If GURPS did a Kickstarter what would you want it to be?

[johndallman]

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Originally Posted by Hrothgar

I would agree a kickstarter going towards either the ability to update GCA 4 or start on GCA 5. Maybe enough to hire a few people for Armin to supervise.

An excellent way to spend a lot of money on slowing down a software project is to add more people. On a rough estimate, VB.NET programmers for short contracts are going to cost $250/day or more each, and getting ones that know GURPS is very unlikely. Unless Armin has been writing specifications as he goes along in a way that would be astounding for a project of this kind, he'd have to spend months writing those before hired programmers could do any good.

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

GCA 5 has already been started and he's even posted a few screenshots and discussed the internal changes. It's just that he has a day job and paying side jobs that takes up most of his time.

Now, raising money to let Armin spend more time on GCA and less on his side jobs could do some good, assuming he can spend less time on them without them going away. That assumption is by no means guaranteed, nor is there a reliable way to ensure that X amount of money will get the job done by date Y. If he needed a fancier version of Visual Studio, or other programming tools, that would be simple. But time seems to be the requirement.

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Cybren

subscription based hyperlinked, indexed GURPS 4E encyclopedia with a newer sleeker character sheet app (and mobile version)

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

A GURPS encyclopedia would have to be written from scratch and would probably take an enormous amount to resources in both money and manpower, neither of which the company seems to be willing to invest into GURPS (as opposed to Munchkin) and is much, much larger in scope than I think people mentioning it here realize (and scope would probably expand dramatically as the project progressed) so it would be a poor Kickstarter.

Id much rather see someone paid to update the GURPS Imp index.
www.servedhot.net/GURPS/php/index_imp.php

Cheap. Easily done. Lots of the work already done.

As to the GCA, Id rather see someone compensate the GCS guy, whos been doing a great job in java on a cross platform proggie that works more or less for everyone.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gcs-java/

Other things I'd like to see kick started....

Re-layout of DF volumes into fewer books.

Print on Demand. This was discussed but I dont think that it ever took off. If we could kick start the infrastructure to get this up and running then finally I could have a new Hardcover version of Magic.

Speaking of Magic.....

Id kick in For GURPS:AltMagic a mechanical system for converting Powers to Spells. (NOT Spells to powers).

Yes it would be big undertaking. Yes it would likely involve excising the current magic at the Magery Talent and building it from the ground up.

But at the End you would have.....

A Magic system with a built in spell design mechanic that is already well understood to GURPS players.
Since you could see how they were built and priced, there would be no more quibbling over what spells are 'balanced'.
Since we all (seem to more or less) agree that Powers is pretty Balanced, starting from that will likely lead to a balanced magic system.
Since we would be able to see the mechanics in play, we could tweak the knobs to our hearts desire.

Nymdok

[Langy]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

A GURPS encyclopedia would have to be written from scratch and would probably take an enormous amount to resources in both money and manpower, neither of which the company seems to be willing to invest into GURPS (as opposed to Munchkin) and is much, much larger in scope than I think people mentioning it here realize (and scope would probably expand dramatically as the project progressed) so it would be a poor Kickstarter.

It wouldn't really need to be written from scratch so much as formatted and edited from scratch, using the existing GURPS PDF material as much as possible.

But yeah, a GCA 5 that has more in-play utility and is generally better than the current version would be a great Kickstarter project. What would be a really cool 'stretch goal' would be being able to get the text for each advantage/disadvantage/skill by clicking on each one, maybe by opening up the relevant PDF to the correct location or by just having it in a database.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Now, raising money to let Armin spend more time on GCA and less on his side jobs could do some good, assuming he can spend less time on them without them going away. That assumption is by no means guaranteed, nor is there a reliable way to ensure that X amount of money will get the job done by date Y. If he needed a fancier version of Visual Studio, or other programming tools, that would be simple. But time seems to be the requirement.

Kickstarters can raise a ridiculous amount of money, though. It's possible that they could get enough to pay Armin hundreds of thousands of dollars, which would certainly allow me to quit my day job for a few months...

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Langy

But yeah, a GCA 5 that has more in-play utility and is generally better than the current version would be a great Kickstarter project. What would be a really cool 'stretch goal' would be being able to get the text for each advantage/disadvantage/skill by clicking on each one, maybe by opening up the relevant PDF to the correct location or by just having it in a database.

The ideal first stretch goals, I think, are just gdfs for the books that don't have them, and maybe setting up a fund to pay somebody to make gdfs for books as they get published.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

As to the GCA, Id rather see someone compensate the GCS guy, whos been doing a great job in java on a cross platform proggie that works more or less for everyone.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gcs-java/

Java is losing a lot of love in the tech world because of Oracle's mismanagement of it. Microsoft recently mentioned that Java accounted for 85-90% of malware install on recent versions of Windows and pointed out that the same Java security problems are a threat to MacOS and Linux users as well (and cross-platform Java attacks have been seen in the wild). Also, Oracle trying to monetize Java by bundling the Ask toolbar on every little update is unforgivable. I for one refuse to install it on any computer I own.

So, no, GCS is a non-starter to me.

Plus hasn't GCS pretty much been a dead project for several years now. Last I heard the lead developer quit and no one has been willing to pick it up since then. The few times I've used it it seemed extremely rough and non-intuitive, like it still needed a lot more work to even be considered a beta-quality product.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Kickstarters can raise a ridiculous amount of money, though. It's possible that they could get enough to pay Armin hundreds of thousands of dollars, which would certainly allow me to quit my day job for a few months...

I seriously doubt that this one would. I think GCA4 had sold maybe 5,000 copies when we lost access to sales figures with the merge of E23 into W23, but I could easily be wrong.

Now, a bunch of those are no longer going to be in use and more will belong to people who feel they should get a new version free. I doubt that there are lots of GURPS players who have avoided buying GCA4 but would be keen to sign up for GCA5 by the same author, so you're mostly working within the existing customer base. If there was lots of unmet demand, you might expect Hero Lab to address it.

You might get 2000 people sign up, but you might only get 300. If it was $20 for a new GCA5, that's somewhere between $6,000 and $40,000, and my guess would be that it would be somewhere in the low end of that range.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I seriously doubt that this one would. I think GCA4 had sold maybe 5,000 copies when we lost access to sales figures with the merge of E23 into W23, but I could easily be wrong.

Yeah, but I didn't think an old fashioned hex and counter game from the 70s with CRTs and case-numbered rules and everything was going to get $923,680/$20,000, either. I've decided that I have no way to predict these things at all.

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by Cybren

subscription based hyperlinked, indexed GURPS 4E encyclopedia with a newer sleeker character sheet app (and mobile version)

This or GURPS Vehicle Design System.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Humabout

This or GURPS Vehicle Design System.

The company is already prepared to stump up the cash for VDS. It's not shortage of seed capital which is delaying publication.