Don's saying, I think, that TNE was a bad idea. My own personal take on Traveller versions, not to get all ranty but I will, is....
Classic Traveller's mechanics were pretty dated and everyone knew it, though the fan base loved the setting and still does. If you want to give me a lecture on why there was nothing wrong with classic Traveller, I can hand you some of my notes for workarounds, or you can simply take a page count of T5, which I'm told was written by classic Traveller fans.
MegaTraveller attempted to update the mechanics (or that is to say, adopted the system developed by DGP), and in that effort it was largely successful. However, it was absolutely plagued with errata and corrigenda, its best publications were outsourced and not GDW property (and we see where that has led...), and few people were actually fans of the setting, which frankly was never satisfactorily justified. Civil war...cool. Civil war that results in multiple factions that spring up out of thin air, not cool. The Rebellion should have been Dulinor versus Lucan, with large parts of the Imperium being neutral and untouched by war. The moment the Solomani invade, the civil war gets wrapped up quickly (either Dulinor or Lucan gets assassinated, perhaps both) and the new conflict gets resolved. The Third Imperium is a bit chaotic in places for a while afterward, but eventually settles down. Players have fun helping to restore order or taking advantage of the lack of proper order for a time. But I digress....
So someone got the bright idea to in-house everything, including the game mechanics (with the idea of creating a house system) and the result was an award winning version of the game that quite possibly, had the resources existed and the money not run out, been the next GURPS. Oh yeah, and the Rebellion was ended, not with a whimper, but with a bang. Insert picture of Charlton Heston pounding the sand on the beach lamenting as we see the Statute of Liberty in the foreground. Cue the Vikings and their odd friends.
TNE should have been the game mechanics behind Traveller until well...it still should be the game mechanics behind Traveller, though on probably it's 3rd revision by now, even with multiple changes in publisher. Selling product by creating new settings and new sourcebooks for new settings, not 3 completely different sets of game mechanics in 4 years (1992-1996) is the way to successfully keep your fan base, or at least ensure that it didn't splinter into hostile factions. But hey, maybe SJG is doing it wrong. *shrug*
But as long as we're talking about least favorite Traveller version, that for me would have to be T4. I said a lot of negative things about T4 (like it didn't deserve to have Marc Miller's name on it) when it came out and 19 years later I still treat it, both as a Traveller player/referee and writer, like toxic waste--smells bad, best to be avoided, not particularly useful, if you tell me I have touch it, I'm getting out some gear to wear and I'm not going to happy about it. That people (no doubt at least a few members of this list) put a lot of time into it to try to get it right, put a brave face on it and talked about it in terms of "getting Fire, Fusion & Steel right", etc. and saw that effort go for nothing was profoundly sad. Really though, the biggest problem with T4 wasn't the deviations from canon, it wasn't the errata and corrigenda though it was extensive (almost MT extensive), nor was it that it was "rushed into publication" as someone once said, it was that it even existed at all.
Everything since has been an attempt to recapture to the "glory of Traveller", however you define that.
Classic Traveller's mechanics were pretty dated and everyone knew it, though the fan base loved the setting and still does. If you want to give me a lecture on why there was nothing wrong with classic Traveller, I can hand you some of my notes for workarounds, or you can simply take a page count of T5, which I'm told was written by classic Traveller fans.
MegaTraveller attempted to update the mechanics (or that is to say, adopted the system developed by DGP), and in that effort it was largely successful. However, it was absolutely plagued with errata and corrigenda, its best publications were outsourced and not GDW property (and we see where that has led...), and few people were actually fans of the setting, which frankly was never satisfactorily justified. Civil war...cool. Civil war that results in multiple factions that spring up out of thin air, not cool. The Rebellion should have been Dulinor versus Lucan, with large parts of the Imperium being neutral and untouched by war. The moment the Solomani invade, the civil war gets wrapped up quickly (either Dulinor or Lucan gets assassinated, perhaps both) and the new conflict gets resolved. The Third Imperium is a bit chaotic in places for a while afterward, but eventually settles down. Players have fun helping to restore order or taking advantage of the lack of proper order for a time. But I digress....
So someone got the bright idea to in-house everything, including the game mechanics (with the idea of creating a house system) and the result was an award winning version of the game that quite possibly, had the resources existed and the money not run out, been the next GURPS. Oh yeah, and the Rebellion was ended, not with a whimper, but with a bang. Insert picture of Charlton Heston pounding the sand on the beach lamenting as we see the Statute of Liberty in the foreground. Cue the Vikings and their odd friends.
TNE should have been the game mechanics behind Traveller until well...it still should be the game mechanics behind Traveller, though on probably it's 3rd revision by now, even with multiple changes in publisher. Selling product by creating new settings and new sourcebooks for new settings, not 3 completely different sets of game mechanics in 4 years (1992-1996) is the way to successfully keep your fan base, or at least ensure that it didn't splinter into hostile factions. But hey, maybe SJG is doing it wrong. *shrug*
But as long as we're talking about least favorite Traveller version, that for me would have to be T4. I said a lot of negative things about T4 (like it didn't deserve to have Marc Miller's name on it) when it came out and 19 years later I still treat it, both as a Traveller player/referee and writer, like toxic waste--smells bad, best to be avoided, not particularly useful, if you tell me I have touch it, I'm getting out some gear to wear and I'm not going to happy about it. That people (no doubt at least a few members of this list) put a lot of time into it to try to get it right, put a brave face on it and talked about it in terms of "getting Fire, Fusion & Steel right", etc. and saw that effort go for nothing was profoundly sad. Really though, the biggest problem with T4 wasn't the deviations from canon, it wasn't the errata and corrigenda though it was extensive (almost MT extensive), nor was it that it was "rushed into publication" as someone once said, it was that it even existed at all.
Everything since has been an attempt to recapture to the "glory of Traveller", however you define that.