I really hate the idea of these books that don't know quite what they are. They are hard to put together and not feel like someone crammed a bunch of half ass ideas together. Even with a consistent theme. I hear the argument that some people like it because it's a "all in one" option for updated fluff and crunch. However I have to think that that sentiment is a product of CGLs glacial production cycle. If you haven't gotten a new stat block in two years you don't care if it's in the back of the Bogata splat book; alternatively, after two years of running the same sprawl even Bogota can look interesting.

If War! was modular I could forgive it hitting the web s close to Milspec. Bogota splat book with maps and history of the war and detail of the forces, Milspec crunch book with vehicles and gear, and Merc operations/hotspots setting guide in three separate web products. Then later the three come out in single print volume and available compilation PDF with errata and updates to the original files. Everyone is happy, and the publisher gets a whole bunch of selling options that may resonate with players that would otherwise have abstained from purchasing or simple purchased only once.

I also feel that something like that would justify the price CGL is charging for these web supplements. A 40 page supplement for $8? I'd have to go back and check my purchase history, but I seem to recall that Digital Grimoire was only $5. There's a world of difference between $5 and $8, and I can't help but think that a savvy publisher would get more purchases over all with a lower price.

I agree with this statement. Combining books just makes me turned off overall. War! just didn't have much that made me say yes I have to have this book. With war I felt like I bought a book with 70-80 pages of material I had no interest in.

A bogata or hell the entire south American Continent splat book with timeline, history, dynamics would have helped tremendously. This was an area I thought the Battletech successor books brought in the history. I noticed Seatlle 2072 doing the same by setting everything up for the politics, intrigue and future of where it goes. I feel that is sadly missing from War!

The high powered weapons of war! and the dealing with unit tactics is fine. I just felt that it would have served everyone better with pictures like they used in Milspec and this old drone along with several other options for vehicles, etc would have been good. As it is I have a few weapons that can be used Shadowrunners and several weapons so powerful that statting them is meaningless (65P for example) as anything is destroyed by those weapons. There is too little benefit for a group and not enough for full scale invasions. I especially disliked the stat creep that has been appearing.

As for War! I was hoping for a splat book with details of the conflicts, the major players, etc. Where are the organizations and their structure? How are various armies organized? Where are the background players? How do the major powers operate and their standard loadout? As it stands now I might as well use twillight 2000 for backgrounds and modify it to shadowrun.

China's DF-21-D medium range anti-ship missile is supposed to be capable of exactly that.

Whether it CAN is another question, but that is in it's design specs.



-k

Congress did approve extended engagements for Gulf War 1, and was backed by a UN security resolution. It wasn't a formal declaration, but it was close enough for government work.

It looks cool.


Ah, so it is an attempt to curb a new communist revolution before it gains swing, and not preparing to install a neo-czarist regime.

Well everything directly hit is destroyed, but those are are of effect weapons, the damage code is for determining how far from the impact zone you have to be to not get destroyed.

More like reducing dissent, really. Trying to prove the current situation is normal, and the only alternative in the history is GULAGS WITH THEIR BILLIONS OF VICTIMS FGSFDS

4. Discussion of politics, religion, and sex are prohibited, except as they directly pertain to Shadowrun or another game. Discussions on these subjects will be watched closely, and any innapropriate posts may result in warnings or suspensions.

Milspec includes a lot more art, a cover and overall a graphically more complex layout (full page background etc) so was probably more expensive to produce.

Digital Grimorie was 18 pages including cover and credits. Mil Spec Tech was 40 including cover and credits. $5 is the absolute minimum to charge for a PDF product in order to (hopefully) break even. Three bucks more for a PDF product that's nearly all crunch and is twice as long in page count doesn't bother me in the least. I think it's actually pretty fair for what you get.

Yes, obviously we can see that 18/$5 is more expensive than 40/$8, and that tells us… that we shouldn't be putting per-page values on things? Just buy it if you want it, or not.

Page count is pointless, the density of information between the two products is the key factor. What I was trying to say is that I like the lower price point for digital releases. A lower price may seem like you're lowering the value of a product, but it can lead to better sales. Just look at some of the sales they run on Steam. Runic games makes more money off Torchlight when it's $10 or $5 than when it's at it's normal price. Value is about what you put into the product, not the price you put on the product.

Still, $8 is not an impulse buy to me. At $5 is where I know I'll cave eventually. Around $2.50 for something I care about and I pretty much go into full Pokemon mode, cause I gotta catch 'em all.

It means that pricing is fungible but there's still a bottom to what price-point is economically viable. And that there's really no precedent (that I know of) for high-end PDF-only releases. My previous statement wasn't meant to be an emphasis on per-page counts though I can see how it reads that way.

Pegasus is gonna put the MilSpec Stuff into the german version of WAR! it seems.
And maybe This old Drone into SpyGames . .

Edit: WTF? O.o i am an Immortal Elf now . .

One of the problems is the current digital model, and how players see it. If they see it at all.

Shadowruns eBooks don't really sell all that well. Neither do Battletechs. Not compared to print books, anyway. ANd that's largely because a large portion of our fanbase is offline. Dumpshock and the Shadowrun 4 forums represent a minor portion of Shadowruns fanbase. Talking with random fans and random players at game shops and at conventions, many of them don't ever look at forums, don't hit the website much, and still do most of their shopping through game stores. So there is an entire segment of the fanbase we're missing out on.

Something like Milspec is expensive to put together, because of the art. Every piece of art in there cost money. And even at $8 a pop (And keep in mind that CGL only gets about half of that price when you buy from Drivethru), it will take a lot of sales to break even.

Everyone assumes that printing a book is the most expensive part of the process. It's not, really.

<shrug> I'm not in a position to throw around facts and figures, because I only know a little bit, and that mainly only on the Missions side (WHich is the red-headed stepchild of Shadowrun right now. We're pushing for better, and to get more focus, but... ), so I'll refrain from that. I'll just state that a lot of hard work goes into these, and they are not cheap to do. And eBooks do not often sell thousands of copies. A couple hundred sales is usually considered a pretty decent seller.

I will note that from what I've seen, MilSpec is selling well. It's been #1 on Drive Thru for a couple days now. I'm proud to say that SRM 04-00 Back in Business has also sold pretty well, and has been in the top 10 since it's release last week (Currently they're #1 and #6, respectively). SO obviously $8 isn't too high, and the emphasis on full color production and art that we pushed is paying off. But again, increased costs, so we have to sell more to break even, and a lot more before we can start justifying further increases to production. (I know the writers and artists on the eProduct line work for way, way under "scale". We pay far less for word count (I'm writing SRM 04-01, and I'm making about 1/4 of a cent per word on that, because these play a flat fee and I'm a wordy sumbitch) or for art than the core lines do, and as I've said before, the writers and artists I have right now (Especially AAS) are Gods among Men for being willing to work as cheap as they do. I know both me and Brent Evans (The art director) are pushing for better pay for our guys, ut we need the sales to justify that.

Bull

Eh, ok, Raben-aas up there said there were eight original pieces in the book. Let's approximate (and by that I mean "take the highest reasonable figure") and say each costs 100$.
Let's now be generous and suppose there's someone out there who got 200$ for coloring the old pics. That brings us to a horrible 1k$ production cost for art - a terrific number of sales needed to beat that.

Given those numbers, 125 sales would pay for the art, 250 based off Bull's assertation that DTR gets about half of the price. Since printing costs at this point are null, I'd assume 500 sales or so would be the 'break even', which is a thou to cut to the writing staff and a couple bucks left in the kitty. DTR's got Milspec at numbah one, so at least we can assume that the art is paid for by now.

A thousand bucks to the writing staff?

*whimsical sigh*

I'm assuming 'writing staff' is like twenty people.

Another issue with PDF issues is File Sharing. I know we all know that, but, hey, it's still got to be said.

how many words int he book?

and how do vehicles stats count as words

Well, using the Internet as a source for statistics, 1 page is around 200 words. 38 pages are, thus, 7600 words.
At 0.0025$ per word, that totals to awesome 19$ per book.
Plus or minus a tram stop.

Too bad a chunk of each page in the pdf is an illustration, and there's the dead space between commentaries and such, the stats block and description does not even amount to full page...

so CGL paid $20 bucks + artwork for that pdf, and they're asking for $8 a pop


NICE profit margins.

Well, if you actually read the link, you'll notice that 200 word count accounts for pretty much that.


Hey, we don't know anything for sure here - maybe other writers work not for Bull's quarter cent per word, but... maybe... for insane half a cent a word!

Reread Bull's post, and you'll see that we don't get paid by the word for these products. We get a flat fee for some product types, and his current project (because he's "a wordy sumbitch") would average out to two and a half cents per word.

What's especially funny is that Bull's got a fairly wordy post there describing...his wordiness.

Well, would be believe him if he just said, "I'm wordy?" and left it at that?

It's a flaw of mine. Twitter and Facebook frustrate me to no end due to their character count limits.

Anyway, yeah. Missions pays a flat rate of $50 for writers, regardless of actual word count (So, if anyone's looking to write adventures and willing to work cheap, talk to me! ). Beyond writing, there's also whatever Layout gets paid, what the developer gets paid, and what the artists gets paid (For Missions, this is usually Cover, plus 3 Interior pieces, plus 2-4 Contact art pieces, plus 1-2 maps). I know as Missions developer, I get the same amount as the writer for every adventure that I get published (So $50 there). Dunno what the eBook line pays offhand.

Layout and Art are both handled by other departments, so not really sure what the costs for those are. I know we pay less per piece than for the main line, though, as I mentioned earlier.

We also give our dedicated proofers Battleshop credit for proofing Missions. That costs us a little as well, and gets factored into the budget somehow.

Anyway, long story short, I have no idea how much it actually costs us to produce a Mission. A few hundred bucks, though, at least. ANd as I pointed out, this is, by far, the cheapest product and the least paying product CGL does. Thus far we've been profitable, but not by a lot. 04-00 is reportedly selling pretty well (And I've been pimping and promoting pretty hard to help that), so hopefully we see a sales increase with 04-00, and that sales stay steady with 04-01 and onward. Then maybe we can start paying a little better (crosses fingers).

@Critias: I would LOVE 2 1/2 cents per word. Like I said, it works out to 1/4 cent per word though, more or less Looks like 04-00 was just under 21K total, buta couple thousand of that is the "Boiler plate" stuff at the beginning and near the end. 04-01 will be a little longer than that.

Most Missions are closer to the 15K mark though, depending on the author and that particular adventure. Story Heavy adventures will be more wordy than action oriented ones.

@sabs: Stat blocks definitely make word count a little less reliable and definable. Especially since depending on what you're working on, they can be quicker (a simple cut n paste) or longer (if you need to do math and calculate out stats and essence and such) than an equivalent sized block of actual text.

Bull

Honestly I like the blue background it is much easier on the eyes than the white background. I just wish the pdfs were in color or at least the colored background and the hard cover versions were black and white.

Alright. Cheching up on exchange rates, it just fell below my impulse buy threshold. Expect a review short-ish.

Edited due to points brougt up by KarmaInferno... My Apologies...

Did you even read his "review"? You know, the part where he says right at the beginning, "Checking the preview"?





-k

Indeed I did, but then he goes on to say, with apparent authority, his "review" of the book, which I find quite hilarious... Probably because it is colored by his previous experience with War!... Especially when, later, he refers to it as his Review of the Contents of the Book...

I don't find it necessarily incongruous to give one's thoughts about a preview, and later buy the product to give a proper review.

Your entire criticism hinges on the idea that he was "reviewing" something he hadn't seen. The problem with your argument is of course that he HAD seen the product, or at least enough of the product to form some thoughts about it. As such he COULD be speaking from some position of authority, having actually seen it.

It wasn't a real "review" anyhow, more like a few thoughts in bullet form.

I am detecting more than a little bias from you, though, towards him.

-k

It is possible (and likely probable), I will admit... He and I did tend to go around the bush a few times over the last year or so. It was just funny to me is all. Especially, after he wrote his review (or opinions on what he had seen), and I commented on it, he accused me of not writing a proper review like he had. In my opinion, a proper review would actually require him to have access to the book he was reviewing. It just seems odd that he would say that and not have the book on hand to review, which his last post implied. After all, he is now about to do a PROPER Review of the material.

If I am being a bit hard (or snarky), I apologize, it was just entertaining is all... I have edited my Above post, thanks for the insight...

No worries though...

Aargggh..... Double Post... Sorry

Hermit's very upset about the state of Shadowrun. I can't actually blame him.

It comes out as being very critical of CGL products. Being neck deep in the alt.war project, I can really understand. War /really/ upset me. Not so much because of the typos. But because 45 minutes with google maps makes you realize that they really didn't do any research. Didn't think about what they were sayign and how it would actually impact the region.

And I went back and read Fields of Fire.. and it's really dissapointing to compare that to Bogota: The Tree War.

Good news, though I wonder how they are going to integrate these two differently laid out products. W! in full color probably is not going to happen, maybe a coloured gear appendix? Is it even possible to do that technically, or can color pages only be inserted in the middle like in the older books?

Heheh... No Problems... But I have always been of the opinion to take any book on its own merits, and not be colored by previous published works... I grant you, It is sometimes hard to do, when you are as invested as Hermit appears to be.

As for Bogota, it appears that he entire thing was hinged on the writer thinking one city and actually putting the name down for another by mistake... It happens, even if that does not excuse it...

No worries Though...

And I am excited to see what the team can put together for the Alt.War! project... Good Luck, I always appreciate quality fan material...

With a Contiguous world going back 20 RL years, and 40 VR years. It's REALLY hard to take any piece on it's own merits. It's like watching Return of the Sith and ignoring the 3 originals. Sure, you can do it, and it makes it a better movie. But it's an insult to the original series.

When you're writing for Shadowrun, you need to take into account the years of history.

In this thread: ad hominem!

Why? I would agree that for continuity of FLUFF, it is a well advised practice to write from what came before. But there are so many areas that have not been covered, that even with 20 years of writing, we have barely begun to scratch the surface. And taking a purely Crunch Book (MilSpecTech) and comparing it to a primarily Fluff book (War!) is entirely ludicrous in my opinion. They are not the same types of books, so the criteria for their writing, and eventual evaluation, are completely different.

As for the Star Wars Reference. I do not see the issues with the continuity as a whole entity. The story was always about the Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Anakin. I have no issues with the story as a whole... Just Sayin'

*froths at mouth* *long tirade about how bad the 3 new movies were deleted cause I can't be bothered to actually write it*

That book isn't all crunch.

It's introducing Mil Spec Equipment.

1) the equipment has to fit into the state of the universe
2) the equipment has to be balanced against other equipment already published
3) the equipment/new rules have to blend well or enhance existing rules and not fuck things up.


Now, I have not read MilSpec (although I think I'm going to pick it up tomorrow when my paycheck clears) so I have NO idea if it fits with those 3 things.

but even a crunch book cannot blithely ignore the other books in the system.

Funny isn't the first word that I would use to describe it. Annyoing, on the other hand...

That one works as well...

Yes, it does. You vs hermit is only one example of it (one that came up in this thread again, though) and it's of board culture I don't get: why nitpick on each and every post someone makes? Why just don't let it go and say "Fuck it"? Just sayin'...

You are right... I have been trying, and somtimes I succumb... It is a work in progress to be sure... Some things just require a comment, no matter how hard I try... I do try to self police, though, and when it is brought to my attention, I will at least try to make amends...

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