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Just like the title says, I'd like to hear opinions.

Especially after reviewing Mike's and B. Brown's sites, I'm getting that distinct impression... that the supposedly "lowest possible rung" on the official ladder has all along been creating the brain bugs we see today in the EU, which people get so upset over...

Thoughts? Since I haven't PLAYED the games, I can't really say one way or the other, but I suppose I could crack open those source book tomes I see at the bookstore every so often in the sci fi section.

Yes. 5 mile SSD. 120 km DS. 160 km DS2.

WEG has been really bad for SW. WotC are not too much better.

YT300000 wrote:Yes. 5 mile SSD. 120 km DS. 160 km DS2.

WEG has been really bad for SW. WotC are not too much better.

Curious, I have the old West End games books and at least the game system is pretty playable and it keeps the feel. My main problem is that you can never becoem as good as the main characters. The scale system, while I would prefer something more like harpoon and/or armor War games, works reasonably well. I don't like the idea in Wizards of the Coast that I am an X level "Farmer class" and an X level "Jedi class" and the psionic system of Wizards (which I assume is how they base the Jedi) does not seem well done.

WOTC is far worse. While they are giving ships PD now, the rest is just incredibly fucked up, IE their reving of the weapons compliments of ships downward, or their ideas that anything the sith did had to be Sith Magic or Sith Alchemy, and couldn't possibly be highly advanced technology used to make up for the numbers disparity between Jedi and Sith due to Intercene fighting of the Dark Lords.

Ender wrote:WOTC is far worse. While they are giving ships PD now, the rest is just incredibly fucked up, IE their reving of the weapons compliments of ships downward, or their ideas that anything the sith did had to be Sith Magic or Sith Alchemy, and couldn't possibly be highly advanced technology used to make up for the numbers disparity between Jedi and Sith due to Intercene fighting of the Dark Lords.

One might write that off to be a case of Clarke's "sufficiently advanced technology". After all, the Sith magic and alchemy seems to be mostly based on unique means of manipulation of existing materials, without much elaboration on the means themselves.

Publius

I believe so. WEG is the source of most of the major misconceptions. The problem is that so many authors follow the information as though it were canon.

Alchemy is like chemistry, except that you don't know what the fuck you're doing.

Demiurge wrote:I believe so. WEG is the source of most of the major misconceptions. The problem is that so many authors follow the information as though it were canon.

Lucasfilm's canon police. Something is said, and all the next books and games HAVE to follow it.

Publius wrote:

Ender wrote:WOTC is far worse. While they are giving ships PD now, the rest is just incredibly fucked up, IE their reving of the weapons compliments of ships downward, or their ideas that anything the sith did had to be Sith Magic or Sith Alchemy, and couldn't possibly be highly advanced technology used to make up for the numbers disparity between Jedi and Sith due to Intercene fighting of the Dark Lords.

One might write that off to be a case of Clarke's "sufficiently advanced technology". After all, the Sith magic and alchemy seems to be mostly based on unique means of manipulation of existing materials, without much elaboration on the means themselves.

Publius

That is what I think it should be written off as: The Sith Lords using their advanced technology and passing it off as magic. But WOTC says it is a force related talent. Which is just fucking stupid.

Ender wrote:

Publius wrote:

Ender wrote:WOTC is far worse. While they are giving ships PD now, the rest is just incredibly fucked up, IE their reving of the weapons compliments of ships downward, or their ideas that anything the sith did had to be Sith Magic or Sith Alchemy, and couldn't possibly be highly advanced technology used to make up for the numbers disparity between Jedi and Sith due to Intercene fighting of the Dark Lords.

One might write that off to be a case of Clarke's "sufficiently advanced technology". After all, the Sith magic and alchemy seems to be mostly based on unique means of manipulation of existing materials, without much elaboration on the means themselves.

Publius

That is what I think it should be written off as: The Sith Lords using their advanced technology and passing it off as magic. But WOTC says it is a force related talent. Which is just fucking stupid.

No, the Sith possessing metal swords that are nearly the equal of lightsabers is dumb

Ender wrote:WOTC is far worse. While they are giving ships PD now, the rest is just incredibly fucked up, IE their reving of the weapons compliments of ships downward, or their ideas that anything the sith did had to be Sith Magic or Sith Alchemy, and couldn't possibly be highly advanced technology used to make up for the numbers disparity between Jedi and Sith due to Intercene fighting of the Dark Lords.

Which would make perfect sense considering a Sith Lord named Darth Sidious' canon fixation with high-tech.

Ender wrote:That is what I think it should be written off as: The Sith Lords using their advanced technology and passing it off as magic. But WOTC says it is a force related talent. Which is just fucking stupid.

Well...(not to defend WOTC...) in the Star Wars universe, the Force has been scientifically quantified.

It's probably more to blame with the Lucasfilm policy than anything. WEG rather obviously wasn't trying to build an encyclopedia of canon, they were trying to make a game that retained the 'feel' of SW. As far as the latter is concerned, they nailed it.

Unfortunately, everyone used it as a source afterwards. Le sigh..

SirNitram wrote:It's probably more to blame with the Lucasfilm policy than anything. WEG rather obviously wasn't trying to build an encyclopedia of canon, they were trying to make a game that retained the 'feel' of SW. As far as the latter is concerned, they nailed it.

Unfortunately, everyone used it as a source afterwards. Le sigh..

Which still perplexes me.

Why in the name of anything holy did LFL encourage using WEG Sourcebooks as research over the films and their production materials/notes and Marvel? They could have compiled their own little reference book from GL's opinions, the movies, and Marvel and the Bantam run would've been a lot better.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

SirNitram wrote:It's probably more to blame with the Lucasfilm policy than anything. WEG rather obviously wasn't trying to build an encyclopedia of canon, they were trying to make a game that retained the 'feel' of SW. As far as the latter is concerned, they nailed it.

Unfortunately, everyone used it as a source afterwards. Le sigh..

Which still perplexes me.

Why in the name of anything holy did LFL encourage using WEG Sourcebooks as research over the films and their production materials/notes and Marvel? They could have compiled their own little reference book from GL's opinions, the movies, and Marvel and the Bantam run would've been a lot better.

Easy: They probably didn't realize people like us would exist.

It's probably also easy for anyone not working hard to notice details to see WEG as accurate. While there are problems, they aren't like, say, Star Trek Armada, where ships that can't blast an asteroid apart can blow up a planet.

What are the worst WEG problems, anyway? I only really recall size problems(120Km DS's, silly low ranges for personal weapons..).

There's the whole, ISD is the ultimate battleship of the Empire thing, and Executor is an impossible leviathan (even though we built a Death Star worth thousands).

The whole VSD was the ultimate ship of the Clone Wars thing. Miscellaneous stupidities. Nothing else is coming to mind right now.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:There's the whole, ISD is the ultimate battleship of the Empire thing, and Executor is an impossible leviathan (even though we built a Death Star worth thousands).

The ISD was certainly the only heavy vessel commonly seen, so it's passable. The scale of the Executor.. Eh. Again, these are things a casual observer will not notice, so it's not going to even bug me.

The whole VSD was the ultimate ship of the Clone Wars thing. Miscellaneous stupidities. Nothing else is coming to mind right now.

What's wrong with the VSD being the best ship of the era? What's it's canon opposition? Oh yea: A 2Km refit freighter with no observed anti-capital firepower and an atmospheric transport.

SirNitram wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:There's the whole, ISD is the ultimate battleship of the Empire thing, and Executor is an impossible leviathan (even though we built a Death Star worth thousands).

The ISD was certainly the only heavy vessel commonly seen, so it's passable. The scale of the Executor.. Eh. Again, these are things a casual observer will not notice, so it's not going to even bug me.

Well they did forget the Marvel battlecruisers and the Giel's battleship.

SirNitram wrote:

The whole VSD was the ultimate ship of the Clone Wars thing. Miscellaneous stupidities. Nothing else is coming to mind right now.

What's wrong with the VSD being the best ship of the era? What's it's canon opposition? Oh yea: A 2Km refit freighter with no observed anti-capital firepower and an atmospheric transport.

I'm talking about the Clone Wars. In peacetime its pretty reasonable, but the industrial base of SW should be able to shore up some combat vessels bigger than an atmospheric-capable destroyer 900 meters long. As for official, there was the Invincible-class Dreadnought, though it is old. The Procurator-class and Mandator-class are implied to be much larger craft.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

SirNitram wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:There's the whole, ISD is the ultimate battleship of the Empire thing, and Executor is an impossible leviathan (even though we built a Death Star worth thousands).

The ISD was certainly the only heavy vessel commonly seen, so it's passable. The scale of the Executor.. Eh. Again, these are things a casual observer will not notice, so it's not going to even bug me.

Well they did forget the Marvel battlecruisers and the Giel's battleship.

Giel's battleship is seen once and never again.. Same with many Marvel cruisers. Trying to document every class in a civilization they peg as 51 million worlds would make their entire game into a ship listing.

SirNitram wrote:

The whole VSD was the ultimate ship of the Clone Wars thing. Miscellaneous stupidities. Nothing else is coming to mind right now.

What's wrong with the VSD being the best ship of the era? What's it's canon opposition? Oh yea: A 2Km refit freighter with no observed anti-capital firepower and an atmospheric transport.

I'm talking about the Clone Wars. In peacetime its pretty reasonable, but the industrial base of SW should be able to shore up some combat vessels bigger than an atmospheric-capable destroyer 900 meters long. As for official, there was the Invincible-class Dreadnought, though it is old. The Procurator-class and Mandator-class are implied to be much larger craft.

You know, the argument 'It should be able' is one I typically associate with complete idiots. I suggest you try a different one.

As for the Procurator and Mandator, they might well be bigger. However, the VSD-I.. Especially in WEG's realm.. Is a stupidly powerful ship. I'm not kidding when I'm saying an alpha strike from one of those has brought down an ISD-II so hard we did major damage to a continent beneath us.

The only thing I'd bitch about is the undergunning of the ISD-I.

SirNitram wrote:I'm not kidding when I'm saying an alpha strike from one of those has brought down an ISD-II so hard we did major damage to a continent beneath us.

The only thing I'd bitch about is the undergunning of the ISD-I.

Their weapons mechanics is funky. There's the infamous 60 XX9 TLs and 60 ICs...which are....where?

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

SirNitram wrote:I'm not kidding when I'm saying an alpha strike from one of those has brought down an ISD-II so hard we did major damage to a continent beneath us.

The only thing I'd bitch about is the undergunning of the ISD-I.

Their weapons mechanics is funky. There's the infamous 60 XX9 TLs and 60 ICs...which are....where?

Their weapons mechanics are geared towards playability, not canon accuracy. If no pirate YT could evade the fire from an ISD, it wouldn't be a very good game, because you'd be SOL when the first one showed up. Trust me, I've played under a GM who wanted 'accuracy'.

SirNitram wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

SirNitram wrote:I'm not kidding when I'm saying an alpha strike from one of those has brought down an ISD-II so hard we did major damage to a continent beneath us.

The only thing I'd bitch about is the undergunning of the ISD-I.

Their weapons mechanics is funky. There's the infamous 60 XX9 TLs and 60 ICs...which are....where?

Their weapons mechanics are geared towards playability, not canon accuracy. If no pirate YT could evade the fire from an ISD, it wouldn't be a very good game, because you'd be SOL when the first one showed up. Trust me, I've played under a GM who wanted 'accuracy'.

I'm not arguing about playability.

Point is, people took those very same stats, which were great for playing the game, and recycled them verbatim in X-Wing and other novels.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

SirNitram wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote: Their weapons mechanics is funky. There's the infamous 60 XX9 TLs and 60 ICs...which are....where?

Their weapons mechanics are geared towards playability, not canon accuracy. If no pirate YT could evade the fire from an ISD, it wouldn't be a very good game, because you'd be SOL when the first one showed up. Trust me, I've played under a GM who wanted 'accuracy'.

I'm not arguing about playability.

Point is, people took those very same stats, which were great for playing the game, and recycled them verbatim in X-Wing and other novels.

Which I agree is BS.

On the plus side, WEG scaling gives some of the highest numbers for VS debates...

SirNitram wrote:[Which I agree is BS.

On the plus side, WEG scaling gives some of the highest numbers for VS debates...

Remember the "playing with numbers" thread where we scaled from ICS yield using the number of WEG guns?

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

SirNitram wrote:[Which I agree is BS.

On the plus side, WEG scaling gives some of the highest numbers for VS debates...

Remember the "playing with numbers" thread where we scaled from ICS yield using the number of WEG guns?

Oh yes...

VSD-I Missiles came out powerful enough to shatter a continent.

What do Procurator and Mandator ships look like?