A Complaint: Warped Covers

Wolverine

Wolverine

Mongoose
I'm making my complaint in public, as I feel that others may wish to add their voice to it. My complaint is about the warped covers, a problem that was said to be resolved months ago, yet still seems to be a major issue. I have recently bought two books, the Game Master's Handbook for RuneQuest, and the Elric Companion. Both arrived with warped covers. This is a little frustrating, as it not only annoying, but compared to the production values of previous Mongoose books before they started printing their own, it's abysmal. It's beginning to tarnish Mongoose's reputation.

I feel that Mongoose needs to employ someone who can be placed in charge of quality control, someone who has a lot of experience in printing. Otherwise, no matter what Mongoose say or do, the problems which should have been sorted out months ago will come back to haunt them time and time again.
 
Wolverine said:
I'm making my complaint in public, as I feel that others may wish to add their voice to it. My complaint is about the warped covers, a problem that was said to be resolved months ago, yet still seems to be a major issue. I have recently bought two books, the Game Master's Handbook for RuneQuest, and the Elric Companion. Both arrived with warped covers. This is a little frustrating, as it not only annoying, but compared to the production values of previous Mongoose books before they started printing their own, it's abysmal. It's beginning to tarnish Mongoose's reputation.

I feel that Mongoose needs to employ someone who can be placed in charge of quality control, someone who has a lot of experience in printing. Otherwise, no matter what Mongoose say or do, the problems which should have been sorted out months ago will come back to haunt them time and time again.
Click to expand...
 
Wolverine said:
I'm making my complaint in public, as I feel that others may wish to add their voice to it. My complaint is about the warped covers, a problem that was said to be resolved months ago, yet still seems to be a major issue. I have recently bought two books, the Game Master's Handbook for RuneQuest, and the Elric Companion. Both arrived with warped covers. This is a little frustrating, as it not only annoying, but compared to the production values of previous Mongoose books before they started printing their own, it's abysmal. It's beginning to tarnish Mongoose's reputation.

I feel that Mongoose needs to employ someone who can be placed in charge of quality control, someone who has a lot of experience in printing. Otherwise, no matter what Mongoose say or do, the problems which should have been sorted out months ago will come back to haunt them time and time again.
Click to expand...

I agree this issue seems to be getting long past a joke.
 
As of this week, we have dropped the production of books in our own facility, and have returned to our original systems - we'll be making a fuller announcement on this in a few days,
 
msprange said:
As of this week, we have dropped the production of books in our own facility, and have returned to our original systems - we'll be making a fuller announcement on this in a few days,
Click to expand...
You're a bit unsteady in the last time, hm? :wink:
 
Magistus said:
Please say that even though you are doing this, the books will be more than 96 pages long.
Click to expand...

They will - there will be no change to the size of the books, or the flexibility we can give them in terms of page counts.
 
Maybe I have been lucky but of all of the mongoose books that I have brought since they did their in house printing, about 15, only one has had a warped cover and that was not so bad that the book was ruined.
 
msprange said:
As of this week, we have dropped the production of books in our own facility, and have returned to our original systems - we'll be making a fuller announcement on this in a few days,
Click to expand...

That explains why the next ACTA tourney is back at Mongoose Hall then, if the printers aren't there there will be plenty of room.

LBH
 
msprange said:
They will - there will be no change to the size of the books, or the flexibility we can give them in terms of page counts.
Click to expand...
Will you have them printed in UK or elsewhere?
 
msprange said:
As of this week, we have dropped the production of books in our own facility, and have returned to our original systems - we'll be making a fuller announcement on this in a few days,
Click to expand...

Does this mean we can get replacements for books with warped covers as before, but with the new printed books? The books before Mongoose started publishing them themselves were of a much higher standard.
 
Swampy said:
Maybe I have been lucky but of all of the mongoose books that I have brought since they did their in house printing, about 15, only one has had a warped cover and that was not so bad that the book was ruined.
Click to expand...

I have not bought an "In House" Mongoose book where the front and back covers lie parallel. None of them are dreadfully bad, and none of them have fallen apart, but it is noticable on all of them. As I said elsewhere, when my GM's Guide came with a free Legendary Heroes, I didn't need to open the covers to see which one was printed in the UK and which in China...

My other niggle is that the pages could do with moving further towards the outside margin. Looking at the GM's guide again, the "outside" margin is quite wide, while the inside margin is very narrow - although none of the text actually vanishes into the binding, it does get close to it - reducing the outside margin by half would make the book so much more readable, and since you wouldn''t need to strain the spine to read it, so much sturdier.

Unfortunately it seems that Mongoose approached printing the same way they approached producing the rules themselves - rush them out in an unfinished state, then polish them up afterwards. I can't help thinking that a little more attention to detail and quality control up front would have ended up saving them money in the long run...
 
I was wondering about badly damaged books. I just bought Clanking City and, when I removed it from the plastic wrapper, the book fell out from the covers and then separated into several folios upon impact with the carpet.

It's a great book - if a bit short - but at the moment, a touch difficult to read.

Jeff
 
A little it would seem, check what Matt says here about Dark Passions:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=489179#489179

LBH
 
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