Just received word on Tales from Wilderland, in December it should be available for pre-order with an anticipated January release. The anticipation...!

If any of you are following Francesco's blog (which I find quite enjoyable as well as illuminative), he mentioned play-testing Tales. So it is definitely in process; and, here I'm going to wildly speculate, he mentions a certain Men of the Lake heroic culture being play tested as well. Who knows, Tales might add another culture to mix...?

Regards,
E

I sort of wondered why the Lake Men weren't represented in the possible culture choices in the game at release.

Is it just me or doesn't January seem a little late? That's 3-4 months after Game Release... I worry for the future of the game, because I've seen other games that have, maybe not failed but done quite poorly, due to too long a gap between Game and first supplement.

Ideally Players should have something to support actual play (i.e. an Adventure) a maximum of 4 weeks after they buy the game. The Hype is NOW, not in 4 months... it needs to be sustained.

Anyone else feels the same?

Me Personally don't really care because we are playing other games at the moment so we can wait, but there are probably hungry fans out there that want to play more NOW!

/wolf

I think 3 months for the first supplement OK but at the limit. My concern is if it gets delayed, which I don't think is a long shot.

On saying that, where are the TOR dice and TOR GM screen? These should be advertised by now and out within a month of the core set release.

I would definitely like to see some more dice on the market.

I'm enjoying reading the core set books, which I'll finish next week, and second the feeling that the first adventure should be out sooner, ideally for Christmas (won't happen, sadly).
Also, I'd like to get the DM screen, and possibly another set of dice, asap

Yeah I asked my LFGS and he says these things are not any Distributor List for upcomming products yet... seems like they will be even slower.

/wolf

I fear this is the fate of licensed games... I've seen it many, many times (SoIaF, Dr Who, Dragon Age, Serenity, BSG, the list goes on) : core-book, maybe a late supplement or two and then silence.
No blame on the publisher but stuff gets stuck in approval-hell for so long that it becomes irrelevant as players have moved onto other things and retailers lose interest. I hope it doesn't happen of course, but I'm looking to history to manage my expectations.

Wow. What is with all the prophecies of doom? Don't lose Hope! For Despair is a weapon of the Dark Lord!

Let's not forget that though many licensed games do fail and have slow releases, there are others that live on for years and gain great success. It's a big jump, though, to say that the only reason a licensed game is successful or not is due to its release schedule.

Is the release schedule as important to the success of a game as the game itself? In my humble opinion, the examples noted above all suffer from the same two issues: 1) their fan base is not as large as LotR, and 2) the game systems simply weren't as good as TOR. Also, the approach of those games often did not lend well to further adventures in their respective worlds, whereas TOR does precisely that through a number of design decisions (in particular the choice of initial setting). And, again IMHO, TOR is simply a better game system than those mentioned above.

Let's look at a few licensed systems that have done well:

1) Star Wars - HUGE fan base. Has had success in the industry since 1987. Has sold multiple editions. The approach by WEG was to focus on the outer rim and peripheral areas, allowing GMs to run games in the same sandbox but without focusing on the core story. WotC took a different approach to this, but they still sold a TON of books. And, Saga Edition has garnered a LOT of critical acclaim. WotC has unusually high sales expectations due to their parent company (Hasbro) and, as such, decided to drop the line... but it was IMMEDIATELY swept up by another large publisher in the industry. It's clearly a desired commodity.

2) Lord of the Rings - HUGE fan base. Has had success in the industry since 1984. Has sold multiple editions. The approach by ICE was to focus on peripheral timelines and geographic s, allowing GMS to run games in the same sandbox but without focusing on the core story. After ICE lost the license it was immediately swept up by a (at that time) large publisher in the industry. The Decipher game admittedly had some major problems, but release schedules were only some: 1) the head designer left before completion of the game (Steven Long), 2) this caused the core book to be delayed for almost a year after the release of the first movie, 3) the system focused primarily on the core activities in the stories, limited to no focus on peripheral geography or timeline, 4) the mechanics of the system were half-baked (again probably due to losing the lead designer about half way through the project) and the system is *almost* universally recognized as problematic, and 5) IMO, the world was shoe-horned into the CODA game system rather than having the system designed around Tolkien's works. TOR suffers from none of these problems.

I respect your point of view about release schedules. I agree that they can impact a game, but not to the same degree as being attributed in this thread. I also wish that we could get our hands on more TOR product from C7 because I totally LOVE THIS GAME!!! Certainly not because I'm afraid it will fail.

C7 is a successful and respected publisher in this industry. I have confidence that they will handle this license with the care and respect it deserves. Further, TOR is an outstanding system and I have no reason to believe that it will be anything but successful for C7.

Only for the record: MERP supplemets were published already from 1982 onward. Curiously, first there were some supplements (describing a number of regions as adventure backgrounds) before the core rules were first published in 1984.

But that does not have anything to do with C7's supplement policy and whether it is good or bad

Best
Tolwen

I am also worrying about the game. It would have been strategically sensible to offer dice-sets with the core release. I think EVERYBODY would have ordered some extra dice. Same goes for the screen. I am living in Germany. I will most likely not order a screen or a dice-set in the UK. These are typical "add it to my order" products. It seems to me that Cubicle doesn't have a real long term plan.

Hey all,
I just heard some news about dice sets, and at the risk of getting a slapped wrist via phone call shortly after hitting "post" I shall share.

Ok, so the uptake of licenses to translate the game, and subsequent orders of those translations was way higher than anticipated. Which consequently sucked up a huge number of dice sets - way more were needed to cover core sets than anyone had imagined.

Whilst this has proved deeply inconvenient in terms of getting more sets to our players right away, which was the original plan, it does mean a lot of people are buying into the game, which is clearly a massive positive.

An extra shipment of dice was ordered some time ago and is well underway. Look out for them being made available soon.

Work on supplements is progressing very well from my own somewhat limited perspective. I know the following is of limited credibility since I'm speaking from within the company, but Tales from Wilderland is bloomin' good. And the screen will come with some really cool stuff too that I really can't talk about.

This is good news. Hopefully, there'll be some extra dice sets available at IndieCon and I can pick up a couple there. Glad to hear that the game has proven to be popular.

Await further news on the release of Tales from the Wilderland.

Outstanding News!!! Any idea on a "general" timeframe when the GM screen will be released?

And just for the record, put me down for 4 sets of dice!

I'll check what I'm allowed to say about the release date of the screen. It is in production, it is happening, it is looking good, I can't wait to get my hands on one myself, especially the included material that will come with it. So please, as long as your patience will allow, make like Beorn* and bear with us.



*That was appalling. I'm sorry.