Waiting for PDF

[Sci-Fi]

Being a long time player of Palladium. I hadn't actually looked at RUE for "RULES" in a long long time.

Today, referencing a post on FB I actually had to look up a rule there. WHOA is that thing put together..... creatively.

[colonel wolfe]

Dec 2, 2013 8:19:13 GMT Sci-Fi said:

Being a long time player of Palladium. I hadn't actually looked at RUE for "RULES" in a long long time.

Today, referencing a post on FB I actually had to look up a rule there. WHOA is that thing put together..... creatively.

now give that turd a shiny coat of glossy paper and some color interior art... and well... it still needs work...

[damianmagecraft]

Palladium or another system it doesnt matter...
If you polish a turd all you get is a shiny turd.

[Sci-Fi]

Have you ever seen one? They did it once on Mythbusters.

[Jaymz]

Actually twice, they each did one.

What rule did you have to look up?

[jorel]

Creative is being nice. Today would be good day to email out those PDFs.

[joshuagoliath]

You know, they don't even need to jump to full book being glossy and shiny. How about just a selection of artwork? In fact, didn't one of the RMB editions have that?

But, it's a good step for them. Give a selection of the artworks, in COLOR, on nice, bright white, shiny paper. Insert it into the middle of a book.

Release another book, nothing but the artworks, all on shiny paper, all in color. Collections of armor, vehicle, and weapon artwork (labelled properly, of course)

[Jaymz]

RMB and RUE both had colour sections of art.

[jorel]

Is that really the extent of Color pages?

[Sci-Fi]

Don't forget the ngage adds.

[Jaymz]

Dec 2, 2013 18:38:40 GMT jorel said:

Is that really the extent of Color pages?

I believe so, yeah.

Sci-Fi - Those were part of the colour pages in RUE.

[Sci-Fi]

I know. lol that's why I mentioned them.

I'll admit. I liked the color plates in the RMB. The Druid was an awesome bit of art and I loved the Cyberknights (Though they just look like fantasy knights. I think they got wedged in there.

Still two books out of what, over 100 with a few color plates is weak showing. 45-70 page splat books for Pathfinder are 4 color all the way cover to cover these days.

[Jaymz]

Agreed, colour plates in only 2 books of one line in which one is the successor of the other....yeah not so good.

[jorel]

bummer

[MacrossMike]

Dec 2, 2013 4:44:32 GMT damianmagecraft said:

Dec 2, 2013 4:14:56 GMT 13eowulf said:

I dont like glossy paper, I find it harder on my eyes.

I dont buy games based on how "pretty" they look.
I buy them based on how good is the engine driving it?
And is the setting one I desire?

Yes, but while buying games purely based on how pretty they look is mainly a console and PC gaming thing... presentation still counts in terms of getting new players to pick up the books at all.  You could make the best damn game in the world, but if you package it such that it looks like complete arse, sales simply won't be as good as if you'd packaged it in an appealing fashion.

To give you an idea how insane the psychology behind this really is... just this past week I presented a report on a project to a senior manager at the Chrysler tech center.  He took one look at the report and said it was too damn large to pass along to senior management.  It was a single-sided print job.  I reprinted it with double-sided printing and handed it to him again, and he expressed his complete satisfaction with the new, "thinner" version of the document.  That same principle applies here.  Put something good in an unappealing package, and people will balk at it regardless of quality.  Take the time to pretty it up a bit, and suddenly everything's grand.

Dec 2, 2013 7:59:34 GMT colonel wolfe said:

Dec 2, 2013 7:12:13 GMT damianmagecraft said:

yeah well my aesthetics is as follows...
Polish a turd its still a turd.

one mans trash is another treasure.
its pretty easy to say the sales numbers for the last decade of Palladium existence show just how much their content is selling with it current presentation.
Robotech's new edition is seling at about 5% of the rate of the Original Edition in the same time period... (<5,000 in 5 years v. >100,000+ in 5 years.)
now Palladium could bolster those number if they had released PDF's as well...

That may be oversimplifying things a little.  How much of that slip is due to the less-than-stellar presentation quality of the material, and how much of that is the inevitable end result of there being a LOT fewer Robotech fans out there now than there were when the original game was released?  If one takes this with a nice dose of context from what Harmony Gold employees have said about the sales of other Robotech merchandise... not only is the Palladium RPG far outselling pretty much any other form of Robotech media, but the obvious explanation is that the nearly thirty years of failing to put out anything worthwhile has done a lot to kill the fanbase off.  Presentation is doubtless a factor in attracting non-fans, but sales are clearly slow because Robotech is peddled almost exclusively to existing fans... who are a tiny (and shrinking) niche market at the best of times.

[colonel wolfe]

While hg saying the rpg is selling is good. I can imagine it's selling well compared to their other projects... which until lla and voltron\robotech has been nothing.... so selling 1 rpg book is better sales than the 0 things they normally sell. (In context these are the guys who claim the middle chapter merchandise doesn't sell... but have produced so little of it to purposefully skew the numbers to that end) . Still according to Maryann they sold almost 150000 copies of the old macross book... 15 printings of 10k each... between 87 and 92 that was 10 print runs (as u have a 10th run dated 1992). The current macross book just sold out its 1st run... that's sad sales in comparison.

Now how much if that is format? Low demand? Manga format? Idk. But sales aren't what they were. and robotech tactics is the main thing making palladium and harmony gold money...

[Jaymz]

I think that goes to show both a general decline in both robotech and palladium fans/customers

[colonel wolfe]

It would go along way to help change that if the new books like new generation and genesis pits didn't look like they were published a few minutes after strike force or lancers rockers.

[MacrossMike]

Dec 2, 2013 20:39:53 GMT colonel wolfe said:

While hg saying the rpg is selling is good. I can imagine it's selling well compared to their other projects... which until lla and voltron\robotech has been nothing.... so selling 1 rpg book is better sales than the 0 things they normally sell. (In context these are the guys who claim the middle chapter merchandise doesn't sell... but have produced so little of it to purposefully skew the numbers to that end) . Still according to Maryann they sold almost 150000 copies of the old macross book... 15 printings of 10k each... between 87 and 92 that was 10 print runs (as u have a 10th run dated 1992). The current macross book just sold out its 1st run... that's sad sales in comparison.

Now how much if that is format? Low demand? Manga format? Idk. But sales aren't what they were. and robotech tactics is the main thing making palladium and harmony gold money...

Well, yes... Harmony Gold has said that the RPG is selling well, and by their standards it is.  It must be remembered that, on the few occasions that a Harmony Gold staffer has offered an objective measurement of what they consider "success", the bar was set low enough to be a trip hazard in Satan's wine cellar.  On things like DVD sales and the Toynami MPCs, Harmony Gold considered a given product to be a "success" if it sold a few thousand units... for the toys, the bar was usually set at half of whatever the limited edition run was.  5,000 units in five years is absolutely off the hook compared to their willingness to declare the MPC line amazingly successful when they sell 2,000 out of a limited run of 5,000 in worldwide sales.  'course, even at its peak in the "great revival" that HG's in love with pretending the premiere on Toonami and the opening of Robotech.com was, sales only ever crested into the tens of thousands for Macross goods on their website.

In fairness, the guys at Harmony Gold aren't claiming that the Masters Saga merchandise doesn't sell... they're arguing that it won't sell, or at least not enough that it'll justify the cost of making it.  They'd have to make some to not sell before they could demonstrate that it isn't selling, and the last thing they actually made for the Masters Saga was the sweatshirts in 2003, and that one coffee mug (yes, I actually own one).  Whether or not you agree with their conclusions, there's really no way around the objective evidence that shows that the only saga that consistently sells is the Macross Saga.  The New Generation sells a lot less vigorously than the Macross Saga, and the Masters Saga merchandise (what little of it there is) sells even less vigorously than that compared against the same types of merchandise.  The lack of figures and MPCs seems to be an extrapolation of that trend, and the majority's apathetic contempt for the saga and everything in it.

In terms of its affect on Palladium, I imagine that the format has very little effect on how many Robotech fans will buy the book.  Most of Robotech's remaining fans would cheerfully buy Tommy Yune's shit in a plain cardboard box if it came with a Robotech logo on it and/or a certificate of authenticity... so long as the illusion that Robotech is not a dead franchise is maintained for another few years.  Most Robotech fans didn't buy the books to play the game, they bought 'em because it's as close to an official series guide as they're ever going to get.  What presentation is going to affect is the number of new players who pick up the present offerings by Palladium.  Robotech fans are conditioned to accept and even praise poor quality material, the non-fan is the one who's going to care that the books look nice and are well-laid out and easy to use.

Dec 2, 2013 20:54:15 GMT colonel wolfe said:

It would go along way to help change that if the new books like new generation and genesis pits didn't look like they were published a few minutes after strike force or lancers rockers.

SPEAK NOT THE NAME! SPEAK NOT THE NAME! *HISS*

[Jaymz]

\m/ LANCERS! \m/

\m/ ROCKERS! \m/

[MacrossMike]

Dec 3, 2013 0:41:47 GMT Jaymz said:

\m/ LANCERS! \m/

\m/ ROCKERS! \m/

*HISS!*

[Jaymz]

Honestly though Mike......how is that any worse that spritia combat? LOL

[MacrossMike]

Dec 3, 2013 0:51:34 GMT Jaymz said:

Honestly though Mike......how is that any worse that spritia combat? LOL

Because spiritia combat was forced on us... someone has to actually choose Lancer's Rockers.

(A sure sign of mental illness if ever I saw one...)

EDIT:  Spiritia combat is also made slightly more tolerable by decent music (instead of endless renditions of "My Time to be a Star" and "Stage Fright") and the fact that more than one Macross sequel has suggested the rest of the galaxy thinks the whole idea is gun-eating insanity.

[Jaymz]

You and I definitely have a different opinion of what is "decent music"

[ninjabunny]

Dec 3, 2013 0:59:26 GMT Jaymz said:

You and I definitely have a different opinion of what is "decent music"

mc frontalot!!

[Jaymz]

LOL Nice!

[MacrossMike]

Dec 3, 2013 0:59:26 GMT Jaymz said:

You and I definitely have a different opinion of what is "decent music"

Hummingbird's music actually ain't bad stuff, the problem is the series just overplays the same handful of songs until they're obnoxious.  Even the classics can be annoying if you hear them too often... just check your opinion of Christmas music come about December 26th for confirmation.

Dec 3, 2013 1:22:41 GMT colonel wolfe said:

Now seto, the same lies and misrepresentations repeated over and over again don't make them true. Left handed remarks and baseless stereotypes of robotech fans isn't going to prove your right either.

Now now, Mr. Wolfe, I appreciate that you're very much a militant supporter of the Masters Saga... to the extent that some might accuse you of being more than slightly butthurt over the very real, but entirely justified bias Harmony Gold has towards Macross... but what I have said here has come directly from the Harmony Gold staffers themselves.  Hell, it wasn't that long ago that Tom Bateman ripped into Rabid over some of this (specifically, Harmony Gold's reasons for not wanting to make Masters Saga MPCs and so on) over on MacrossWorld.  If you want to see proof of the fans who will buy any damn thing Harmony Gold puts out, well, I'd point you to Robotech.com's remaining population and say no more on the subject, because that unholy mess says all that needs to be said.  They are, after all, the ones who keep praising Harmony Gold for doing such a wonderful job with the franchise and think Shadow Chronicles was a flawless masterpiece.

If chanting to yourself that it's all a lie is what helps you get by, that's fine... but if it is, I suggest you do it quietly, perhaps to yourself.

[Jaymz]

As unfortunate as it is, mostly because I do see redeeming things in the masters saga (and in my opinion the Robotech redo was an improvement on the original), The Masters saga is definitely treated as the red headed step child so to speak.

[MacrossMike]

Dec 3, 2013 1:38:21 GMT Jaymz said:

As unfortunate as it is, mostly because I do see redeeming things in the masters saga (and in my opinion the Robotech redo was an improvement on the original), The Masters saga is definitely treated as the red headed step child so to speak.

Eh... even I consider the Robotech adaptation of the original Southern Cross a huge improvement over the original.  They tied it to something else that was more likable, it lost a lot of the hilarious chauvinism (in a series originally meant to have strong female protagonists), and Jeanne/Dana's behavior could be explained as abandonment issues manifesting in acting out.  That said, Harmony Gold has some pretty sound reasons for treating it like the proverbial red-headed stepchild as they so often do.  The Masters Saga is far and away the least popular of the three among fans, and proved to be ratings poison practically every time the series went to air (so much so that several countries have opted to skip it entirely in their local broadcasts of the show, and it actually got Robotech dropped from the Toonami lineup during the show's so-called great comeback).  With what little merchandise they made for it not selling as well as the New Generation's stuff, and neither the Masters Saga nor New Generation merch selling as well as the Macross Saga stuff, it's not surprising they're more than slightly reluctant to make any more Masters Saga merchandise.  Especially after the marked deterioration in sales the MPC line experienced once they started doing New Generation stuff.

After all, they are in this business to make money, and even their staff have admitted that the profit margin is about all the higher-ups care about.  (McKeever's actually attributed the lack of Robotech.com updates and the slow process of getting news onto the site to this in the past.)  Even the launch of RRT shows the fans they're focusing on the sure thing... Macross.  

Robotech fans are, by in large, not gonna care much if the RPG books aren't available in easier-to-use PDF formats because they're not playing the game.  They either bought it because, hey, it's Robotech and it's something new... or because they wanted a series guide like the previous edition was to them.  Having the PDFs would be a huge boon to Palladium in general, as would neatening up the presentation, because the appearance of the books is, in some measure, gonna influence the non-fan to buy or pass on the books.  In Robotech's specific case, a visually appealing, well-presented book could be a great ambassador to the Robotech franchise... while a somewhat archaic, cluttered feeling one like what we currently have can be the very worst kind of ambassador.*


* No, not Hillary Clinton...

[Jaymz]

I will say i did like the different presentation used in the old macross II deck plans books....