Evaluating the art in the Core Book

[AndrewW]

Personally I could do away with all the art if they would only get an editor that knows how to do the job or takes it seriously. The amount of errors in these books are staggering considering the price being charged for them.

There has been an improvement in this.

 

[Chuckhazard]

Personally I could do away with all the art if they would only get an editor that knows how to do the job or takes it seriously. The amount of errors in these books are staggering considering the price being charged for them.

i like a lot of it but I know what you mean. I'd trade all the cg images of spaceships just to have the multiplication sign put in everywhere it belongs.

I think it's cuz they are b&w but I think the rendered ship images are very weak visually. With the Blake background of space they don't stand out very well.

 

[Mithras]

Best thing about the LLBs - no art. No subjective reasoning, no immediate reactions, no stylistic concerns.

Just words.

 

[Nickbergquist]

Mongoose's Conan line, in general, looks amazing.
They could do the same thing with Traveller if they wanted to.

You are comparing apples and pumpkins.

Conan used an already introduced and quite successful system, and
as a famous setting with a widespread system it had a rather good
chance to sell a lot of copies.

Traveller, on the other hand, was the re-introduction of a commercial-
ly almost dead system, and there was no assured market of any size
for it.

Sure, Mongoose could have produced a full-colour deluxe version of
Traveller, but this would have crossed the border between commercial
risk-taking and foolishness.

Not to mention that if a full-color Conan book would have generated enough sales to justify it then the 2nd edition book would have been full color, too.

The general economic slump has made the cost of high-quality productions a tough thing for game publishers everywhere, Mongoose included. I am willing to bet that they are hedging their bets on products that can look good in full color and still be affordable (such as Judge Dredd, which can rely on the vast reseervoir of the 2000AD stock art they now have access to).

Also, remember that they didn't really get a decent graphic designer on staff until after MT 1st print came out; the revisions to art in the 2nd print were his first effort at spicing things up a bit. I like both editions, but definitely favor the 2nd print.

The only issues I have with the MT books in general is why everything is done in "bold" print instead of something more normal. It's a bit unpleasant for me to read with everything bolded like that. I also disliked that the pocket edition of Traveller was an exact copy of the main rules shrunk down instead of using a new layout that was legible. Fonts get smaller than 8 point and I find it too painful to read these days, unfortunately.

 

[Kharum]

I think one thing everyone is not considering is it is not only the price the artist is being paid (low), it is the time frame at which they are given to get things done. If they are handed a brief that calls for them to do 50 images and they have only two to three weeks to do them in, you get rushed work. If the artists are given more time and better direction as to what is wanted the artwork might be better or more to your liking. Just a thought.