Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals

[Spica Publishing]

Hi everyone!

We here at Spica Publishing are working hard on our newest book: Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals (a.k.a. "ACER").

This is going to be one outstanding book, containing a shedload of pre-generated NPCs for those times when Refs and players need them fast! Using our unique Character Profile system, each and every NPC has characteristics, a brief career history summary, a Credit balance, skills, equipment and some information about each one!

As usual, our master of CGI, Dave Redington, provides the fantastic art for the cover and interior images and, as is our particular quirk, there are a few famous faces in amongst them!

Without giving too much away, there's much more to this book than just page after page after page of boring NPC stats - this is going to be a must have for your collection.

We're all sure you're going to like this book, so keep an eye on the official Spica Publishing boards and here for further news!

PRE-ORDER OFFER
As with the Nemesis Class Pursuit Ship book, we will be offering a special pre-order deal to customers: pre-order the deadtree, get the pdf from DTRPG for free! We'll announce the closing date for the pre-order period once the book is near completion, and maybe even post a few preview files on the various Traveller boards. Keep a sharp eye out!

Regards

Spica Publishing

 

[lastbesthope]

PRE-ORDER OFFER
As with the Nemesis Class Pursuit Ship book, we will be offering a special pre-order deal to customers: pre-order the deadtree, get the pdf from DTRPG for free! We'll announce the closing date for the pre-order period once the book is near completion, and maybe even post a few preview files on the various Traveller boards. Keep a sharp eye out!

Regards

Spica Publishing

My wallet hates you, but it seems likely that once you announce the preorder on here I'll jump on if the offer is the same. It was well worth it last time.

LBH

 

[kristof65]

I like the idea behind this one - I wasn't so excited about your last offering, but I'll defintely try and take advantage of this one - it's a book I can definitely use.

 

[Spica Publishing]

My wallet hates you,

Nah, it doesn't hate us - it loves us!

but it seems likely that once you announce the preorder on here I'll jump on if the offer is the same. It was well worth it last time.

LBH

Offering the pdf free to customers who pre-order the deadtree seems to be popular and it's certainly something we'd like to keep offering our customers.

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

....except this time, I am *not* staying up all night, tentacles a-flailing, shoving books and stuff into boxes, licking the sticky bits (yes folks - I *personally* licked all the sticky bits on the boxes for the Nemesis books! - Yum!**) and putting on address labels.

Unless I'm told to.



:wink:

(**: that's a lie, btw )

 

[tneva82]

Offering the pdf free to customers who pre-order the deadtree seems to be popular and it's certainly something we'd like to keep offering our customers.

Well PDF+deadtree is bloody useful combo. Both have their uses. IMO all deadtree books should be bundled with PDF copy as a standard but if that's not feasible then atleast offers like these are bloody useful.

Now why you had to do such an interesting looking book when I'm stretched thin with money? Any ideas how much it would cost when mailed to Finland(no need precise sum but rough idea would help).

 

[Spica Publishing]

Now why you had to do such an interesting looking book when I'm stretched thin with money? Any ideas how much it would cost when mailed to Finland(no need precise sum but rough idea would help).

Check your PMs

 

[lastbesthope]

Offering the pdf free to customers who pre-order the deadtree seems to be popular and it's certainly something we'd like to keep offering our customers.

Well PDF+deadtree is bloody useful combo. Both have their uses. IMO all deadtree books should be bundled with PDF copy as a standard but if that's not feasible then atleast offers like these are bloody useful.

Seconded.

LBH

 

[Brutorz Bill]

I'd better hide my wallet from myself as well. This sounds perfect!!

 

[FreeTrav]

Posted to two threads on the Mongoose Traveller boards...

I hope I am not about to see products for Traveller embroiled in legal battles...

On June 5, Spica Publishing announced Allies, Contacts, Enemies, and Rivals, characterizing it as a compilation of NPCs.

On August 1, Skortched Urf' Studios announced Secrets, Contacts, Allies, Rivals, and Enemies, Volume 1, with the series implicitly being a compilation of NPCs (although each volume appears to be an in-depth focus on one NPC).

I am disturbed by the similarity in names and theme, in combination. Epic lawsuits have been made from far less.

I do not want to see my favorite game embroiled in legal battles; I do not want to see companies producing material for my favorite game wasting time and money in the courtroom and on lawyers instead of in their own offices and on editing, printing, and distribution.

Reassure me, please?

 

[captainjack23]

Posted to two threads on the Mongoose Traveller boards...

I hope I am not about to see products for Traveller embroiled in legal battles...

On June 5, Spica Publishing announced Allies, Contacts, Enemies, and Rivals, characterizing it as a compilation of NPCs.

On August 1, Skortched Urf' Studios announced Secrets, Contacts, Allies, Rivals, and Enemies, Volume 1, with the series implicitly being a compilation of NPCs (although each volume appears to be an in-depth focus on one NPC).

I am disturbed by the similarity in names and theme, in combination. Epic lawsuits have been made from far less.

I do not want to see my favorite game embroiled in legal battles; I do not want to see companies producing material for my favorite game wasting time and money in the courtroom and on lawyers instead of in their own offices and on editing, printing, and distribution.

Reassure me, please?

Be reassured. The titles are distinctive enough (I hadn't noted the similarity till you did, actually), and most importantly, the principles haven't made a fuss. OGL + common product for any RPG isn't going to mess up traveller in legalities, unless egos get in the way. Or outside people decide its an issue and keep it going. Not what I'm suggesting you are doing, BTW; but grudges have been manufactured between authors by fans before........even well meaning fans....

 

[Spica Publishing]

I hope I am not about to see products for Traveller embroiled in legal battles...

On June 5, Spica Publishing announced Allies, Contacts, Enemies, and Rivals, characterizing it as a compilation of NPCs.

On August 1, Skortched Urf' Studios announced Secrets, Contacts, Allies, Rivals, and Enemies, Volume 1, with the series implicitly being a compilation of NPCs (although each volume appears to be an in-depth focus on one NPC).

I am disturbed by the similarity in names and theme, in combination. Epic lawsuits have been made from far less.

I do not want to see my favorite game embroiled in legal battles; I do not want to see companies producing material for my favorite game wasting time and money in the courtroom and on lawyers instead of in their own offices and on editing, printing, and distribution.

Reassure me, please?

Thanks for pointing this out, FreeTrav.

Book Title
First off, let's get something completely clear with regards to the use of the words "Contacts", "Allies", "Rivals" and "Enemies": Spica Publishing doesn't own trademarks or copyrights on those individual words, or those words in any particular order except where someone is referencing/talking about Spica Publishing's Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals book. Skortched Urf Studios are quite at liberty to use any words of their choice from the English language in their book titles. Having said that, I would have had a serious, major problem with Skortched Urf Studios product had they called their book "Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals". But they haven't, so I have no concerns about their book's title.

Content
I personally haven't seen or read Skortched Urf Studios' S.C.A.R.E. book beyond what is available to see over at DTRPG. From what I *have* seen and read, there really isn't an issue - S.C.A.R.E. focuses solely on one character and it looks like Skortched Urf have provided a detailed background and information about that one character only and some neat information on how to use the character in your games. On the other hand, A.C.E.R. has 81 full NPCs (stats, skills, life events, equipment and information) and 36 basic NPCs (stats, combat only skills, only combat equipment, no descriptions) for a grand total of 117 NPCs.

My View as a Publisher
As a publisher, I see no issues between Spica Publishing and Skortched urf over the two books (A.C.E.R. and S.C.A.R.E.). I wish Skortched Urth well with their product, which I think is novel and very useful if you need a very detailed NPC for your game. I think what they have produced is a good product - well done, I say, old chaps! A.C.E.R. is quite clearly a very different product (when compared to S.C.A.R.E), providing as it does sets of NPCs ready for use.

In the end, our customers will decide which product they want to buy, based on the usefulness of each company's products to their games, value for money, quality of production and art, availability of product and customer service. So if your a customer and like or need both, buy both. If you only need or want one or the other book, buy whichever book meets your gaming needs.

So I hope the above reassures everyone that the lawsuits aren't going to start flying over this - really, guys, there aren't any issues that I can see.

 

[FreeTrav]

Posted to both the Spica and Skortched Urf' threads...

OK. This pretty much is the sort of reassurance I was looking for, that both companies were aware of what the other was planning/saying, and that neither saw any problems, at least as far as can be determined from the information available at the present time.

I look forward to the actual availability of both products!