I dunno if any of you remember, but I started this as a LiveJournal page back when I first became Creative Director at White Wolf. It has been a while, and the format and such has evolved from then, through the years Fast Eddy Webb was the primary poster, and now to this weekly blog. I’ve noticed recently that most of what I’m currently writing about is based on imparting project info to you folks, even if it is in the form of anecdotes or like last year, in the form of positive messages and thanks. (Which we did primarily to provide an oasis from the nasty online dramas that was all that we here at Onyx could see in our social media). Now, that’s OK, we have a mega-ton of projects in various stages and across more and more game lines as we keep bringing lines on line, so naturally we want to keep letting you know about them.
But I’m worried that this blog has evolved more towards shilling, and less about an inside look at what we are up to each week. And I’m worried that this gives a general appearance of our happy band of misfits being more about business and commerce than about art. Make no mistake, I personally have to be at least “concerned” about business, or we don’t get to make these fun and beautiful games anymore. Yet my whole point of founding Onyx Path Publishing was that the business would enable me to do wild, artistic work with people I liked creating fantastic worlds and the games we could make from them. That has not changed at all, and I’d like this blog to reflect that.
So I’m going to list a bunch of styles the blog content could move towards here, as examples, and you tell me what style or combination of styles you’d like to see here:
1) Reminders/announcements not covered below: The Vampire: the Masquerade Bundle of Holding is in it’s last 4 days and is a fantastic chance to get big discounts of PDFs from the Vampire 2nd Edition and Revised eras. Check it out here and every contribution also adds to the amount we’re sending to The Dream Foundation, which is a charity that fulfills chronically ill children’s dreams around the world. http://bundleofholding.com/index/current/name/Vampire2015
2) Reaching out to our community: I tweeted about this last week, but thought maybe you folks could help out too. I’m currently assembling both a “visual target” of imagery and styles that feel right for Pugmire, as well as a preliminary list of artists who would be good for it. I’m looking for very realistic illustrations of animals and/or animals in fantasy medieval clothes and armor. If Rembrandt or Caravaggio painted bi-pedal adventuring dogs, they’d fit right in. So if you know any artists whose work sounds like it might be right for this, or if you are such an artist, slap some links into the comments here. Thanks!
3) Inside story of things Eddy and I talk about in our meeting like I used to go into detail about: Eddy and I had a long talk focusing on Vampire: the Masquerade today that started with how we are handling metaplot in the V20 line, and moved into overall “scared cows” of VtM. One of the things that occurred as more books came out after V20, which we tried to keep metaplot agnostic so that it didn’t stomp all over anybody’s long-term games, was that we started to update the setting. I still didn’t want to full-out just put out an ongoing story from book to book that changed the status quo, but so much had changed in our world since Vampire Revised that we had to talk about things like cell phones in V20 Companion. And then we added some layers of history with the bios of the vampires in Children of the Revolution. And then we looked at and expanded and “modernized” very specific groups like human hunters and the Anarchs, or specific subsets of magic in Rites of Blood. But as that happened, it was made obvious to us that the community was looking for more and so we tweaked a bit, here, and made a vague reference that could be waved away by any players who didn’t like it, there.
What we were trying to avoid was using the nWoD justification of it all being a sandbox and restating that you can pick and choose. Classic WoD and VtM aren’t toolboxes, and the depth of consistent background is one of the things people love about it. That’s why we set on the idea of Beckett’s Jyhad Diary as a place where we can bring back the richness of deep stories and histories, and move things in the setting itself forward to the modern nights, because Beckett is compiling this information but it could be wrong. They are the truths of how the setting has progressed as far as most know, but not presented with an outside force that calls it The Truth.
From there, we talked about such things that really make Vampire: the Masquerade what it is. A deep mythology like we touched on above. I think humanity is a vital component in all the ways it provides an anchor and a contrast for the character, as well as a challenge for roleplayers to deal with as they play. Another quality early VtM had more than later editions was a simple basic system (which humanity was part of) that was crunchy enough to provide a framework but could be pushed out of the way. It was a “rules-lite” system, but it was light enough. If anybody would like to contribute their own VtM sacred cows, those elements that make VtM so evocative for you and your friends, I’d love to hear them.
4) More info on the issues the Onyx Path gang deals with bringing your favorite games to life: From our Onyx Path meeting today, we went over the nWoD Dark Eras Kickstarter and how to communicate a few key ideas out to backers and the community as a whole. While we’re thrilled with the response so far, after reviewing both the metrics from Kickstarter on where pledges are coming from, and comments we have noted as a group, we’re not sure that we sufficiently stressed how backer-driven this KS is compared to our previous ones.
The possible additional Dark Eras and chapter expansions are all based on suggestions from our community, and the voting is in the community’s hands. We haven’t pre-written anything except the one Dark Era per gameline for the book we had ready at the start of the KS that guarantees that every line gets an era. So more than any of our previous Kickstarters, this one is driven by and requires community interaction and support. If you want a chance for more Dark Eras, then the primary way that can happen is to get other folks to back the project- you are in the position where you can make us hit the next stretch goal and trigger a new Dark Era vote. It is an unprecedented amount of input into the contents of one of our books, but it also requires a bit of effort and the shouldering of getting the word out if you want things to happen.
We heard that some backers wanted to use this as a chance to get friends into playing their favorite game line. Perfect, and that’s why we have the $40 PDF Starter Set that provides you with the base rules sets and Dark Eras as PDFs. We’ve heard some folks want to support their local retailer. Awesome, and that’s why we have 5 book Retailer Tiers that you can point out to them. Maybe they haven’t even heard about this KS, or if they know they have a couple of sales already, because of you and your friends, they might be far more interested in backing. We have a few more interviews set up that we talked over, and other ways we’re spreading the word, and we planned how we’ll be pushing pretty hard in the last week, so now is the time we wanted to emphasize the community-based key to this one.
Here’s the link if you haven’t yet checked it out, we have 10 days still to go: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/world-of-darkness-dark-eras-prestige-edition
5) More inside looks at other parts of what we’re making: Just to give examples here, as any one of these would be a full post, but things like the stages we went through to create the new crafts symbols for Mage20, or the heraldry for V20 Dark Ages. Or just what are these steps in the creation of a book that are just given stages below- what really goes into them? What is the thinking behind our Kickstarters strategy? Rose and I are talking to all of our line developers starting last week, and why are we doing that? That sort of more detailed information on how and why we do our projects the way we do.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
And now, a part of this blog I won’t be changing because it works so gooood:
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (Projects in bold have changed listings)
First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)
- W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition) (Going for open development soon.)
- M20 Book of Secrets (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition) – In Open Development
- Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent) Extension to writers was given.
- Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition) (Preview post last night.)
- M20 Anthology (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Demon Translation Guide (Demon: the Fallen and Demon: the Descent)
- Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)
- nWoD Hurt Locker (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)
- Pugmire (Be a Good Dog.)
Redlines
- Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)
- Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development
- Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition
- W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- “Sardonyx” System Rules (Base rules set for Scion and the Trinity Continuum)
- Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)
Second Draft
- Beast: the Primordial core book (Beast: The Primordial)
- V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- W20 Novel by Mike Lee (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
Development
- V20 Red List (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, featuring the Firestorm Chronicle (Promethean: the Created) Being playtested.
- M20 How do you DO that? (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Dreams of Avarice (Mummy: the Curse)
Editing
Development (post-editing)
- Sothis Ascends (Mummy: the Curse)
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE
- Sothis Ascends – More sketches in. Should start seeing some finals in the next week or so.
- Book of the Wyrm 20 – Looking into the cover is going along smoothly as I haven’t heard a peep from the printer.
- V20DA – Backer PDF out. Errata will start to collect I’m sure. Screen out for approvals.
- T-Shirts – Might work on one or two this week.
- Art O’ The Changin’ Breeds – Mage still a priority.
- Fallen World Chronicle Anthology – Got the errata, working on that Monday morning. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/143174/The-Fallen-World-Chronicle-Anthology
- WtF 2 – Sto working on it.
- Wraith 20 – Getting Mr Cobb started on remaining Guild logos.
- M20 – Proofing with Phil.
- Dark Eras – KS rolling along. (see above)
- V20 Lore of the Clans – Finals starting to roll in.
- Lore of the Deceived – Second proof off to Colin today.
- M20: How Do You Do That? – got art notes from Phil for everything now. Going to start putting together the art buy for that now that I got DA wrapped up.
- EX3- RichT here, once again tagging onto Mirthful Mike’s report: the last few pieces of art are still coming in. Waiting for Dev notes on the roughly laid out pages.
REASON TO DRINK: Below zero temperatures…need warmth.
Comments
119 responses to “What Kind Of Blog Should This BE? [Monday Meeting Notes]”
A little bit of everything sounds good, maybe rotate it weekly?
You’re very much welcome!
Yep, trying to keep it fresh would mean some variety, I think. It might just be me, but I still am concerned about tone. I’d rather be writing, and I think most folks would rather be reading, something fun and/or interesting. And I think I have managed that in the past, but wonder if I drifted away from that recently.
Yeah man, just give us everything! All the time!
In all honesty, I cannot say how much I appreciate what you do give us, week by week, and even when it’s Rich and Eddy just shootin’ the sh*t about Doctor Who or chat about dogs and cats (those who do NOT make it into a game), I enjoy reading this blog every week. The tone is that of Onyx Path, and yeah, it’s kind’a all over the place. That’s just the nature of the beast, IMHO… Not to say I want more on Beast: the Primordial. Nah. o.O
I’ve got an idea for a Chapter title in the new Book of Madness for Mage20: “Better Caul Saul”. The Nephandi chapter, of course.
The Nephandi are getting their own book for M20, Book of the Fallen.
Thanks for the correction.
“Book of the Fallen” it is then.
That was a laugh out loud moment. Thanks!
🙂
I don’t know about anyone else, boss, but you know my love of signs and sigils. I’d love to see more background on their creation.
Well we are a special breed who loves our symbols enough to be interested in the why’s and wherefores.
The why’s and wherefores are everything in a role playing game. I love it when I can point to a symbol and describe the meaning behind it in character.
Very glad to hear that. That’s awesome.
i was going to say that i really wanted to read more about all the beautiful signs and sigils, i’m glad to be not the only one.
so my vote would go to “5) More inside looks at other parts of what we’re making (specially the art)”
You crazy symbol-lovin’ kids. I’ve got something in my eye…
1 – I don’t mind these “head up here’s something new” notifications, but they are usually pretty quick and could be tacked onto the start of other blog posts.
2 – Sounds good, but I feel like it would be better suited to the forums, it sounds like you want some back and forth and that is easier to achieve in the forums.
4&5 – These are the things that I would LOVE to see more of, getting a glimpse of behind the scenes development, whether it be a movie, video game, tcg, or rpg system.
1- I don’t do other blog posts- just getting one out a week is a huge deal for me. And by deal I mean or-deal.
2- Where would I put a “help out with Pugmire art” post like that before we have a Pugmire forum?
Haha, that’s my point #1 is easy to do because it it is quick and can be done in conjunction with with the main blog post that has a different primary subject.
As for #2 maybe make a commissions/help wanted sub-section on the forum? Or just break down and add Pugmire and Cavaliers of Mars sections to the forum right now, they are both going to be awesome!
I’d like to see a little of everything, to be honest. I’m quite happy with how the blog has been running since its start, and would like to see it comtinued that way.
Maybe change it up every now and then? If there’s something juicy going on behind the scenes, feel free to show us!
Oh, and yes. Keep the part of the blog that works soooooo good. Because it does. : )
Thanks- changing things up is what I’m looking to do, the question is how much.
For fun, here’s the old White Wolf LJ with entries dating through 2004-2009.
Big salute to Will Hindmarch who by virtue of being the best typist had the original job of noting everything our pretty big group of developers and visual people were working on in the chaos that was that lunch meeting. And doing it with style!
Huh, interesting post.
Reading this I realized I’d been coming here for the updates to development statuses each Monday – quickly glossing over anything not related to the publications I’m waiting on. I literally look straight to ‘Sardonyx system’ on the list (now that it’s on there, you terrible teases, lol!); and then I leave immediately. I do that maybe 95% of the time, I think.
I rarely read the non-Monday Meeting posts. While I may find something that catches my eye in the recent posts – right now at least – status updates is what I’m actually wanting to see.
Not sure if that’s really a helpful answer for you – perhaps I’m not the kind of customer this is really aimed at (and I’m absolutely fine with that).
Although……I will admit to being fascinated by Kickstarter processes and the evolution of each KS you run though, even for publications I’m not interested in. The entire model and how it is changing the industry does interest me – so maybe number 4 on your list may peak my interest a bit. Numbers 2 and 3 really don’t interest me. 5 seems to have some crossover with number 4.
Hope that helps 🙂
See, you think you aren’t the sort of customer because you aren’t just a customer. You are definitely part of our community, and once you have posts about the game you are waiting for to read, that’s going to be apparent. Plus, you are already thinking about the possibilities of what sort of blog interests you. Wait until the Sardonyx System open dev blogs start and see what you think then.
“Sardonyx Open Dev? Soon,” Neall said.
OH GOD, YES!
😀 😀 😀
“Soon?,” Rich sobbed.
“”””””””””Soon.””””””””””
Yep, that makes perfect sense actually 🙂
I’m always rather curious about you and Eddy’s discussion. Sounds like a lot of insight.
Really, though, everything you listed sounds interesting, though I don’t think I’d want all of it all at once all the time.
Thanks. We go off on some tangents, but the interesting thing about the two of us, and why we have some really good talks, is that we always are looking at the other media we enjoy for clues as to how to improve the work we are doing ourselves. Recently I’ve been looking very critically (in the analysis sense not the negative sense) at how Russell T. Davies rebooted Doctor Who. A show that had amassed over decades a lot of baggage with both fans and the BBC community. Sound like any RPGs we know?
I was most interested during the Mage and to a lesser extent Werewolf open dev previewy posts, but I’m sure those are also among the most annoying to compile. mostly I just swing by the check on the status of projects and get spoilers ahead of time, so the format as it stands has worked fine for me.
That’s why those blogs are separate from this weekly one, so far more detail can be looked at with the developer and writers, and why we have the status updates. Thanks!
Which Werewolf and Mage have separate Dev blogs, and where can we read them, please?
hmm 3 and 5, 2 is nice for people when you have needs.
I like this kickstarter, not having experienced others. I wonder if things like this could be applied to more of the books written. Maybe even more open entirely.
What if instead of having the prewritten chapters we had been able to vote from 3 proposed settings for each… admittedly the initial chapters weren’t as exciting to me as those we’ve voted in. I’m mostly interested in ancient history, Cold War, Bowery dogs, God’s own Country, these are all too recent (imho). I’m saying this not because I’m unhappy with the offering but to suggest that as open as it was, would it have been more awesome with more openness. I’m totally in it for Neolithic Mage and Demon Constantinople (hoping viking gets another chance somehow).
You could hold a vote for certain products, which product do you want to see next.
Could additional chapters be added to Hurt Locker or Secrets of the Covenants? I’d vote in additional covenant coverage… antagonist covenants, dead covenants… or more ways to bring the pain…
for core books, maybe we could vote on the city? don’t know if their’s more we could vote on than that… but for any non core books… (patch me some lines like hunter got?)
Also I’ve changed my mind about the Condition cards, knee jerk reaction… now I’m thinking about them and wondering why we can’t have “Powers Cards” Merits, Disciplines, Tilts etc. I think they’d work as a supplement to a screen in most cases. Heck you could have cards with combat/social maneuvering phases, or skill rolls. I can’t really remember these things and the cards give me something quick to flip through, and given more types of cards, I could filter them, players could have copies of the things they use rather than book marks (these could also have page numbers).
Doing something like we are doing with Dark Eras would be a massive community management struggle without the KS framework we are using. So don’t expect us to be polling folks all the time for every book, it just isn’t possible structurally.
Additionally, our creative folks need to make those calls themselves most of the time, not constantly have creative decisions forced upon them. Regardless of how open they are to listening and communicating with our community, at the end of the day they have to feel that they made the best book they could.
As I posted a few months ago, our folks do this because they are damned good at it, some of them with decades of creating tabletop RPGs. They have reputations and careers that they have built by this same act of creation, and inevitably, they will be judged poorly by other professionals and companies, not our community. You have to respect that, and realize that this thing here is what we do.
I liked heard the oddball things mentioned that used to be listed in the old meeting blogs. However, I also like hearing what you and Mr. Webb talked about. Those discussions and the thoughts that came out of them were always interesting, even when they weren’t game related. Then again, I like hearing the philosophy behind what is going on.
I think, however, ultimately all of those are great things to put in here, except the announcements/product not on the list. Really, Number 1 *IS* the very thing you are saying you want to get away from. I read the blog because it is entertaining, and for the progress reports on stuff I am watching for. I think, as long as you keep it like that: entertaining, thought provoking, or just plain good reads, then you guys are doing a good job with these.
Thanks! I am evolving a plan reading through all these posts, because as I point out further down the page, we do have a need to push our communication outward as far as we can go and to the most folks.
To be honest, I like having this as something of your personal sounding board, where you can toss things out that you think are important, or at least ‘neat’ about the different things going on at Onyx Path, and all of you loveable misfits involved in it, while being able to get a look into the development status of different projects like you have at the bottom of the posts. It, to me, makes it feel more.. ‘honest’ is not the proper term I’m looking for, but it’ll work as a substitute for now.
Well, thanks so much. More “transparent” maybe?
Yes! That was the word I was looking for!
The Dev status and art direction is great. This we know.
Content for the rest of the post? Mix it up from time to time.
My thinking as well, but how is the question of the day.
5 is the big one for me.
I like my blog posts to be nice and meaty, with something for me to show my group every week.
Meaty with a side of meat, coming up!
Each week I come back here to check on the update of WtF2. Is there anything more than “X working on it” that you can give us? Me and my group of players are waiting on starting our game on account of the many good and interesting changes I’ve taken part of in the devblogs.
Thank you,
Dark Eras Backer
Seconded. My werewolves dont get to ride until this books hits the shelves. Really hoping to see it by the end of February but I understand that you can’t rush it either.
Until a stage is done, like first PDF proof or to approval at CCP, there really isn’t anything to share. The designer or the editor, or whomever _is_ working on it. And telling you that 75% is done means nothing and sets up false expectations of how the process works; it ain’t all straight ahead, there’s a lot of doubling back to resolve layout issues caused or discovered by doing the layout. Doing the layout for V20 about 12 hours a day would have been impossible mentally if I also felt like there was a community staring in at me the whole time waiting for my “percentage bar” to click forward.
Thank you for the reply, richt
I wasn’t asking for a non-descriptive percentage for the same reason you describe above. What I think I (and in this case Handriel) would have liked was a bit more elaborative update which I guess isn’t possible either. It’s just that we’re so eager to get started and we hear nothing about our beloved furries that we get a bit impatient 🙂
I understand that you’re anxiously awaiting. I’m with you there! I just don’t know what else I could tell you beyond the stages we mention in the Updates.
I like what I read here, but if I were to rate them from most interesting to least, I’d say:
5
4
3
1
2
Thanks for the ranking!
I’d leave 2 for other posts and go with a combination of 3,4, and 5.
Fair enough-
What do I love from Vampire?
I love that you cannot say who are the good and bad guys. Every sect and group, or nearly, has their share of right and wrong. It feels very real, even when we are talking about ancient blood sucking monsters. That kept us many years discussing who was better or worse, Camarilla, Sabbat or Anarchs, or even Independents.
And politics, of course.
Nicely said, and thanks for responding to that question!
I’m interested in hearing about 2-5. I come here for insight on what the Onyx Path is doing and appreciate insight into the creative process and thinking behind the projects. However, breaking it down this way into categories could be useful as a way to focus the blog post. I.e., now I’m writing a category four blog post. Which now sounds like a weather event.
I dunno if I want to be that granular externally, but I might refer to them that way internally so I at least have some sort of idea what I’m writing from week to week in a month. Uh, oh! Three #4’s in a row- better put up a #5 instead.
(It’s a sign of maturity, I think, that I didn’t use #1s and #2s in that example.)
.3 is an important one for me. I enjoy reading about your interactions with the developers, Eddy included, as it gives an insight as to how the machine works and what you guys do to fuel your creativity. It’s always interesting to see creative types bouncing off of one another.
Well, you would say that. 😛
Seriously, thanks. It was really hard to tell back when every week was the Eddy and Rich show, whether folks were into it or just wanted the updates. I think that’s one reason I feel like we drifted to the point that I put up this blog.
3, 5, 4, 2, 1. In order of preference from highest to lowest as a matter of personal opinion. I don’t really think there’s much difference between 3, 5, and 4 though, other than the degree of scope. The tone seems like it would be the same, and the content follows the same general attitude in that its part technical (what makes a publishing house run) and part artistic (what makes good art/products), and I feel like, from what you’ve said and posts on the blog, that’s what you would enjoy most.
Might be, but in general, if everybody here responded with wanting more reminders of the stuff we have on sale and Kickstarters, that’s what I’d give you although I’d rather blather on about why comedy troupes are a great place to look for tips on managing creative teams. Or something similar. 🙂
I would read that. And not just because I was told recently that I make a better creative team manager than content producer… 🙂
And we appreciate you taking the time to poll the community and mold the blog towards our desires, just make sure you have something that you enjoy doing in there as well; helps to make it less of an ordeal. 🙂
It is both a thrill and an ordeal, no matter what the subject matter. I never learned typing so it’s all hunt and peck.
I think I did a section on the comedy troupe=creative group idea before, but I’ll do a new one soon. Dunno if it’ll help you at work, but it couldn’t hurt!
1) Reminders/announcements: Do not like at all. It is kinda like when I get a Mage Kickstarter update talking about a new kickstarter starting up. Well, I am looking for Mage information not an advertisement for something I am very likely not interested. This information should be available but I do not see it as an informative weekly blog.
2) Reaching out to the community: I would prefer to see this in a forum post not a primary blog. I find the community somewhat odd and confusing and would not find much interest in this format. For example, in the Exalted forums, there seems to be much hate about the bikini witch and the use of he/she pronouns but that same community wants an over representation of gay/lesbian/transgendered characters. I cannot tell if they are anti-sexuality or anti-“normal”-sexuality.
I also seem to remember some issues in the Scion forums.
3/4/5 is what I am looking for when I read the blog. Even though I am periferally interested in most of the game lines and really only care (right now) about Exalted, this type of information is interesting to me even about gamelines I may not be interested because you and your crew are pretty interesting and tell a good story,
“Well, I am looking for Mage information not an advertisement for something I am very likely not interested. ”
“and really only care (right now) about Exalted, this type of information is interesting to me even about gamelines I may not be interested because you and your crew are pretty interesting and tell a good story”
…
What?
You don’t want any new information about other gamelines but you do because there might be some that you’re interested in?
I’m sorry. I disagree with a lot of what you posted. And I’m not sure even you know what you’re saying in regards to some of your post. I have no problems with posting about new Kickstarters on previous ones because it lets me know about a new game that I may or may not be interested in. From a business standpoint, I also understand why OP does it. It helps to spread the word about a new KS, which many miss and then complain to Rich about why they never found out about it in the first place.
What I do not want is a list of new stuff comming out as the basis of a blog. That works better as an entry in the News page.
What I do want is details about the game line, discussions by the developers, information about the direction being taken and why.
To the point! Thanks!
Kind of a joint response to Jeff and Unsilent: you represent the two sides of the KS announcement issue, but also this brings up why I also boost things on this blog vs just letting our Weds sales email do the work.
We simply can’t assume that any single announcement, about anything, is being heeded by even 50% of our community. Early on, I didn’t send a notice to the KS backers about a new KS, and I got angry backers from the first KS very upset because as fans so dedicated that they backed us, they expected to be given more attention and to be alerted directly to the new KS. When at the start of the next KS, I did indeed send out an Update to the previous KS’s backers, I got angry messages because I was being pushy. So damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
End of the day, we at Onyx Path know we need to get the word out however we can, about everything we can, because there is no general venue that our community pays attention to.
I remember the LiveJournal. In particular, I remember getting into an spat in the comments with you (Rich) about the Tuatha de Dannan symbol for Scion, and what to call it. The absurdity of the disagreement is funny now (to me), but I was something of a flippant dick about it then, so I apologize for not being courteous 7 or so years ago. Sorry about that. 😕
As for what I’d like to see from this blog, options 3 and 5 are of interest to me, because I’m here less for updates and more to get a look at the theory and motivations behind the OP products. While I’m personally less interested in nuts & bolts of game element creation as described in item #5, I also know what it feels like to put your heart into creating something and never get any recognition for your efforts, so you guys should talk about what you’re proud of making every so often.
I know it’s not going to be changed any time soon, but I really don’t like the way product updates are listed now (by development stage); I find it so hard to parse that I’ve started skipping that section entirely. Maybe it could be sorted at least by game line, within each section?
Regarding item #1, short announcements aren’t intrusive on MM updates, and you may reach some people that wouldn’t otherwise know about them, so I don’t see much of a downside to tagging on a small section of news bits about things that have a time limit.
Question about Dark Eras: I see KS has changed things up a bit since my last project pledge, esp. on payments. I’m currently in at the $5 PDF level for WtF, but I’d like to get the Giest PDFs as well, so is there any way I can make multiple pledges, or will I have to use a second KS account for that?
I will never forgive you 😛
From the response I’ve heard, you are in the minority on the set-up of the Updates. Maybe it’ll help to point out that I move projects through the stages by adding them to the bottom of the list and make them bold the first week they change status. Otherwise, the game lines are on each one.
As far as I know, you still need multiple accounts to pledge more than once, but I hear it is still easy to do.
Any of those seem good. In terms of the status updates; any chance you could break out “art direction”? I get that entails getting art and figuring out where it goes. But what does that mean in terms of the whole process? Does a thing go from there straight to DriveThruRPG? Are there other steps? If a book doesn’t exist in the first set of “Development Status” but does appear in “Art Direction”, what does that mean in terms of getting the book in our grubby, greedy hands?
Art Direction is hiring the illustrators based on the art notes provided by the developer of the book. The art notes should come to the art director when the unedited manuscript goes to the copy editor so that while they are editing, the art is being created. Then the edited text and the illustrations both land in the graphic designer’s lap together and they lay out the book using both elements. Layout has multiple proofing stages, then it goes through CCP approval, and then the PDF goes either to KS backers or for Advance PDF sales on DTRPG. Hope that helps.
I’d like for 4 and 5 to be the primaries. Getting more information on how and why things happen or touching the mind of a designer helps me be better informed Storyteller when the time comes to actually run a game.
I think it’s cool that those types of posts help you that way. Thanks!
I’m an artist that might be interested in doing work for Pugmire! Here’s my portfolio to check out at your leisure.
http://katiehofgard.daportfolio.com/
Lovely pieces! I have put you on my list of possible artists! Thanks-
This turns out kinda strange, because my preferences run in the reverse order of posting.
Mind, I think all of the options are interesting, it’s just that the lower on the list it goes, it gets more and more interesting.
Ultimately, I’ll have to join the crowd who says: Rotation? All are interesting, and I think it’ll also keep the blog-writing itself from becoming stale.
I agree, one way or another it’s good to focus on different things from week to week.
Can you add a permanent well ordered list of books? I can’t find any and the online store it’s a mess.
If the list exist, make it more easy to find.
Actually, I would love a product website appart from a blog. This would benefit products and consumers alike. Every time I want to see what’s new, etc. I’m lost in blog posts and wikis…
I love what you are doing with the second edition.
Sorry about my english 🙂
A list like that’s really Impish Ian’s area of expertise and he usually shows up with a link to a wiki or something like that.
If you’re looking for releases per year:
http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/2015
If you’re looking per game line:
http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Mage:_The_Ascension_books
Any clue when we can be seeing more mechanics in blog posts?
I know the team is firing on all cylinders, between all these Kickstarters and new books, but I’d love to see some more bloodline conversions for VtR or the example seba that CAS talked about for MtC.
Any my blog? Almost never. In the Open Dev blogs, I expect we’ll see more as new releases start coming on-board. Much like your examples, those sorts of teasers and reveals are up to the developers involved. We have effectively infinite blog space.
I’d like to see everything mentioned in 5.
OK- thanks!
I don’t have any specific desires on general things, but I’m curious to understand more about the layout process and how it works, the stages it goes through. I don’t want to pressure anyone, but there’s enough stuff in that stage I’m interested in that it’s made me curious about the details of the process.
Sounds like an idea for a post! Thanks-
I’d love a little bit of everything, especially behind the scenes things. Onyx Path and your spectacular work are a fascination to me, and as a writer I find the development process and things like metaplot to be utterly intriguing.
Well thank you. Keep an eye on the rest of the blogs that come out the rest of the week for much more in-depth looks at specific projects. Or you can join the Onyx Path Mailing List by signing up there on the right of the page, and Impish Ian does a blog round-up every Friday.
All five categories you indicated sound good.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Five categories! Ha Ha Ha!
I realize that the work isn’t even done yet, so I don’t know how definitive of an answer you’d be able to give, but I figure I’ll ask anyway just to get it out there for consideration:
Is there any chance that exalted fans will get a chance to see what’s being cut from the text either in a later book or maybe as a separate .pdf or something? Or maybe even just a general idea of what’s being trimmed? Something along the lines of a statement like “We decided to cut down/condense the following sections: list.”
I vaguely remember reading that we wouldn’t be getting a look at the book until everything was done, which is absolutely understandable. But I kind of feel like after all the time and work that went into the raw text, I would really love to have some idea of what the finalized version looked like prior to art layout.
Thanks in advance for anything you can offer, and thanks for the continuing effort on one of my favorite games.
I don’t know which project you are asking about, but let me take a moment here to suggest that cut material is not actually shining gold words of wonder. I know it sounds fascinating, but there is every chance that the cut stuff is cut because it is actually specifically bad, or because it doesn’t fit with the general overall tone, direction, theme, or intention of the rest of the book.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to me.
I really appreciate it, but I think that maybe I was unclear or there was a miscommunication, so if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to clarify and ask you to reconsider my question.
The project specifically that I was referring to was Exalted 3rd.
You absolutely have more insight than I do in the development and production process, so I guess if you would, let me just go through my logic and you can correct me where I’m wrong or maybe your answer will still be the same, in which case I’ll be satisfied:
I remember reading something to the effect of “…finally, after three years, it’s out of our hands.” once it was revealed that the text for Exalted 3rd was completed. So the text was worked on for at least three years, then it went through I think two editorial passes that were then implemented.
The developers worked on it for years, then it got edited. So my thinking is that at that point, the text of the book would have been pretty solid. I can’t imagine that at that point in the process there would be a lot of material that was bad, out of tone, direction, theme or intention.
But after preliminary art layout, the book is now back in developer hands to trim the text down to a reasonable size that can be printed (or such is my understanding).
So I guess I’d like to pose the question again. If the answer’s the same, that’s fine and feel free to say so. But as someone on the outside of the process with no industry experience, I have any real way to know how much of the text of a book at this point could be easily cut.
So with that in consideration, is there any chance that fans of Exalted might get some idea of what’s being cut, either as a list of areas that got trimmed or condensed or a separate .pdf with the text that had to be left out? Or maybe some stuff might be simply moved to a more appropriate supplement?
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to me.
I really appreciate it, but I think that maybe I was unclear or there was a miscommunication, so if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to clarify and ask you to reconsider my question.
The project specifically that I was referring to was Exalted 3rd.
You absolutely have more insight than I do in the development and production process, so I guess if you would, let me just go through my logic and you can correct me where I’m wrong or maybe your answer will still be the same, in which case I’ll be satisfied:
I remember reading something to the effect of “…finally, after three years, it’s out of our hands.” once it was revealed that the text for Exalted 3rd was completed. So the text was worked on for at least three years, then it went through I think two editorial passes that were then implemented.
The developers worked on it for years, then it got edited. So my thinking is that at that point, the text of the book would have been pretty solid. I can’t imagine that at that point in the process there would be a lot of material that was bad, out of tone, direction, theme or intention.
But after preliminary art layout, the book is now back in developer hands to trim the text down to a reasonable size that can be printed (or such is my understanding).
So I guess I’d like to pose the question again. If the answer’s the same, that’s fine and feel free to say so. But as someone on the outside of the process with no industry experience, I don’t have any real way to know how much of the text of a book at this point could be easily cut.
So with that in consideration, is there any chance that fans of Exalted might get some idea of what’s being cut, either as a list of areas that got trimmed or condensed or a separate .pdf with the text that had to be left out? Or maybe some stuff might be simply moved to a more appropriate supplement?
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
No problem. Remember that the three years of work were greatly rewritten based on the Devs’ new Charm ideas back in the August after the KS, so what finally came to the editor and layout was more the result of those years of changes. So, when we talk about cutting back the text, we are cutting away parts that _could_ have been legitimately in the core book, which is why they left them in to see if we had room, but which are tangents to the tightest vision for the core book. Most of those bits which are discrete chunks, like say a creature, will be put into later books. A lot of the cutting won’t be those biggish sections though, it’ll be half sentences and some more flowery language that gets cut out to focus the writing tighter.
i think you can safely use any and all of the potential blog “formats” you’ve outlined here – there’s no need to even put the slightest of constraints on the flow of information, and sometimes you’re going to be prioritizing on different topics.
as for an artist suggestion for Pugmire, it sounds like Annie Stegg might be someone worth looking at. http://anniestegg.com
Thanks, and thanks for the link. I have put both her and her husband Justin Gerard on the list.
“I’m looking for very realistic illustrations of animals and/or animals in fantasy medieval clothes and armor. ”
I met George Underwood a few years ago: he’s probably best known for his iconic rock album covers for David Bowie, T.Rex, Gentle Giant, and so on, but he also has worked extensively in book illustrations. There was a novel about anthropomorphic dogs called Lives of the Monster Dogs that he did several pieces for. You can find those on his site in this section:
http://www.georgeunderwood.com/pages/anthropomorphic/75
Yes, I think some of his paintings were some that inspired our visual direction. I may try to contact him, but I wonder at the odds of a good friend of David Bowie being interested in illustrating for our little game?
I remember looking at some of those for very early ideas of the art direction. It’s a bit too Victorian for what we’re shooting for, although Rich did have to talk me down from changing the whole idea to a Sherlock Hound RPG.
Because I am SUPER excited for Pugmire, I would love to take this opportunity to point out Kurt Busiek’s latest series out of Image Comics entitled “The Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw”. It’s a high-fantasy epic about a world ruled by anthropomorphic animals, each of which claims ownership over a mythic hero from the past. Stunning art, involving world, though it’s a bit darker and more adult than what I think Pugmire is going for. Have a look at some art:
https://www.google.com/search?q=tooth+and+claw+comic&safe=off&espv=2&biw=1234&bih=702&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_dHmVKCTM8LvoATK-IKIDw&ved=0CB0QsAQ&dpr=1#imgdii=_
And the official site: https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/tooth-and-claw
As to the main topic of this post: hey, it’s your show boss. I’m keen to read what you’re keen to write.
Looks gorgeous, and of course, it’s by Kurt Busiek, so it’s going to have a great story. Love the 2nd issue Alex Ross cover. Thanks for pointing it out!
I’ll have to check that out. Thanks for the link!
Pleasure to be of service. Hope it is sufficiently muse-worthy for you all!
As far as visuals for Pugmire goes, I wonder if the crew are aware of 2000 AD’s Kingdom? Not sure that the art style is necessarily what you’re going for, and probably just a teensy tiny bit (OK, a lot) heavier on the 2000 AD ultraviolence than you were thinking, but there’s only a certain amount of anthropomorphic genetically engineered dogs after human die-out settings that I can think of.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_(comics)
http://www.2000adonline.com/books/kingdom-call-of-the-wild.php
Appreciate you thinking of it, though! Someone else had suggested the series for Eddy to check out, but the writing, like you guessed for the art, is very different from our plans for Pugmire.
I’ve been trying to find a PDF version online, but it looks interesting!
I think all of those options are groovy and all would be welcome.
I have a question: will the wiki ever be restored? The Exalted Wiki was a wonderful resource and getting rid of it is a huge disappointment. Will it ever be restored? Please give us our wiki back! 🙁 The other wiki you linked to is much less useful for Exalted.
Ian? Can you explain to the nice peoples where we are with that?
Unsubbed from your mailing list tonight.
Some time ago, I stopped reading your Monday mailer because your emails are unreadable walls of text. (This is not a browser issue: I’ve viewed them in Chrome, Firefox, & IE, and they look terrible in each browser. Is there some reason you do not include a blank line after each paragraph? That alone would do much towards resolving the issue.) However, I was willing to remain subbed for special messages about interesting events, Kickstarters, sales, etc.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was your failure to send a highly visible notice about the VTM Bundle of Holding. A passing mention in wall-of-text mailers simply isn’t good enough: This is something that every fan of VTM would have wanted to know. I read about it elsewhere tonight, and I am disappointed to have missed the chance to help out a great charity and get some VTM PDFs in the process.
Not angry, btw. Just not willing to endure the hassle of deleting a nearly unreadable mailer every week if I can’t rely on you for special notes about interesting things (which was really the only thing keeping me subbed).
Taking the time to type this in hopes that you might use the feedback to make improvements. Feel free to drop me a note if your format changes to something more useful in the future.
Thanks for saying something now, and yes we will look into that since the original blogs all are written with ease of reading in mind.
Anyone else having this problem of the blog text coming in a clump on the mailing list?
No, they come through fine for me. Maybe a case of HTML vs text mail? It is a *lot* of text though, especially this week’s. 🙂
I looked into the issue you bring up here, and even checked with our friends at DTRPG who have had a similar problem with some of their mailing list folks. If you are getting our mailing list through Yahoo, this has been something they say they have seen before and it is how Yahoo processes the blog text. They’ve tried reformatting their message text but have never been able to change the text running together as you describe. So, if you’re using Yahoo, that might be the problem. Wish I had a solution beyond that, but that’s the word from those who have tried.
Thank you for looking into the issue. I am using Yahoo email. The incompatibility is unfortunate.
It’d be nice if there was mailing list just for brief announcements of important, time-sensitive matters: charity bundles, Kickstarters, sales, etc. But I do certainly understand if you guys and gals are busy enough as-is and wouldn’t want to maintain a separate list.
5) More inside looks at other parts of what we’re making.
This. A book takes a long time to make, and I’d love to see more stories about the challenges you face. 🙂
(Disclaimer: M20 backer)