jclebreu wrote:
> Glorantha seems dying. Of course, some "well informed" people said every month that "no, it's not true ! 2007 (or 2008 or 2009) will be a great year for glorantha with a lot of great stuff ! I promise you !"
> But no…nothing happen, year after year…
>
Whether spoken, or unspoken, I think this is a very common sentiment
among Glorantha fans.
> Ok, so I can't understand why some stuff that look great are in the publication plan one year and not the next and why the authors said the job is already done but they have no news by the editor !!!!!!!!!!! By the past, authors have done very good job, why don't give them more respect ?
>
It's unfortunate that Greg hasn't been able to find an arrangement with
someone with the time and resources to publish the material in a timely
manner. I suspect that some of the problem is that Glorantha is a
'living' world. Greg and the current Keeper-of-the-Flame (Jeff Richard,
at the moment) keep evolving their ideas and changing their minds about
what is GAG and not-GAG. Which results in a project which was considered
"finished" with the writing stage previously suddenly needing to be
revised when "things change."
> I am fed up by all these stories. I will play my glorantha like if no more publications will be out (and it's perhaps true….)
> If "the great argrath campaign" or the books about elves or the west will be published one day (in a far far far future), I will buy them. Unless, I am sure that I can be more efficient buying nothing than waiting for books that seems great but will never be published
I am resigned that if Glorantha is to flourish, it will be through
Mongoose's 2nd Age product (although the game system is horribly
derivative of the worst of crunch-centric game systems). Perhaps,
someday, Greg will see fit to let them publish 3rd Age material and the
Great Agrath Campaign will see the light of day.
I am not, in any way, wishing failure on Rick Meints and Jeff Richard, or anyone else involved in the rumored products currently languishing in limbo. I hope they get published, and when they do I will buy them. But the fact is that no distributor is going to bother listing products that don't have a real released date and with MD's current financial (assumed) and staff (anecdotal) sitations, that's not going to happen.
Rick... I don't even know if you read this list, but I wish you the best. You've always been extremely decent to me and I appreciate your passion. I just wish you had the cash and time to match it. I hope things change in your favor soon.
Jeff... as the current Keeper-of-the-Flame (there have been many before you, and I presume there will be many after), you have an unenviable task. It can't be easy dealing with the constant barrage of negativism directed at you and your publisher. It has broken most of your predecessors. But your often (and most likely unintentional) ascerbic tone doesn't help you. Maybe you think you don't need help. But believe me, you need everyone on this list, and more, if you are to achieve the success your work deserves.
On another list, I've already mentioned my "solutions" for some of the publishing woes that seem to plague 3rd Age Glorantha material. PDF preview (sans art and with minimal layout) editions would supply some needed cash. To the argument that they would undercut sales of the "print" version, considering how long the print versions have languished already it would seem to be a matter of a sure thing vs. a hypothetical. I know Jeff is very sensitive to "in progress" publications being called vaporware, but that's what they are. Or, if you want to consider the "previous" editions made available only at conventions in GB and Germany, then they're (at best) 'vanity press' publications. I don't think that the financial means to hop on a Transatlantic flight is a precondition that a publisher would put on their materials if they were at all serious about publishing. I have yet to see a convincing argument why PDF previous publication is a bad idea.
Several companies have made use of the ransom-ware concept as well. As soon as enough people have pre-paid for a product for the initial print run, the product is printed and distributed. With the irregularity of 3rd Age Glorantha material seeing print, I can undestand how many would possibly be reluctant to pre-order a book that, like it or not, they have no *real* reason to expect will get printed. But I think the GTA experiment proved that there are certainly enough hardcore Gloranthaphiles to support such a model.
But the biggest problem is that I'm sure Rick has his reasons why everything has happened as it has. And I completely understand the refusal to state a release date until you're sure of it. But it's the "hopefully we'll know something by Continuum," followed by months of silence and then "hopefully we'll know something by Tentacles" that drives many over the edge.
Here's an idea... there's an official Glorantha.com website. What would be so difficult about a simple text page listing planned releases and their current stage of development? That way instead of someone "invoking the Great Compromise," we could all just check the page to see the lates news. If nothing changes, you could at least go in and update the "This page last updated on..." date so folks would know it's not just a zombie page that sat out there with no updates for years on end. This would allow Rick (or whoever) to provide an update to one person (the webmaster). Heck, if he wanted to be really forth-coming, he could provide a short update on wny something hadn't moved from one stage of publication to the next (something like "Printer payment changed terms" or "Artist has fallen off face of Earth"). Again, I'd be interested in hearing why this is impossible or impractical (with a little more detail than "It's just not feasible" if you please).
As I've said above. I've been here following Glorantha for going on 30 years now. I carried the torch (locally) for HQ for five years until I got pummeled by retailers with "is that game still being published?" And I'm not going away. But new blood isn't going to come without major changes.
Peace.
Brian Curley
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