Disclaimer:
        -"Car Wars", "Autoduel Quarterly" (ADQ), "Midville" and
"Americain Autoduel Association" (AADA)  are all registered trade
marks of Steve Jackson Games.
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        At the moment the regularity of the CWML is being questioned,
by me.  It is a reasonable amount of work - and more importantly I am
running very short on special features.  Ie Ideas.  The result is that
I will probably reduce the # of features I put in.  Hows that you say
- well instead of having a special feature every 2 weeks it will more
than likely be just every month.  The other issue will be purely news
and update information.  So from next month on - don't expect anything
to be in the ???-15 episode.

        You can do something about this, by sending stuff in.  I am
particuarly after ppl who have information about tournaments / duels
they have just played.  This would make a great feature in the CWML
to have results from around the world. What is needed is for you to
send in these results.  Duel results coupled with a short description
ould be great.

        This month's special feature is from C.J. Burke and is a
little more positive than the above paragraphs, I won't tell you what
it is about, as you'll just have to read it.

        All these links can be found at
"http://www.mpx.com.au/~dgbarton/james/links.html"

        Any contributions, news or questions can be sent to.
"dbarton@racp.edu.au"

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NEWS:
 

HVD:
        The latest issue of HVD was released yesterday, it currently
lives at www.sjgames.com/HVD/.  Check it out - it is much improved.
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ADQ:
        Although the Webmaster at SJ-Games has told me that it is all
being processed, no updates have as yet prevailed.

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AADA CHAPTERS:
 

NOVA:                                                   OLD
        Again more stuff has been added to the NOVA pages - a few
new articles, designs, and a bit of other stuff.  Check this page
reguarly it is constantly updated.
                                                Last Mod: 24-APR

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OTHER CW PAGES:

THE AUTODUELLIST                                        OLD
        This page has had it's earlier problems (the guestbook
not working) fixed. So now is a good time to return and get yourself
marked down as a Car Wars player.
                                                Last Mod: 9-APR

DRIVING TIGER MAGAZINE                                  OLD
        A new issue has been added - as well as a couple of other
things.
                                                Last Mod: 27-APR
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Okay, just to let you know where I'm coming from with this report, I
co-authored GURPS Autoduel, Second Edition, with Robert Garitta, a
former fellow Driving Tigers/Road Wolves member.  Nevertheless, we
still believe that GA 2 helped jump start Car Wars sales.

A little over a month ago, Rob Garitta was in the Compleat Strategist
on 33 Street in New York City along with another friend of ours.  Ray,
picked up a copy of GURPS Autoduel.  As they were paying for it, they
struck up a conversation with the guy at the counter.  It seems that
with the release of GURPS Autoduel, Car Wars merchandise is flying out
of the store at an unbelievable pace -- particularly when you consider
that most of the old Car Wars stuff was sitting in a dusty old bin in
the back of the store with a lot of other old merchandise.  People
were coming in and rooting through the box, unearthing whatever gems
they could.

I laughed when Rob told me about it.  And then I remembered that when
we had to make some decisions about splitting Autoduel from Car Wars
-- Autoduel being "GURPS" first and "CW" second -- we were assured
that the sales of GA 2 would in no way be a referendum on the future
of Car Wars merchandise.  Too bad!

But the story gets better.  Two weeks after Rob's incident, my job
sent me to the New York office for the day, so I stopped by for the
Strat for the first time in, maybe a year.  They had a complete Car
Wars section right up in the front of the store.  The GURPS stuff had
actually been pushed a little to the side to make room for it all. I
couldn't believe how much stuff they had!  A couple of things in
ziplocks, almost all of the atlases (though some have definitely seen
better days!), and several copies of a couple of solo modules that I
don't even rember when they were published (eg, Mean Streets).  There
were a couple of AutoVentures modules too.

I spent a half-hour gawking at all of the stuff before guilt overcame
me and I bought the Atlases that I didn't own.  (Don't worry, folks!
I had photocopies to work from when I put the atlas together for
Autoduel.)

The only sad thing in all of this is that this merchandise was bought
by the Strat a long time ago, and since it's all long out of print,
odds are that SJG won't be hearing about it.

At least, that's what I thought until last week.

Illuminati Online is currently running an on-going auction of old
stuff out of "Warehouse 23" to pay for some new equipment.  Recently,
old Car Wars items hit the auction -- big time!

One item was a playtest set for Car Wars the Card Game along with some
additional cards.  The playtest cards (laser printed on orange
cardboard) was previously owned by yours truly.  I donated them to the
auction because my attempts to sell them over the last couple of years
were always pointless (though I *did* sell my actual copy of the game
for ten bucks).  This lot went for $45.  I should point out that the
"extra cards" included consisted of another copy of the card game
where the box had dissintegrated and some of the cards were missing;
in other words, an incomplete copy of the actual game that sold for
ten bucks.

But the big item on the auction block were used (but not abused)
copies of ADQ 1/1 through 6/2.  Again, I have a personal story
relating to old copies of the late, great Car Wars magazine.  Several
years ago, on the old Illuminati BBS, Steve acquired copies of 1/1 -
1/3, which he and Aaron Allston autographed.  They were sold at
auction for a minimum bid of $60.  I immediately bid $75 -- and no one
else made another bid.  A year or two later, when I was selling off
some of my old games, out of all the issues of ADQ I had, only one
garnered any interest by one person, and he never bought it.  I saw
someone else trying to sell a complete collection on the 'Net, but he
couldn't find any takers.  Car Wars seemed dead.

Flash forward to April 1997. Those copies of 1/1 through 6/2 sold for
an astounding $220, averaging ten bucks per issue.

So old Car Wars products are all the rage right now.  Hopefully, that
will carry over to *new* Car Wars products as well, should any become
available. Unfortunately, I haven't heard of any yet.

Drive offensively

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        Please support the Autoduellist site, as if it doesn't get
support and players registering, it won't be much use to anyone.  You
can also if you like (and I'd recomed it) support the many other Car
Wars sites around.
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