Thema: HackMaster fast am Ende

[Eisenklopper]

Nach monatelang brodelnder Gerüchteküche und maulereien enttäuschter HackMaster Spieler hat David Kenzer nun die Katze aus dem Sack gelassen. HackMaster, wie wir es kannten, ist so gut wie tot. Nur noch ein paar Produkte und wenn Kenzer&Co das nächste Jahr überlebt evtl. eine neue lizenzfreie Version von HackMaster, basierend auf den neuen Regelentwicklungen von Aces&Eights (ein "realistisches" Western Rollenspiel, das dieses Jahr erscheinen soll.) Aber lest selbst:

OK, I tried to read or skim most of the posts. I will not answer nearly all of your questions here, but will do my best to answer a handful, then I plan to retire to bed so I can get up earyl and go to my day job. In case you're wondering, I made $0 salaray in 2005 from K&C -- fired myself when I fired Brian Jelke 2 years ago. In fact, i fired about 10 of my closest pals over the last 4 years. We now have 4 full-time employees and zero part-time.

We are not betting the company on A&8. We're betting on KoDT. KoDT pays the bills and we missed last month. Right now the focus is on getting that straightened out asap.

Sure westerns are niche, but they're also arguably the #2 genre behind fantasy.

All companies are getting the arses handed to them -- see AEG firing 90% of its 45 employees 2 months ago. Now they're the same size as us. I'd rather be us.

Aside from a few HM projects in the pipeline, we will probably no longer be printing material based on 1e/2e. It's simply too much of a pain in the ass. GH was rejected by WoTC and we are re-doing it. All the other modules in the queue were rejected as well and the effort to complete them to WoTC's spec is too great to make them viable.

Sales for the Kalamar Atlas were close to 10x the pre-orders for GW and probably behind only the PHB and GMG (although the class books might be close). BTW, the Kalamar core setting ousold the HM PHB for what its worth. We have little or no Kalamar in the queue right now.

We're in an impossible position with GW. Most of it is based on Jolly's notes, largely a mystery to the rest of the D-Team. Jolly has no and will never have enough time to develop it. We can't rely on him to answer any freelancer questions, so it's a rough spot to be in. We have made no hard decisions, but I just wanted to share the frustration. We are still trying to figure out how to support everything with no employees.

When we launched HM, we had 13 employees plus a couple of interns.

We will accept submissions for original HM material, but will more than likely only print modules as PDFs. Game stores weren't prdering adventures 3 years ago and now avoid them like the plague.

Aces & Eights is an experiment of sorts where we're trying to expand on many of the original HM rules concepts introduced by the D-team without any use of 1e/2e rules. Most of the rule expansion can be used directly in HM.

We made a profit in 2005 and had a loss in 2004. The more we right the ship the more likely it will be that you will see superior HM support begin again.

We will be releasing a new version of HM with a HC and a bunch of new ideas at some point in the future, but not this year.

Steve J handles all HM submissions at this point.

Dwarf has no official capacity with K&C at this point in time.

Garlic makes some fair points.

I think about the future of HM every single day. I worry about the future of HM the way I worry about my children...I want its well-being but cannot conceive of its demise. To continue the same analogy, I love my nephews and I love A&8.

Nothing I say here will make you guys feel much better because I can't commit to a hard release for a new HM supplement, so it's just Dave saying "we care". I realize that. If you're looking for something other than specifics on new HM releases, ask away.

PS -- don't panic if it takes days for responses...but don't be surprised if I respond more quickly.
__________________
David S. Kenzer
Co-designer for HACKMASTER, BEST GAME 2001

 

Hier der Link: http://www.kenzerco.com/forums/showpost.php?p=284605&postcount=110

 

[Cyric]

Habe den thread erst grade gelesen, da seit wir Warhammer spielen grade Pause mit HM ist. Mit ist wohl aufgefallen, dass es auf der Kenzer homepage eher ruhiger abgeht in letzter Zeit und ich habe sowas wie oben aufgeführt seit gut einem halben Jahr befürchtet, aber es jetzt zu wissen, ist ein Schock.
klar, HM hat Schwächen... aber es ist auch ein großartiges System und besser zu lesen, als jedes andere auf dem Markt.

Wirklich erschütternd...

Gruß
cy

[MadMalik]

*snüff* da geht das "bessere" AD&D 

[8t88]

Tut mir leid für die Fans, mein Beileid habt ihr
Aber mich persönlich störts halt irgendwie nich...