RE: UMF-II: was New Life for Millennium's End

[Mike Fortey <forteymj@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Blast, just spent a ton of time posting a reply and
explorer crashed. A little more briefly this time...

> > RT Do we really need a game book to go into what
> is well covered in lots
> of
> > RT firearms and training books already available.

Yes. Well, maybe we don't (we're 'avid' fans), but the
majority of gamers do. Buying training books requires
that you have sufficient interest in a game to go to
specialist shops and order a load of books with hard
earned cash on non directly game related information.
Judging from the number of players who don't know that
you need to cock weapons before firing them, a few
consise 'laymans terms' essays in UMF-II would be
fantastic.

Transition to sidearm has no bearing on ME? IMHO, it
does... how long does it take, 'cause it 'ain't in the
rule book... neither are reloading times. The book
does need a 'Time to perform 'X' action' table, with
everything from unshouldering a firearm to loading an
M203 on it. Having that table alongside a 4-sentence
description and a couple of diagrams of each action
would be a really cool inclusion that would be good
'mood' reading, without getting over technical.

> My comment was based on the prior comment (Mike
> Fortey?) who suggested a 10
> page primer on weapons and their use.  My comment
> was intended to mean
> "taked advantage of multimedia" rather than
> following a strict ebook format,
> perhaps I chose a poor example.

Well, I guess that depends on if Cybergames want to
actually put things in printed format. The bottom line
is 'what will make the money?'. A printable e-book
would be nice, a interactive CD/download would be nice
too, but not as 'portable', while a printed version
would have heavier overheads but would be a 'must buy'
for every ME gamer who saw it and would have
cross-market sales as well (as well as a material
shelf presence). Basically, it would be good to print
a book that could boost sales even by as little as 10%
buy appealing to gamers outside the ME market, and
such books are a good opening gambit for CG to make. A
GM guide 2 would have even greater cross-market sales,
but would however not be deemed as 'essential' by the
majority of the 'home' market.

> At some level, however, it does reach a point where
> it's appropriate to say
> "go to another reference".  

I don't think we've yet reached that point with a lot
of ME subjects. ME hasn't even scratched the surface
of a lot of things that will come into play. A UMF-II
could also include lots of other neat gear that ops
use (some of which we've already put on sites). Also a
few more essays on applications and limitations of kit
would be amazing for the layman gamer of any modern
game. Night vision gear, laser sights, bugs, bug
detection and pursuit driving are a just a few
examples off the top of my head of things that every
contemparary gamer uses, but which 99% have no real
knowledge of (and it would also be a blessing for a GM
with a player who knows more about a subject than
himself).


Mike



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