CIRCVS MAXIMVS

[csadn]

Why is it only the white man's burden?

I was referencing this: http://www.thegoonshow.net/scripts_s...te_mans_burden .

There's a lot of conspiracy in that theory. I'm not going to get into the speculation game - I can't get into Steve and Phil's heads. But it seems to discount the fact that Phil point blank said that minis will NOT be part of the core game. IF the game is successful in its own right, then they will consider adding miniatures. But they want a price point on the core game that allows sales in mass merchandisers like Target and Wal-Mart.

I've heard that, as well (I have the "I Made Steve Jackson Work On _Car Wars_" shirt >:) ), but if you'll forgive a small pun: I ain't buyin' it.

For one: Have you seen what the game aisles at Target and Wal-Mart look like these days? Most of it is the same stuff I was seeing when I was 5-10 years old -- _LIFE_, _Scrabble_, etc. Newest game from an actual gaming company I've seen in there was _Apples to Apples_ (the LEGO board games aren't by Gamers). _CW_ isn't for 5-10-year-olds (despite CW5's best efforts...); I doubt the stores will take much interest.

This means we're back to "traditional gaming", which is the market _CW_ was originally intended for. And the traditionals are the ones who want either 1" or 3".

It's a plan set up to Fail, which means they can "Legitimately" say "There's no interest in _CW_ any more; so we aren't going to do anything with it henceforth".

The fact also remains that sales of Car Wars dropped off precipitously in the 90's. Yes, SJG made a lot of mistakes that hastened its downfall (Scott Haring's departure was devastating for CW),

Haring leaving was bad, this is true -- but the real problem was the Gang of Four who followed him: Blankenship's off-hours activities got SJG raided (read _The Hacker Crackdown_); Oines wouldn't accept submissions from anyone who wasn't his buddy (rumor is: When they opened his desk after he left, they found a year's worth of unopened CW mail...); Searle knew absolutely nothing about the product, and it showed; and Sheeley... oh dear god, Sheeley... whose policy was "If New Omaha Vehicular Assn, does it this way, then the Official Rule is to do it exactly the opposite". (Care to guess which CW group I was with at the time? Hint: "Wibble!" >:) )

but with all due respect, consumer tastes changed too. To be blunt, I'm very aware of how fast a turn in CW *can* go, but I'm also very familiar with how long an overall session usually takes - especially with four or more cars - and how little actually happened in the game during that span of time. And I played with a group of VERY experienced players. But it's not just my anecdotal experience - this has been the universal complaint about CW from day one. Yes, it's fun, but it's also S-L-O-W. If your games are sprint fests, that's awesome, but that is the very rare exception, not the rule.

The problem here is lack of editing -- the ever-increasing amount of "clag" in the rulebook, made worse by never having someone go through the manual and clear out the deadwood, leading to instances where two contradictory rules exist, or having to guess at how later-added Item A interacts with Rule Z. One decent editor performing a proper sweep-and-clear on the rulebook, and it would be down to maybe two pages for maneuvering and one for shooting. (I know -- I did a sweep-and-clear a while back; for obvious reasons, I can't publish it.)

Contrary to your theory about "kids" being sucked away by computer games, the fact is that board games and miniatures games are selling at record levels, and not just to old farts like us.

I keep hearing that -- but I wonder how much of it is actual new blood, and how much of it is "all the successful games work on the 'razor-blade' model" (which means the same game can be resold to a person multiple times). Heck, the population of the US increased 50% since 1983; if the percentage of Gamers dropped in that time, there'd still be more of them in terms of actual numbers. Not sure what the actual state of affairs is.

The difference is that tastes have changed in the last 30 years. Successful games today tend to last 90 minutes or less, and have very little "downtime" between player turns. Of course there are exceptions, but this is the trend. If SJG can revise the CW rules to speed up gameplay so that a duel will *regularly* take 90 minutes (preferably 60) or less to complete, then I am all in favor of that.

Length of a game session is an issue -- but as I pointed out: There's nothing wrong with original CW which can't be fixed with a editor who knows what he's doing and doesn't have an agenda. I actually did that -- knocked maneuvering down to 2 pages (and one of those is mostly the Crash Table -- note singular), and combat to 1. The only way to make it any shorter would be to copy-paste the Jump-Start Rules (and I admit to borrowing extensively from JS to find ways to speed events up).

As to whether I support it or not: It will depend on how far from Actual CW it gets, and how much additional stuff one gets in the stretch goals.