Eddy had some great news, health-wise. He’s had almost no perceptible hearing loss from the operations and is pretty much back to where he was earlier this year- which the doctor says is an amazing recovery. Good on you, mate! We spent far too long on a kind of dual train of consciousness conversation that went like this: Skyfall -> Updating Classic Characters -> Different Look -> Confusing Glass Room -> Kurosawa Knew How -> Nolan Doesn’t -> What was Up w/Albert Finney? -> Sean? -> Richard Farnsworth-> Hawaii 5-0 and Shelly Berman -> Too Much Batman? -> Frank Miller -> Noir Women Use Sex or Are Victims -> Sin City Not a Parody -> We Should Talk About Work. I’ll let you folks fill in the actual words we used between and inside those topics.
We’re starting to get a bit caught up, with the exception of big projects like Mummy, which is very heartening release-wise, but there are also behind-the-scenes things which are also finally happening. Some are interesting and will be broadcast as soon as it makes sense to do so, and some are dull but vital- such as getting caught up on contracts. For now- here is where things stand this somewhat shortened week (we have our Thanksgiving holiday here in the US on Thursday and Friday):
– Silent Knife (VtR) and The God Machine Chronicle Fiction Anthology (nWoD) are both ready to be put on sale at DTRPG- maybe today! Two great books of fiction available in a variety of formats and just in time to give you something to do if you’re in the US and need something to read to avoid talking to Aunt Clara- the one with the mole on her eyelid.
– Conventionbook: NWO (cMtA) a new PoD version is on its way to me as the first one had a few file errors. Which is why we do proofs before going live. Still looks good for November.
– God Machine Chronicle (nWoD) and Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is still being written. As some folks might have read on Twitter, God Machine is in editing and tight, tight development.
– Mummy the Curse is still coming to me as a 2nd proof. Our designer’s computer woes continue as his OS needed to be reinstalled. Never name a book with a hostile title. This is a Curse, the Eternal Struggle was actually that, etc. Still pulling together the KS.
– EX3 to say again: Slated for Feb 2013 now. Just talked with the Devs and things are moving along nicely here- because of the intricate machine that is Exalted, each change has to be carefully fit into the whole. And that is taking time. But the manuscript is coming together, the systems are in developer playtests in preparation for being sent to external playtesters, and art notes are being written soon.
– V20 Hunters Hunted 2 is in Editing and Art Direction this week, and Anarchs Unbound‘s outline is out to writers and on the V20 blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/v20/.
– Deluxe V20 Children of the Revolution is in binding. The PDF and PoD versions is on sale at DriveThru RPG. If you didn’t get involved with the KS for this, now is your chance to pick up this beautiful and cool book. Justin and company went all out to present awesome characters, and the art is stunning.
– Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition Kickstarter is over I’m looking at preparing the surveys to get back to folks.
–Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has been confirmed for September-ish 2013 and Phil Brucato is on the case!
Adding these two books as they’re rolling along too:
– W20 Changing Breeds is also in Art Direction and Editing. We have to get backer info and photographs from the w20 Deluxe Kickstarter backers so that folks who are going to appear depicted in the art can get us in photos for reference.
– Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being wriiten.
Reason To Drink: Thanksgiving- my favorite holiday because it’s focusing to look back on a year and give thanks. Drinking because Target has people working on the holiday and Christmas shopping displays went up before Halloween. Razzin’ frazzin!
I’m not blaming you all due to the delays out of the hands of people. The storm, the break in, computer issues. But I’m pulling money out of my planned initial KS investment to Mummy.
Uh, OK. Sorry, I don’t get your point.
I think he means he is put off by the delays.
Some have no faith nor patience.
So he’s pulling out the hypothetical money that he had set aside for the Kickstarter, which Rich had no way of knowing about…?
Boddy. Please don’t talk about things you have no knowledge of and don’t harp about patience and faith. Richt, I know it’s been a tough time. I know it’s a new business model and you all are doing some fantastic things. Those panels from GenCon? Amazing stuff. The amount of enthusiasm and care for the material in people’s voices in the audio was palpable. But as a consumer I’m still not very happy with the delays notwithstanding patience in regards to them. With the Christmas season approaching it’s really only partially about disappointment and more about money that was saved for the KS for the last few months now going towards other things. I wish the Onyx Path team well but December’s approaching. *shrugs*
The Myth of Consumer Sovereignty in action. I’ve noticed many similarities between tabletop gamers and video gamers, and this is yet another. People like CameronW seem to believe that because they buy Onyx Path products, they are effectively the company’s employers. They also seem to think that an estimated release date is a verbal contract. Onyx Path has broken this ‘contract’ by not releasing Mummy on time, so CameronW is withdrawing money he intended to spend as a way of punishing Onyx Path.
If you think a product is worth buying, then you wait until it comes out. Demanding that it be released “on time”, whether or not it is finished, is to me completely irrational. You should judge products by their content, not by what you think of their marketing.
Good to hear that Eddy is ok!
I hope that Mummy will see the light very soon.
Having finances tighten at the holiday season so diverting funds for a product not yet released to those instead is well…not the myth of consumer sovereignty in action. I mean I hate to burst your narrative there. But the reality is actually more of “Boy it would have bee nice if original estimated release dates has been realized at a time when it would have been easier to shoulder the cost.”
So in short. You ass-umed a lot of false things in order to paint a nasty picture of a WW fan of 20 years.
Budget for Mummy KS.
Budget for Christmas.
Two separate things?! Whatwhatwhat?!
Yes, they have pushed it back. As they keep saying: Quality > Speed
Yes, it comes at a bad time when Christmas is around the corner.
Think of writing these books as digging gold nuggets out of turds. Would you rather that they tossed all the turd-covered gold in a pile, tell you it’s coming on Tuesday and then, miraculously, on Tuesday, you get a pile of turd-covered gold?
Or would you rather they go “Yeah, dude, it’s gonna taken some time to clean the turd off this gold. We’re going to do it, but it’s going to make the gold late. Ok?”
You know what you could do? “Hey, , wanna buy me a gift that I’ll actually love, enjoy and use? Buy me Mummy!”
Thanks Alex- not sold on the metaphor, but I really appreciate your support and grasp on our intentions. 🙂
Totally understandable to be disappointed in not being able to get something you’re looking forward to- particularly if there are financial arrangements or juggling to be managed. I’m disappointed too that Mummy is running as late as it is- but we’re getting close now.
I’m not exactly sure what you were expecting based on your initial comment. Hopefully, you expected the comments you received. Because that’s what I expected.
Love,
The Un-silent Majority
Good thing you’re not acting like a bad rpg fan stereotype there Twinkie.
You guys had your chance to name it Mummy the Musical. But noooooooo….
Watch for it. 2016.
Part of the new new World of Darkness, “World of Darkness the Third: This Time It’s Classy.”
Nonono… you gotta keep with the naming scheme! “World of Darkness: The Classiest”, or “Classy World of Darkness”. Or you you could be retro and it could be “Klassy World of Darkness” so that we have KWoD, CWoD, and NWoD. 😉
Woo, happy to hear that Eddy’s recovery is going well. I bet he can’t wait to get back into the swing of things.
Hah, maybe Mummy has been appropriately named. Ah well, there will always be hiccups in any system. Still excited for it!
The delays are actually great for me. My wallet was going to bite my fingers off if I bought all those books this year.
After seeing the cool levels for the W20 KS I’m looking forward to what creative incentives await for the Mummy KS. Will there be an EX3 KS?
EX3 KS? That’s our plan, yes!
Excellent! The KS incentives should be ridiculous for this one:)
I’m craving Strix Chronicle. Can’t wait to read this. Russell Bailey and the Requiem team are geniuses! It’s always a pleasure to read every phrase they write.
Speedy recovery indeed for mr. Webb indeed! I’m dealing with some hearing problems myself (nothing really serious here) and I know what a pain in the ear these things are. Onwards and upwards! And here’s me waiting for the God Machine Chronicle. Tic-Toc.
So. I’m guessing we’re not going to call it Demon: OH MY GOD IT’S EXPLODING!
Demon: The Developers All Catch a Plane to Hawaii But It Crashes In The Ocean And They’re Eaten By Sharks.
I’m not sure why we picked that title, to be honest.
I disagree with you Bolverk, CameronW is entitled to voice his disappointment in a civil way.
We know from the Mummy blog that the last intended entry was August the 8th with my own personal assumption that the core book would shortly follow. CAS’s per-launch post was on the 20th of October. Now I’m not expecting a release in November and unless something changes there is nothing to make me belive that December will be any different.
As soon as the PDF comes out I’m going to buy it and unless it really disappoints I’m going to buy the following books as well. Hate this feedback if you will guys but it is giving the impression that this is a part time project done in between your regular jobs.
K- Just to be clear, you do understand that to some extent that is exactly what Onyx Path is? I’m the only full-time OP employee, everyone else are either full-time freelancers juggling projects from different clients, or yeah, guys who work on these projects after their day jobs are done. There’s an enormous amount of dedication to these projects on the part of our creative crew, and the amount of time and effort they’re willing to put in is frankly amazing. We’ve been pretty much saying that this is the case since announcing the Onyx Path license deal in August.
Sadly, I have to appreciate the point CameronW makes. Though, I will be enthusiastically supporting the KS when the time comes and am more than satisfied to await the release patiently, the delays are beyond unfortunate.
I do hope that some sort of measures might prevent such troubling delays in the future. As a soldier I’m not accustomed to any (allow me to use the term very loose please!) “Excuses” and feel any projection IMO implies planning to lead to success. Be it developer or customer – any date, loose and unofficial, or otherwise – puts into motion setting aside of potentially limited funds (on a consumer level) not to mention anticipation.
Not everyone on the consumer end can or will be so forgiving and I can’t hold folks like Mr. Cameron at fault for feeling disenfranchised or simply finding their financial climate changes and they cannot do what they’d like to have say.. in September.
Now bear in mind that our poor developer is dealing with issues beyond the normal Ken. That said I wish my most serious sympathies for you Richard – I personally do not hold you to any fault for the delays. I do not hold theonyxpath.com (The Onyx Path) at fault and really just wish you the best.
This customer will not be affected by the delays (I’m perpetually broke, sadly) and frankly delays or no – My most heartfelt to you and those affected by elements such as the break in, a tragic passing, the damn storm, health factors, etc. seriously. I pray to my God with sadness reading about all that’s been faced recently and hope you and your family the best especially on these upcoming holidays. To you and all of your Co-horts, best wishes see you during the KS!
Thanks, and thank you for your service. I want to be clear though that the openness with which I prefer to conduct Onyx Path’s dealing- the blogs in general, but specifically these weekly updates- are not excuses for changes to products or the schedule but a rare chance for you all to look behind the curtain to the exact same issues we dealt with for decades at WW. We just didn’t tell you all about them then. Brian Glass’s computer seemed to break down once a week for years while he was ADing and laying out Exalted books. One of our guys got and beat cancer, others had their apartments robbed, were beaten up by bouncers or quit every quarter (OK, those last two were just Justin). Printers, suppliers, shippers, all can screw up, go south, deliver late. Stuff happens. It always happens, and yeah, as each individual thing occurs we learn and alter our plans to compensate. But stuff is still going to happen, it’s the nature of the publishing beast.
Exactly. Remember when Exalted’s “Dreams of the First Age” box set was delayed something like eight months?
Remember when World of Darkness: Armory and Vampire’s Dark Influences board/card game had to endure the end of one World of Darkness and the beginning of the next one before they were finally released?
Stuff happens. Stuff happens a lot. The only difference is that now you get to hear about a lot of it as it’s going on.
I really don’t know how to say thank you SPC T. But well thank you A LOT. To go into a somewhat lengthy explanation here. By early next summer I’ll have been buying and playing White Wolf games for twenty years. Which is a bit odd to think about given what a large chunk of my life that is. Before Vampire, Werewolf,etc rpgs looked very different to me and White Wolf was a company that made me reevaluate what sort of serious and pertinent issues you could learn about and experience in a fashion through role-playing. My disappointment over release delays was never about Onyx Path, or the hard and dedicated people who contribute to the books. It was being bummed that the intersection of events(I wont go into detail but one is possibly not being able to work in the U.S. for a time until some paperwork gets cleared up) that hit the pocketbook coinciding with delays is going to mean not being able to invest funds into a Kickstart as was originally planned.
I cannot iterate enough. If you listen to the audio alone from August’s GenCon panels you’re going to hear a lot of dedicated, invested and enthusiastic people putting their creativity to work. It is, and was an infectious enthusiasm. I should have explained what I meant better but with some small amount of anger. This isn’t and wasn’t ever about faith in a company, or patience, or some convoluted notion of consumer arrogance. It’s not being able to throw quite as much money proverbially at a product and company I think is fantastic and that I hope continues to be fantastic. If you DO want some example of consumer flexing opinion then I’ll give this. I have been and still am planning(and posted on the boards about it in case you want to check) to gift someone a copy of the Storyteller and Player sections(not sure if 1 pdf or 2 yet). Why? Because I play Exalted, but more importantly because the Exalted fanbase has been by and large an amazing group of people. Those amazing people included some who participated and held small contests to gifts pdf books including Masters of Jade to folks. So I figure lets do a little of that for NWoD fans. Sorry if I gave you some false impressions. That was not my intent at all.
Rich,
From the bottom of my heart to the tip of my eager wallet… Thank You. Your look into the business behind the curtain, the new model for giving the hungry masses what we desire, and your tireless dedication to this hobby are well loved and well recieved by us, and me in particular. Thank you, and you all those who work with you to produce such awesome products. Have a stuffed Thanksgiving!
Eddy,
From the bottom of my heart to the feast at the table this Thursday… I hope your better and will soon join us again on these forums, your absence has been deeply felt. Thank you also for your hard work, in no way less than Rich’s… but only less visable these past months as you have had to deal with horrible shit.
CAS,
Get it done. Get it all done. We need Mummy. We must have Mummy. You get no rest, no thanks, and no pie until all the Mummy is done. Now get back to work.
(also, thank you. hope your holidays are great and filled with greater inspiration!)
Thanks for the updates, tons of cool stuff upcoming. For the fiction, “Two great books of fiction available in a variety of formats” leads me to hope that there’s also ereader formats included (epub/mobi), which would make me and my aging Sony reader very happy :). I’m most excited about Exalted 3, and *really* don’t mind an delays. I’d much rather see the thing late but awesome than “as projected” and mediocre. While I sort of understand the complaints some people have wrt the delays, I personally don’t mind them in the slightest (and much appreciate the feedback into the development process, even it it means adjusting expectations now and then). 🙂
Keep up the good work, guys!
It would be great if you guys could get everything out when you want to get stuff out. And it sucks when you can’t.
But what sucks even more are people who get whiny that you aren’t working to a schedule that you have said over and over is not hard and fast.
I can remember a time when everybody complained that white wolf was not transparent enough. And now that you are attempting a significant degree of transparency, people are complaining in such a way that might make you question your transparency. Please don’t. I appreciate having an idea of what you are working on, and a tentative release date. And I would gladly wait a couple of months if it means maintaining the current quality.
Couple things:
1) There’s no money in tabletop roleplaying games. With Onyx Path being, essentially, a one man operation, as of now, it seems obvious that CCP would discontinue publishing roleplaying games, if it wasn’t for their love of the medium.
I will certainly never call into question the dedication and love of these people for the roleplaying hobby. If they didn’t care greatly for publishing rpg books, then they would immediately stop doing to and spend their time on more lucrative business. I have no doubt that all their books are a labour of love.
2) I strongly dislike it when companies fail to meet release dates, even tentative ones. I blame my culture – where I come from, this is a faux pas of a high order. But my cultural upbringing isn’t really that relevant in the context of a North American branch of an Icelandic company.
3) I think that Colin did an absolutely fantastic job making people excited about Mummy with his excellent blog posts.
4) It is very unfortunate that there have been no blog posts for months. I believe that the excitement built by the blog posts might well have disappeared into Duat in the long months since. I think it would be a great idea to continue stoking the flames of excitement by providing us with more spoilers. It would be a real shame and not at all in the commercial interests of Onyx Path if they were to release a product that nobody was excited about.
5) If I have to choose between Onyx Path and its freelancers dedicating their time towards 1) marketing future books and 2) actually working on publishing future books – as much as I think that marketing is really important in this business; the choice is still an easy one.
While Gen Con certainly has a LOT more than just tabletop RPGs, there are still quite a few dedicated tabletop RPG publishers, developers, and creatives paying more each year, and widening their footprint at the convention.
The industry ebbs and flows. I think that we might be seeing another nice rise in sales, but certainly this has perhaps been one of the largest changes in how the business/audience/products/marketing/sales are handled that the industry has seen in its 45 years. The old paradigm doesn’t work well (spend money up-front, produce a book, have stores pre-order them, put them on shelves and sell them), and customers want more options for their personal tastes (paper, digital, minis, interactive content, etc.) and so on and so forth.
So, in some senses, yes… if you are a company who’s making the wrong choices, your product is no longer in demand, and you’re slow to change (or just have bad luck… like investing your money into a shoe company and losing a VERY prominent IP) then you’re boned.
But if you can keep ahead of the curve, change with the times, keep your business model light and manageable, in touch with the customers, and not over-extend yourself so that when things go poorly you’ll still be able to bounce back, I think that you CAN run a successful, profitable tabletop company. It’s not going to look like TSR circa 1985… but then again, look where that got them a decade later… bought by an upstart TCG and later by Hasbro… and their IP is still around. 🙂
I’ll just say I don’t think folks like Ben or Bolverk are representative of the fanbase.
Anywho,
I very much hope the Anthologies do well. I have missed the game world fiction. Looking forward to reading the God Machine Anthology in particularly.
Rich and the team,
Keep doing what you are doing. A lot is moving at once and some of us understand there is more to the world of creating a product than deciding to do it. I eagerly anticipate W20, and will likely back Changing Breeds. A friend of mine was an earlier adopter of Exalted and I am thinking of getting him a copy when it goes up as a gift. I have considered backing other products which I have almost no interest in, like Mage20 as a way of showing support for the company and in hopes of keeping the x20s coming through my number 1 and 2, Wraith and Changeling respectively. That is even knowing that sales were not great for either one and likely won’t happen.
I am largely a miniature wargamer these days. One company, Privateer Press, has been way more transparent than the gorilla of GW. I have found that it made me love the company and their games all the more. The same quality, I see in Onyx Path and is why I am more than willing to keep backing things with you. I get to read about what is occurring, and I appreciate it.
Glad to see the Exalted 3E got more than a single sentence!
Hope that didn’t come across smarmy. I am genuinely excited to see more info starting to come in about it.
I’m just happy we still got the “gang” from Rich all the way down to fans that help maintain this hobby. I am loathe to imagine a world wherein these imagined worlds are held by less dedicated folks.
If it wasn’t clear in my above post – though I still harbor fears related to ‘new ways of doing things’, and how many more years do we have? etc. I can say that from the very first of the Vampire series forward…. I can’t imagine a world without, well, the Darkness.
God I can’t wait to dig into this stuff!
Heck, I’m already taking some established “Hunter” characters down a path to distantly explore even the tiniest morsels we’ve been given through spoilers! Ahhh the anticipation!