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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Roll the dice, win a lawsuit
Who says the small guy always loses? Apparently, Crystal Caste just won a lawsuit against Hasbro over a dice design patent. Michael Bowling of Crystal Caste was awarded $446,182 in royalties for Hasbro’s patent violation, caused by the game industry giant’s use of a die patented by Bowling in a version of Monopoly - do not pass go, do not use patented designs without permission. Couldn’t Hasbro afford to buy a few? Certainly buying in bulk would’ve resulted in a great deal.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Because you weren’t confused enough: WotC modifies the D&D 4 license deal
Announcement. The upshot as far as I can tell is that the SRD will now be free, to someone anyway, and the go date for publishing 4E GSL-licensed material will be October, not January 2009 or whatever it was. That is, the associated SRD will be free for download on 6/6, and a few hand-picked folks are getting it early. And guess what: something called a D20 license (in this case, a D20 GSL) will be coming back, for the benefit of third parties who’d like to do non-fantasy material. Still no word, from what I can tell, on what either GSL’s terms actually are.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Traveller previews done, game imminent
The final preview of the new Traveller rulebook is up at Mongoose Publishing’s website, giving fans an early peek at a Scout ship. Despite the company’s aborted attempt at an in-house printing facility, the new edition arrives at the end of the month, so it’s almost time to try out the latest incarnation of the RPG that has had more versions than any other (by my unofficial count, at least). Due to the line on the Character Generation Checklist that prompts players to “Roll for survival on this career”, it sounds like Mongoose was trying for the spirit of the original character creation process, wherein a character could die before ever being played (which seems ridiculous when you first hear it, but not everyone has a happy backstory, ya know?). Mongoose promises to employ the Traveller system to power updates of titles that include Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, and Starship Troopers, so fans of those lines may want to get onboard for this month’s release as well. We’ll soon see how well the new version is received, and whether third party support will rally - either under its OGL or more defined Traveller Logo license.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Paizo using Pathfinder RPG to stick with 3.5
Paizo Publishing, former publisher of Dragon and Dungeon and the company behind the Pathfinder d20 product line, announced today its plan to produce the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, due to release August 2009. Perhaps more significant was the company’s decision to stick with the D&D 3.5 ruleset as its foundation. Paizo intends for the game to be “designed with backward compatibility as one of its primary goals, so players will continue to enjoy their lifelong fantasy gaming hobby without invalidating their entire game library.” This move could be designed to help Paizo absorb any D&D fans who end up dissatisfied with 4th Edition once it arrives, and additional thunder-stealing is on the horizon - Paizo already has a free 65-page preview PDF available, and plans to release a full-color softcover Pathfinder RPG Beta release book this August for $24.99.
Multiple announcements accompanied the press release (below), including a statement from Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens. Stevens elaborated on the decision to stick with 3.5: “After careful evaluation of our options, we believe that the 3.5 core will continue to be the best system to tell the stories we’ve got planned for Pathfinder. […] We’re sure that lots of roleplayers are going to be thrilled with Wizards of the Coast’s upcoming 4th Edition, and we’re also looking forward to the 4th Edition products that our partner Necromancer Games will be creating. Paizo may also publish 4th Edition products in the future, but if we do, they won’t cross over with our Pathfinder products.”
Paizo publisher Erik Mona cut right to the heart of the matter in his statement: “Basing the Pathfinder RPG on 3.5 also allows Paizo more control over our destiny than simply following along with the latest edition and the newest licensing changes.” Beyond merely taking control of its ruleset, Paizo may be establishing an in-print system that other publishers can adapt for their needs. Interesting developments in the D&D upgrade shake-out, to be sure.
[UPDATE: A follow-up press release, added here, states the free Pathfinder Alpha PDF has already been downloaded 10,000 times]
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Audio Report - Them’s heretical words!
Round two of today’s catch-up episodes, this early February show muses on the future of the Dark Heresy RPG (which became clearer soon after show time), upcoming con season, the WoW CMG, and more. Mike also gives us a primer on Vincent Baker’s latest game, In a Wicked Age, and we’ve all been keeping busy playing things. Again, thanks to everyone who emailed asking when we’d be back - the answer is, now.
Audio Report - Back in the saddle again
The OgreCave Audio Report is getting back up to speed with this, the first of two shows being fired off today. We’ve been talking, you just haven’t been able to hear it. Here’s the proof: our first Audio Report of the new year, recorded back when OGLs and inroads to Starbucks were all the rage. Thanks to everyone who emailed their concern over the extended, unintentional hiatus - my dead paperweight of an old machine caused considerable delays, but we’ll be all caught up fairly soon. Meanwhile, have a listen, tell us what’s on your mind, and welcome back.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
White Wolf wants you to trade up
White Wolf is making a more agressive play to bring converts from D&D to Exalted in a new promotion. The Graduate Your Game promotion will provide 2,500 copies of the Exalted: 2nd Edition rulebook in exchange for a D&D 3.5 Player’s Handbook. Consumers can either contact White Wolf directly with an order form and a book, or bring a different form to a local retailer. Here’s where it gets amusing: participating retailers must “take all D&D 3.5 Player’s Handbooks that are exchanged, tear out the pages, and return the full cover with the consumer forms”. Destroy those books! As if that weren’t enough, gamers can download a diploma “for graduation from the Third Edition Fantasy Game”. Those who want to take advantage of the trade-in offer should make arrangements soon, as retailer promo kits get mailed next week, and White Wolf anticipates a good chance that all book preorders will be spoken for well ahead of the April 28th deadline.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Gary Gygax dead at 69
Steve Chenault of Troll Lord Games has just given word on the Troll Lord forums that original D&D publisher and co-creator Gary Gygax has died in his home, last night or this morning. Details are still sketchy and the forum site is not loading so well at the moment, but here you are. We’ll get you more when we can.
Update: CNet has more. It confirms heart problems as the cause of death; Gygax mentioned an inoperable heart condition in a 2006 interview. He is survived by his wife, six children, and seven grandchildren, as well as by all of us whose lives have been shaped in some way by his creation. He will be missed.
Friday, February 22, 2008
FFG licenses Black Industries and Sabertooth stuff, and more
Okay, I think this justifies the word “huge.” (And not just because it’s a PDF link.) Everyone’s always clamoring for the old Games Workshop board games, and if Fantasy Flight really now gets to have them across the (um) board, instead of piecemeal, that’s exciting, but sadly the deal does not include Space Hulk or any other games with minis elements. The Sabertooth part is mildly surprising but, like their games, not very exciting. The portion of immediate interest is that there will be new-product support for Dark Heresy. Now the only thing to worry about is whether the core book will be available at the same time as the support.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Hidden City hidden up Gen Con’s… website?
For those who didn’t spot my comment, I went back and played Dragon Hoard, the in-browser casual game hosted rather incongruously on a section (which it currently occupies all by its lonesome) of Gen Con’s site labeled “Gen Con Now.” I have no idea how long it’s been there, but seeing as how I found it when I went to look for the press release about the bankruptcy filing, well, I kinda reacted.
Dragon Hoard is fine. It’s a fairly original casual game - it’s all about dragging stuff, which might not be to your taste, but hey. The only problem with this game is where they put it; games like this currently live or die on a flood of people looking for something clicky and mindless to do (and there’s no shame in that whatsoever). Said people are not currently coming to Gen Con’s web site to find it, and won’t be in the near future, no matter how badly Gen Con wants another revenue stream. Now, maybe there are plans to hook Dragon Hoard up to the usual spigots (BigFish, Yahoo Games, whatever), but right this second, the partnership here between Gen Con and DH’s developers Hidden City Games - that is, Peter Adkison’s other company, publishers of Clout Fantasy and US licensors of Bella Sara - seems even more unfortunate in light of Gen Con’s admittedly unforeseeable new resource crunch.
So, okay. Maybe not what I would have done from a business standpoint, but fine. I go on about my business, and get this thing I read about on Penny Arcade, this Spectromancer. From the description and title alone, you know it’s gonna be a bounce off of Magic, but reading the website I’m surprised to learn that Richard Garfield and Magic R&D legend Skaff Elias actually did development work on the game design. I download, I run the installer, and what’s the publisher’s name on the newly created folder? Hidden City Games. Well, that’s… actually pretty cool. And yet, where does the link go if you click through to Spectromancer’s discussion boards? To community.gencon.com.
Maybe I’m the only one this is all news to, and again, nothing’s wrong with Spectromancer as a game - there are some translation issues right now, but the ways in which it simplifies M:tG are actually really elegant and appealing - but does anyone else think it’s a little weird how thoroughly Hidden City seems to be leaning on Gen Con right now? Especially given that Gen Con’s got trouble and Hidden City’s got pony crack?
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