Cults of the Young Kingdoms Errata

[ryhopewood]

Well I picked up this from my FLGS today... and the Table of Contents is from the core Elric book!! Not a great start.

It certainly explains why the preview PDF also contained the wrong table.
I pointed that out a couple of weeks ago - http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=44631

Mongoose - did you know this when it shipped? Why was there no acceptance of an issue when I pointed out that the preview was wrong? I honestly think that you need to carefully consider how you manage the QA on publishing projects like this. Your proofreader should have checked that the TOC was correct - its pretty obviously wrong! Your reputation for quality in the wider gaming world is not the best and this type of cock-up won't help.

Just to help your proofreader (Nick Robinson), the correct TOC from thumbing through the book is:

Cults of the Young Kingdoms (Table of Contents)

Cults of the Young Kingdoms 2
Benefits 4
Cults of Chaos 15
Cults of the Elements 64
Cults of Law 76
Personality Cults 102
Index 117

I'm sure the rest of the book is great but jeez ....

Ian

 

[Akrasia]

Good grief!

One less book to buy...

 

[sdavies2720]

Good grief!

One less book to buy...

That's maybe a little extreme. I find the typos only detract a little from the usability of the books. A quick insert and the rules are pretty much ready to go.

But I do feel your pain: the typos, especially the obvious ones, detract from my joy of using the books. I'm not sure I understand the psychology of it, but I loathe handing the books to anyone, and I don't really like using them. I do have a long-standing campaign that I've converted to MRQII, so I'm happy with the rules, just not the production values.

It's a shame, because the covers are beautiful and the rules are good.

And, I've told my FLGS not to buy any until I tell him they are ok. He's still mad about the A&E that's sitting on his shelf.

Steve

 

[havercake lad]

Just bought soft back yesterday and I'm quite happy with it. Think contents strip is a minor hiccup.
The book has several extra dieties that were not covered in earlier version. and there is extra material on other cults.
Thirty less pages than earlier book , but price didn't seem to steep after buying the recent core rule hard back !
348

 

[duncan_disorderly]

But I do feel your pain: the typos, especially the obvious ones, detract from my joy of using the books. I'm not sure I understand the psychology of it, but I loathe handing the books to anyone, and I don't really like using them. I do have a long-standing campaign that I've converted to MRQII, so I'm happy with the rules, just not the production values.

As I think I said elsewhere in relation to the Mongoose Quality Control, the problem is when there is a massive, and obvious cock-up like this, it sows seeds of doubt as to what other errors there are that aren't obvious.

I can understand not wanting to lend or reccommend books with this level of error as well. It's like you are making excuses - "Yes, it's a really great book if you just ignore the table of contents..."

Yes, if you are already a RQ2 fan, and a fan of the setting (Elric in this case, but the same argument could equally apply to to Glorantha, or Vikings etc etc), and have confidence in the writers then you are able to overlook this sort of error, particularly when it can be (and is) quickly erratad, but Mongoose need to be appealing beyond the captive market...

 

[sdavies2720]

...Yes, if you are already a RQ2 fan, and a fan of the setting (Elric in this case, but the same argument could equally apply to to Glorantha, or Vikings etc etc), and have confidence in the writers then you are able to overlook this sort of error, particularly when it can be (and is) quickly erratad, but Mongoose need to be appealing beyond the captive market...

That's it: I love RQ and want everyone to see how great it is. But these errors make me embarrassed for it.

And, I feel a little churlish talking about the errors, but I don't have any more effective way to get the powers-that-be at Mongoose to change.

 

[Akrasia]

Good grief!

One less book to buy...

That's maybe a little extreme...

Extreme? Perhaps.

But I'm really, really tired of Mongoose's incompetent and unprofessional sloppiness, and the company's endless, invariably broken promises to 'do better' in the future.

I really like the MRQII rules. But now that I have the corebook and 'Monster Coliseum', I see no reason to purchase another MRQII book from Mongoose. (Cubicle 7, on the other hand, seems to actually edit their products, including their MRQII ones.)

I see no point in rewarding a company that obviously does not care about quality control or its customers.

It's a pity. I really like the work of Lawrence Whitaker and Pete Nash. But I'm sick to death of Mongoose's editing incompetence. This ToC mistake (what could be more obvious?!?) is the final straw. :?

 

[aethelwulf22]

I'm of a similiar mind to Akrasia...I will buy MRQII books but not until I've read some feedback and reviews in order to gauge how bad the typos and errata are.

This is a shame as there are so many good books coming out but proofreading and quality control seem to be something Mongoose is unwilling to spend more time and money on despite the obvious need to do so....hence their reputation.

 

[Deleriad]

I'm of a similiar mind to Akrasia...I will buy MRQII books but not until I've read some feedback and reviews in order to gauge how bad the typos and errata are.

I'm the same and I even help playtest some of them. It seems that no matter how good the previous book is, the next one could be a disaster.

Cults of Glorantha is the poster boy for me of slapdash production. It's a brilliant book. The content moves Gloranthan magic onto the next level but it's also a very complicated book: there's a network of linked spells and many new spells. One of the fundamental jobs of the editorial team should have been to cross-check that every spell named has a description and that every spell cross-referenced to an allied cult actually belongs to that cult. Playtesting catches some of this but play-testing is about informing the final draft. (In fact the playtest documents specifically ask playtesters not to comment on typos, grammar and so on for this reason). As the errata thread shows, the editorial work appears not to have been done with any amount of thoroughness.

The wrong contents page on Cults of the YK is careless and slapdash, especially as it was picked up in the PDF preview, but it's quite minor when it comes to actually using the book. The lack of the admittedly hard, tedious editorial work that should have been in Cults of Glorantha but appears not to have been, makes the book much harder to use. The mistakes are nowhere near as visible as the contents page fubar but they reveal a lot about what appears to be Mongoose's attitude towards content. If I were a cynical man I would think that Mongoose cares more about how the books look on the shelf than they do about what's in them.

Pavis Rises is going to be a good marker for me. It's a huge, complicated and brilliant piece of work. To give the Goose their due, they revised the initial version rather than push it out the door. That said, the playtest draft still needed a lot of editorial work. You expect that, it's what editors are paid for. Relying on authors to edit their own work is a big mistake. The preview is quite encouraging so I'm hoping that maybe they've learned from their mistakes. On the other hand, if it turns out that their editing standards haven't improved then I think I may be largely opting out of Mongoose products. For example, I didn't buy the Abiding Book limited edition because I don't feel inclined to spend that much money on something when I don't feel confident of its quality.

 

[aethelwulf22]

Relying on authors to edit their own work is a big mistake.

I agree. The authors are too close to the work...after having read and re-written everything numerous times it becomes impossible to read with a fresh pair of eyes.