So what next?
July 14th, 2009 by fred
What content should we preview next? We’ve narrowed it down to two choices. Go visit the Jim Butcher Online forums and cast your vote:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,13004.0.html
How about you finish and release the game already?
How about you get off your high horse?
Toddlers have short legs. Be considerate of those who can’t reach the ground!
:p
I’m _way_ too lazy to register over there, so maybe this vote just goes into the ether. That’s ok.
Monsters, please
@Andrew C, I’ll keep it in mind in case we need a tiebreaker, at least.
Since we have so much of the information already, whats the chance of another playtest getting started? OR maybe a beta version at GenCon this year? *wink*
There’s no chance of us doing anything at GenCon this year. Most of us have to stay home, either due to life events (Rob has a 7 month old son, I have a 1 month old daughter, Lenny recently moved into a new place), or due to financial reasons (GenCon’s return on $ invested is not as high as it once was).
I can’t help but wonder if people will ever stop asking when it’s coming out, or asking to be part of a playtest that it has been said won’t be done.
My vote is for monsters.
Hm. I’m surprised at the level of interest in the primer. I wonder if people have strange ideas about what it’s gonna say?
Tyler <3 Monsters. Big ones, small ones, strange ones, what their role is in a story. GM advice on monsters. Whatever. Monsters are lubberly.
I’m usually more a Primer & Paranormal Politics guy, but in this case I’d go for Monsters, I’m really curious about the representation of Butcher’s monsters in the game.
But anyway Monsters are losing on the forums… and I can’t vote… Damn 8-characters-minimum passwords!
Selenio.
I say monsters.
As I said elsewhere, I vote for the primer. I want to know how the setting is going to be described.
@fred
Congrats on the new spawn my good man!
You know, I have read someone’s commentary about how putting out a release date invariably results in the product being late, and the reply from “Fred” to “Eric’s” post about how you should maybe “finish and release the game already” — and I’m firmly on Eric’s side.
Yes, you’re small publishers. Yes, you have lives (congratulations on your child’s birth, Fred), but you also have some responsibility to the gaming public. As a part of said gaming public — please, please, PLEASE give us a *realistic* release date and do your level best to meet it!
No game has *ever* been perfect on release. Yours won’t be. Accept that, expect most of us to laugh and nod and say, “Yeah, I can see how they missed that,” expect us to side with you against the trolls who scream about every little typo (you’re professionals and can’t give them the flaming hell they deserve, but we’re just fans, and can rip them to shreds for you — and will!), stop worrying about what part to preview next, and start worrying about giving us the game on the shelves!
And for the love of my sanity, give us a release date! Not some deliberately extended “July of 2016″ crap that you know a retarded twelve year-old who types with just his thumbs could beat, but something hard, realistic and believable.
I’ve been wanting this game since I picked up “Storm Front” four years ago, and I think it’s past time you gave me — and all the people who were smarter than me and caught on to the coolness of Harry Dresden sooner than me — something to mark on a calendar and look at hopefully, a time to have forty of fifty bucks saved up by (DAMNED important in this economy!) — something concrete to let us look forward too.
Come on, guys. Throw us a bone, here.
Because frankly, if I croak of suspense from not having SOMETHING concrete . . . .
Yeah. I know where my death curse is going, gentlemen.
Don’t make me go all fanboy-geek on you. It’s never pretty.
Christopher
@Christopher, sure, I’ll give the release date we first did, when we had no real idea how long things would take: Summer, 2006.
Sorry about missing that.
As a reminder to everyone reading this, we have a very long explanation about the nature of release dates and whatnot on our “Schedule” page; please read it.
http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/schedule/
Fred, didn’t you know that the “gaming public,” and especially hardcore fans, know absolutely everything about how and when this RPG should be published????
Lol.
Sorry. Couldn’t help it.
I read it before I posted my comment. And I still think it’s insufficient. Since you feel it necessary to mock me, however gently, you may rest assured that I won’t be buying the game. I’ll just port the Dresden Files universe into another existing system — the Hero System might work, but there are others.
Yes, sure, one less person buying the game means nothing, blah, blah, blah — but can you be certain that I am the only annoyed at your attitude, can you?
Unprofessional. Very unprofessional.
@Christopher, come on. You came on here and more or less told us how to do our job, and threw around terms like “retarded twelve-year-old”. What did you expect in response to that sort of diatribe?
We definitely didn’t get off on the right foot here. I’d like a chance to win you back. Can I at least promise you that I’ll try to have a release date established by, say, Halloween, give or take a couple weeks? I just need a couple more months to see what my writers and editors are able to get done.
As I said in the Schedule thing — and I was pointing at that honestly, not with the intention of mocking you — the fact of the matter is, we did not start out as pros here, and the project is in many ways bigger than us. We goofed up a lot, and gave dates SEVERAL times and missed them (which, in your stated perspective, means that we’re a bunch of retarded twelve-year-olds — so you can see why I might not have taken your comment well).
We want to prevent that sort of disappointment, so we’re walking carefully. Heck, we’re taking a cue from software giant Blizzard in terms of how we’re acting with regards to the release date. Their motto is “it’ll be finished when it’s done!” and after a pattern of stating dates and missing them emerged, their way really has come to seem like the right way to do this.
But like I said, we’re trying to get to where we feel like we can state a real, solid release date — the kind you’re demanding (and can you understand why that might come off as a bit of over-entitlement complex?) — towards the end of this year (please note: that’s state the date towards the end of the year, not release the game), DESPITE our inexperience.
We’re fans here, too, man. Treat us like brother fans, would ya?