That’s a cowboy and a vampire. I dunno why, but post Gen Con my brain looks like this inside. Of course, I am also one full week without my “precious magic go juice” Coke Zero, which I stopped drinking to see how my body would react. The answer, so far, is poorly- but since I was drinking a six-pack a day in the months leading up to Gen Con, I figured I might need to give it a rest. Still have various tea-based drinks, so not un-caffeinated, just much reduced.
Both of our WoDs got new releases today with cWoD getting the PDF and PoD versions of V20 Rites of the Blood activated: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/131877/Rites-of-the-Blood
And nWoD’s Demon: The Descent gets its Flowers of Hell: The Demon Players Guide PDF and PoD versions activated: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/131419/Flowers-of-Hell-The-Demon-Players-Guide
Eddy and I talked about ageism in the video game business, a logo for his company, and Pugmire. Then he joined the Onyx Path meeting to discuss Gen Con with the usual crew. Lots of good ideas for how we can make a stronger booth presence next year. Anybody who was there, please give us your thoughts about how we did and how the booth seemed to you this year. Thanks!
Without further ado.
The Updates (note the hidden projects that we announced at Gen Con already in progress):
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE
First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)
- PtC Firestorm Chronicle
- BtP Beast Core
- WtA BotW Employee Indoctrination Handbook
- WtF Idigam Anthology
- MtAw 2e
- MtAw Fallen World Anthology
- Ex3 core
- MtAs How do you DO that?
- MtAs Book of Secrets
- MtC Rio
- VtR Secrets of the Covenants
Redlines
- VtM Lore of the Clans
- MtC Sothis Ascends
- VtM Red List
Second Draft
- PtC Firestorm Anthology
- WtA Book of the Wyrm Stretch Goals for In the Book
- V20 Ghouls
- WtF 2e
Development
- WoD Dark Eras Vampire
Editing
- MtC Book of the Deceived
- M20 Core
- WoD Dark Eras
- W20 White Howlers (except for comic)
Development (post-editing)
- Dark Ages
- WtA Umbra
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE
- White Howlers – Leblanc is almost done with his stuff. I can probably start laying that out in the next week or so. Need to ping Bridges again to see how the comic is coming along.
- Book of the Deceived – Sam’s fulls are in and approved. I have the art notes and art buy worked out, just need to find the right artists for it.
- DtD Seattle – Done and out to backers.
- DtD Demonseed collection – Borja should be wrapping that up this week. Probably start layout shortly.
- DtD Interface – Done and out to backers
- Book of the Wyrm 20 – Portraits should be in no later than Tuesday morning.
- DAV20 – First half of the fulls are in. About 75% of the main splats are in. I have all the stuff David got me before Gen Con AD’d. Just had McDoog bow out – overbooked. Starting Kickstarter page and video.
- Anarchs Unbound – Still tweaking cover but otherwise at press.
- T-Shirts – Going to resend around the fera, lost tribes, and wyrm thing shirts. If we can get those okayed, we can get those up before the end of the month.
- Umbra – Sent out notes to RKF and Tomek. Things should be moving along. Going to be a big book with a lot of pretty pictures.
- Art O’ The Changin’ Breeds – Planning to start on this and get it rolling. I have some really cool ideas on simplifying the process and making something a little more deluxerish. Yes, that’s a word now.
- VTR II – Prepping a pdf so Rose can find all the references to the B&S title and swap it out for the new title.
REASON TO DRINK: I dunno, should I? So hard to think without my Coke Zero….
6-pack a day? That’s a little more than a 2-liter. Just get a 2-liter, then you can call it “one a day”. 🙂
As for how to make the booth more… attention-grabbing (without spending a fortune, that is.)
– If you decide to do a monitor again with similar graphics to this year, perhaps raise it up and have it viewable from a bit farther way–maybe on a tall stand?
– Maybe the booth was a little too flat and open? Maybe some standing floor-banners would add a vertical element, as well as some capture-points.
– Quick-Mark for a free PDF/App. Something that makes folks interested in stopping in and acquiring the thing… that doesn’t cost you anything and may even be used for promotion (if the dice app has push-notifications for product updates, then you should try to get it into EVERYONE’s hands. 😀 )
– The White Wolf logo, along with Onyx Path and other logos more prominent on the back of the booth.
– Navy-blue, with white imprint helium balloons! (Mostly joking!) I DID purchase one of the OPP bags at the booth though. 🙂
I’m sure next year you’ll rock that front-row-and-center location at Gen Con even harder. 😀
No development updates for the Trinity Continuum? 🙁
Currently the same status they’ve been in for the last several months. No real need for an update.
“DAV20 – Starting Kickstarter page and video”. Do you have any plan yet for when that’s going to run?
As soon as we can pull the pieces together and get it approved.
So all CtD 2e is in dev prep then? Interesting that the Promethean anthology is ahead of both WtF’s and MtAw’s anthologies.
Do you mean CtL? Yes, being discussed on the overall what do we want to see in there level still.
My god I love Coke Zero.
Me too, but I fear it does not love me back.
So does that mean the next kickstarter will be V20DA, not Umbra? Is Umbra getting a deluxe kickstarter edition at all? My bank account and mortgage would probably prefer a “no”, but that irrational bit of me that wants shiny books disagrees…
Umbra will not have a Kickstarter. There are only so many months in the year and we can not run simultaneous KS campaigns as per KS rules. Sorry.
Oh well – as I said, my mortgage will be happy. And there’ll be others…
The previous Kickstarter was Book of the Wyrm 20th. And from following the pattern of OP Kickstarters done so far, that’s means another W:tA KS wouldn’t be next after that.
I have a feeling major corebooks like Dark Ages 20th, NWOD Dark Eras, and Wraith 20th would be down the line as the year slowly reaches to 2015.
I’m guessing that Umbra will be pushed into next year or will be released normally (As changes to book KS status do happen).
However, By Night Studios will have the W20th MET book for Kickstarter this Fall, I hope.
Hows the art coming on for EX3? Wasn’t expecting to see it still in the first draft phase is all or at least a note in the art section. Cheers!
EX3 writing was happening mixed with development and even some editing and some text was rewritten a bunch of times, so I guess Rose put it there until the Devs say that everything has gone from their hands to editing. Just now getting to the art notes (now being late last week) post-Gen Con, so still working on them. Mirthful Mike is not doing the ADing, so his notes don’t reflect where Maria and I are on them.
Thanks for the mini custom update Mr T! Muchly appreciated and I can’t wait to have EX3 once you’re all happy with it. The wait will be worth it. 🙂
We hear talk of CtD20th but no Wraith20. What happened with Wraith? Did it get dropped or is it just being ignored?
Nothing like that. It just means they’re at a point where they don’t really have any new info to add yet. Rich Dansky’s finishing off the outline and sending it off to the writers, according to the cWOD GenCon panel.
Fear not! Wraith20 has been outlined by Rich Dansky and he is contracting writers. I note that you asked this all over social media, so I’m glad to be able to lay your fears to rest.
WtF 2E seems behind the summer expectation, but we can expect to see it this fall?
Really can’t tell as yet.
Ever given thought to a subscription based model for selling your stuff? There are many game lines that I would like to flick through, and would pay an annual fee to receive, but don’t buy because the line isn’t in my core interest (Exalted and V:tM).
So how would subscriptions work, as you see it?
That seems interesting to me too. Like Molez, I haven’t bought things outside of my core interest (WtA, CtD, MtA). I’m kinda curious about the others, but the price is prohibitive for something I probably will never play, let alone run. Subscription is a weird business model though and I don’t know how well it would translate to RPG books. Like, the Netflix/Pandora/etc model? For a monthly fee, you can view any and all PDFs in the oWoD20 line?
It works with media streaming because you can’t cancel your account and retain access to the stuff; you can’t subscribe, save off all your favorite movies and then cancel. It’s also part of the “long tail” of media consumption. Netflix is useful to producers as a way to monetize consumers that otherwise wouldn’t spend anything on your movie at all. Netflix doesn’t cut into box office profits, and it seems like an awful lot of Netflix users also buy DVDs of things they can already access. (Things going on sale on DVD months before they go on Netflix does encourage that.)
Books though–if you are just doing PDFs, then users are going to want them to work offline; you don’t want your tabletop game to grind to a halt if the internet goes down, and that doesn’t work so well with a subscription model. I’m also not convinced that a subscription wouldn’t cannibalize real sales. What could a purchase offer that a subscription PDF wouldn’t?
Possibilities: You can only PoD an owned book, not a subscribed one. Lower quality subscription stuff (grainy art?) but that’s dangerous if it gives the impression that the real product isn’t high quality. Having to read a subscribed version in a web browser (that you can’t scrape a PDF from) would be a solid delineation, readable but hard to run a game with. Maybe online-access-only really is viable; people who plan to use a PDF around a table will still want to own a fully downloadable copy then.
Additional challenge: How often are people going to make use of the subscription? Would I enjoy paging through other lines, sure…would I do it every month? Probably not. Would I want to pay $X on a month when I wasn’t doing that?
I doubt subscription plan for The Onyx Path would really work. There are A LOT of WoD and Exalted books, but I’d guess that’s still not enough to warrant monthly payments. Subscription works best if the subscriber believes he is getting access to proverbial mountains of content that couldn’t possibly be consumed individually.
So, my suggestion would be to have a subscription option for the entire DriveThruRPG. O’Reilly already has something similar – Safari (pricing model: https://ssl.safaribooksonline.com/subscribe?cid=200910-orm-timblog-60subscribe ) and it’s apparently working out quite well.
1) As a casual follower, I do not know the acronyms of all the game systems so most of the updates are meaningless to me. So I just look for Exalted and Scion and none of the other updates gets me excited.
2) The booth: I visited it several times and felt like an outsider. Unless I knew what I was interested in, there was no one to help me. Like the first comment, the booth seems geared toward the White Wolf fan base and not geared toward pulling in the casual or the people who don’t know about White Wolf. In a similar sense, there was not much to pull in the older White Wolf players who may have moved on.
How to make it better? Not sure. I understand the black motif but it makes it hard to have a big colorful and eye catching display. Perhaps as the person above mentiioned a larger monitor a bit above the average persons head so they can see it from afar.
3) Should Arms of the Chosen be in first draft?
Jeff- Thanks for taking the time to let us know how you are interacting with us.
1) Pretty much the purpose of the progress updates each week is for folks already following that project, but, if I take your meaning correctly, you think if we wrote out Demon: The Descent Splintered City: Seattle as opposed to DtD Seattle that more casual readers of the blog would be more interested in the projects even if they weren’t already into that line?
2) Anecdotally, the booth did pull in both lapsed WW fans and new folks, because we talked to folks who said they were exactly that. But we can always improve, particularly if your experience was to feel like an outsider. That is something we do not want. What do you think we could have done to make you, personally, feel welcome?
3) Rose only lists that once the Dev sends that info to her. Right now she is waiting for confirmation that Arms’ writers’ contracts have been sent out.
1) you think if we wrote out Demon: The Descent Splintered City: Seattle as opposed to DtD Seattle that more casual readers of the blog would be more interested in the projects even if they weren’t already into that line?
Yes I do. For example, I am casually aware of a lot of the White Wolf line but check the blogs and posts concerning Exalted. I see all the other abeviations and cannot tell if it is something I might be interested in.
PtC Firestorm Chronicle (sounds insetting)
WtA vs. WtF (Werewolf, Wraith, Something Else?)
2) What do you think we could have done to make you, personally, feel welcome?
Not really sure, it was a combination of look and immediate attention. From other booths, eye catching color/display/video but also someone available to extend the booths barrier via greeting/eye contact/etc.
The fact that the booth people were in constant conversations with people could be either popularity of product and they are constantly busy or they are talking with friends and each other and not presenting a friendly exterior.
In either case, it makes a casual person who steps in feel left out as an outsider. but then again my case is a bit anecdotal and may not be reflective of the others experience.
MtA vs. MtC (Mage and ?)
2)
Strange Cut/Paste error so here is a repost
1) you think if we wrote out Demon: The Descent Splintered City: Seattle as opposed to DtD Seattle that more casual readers of the blog would be more interested in the projects even if they weren’t already into that line?
Yes I do. For example, I am casually aware of a lot of the White Wolf line but check the blogs and posts concerning Exalted. I see all the other abeviations and cannot tell if it is something I might be interested in.
PtC Firestorm Chronicle (sounds insetting)
WtA vs. WtF (Werewolf, Wraith, Something Else?)
MtA vs. MtC (Mage and ?)
2) What do you think we could have done to make you, personally, feel welcome?
Not really sure, it was a combination of look and immediate attention. From other booths, eye catching color/display/video but also someone available to extend the booths barrier via greeting/eye contact/etc.
The fact that the booth people were in constant conversations with people could be either popularity of product and they are constantly busy or they are talking with friends and each other and not presenting a friendly exterior.
In either case, it makes a casual person who steps in feel left out as an outsider. but then again my case is a bit anecdotal and may not be reflective of the others experience.
3) The only reason I commented on the Arms of the Chosen was its temporal proximity to Exalted 3rd Edition, seems it should be showing up in the status list. No big deal.
Man, seeing anything involving Wraith being mentioned about where it is in development scratches an itch I didn’t even realize I had. That’s going to be another large chunk of money gladly taken out of my pocket when that sucker goes up.
The Onyx booth at the con was great, nice to chat with the developers there.
Perhaps the thing I’d consider is revisiting the banners and posters on display, from a distance you weren’t sure that the booth was, only when you got close to it did you know what the booth was. Think about being right up front, as soon as you walked into the exhibit hall doors and you looked in the direction of the booth, what you are, could be communicated right away.
As far as the organized games, I’ve been formulating ideas that I want to share with Dave, who did a great job organizing everything and is just a good guy to work with. He mentioned his goal of trying to get 50 games organized next year and if we do, we can get our own room. That would be great and would create a second destination for Onyx Path games. A lot of opportunity if that manifested. If you checked out the Games On Demand location, which was around the corner from our location, I think they had it together, I spent a bit of time sitting in their area, watching how they did things. I think we could do that and more. Anyway, I’ll get my thoughts to Dave.
Myself and my fellow DGS Storytellers (Joe and Mike) were so glad and thankful to be at Gen Con and helping out The Wreaking Crew. We really put a lot of thought and effort to make the games we ran a great experience for the players, I hope we achieved that.
I am extraordinarily thrilled about Changeling: the Dreaming 20th edition. Is there a sense of when that KS will happen (quarter is fine) so that I can put aside funds to support at some ridiculous level?
Probably late next year.