Quote from: estar;9717231) SJ Games was a pioneer in e-commerce and Steve Jackson made some money off of a ISP called Illuminati Online.

2) Along the way they created a e-commerce store called e23 and later folded it into Warehouse 23.

The net result is that Steve Jackson has their own ecommerce solution for years and not about to pay OBS for something they already have going. Especially when they had theirs up and going five years prior to OBS's site.

Awesome.  Too bad no one on Earth who doesn't already know about GURPS knows about it.

W23 doesn't carry the whole line of 3rd either.

Quote from: CRKrueger;971724Awesome.  Too bad no one on Earth who doesn't already know about GURPS knows about it.

W23 doesn't have the complete line of 3rd books either.

Quote from: CRKrueger;971724Awesome.  Too bad no one on Earth who doesn't already know about GURPS knows about it.

My guess eventually they will say fuck it and just start listing on OBS. A lot of the long time vendors on Warehouse 23 are starting to do that.

Quote from: CRKrueger;971724W23 doesn't carry the whole line of 3rd either.

Manpower issues.

Everything explain by the fact they have X # of people and Munchkin and board games outsells everything else by several order magnitude. The main reason we see other major projects is because they know can't rely on Munchkin forever.

Quote from: estar;971729My guess eventually they will say fuck it and just start listing on OBS. A lot of the long time vendors on Warehouse 23 are starting to do that.



Manpower issues.

Everything explain by the fact they have X # of people and Munchkin and board games outsells everything else by several order magnitude. The main reason we see other major projects is because they know can't rely on Munchkin forever.

Hell, every single one has already been scanned by the pirates and the digital preservation crowd.  If they just asked for scanned pdfs they'd probably get HQ OCR'd ones ready to go.

Quote from: refplace;971711The thing about Fourth Edition is it consolidated and streamlined a lot of things.  So it made GURPS simpler while still being mostly compatible with previous editions.
In my mind that is a legitimate reason to do another edition.  While a Fifth Edition could improve  some things I dont think it would be significant enough to encourage a lot of sales.

This is all true. But in "consolidating" almost all of the possibly-useful stuff from all the worldbooks into the 4e Basic Set, they also made the Basic Set into two hardbacks where more than half of it is nothing I would usually use or want when starting to learn the system. Ideally I'd include only the truly generic non-special human stuff in the Basic Set like in previous editions, and then put the other stuff in focused genre expansions. Or, nowadays, I'd make a print-on-demand where I can click boxes on what stuff I want and what I don't want. THAT would be awesome, IMO.

QuoteThings were improved in Third Edition, Attributes, Skills and Advantages ALL got some streamlining by changing point costs and things like Talents were added.  However the core advantage is the game is more streamlined and thus easier to pick up then prior editions.

You must've meant to write Fourth Edition, not Third. It might be slightly easier to learn for those who find slight cost curves an obstacle, but I don't really like those changes. There were some improvements though, but also a couple other things I prefer the 3e version of. Fortunately, the editions are close enough that a GM who knows what they're doing can just use whatever mix of rules they like best, without invalidating very much, but if anyone made stats for characters with careful attention to getting the levels just the way they wanted, 4e does kind of mix that up that a bit.

QuoteAs for cutting off the Third Edition material, not only are they compatible (Costs are the only thing you wold have to change, abilities could be just left in and combat had some changes but except for PD the change is fairly transparent.)
The DFRPG is another effort to streamline things by focusing on one genre only.

As for Edition changes GURPS still does well at not making them just to get cash infusions or because the rules were sloppy and had lots of complaints.
Compare D&D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editions_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons which seemed to come out with a new edition every 4 or 5 years vs. GURPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS

Yes.

QuoteGURPS came out with editions in 1986 First and Second (I think Second was mostly the same rules with a new edition made to keep it in print), Third in 1988 and finally Fourth in 2004.
So Third Edition came out kind of soon but Fourth had a respectable time gap and is the current in print version to this day.

Yes, Second Edition was almost the same as First Edition. Third Edition is also utterly compatible with 1st and 2nd, but it did a proper job of improving, refining, condensing and incorporating without changing anything that would throw off any characters from earlier editions.

Honestly, I'm still mad about the changes from second to third.  I mean, cardboard covers I can get behind.  A nice hardback fine.  The Speed / Range table and Snap Shot ratings and Advantage Bloat endlessly pushing the cost of making certain characters like knights higher without making them better fighters?  Not so much.

Quote from: David Johansen;971825Honestly, I'm still mad about the changes from second to third.  I mean, cardboard covers I can get behind.  A nice hardback fine.  The Speed / Range table and Snap Shot ratings and Advantage Bloat endlessly pushing the cost of making certain characters like knights higher without making them better fighters?  Not so much.

I'm not even sure 2E was any better than 1E. Or that either were better than 'Man to Man'. There are features of GURPS that I appreciate as specific rules improvements over The Fantasy Trip. But the whole thing degraded overall as a game system the more complicated and baroque it became.

No, the cardboard covers were a big improvement.

I started a project comparing differences between 1e and 2e, back about 1990, which I don't remember the details of, but there were not many differences. The only major one I remember is calculating Shield Block as 1/2 skill rather than 1/3 skill.

I think 3e did a good job making little but good improvements resulting in a more solid ruleset, but I can see preferring the original ranged combat and/or not wanting the extra advantages.

Dungeon Fantasy has arrived in PDF format for backers...

Let the reading commence!

Quote from: dbm;984670Dungeon Fantasy has arrived in PDF format for backers...

Let the reading commence!

Well, for backers who paid $35 extra to get the pdfs in addition to the books.  I'm fond of GURPS, but I wasn't about to pay $85 to get the same data twice.

Quote from: jcfiala;984719Well, for backers who paid $35 extra to get the pdfs in addition to the books.  I'm fond of GURPS, but I wasn't about to pay $85 to get the same data twice.

They charged extra for the PDF? Most of the hardcopy stuff I've bought lately has come with a PDF... if there is a PDF. Same for the Kickstarters I've done (which aren't many, TBH).

Quote from: Simlasa;984752They charged extra for the PDF? Most of the hardcopy stuff I've bought lately has come with a PDF... if there is a PDF. Same for the Kickstarters I've done (which aren't many, TBH).

Yeah, well - Steve Jackson Games.

Quote from: jcfiala;984760Yeah, well - Steve Jackson Games.

Forward thinking and behind the times at the same moment.

Quote from: estar;984769Forward thinking and behind the times at the same moment.

If someone will pay for it, someone will sell it. Not behind the times but rather evergreen.