OBT Forum

And why we are all here.

Spot on.

I echo some of what Dread has said about the recent slew of products, not because of their content, but rather their quality. Supposedly CGL has some sort of copy editor/proof reader on the payroll. Just looking at H:RW, and I'm not so sure. Normally, a few words, sentences or bits of punctuation out of place wouldn't bother me, but there was enough in this book to interfere with some of my reading. If quality control is an issue, then CGL can slow down the releases by a week or two and sort'em out.

It doesn't take long to clean up the text in a PDF prior to layout or even during - if you're paying attention.

That said, I do like how CGL is filling out the back catalogue of eras and events. We're finally fleshing out those areas that have been long overlooked or simply glossed over in other products. If the supposed schedule still holds, we'll still see tentative steps in the direction of the new storyline this year in both Final Reckoning and (definitely) Wars of Reaving. So the storyline is still moving forward, even if it's at a glacial pace. 

I understand your frustrations with the GenCon cram. That might be a reason why the type quality has fallen. I understand the economics - jam more products, make more money - and PDF allows that trend to succeed. (Assuming someone will readily buy the stuff - which we will, dumb bastards.)

It's the haphazard-feeling I get from the product release schedule that gets annoying. Especially when product updates (outside of forum posts, twitter or hearsay) are often far and few between. And if you're going to provide a basic schedule via BattleChat, why not spend five minutes writing it up for your company website? The last CBT.com product post is about TRO: 3058! So when something like H:RW, or ER: AoW is just dropped out of the blue it can feel a bit skewed or overwhelming. (If it's a technical issue, I'm sure a simple CMS could fix that.)

Continuity conflicts aside, (and honestly, I don't find them conflicting at all - after all, older products are always released in-character by ComStar - need I say more?!) most of the products detailing older eras help expand game play, which isn't such a bad deal regardless of when the content is released. However, TRO: 3075 is a total mess. I couldn't agree more with you Dread on that count.

Overall all, redressing the release schedule and type quality would go a long way to creating an uninterrupted line of evenly mixed new products.

Hmmm...
A few thoughts of mine on the recent topics of discussion:

Regarding recent and upcoming products: To me part of the appeal of BattleTech is that there are the different era's(Age of War, Star League, Succession Wars, Clan Invasion, Jihad, Dark Age...) which allow for more diversity. Therefore I like both historical products and products that advance the timeline. Thus knowing that Historical: Reunification War is out in pdf-format and (hopefully) will be out in dead tree format in the not so distant future while War of Reaving, Jihad: Final Reckoning and TRO: Prototypes are also said to come out this year pleases me quite a bit. That Historical: Liberation of Terra is said to be the next historical product to be worked on, is nice as well. So regarding products that are(in my opinion at least) going to be released in dead-tree format I do not think that the release schedule is overly unbalanced.

Regarding all those pdf-exclusive products: In my view some of those(like the Field Reports and Objectives series) are necessary to give an oveview of the militaries and industries the Inner Sphere and Periphery powers still possess at the end of the jihad/the founding of the Republic of the Sphere, before the storyline is moved forward into the Republic of the Sphere/Dark Ages timeline. And while those products do not advance the timeline per se, they set a stage and common starting point for further advancing the timeline(similar to the Handbook series prior to the Jihad). Personally, I would have preferred those products to come out in dead-tree format too, since in my view these are important products for the abovementioned reasons. Many of the other pdf-exclusives are in my view niche products that will attract some interest(and sales) but are not must-have products. My personal views might be off though.

Regarding previews of upcoming products: I certainly miss the times when previews, including the TOC were released(e.g. when Handbook:House Steiner was upcoming) to provide, for lack of a better word, a feeling of the upcoming product. I have partly overcome this lack of official previews by utilizing the pdf-product samples on DrivethruRPG, that usually contain the first few pages of a product including the TOC. The TOC is, for me, the most important part of an upcoming product to be previewed.

Regarding Continuity conflicts: I agree with Knightmare in this regard.

Regarding fanboy whining: I recall a similar experience of mine: When TRO's: 3075 and 3085 came out and certain people on the official forums ranted how unfair their chosen faction was treated, because their faction did not geat as many units as other factions, or other factions getting better units than their chosen faction or another faction getting equipment they saw as proprietary of their chosen faction I could only shake my head in disbelief, wondering if they loved a fictional faction more than the game itself and if that love of a faction had gotten the better of them. Gladly I refrained from posting in those threads.

And Regarding TRO 3075: I would not go as far as to call it a total mess. This TRO has issues, no doubt, but a total mess? Not in my opinion.

Just my two € cents

Ciao
Hessian

Quote from: Ice Hellion on June 28, 2011, 02:31:09 PM

I agree with this but then a lot of past TRO were total mess.

I was actually perfectly fine with most of 3075. Just the whole "even ComStar didn't know about the Royals." That was poorly implemented. Well, that and the Warlord. But that's a whole other discussion.

That's what I'm saying. I understand the RetroTech additions, but adding in the Royal variants, or ancient designs no longer deployed on the Battlefield in any capacity could have been best served elsewhere (maybe in a Historical, or a dedicated short-TRO.)

The Royal section just irritated me. ComStar didn't know about them, really?! Meh.

Yup. A little product organization could have gone a long way to consolidating the information, but why do that? You make more money splitting it up and having fans buy two, rather than one product.    Making moola takes precedence over rational organization sometimes.

TRO: Golden Age or some nonsense like that would have been nice though...

I'm really not sure if Era based TROs make sense anymore. You've effectively limited your product to fans of that era before it even hits the street. If you don't like say plasma rifles and other Jihad-era tech, you're probably not going to like TRO: Jihad. '75 and '85 make sense in how they are organized (that is, a little bit for everybody). My only real issue (other than the cynicism of the Warlord) was that the Royals needed to be a bit more thought out in their explanation. New Dallas totally worked as is. The Royals even worked as is, presented as they were in 3075 (primarily). The issue was that the ramifications of the Royals needed to be touched on a lot more (how did ComStar not know about these, where did they all go, why weren't they in Terran data cores, etc., or why didn't the Clans know about them and use them more frequently). It's much like the War of 3039 tech retcon. I absolutely understand why they did it. The idea of new tech just suddenly springing up on designs during the Year of Peace was incredibly dumb. But the way it was implemented (like the Royals) needed a lot more work.

I'm not necessarily sure Era-based TROs are such a bad idea. An argument could be made for their creation just to help flesh out a particular timeframe - thereby sating the thirst of players who want to have rules/units/info based on said timeframe. Again, with Era Reports being created to allow players to play in a certain time, the associate Era TRO is icing on the cake. Making them both PDFs cut down on some of the cost in creating them.

Era-specific products speak to niche players within a niche gaming system. They're fun and (if done right) remove the need to spend on developing something more comprehensive. TRO: 3075 was a good introduction to many of the forthcoming historically-oriented products that came down the pike, (ED:AoC, TRO:Primitives, etc.) it may have just bitten off more than it should have. Regarding the Royal variants, it seemed to me like their presentation was hurried - as if to get them printed and out of the way. While that may not have been CGL's intention, (I'm looking at you H: Liberation of Terra) it's how it came off.

It's the larger products or retcons that seem to cause the most trouble. When the product covers more than one era and a fair number of factions in the process, a good explanation becomes extremely important. I'll give a small nod to the writers of H:RW for at least mentioning that the designs fielded by the Royal Divisions were akin to ComStar standard found in TRO: 2750 and that the Royal variants found elsewhere (TRO:3075, etc.) weren't created until later in the Star League. That being said, the gaping fictional hole you mentioned (and further widened with Op: Klondike IMO) is still there...

I'm wondering if the poor implementation of the Royals to date is likely due to their presence in the Liberation book? If so, while I applaud the desire to keep the bulk of the info new to a future product, the lead up could have (as Dread mentioned) been done better. Again, since these books are written from an in-game perspective any errors, oversights or miscalculations enjoy plausible deniability.