"FASA Games to publish a new edition of Noble Armada" Topic

In the wake of the announcement noted in this thread, FASA Games have published a statement confirming that they will be publishing a new edition of NA on behalf of Holistic Design.

So, Mongoose didn't kill it, they just got it removed from them? Wow, a lot of people are going to be unhappy to learn that. :)

Mongoose. Ugh. When are people going to learn with that company?

I would guess that the license was revoked so a more competent company can publish the game?

ACTA:SF, Strike One.
ACTA:NA, Strike Two.
Next?

Next?

The 1/1800 resin ships tied to Victory At Sea II.

But other past miniature adventures were Starship Troopers, Battlefield Evolution (both a WW2 & 3 version) and Babylon 5.

IIRC Bab5 went away because the license was up for renewal, and the IP holders wanted too much money. At least that is how I understand it…

Damon.

Lone Wolf.

Don't forget Lone Wolf.

Judge Dredd Block Wars?

Despite mongoose, is it really wise to be doing another NA game so soon? Its not like the last one was a huge blockbuster!

Not a miniatures game but they also had the Conan license and lost it.

Okay, first off, most of the comments made about Noble Armada are answered in the other thread here;

TMP link

But just to pick up on a couple of points raised here…

Garand: You have it right with Babylon 5. 200 ships, 13 fleets and nearly 40 books published in two three year terms was enough for the fans. Sales had dropped by that time, Warner Brothers would not lower their minimum payments (we did not expect them to), and so it ended.

Delthos: Really, you want to raise Conan as a problem game? :) Again, went on for six years with a _massive_ amount published for it. Hardly a disaster.

Charles Popp: Never a game called Judge Dredd Block Wars. However, we have been running with the Dredd licence for more than 12 years now, and it is as strong as ever.

McKinstry: Battlefield Evolution WWII was three books with no miniatures. The books you can still get on Wargame Vault. We had a decent crack at the modern game but it did not stick, and pre-painted miniatures are not something you can keep going on a shoestring.

Starship Troopers was a damn good game with a decent line of miniatures. I don't think anyone can really say that as far as the MI and bugs are concerned, we missed anything. The fate of that line (as I keep saying) was down to a dispute between the Heinlein Estate and Sony Pictures. Very much beyond our control.

The Victory at Sea ships, though, they are going ahead and, of course, have no licence issues tied to them. Next out will be U-Boats and Fairey Swordfish!

Oh, one last thing about all this – I _am_ willing to discuss the business issues behind this or anything else we do/have done. More than happy to do so.

MongooseMatt,
you guys have a bad reputation for a reason. You buy up licenses, milk them and drop them. You shovel out rulebooks that are generally poorly edited and tend to fall apart.
You've repeatedly shown yourselves to have a slash-n-burn approach to your games.
Many of us have learned from the past and will never touch anything you put out ever again.

Sorry meant Gangs of Mega City one.

How about the Traveller stuff you printed that had all of the mistakes? I am surprised that Marc has stuck with you guys this long.
I noticed you totally skipped over Star Fleet.

>>>You buy up licenses, milk them and drop them.

Forgive me, I don't think I was quite clear. Licences have finite periods and inevitably end.

>>>You shovel out rulebooks that are generally poorly edited and tend to fall apart.

That is simply not true. Our rules systems are pretty solid. This is one reason people keep coming back to us.

>>>How about the Traveller stuff you printed that had all of the mistakes?

Which books would those be? Again, Traveller is a pretty solid system (and a pretty popular one).

>>>I noticed you totally skipped over Star Fleet.

Covered it in the other thread – I posted a link.

I liked the B5 models I bought from Mongoose back in middle school…that's been my only interaction with them to date.

Well for example the Mercenary book that had pages in it from High Guard.
MM,
You company is bad news mostly. Licences usually do not switch unless the one who holds it thinks the other party is not doing it well.
Look at Steve Cole/ADB/Task Force. How long have they worked with Paramount?
FASA with Paramount is a public example of a license being pulled due to the direction they wanted it to go.
You want to get some good will,try admitting to a mistake or error when you do it.

I thought the ADB thing was some unique circumstance that cannot be revoked.

no I been playing SFB for over 20 years. They have to walk a very fine line with what they do. Paramount can pull it anytime they want.
As I said if Moongoose as a company started accepting some responsibility and owning up to mistakes in stead of doing the whole song and dance people would have more good will towards them. Take ADB once again. SFB used to be a mess with revisions and errata and new versions coming out so fast it made your head spin. But they as a company listened to their customers and accepting mistakes and fixed them. that is why they have been around for so long with basically one game.

A couple of things.

ADB continues to work with Mongoose regarding ACTASF. The problem was that every decision had to go through each company several times to make sure everything worked with each company. Sometimes if you pull at a thread, you find yourself with a seam coming apart, and we both wanted to avoid that happening. It was simply easier for Mongoose to give ADB guidelines so we could make things work with our contract with Paramount without breaking ACTA.

While our agreement with Paramount never expires, we are careful to stay within the boundaries of that contract. We are fortunate to have such a unique situation. It gives us time to listen to our fans and to create exciting games.

ADB to my knowledge used the same loop hole Zocchi used and bases things off the Franz Joseph technical manual which was copyrighted before paramount copyrighted the ST trade mark. I maybe mistaken but pretty sure my source was good information.

ADB has a long history of NOT listening to its customers on a variety of issues. There was a time when if you dared to even suggest that ADB sell downloadable .pdf files of the SSDs or sell computer program aids for SFB Steve Cole would get downright abusive and call you a pirating thief trying to destroy his business. God forbid you post any constructive criticism about game design or balance. The man was arrogant and thought himself infallible back when I used to play the game and hang out in the SFB forums. He could take a well- intentioned suggestion or simple request for a new product and characterize it as personal attack on himself and his business then go off on an unwarranted vitriolic rant.

Years ago, I was a regular ADB customer and spent several hundred dollars on his SFB stuff. However, I walked away from the company because of Cole's attitude and will never do business with ADB again. All of my SFB stuff has sat untouched on a shelf for more than ten years. I can't say I miss the game at all. I know a lot of other people who have had similar experiences with ADB.

Daricles,things have gotten a lot better. I was just like you. Gave them another try and now find it to be a very nice experience.

Darkrazor, I work for ADB. We are completely legal with Paramount/CBS. We are also completely legal with the Franz Joseph estate.

Daricles, I am so sorry you had such a bad experience. In 10 years, much has changed.

Charles, thanks for the second chance. :)

Come to think of it, it has been a lot longer than 10 years since I parted ways with ADB. I recall buying not one, but two copies of the boxed captain's edition when it first came out. One copy for me and one for a friend's birthday present. That must have been sometime around 1990.

After a quick look at the ADB site it doesn't look like much has changed. Most of the products I bought back then are still for sale now and appear unchanged.

SFB is a complex game that begs for smart electronic play aids. Players were begging for electronic SSDs and energy allocation forms twenty years ago so that you could mark damage off on the SSD and have the available energy automatically adjusted on the allocation form and completely eliminate all of the bookkeeping involved. The mere mention of it would send Cole off on an epic rant that would likely end with the person making the suggestion getting banned from the forums.

If things had really changed so much people would be downloading SSD/energy allocation form apps for the ships at $0.99 USD a pop from the apple store instead of ADB still shilling paper copies on their website. It's 2014…people should be choosing between iOS or android SSDs not bound or loose leaf and three hole punched or not.

I'll give you this much, Jean, you put a much friendlier face on the company than Cole ever did.

Dude, Do you have a working knowledge of how protective Paramount is with Star Trek? The virtually shut down most fan sites about the time of the reboot. They so much as find FASA stuff posted on the web they go nuts with lawsuits and cease and desist letters. True the game has stabilized. You do not think that is a good thing? I like the fact that I have a SFB ruleset that has lasted more than 4 years before I have to buy a ton more stuff. Want e forms and such look at SFBOL.
I mean at least it is not like Starfire,looks like nothing like the original game. I mean they basically threw away all the history of the game and are doing something totally new. Now that game I will never return to.

Daricles, we have actually addressed some of those issues. Star Fleet Battles Online (SFBOL) is a direction that many of our players have moved in. Energy allocation is done online and there are many play aids. We are moving to a countdown SSD there. Campaigns and tournaments are played regularly.

Federation Commander is sort of a streamlined SFB with its own challenges. Systems are color-coded and energy is used in a "pay as you go" fashion. There are fewer decision points for firing, so maneuvering becomes very important. No energy allocation forms are needed. :)

We've actually tried apps and lost money -- too many people are using SFBOL to make apps profitable. We are moving to e-books with Warehouse 23 and some of our products are online only. The reason that more SSDs are not online is that our players told us they want them done to the current standard. So we work on them when we need to reprint older materials.

:) I do try hard to be friendly. Thank you for noticing (and I'm not being snarky; I do appreciate it). I was brought on last May full-time and I want to let people see where the company is going as well as what we've achieved.

Best of luck. Live long and prosper.

@ Charles Popp
If that's true, then how is it this site is still up?
home.comcast.net/~ststcsolda

They even have made fan speculation of what ships from TNG, DS:9 and Voy would have been like in FASA's version. Does Paramount just not know about the site or have they made some allowances for it to exist?
I think it's not just Paramount, but some things about Star Trek have changed since Roddenberry died.

And if you wanted more movie and TNG looking ships, there's always Shapeways for them.

I know a few sites that got hit. Will not name them but they are active in the yahoo groups.

I was taught SFB by Steve (the other one), when he was at Fort Campbell KY.

I find you need the right players to have a great game, like any game, but SFB needs it more.

Mongoose I think falls under having bad luck.

I did Star Ship Troopers, and Battle Field, both great games.

I bet Petrick would love to hear from you.

Of all the games listed above, SST is the one that I wish the problems could be sorted out. The MI and Bugs were a solid line, the rules worked well (heck, I've used them as a base for other games), and I always get a good crowd when I run games.

I would guess that the license was revoked so a more competent company can publish the game?

And then they go with the new FASA?

The same company that did the horribly (failed) Kickstarter for Space 1879.

The company that has had the Fading Suns for two years and only managed the Player's Guide and the Game Master's Guide, badly edited, rehashed and visually unappealing. No new original products at all, just rehash #5 with worse graphical appeal then 1st and 2nd edition, heck even the D20 edition was more appealing then this mess.

Even Red Brick, with their horrible end, were able to put out more product in their first two years with the license…

Sure their Earthdawn KS raised $110.00 USD, but that's probably due to all the Old FASA artwork, folks who haven't actually sampled New FASA's horrible Digist sized Player's Guide, or are just blinded by Nostalgia and Hope…

In the case of both Earthdawn and Fading Suns I just prefer the Hardcover releases by their original publishers (Old) FASA and HDI.

I can't imagine that (New) FASA will do Noble Armada any kind of justice or have a timely release window, in that regard Mongoose might have been actually better…

As a side note, after more then a year they've done absolutely nothing with their 1879 gameline, not even released the minis that were being sculpted…

Mongoose I think falls under having bad luck.

Once, twice, trice, maybe, but most of the time?

As much as I harp on Mongoose, it is actually nice to get the (new) opportunity to get a licensed IP's (Babylon 5, SST, NA, Judge Dredd, etc.) in mini form, even if it's not for a very long time.

The 'new' FASA is not the old FASA……

Unfortunately.

As for Mongoose, the less said the better.

As for SFB……it's too bad ADB can't get the old SFC:OP (Star Fleet Command:Orion Pirates) computer game back. It's still a great game, and with updated graphics with modern systems it would be MONSTER on Steam.