PDF Release?

[Lorne 2,021]

On 10/19/2018 at 12:35 PM, llamaman88 said:

really, really need a pdf to run online games. killing me FFG! take my money!

"Shut up and take my koku!"

[Shosur0 73]

Do FFG devs ever participate in the forums? There's a ton of stuff @thegame being discussed these days and it would be nice if they could shed some light on different issues. 

[Lorne 2,021]

4 hours ago, Shosur0 said:

Do FFG devs ever participate in the forums? There's a ton of stuff @thegame being discussed these days and it would be nice if they could shed some light on different issues. 

Not really. Further, they never individually discuss that which hasn't been formally announced, so we'll just have to wait a few weeks, most likely.

[Daeglan 5,950]

2 hours ago, Lorne said:

Not really. Further, they never individually discuss that which hasn't been formally announced, so we'll just have to wait a few weeks, most likely.

What i can say is if you follow the right people you often can get clues to products being worked on. Never what but when a product is being worked on. Assume about a year from when they say otnis being worked on

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

7 hours ago, Shosur0 said:

Do FFG devs ever participate in the forums? There's a ton of stuff @thegame being discussed these days and it would be nice if they could shed some light on different issues. 

Nope.

In fact, it's actually company policy that apart from moderators, FFG staff are not permitted to participate in the forums.  This bit came from a few different FFG devs over the years that I've had the opportunity to speak with face-to-face.

[Avatar111 553]

it is still too early, and they probably are gathering data and reading forums and other sources, but they will hopefully come up with a good clarification/errata document in a few weeks/months. the game is not in a playable state for my group right now. so unless you are really into the l5r lore before getting into that book, and that you mostly play in a very narrative focus way, the "game" (as in mechanical stuff) is not in a state that powergamers, experienced gamers who love mechanics, and tactical players can have fun with, too many cracks. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Avatar111

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

3 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Nope.

In fact, it's actually company policy that apart from moderators, FFG staff are not permitted to participate in the forums.  This bit came from a few different FFG devs over the years that I've had the opportunity to speak with face-to-face.

With the exception of the alpha/private beta playtest forums. Each of which is for one product, and only that product's playtest contact person does so. 

[Blueberrycat 2]

3 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Nope.

In fact, it's actually company policy that apart from moderators, FFG staff are not permitted to participate in the forums.  This bit came from a few different FFG devs over the years that I've had the opportunity to speak with face-to-face.

Good god, what an awful company policy. How is absolutely 0 transparency supposed to be a good thing? FFG has always kind of seemed like this "faceless" corporate-style publisher to me and this kind of thing sure doesn't help the image.

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

3 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

it is still too early, and they probably are gathering data and reading forums and other sources, but they will hopefully come up with a good clarification/errata document in a few weeks/months. the game is not in a playable state for my group right now. so unless you are really into the l5r lore before getting into that book, and that you mostly play in a very narrative focus way, the "game" (as in mechanical stuff) is not in a state that powergamers, experienced gamers who love mechanics, and tactical players can have fun with, too many cracks. 

They're like not going to go that way. Demands for powergamer support fell on deaf ears for Star Wars, Genesys, and WFRP3, Getting even the gridded movement rules in the core is a HUGE concession to the tactical crowd. 

In looking at the games they're currently supporting, L5R is the one most tactical; End of the World the least. Genesys and Star Wars are in the middle, with SW haveing a bit more simply due to supplement-itis.  

If you want tactical crunch, go download 3E (most crunch) or 4E (somewhat less, but still far more than 5E.)

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

2 minutes ago, Blueberrycat said:

Good god, what an awful company policy. How is absolutely 0 transparency supposed to be a good thing? FFG has always kind of seemed like this "faceless" corporate-style publisher to me and this kind of thing sure doesn't help the image.

The company has extensive social media, convention, and guest appearances on videocast and podcast gaming channels.  A little digging on youtube, and you can find out what Katrina Ostrander and Max Brooke look like and sound like.

[Blueberrycat 2]

That's fair. It still just seems odd to be so secluded and only show up at predetermined conversations/settings, though.

[Avatar111 553]

27 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

They're like not going to go that way. Demands for powergamer support fell on deaf ears for Star Wars, Genesys, and WFRP3, Getting even the gridded movement rules in the core is a HUGE concession to the tactical crowd. 

In looking at the games they're currently supporting, L5R is the one most tactical; End of the World the least. Genesys and Star Wars are in the middle, with SW haveing a bit more simply due to supplement-itis.  

If you want tactical crunch, go download 3E (most crunch) or 4E (somewhat less, but still far more than 5E.)

I love the SW rpg. By FFG.

And I love the ideas behind L5R, it just have a lot of mechanic issues right now, at least I think it does.

I don't want a tactical game out of it, but I want a game that is not too easily cheesable. With rules as written for a lot of things right now, its like "here is 2 or 3 choices, but one is clearly bonkers!".

At least star wars goes with "dude, its cool, theres like infinite choices, they all have the same effect, mmmk? So dont stress.".

But L5R as it is now gives only a few choices (which i'm ok with) but then make a good bunch of them either a bit abusable or useless.

Nothing that isnt fixable for the most part. But I havent really went thru all the techniques yet. The abusable/useless choices are straight out of the core mechanics!

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by Avatar111

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

11 minutes ago, Blueberrycat said:

That's fair. It still just seems odd to be so secluded and only show up at predetermined conversations/settings, though.

It has an effect of reducing potential litigation liability over released content that's similar to fan generated content.  

It's worth noting that several European companies recently closed their forums entirely due to the recent changes in EU privacy laws. Cubicle 7 amongst them. Asmodee is european; FFG is a subsidiary of Asmodee (so is Days of Wonder). I'm just happy Asmodee hasn't ordered a shutdown of DoW and FFG forums. (they have, however, forced a unified login.)

[Vutall 128]

48 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

I love the SW rpg. By FFG.

And I love the ideas behind L5R, it just have a lot of mechanic issues right now, at least I think it does.

I don't want a tactical game out of it, but I want a game that is not too easily cheesable. With rules as written for a lot of things right now, its like "here is 2 or 3 choices, but one is clearly bonkers!".

At least star wars goes with "dude, its cool, theres like infinite choices, they all have the same effect, mmmk? So dont stress.".

But L5R as it is now gives only a few choices (which i'm ok with) but then make a good bunch of them either a bit abusable or useless.

Nothing that isnt fixable for the most part. But I havent really went thru all the techniques yet. The abusable/useless choices are straight out of the core mechanics!

 

You are the only person I have heard say the game is broken easily.

Can you give some examples of what is broken and or overpowered?

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

7 hours ago, Blueberrycat said:

Good god, what an awful company policy. How is absolutely 0 transparency supposed to be a good thing? FFG has always kind of seemed like this "faceless" corporate-style publisher to me and this kind of thing sure doesn't help the image.

Given how utterly hostile and vitriolic message boards can be to creators, it's actually a sound idea to keep the creative staff away from excessively hostile "feedback."

Considering the sheer venom being hurled at Kelly Marie Tran and Daisy Ridley simply for playing a role in what boils down to a sci-fi fairy tale movie, it's not a bad idea.

It also cuts down tremendously on chances of someone making allegations/accusations that "FFG stole my idea!" just because some random goober on these boards posted an idea that by coincidence showed up in an official supplement a few months later.

And as AK_Aramis noted, FFG does have a number of other social media outlets to interact with the community, with many of the devs having their own social media accounts.  Though given FFG's company policy of "we can't talk about details that haven't been announced," you're not going to get much response in terms of what they're working on, but they might be willing to share insights into what went into designing/writing something that's been published.

You also do see a couple freelancers post here (Keith Kappel is one), though it seems most of them have decided these forums are too much of a toxic $#!thole to be worth their time.  And given how pissy some of the posters can be, I can't exactly fault them for that view.

[Avatar111 553]

I am a creator myself (videogame) though i'm not a figurehead, I work on a big "game as a service", and nowadays, you need people to go public. Sure the gamers culture need to change, lot of the player are downright nasty (on a personal level) behind their "avatar". But, that is the new reality, nowdays, you make the game with the players, not for the players.

Obviously, board games and pen&paper rpgs cannot be updated live like a videogame can, but providing erratas, discussing design decisions etc, regularly, should be part of someone's job. If they have enough people for that on the project. I don't know how these big boardgame companies work.

But, considering they have their digital workfile for the book. Making corrections and then making these revised pages (as they would be in a reprint) available to the public (not the whole book, just the pages with changes), I don't see it as something impossible. Small typos wouldn't need to have their revised version available online, i'm talking more for bigger changes.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Avatar111

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

6 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

I am a creator myself (videogame) though i'm not a figurehead, I work on a big "game as a service", and nowadays, you need people to go public. Sure the gamers culture need to change, lot of the player are downright nasty (on a personal level) behind their "avatar". But, that is the new reality, nowdays, you make the game with the players, not for the players.

Videogame design is a rather different beast than RPG design, and I can back that up with conversations with folks that have worked in both industries (sometimes concurrently).  Videogames also have a much broader audience, compared to table-top RPGs which are very much a niche market.

FFG does Beta testing that is open to the public (Star Wars was the only one that required folks to purchase a physical book to participate simply due to the way the RPG license is written), and allows folks to have a degree of influence on the game in question.  Some suggestions are taken and implemented, others aren't for a variety of reasons.  It's controlled communication as AK_Aramis noted, but it is communication.

Though from what I've seen and heard, in so far as videogame design goes, a lot of it is "push out a hastily-coded beta, try to fix whatever bugs the fans/testers are screaming about, focus on meeting the deadline, and then release a patch later on for whatever bugs we couldn't fix before release date."  Frankly, I feel it's rather sloppy on the part of the video game industry to push out games they know are buggy or don't work right and just presume they can fix it on the back end.  Granted, much of the video game consumer base is very much in the "gotta have it RIGHT NOW!" mindset and apparently don't mind shelling out money for what amounts to an incomplete game, so I guess you've got to feed the market that's paying your salary.

[Avatar111 553]

9 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Videogame design is a rather different beast than RPG design, and I can back that up with conversations with folks that have worked in both industries (sometimes concurrently).  Videogames also have a much broader audience, compared to table-top RPGs which are very much a niche market.

FFG does Beta testing that is open to the public (Star Wars was the only one that required folks to purchase a physical book to participate simply due to the way the RPG license is written), and allows folks to have a degree of influence on the game in question.  Some suggestions are taken and implemented, others aren't for a variety of reasons.  It's controlled communication as AK_Aramis noted, but it is communication.

Though from what I've seen and heard, in so far as videogame design goes, a lot of it is "push out a hastily-coded beta, try to fix whatever bugs the fans/testers are screaming about, focus on meeting the deadline, and then release a patch later on for whatever bugs we couldn't fix before release date."  Frankly, I feel it's rather sloppy on the part of the video game industry to push out games they know are buggy or don't work right and just presume they can fix it on the back end.  Granted, much of the video game consumer base is very much in the "gotta have it RIGHT NOW!" mindset and apparently don't mind shelling out money for what amounts to an incomplete game, so I guess you've got to feed the market that's paying your salary.

I personally think the l5r rpg is nowhere near a "finished" product. At least, not more "finished" than most videogame releases nowadays.

There is bugs in the core book, rules that need revision, sourcebooks coming up...

I do understand the market is much smaller though. And even bigger games like d&d5th are still very reticent about doing updates and changes. I guess it is how it goes, they simply don't think, for reasons I ignore, that it is profitable to make updates to the game. Especially pen&paper rpgs. I suppose..

[Daeglan 5,950]

15 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Videogame design is a rather different beast than RPG design, and I can back that up with conversations with folks that have worked in both industries (sometimes concurrently).  Videogames also have a much broader audience, compared to table-top RPGs which are very much a niche market.

FFG does Beta testing that is open to the public (Star Wars was the only one that required folks to purchase a physical book to participate simply due to the way the RPG license is written), and allows folks to have a degree of influence on the game in question.  Some suggestions are taken and implemented, others aren't for a variety of reasons.  It's controlled communication as AK_Aramis noted, but it is communication.

Though from what I've seen and heard, in so far as videogame design goes, a lot of it is "push out a hastily-coded beta, try to fix whatever bugs the fans/testers are screaming about, focus on meeting the deadline, and then release a patch later on for whatever bugs we couldn't fix before release date."  Frankly, I feel it's rather sloppy on the part of the video game industry to push out games they know are buggy or don't work right and just presume they can fix it on the back end.  Granted, much of the video game consumer base is very much in the "gotta have it RIGHT NOW!" mindset and apparently don't mind shelling out money for what amounts to an incomplete game, so I guess you've got to feed the market that's paying your salary.

Also talking about stuff before it is even at the printer results in blow back when there are delays. No one believes any thing Palladium says because they have never hit with in a year of a claimed delivery date. 

[Daeglan 5,950]

14 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

I personally think the l5r rpg is nowhere near a "finished" product. At least, not more "finished" than most videogame releases nowadays.

There is bugs in the core book, rules that need revision, sourcebooks coming up...

I do understand the market is much smaller though. And even bigger games like d&d5th are still very reticent about doing updates and changes. I guess it is how it goes, they simply don't think, for reasons I ignore, that it is profitable to make updates to the game. Especially pen&paper rpgs. I suppose..

You keep claiming there are bugs. Yet when asked didnt actually say.what the problem was. I seen no problems. 

 

Also you know ffg puts out rules corrections

Edited October 24, 2018 by Daeglan

[Daeglan 5,950]

Also Avatar new printings include corrections. 

[sidescroller 137]

On 10/21/2018 at 9:44 AM, Blueberrycat said:

Signed up just to comment on my own desperation for a pdf! At least give us some news, FFG! Online groups are dyin' here. ;_;

Yeeeeeeaaaaaah they don’t show up here much. 

But this also isn’t the area they’ve created to communicate with them. There’s a different form you can find through their website. 

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

7 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Also talking about stuff before it is even at the printer results in blow back when there are delays. No one believes any thing Palladium says because they have never hit with in a year of a claimed delivery date. 

True, which is why most game companies won't give a street date until the book is in the warehouse and ready to ship out to stores.  Green Ronin has gotten burned on that more than once, and even WotC got smacked with it a couple times, the most infamous being having little to no copies of the brand new Star Wars Saga Edition core book to have for sale at that year's Star Wars Celebration, something that Rodney Thompson was not happy about, but also understood that it was due to circumstances out of his control.

[Avatar111 553]

6 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Also Avatar new printings include corrections. 

That is great. All I hope they do is communicate the changes they intend to do.

In an utopic world, they would also have some kind of blog or thread where they talk about some ideas behind controversial rules, and rules clarifications, and rules that they currenty have "under review".

[Daeglan 5,950]

4 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

That is great. All I hope they do is communicate the changes they intend to do.

In an utopic world, they would also have some kind of blog or thread where they talk about some ideas behind controversial rules, and rules clarifications, and rules that they currenty have "under review".

On the Star wars side they have a FAQ that gets updated every so often. It is a PDF on the product page.