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windsurfjunkie wrote:

Sprigg wrote:The limited scope and lack of playable cultures almost turned me and my group off of the game, so I'm really glad to see Rohan and Eriador coming soon!

I must be misreading this. How is there a lack of playable cultures? Woodmen, Beornings, Dwarves, Bardings, Elves, Hobbits? Limited scope?- Wilderland with an extensive and detailed landscape? I must be misreading this? Who is this Loremaster?

cheers

Two ways of reading it: 6 cultures, is a lot fewer options than many RPGs which have X races times Y classes. Not saying it's right or wrong, but a lot of players want lots of options.

Alternately, it could simply mean "Lack of Dunedain and Rohirrim == too few options".

I don't agree with that sentiment, nor apparently do you, but that doesn't make it wrong or bad.

I suppose it's safe to assume that the dice sets will be made available again?
With the slipcase (and included dice) going out of print, we'll need those dice more than ever!

As for everything else: Wow I'm excited! I had really wanted to expand into Eriador next, and the Adventurer's Companion is more than I could have hoped for. As a retailer, I'll keep holding out hope for a beginner's box set of some sort, but as a gamer, I couldn't be more pleased!

I might as well throw it out there.

By 'Summer', do you mean the last week of August/first week of September?

Evening wrote:I might as well throw it out there.

By 'Summer', do you mean the last week of August/first week of September?

We mean the season of summer.

windsurfjunkie wrote: I must be misreading this. How is there a lack of playable cultures? Woodmen, Beornings, Dwarves, Bardings, Elves, Hobbits? Limited scope?- Wilderland with an extensive and detailed landscape? I must be misreading this? Who is this Loremaster?

cheers

I think it is based on the lack of the more popular cultures (ie Gondor, Rohan, all varity of Elves, etc.) Personally, I kind of agree with the this POV. When my group picked up TOR as our game I really wasn't interested in any of the cultures and thought the Wilderland devoid of story possibilities. I still find the cultures limited, but with supplements like DoM I can see the story potential.

Jon Hodgson wrote:

Evening wrote:I might as well throw it out there.

By 'Summer', do you mean the last week of August/first week of September?

We mean the season of summer.

WHICH HEMISPHERE!!?!?!?!?!

/kidding

My Guess.

Summer means probably out for Gencon but it could be September for anyone who doesn't get it there.
Fall/Autumn means probably out for Xmas 2014.
Winter means probably out this time in 2015 (as March 1 is the first day of meteorological Spring).

The Summer stuff is probably out of approval and we'll see a PDF pre-order in maybe Late June/early July when the files go to the printer.
The Autumn/Fall stuff is probably in final changes/alterations for approval. Similarly for the Winter material.

My suspicion is that C7 spread the love over 12 months so that no children go hungry as Dad buys all the latest TOR material. We'll probably not hear cries of "I wanted an XBox for Christmas Dad, not some crummy game that you play with your friends."

My suspicion is that C7 spread the love over 12 months so that no children go hungry as Dad buys all the latest TOR material. We'll probably not hear cries of "I wanted an XBox for Christmas Dad, not some crummy game that you play with your friends."

Dad's doing it wrong. Speaking as a 19 year old, I'd definitely rather have all the TOR stuff

The planning looks really tasty, I can't wait giving you my money ! ^^
But honestly, I don't really think you'll keep the planning. That's quite the weakn point of C7.

Regarding the 'playable cultures' in the core book criticism, I think it's reasonably obvious that the main point of reference in the core is The Hobbit. The cultures available (and the geography detailed) are the ones from that book, rather than Lord of The Rings.

The issue is that, despite the recent Hobbit movies being released, most fans' frame of reference is actually in the LotR Trilogy movies - so people have been wanting things like Gondor, Rohan and Riverdale, etc for a long while.

I think the original plan was to do separate games that brought out different aspects of Middle Earth each time (an approach used in FFG's W40K and Star Wars titles), but this was abandoned as the creators didn't feel justified in creating a new rulebook each time. However, there is now a revised core book on the schedule and the previous references to The Hobbit have largely been brought to a head through the Darkening of Mirkwood Campaign. It looks as if the design crew are starting to move on to the material provided in the first one or two books of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, instead. Expect things to get epic in the next year or so.

The other point to note is that it looks as if The One Ring line is starting to move at last. There were huge delays in the Doctor Who line about a year or so ago too - but fans have become much more satisfied as they began to release books in a more regular fashion. I feel Cubicle 7 are about to do the same with the One Ring line now, and that can only be good news.

I'll probably buy the hardback myself, and get pdfs of other titles. I don't get many hardcopy games now, but I would imagine it will be quite handsome. I've no problem with the slipcase design, which was also luxurious - although I have come across a few of the soft-covers that got ripped or damaged over time - while having just one book with a comprehensive index is easier to use. Hardbacks are still the most robust design. More dice sets made readily available would be nice though.

I may even persuade some players to start a campaign (we do play Doctor Who quite regularly now, mainly as a one shot game), alongside traditional favorites (D&D, Traveller, RQ, CoC, etc). Assuming the rules are tidied a little bit and the release schedule is held to, the only real criticism left is that compared to other fantasy RPGs there isn't much of an option to play Wizard characters, still. The only other fantasy rpg that which does't really allow for Wizard PCs for canon reasons is Pendragon - which admittedly is esteemed company - but players still ask about being able to play Gandalf.