What New Web Material Does The Community Want?
Hey crewmen,
So been seeing a lot of great discussions going on about what new material should be released online as a consequence of the continued delays. I’m fully willing to fall onto the proverbial sword on this one. A combination of the continued hope the game will finally come out, as well as a subconscious desire to not work on new web material as it means driving that stake a little further in my wound. But it’s time to stand up, stiff-upper-lip and all that, and get some new material flowing for you chaps wanting to toss some dice in our 1910 skies.
Now, right out of the gate, let’s discuss the Commander’s Manual. There’s been some suggestions of releasing this before hand. In fact, well over a year ago I brought this up tentatively and a little over a month ago I sent out a big email to the Catalyst Management team, but also included some other key players (two in particular that together have 40+ years of marketing/distribution/retail experience in our hobby). The email was a break down, as I saw it, of the pros and cons of releasing the Commander’s Manual in PDF form before the Core Box Set is available on store shelves.
Ultimately it was decided that as many experiments as we’ve done with Leviathans, that’s an experiment that’s just a little more than what we’re willing to commit to at this time. We simply have no way to gauge its effects on the ultimate sales of the Core Box Set. It could do what we’ve seen with print books and increase sales…but it could also be detrimental as this isn’t a book. Now we continue to discuss this, but at the current time there’s no plans to release the Commander’s Manual in PDF format.
With that said, however, there’s a pretty big list of things we could work on and release via the website in the near future. Here’s a few I can think of:
- New Story Fiction
- New Sourcebook fiction
- James Fighting Leviathans: Excerpt from 1910 3
- Point System Open Beta Test
- New Campaign
- Minor Powers
New Story Fiction
This would be along the lines of A Monster In The Sky and What Prices Paid serial fiction as posted here.
New Sourcebook fiction
A huge host of additional “fleshing out” sourcebook material could be created that’d weave around the Gazetteer, as previously shown through articles posted here.
James Fighting Leviathans: Excerpt from 19010 3
For those that haven’t seen the first two PDFs before, you can find more details here.
Obviously more ships are always cool. However, because we’ve only released a very limited number of ship classes to date, I’ve been a little leery to create so many variant “named ships” all based on the same classes released to date. Don’t want to over-load on those variants. However, if that’s what the community would like, more than willing to oblige.
Point System Open Beta Test
A year and a half a go we ran a Point System Open Alpha Test. I’ve got a Point System Open Beta Test document all ready to release as a free PDF as soon as the Core Box Set is available, which incorporates the details from the original playtest, as well as covering all the details of everything from the Commander’s Manual.
I fully realize releasing this before the Core Box Set is available means a fair bit of the material won’t be usable yet…but it would be a nice preview of what’s coming over the horizon.
New Campaign
A little over a year ago we did an Open Alpha Test of The Channel Campaign. We’ve been kicking around several concepts on additional campaign that would follow this mold, from roughly the same size, to much larger conflicts. Depending on what the community would like, we could also tie one of these into a Minor Powers PDF. Lot’s of fun gaming potential here.
Minor Powers
This has been something I’ve blogged about in the past and we’ve kicked it around for over a year now. But the idea would be a series of PDFs that would cover “batches” of Minor Powers, including a little fiction, a short sourcebook write-up, and finally some ships; these would mostly be “older ships”, so the art would come across as a kitbash of various extent designs. We couldn’t do all of them too quickly, because not all such minor powers bought British and French older vessels, and that’s the art we have on hand. But we could work on an initial PDF that deals with powers that did directly pull from the British and French, allowing us to generate the full Ship Card/fold-up box experience.
There ya go, a whole toolbox of goodies. Now note this won’t take the place of my normal blogs and updates. Instead, this is additional material you’ve all earned through your patience and continued excitement that’ll bring more immersive experiences (whether simply to the universe or your gaming table), while we all wait for that pesky Core Box Set
Please list, in order of preference, what you’d like to see. Also, if you see a cool aspect you’d like to see fleshed out that’s not on the list above, by all means, suggest away.
We’ll take your suggestions and use that to start building new material for the site.
See ya next duty shift!
Randall
Pin the Beard on the Randall print and play game.
Art
fluff – back stories, journal entries, maps
and more importantly the Political positions of nations. Many wars, if not all involve a Nation’s political ideology. How do the nation’s government’s elude the people into war? Nationalism? Or is it something different?
What are the countries long term goals? What secrets are they hiding?
right now:
new story fiction, new sourcebook fiction, minor powers
I think neither the campaign nor more ships or the point system would be much fun without the full rules.
Plus, even though we respect the decision to currently not publish the commanders manual as PDF, how about a detailed overlook what rules are going to be covered in there and also in the subsequent captains manual?
Dear Randall,
first thank you very much for asking us! That’s really nice of you.
I suggest Minor Powers.
Because what I want to see is the Leviathans universe getting more populated and detailed. Similiar to BT, the Major Powers will drive the fluff, but the minors will be what the majors need as something like “sidekicks”, decoys, playthings and maybe sometimes as underestimated opponents.
My two cents.
~ PrudentPanda
vote for minor Powers!
Minor powers would be awesome to see, and would really spice things up. After that, the point system beta would be neat.
I’d love to see both more story fiction, as well as additional sourcebook fiction. Minor powers are also high on my list. I agree with ApokalypseTest about the campaign and points system.
My preference:
1. New Story Fiction
2. New Sourcebook fiction
3. James Fighting Leviathans: Excerpt from 1910 3
4. Minor Powers
5. New Campaign
6. Point System Open Beta Test
1.Point System Open Beta Test
2.Minor Powers
3.James Fighting Leviathans: Excerpt from 1910 3
4.New Campaign
5.New Sourcebook fiction
6.New Story Fiction
You need the fluff. New stories have to go along with arts and graphic for each battle. Source book is important as well. A campaign will be nice. It seems that for every game I play people are asking for a campaign. I would leave minor powers out for the moment. It has great potential but you may need to twist the history a lot for it to work. The pre-dreadnought and dreadnought eras are very different.
Everything!
But, if I had to put a preference on it:
1) Story Fiction
2) Sourcebook Fiction
3) James Fighting Leviathans 3(With Torpedo, saturation, and bracketing fire
rules included, like you included Turret Rules in JFL2)
4) Minor Powers
The slot system for weapons and crew is pretty cool. It also lends itself nicely to customization.
An alpha test of customization rules would be very cool.
“James Fighting Leviathans: Excerpt from 19010 3”
Wow. Those Leviathans really will fight forever!
Or did you mean 1910?
Hi,
I vote for “James Fighting Leviathans: Excerpt from 1910 3″
with saturation and bracketing fire rules included( like turret rules in JFL2), typ 4 ships for French and British with the needed rules (movement, firing arc templates) and minor powers, maybe Scandinavian or Spain.
Second I vote for the “Point System Open Beta Test” or “customization rules alpha test”
New Story Fiction is welcome too.
More Fiction.
Maybe a light brush of the Minor Powers but too much and it will be torment waiting for their release. A refight of the Russo-Japanese war and several other campaigns come to mind. I already have money set aside for the core game now. I don’t want to think about setting aside for the rest right now.
1) Story Fiction
2) Minor Powers
3) Sourcebook Fiction
4) James Fighting Leviathans
5) New Campaign
6) Point System Open Beta Test
And thanks for asking!
If James Fighting Leviathans includes up to date Type 4 cards, then please!
I’d go with a campaign system, personally.
But I have to caveat that by saying I’ve put my interest in Leviathans on hold. I’m still interested, but the base game just didn’t hold my interest, complexity-wise. I’m very much looking forward to the full box, notably the Commander’s Manual and the deeper rules it promises. I certainly understand why you made the decision you did, and not knocking it. But more options for a game that in its current form doesn’t have my interest isn’t going to get me moving on it.
Just me, obviously, but there you go
I’ve got to add my voice in with all those speaking in favour of the minor powers.
Something I think that could be nice would be something of a writer’s guide, so that we in the community could generate some Fiction under CC. There’s a bit there already, but you can only do so much without a bit more info on the universe.
Another thought would be new scenarios that give us interesting stuff to do.
1 Sourcebook Fiction
2 Minor Powers
3 New scenarios (Stand-alone ones)
4 Story Fiction
5 Points Beta (I’ve been trying to guestimate torps etc for months)
6 Jane’s 1910 pt 3
1) Story Fiction
2) Sourcebook Fiction
3) Minor Powers
4) James Fighting Leviathans
5) New Campaign
6) Point System Open Beta Test
I’d like to see some Minor Powers stuff, let us know what the rest of the world is doing in their shipyards, maybe with a bit of fiction attached.
The Fiction is fine, but I’m a wargamer at heart. I’d like to see more information so I can play the real game.
So my request would be for:
1) James Fighting Leviathans 3, with Leviathans cards, torpedo, saturation, and bracketing fire rules included.
2) James Fighting Leviathans 4, covering the German Fleet
3) James Fighting Leviathans 5-?, covering the Minor Powers
So, all the community wants is Full Rulebook in 6-8 separate PDFs
Still want Minor Powers. Story Fiction would be cool, too.
Thanks for all those that have posted your comments, especially right across the holidays. We’ll keep reviewing these over the next few days waiting for any last feedback and then we’ll compile the list and get to work!
And thanks to you Randall, for asking us for our input. I hope your Christmas was a good one, and that it’ll be a great New Year for both you and Leviathans.
For my son and I we would like a minor power or two with ships, some fluff with perhaps a scenario thrown in. Second would be more fiction to continue to develop the world.
I’d like minor powers, especially the dutch or danish ones.
I already plan on being mainly French and paint my ships with Viking colors, call it the Normandy Fleet
I’d love to see all of that. However, if I had to prioritize:
1. New fiction, either sourcebook stuff of story stuff. Reading on what’s here and chatting with you at Games & Gizmos forever ago (are you still planning on restarting the weekly thing? My wife and I would love to get some more time at the proverbial helm. The little cardboard boxes just lack a certain panache…), the world of Leviathans is absolutely fascinating, and I’d love to see more of it from the eyes of the people who live in it.
On a related note, are there any plans to do open submissions for Levs short fiction like you guys do with Battletech? If not, consider this my putting it forth as a suggestion for the future. I’d LOVE a chance to play around in that sandbox.
2. Point System Open Beta. I missed the Alpha, and I’m a storyteller at heart, so I’d love the ability to construct my own fleet and watch their narrative build through play. I’d also like to see some kind of mechanical persistence, with specific ships evolving over a series of games (but that might be more of a campaign thing, see below).
3. James’ Fighting Levs 3. This would be cool, as more ships are always great, but as per my point above, I’d rather be creating them myself than having them handed to me.
4. Minor Powers. This would be neat, but I think it’s something that can wait for a major expansion or later development, particularly since there’s room for a LOT more development in the main factions first. The difference between (for example) 40K and Warmachine has taught me that I’d rather have a few well-developed factions than a large number of less fleshed-out ones.
It might be interesting to see the occasional ship of another nation appear as an ally to one of the main fleets, however.
5. New Campaign. I realize the Channel Campaign was essentially a preview, but in terms of scope and content, “campaign” carries much more meaning to me than a series of scenarios loosely linked by narrative.
Really, I’d rather have some thoughts on how to create campaigns (and logistical structures, strategic maneuver, persistent ship effects, etc) rather than a pre-packaged one.