kustenjaeger said:
Greetings
Certainly interesting. It may depend on what sort of look and feel of games they are used to playing?
My (long delayed) copy is apparently on its way (my wife and son are picking it up from the FLGS as we speak) so I'll see what my first reaction is later on
More seriously there is an issue if the initial reaction is like this because even if the underlying components are good (and that's extensively discussed elsewhere) a perception can significantly impact the sales of a title.
Regards
They have played a great variety of games of all genre's including RQ3, Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, Star Wars, D&D, Traveller, Deadlands, etc, etc.
I have never seen them so dismissive of a 'major' system before and it mostly seemed to stem from their first impression on the lack of weight of the book. Shallow I know, but many commented on it's lack of substance just on picking it up before even opening it.
Btw the group had 7 players last night and all seemed underwhelmed by their first view of the book.
One, who works at Waterstones, seemed doubtful that such a slim volume would be well received and commented that if Mongoose really were out to produce a cheap starter volume, why did they waste money on a hardcover rather than release a softback edition where the lack of pages would psychologialy seem less important. Seems when people buy a hardback they tend to be looking for something impressive in his experience whereas softback books are received much less critically.
I know 7 people isn't exactly a huge sampling, but they all came without prior knowledge about the new game and judged it on how they saw it.
For reference I usually turn up with a new rpg or two every fortnight so they are used to seeing and judging new games on a fairly regular basis. Last night they also got their first views of 'Vanishing Point' (a small press game, but still hardbound with a much higher page and content count than MRQ) and the 'Cadwallon' RPG's. They found both of them much more visually impressive and appealing, though Cadwallons more wargame style movement and combat was not received very well as they prefer a much more flowing and freestyle system.
Just my observations.
Vadrus