"Rick Priestley new sci-fi game..." Topic

Sorry if this has been posted before…

darkspacecorp.com

Still very little info, Kickstarter on January 1st 2013. Includes Rick Priestley (obviously), Kev White, Bob Naismith.

Background is similar to Mass Effect. There's a web of gates built by ancient races…

Looks very interesting so far.. Certainly plenty of talent going into it will make a speculative pledge slightly more reassuring. it'll be interesting come January..

I wouldn't be interested in the 'living game' aspect of it as it sounds like quite an investment of time on the behalf of the player. Sounds like a MMORPG.
However, I'll give the game a chance as it's Rick Priestley. If it's along the lines of Black Powder and Hail Caesar it will be worth a look.
Not impressed with the first sculpt though.
link
Looks just like any other 'demony type alien' with a big horn on his head. Doesn't scream 'brand new sci-fi' to me.

Agree with Agent Brown. Very GW like in style.

I think Rick does a good job of writing good rules.

If the world is original enough and the figures are more than just a stylistically adapted Space Marine/Ork/Eldar I'm more than willing to support it. If it's just another 40K or Warzone I'll pass.

I'll see what they have to offer first before making any reservations. I love Kev White's sculpt. Price will be my main consideration, especially after Bolt Action's reasonable prices.

I wouldn't be interested in the 'living game' aspect of it as it sounds like quite an investment of time on the behalf of the player.

I'm getting the impression this is not a pen & paper "static" wargame like 40K or Bolt Action.

There seems to be this on-line evolving background/campaign thing and that might put me off if I can't play games at my speed (3-4 times a year) without having things be different because of online changes.

The world is SCREAMING for a generic Sci Fi skirmish game, this is probably not it…hopefully the background is not as stupid as Fanticide.

Tomorrow's World is pretty generic for sci-fi skirmish.

I like how there is literally NO info on anything

Even the races there is nothing set, the picture of that model is actually some conversion for something else!

I will wait for some solid info, even if it has Rick Priestly slapped on it I rather have some actual substance

hopefully the background is not as stupid as Fanticide.

It can get really worse, the background is apparently malleable by the fans. Get ready to have "awesome mcsuper space marines" vs "space my little ponies" if there can be that much sway

I like the mini except that whole 'shark fin' on top of his head…
No info on the rules, but I'll keep my eye out for this one.

Tomorrow's World is pretty generic for sci-fi skirmish.

Do you mean Tomorrow's War?

I like the mini except that whole 'shark fin' on top of his head…

Dont worry, as I said that isnt their miniature

the design isnt set yet

The Vorl are the first real alien species and are uber hard. More info coming soon!!!

Some great work by Karol Rudyk below which will inspire us – If you have some ideas for how the Aliens should look, get over to the forums and start posting, we're very interested to hear what you want!

I'm going to keep an eye on this. The idea of more "modern" concepts of post-humans and the like intruges me…

Damon.

I wouldn't be interested in the 'living game' aspect of it as it sounds like quite an investment of time on the behalf of the player.

The last company I remember trying it was AEG with Clan War. The problem there, of course, is that they had already covered the same ground with their CCG, so it wasn't really a living game.

That said, the CCG (L5R) was a living game, so it could theoretically be done. I'm interested in seeing the pace that they'll set -- if it's a small company, 3-4 games a year might be enough to influence events.

maybe they mean living as in necromunda or Lotow whee your guys get better game after game and losing a fig in a game means something long term

I agree with Bytorr42's interpretation. Looks interesting and clearly influenced by more recent developments in sci-fi than say 40K. The collection of names involved is interesting.

Ditto what Mr. Elmo said….

Except that it's not 'generic si-fi' that we need, but a supported rule set to replace 40K… something with more reasonable prices and a nice range of miniatures that does not die off after a couple of years. Mantic had a chance and has failed IMHO. Warzone, VOR, AT-43, Cobalt-1, Void1.1, and many others have tried and failed. This will probably fail as well…

More KeV White scifi minis is great news!

If people want generic there is always Quadrant 13, just out from TFL and really rather good.

"The world is SCREAMING for a generic Sci Fi skirmish game, this is probably not it"

Quadrant 13 seems to fit this bill, anyone tried it yet?

Fwiw my impression is that most people prefer a "world-design" to exist though, dunno why.

The concept is exactly what is needed to grab players away from 40k. A solid ruleset combined with a living universe, that's fantastic. Some of the most fun I had playing GW games was during the Storm of Chaos worldwide campaign back in 2005 or so, reporting weekly battles and such. If the players can report battles and play in ongoing campaigns and shape the fate of the fluff, this is an _amazing_ concept and if done properly, will attract legions of gamers. 40k has a static universe; the only new things that happen are new authors retconning out old fiction and confusing things even more… nothing new has happened in the 40k universe.

Fwiw my impression is that most people prefer a "world-design" to exist though, dunno why.

Some people need more than just little lead guys; they need a story to get behind. When you play historicals, you've got that story -- Napoleon is a megalomaniac, Blucher is a crazy old man, and Wellington is a stick-in-the-mud. (I exaggerate.)

Without the fluff, a Space Marine is nothing but a lump of plastic.

+1 for Quadrant 13

Mr Elmo 19 Dec 2012 6:27 a.m. PST

The world is SCREAMING for a generic Sci Fi skirmish game, this is probably not it

If the world was SCREAMING for a generic sci fi skirmish then one of numerous generic scifi games would've broken the bank by now.

To elucidate, so far BtGoA doesn't sound like a generic/open game in the sense that I understand the term traditionally means, which would mean it allows you to build your own armies and troops (this with the caveat that I only very briefly visited the site and the forums so I might well be wrong). Instead it's crowdsourced in regards to developement, which is generic/open in the sense that aninstance of an open source software is open: anyone can contribute but the result is incorporated into a predefined framework.

All that said, I find the somewhat more modern-sounding approach to scifi (posthumanism et al) refreshing and even a little surprising, given who the primus motor is. Shall be interesting to see how much the background is reflrected in the rules and the actual fluff.

supported rule set to replace 40K

The rules need a "roll your own" system so you can take your GW figures against a friend's Warmachine. There are already too many canned background games balkanizing the player base.

The key is having a design system that can survive in a tournament scene.

Granted. A commercially supported and FLGS marketed version of 'Warengine' or 'No Limits'… IMHO this would be very successful, could be played by the uber-competitive FLGS people, and the more laid back gamers/modellers. A small line of supporting minis would boost sales, but certainly not 'you have to use our stuff'… this might even create healthy competition for and between companies like GW and Privateer Press, and would expand the market for small companies as well. Fun rules and a balanced design system are critical.

@Billthecat, an excellent idea, would probably work best using some kind of psuedo-co-op model with a number of FLGS's to give you that "high street" presence, miniatures manufactures selling appropriate prepacked forces and clearly a good rules writer or team. A sequence of convention tournaments and/or demo games if you can sucker a club in to supporting the effort would probably help. Could so easily be a win-win for all involved.

Help us create the world's first Real Time Dynamic Gaming Universe – with a constantly evolving back-story driven by real player participation and featuring the most successful players as actual world characters…

I beg to differ. AEG has been doing this with their CCGs for 15+ years! Legends of the 5 Rings being a major example. Read how such 'player driven' results wound up killing off an uber-popular captain in their 7th Sea CCG, leading to players abandoning the game and killing it off.

Decipher made tournament winners into characters in their Star Wars CCG, complete with their own cards in SW garb.

IIRC doesn't D&D use living campaigns as well?

So nothing really new in the concept, other than being applied to a miniatures game and given a nifty marketing tag.

Honestly this does look like it could be the sort of thing to contest 40k's dominance.

I'd personally appreciate that… I've generally moved on from set universe and tournament-ish play (which a living universe basically implies is necessary), but if there was a solid game with a cool universe (and more "real" SF than 40k's fantasy, which is fun in its own right but kinda getting old) then I wouldn't mind being able to find pick up games…

Honestly, they should have kept quiet until their marketing campaign was ready, because these little tidbits work against the game rather then for it. No info on the game system itself, not all the races/factions covered, little to no art, one painted miniature…

Warlord Games is not the cheapest miniatures company, it is compared to GW, but certainly not compared to Perry, Victrix, Plastic Soldier, etc. I really get the feeling that they price their plastic product depending on what they can get away with, US/Germans are more expensive then the Russians, because the Plastic Soldier Company actually produces 28mm Russians as well… Now imagine if they were releasing sci-fi minis that don't directly compete with a gothic 40k, but rather an 'unique' Mass Effect that has no direct competition… Another GW in the making imho.

As others have said, Rick is considered the granddaddy of the current popular sci-fi/fantasy wargames, so has a lot of wargame cred to spend. He would have with me if his name wasn't stamped on Fanticide, it might be a great system, but it has absolutely horrible minis and not a thing that makes it attractive to me.

Don't get me wrong, it certainly has potential, but if this is any indication of what the KS will look like, I'm afraid that it will be a horrible failure. Even if the KS looks good, it still might be a horrible failure, I honestly think the market and KS is not ready for this product.

We're in a bad economy, that isn't something new, but I have a feeling that it's currently feeling like a snowball to avalanche effect. January isn't the best time for releasing new product, as a lot of folks have spend to much around Christmas. We have had and still have a lot of miniatures related KS projects that folks have spent a lot of money on the last year…

funniest post I've read in a while…LOL! Ya do know Fanticide is written to use _any_ minis for, right?

"I don't have any interest in Rob Broom's War & Conquest because Wargames Factory is releasing it and I don't like some of their models."

"I don't have any interest in Black Powder because Warlord Games only releases 28mm and I game in 15mm."

so Rick P would have wargaming cred with you if someone didn't associate some miniatures you don't like with some rules he participated in writing? hahahaha!

funniest post I've read in a while…LOL! Ya do know Fanticide is written to use _any_ minis for, right?

From the actual kickstarter page (first paragraph):

Fanticide is a 28mm tabletop fantasy skirmish wargame for miniatures created by Alien Dungeon

On the website they do mention warband creation with any mini you own, but it's unclear whether that relates to their own minis or minis from other manufacturers. Not that it matters, the only folks that have an issue with using non-official minis for GW/PP/FoW games are the GW stores and some tournaments. Don't know about the rest of you, but that doesn't impact me in the least.

The problem however is that they are not trying to sell a wargaming rules set, but a whole game, including the minis. I'm a visual person when it comes to war games (rpgs, board and card games too), so if just about every image that's released for Fanticide KS is of their own minis that I honestly don't like (could be purely the paint job, the photography, but I suspect the sculpts themselves), I'm not buying the rulebook. First impressions are everything when trying to sell a product, trying to change the first impressions a person has is rather difficult…

While logic might say that Rick has nothing to do with the minis, the art and a dozen other things related to Fanticide, that doesn't change the impression Fanticide and thereby extension Rick made with it.

And don't tell me Fanticide was all that great, the KS only raised a little over $17 USDk and only 139 backers, that's not bad for a tiny line of minis, but if that's the amount they are aiming to raise with the "Beyond the Gates of Antares" KS then the project is going to fail utterly.I would expect that they would need at least a couple of $100 USDk I suspect…

KS is up

Wooowee 300k

roughly $450,000. USD And all I see are silhouettes of models. Maybe its me but even with Rick's name on it this looks like it could use some more development

Glad to see a Kickstarter that isn't a glorified preorder. Backed.

This ones going to go over £1,000,000.00 GBP

Hang on for the ride!

Well, it has taken in more than 1/10th of the target already, based solely on some outlines + Mr. Priestley's name and rep. Not a bad achievement, given it's been a holiday weekend too.

Sure, it will make me more interested to invest when they manage to present the first greens or CAD models but as I'm pretty sure they'll surface within the next 50 or so days I'll prolly cave in at some point or other.

it sounds good but as I have pointed out elsewhere, the Vorl are already a named and used race in the Space Captain Smith books so that is an IP theft, as are the Antarians/Fleet of Antares which come from the old PC game Masters of Orion. I wish he could leave behind the GW mindset of rip-off other peoples ideas as this is looking very interesting.

Antares is IP theft?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares

Vorl is also a Dark Eldar character, and a weapon in Star Trek.

Maybe "vorl" is just a neat sounding word?

alien BLOODY HELL surfer 02 Jan 2013 8:37 a.m. PST

as I have pointed out elsewhere, the Vorl are already a named and used race in the Space Captain Smith books so that is an IP theft, as are the Antarians/Fleet of Antares which come from the old PC game Masters of Orion

I doubt you can actually copyright the use of Antares in a scifi game. You might be able to trademark it tho if you were Games Workshop.

"Vorl" is another matter since it's not a generic term (well, not that I know of anyway). If you have any links to Space Captain Smith books that show this, I'll be more than happy to mention the Vorl are in fact "ripped off" on BtGoA forums.

Ah, never mind, I found the official home page of Space Captain Smith:
spacecaptainsmith.com

I also found out that "vorl" is in fact a general word instead of a proper name, at least in an imaginary language from another game (-:)

Meanwhile, the BtGoA KS is past the "Wh40k" mark and nearing £44,000.00 GBP. I suppose Mr. Priestley's name does still sell.

I am kinda tired of dark future fantasy though, just about as tired as I am with dark fantasy overall.

And combined RPG/minis game stat lines don't work as well, makes things confusing for both sides. The DP9 guys found this out the hard way.

But take my words with a grain of salt because I am a competitor.

Vorl is also used in the German language.

I doubt that there's a truly original idea out there in the Fantasy/sci-fi genre, just about anything can be connected to previous incarnations and eventually to real life and history/myth.

Personally I would rather have a good copy then a bad original…

I backed this last week, and there's been a ton of information now through the forums and the game's webpage. This looks very promising (though we'll see if the models change my opinion…!), and it's nice to be able to offer opinions and comments to help shape gameplay.

Sounds like Rick's got the basics down, and he and his team are posting sections of the rules for feedback. The "alpha" rules will be available in April 2013, and the "beta" in Sept 2013. I really appreciate that we'll be able to help craft a (hopefully) better product. At the very least, sending it out to a bunch of backers might help reduce the errata necessary when the game is released!

Turtle 05 Jan 2013 3:55 a.m. PST

I am kinda tired of dark future fantasy though, just about as tired as I am with dark fantasy overall […] But take my words with a grain of salt because I am a competitor

Especially the "dark future fantasy" part in this case (-:)

BtGoA doesn't look it's going to be particularly dark as scifi miniature games go. Given that they are almost invariably wargames or at least descriptions of conflict tho, none of them are overtly optimistic.

dont get me wrong, I am very interested in this, but seeing the unoriginal idea of Antares, the gates of antares, the fleet of antares etc was a bit naff.

The vorl in space captain smith was a name given to a race of beings – allegedly one of which copped off with Rhianna's mum at some hippy convention and thus Rhianna has unique powers :-)

didn't know it had also been used elsewhere.

still going to back it, especially if Mr White ends up doing the sculpts :-)

alien BLOODY HELL surfer 07 Jan 2013 8:59 a.m.:

seeing the unoriginal idea of Antares, the gates of antares, the fleet of antares etc was a bit naff

That's not much more "unoriginal" than setting a police show in New York… But yes, while Vorl is probably not actually taken from either an obscure RPG or a fairly obscure but still extant series of books -- it's a German word too as it happens -- it's still bad form for Mr. Priestley to not change it now that's he's been informed. Doesn't look like he will tho.

Some information from Rick on the game factions was posted on the kickstarter page:

link

A list of planned initial figures has been posted:
link

Rever Mercenaries

Revers are old-fashioned humans who form a significant portion of the armed forces of all human factions.

20 Credits – Rever Mercenary with plasma pistol and grenades – 2 poses
20 Credits – Rever Mercenary with plug carbine – 3 poses
30 Credits – Rever Mercenary with fractal cannon – 1 pose
30 Credits – Rever Mercenary Captain with plasma pistol and tech-harness (1 alt parts)

NuHu

NuHu are the masters and most profiles species of the Concord and of the Isorian Shard – but rarely are they seen putting themselves in danger. Those that must are volunteers of unusual temperament and courage for their species. NuHu don't form units of troopers but specialist individuals within a force.

30 Credits – NuHu Ambassador – 1 variant
30 Credits – NuHu Bio-Surveyer – 1 variant
30 Credits – NuHu Assessor with hypercom harness –1 variant
30 Credits – NuHu Contact Team Leader – 1 variant

CoCom Troopers

CoCom has developed shield-base battle armour fields that afford protection and mobility. These are activated by pack generators and the field is held by light metallic plates attached to the trooper's battlesuit. These will be Rever types or will have alternate heads representing different Pans and helmets.

20 Credits – CoCom Trooper in battle armour with plasma carbine – 3 poses
30 Credits – CoCom Trooper in battle armour with X-Launcher – 1 pose
30 Credits – CoCom Trooper in battle armour with plasma cannon – 1 pose
30 Credits – Isorian Shard Battle Leader (1 alt parts)

Drones

These include all kinds of sentient machines including WarDrones. All human factions have type of drones and can have WarDrones, although not all factions have equally effective WarDrones.

N/A – WarDrone Plastic set – plastic multi-posed kits with a choice of weapons and head variants.
20 Credits – CoCom WarDrone armed with plasma carbine – 3 variants
10 Credits – Hunter drones – 2 variants
10 Credits – Targetter drone – 1 variant

Algoryn Troopers

The Algoryn Prosperate is a powerful group of worlds within the Determinate and one of the chief enemies of the Gwar. The Algoryn are adapted to high levels of radiation and very hot temperatures, with thick, gnarly skins, dense musculature and bony outgrowths over their eyes that shield them from the radioactive glare of the Algoryn suns. They have a relatively high civilisation level and trade Concord technology through Freebooter traders.

20 Credits – Algoryn trooper with plasma pistol and grenades – 2 poses
20 Credits – Algoryn trooper with plug carbine – 3 poses
30 Credits – Algoryn trooper with plasma cannon – 1 pose
30 Credits – Algoryn Prosperate Captain with plasma pistol and tech-harness (1 alt parts)

Isorian Shard Troopers

The Isorians have developed numerous unique technologies through contact with advanced alien species – amongst these advances is the phase armour worn by Shard Troopers. These will be Rever types or will have alternate heads representing different Pans and helmets.

30 Credits – Isorian Shard Trooper in phase Armour with fractal cannon – 1 pose
30 Credits – Isorian Shard Trooper in phase Armour with X-Launcher – 1 pose
20 Credits – Isorian Shard Trooper in phase Armour with plasma carbine – 3 poses
30 Credits – Isorian Shard Battle Leader (1 alt parts)

Boramites

The Boramites originated in the Boram Asteroid mines of Gar'Xu. They have now spread throughout many of the mining colonies of the Spill and can be found throughout Antarean Space. Boramites are a Panhuman species that is highly dimorphic in nature – with a small subtype a well as a larger ruling caste.

10 Credits – Boramite Miner with mass compactor – 3 poses
10 Credits – Boramite Miner with frag borer – 1 pose
10 Credits – Boramite Miner with core charges – 3 poses
20 Credits – Boramite Overseer with plasma carbine – 2 poses
20 Credits – Boramite Overseer with plasma pistol and chain lash – 1 pose
20 Credits – Boramite Trader with compression carbine – 1 pose
20 Credits – Boramite Engineer – 1 pose Weapon details coming soon!

Thank you for the heads up. Im interested in hearing more about it.

I shall wait to se what they actualy build and if I like the figures buy some. If the rules take off I may play them. But, to pre-invest? No way….