shadows of asia Options

[Velocity]

I'll second that Whuffie.

[mintcar]

How I wish rpg´s could support more employees. Both for yours and our sakes Adam. Take care and don´t burn out man.

[Zen Shooter01]

Adam, I don't think you're lying on the couch looking at internet porn. I know you're working.

That doesn't change the fact that SoA's PDF is late.

Obviously, you have too much to do. So why doesn't Fan Pro hire more staff? Even temporary staff? Here we go again...things get screwed up, and the Fan Pro company men say, "Hey! We're working really hard!"

Yeah, hard, but not very effectively. Because Fan Pro can't be bothered to hire any little gamer nerd at minimum wage for a temporary position as a gopher during the preparations for GenCon (or if they have hired one, they didn't hire two, which they obviously need), to take some of the weight off Adam.

Because Fan Pro has clearly put a work load so heavy on Adam (who, as Fan Pro knows, has obligations to other companies, too) that it's impossible for him to get it done. Because Fan Pro has decided to build Rome in a day with all these SR releases piled on top of each other.

Fan Pro organizes badly, understaffs, makes impossible demands on its personnel and faerie-tale promises to its customers, and as a result, the whole show likes like a burning clusterfuck in a centrifuge.

And the upshot of all this is that Zen Shooter runs home from work every Thursday for the last three weeks to be disappointed that SoA isn't out yet. The upshot is instead of being thrilled, the customers are cranky.

[JongWK]

[Ellery]

I not infrequently put in two weeks' work in six days, and it's very taxing. So I definitely appreciate Adam's effort.

And it's not his fault if this is the "industry norm". See Dilbert. (And beyond that, see an industry that has a reward structure set up so that if you are realistic instead of following the industry norm, you run into problems.)

Oh, and finally--the worst way to get a project done faster is to add more people to it at a late stage. New people require training. Then, they do things wrong. People who can do things right have to take time training them, and then fixing their mistakes. Once you've missed a deadline, you're basically screwed unless you can hire extremely expensive experts, and it's usually better to just miss the deadline than splurge on that kind of talent (if there even are freelancers of that quality in the industry you're working in).

[sanctusmortis]

Never add n00bs. Look at Halo 2 over Live :P

Adding people not toally familiar with the product late on is deadly. They need to be there from go or not at all.

[Snow_Fox]

I agree with most of what Zen shooter said in his last two posts. To be a little less wordy, it comes down to experience. the occassional missed deadline, we'd all understand, but when it is chronic we are less understanding.

They set the deadline, not us. They should, after several years experience, be able to be realistic. They declare what is coming out and when. They should be able to be realistic about it. To repeadely fail with the consistency of the NY Mets after the all star break, is, to be polite, frustrating. It makes their other statements coming from the company less beliveable because their statements about projects are so much chaff.

I mean if you cannot competantly set deadlines for yourself, why should we believe other statements from them?

[winterhawk11]

[Ellery]

The only thing that I'd question regarding release dates, given that they're usually missed, is scheduling a critical release (new edition) at a very-hard-to-break date (GenCon). Everyone does it, granted, but it seems unwise. Promise a kick-ass preview, maybe even with preview copies of the game, but leaving wiggle room would probably make for less sleep-deprived editors and a better and more polished game.

[fistandantilus4....]

I think it was a lot to take on their plates all at once. I'm hoping the 4th ed BBB comes out about the time they said.

But come on Zenny, I've probably whined (yes, I'm a whiner ) more than anyone so far about SoA, but it's like Winterhawk said, they're all freelancers putting this stuff together. They have no control aobut how it goes out, and I'm sure they're just an anxious as we are, if not more so, to get their works out there. Beides, posting in here isn't gonna get Rob Boyle to come over, see it , and go "oh! he;s right *checks watch*, we are late. Ok boys, go ahead an ship 'em out!" All it does is frustrate the freelancers that do see it. ANd if they could put it out sooner, they would have by now.

As evidenced by Adam, this isn't the only thing they're working on . Far from it. I know where your coming form, it is frustrating to keep getting dates that don't really mean much. But they can't just say "hey, we're putting this book out some time this year. Look forward to it, ok?" They have to set some sort of date. jsut think of it as a tentative release date, and call it good. Obviously it's a bit different scenario for SR4 and Gencon, but that's probably why they don't have SoA out, they have something that they really need to get out on a certain date, and that date's gonna be here soon. Very soon now *does Mr. Burns finger-steeple*.

[bit_buckethead]

[fistandantilus4....]

yeah, I think I saw a couple of hairs there in the shower the other day too!

And I think I'm starting to waste a bit too. Or is that getting wasted? I'm so confused. Lack of SoA is making my head all fuzzy. Or that could be the shmirnoff.

WinterHawk! Help! I need SoA NOW!

or.... maybe less vodka, and a haircut. Or is it more vodka?

[SL James]

[Snow_Fox]

right, they've got so much in the pipeline in such a tiny space, and they set the deadlines. Another question, what ed will SoA be?
I know the game info section is minor and all, but it does exist in the SB's already out there. It was supposed to be 3rd ed, by the schedule they set out. Let's now say it won't be out before Gen con so there are options
1) They put out 3rd ed SB's after 4th ed is out.
2) They lied when they put out the schedule and planned for it to be 4th ed all along
3) They decide to redo it from 3rd ed to 4th ed which means a whole new delay, and once more trashes the schedule.

Boys and girls, something to discuss. If it's a given that Fanpro is not being realistic in its scheduling, then they are saying stuff just to float it out there, then it becomes increasingly difficult to believe their other statements, like about 4th ed. and entireraisin d'etre.

My experience has been that once someone who wants money starts lying about one set of things, just assume they're lying about everything else. It saves time cutting through the BS later.

[winterhawk11]

[Demonseed Elite]

The print roleplaying game industry isn't nearly organized enough to maintain conspiracies. Trust me on this. By and large, the industry is just a mess. I enjoy doing work in it, but it's underfunded, understaffed, and largely disorganized. So whenever there are product delays and missed released dates, it's not a matter of something sneaky, it's just that someone is overworked, there's a shortage of money somewhere, something wasn't planned for well enough, or someone screwed up.

[Snow_Fox]

Not conspiracy, 'wage slave corp spokeman,' I mean Winterhawk, but the claims that 4th ed is anything but a money grab? nah. Those I no longer accept. There is NO reason for 4th Ed except they want you to buy their core books all over again.

You said that we can assume SoA will be 3rd ed because it's been announced else where. Well guess what? You just made my point. They also announced when the SB wouyld be pout, and they didn't make that, did they? If they were not straight up about that, why should we believe the rest of it?

They've been caught out and they are called on it. It has been pointed out in this thread by people before me, that they repeadedly set and miss their own deadlines. They do NOT have a rep for being accurate. another word for 'accurate' could be 'honest.' The BS on 4th Ed. make me more willing to make the substitute now than I was a month ago.

After SoA they were supposed to have the SB explaining how 3rd Ed world ended, before hte 4th ed came out. In theory people buying 4th ed would have bought that SB to keep the sotry line. now, with that clearly coming out after 4th ed debutes it will be an "either/or." If you buy 4th ed, you've got the details there and won't need the SB. If you do not want 4th ed, you may not need to go that way.

[Demonseed Elite]

I can't read Rob's mind, but I don't think SR4 should be qualified as a money grab. I don't really doubt that new editions bring some money in, but I don't think that was even close to the main motivation for the new edition. I think, to be entirely honest, they wanted to bring new players in. And, probably, they wanted to approach the game from an angle that was theirs. Wizkids/FanPro runs Shadowrun now and they probably had some ideas of stuff they wanted to do that they could finally do. Rob's been working on SR for a long time; I'm sure he's come across ideas he's had that he's wanted to work into SR but never could under FASA. Now he got his chance, and if I were him, I would have taken it too.

If you want to see missed dates as dishonest, go right ahead. But I'd say that's erroneous. The dates aren't set with deception in mind. Sometimes they are set optimistically, and conditions don't work out to support them. Sometimes they are even set conservatively and things don't work out to support them. That happens in many industries. It happens in the print roleplaying industry a lot, because it's a very disorganized industry. I don't like that the industry works that way, but that's the way it is.

[winterhawk11]

[Snow_Fox]

I already said it wasn't "conspiracy theories." In fact I never said it was. You keep bringing that up. I'm guess to distract everyone else from the fact my key statements are valid.

I have a far better idea of how corps work than you do, trust me. I know how companies are made, and destroyed and are targeted for aquisition. That's why I don't trust Fanpro, anymore. It's not a case of me getting po'ed whenever they miss a deadline, it's the fact they constitantly miss a deadline, something they set. apart form stuff tyhey put aty gen con, I'd be surprised if you could find a product where they did meet their commitment.

As for profit, sure, it's why they exist, but the point is they expect people to shgell out money all over again for the core books instead of producing new products.

[winterhawk11]

[Adam]

I think something that isn't quite clear about Shadows of Asia: It's finished. It's done. It's printed. It's somewhere in the shipping process [which is taking much longer than it should, but that's not something that I'm especially privy to details about, so I'm not exactly sure /why/ it's late.]

The PDF of Shadows of Asia is late, as I mentioned above, because I've been exceptionally busy trying to get more important products done. Not only does FanPro have priorities, but occasionally the freelancers have their own priorities. I've apologized -- to the fans in general and to FanPro -- for this situation, and while I'm sorry to disappoint you/them, I don't think I made the wrong decision.

[Demonseed Elite]

Regardless of your knowledge and experience with companies and corporations, Snow Fox, I get the personal sense you don't understand the print RPG industry very well. Especially the smaller companies like FanPro (and note when I say FanPro, I mean pretty much one guy, Rob, who is pretty much solely FanPro US, all by his lonesome). They are, pretty much, garage companies.

[Ellery]

There are certainly cases where new editions and desire for money have no relation to each other, or where desire for money is just as good of a motivation as desire to make a good game and please existing fans while acquiring new ones.

There are also cases where money conflicts with these goals. For example, setting a major release date at a major event is for publicity, which is to gain short-term sales, which is about money. This increases the fan base over the short run, but if too many shortcuts are taken, it has a negative impact on the game that lasts for years (until the next edition). Eventually, this will translate from grumbling players into reduced sales, but companies tend to be more interested in money now than the possibility of more money at some vague point in the future. Money doesn't grow on trees, and anyway, growing trees is expensive.

There's also an argument to be made that there's a monetary impulse to make a new edition less compatible with previous editions (as well as an artistic license / sense of ownership impulse). For example, if you had the Grimoire and Awakenings when Magic in the Shadows came out, you didn't really need to rush out and buy MitS; the SR2 rules fit well enough under the SR3 framework that you could mostly adapt them on the fly. Of course, the SR3 rules turned out to be somewhat different, and eventually that means that players will switch to keep current, but the immediacy is gone. With SR4, the change is drastic enough so that MitS, along with the other SR3 books, is only useful as a foot-stool to help you reach the SR4 books on the shelf. Any existing fans need to buy the rules supplements as soon as they come out, or live without all the toys they're used to. Again, money now vs. maybe happier players eventually who might buy more stuff from you later (or might just be happier and not pay you).

So I don't believe that new editions in general--and SR4 in particular--was not shaped in part out of a desire for increased revenue. But I also don't believe it was shaped only out of that desire, since there are other good explanations for the existence of a new edition (it's about time!) and the sea-change magnitude of the differences from SR3 (desire to leave a mark of ownership and do things Rob's way).

I also don't believe that corporate monetary considerations are always good ones from a customer's perspective. Corporations have no conscience or empathy, nor do they care about what harm they cause, because they're not people. Individuals within a corporation may care about these things, and laws or public opinion may force corporations to behave as if they were empathic and ethical when they might get caught. But what makes for a good company is profit, especially short-term profit since if you don't win in the short term, you won't be around in the long term. There's a constant pressure towards what would be considered criminally deviant behavior if it occurred in an individual person. After all, isn't that a great deal of the point behind Shadowrun--the inhuman exploitative nature of the corporations, using violence to achieve their ends (through shadowrunners)? It's not all fiction (although corporate espionage today tends to be overwhelmingly nonviolent). That said, FanPro is pretty far from a big faceless corporation. But even Rob has to juggle matters of income vs. other considerations, and it would be strange if the other considerations always won.

And I also don't believe that missing deadlines is a sign of dishonesty per se. It may be--and monetary considerations may drive one to be more optimistic-sounding than one can probably back up, which is dishonest, and is probably often done (probably by FanPro, too). Missing deadlines is also a sign of poor time-management skills. In an industry like this, outstanding time-management skills would be necessary to come out with things on time, but it doesn't much penalize companies who miss deadlines. So there's no reason to put that kind of effort into setting realistic deadlines. Fans have short memories, on average, too. So, they'll think "Woo, yeah, look at all the stuff coming out soon!" and then a few months later, after one thing has come out, they'll think, "Huh, wasn't a lot of stuff supposed to be out already? Oh well...woo, yeah, look at all the stuff coming out soon!"

Those of us who take a longer perspective would be well advised to snicker cynically when obviously overoptimistic dates are promised, and not be upset (or surprised) when the dates are missed.

It may be too much to ask for the people who are in the thick of it to take that longer perspective. It's a lot harder to estimate from close up than from afar.

[Bigity]

Yes, I'd much rather get the products a couple/few months later, then get them on time, and get garbage. See the computer gaming industry for an example.