freelance all that
time ago, wasn’t that why you took all those steps all that time ago? You can
tell me that the worlds not ideal, you can tell me that it’s not easy doing all
these things and I’ll point you at the last six months on this blog and say, “I
know”, but you know what, I’m still doing it.
And so should you be, because it's your Karma to do so...
Do I sound annoyed? I’m not annoyed...
I’m upset...
I’m upset because this game has so
much promise, I’m upset because it has one of the most fanatical fanbases in
the world and they’ve mostly been left to get on with things themselves while a
little bit here or there comes out, there’s been less produced material in the
seven years after me than in the Seven months
prior to that, and I didn’t mind that I got taken off SLA, I accepted that it
was back in the hands of the person who made it and they were going to do what
was supposed to be done with it.
And here I am, seven years later,
still old, weather-beaten and relentless, still working the circuit and looking
for the brighter world I left behind when I went to war...
This is Johnny Automatic in CS5 going paddling in Clearwater, and Goodnight Mort, Wherever you are...
