So ... Book 18?

[elizzar]

mongooseaugust - you seem to have some inside track, some line to the big cheese, maybe a fella who knows a fella who knows a fella, right? so how about i offer you some fine sausages and some tasty port, maybe a little pinch o' snuff, and you let us all know when our lovely lone wolf books might be coming out, eh? eh?

<< please imagine me in a trench-coat and a tasty spiv moustache as i write this >>

in all seriousness i think we just want to know the current state of play and have some realistic dates for books etc - at this rate it's going to be at least my third house move whilst still a mega-deal customer ... !

 

[WritingWolf]

Given the recent run of 1 or 2 books a year, I will say 2018 to 2022 for them all to be out. A long time, yes. But then again, they were not printed at all for even longer!

 

[August1]

Trust me, if I could give you any insight into the schedule or process, I would gladly do it. Mongoose has novels they haven't had the chance to publish yet and I still don't know why.

But whenever I do have some inside information, I will share it.

For the Kai!
-A

 

[Clegane]

I really feel that Lone Wolf Solo has a very low priority in the grand scheme of things at Mongoose. I was an original Megadeal customer and to be honest, it's put me off ordering anything from Mongoose ever again.

Mark.

The perils of paying someone for product in advance. The tens of thousands of dollars we (collectively) gave Mongoose when we signed up for the Megadeal have all been spent, years ago, and most likely on nothing whatsoever to do with Lone Wolf.

Lesson learned, I suppose. At least on my part. I am never getting swindled by such a host of empty promises and assurances again. Never. Whether Mongoose learned a lesson in all of this remains to be seen, but with our cash in hand I don't imagine that they did.

Such a shame. You can actually go back and look at my last eight years of posting and watch me gradually shift from being a staunch Mongoose fanboy, defending every delay and printing error they made...into a jaded, disillusioned complainer who has sworn blood oaths to never let them get their hands on another of my dollars so long as I live.

 

[T.Y.A.]

Clegane, I know exactly what you mean, at the time I had some misgivings about the Megadeal, but there was something of the 13 year old boy who first bought Flight From the Dark (and many more) who awoke and moaned and whined at me until I bit the bullet. He's now been sent to bed with a stern telling off without any supper.

If it's any consolation, eventually you get through the frustration and start to see the funny side (or have a brain haemorrage from the stress). If we don't get book 18 by this Christmas, there's another one along in about twelve months...

The great irony is that back in the day, Joe was writing them faster than Mongoose are currently managing to reprint them which I find completely baffling.

 

[jolt]

Which brings up my largest concern. If the current schedule of it taking another 10 years holds true, is Mr. Dever really interested in commiting the next 10 years of his life to doing so? I don't know the man and maybe he is willing but I'm skeptical of that.

I remember when these forums were a fun and happy place, full of activity. Now, Mongoose compares unfavorably to telemarketing scams. And LW money was diverted to Traveller (despite that, in the US anyways, no one will stock it waiting for Marc Miller's 5th instead), Legends (which no one will stock because, if they're doing anything along those lines, its RQ6), and Starfleet Battles into an already overcrowded miniatures market that has little US traction and is almost completely convention absent.

I can't wait to see the upcoming State of the Mongoose and see what spew they try to get the LW fans to swallow while refusing to comment on it otherwise the rest of the year. Silence does indeed speak volumes.

 

[T.Y.A.]

I don't think there's any fear of Joe losing interest in the project. Judging by interviews I've read and seen, the man's commitment to LW is phenomenal. It really is a Life's Work. I really don't believe he'd walk away from something he's put so much effort over so many years.

There's a recent interview from a convention here:- http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=52485

Well worth a look. Basically Books 29 & 30 are written but being held until after Book 20 is released (apparently).

State of the Mongoose is in. Some vaguely worrying information in there but the relevant LW solo info is:-

Everyone is waiting for Book 18. We know, and we apologise profusely. Our problem here is a combination of the issues described above and a valiant (but costly) attempt to keep all previous titles in print. The margins on these books are wafer thin (a new title costs two to three times more to print than your average 256 page hardback RPG book), making it exceedingly difficult for us to tie up financial resources in a print run. The problem is, as a company, we cannot simply ring fence every line on a financial level, so what happens to one line in the company can affect others. In this case, the disappearing RPG market and reduced pace of miniatures releases have both had an unavoidable effect on Lone Wolf.

We have mentioned the possibility of softback versions of these books, which would make things easier, but we have committed to doing the entire series in a hardback format and, come hell or high water, we will be sticking to that.

Book 18 is now at print (and will be landing on the mats of Megadeal and preorder customers early next year), and we are already prepping Book 19. We apologise for the delays – they are not reasonable, and we will be spending a great deal of effort to correct this in 2013. As everything else in the company starts coming together, the pressure will be relieved on this series and titles will start coming out at their original pace.

At the end of the day, we have a lot of passion for Lone Wolf here at Mongoose (these were the gamebooks that got me into gaming when I was very, very young, way before I had even heard of D&D…), and can see there is a huge potential in this setting that reaches far beyond the gamebooks. We have been speaking to Mr Dever about this, and have a couple of projects boiling that we wish to use to expand Lone Wolf and bring it to ‘modern’ gamers. However, first things first – we are concentrating on the solo gamebooks and will bring them to you in regular order before we give much more thought to anything else.

Come on Mongoose! Three books minimum for 2013! (And don't you dare count 18 as one of them).

 

[WritingWolf]

Thanks T.Y.A. - I had a feeling money, or a lack thereof, was the issue. I expect Mongoose have dug themselves a hole with the Megadeals mainly. What was economically viable way back in 2006/7 just doesn't work now. The preorders have gone up a bit in price to help, but most of the orders come I expect via the Megadeals. This implies Mongoose cannot afford to print these - well, to be fair they say they can, but at minimal margin.

Going forward I expect to see a price hike for the preorders (which affects me) and possible some more of change to the Megadeal for the NO books - not sure if that is possible. I can live with a price-hike (not too much!) as long as the books come out, but it is worrying news. Not unexpected, but still worrying. Would we rather have a delayed book or no book at all I guess is the question?

 

[MongooseMatt]

Going forward I expect to see a price hike for the preorders (which affects me) and possible some more of change to the Megadeal for the NO books - not sure if that is possible. I can live with a price-hike (not too much!) as long as the books come out, but it is worrying news. Not unexpected, but still worrying. Would we rather have a delayed book or no book at all I guess is the question?

Just to let everyone know what we are planning here...

Unless something truly tragic happens (like the cost of paper shoots up tenfold), there are _no_ price rises planned on the Lone Wolf books. Even when we reprint, we keep the original price (which is fairly terrifying on the biggest book of them all, Flight, but we will stick with it).

We are firmly committed to Lone Wolf, have put plans in place to continue and accelerate the solo line in 2013, and have been talking to Mr Dever about Magnamund-related projects in other areas. There is _so_ much potential in this setting, and we will be pulling out all the stops to not only carry on with what we started but also to bring Lone Wolf coolness to other arenas too. more on that later, when we have another couple of books out.


To go into a bit more detail than the State did (and I think you chaps certainly deserve to know), the margins _are_ thin on the Lone Wolf hardbacks, but they always were. We accepted this as we regard resources put into these books as an investment, be it as a wider marketed softback line, or other Magnamund/Lone Wolf games. And, of course, there is a great deal of personal investment in these books, as they were the very first brush I had with fantasy gaming!

Now, the current situation is not down to Lone Wolf books or their margins - as I said, we had always planned for those. The problem comes from other markets, most noticeably RPGs (to an extent miniatures as well, as we did not get everything out in 2012 that we needed to). As the RPG market declines, this puts pressure on other aspects of the company to cover not only themselves but also fixed costs. Now, if you have something to replace a declining market (see miniatures), there is no problem. If not, then all aspects of the company have to work to support themselves _and_ the rest of the company - and that is something that, with the best will in the world, the Lone Wolf line is not currently set up to do.

The upshot of all this is that once the rest of the company starts flowing smoothly again, Lone Wolf books will automatically fall back into step. We are putting things into operation that mean it won't be very long into 2013 when you start seeing this happen.

For now, I can only apologise profusely - we know there are issues, and we know they are not acceptable. We are making sure that this is reversed and does not happen again.

 

[Omote]

For the Kai!

~O

 

[Tabris]

Great update there, and some real straight talk.

Perhaps the answer is a price increase on the hardcover releases? The small margins must make it tough.

 

[jolt]

The problem with rpg's these days is that the market is almost too successful across multiple purchasing venues. There really is no 800 pound gorilla anymore; just a lot of 400 pound ones. With sites like RPGNow and DriveThruRPG offering cheaper pdf formats than buying even a softback people can be more choosy about what they buy and have easier access to a wider variety of games allowing for people to cheaply buy games that suit their personal interests rather than buying one company's in-house system and trying to shoehorn everything into it. There are hundreds and hundreds af rpg and boardgames that are only available in pdf because almost anyone can design these games and there are practically no overhead costs. A couple of years ago I bought an rpg called Fight! and its sequel Fight! 2 for next to nothing (the game simulates 2d fighting videogames). The games were written by two guys in Massachusetts. This would have been impossible in the '80's and most of the '90's.

It's hard to convince people to shell out money for hardbacks, especially in tough economic times, when so many other cheaper options exist. Miniatures aren't much better as more and more systems come out that can utilise whatever minis you already have without having to focus on a specific, often pricey, brand.

 

[WritingWolf]

Thanks for the update Matt - much better than wild speculation!

Looking forward to the rest of the books - hope they aren't too long in coming, but the main thing is that they come at all.

Let's hope the world recession, and notably the UK one, end pretty soon for all our sakes!

 

[RatedRWolf]

Is it possible that noone here is "brave" enough to say that Mongoose stated some years ago that Megadeal earnings were enough to take on LW project without problems? Thank you Mr Sprange for the clarifications, really, but noone can change my idea that someone in the past lied, and probably not once or twice... Well, let's hope that everything will go on in the best way for the fans!

 

[MongooseMatt]

Is it possible that noone here is "brave" enough to say that Mongoose stated some years ago that Megadeal earnings were enough to take on LW project without problems? Thank you Mr Sprange for the clarifications, really, but noone can change my idea that someone in the past lied, and probably not once or twice... Well, let's hope that everything will go on in the best way for the fans!

A very good point and, at the time, absolutely true. In my defence, I would say that certain things have happened that could not have been predicted. Triple dip recession and absolute crash of the RPG market, to name but two (albeit major) factors.

 

[hawkytom]

"So ... Book 18?"

Please give us an update, I'm getting anxious!

 

[jolt]

Updates are only meaningful when you can trust them.

Three straight State of the Mongose reports have promised more LW support; it has yet to happen. I can't see how the current one is likely to be more truthful than the previous. We get "straight talk" at the beginning of every year and then nothing ever changes. We'll get one, maybe two, LW books this year and every year following. Every promise to the contrary has been broken and I don't see how anyone can credibly think that this is going to change.

 

[T.Y.A.]

Jolt: It's hard to disagree. As they say, actions speak louder than words...

If I'm correct, the last time we saw any action was about thirteen months ago.

I can recommend one of these http://bit.ly/Wz7eI5 to beat yourself around the head with. It helps with the frustration but doesn't do any serious damage.

 

[WritingWolf]

I was wondering when someone would snap yet and ask the update question! lol

Hard to believe I first asked this back in June ... still, maybe the snow will have gone for when the book arrives

I like your idea T.Y.A. - just needs to be Sommerswerd shaped and we have some official LW merchandise! :lol:

 

[WritingWolf]

Just checked the release schedule - it says "printing" and a January Street Date. Ok so maybe they won't make January, but early February is a possibility.

Book 19 could be awhile off - though I would hope it is ready for this year!