RE: HW (The Glorantha Digest V7 #688)

From: Manzato Claude <Claude.Manzato_at_at.siemens.fr>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 09:31:44 +0200


David Cake:
> Bryan Maloney wrote:
> >Let me know when a version that has the errata and index printed and
> >bound with it appears. Until then, I'm not buying. Purchasing the
> >current version only encourages that sort of behavior.
>
> As has been pointed out before, this is pavlovian fantasy
> psychology that largely ignores the real world. Once the message has
> got through that indexes are really important, the next printing with
> the index bound in STILL won't get printed until all the old ones are
> sold.

When I first posted about my dispointment with HW, I told that I have already bought the books and that I will also buy the french version. I think most gloranthan fans will do likewise, if only to support their favorite gaming world.

My concern was more about the chances that HW will be a success. To attract a new player, you have to offer him something. I came to glorantha because we looked for a better gaming system than AD&D (and RQ was the one) and my first campaigns were non-gloranthan. Then I purchased gods of glorantha to steal some ideas and get hooked, buying all supplements in print and beginning a hunt for the old ones.

Right now, I fear that someone who only heard of glorantha and wants to give it a try will be put off because: the game is definitevely not intuitive (even if it is good), the layout is poor (let's not be offensive here, but I really hate it...), and the world is complex (it can be a good point but doesn't make things easy for the beginner). We already had this case for some french games, a good success at first because of the expectations of customers and then a failure for all following supplements because of the poor quality of the initial game. I do sincerely hope it will not be the case for HW, but telling to customers that they have to buy a flawed product so they can hope that the next edition is better is a strange conception of marketing. As far as I know, only microsoft can make this work... And to round up things, I don't count on-line errata as making up for lack of proofreading.

Anyway, I wish good luck to HW.
Bye.


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