Anyone received their Black Missions preorder yet?

[Danforth]

Hi,

just wondering if any other UK-based Paranoia fans who pre-ordered Black Missions direct from Mongoose have received it yet.

I understand the printers only just delivered the stock in time for Gen Con, so that was the book's first sighting in the wild. Can I presume now that Mail Order are back in the dungeons sending out the preorders?

I preordered to make 100% sure I would get a copy, not to receive it first, but I'm slightly nonplussed to see some retailers advertising copies with free postage & packing, which I could theoretically receive this week before my £6 (oof!) P&P direct order. I guess I gambled and shouldn't grumble that it was unneccessary.. but still... grumblegrumblegrumble

Maybe once we do receive our copies this can turn into a cheery appreciation thread and not a polite request with a hint of whinge

 

[MongooseMatt]

I was just about to post an update on this!

All Black Missions are now on their way to their owners. UK-based Troubleshooters can expect to see their copy on Friday or Saturday (though there is no accounting for the Royal Mail, so be patient. . .), with Europeans seeing theirs next week.

US Troubleshooters had their copies sent out a couple of days ago, so their arrival should be imminent.

 

[Elrick]

I received mine via Leisure Games yesterday.

 

[Danforth]

Mine arrived this morning!

First impressions...

Cover is smart. Like it.

Text is streamlined compared to the 2004 edition, but doesn't seem the worse for it. Some rules have been simplified, which obviously drops the page count, and some of the lesser fluff (i.e. great levels of detail on service firms) has been dropped. No worries.

No real distinction between Red and Ultraviolet sections. Maybe this is an acknowledgement that anyone who buys the bloody thing is going to read it all! So this is a minor gripe really.

Editing / production quality: considerable improvement. Mongoose have made a big thing over the past year or so of improving editorial and design, so I'm pleased to say it has paid off. Little tweaks to the established Paranoia style sheet, all of which work. Art is also cleanly and clearly printed, which is more than you can say for the 2004 rulebook which had jagged edges, random low-res imagery, and a scruffy look in places.

HOWEVER. That (cleanly printed) art is... not to my taste. Secret Society icons etc. are fine, but the internal art smacks horribly of post-Secret Society Wars 2nd edition. Far too zany. Of course, Jim Holloway's work is an acquired taste and the new art definitely looks... slicker. Maybe Mongoose (or Rebellion) feel this direction will improve things.

Two missions are included: classic Robot Imana (yaaay!) and new The Quantum Traitor. Nice to see more than one included.

Several new mutations folded in from The Mutant Experience... no problem there. Conversely the Secret Society details are as brief as the 2004 edition, so maybe we'll see a reborn Traitor's Manual somewhere along the line. Hope so.

Overall, this is indeed a light update of the 2004 rulebook. Well done Mongoose for not invalidating that rules set, it's a fan-friendly decision that should placate people who got cross when the last batch of supplements got delayed so much they were only in print for seven minutes before they all got yanked for the 2009 edition

Going to look at the bundled CD now...

 

[Gentleman John]

Mine also arrived this morning. The rulebook is suffering from many of the editing and layout problems that have plagued the last few releases in the Paranoia series. The most obvious of these are the failure to put adequate spacing between entries in tables and changing fonts in mid-heading. Hopefully these problems can be sorted out before Troubleshooters hits the streets.

I have also checked the disc in the back of the book. I am glad that I made the decision to buy MS Office for my Mac as you need Powerpoint to see what the different sound samples are. Yes, I know I can listen to them; but with over 150 samples in .wav format it is impossible to tell what they are from the names given to them. If you are a Windows user then you get a Powerpoint viewer to use, but it is for Windows only - as is the screensaver. While I had guessed that it would be the case that some of the features on the bonus disc would be Windows only, I am disappointed that Mongoose would not answer my questions on OS compatibility, despite asking a number of times on the forums and to Mongoose direct. However, the pdf files are pdf files and can be read by any version of Acrobat.

I appreciate Windows users outnumber OS X users by about 10-to-1, but it is possible to create OS-neutral files (.mp3 instead of .wav, HTML instead of Powerpoint, etc).

However, these gripes do not significantly detract from a fine product. I am looking forward to being able to intimidate a new generation of players at the various cons.

 

[Danforth]

Yes, I was a bit surprised to see Powerpoint used for the menu system - and I'm a Windows user. You can access the files directly, but I agree the audio file names are less than useful without the presentational wrapper.

Do you know how hard it was typing that without either a) lapsing into Alpha Complex computer-incompatibility denialspeak or b) Mac user baiting? I hope you readers appreciate my fortitude

Interesting that you find the layout errors glaring, Gentleman John. I haven't found any yet (a few compressed pages maybe, but then I hate arty whitespace ) Going to flick through again now, with sharper eyes...

Other CD stuff: The PDFs are worth the Black Missions price alone! Fifteen of the twenty(ish) 2004 book line, missing only the 2004 rules, Flashbacks 1&2 and Stuff 1&2. Some of the covers are low res, but I guess this is an anti-piracy measure - the actual internal pages are good quality, and look lovely on the big monitor I have here. Good to see little things like the missing citizen dossier in Extreme Paranoia have been fixed... sad to see the missing illustrations in Service, Service! are still missing - I guess they never even arrived!

It's a shame they couldn't get the Stuff books cleared for inclusion... perhaps there were one too many 2004-era rules entanglements to work out? Or maybe it's a rights thing. That's the most likely explanation for the Flashbacks books being omitted too... though I would argue that, after five well-received years (printing shenanigans aside!) the Mongoose line can be promoted more on its own merits, and maybe doesn't need the 2nd edition reprints front and centre in the product line.

 

[Gentleman John]

Yes, I was a bit surprised to see Powerpoint used for the menu system - and I'm a Windows user. You can access the files directly, but I agree the audio file names are less than useful without the presentational wrapper.

Do you know how hard it was typing that without either a) lapsing into Alpha Complex computer-incompatibility denialspeak or b) Mac user baiting? I hope you readers appreciate my fortitude

We only wish to live in peace, as defined in the Official Alpha Complex Dictionary and Thesaurus (Year 214 edition).

Interesting that you find the layout errors glaring, Gentleman John. I haven't found any yet (a few compressed pages maybe, but then I hate arty whitespace ) Going to flick through again now, with sharper eyes...

Considering I work as a technical author and company editor, as well as having edited a few gaming products, I look at these things with a professional eye. Headings where the tails of characters are cut off; the afore-mentioned table spacing problem; sometimes full-justifying the text in minor headings and table columns, sometimes not ("Do or do not do" - Yoda's First Law of Typesetting); leaving out line-spacings; white space on pages ...

*Sigh*

Sometimes I have to switch off the critical faculties to enjoy a book

 

[Danforth]

Headings where the tails of characters are cut off; the afore-mentioned table spacing problem; sometimes full-justifying the text in minor headings and table columns, sometimes not ("Do or do not do" - Yoda's First Law of Typesetting); leaving out line-spacings; white space on pages ...

*Sigh*

Sometimes I have to switch off the critical faculties to enjoy a book

It sure would be great if you could do that, some sort of switch for shutting down bits of your brain so you can just simply enjoy stuff and not be in "work mode" all the time. Like if you're in the doctor's waiting room, and all there is to read is back issues of Heat.

Actually, such a device could be a great story driver in Paranoia... hmm, think I just started planning my first 2009 Edition mission!

Back on topic... so, The Computer speaks in an English accent! Any of the Mongooses (Mongeese??) care to put their hand up as the Voice(s) of Utopia? The delivery is pretty close to how I've always had The Computer speak, which is good. They didn't go overboard with a vocoder or anything. Not sure how I'd use these, but good to have the option...

The Sound Bank I can see as being more useful, though I'd probably take the sound files and run them through some changes and loops, then use them as ambient background soundtrack rather than run them on command.

Back to the menu... I may well just write myself an HTML alternative to the Powerpoint one Mongoose provided! If I do, and if Mongoose don't mind, I'll share it with other forumites who have Macs or hate Microsoft on principle (two groups which, when taken together, are numerous indeed).

 

[MongooseMatt]

Back on topic... so, The Computer speaks in an English accent!

Was there ever any doubt?

Any of the Mongooses (Mongeese??) care to put their hand up as the Voice(s) of Utopia? The delivery is pretty close to how I've always had The Computer speak, which is good. They didn't go overboard with a vocoder or anything. Not sure how I'd use these, but good to have the option...

The male voice is a voice actor used by Rebellion - Charlie isn't here today, but she will have his name.

The female voice. . . is S&P (and Paranoia, for that matter) editor Charlotte herself!

Back to the menu... I may well just write myself an HTML alternative to the Powerpoint one Mongoose provided! If I do, and if Mongoose don't mind, I'll share it with other forumites who have Macs or hate Microsoft on principle (two groups which, when taken together, are numerous indeed).

By all means!

 

[Gentleman John]

Back to the menu... I may well just write myself an HTML alternative to the Powerpoint one Mongoose provided! If I do, and if Mongoose don't mind, I'll share it with other forumites who have Macs or hate Microsoft on principle (two groups which, when taken together, are numerous indeed).

Please do.

 

[Danforth]

Back to the menu... I may well just write myself an HTML alternative to the Powerpoint one Mongoose provided! If I do, and if Mongoose don't mind, I'll share it with other forumites who have Macs or hate Microsoft on principle (two groups which, when taken together, are numerous indeed).

Please do.

By all means!

Very well, I shall I'll start properly next week, though I've had a quick blast at the front page already - the links all fit in an 800x600 window (i.e. even if some of the extraneous graphics are offscreen at this rez, the page is fully functional) and if you narrow the browser to a couple hundred pixels wide, everything shuffles down into one vertical column. This way you can run it as a "sidebar" and have your PDFs etc. open in the rest of the screen - useful if you're GMing games from your laptop, as I intend to do.

Let's go back to talking about Black Missions, and I'll start a new thread for the HTML menu once it's gotten further

I espy the hand of Hanrahan in one passage that made me laugh out loud: page 164, on example service services for PLC...
"Someone, somewhere received something he should not have... 16 tons of sweaty dynamite plus a crate of self-propelled, voice-activated cigarette lighters with the enamelled motto 'Fire Is Our Servant!'" Stuff like that makes me want to go and start running this game right now.

 

[Allen Varney]

It's a shame they couldn't get the Stuff books cleared for inclusion... perhaps there were one too many 2004-era rules entanglements to work out? Or maybe it's a rights thing. That's the most likely explanation for the Flashbacks books being omitted too.

There are no rights issues regarding any of the Mongoose PARANOIA material. All rights to all the published material reside with the original designers, Dan Gelber, Greg Costikyan, and Eric Goldberg.

I wasn't part of the discussion regarding the .PDFs included on the CD-ROM, so I can't address the contents list, but rights were not a factor.

 

[broken serenity]

got my copy today, havent had chance to look trhough it yet but im probably gonna leave the sounds effects stuff alone since my pc currently dosent have sound due to a motherboard glitch that i cant seem to track down the pdf files on the other hand im definitely gonna have to start reading as soon as i get chance. Cool product guys and well worth the wait.

 

[lastbesthope]

Was in my FLGS at open doors this morning, they had a copy and despite not really being able to afford it I bought it anyway. Looks good but I'm away in Glasgow for a stag do this weekend so I won't be able to look at it until next weekend.

LBH

 

[broken serenity]

ive noticed that the character sheet is abit to closly bound into the book so that it wont photocopy properly, any chance you could put a pdf of the sheet up on the site eventually? also the cd was a little bit too glued to the back cover and i practically destroyed the envelope it came in getting it out, luckily i have a couple spare sleeves for the cd so alls well.

 

[lastbesthope]

ive noticed that the character sheet is abit to closly bound into the book so that it wont photocopy properly, any chance you could put a pdf of the sheet up on the site eventually? also the cd was a little bit too glued to the back cover and i practically destroyed the envelope it came in getting it out, luckily i have a couple spare sleeves for the cd so alls well.

It looks the same as the XP Edition charsheet to me, which is available here:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/paracharsheet.pdf

Assuming it isn't on the disc somewhere.

BTW, is it a CD-ROm or a DVD-ROM in the back of the book?

LBH

 

[MarkNorfolk]

Just got my copy (all the way down here in Oz) and very pleased I am too - I haven't read a Paranoia book since 'Fifth' Edition. Laughed at the writing style, frowned (briefly) at the formatting errors. This is going to get me demoing again for MGP.

Cheers
Mark

 

[Danforth]

It looks the same as the XP Edition charsheet to me, which is available here:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/paracharsheet.pdf
Assuming it isn't on the disc somewhere.

Doesn't seem to be, but I expect it will show up as a download on the website soon.

BTW, is it a CD-ROm or a DVD-ROM in the back of the book?

It's a CD-ROM, with about 480 megabytes of stuff.

 

[lastbesthope]

It looks the same as the XP Edition charsheet to me, which is available here:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/paracharsheet.pdf
Assuming it isn't on the disc somewhere.

Doesn't seem to be, but I expect it will show up as a download on the website soon.

That's what I'm trying to say, it is on the website at the link I posted, the one from the XP edition is the same as far as I can tell as the one from the new edition.

And thanks for the info on the format of the disc.

LBH

 

[Arkku]

I got mine on Tuesday (I'm in Finland), and I haven't had time to read it through yet, but some first impressions:

- The cover is very nice, smooth “satin” black with glossy text and computer logo. Elegant.

- There are formatting errors, but nothing too serious. Unfortunately the same types of errors seem to plague pretty much all products of the Mongoose Paranoia line. (Edit: As I read more of the book, the more and more formatting errors I find. Spacing of punctuation seems to be off almost as a rule rather than an exception, and the formatting of some tables is quite atrocious. It's also interesting that the previously two-page MBD determination test is now four pages with no new material and less readability.)

- The illustrations are bad, but fortunately they are quite scarce. And less than half of them are annoyingly bad, the rest are just something ignored. Too bad there doesn't seem to be a single good illustration in there—doesn't bode well for the future if this is the artist doing the upcoming products as well (IntSec, etc). Personally I think a completely unillustrated book would be better than this.

- The rules themselves seem to be well-condensed. I would have preferred the more complicated treason system from the XP edition, but other than that I haven't spotted anything I miss. It's also useful that more info has been condensed into the main rulebook, instead of being spread out over multiple supplements.

(Meanwhile the descriptions of secret societies still carry those silly “recognition signals” copied from the DOA Sector Travelogue. At least that book presented them as being specific to the DOA sector… Ah, well, obviously they can be ignored, and they are not as glaringly out of place in a Classic-styled book as they were in the more Straight previous edition.)


Authorship of the new rules seems unclear: the book itself lists Allen Varney as the writer/scapegoat and Gareth Hanrahan only as “additional material” (for reactor shielding?) while the Mongoose website lists him as the author of this edition. Was so much of the material written by Allen Varney that he retains the credit even though Gareth Hanrahan re-shaped it, or did they forget to change the credit?


In any case, I'd say the primary reason to buy this, for someone already owning the previous edition(s), is the CD-ROM. Otherwise it seems like a slimmed-down downgrade of the previous edition. (Edit: It also seems somewhat unnecessary, but I guess the primary reason for putting it out in the first place is to fit in the new line-up with IntSec and Ultraviolet. I just really, really wish they'd have paid some more attention to layout and illustration.)

For new players/GMs this looks like an excellent place to start, except for breaking the tradition of illustrations by Jim Holloway. (Edit: To clarify; I don't think this edition is better for new players than the previous edition, but may be seen as offering more value in a single book.)