FORUM

Hello everyone!

I'm back from Gen Con, and I'm getting to work on the errata-ed pdf. It's also going to come with an improved table of contents that will be keyed to the pdf pages, not just the chapter pages.

We had a couple of good games over the last few days of the con. I'm hoping that some of the people who played in them will post a report, but regardless, I'll be putting up a couple of new play reports myself.

Also I'm finally going to have time to go through all the threads and posts that I haven't had a chance to look at. There are many, which is cool, but I've been dying not being able to get to them. So look for more later today!

Greetings everybody! I'm already sold to this game, yet before I buy it I'd like to ask Mr Brunner when the file at Drivethru will be updated, and if there exists a printer-friendly version (because I just simply cannot read from the monitor, I just can't).

Regards,

ZOOROOS

Yes, "when it's ready" is definitely the time frame.

I have been working on it in the week that I've been home since Gen Con, however, and I think that something should be ready soon. I don't want to do a bunch of little updates; I only want to do one or two big updates. No point in filling the registered users' inboxes with a zillion different 30 MB files!

By all means hold off if you like. The new file is well underway and coming soon.

I'm really looking forwared to the update. I know there were quite a few fence-sitters over on the rpg.net thread, and I think a solid polish pass would push some of them over. I'm also planning on doing a review for rpg.net.

I broke down last weekend and printed the current version out (emptied my laser toner cartridge ... grrrr) .... of course, then I bungled up the coil binding and manged to get it all out of order. Figures.

I would approve of an update on the situation as well... even if it is a simple comment like, "Its not ready though it will be when it is." =)

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/*~Matthew Miller~*\

Hopefully everything's ok with Frank, but it sorta' seems as though he has lost interest or doesn't have the time. I check in here a couple of times a week to see if anything's new, but I've mostly moved on to other games which have a more viable community to interact with, ask questions, share stuff, etc. It's a complex enough game that it really needs to have some level of support (or at least the cleaned up PDF), and when Frank stopped posting the general activity in these forums dropped like a stone.

I can understand that but it really doesn't take long to pop onto a forum and say as much.

MadLord, I know you are looking out for him but I get a sinking feeling when I see people posting for the creator of the game.

While I don't have nearly the level of monetary investment in this game that I did in my most memorable burn moment, it still leaves me unsettled.

There was a little rpg called Cold Steel Reign. I had gotten the player's guide and immediately pre-ordered the GM's guide. One year later, still no GM's guide. Months went by without a post from the creator but he had several people that knew him and lived near him that kept posting on the game company's forums and making excuses for him. One day, the site just up and disappeared, and with it my $40 pre-order. That was back in 2005 and the site and my pre-order never showed up.

At least with this, I have a product. But warning signals still go off for me.

And it isn't like I even think this is Ycore's case. I gave the last guy a year, I'll do the same for Frank :)

I'm not concerned about being out the money because I already have what I paid for. The PDF is perfectly usable as is.

My concern is that games that make an initial splash often fade and lose the initial interest when there isn't regular communication from the makers.

And in this day and age, it isn't hard to be in regular communication.

I'm not talking about daily posts or anything like that, but it has been two months since Ycore has last posted on his own site.

As for starting to build a community, it is hard to do that when it seems like the base of that community may have faded. Spellbound Kingdoms is still in the top 15 small press games over at DTRPG so there is still interest.

But someone may hear of SK, come to the website and see that there has been little movement on the site in some time and decide not to buy the product.

I know that SK is a labor of love but if the idea is for it to become profitable then the business/PR end of it also needs to be kept up. Relying on the fan base to do it isn't good business.

I have nothing but nice things to say about SK. I was hooked as soon as I saw the Combat Primer. While I may seem critical, I just don't want the game to fade due to inattention.

I don't intend to speak for him, I was mostly looking to say "he's alive" so people don't get too crazy with speculation :)

MacLeod: Well, it depends entirely on what you're looking to create. If you're thinking about custom content, that's incredibly easy to create and "publish" on your own! If you mean helping with the errata/updated PDF, well, that's a bit tougher, unfortunately.

Still, though, I'm playing SK whenever I get a chance =)

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I think the biggest hangup with finding people to help is that the PDF was created with Adobe InDesign, something most people don't have ready access to. Frank, I assume (hope) you didn't mind me mentioning that!

Community support is easily done with something like a wiki, but obviously one can't charge for something like that, and as much as I love the idea of open content, I more than respect that SK is a commercial product (worth every penny, IMO!). :)

Hmm... if only there were an easier way for multiple people to collaborate on such a thing...

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