Crowded Hours

[Treebore]

I will do that. I cannot for the sake of me understand people releasing substandard products. Its happening a heck of a lot lately, especially in the PC Gaming market. And now for my beloved Traveller as well. Whatever next? Perhaps the recession has a lot to do with it - people becoming desperate to stay in business. I still think it is very sad.

I really don't believe it is substandard - I have been using the book myself (the adventures really are very good).

However, we guarantee all of our books, and if you pick this one up and are in any way unhappy with it, contact us. We will always work until you are happy with the result - there should be no risk to you in buying any of our products.

I am sorry Matt, but I don't pay $40 for a book that looks bad. I have yet to physically see this book, but if I agree with the other guys I simply will not be buying it. Having me contact you to make me happy after the purchase is not the way to get me to buy your products, to sell me a product I like from the first moment is the way to do it.

So far I haven't agreed with the majority of criticisms about your products, I have not found the errors game breaking, etc... but if I find that I agree about the lay out in this book or a future product I will stop buying. I will not contact you to "make me happy", you have to do that when I look at the book.

So please, get your priorities straight. Because if I stop buying Traveller I will stop buying Judge Dredd and the other titles too.

 

[TrippyHippy]

So please, get your priorities straight. Because if I stop buying Traveller I will stop buying Judge Dredd and the other titles too.

There is nothing wrong with the Judge Dredd layout.

 

[AKAmra]

I will do that. I cannot for the sake of me understand people releasing substandard products. Its happening a heck of a lot lately, especially in the PC Gaming market. And now for my beloved Traveller as well. Whatever next? Perhaps the recession has a lot to do with it - people becoming desperate to stay in business. I still think it is very sad.

I really don't believe it is substandard - I have been using the book myself (the adventures really are very good).

However, we guarantee all of our books, and if you pick this one up and are in any way unhappy with it, contact us. We will always work until you are happy with the result - there should be no risk to you in buying any of our products.

I am sorry Matt, but I don't pay $40 for a book that looks bad. I have yet to physically see this book, but if I agree with the other guys I simply will not be buying it. Having me contact you to make me happy after the purchase is not the way to get me to buy your products, to sell me a product I like from the first moment is the way to do it.

So far I haven't agreed with the majority of criticisms about your products, I have not found the errors game breaking, etc... but if I find that I agree about the lay out in this book or a future product I will stop buying. I will not contact you to "make me happy", you have to do that when I look at the book.

So please, get your priorities straight. Because if I stop buying Traveller I will stop buying Judge Dredd and the other titles too.

Your making the, "I'm going to stop buying your stuff" threat about a book you haven't even seen? If your such a great customer then you've already bought a lot of books that were satisfactory, why the sudden concern?

I kind of see the Avenger stuff as psudo-third party anyways. Avenger may not have the money for top notch layout, but they have excellent content - second to none in my opinion. If the choice is having the book with less then stellar layout vs. not having the book at all - I'll take the book.

Besides, this threat has no teeth, the book is already out. There's nothing Matt can do. You'll either be satisfied with it and continue to buy stuff, or you'll not like it and stop - done deal.

 

[Trantor]

...There's nothing Matt can do. You'll either be satisfied with it and continue to buy stuff, or you'll not like it and stop - done deal.

That's not right - of course there is a lot that can be done.

If we buy our next Traveller book, it can have a decent layout (I don't expect award winning stuff, just normal state of the art), clear - nice and logical illustrations and deck plans, usable maps, maybe those tidbits as free download to simplify gamemastering, and a professional finishing/testing of the complete content. That's why I started this thread. OK, it might take more than the few hours Crowded Hour took for layout.

If Mongoose does not know how to do this (I guess they do, but still), I am willing to help.

Every other professional (!) rpg producer does it, so it can't be this difficult And - their products aren't more expensive than this one.

Actually, Mongoose can do it - I have a shelf (I count RPG books in "billys" - IKEA customers know what I mean - Mongoose is about half a billy) of material with their logo on it - Some are really good presented, some are sub-standard and a few are worse (Most are printed too dark, but this is another problem).

Again: this is just about the physical presentation and usability of the printed adventures, not about their quality. Why it matters? If you go to the movies, you enjoy a good movie better if your cinema has stereo/digital/3D/whatever, clean and nice seats, a good ale and cheap popcorn and if the presentation of the movie is flawless and sharp. If the picture is blurry, the sound mono and bad, the seat crap, you think twice about going to this cinema again, no matter how good the movie is you want to see.

 

[nats]

Certainly I aint going to stop buying their Traveller stuff the variable quality making me have to check each book carefully beforehand that makes it a bit of a pain.

Mongoose did a great job of Central Supply Catalogue thats for sure - great content, well laid out and succinct, nice hard cover, great illustrations. Thats probably my favourite of the Mongoose publications to date. But most havent been too bad and I havent noticed too much errata. Its just the odd one that fails to hit the mark that is bringing the overall standard down. Thats why I say its a shame.

It would be nice to be able to start trusting a good product from them every time - something that is packed with useful info, is very useful for gaming, that is good value for money (ie isnt a ripoff), is clear and concise in content that has been well checked over for errata prior to publishing, and is illustrated well with a great cover. I dont feel that is too much to ask.

 

[AKAmra]

...There's nothing Matt can do. You'll either be satisfied with it and continue to buy stuff, or you'll not like it and stop - done deal.

That's not right - of course there is a lot that can be done.

If we buy our next Traveller book, it can have a decent layout (I don't expect award winning stuff, just normal state of the art), clear - nice and logical illustrations and deck plans, usable maps, maybe those tidbits as free download to simplify gamemastering, and a professional finishing/testing of the complete content. That's why I started this thread. OK, it might take more than the few hours Crowded Hour took for layout.

If Mongoose does not know how to do this (I guess they do, but still), I am willing to help.

Every other professional (!) rpg producer does it, so it can't be this difficult And - their products aren't more expensive than this one.

Actually, Mongoose can do it - I have a shelf (I count RPG books in "billys" - IKEA customers know what I mean - Mongoose is about half a billy) of material with their logo on it - Some are really good presented, some are sub-standard and a few are worse (Most are printed too dark, but this is another problem).

Again: this is just about the physical presentation and usability of the printed adventures, not about their quality. Why it matters? If you go to the movies, you enjoy a good movie better if your cinema has stereo/digital/3D/whatever, clean and nice seats, a good ale and cheap popcorn and if the presentation of the movie is flawless and sharp. If the picture is blurry, the sound mono and bad, the seat crap, you think twice about going to this cinema again, no matter how good the movie is you want to see.

Bad form Trantor, you edited my post and responded out of context. My response was to Treebore's post where he states that he will stop buying Traveller if THIS book has the described poor layout. Since the book is already out there is nothing Matt can do (if he wanted to).

 

[Trantor]

oops - sorry, no offense meant.

I guess I took "Besides, this threat has no teeth, the book is already out. There's nothing Matt can do." out of context AND used the wrong part of the lines to quote.

 

[AKAmra]

oops - sorry, no offense meant.

I guess I took "Besides, this threat has no teeth, the book is already out. There's nothing Matt can do." out of context AND used the wrong part of the lines to quote.

Okay, thanks for acknowledging the error.

I'm familiar with Mongoose's hit & miss on quality. Heck, I got the Boxed Shadizar with the SNAFU map; sent two emails requesting the offered replacement and never received it. I just downloaded the PDF and moved on.

I find publisher forum threats to stop buying thier product mildly irritating and whinny; but the threat should at the very least offer the publisher the opportunity to do something about it.

Crowded Hours is on my "To buy" list. I really like MJD and Avenger/Comstar/QLI for content (don't like d20 as a system though). Gateway, 1248 and the Golden Age stuff is really good stuff.

I don't think Mongoose purposely makes mistakes. RPGs are a tough market and they probably take short cuts that kick them in the balls every so often. GURPS is probably the best edited RPG I collect, but they aren't anywhere near as prolific as Mongoose - different business models.

 

[lastbesthope]

Actually, Mongoose can do it - I have a shelf (I count RPG books in "billys" - IKEA customers know what I mean - Mongoose is about half a billy) of material with their logo on it - Some are really good presented, some are sub-standard and a few are worse (Most are printed too dark, but this is another problem).

I count mine in IVARs, full height, max depth (books double stacked depth wise) so one IVAR is a little over 2 Billys, I reckon I have in excess of one and a half Billys of Mongoose stuff.

LBH

 

[IanBruntlett]

If you can count how many book cases you've got, you don't have enough books
(Misquoting Dale Carnegie, I think)

 

[lastbesthope]

If you can count how many book cases you've got, you don't have enough books
(Misquoting Dale Carnegie, I think)

In the house I bought in January the entire 3rd bedroom is my geek library.

LBH

 

[Anonymous]

The original lbb traveller adventures were often brilliant but had THE WORST LAYOUT EVER SEEN IN PUBLISHED MATERIAL. Mention a character on page 2? Why wouldn't you look for his stats halfway down page 8 near the big picture of the ATV. And his unusual peice of equipment? Was it listed with his stats or in the place he is first encountered? Nope. Some near the end of the adventure where it mention the corporation which made it...etc..etc..etc..

I negotiated those and had fatastic fun, so whatever mongoose throws at me can only be small fry on the layout problems front.

Content is VERY important. Layout isn't.

 

[Treebore]

I really don't believe it is substandard - I have been using the book myself (the adventures really are very good).

However, we guarantee all of our books, and if you pick this one up and are in any way unhappy with it, contact us. We will always work until you are happy with the result - there should be no risk to you in buying any of our products.

I am sorry Matt, but I don't pay $40 for a book that looks bad. I have yet to physically see this book, but if I agree with the other guys I simply will not be buying it. Having me contact you to make me happy after the purchase is not the way to get me to buy your products, to sell me a product I like from the first moment is the way to do it.

So far I haven't agreed with the majority of criticisms about your products, I have not found the errors game breaking, etc... but if I find that I agree about the lay out in this book or a future product I will stop buying. I will not contact you to "make me happy", you have to do that when I look at the book.

So please, get your priorities straight. Because if I stop buying Traveller I will stop buying Judge Dredd and the other titles too.

Your making the, "I'm going to stop buying your stuff" threat about a book you haven't even seen? If your such a great customer then you've already bought a lot of books that were satisfactory, why the sudden concern?

I kind of see the Avenger stuff as psudo-third party anyways. Avenger may not have the money for top notch layout, but they have excellent content - second to none in my opinion. If the choice is having the book with less then stellar layout vs. not having the book at all - I'll take the book.

Besides, this threat has no teeth, the book is already out. There's nothing Matt can do. You'll either be satisfied with it and continue to buy stuff, or you'll not like it and stop - done deal.

I am making the threat because I do not like the attitude Matt is presenting. He is receiving complaints about a book and making excuses about it.

Plus my threat has plenty of teeth. I own every book Mongoose has donr for Traveller, Judge Dredd and Paranoia, and a good portion of those done for Runequest.

So my problem with this is the attitude being given about the problems about the product, not the product itself.

I expected a response more like, "OK, I see where the problem can be addressed and we can improve upon that next time."

I don't want to see, "I think it looks fine as is."

Plus like I posted earlier, I have stuck by Mongoose despite many, in my opinion completely over blown, complaints about how bad editing, etc... was. I was around with all the issues with Conan occurred, and watched how classy Mongoose Matt was about taking care of those problems.

So I KNOW Matt is capable of handling such things much more classier than he did earlier in this thread. So I am pretty sure it was just a misstep on his part. An "off day" if you will.

The LAST thing I want these guys to do is become complacent about giving us quality products. That is what I saw in the responding post. That is what will chase me away as a customer, if it occurs.

If Mongoose considers such a opinion from a customer like me as "toothless", so be it.

 

[AKAmra]

Treebore; my point is simply that the threat has "no teeth" because the book your going to make your decision on is already published. You also excluded any after-purchase remedy in your post. I'm not suggesting your threat isn't serious, the only option your leaving the publisher is to hope your satisfied with the book.

I don't think Matt's post displays a bad attitude. He says that he doesn't believe the book is substandard and that if a customer is unhappy with it (or any other book) they will work with the customer until they are happy with the result. Where's the bad attitude?

 

[MongooseMatt]

I expected a response more like, "OK, I see where the problem can be addressed and we can improve upon that next time."

You make a very good point - consider it addressed!

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hi guys,

Just to let you all know, we have posted the Airship plans for free download on the site. You can grab them from;

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1876

 

[MongooseMatt]

And for those who have just downloaded the PDF, give it another go - we have just posted one of even higher quality!

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Ta,

thanks very much

Egil

 

[Treebore]

Thanks, Matt. You continue to do good.

 

[GamerDude]

And for those who have just downloaded the PDF, give it another go - we have just posted one of even higher quality!

YES! Even HIGHER quality!

Sounds like an ad in Paranoia for some new mind-relaxation system brought to you by Brother Computer!!