SJG JTAS - still worth subscribing to? page 1

rogermccarthy

January 28th, 2007, 06:19 PM

I let my old online subscription to JTAS lapse a couple of years ago when money was short but was thinking of renewing it again.

Can any current subscriber let me know how active JTAS is these days (i.e is it still being regularly updated with new material)?

I just feel kind of leery of taking out a two years subscription given that SJG are publishing very little new Traveller material these days (excepting the excellent IW book of course)....

tjoneslo

January 28th, 2007, 11:00 PM

It still updates every two weeks with several articles about traveller. And you get access to the entire archive of articles. And there is a message board.

The latest week's articles are:
Amber Zones by Eric Funk (an Amberzone about Amber)
Creature Features IV by Eric Funk (a new set of creatures for Traveller)
Freind or Foe by Mark Gellis (a casual Encounter)

I've always found the subscription to be worth the cost. All of SJGames new Traveller material is being published through JTAS. And it's all good.

Malenfant

January 29th, 2007, 01:24 AM

I never found the magazine to be worthwhile, the number of articles per issue was just too low, and it was touch and go whether any were of interest. It's probably worth it more for the archive though if you're into that sort of thing.

Dunno what the boards are like nowadays, but when I was on there years ago I found them to be better than CotI, but the community is somewhat more insular IMO.

Jeff M. Hopper

January 29th, 2007, 03:10 AM

The subscription price for JTAS is $20 for two years of 26 issues per year. At that price, it's a bargain and well worth the cost.

The magazine is still updated regularly and now it is covering a broader range of Traveller versions, including T20. The archive section alone is worth the subscription for the wealth of past articles.

TheEngineer

January 29th, 2007, 03:45 AM

Hi !

Even if I do not check every issue and somehow dislike the GURPS stuff, I consider the 20 bugs as very well spent.
As Mr. Hopper said : even just the archive is a great resource....

regards,

TE

etherflyer

January 29th, 2007, 11:42 AM

Issues are three articles plus editorial, published biweekly for two years. Which means you pay 13 cents per article (ignoring editorials).

I'll be letting my Pyramid subscription lapse (too many d20 articles and columns, not enough stuff I can use), but JTAS is still worth it for me.

Elv

January 30th, 2007, 06:06 AM

Like most respondents, I find it well worth the money. Pyramid is borderline - I will probably renew - but JTAS is (for me) a no-brainer. There was a period about six months ago when the editing wasn't up to scratch and it felt more like a fanzine than a professional publication, but this has since improved.

There are currently 915 articles in the archives, of which 221 are editorials - a quick category search comes up with 156 Amber Zone and Short Adventure, 110 Casual Encounter, 71 Ship's Locker, 70 Review, 62 Campaign Setting, 28 Contact, 19 Deckplan, 16 Bestiary, 3 Designer's Notes, and 156 Variant and Column articles. The editorials are usually worthwhile (if, like me, you are interested in the history of Traveller and the inner workings of GDW), and there are other articles I want to read in most issues.

The boards are quiet these days, but do have the advantage (to me) that they are available via NNTP as well as over the web. This means I can read them most days, whereas I can only get to the forums at home when things are quiet.

John

etherflyer

January 30th, 2007, 06:01 PM

Originally posted by John G. Wood:
The boards are quiet these days, but do have the advantage (to me) that they are available via NNTP as well as over the web. Also means that if you decide to ignore a topic, it stays ignored. (With the forums, you still see new posts in a topic you've ignored.)

Visual threading, much faster load times... lots of good reasons for liking NNTP...

Jeff M. Hopper

March 2nd, 2007, 03:56 AM

I cast Thread Necromancy since people have been asking about JTAS in other threads.


This has been a Necromantic Service Announcement.

Liam Devlin

March 2nd, 2007, 05:00 AM

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
I cast Thread Necromancy since people have been asking about JTAS in other threads.


This has been a Necromantic Service Announcement. Aha, you're the guy Dulinor called about that poor man blown up at the Highport! :eek: :eek: graemlins/file_28.gif

Jeff M. Hopper

March 2nd, 2007, 06:51 AM

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Aha, you're the guy Dulinor called about that poor man blown up at the Highport! :eek: :eek: graemlins/file_28.gif I'll never tell. :D tongue.gif