Topic: Towers Two, an update on the actual book?

ok, in the update dating back a month, Brockie wrote, that he had been given a week to get things cracking. Since then there's been no news about Towers Two, other than about GWAR shows on a (for me) far away continent.

How's it coming along - here a year post-funding? Have  people been draften in to help getting it done?

In general I have had a good feeling about all the LotFP fundy projects, even the delayed ones, but this just rubs me the wrong way - it sounds very far from finished. And again, it's a year on.

Re: Towers Two, an update on the actual book?

yeah it's not anywhere near complete.

However, I am in contact with Brockie (had a video call with him yesterday) and things are moving. It's not a dead project but I'm not comfortable announcing anything at this point because plans on this seem to shit themselves. Brockie's offered concert tickets as a make-do for the delay but that's not very useful to non-North Americans I realize, but stuff is still happening. More announcements when things are in hand.

(I know people like updates updates updates but, ah, I think "updates for the sake of updates" - like when there's nothing new to report, don't help anything...)

Re: Towers Two, an update on the actual book?

Shucks, most of all for you.

Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, you should in the future be less of a nice guy and more of an all-in badass publisher? I mean, from the campaigns you've run it's obvious, that a lot of cool people wants to write for LotFP and you're not only fucking publishing, printing and distributing peoples books and creating a buzz about them, your also paying people (good money it seems) and getting cool artwork to go along with it. It kinda pisses me off that people turn stuff in a year+ late - it's disrespectful to the people who funded and preordered, but most of all disrespectful to you, as a publisher, and your business.

And yes, there can of course be all kinds of stuff getting in the way of writing, but when I read that latest LotFP post on Kelvin Greeens blog, it's kinda shocking. "I'd intended to have it completed by Christmas and it's clear that I am not ready for even semi-professional publishing." Well maybe you should have thought, just a little, about that before you signed up for the job! WTF!?!

Sorry if this ended up being rather rant-like, but it annoys me as a customer and it annoys me even more as a person who works professionally with tight deadlines all the time. It's really not THAT hard. To me, it would be perfectly acceptable for you to, by now, take Two Towers outta the hands of Brockie and giving it to someone who can finish the damn thing in a way that you, as the publisher, would be satisfied with.

Re: Towers Two, an update on the actual book?

DKChannelBoredom wrote:

Sorry if this ended up being rather rant-like, but it annoys me as a customer and it annoys me even more as a person who works professionally with tight deadlines all the time. It's really not THAT hard. To me, it would be perfectly acceptable for you to, by now, take Two Towers outta the hands of Brockie and giving it to someone who can finish the damn thing in a way that you, as the publisher, would be satisfied with.

I can't really argue with you, except to say that I think giving people what they signed up for - even if really really late - is better than a substitution, I have confidence that this is worth waiting for (for several reasons), and - probably infuriating on the customer end but I believe it - after it is out how late it was will be trivia. Really, if it's good people will be glad to have it and if it's bad they wouldn't have been happy with it even if it was early.

Re: Towers Two, an update on the actual book?

Oh I hope it's good, I really do. But I also believe, from both my own experience and from reading feedback on a number of KS projects, that delays of a length like this, sours the experience for a lot of people. Just like it would if I went to a good restaurant, the food was ace but took forever to arrive at the table. It's part of the big picture.

And in the rpg world, where a lot stuff is constantly spit out by creative people, I think there is a great danger of people loosing interest. For example, one of the main reasons I put money into the Monolith/God projects was because of the promise of rules for firearms, LotFP-style, because I had a people lined up for a campaign that would benefit greatly from having these rules at the table. Then the rules didn't turn up (untill now) and the campaign ended up going nowhere. With delays of a year or more, I think the risk of moduls being overlooked or meh'ed but the original backers is quite high, which is double sad, when LotFP should be having momentum right now with Better Than Any Man et al.

The delays to Horror Among Thieves and Towers Two has made me sceptical about putting money into future LotFP project svia Kickstarter or Indiegogo, at least from writers who's not established. That's the sad truth. We're also missing two outta four scenarios from the RPG Day campaign. It's just not a track record that motivates me, to put more money into LotFP.

And c'mon, the scenarios were set to be 32 pages! That's less than a page a week (actually more like half a page) to be written by the authors. How that can fail and fail so badly, from people who should be sort of professionals, I really can't get my head around.

Re: Towers Two, an update on the actual book?

Still late and still lots of work to be done on it but I have a rough first draft in hand. So inching forward.