Mongoose 3.0/3.5 Grand Archive - Any Interest?

MongooseMatt · 18th June 2008, 03:01 PM

Hi guys,

There is (predictably) a lot of talk at the moment about 4e and the GSL. At Mongoose, we are currently going through the fineprint to determine whether the products we planned specifically for 4e (no conversions of older books are planned) are still viable.

However, I wanted to look back for a moment, rather than forward.

We produced a great deal of OGC under D20. Most of these books are now out of print, with just PDF copies available - by the end of the year these will disappear too, as it is not realistic for us to remove D20 licensing off every product we produced over the years. Just too many!

However, it seems a shame to have all this material simply disappear, so. . .

If there is any interest, we would be prepared to make the vast majority of our D20-based content available freely. In the past, there has been talk about an OGC Wiki of sorts, and I think we can kick such a project off in a sizeable way.

If a volunteer (or volunteers - you might have to be some sort of maniac to go through all this material solo!) were to come forward and create a suitable web site, we would happily supply electronic versions of our D20 lines for translation of OGC to such a web site. We would be very free with the material permissable, allowing you to effectively cut and paste large chunks of 'fluff' text alongside the OGC.

This would include all the Quintessentials, Slayer's Guides, Encyclopaedias, Ultimates - potentially, even some Babylon 5 material, if someone is prepared to remove all the licensed text (no Conan though, as that is still current!)

All we ask is that the project is taken seriously and that there is maybe a link or two to us from the site

If other publishers are interested in such a project, we would gladly welcome work alongside them - this could end up being a seriously large site!

So, any interest? If someone wanted to build the Mother of All OGC sites, we can give you a serious head start. Might even be able to provide you with web space and some rather large bandwidth.

DaveMage · 18th June 2008, 03:04 PM

That's mighty generous of you!

lrsach01 · 18th June 2008, 03:05 PM

I would LOVE to see this sort of thing happen. Makes me sad that I have no skills when comes to programming.

Lizard · 18th June 2008, 03:07 PM

I think it would be amazing.

HyrumOWC · 18th June 2008, 05:33 PM

This is an awesome idea and one I'd support 100%.

Hyrum.

Wintergreen · 18th June 2008, 06:09 PM

That's an amazing suggestion that definitely would have a lot of support.

Admiral Caine · 18th June 2008, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wintergreen

That's an amazing suggestion that definitely would have a lot of support.

Matt,

This was cross posted over at Paizo. One of the folks over there has asked what would the storage space requirement be (or even an estimate). They feel they might be able to mirror for this collection indefinitely.

Thanks!

Darkwolf71 · 18th June 2008, 07:25 PM

Man, that rocks. I wish my computer skills were up to the task. But I'm a user, not a programer.

joela · 18th June 2008, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MongooseMatt

So, any interest? If someone wanted to build the Mother of All OGC sites, we can give you a serious head start. Might even be able to provide you with web space and some rather large bandwidth.

I'll provide fresh reviews!

GeoFFields · 18th June 2008, 07:34 PM

Great idea!

MongooseMatt · 18th June 2008, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Admiral Caine

Matt,

This was cross posted over at Paizo. One of the folks over there has asked what would the storage space requirement be (or even an estimate). They feel they might be able to mirror for this collection indefinitely.

Thanks!

I can't imagine the storage requirements would be particularly large, if it was all kept text-based (we can talk about art if this gets off the ground

).

FATDRAGONGAMES · 18th June 2008, 08:03 PM

That is an extremely generous offer Matt, thank you.

Pinotage · 18th June 2008, 08:04 PM

Wow! That's amazing! I genuinely hope this gets off the ground.

Thanks, Mongoose!

Pinotage

Lord Mhoram · 18th June 2008, 08:10 PM

Really cool Matt.

Man-thing · 18th June 2008, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MongooseMatt

So, any interest? If someone wanted to build the Mother of All OGC sites, we can give you a serious head start. Might even be able to provide you with web space and some rather large bandwidth.

Mark Gedak (long-time MGP playtester) and editor of the Renegade Wizard's Spellbook, Renegade Cleric's Tome, Epic Monsters - who as a lot of MGP's stuff in PDF from these projects would be very pleased to do this. In fact he has 8 days of school left and then could put serious time to this endeavor.

Man-thing · 18th June 2008, 08:31 PM

er, so,... Pick Me! Pick Me!

Knightfall · 18th June 2008, 08:46 PM

This is pretty generous of you Matt; however, I hope such a project will include errata and bulletproofing of the OGL content. I suggest asking John Cooper to do that, if possible.

kensanata · 18th June 2008, 08:47 PM

I'm a wiki developer and I run several small wikis and one larger wiki – the Emacs Wiki.

I volunteer to set up an appropriate wiki using Oddmuse and starting this project as well as maintaining the wiki itself.

Also check out my Campaign Wiki which I've started using for my campaigns – that would give you an idea of where this would be heading. (And we might get a nicer CSS, hehe.)

I guess something like the Hypertext d20 SRD would be the goal. Using a wiki would allow us to allow anybody interested in collaborating. Having a dedicated software maintainer at the head of the project would make sure that software problems can be dealt with and that eventually many of the cool things seen on d20srd.org will be available on the new OGC Wiki as well.

Contact me via kensanata@gmail.com.

sgstyrsky · 18th June 2008, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Man-thing

er, so,... Pick Me! Pick Me!

Pick me too! I can help.

Voadam · 18th June 2008, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MongooseMatt

Most of these books are now out of print, with just PDF copies available - by the end of the year these will disappear too, as it is not realistic for us to remove D20 licensing off every product we produced over the years. Just too many!

Oh crap! I was hoping to keep buying this stuff on pdf for years to come, art and fluff in addition to OGC rules. My monthly gaming budget will not allow me to get all the ones I'm interested in before the end of the year.

Back when he first anounced that the logo would be retired Scott Rouse mentioned he thought it would be as simple as placing a black square to cover the d20 logo in pdfs for companies to keep the products available.