If C7 staff were to give development reports on all up coming items in all their lines, they wouldn't have time to write any books at all.

I don't think so. They have their own forum. To write a sentence like "today we sent the product to the layout department" for example, doesn't take much time, does it?

ACK!
Get well soon, Jon.

How many projects are on the go right now with C7? Rivendell certainly isn't the only one! If C7 were to write a report for each item for each line they are currently working on detailing where they are in the design process for each one of them, it would generate a shite load of reports and would certainly cost them a lot of man hours. The number of other forums has nothing to do with it ..time is time.

If they send news every two weeks (and this would be more than expected) and the text would take 15 minutes to write (15 minutes for TOR, 15 minutes for Doctor Who...) then it would take about 3 hours of work every two weeks (I counted 11 games on their website, but maybe this is outdated?). This is hardly too much work to keep their customers informed. At the moment Jon is answering complains about delays all the time in this forum anyways!

BUT I have to say that I (almost) got used to C7s non-existing customer information system and I still will support them with my money. I love TOR and the quality of the product is amazing. My reason to post is to suggest to C7 how they could approve their information system (in their own interest). But of course this is my personal opinion.

Nonetheless the extreme delays are frustrating.

If someone really plans a campaign based on official publications they are doomed or having to take lenghty breaks in their campaigns.
To be honest i have the feeling most of us rely on official products, as few have the time to create their own adventures in their sparse free time.

Off topic: i also have the feeling most of us are in their thirties or even have 4 decades on their shoulders.

I think it's the opinion of most people criticizing Cubicle 7 in this thread (at least it's mine).

You are kidding, right? You have the time to read a published adventure, but not enough time to use your own imagination to come up with something to fill in the downtime between sourcebooks? That just does not make much sense to me.

Are YOU kidding, Beran? Perhaps it's a fast process for you, but it takes me an absurd amount of time to come up with adventures and even with weeks or months to prepare, I rarely have the chance to write down everything. When it comes down to crunch time, I'm still usually playing off an outline and winging the rest. Inevitably, that means lost time as I have to come up with a lot of stuff on the fly.

Published material, in contrast, means most of the work is done for you. Even when I don't use the whole adventure, I can frequently pull entire scenes and encounters. The stat blocks and suggestions on how to run the encounters save a LOT of time, meaning that the few hours we get to play every month are spent more efficiently.

I have to weigh in & agree with Mordagnir on this one.

We (LMs) can write our own adventures & most of us do, but as he points out it's a time-consuming hassle.

It would just make our lives easier if C7 could pick up the pace a bit. I'm not grousing, simply stating the obvious as a paying customer - they're no longer a starter company

Mind, I love & support the game, & prefer quality over quantity. Even my usually unflagging optimism, however, takes a nose dive toward rolling for Miserable in between these endless delays & lack of communication...

Could you stop with the passive-aggressive attitude in this thread, please ?

It would be much appreciated, thanks.

Just remember that this is a brand new property. It can ride on the shoulders of previous RPGs but it has its own mechanics and style. Therefore as they work to find their style Cubicle7 will have delays with this game. They are putting out the best product they can and I am sure they are spending time on rewrites and material that ends up being scrapped.

I would expect a faster release schedule if this was 2nd Ed, but it is the first run. AD&D had plenty of delays getting out polished material. Once they get their rhythm I am sure TOR will update frequently.

Passive-aggressive? Brother I am all aggressive on this point. First, let me say you are putting too much into your games. I have successfully ran whole campaigns based on a few plot points and no notes. Second, if you find it a hassle to come up with original material for your games then I guess the post of LM isn't right for you. Either way stop blaming C7 for your failings. Quite frankly I am tired of the whining attitudes around here. I would prefer that you just said "thanks for all the hard work" and be on your way.

Oh, believe me what I have said is appreciated.

Well, i'm a little surprised about your attitude here.
I really appreciate these forums as the overall tone is very friendly here, so your comments come as a negative surprise for me.

First of all, let me tell you that i'm sadly not as good as you with creating campaigns and adventures without official help anymore. I simply have no time.
My working schedule is full, i have two wonderful sons of 3 and 2 years and the sparse time i can spend with my group of old friends is important for me, for this i'm grateful for Tales of the Wilderland. Reason is we still can play in our hobby, even if we all have families and much work to do.

So i'm not kidding and congratulate you on your imagination and LM abilities.

Please avoid arguing and negative attitudes...thanks.

Firstly, by saying that anyone can create campain in no time, you're greatly minimizing the work of the authors of RPGs.
A good campain, well-written, tested, proofed is something difficult and long to write.
And please, note that in this thread, I haven't said that Cubicle 7 should write faster (because it's not a good idea to rush things), but that they should have a better grasp of how long a book will take to hit the shelves (and, as professionals, they should).

Secondly, I'm glad you're able to run a campain with only a few key points.
Everybody is different, everybody has different gifts.
I may be less gifted than you to create campains (I liked that when I was a student, now that I'm older I have to put my mind to other activities), but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying a good game with my friends.
But once again, that's not at all my criticism against Cubicle 7.

"Firstly, by saying that anyone can create campain in no time, you're greatly minimizing the work of the authors of RPGs."

Nice attempted switchback.

"I haven't said that Cubicle 7 should write faster (because it's not a good idea to rush things)..."

Well, you are first to say this. Too which I agree with you on this point.

"but that they should have a better grasp of how long a book will take to hit the shelves (and, as professionals, they should).'

And you have how many years experience in the publishing industry?

"My working schedule is full, i have two wonderful sons of 3 and 2 years and the sparse time i can spend with my group of old friends is important for me..."

And you think I or my group are any different, becasue...?

"Well, i'm a little surprised about your attitude here.'

Believe me I have been continually surprised by the negative attitude offered by some of those posters around here. Dom and guys are gamers doing what they love and they are doing it for gamers. And what do they get for it? Why no more PDFs? Why is Tales late? Why are we not getting that GenCon Special book any more? Why are you guys not more professional? And you say I am showing a negative attitude by defending them? These guys probably put in more hours in a week then most of us other posters; they don't really need you guys continually on their backs all the time. You people have put forth you complaints already...Dom and the guys know you are upset, why can't you just leave it at that? If you guys don't have time to come up with stuff of your own, then I guess you will just have to shelve your respective campaigns for a while until the new stuff comes out. Coming on to the forums and whining isn't going to accomplish anything, except drive the rest of us around the bend.

Because people are different, and what's true for you is not true for others.

That's where we disagree.
Dom and the Cubicle 7's staff may be gamers, they do whatever they want during their free time.
But Cubicle 7 is not a gaming non-profit organisation, it's an edition company. It's a profession (probably not the main job for most of them by the way), not a hobby.

That's also called feedback.
And it's an useful tool (for the company) to know the most important problems and the most important successes.
Criticizing the release schedule is just as important as lauding the goodness of the books.

As far as I've seen, you're the only one to react that way.
Other posters may agree or disagree, but they don't seem as touchy about this subject.

Saying you have a problem with the release schedule once is feed back. What some people around here are doing is called nagging.

As far as I've seen, you're the only one to react that way.
Other posters may agree or disagree, but they don't seem as touchy about this subject.

That is because as business people the C7 staff can't come on here and say what they are really thinking. I know for a fact they are pretty touchy on how some people around here are questioning their professionalism.

You realize that your messages repeatedly saying how wrong we are to point the schedule problem is what's keeping this thread alive ?

I'm sure they are professional enough to answer themselves, in a professional way.

Besides, as said before, I do think you're putting their professionalism in question more than me. Because I treat them here as professionals, while you seems to treat them as some amateurs doing fan-work.

There is something I want to say.

TOR is maybe the best product I have seen in 25 years of gaming.
It was years since I read a game and thought “hell, this is a great idea!”.
I'll bear with the delays. I want to be amazed.

Huh, what? Wow! Really, that is all you have gotten from what I have said? You're the one saying they are doing a professional job?

"but that they should have a better grasp of how long a book will take to hit the shelves (and, as professionals, they should).'

Because, that sure sounds to me like you are calling their professionalism into question with that remark.

Things are getting a little bit too heated here, guys. We appreciate both your enthusiasm and your concerns for the game, but we'd prefer to keep the forums calm and Ent-like.

As regards the release schedule - we're limited in what we can say. The One Ring is a complicated license with a lot of moving parts and levels of approval.

Things are moving forward, though, and as soon as we can say anything concrete, we will shout it from the social rooftops.

Gareth

Well, yes.
I'm not saying they're doing a perfect job (although the books are indeed great), but they are professionals. They're paid for what they're doing, it's pretty much the definition of 'professional'.

Give us a break Beran.

Jon is reading this thread regulary and i can't remeber him or anybody official from Cubicle 7 telling the forum members here not to display our unhappiness with the information on the release schedule or the delays of the products.

I really think this feedback is important for Cubicle 7 and also the information from their customers about their "way of playing" (Are their customers able to play from scratch without official adventures like you told us repeatedly, or do they need help by adventure products?), so the planning of future products is conveniant with the wishes of their customers.

Saying this, i want to express my happiness with the quality of the existing product for the One Ring line and hoping we could stop this discussion here.
Please just accept that not all of us have your LM abilities of imagination and preperation.

As ever i apology for my rather bad english.

It's a pretty short-sighted designer who gets angry at fans for desperately demanding more of their product. I don't know why Beran's ranting, but concern for the designers is not likely anywhere near the priority he claims it is.

I also posted in this thread but I think that the discussion became very emotional now. What I certainly didn't want is to hinder the creativity of people like Jon by writing what I wrote. I now feel the need to write the C7 guys that they should always remember that all of us posted because we love TOR. It can be frustrating to wait but we are only frustrated because we all want to see more of the best game released in many many years!

I second Hirobumi's post. I feel badly that I've mentioned anything about the delays & will act to be more Ent-like (good analogy, BTW Gareth).

I love ToR & will support this game for as long as C7 wants to publish it.

As far as I'm concerned, they're the first company in more than 30 years of my RPG experience that creates a game for Middle-earth the way that I see Tolkien's writing. To paraphrase a certain wizard in Moria, it just "feels right"

Did Jon or any member of the Cubicle 7's staff said his creativity was hindered ?
Or did I miss a message ?

No one likes being called incompetent, but you'll have to try a bit harder than that to hinder our creativity.

It is good to get feedback. It's good to know what people hereabouts are thinking - even when, forgive me, some of the conclusions drawn from incomplete evidence are understandably erroneous.

We know you're cross because you want more TOR goodness, and you want us to be able to be more in depth with updates. We all want pretty much the same things! Gar put it very well in his post:

Oh dear. I started this thread very innocently as an excited and curious customer. I didn't mean for it to degenerated into name calling and complaining. I think everyone should take a step back and let's remember, as Mytholder stated, that TOR is a very complicated license and as such they are limited in what they can say publicly. I for one trust that when they can make a statement about the schedule, they will. I am happy with Jon's statement that news is forthcoming. I can wait.

In the meantime, let's not draw our own conclusions or argue with one another, or call into question anyone's good faith or competence here.

With that, I think this thread has run its course. I am sorry I ignited such a firestorm with such a simple question that I had thought got answered as well as can be expected.

Well, ok then. In another 4 months or so when this topic circles around again, which I am sure it will. I will step back and not say a word in defense of C7 when the whinning and moaning...excuse me, when the "feedback" starts up because some one doesn't have "x" sourcebook the exact minute that it was promised.

In case some may have missed it, here's a bit of a progressand upcoming releases report from Francesco's very own blog:

It's not complete but it does outline two big supplements due out this year.

OK

Reading this thread I am reminded of a verse from "The Road of Kings" by Robert E. Howard:-

"When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat,
The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet;
But now I am a great king, the people hound my track
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back."

I think the point he was making is that success can bring its own trials.

Carry on the great work C7 - I for one am happy to wait. I'd rather have fewer high quality publications, than more rushed ones.

I think most complains were about the sparse informations and not the wish for rushed products.

Warms my heart to see an REH "Conan" quote here.


I'm at least as interested in a resolution to the PDF issue as I am new product. I'm not really interested in hardcopies of RPG materials now, so this is a biggie for me.

Tales from Wilderland gives me a lot of material to work with (and extrapolate from to make new adventures), so I don't *have* to have new product, but it would be fun.

And, hey, I like to give these guys more money.

OOOh that is cool!

So, is there a Conan RPG? I guess I could google it...

There's been a couple of Conan RPGs, but I don't know if any of them are any good.

I have read this post with great interest and to be honest I have experienced most of the emotions other people have felt (excitement, trepidation & frustration). Yes we all want supplements, sourcebooks and adventures and yes it’s frustrating having to wait (as there is a spoilt child in all of us, myself included).

Fact is we have to wait if we want them to maintain the high quality of products they are releasing. This is made even more difficult by sounds of it because the extensive quality control involved with the licensing.

We have been what will be out this year and they have said as updates arrive they will tell us, so let’s show a little patience.

Cheers,

Steve