I have got my copy of Miskatonic Museum Mythos!

[xuzuthor 10]

I do not mind how this is structured, but do wish they would schedule a reprint for Dunwich.  It sold out so quickly, but they don't even have it on the schedule.  And, with how they are laid out, I obviously am not going to bother buying any other until it is reprinted.

[soullos 147]

9 hours ago, Meretrix said:

There's nothing wrong with posting concerns or complaints about a game on a game forum.

Yep, you can very much like a game and still criticize it.

 

6 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

You still need the Core Set and the Deluxe for the encounter sets, though. Specific standalone instructions only allow you to play without the previous mythos packs in the same cycle.

That's good to hear there is at least something there for those who would buy packs out of order or don't care for campaign play. I still think FFG should provide rule inserts, but at least there is something.

[Xenu's Paradox 40]

On 2/17/2017 at 0:12 PM, Matthos said:

Someone creating your PDF doesn't just magically happen. 

You realize they create the PDF first and THEN print it... Right? Like... Not the other way around?

[Matthos 11]

6 hours ago, Xenu's Paradox said:

You realize they create the PDF first and THEN print it... Right? Like... Not the other way around?

Depends on the format. If it's in 8x11, the cheapest format to create since it's printer and doesn't need to be custom cut (like comes in the package) then sure it's the same and easy. But if people are hoping for a similar custom size like the one that comes in the large dunwich expansion box then it requires more time.  Which is what people are complaining about on top of the why can't we have digital  

And the second part is also about intellectual property and making people take one more step get it online. Mainly because of software like Tabletop Simulator where people find the virtual assets online to recreate the game for free. So if FFG would rather people have to buy the game to get the content and scenario mechanics I whole heartedly agree.

And while I agree it'd be nice to have digital assets to assist with playing the game, sadly a few bad apples who don't want to pay to play have ruined it for the rest of us. 

[Khudzlin 734]

You can generate PDFs in any format you want (as long as you can generate them at all). So they're going to have digital versions of every document before printing them regardless of the format they use. As a sidenote, US letter might be the most common format in North America, but it certainly isn't in the rest of the world (notably in China, where the printing is done); luckily, the international standard paper size is A4 (210 mm x 297 mm), which just happens to be very close to US letter (it's slighly narrower and longer).

[Buhallin 4,563]

On 2/19/2017 at 11:03 PM, Matthos said:

Depends on the format. If it's in 8x11, the cheapest format to create since it's printer and doesn't need to be custom cut (like comes in the package) then sure it's the same and easy. But if people are hoping for a similar custom size like the one that comes in the large dunwich expansion box then it requires more time.  Which is what people are complaining about on top of the why can't we have digital  

Again, they're already providing multiple PDFs in this format, so it's obviously not that hard.  And, yet again, they're currently providing the first page in one document, and the last two in another.  That can't possibly be easier than just providing the entire booklet in the same format.  You keep opining on this but I'm not sure you've even stopped to look at what they're actually providing.

On 2/19/2017 at 11:03 PM, Matthos said:

And the second part is also about intellectual property and making people take one more step get it online. Mainly because of software like Tabletop Simulator where people find the virtual assets online to recreate the game for free. So if FFG would rather people have to buy the game to get the content and scenario mechanics I whole heartedly agree.

While I'm all for people buying the product, this doesn't really hold water.  They make every single card available digitally.  If they're concerned about online proxies, it seems that those would be a far bigger issue than the campaign guide.  The relevant parts of the campaign guide can easily and quickly be reproduced by whoever maintains the module - it's probably less than an hour of typing, and you only need one.  Getting the cards into the system would be a much more complicated prospect.

So if this is a motivation, they're being really dumb about it.  Which doesn't necessarily invalidate it, of course, but if we're reading tea leaves here we should probably assume they're not complete idiots.

[Buhallin 4,563]

And as soullos helpfully pointed out, they've now posted the full campaign guide for Dunwich, along with the insert for Miskatonic Museum.

They even changed the formatting on the insert from the standard to fit the square book of the campaign guide...  Who'd have thought it was possible?

Still no full version of the core book, but steps in the right direction are steps in the right direction, and I'll take it.

Edited February 25, 2017 by Buhallin

[soullos 147]

Oh, this was the thread with the PDF debate haha. I posted in the wrong thread earlier so I'll repost it here as well for those looking for rules inserts in PDF form.

" Looks like FFG is updating the Dunwich Legacy PDF to also include the mythos pack inserts. It will be updated as more mythos packs are released. I'm very pleased with this. "

Edited February 25, 2017 by soullos

[Matthos 11]

So it took time to create a new size format for the online PDF?  Who would have thought that designing something would take time?*raises hand for sarcasm* 

See, people gotta slow down before they jump on the hate train.  Most are so quick to judge before having some patience.  Crafting together something of substance with a proper layout and design principles takes time. 

[Xenu's Paradox 40]

On 2/25/2017 at 11:18 AM, Matthos said:

So it took time to create a new size format for the online PDF?  Who would have thought that designing something would take time?*raises hand for sarcasm* 

See, people gotta slow down before they jump on the hate train.  Most are so quick to judge before having some patience.  Crafting together something of substance with a proper layout and design principles takes time. 

It takes zero time to release the existing PDF of Dunwich, which is in exactly the same format for both print and electronic versions.

FFG also stated categorically that there would never be official electronic versions of the campaign guides what, two weeks ago? And now we have them.

Quit your white knighting.

[Buhallin 4,563]

On 2/25/2017 at 11:18 AM, Matthos said:

So it took time to create a new size format for the online PDF?  Who would have thought that designing something would take time?*raises hand for sarcasm* 

See, people gotta slow down before they jump on the hate train.  Most are so quick to judge before having some patience.  Crafting together something of substance with a proper layout and design principles takes time. 

I swear, at this point you're being intentionally obtuse.

This was not just because they had to reformat the Miskatonic PDF.  Given that the update was released about a week after Miskatonic hit the shelves, nobody is the least bit stressed about that.

They also changed the contents of the Dunwich core Campaign Guide - I suppose pages 2-8 took an extra month or so to format, while pages 1 and 9 and 10 were trivial enough to put up when it released?  And what about the content of Night of the Zealot?  I suppose they're still working on reformatting that one almost 4 months after release? Because the full content there isn't up yet.  I suppose going from square to square would be the hardest of all...

And as I've said repeatedly, I had inquired and been told they wouldn't be releasing them. Now they are.  Which is excellent news, and they deserve credit for it, and I'll happily give it to them for doing the right thing.  But none of your attempts at excuses match up to reality, either before, after, or due to the new update.  Give it up.

 

[Matthos 11]

I talked about formatting, language support, and copyright. Which they did in far less of a span of the 2 weeks most on this board complained about.  It's not white knighting it's just fact, and now you're all feeling quite silly so you lash out when someone points it out.  So in your own words. 

4 hours ago, Buhallin said:

Give it up

 

[Buhallin 4,563]

1 hour ago, Matthos said:

I talked about formatting, language support, and copyright. Which they did in far less of a span of the 2 weeks most on this board complained about.  It's not white knighting it's just fact, and now you're all feeling quite silly so you lash out when someone points it out.  So in your own words. 

Didn't you start with it being about how they couldn't publish it digitally without ruining the suspense? I'd have to go back and look, your excuses have morphed so much over time...

Yes, they did it in less than two weeks... For Miskatonic Museum. Dunwich Horror sat with its split few pages from release to this update. Night of he Zealot still doesn't have the full content. We point out the layout change because it basically disproves your earlier excuse about how hard it would be to handle the formatting. If they can redo the layout/language in a week, we can safely assume that they could have published the full guides at any time, with trivial effort... if they chose to.

Nobody's feeling silly (on our side, at least) and nobody's lashing out. You spent pages arguing about how impossible it was for FFG to do what they have now done, because it would absolve them of that very unfriendly decision. Now that they've changed their mind, you still can't acknowledge that this was something that was perfectly possible for them all along, so you're tunnel visioned on the one event that fits your theory while you ignore everything else.

Thankfully, FFG chose to listen to those of us asking them to do better rather than the fanboy cheer bot trying to invent excuses for them.

[Matthos 11]

I never said it was impossible so please don't misquote. I said these things take time and resources and slow down before freaking out.  And if you believe that FFG did this because you complained you must think the world of yourself.

Dont worry about it. Just go and rule lawyer and complain on the rest of the forum as you usually do. Checking your account it doesn't seem that anything positive in nature flows from your typing fingers.  

[Buhallin 4,563]

There's a difference between "positive" and "productive".  I prefer the latter; you seem to prefer the former.  They most definitely aren't the same.

Now, it's possible that we (and by that I mean most everyone else here) read too much into your "But it takes time/money/resources to do all these things", but at the time we were discussing FFG's choice not to provide them digitally.  You were providing reasons for that, so it seemed logical to interpret those as permanent states.  Your other two floated excuses - that they wanted to maintain suspense, and it was to make it harder for third-party sources like TTS - had no temporal element to them.  It wasn't "They want to maintain the suspense until the next pack..." or "They want to make it harder for TTS for the next month, but after that it's fine".

The core question we seem to disagree on is whether there was some underlying force that made them not release them, or if it was just a random choice on their part.  Your other two excuses don't survive the change in direction - if there were a fundamental game reason (suspense) or an IP reason it seems unlikely that either of those would change just because Miskatonic is out.

So that leaves the question of effort.  We have three elements to consider: Night of the Zealot, Dunwich Legacy, and Miskatonic Museum.  Consider each:

Night of the Zealot: Easy post, Longest Out, Still incomplete after almost 4 months
Dunwich Legacy: Easy post, Second Longest out, finally complete after 6 weeks.  Had chunks posted previously.
Miskatonic Museum: Easy post but they did it the hard way.  Posted after 1 week.

Does this match any sort of expected work pattern, especially one which is considered a burden?  Release of Night of the Zealot and Dunwich Legacy would have been trivial, but were excessively delayed.  When Dunwich arrived, it included Miskatonic, which is undoubtedly the hard way to do it.  Yet we still don't have the guide for Night of the Zealot.  I would expect, if it were just a matter of effort to release them, that they would have found the time in the last for months for NZ.  They also would have gotten the easy posts done first, and dropped Miskatonic as its own document (as they do with the LOTR packs) rather than integrating it.

IMHO the only really reasonable explanation is the one that fits what we were told - they didn't plan on releasing it, but they changed their mind for some reason.  I'd be happy to discuss that, but I'd prefer to do it based on analysis of the actual evidence we have.  Can you offer up an explanation for why we get a more complex version of DL and MM, but still don't have NZ?  Please explain how the more complex version coming out the fastest fits with your "It takes a lot of work" theory for the previous delays (I'll even grant you the benefit and say we can discuss them as delays).  We're all doing nothing but reading tea leaves here, IMHO yours are just tinged a bit pink.

[soullos 147]

The cynic in me doesn't think FFG posted the rules to PDF for brownie points but because of the new packaging design for the mythos packs, several people cut into it or threw away the inserts without realizing it and bombard FFG wanting answers.

[Buhallin 4,563]

19 minutes ago, soullos said:

The cynic in me doesn't think FFG posted the rules to PDF for brownie points but because of the new packaging design for the mythos packs, several people cut into it or threw away the inserts without realizing it and bombard FFG wanting answers.

I don't especially care what motivated them to change their minds, so long as they did