Well, I bought the last one around Friday at noon.

I asked one of the staffers and they handed me a lone book sitting next to the cashier- he said it was the last, followed by groans all around. Oh well.

So far its a blast- I'll get some time tonight to look through the book at large, and post in the other threads.

They brought a ton from what I saw on Thursday afternoon- but this book was flying off the shelves.

Sorry you didn't get yours.

"Expected by: Fall 2009"

Failing to see the problem here. Is it the limited release to a select few?

Couple that with the people asking for the very thing they provide and still somehow complain... boggles the mind.

Tullio said:

What? They have a release date that's been given on the web site. But you want to ignore that, right?

Well after reading this, I now don't feel too bad on just missing out on getting Eclipse Phase, because Rogue Trader was the priority core book for me. Catalyst said they were going to have 25 copies available each day (I was only there Friday). If FFG had done the same thing I still would have gotten my copy (second buyer), but wouldn't have thought anything about the stack of Rogue Traders that I saw there later Friday Morning. If the booth manager had just paced how many copies were being sold per day, Doombot may have gotten his copy Saturday.

Sadly that may have been the fualt of whomever was indeed running the sales booth, that I will not deny Doom. I agree that they should have paced hte release to give people more chances to get it and well see how it does. Also I do agree with Doombot that at least maybe they could then in turn have had open sessions for very very fast paced demo games, but as I pointed out before that may have taken too long to run. Hrmn... Well the main site says mine is awaiting delivery which looks like it will be sent out on the 20th since I ordered mine kinda late.

As for Doom and Peace, I feel both your pain in confusion becuase your right there was alot of I think miscommunication. I also know how it feels to mis dead lines or miss out on something. The worst used to be from Games Workshop, they were so bad about meeting qoutas and demand and mis-information. They since stepped up their game and became kind of a jugernaut. Something tells me FFG will need some improvements but so far they are handling things ok. I do not think they expected so much demand for their product and failed to set certain milestones.. At least though they were able to get it out at GenCon, hopefully with very few bugs to be fixed.

First off, thanks to everyone who participated in this thread.

Second, I will admit that I was really ticked off I didn't get my copy, but I'm chalking it up to my expectation was that the game was going to be fully available and not limited. Had I know it was going to be limited I would've tried to make a more concentrated effort to get it. I just didn't know...I thought that since they stated all through this past year it was going to be available at Gen Con it was going to be available period. Had I checked the website site sooner and searched through the forums maybe I would've found that it was going to be limited. However, I also believe that if they knew it was going to be limited they should've put that on the front page instead of just saying coming Gen Con 2009.

Third, I came to Gen Con to play BattleTech 2 days 12 hours each day, I didn't come to play Rogue Trader but was astounded that Rogue Trader had no events sheduled for it. I know people noted challenges to run a Rogue Trader event but there are tons of role playing game events that had no experience needed to play and a time limit. These events are designed to introduce the game not run a complete adventure. Considering FFG already has a Quickstart product available I thought it shouldn't have been that difficult to set a couple of games up throughout each day of the Con to introduce Rogue Trader to people but maybe FFG didn't have the resources to do that and instead only focused on the seminars. I thought that FFG missed a huge opportunity to spread the word about Rogue Trader.

Fourth, so Peace if there had been 13 playboy bunnies you would've been all over Gen Con then

Lastly, I admit that I was angry and hacked off when I wrote the initial posts. I thought I was expressing the points that I was disappointed in FFG's ability to "bring it " at Gen Con for Rogue Trader. I'm really excited to play it and I really like what I've seen of the game so far. Instead the thread picked up that I was bummed I didn't mine and focused instead mainly on that. Next time I do post on a forum I'm going to take some deep breathes and calm myself down and then post.

Thanks again everyone for reading. I'll go back to lurking for now

jasonmichael said:

If that's true, then why are thier stockists unable to agree on a release date? Seriously, other publishers manage to get books to stores on a given date, I don't see why this should be any different just because it's an RPG

Peacekeeper_b said:

Absolutely. While FFG absolutely deserve praise for the product, it's not okay for them to continuously make promises they can't keep, and have poor suckers coughing up money for conventions just so they can buy a copy of RT. What's more, even with the schedules we have slipping and sliding all over the place, the books we do get still look to have been rushed (anyone been looking for page number @@ recently?) All I want to see from FFG is a little bit more caution, release dates they can keep, and products that aren't rushed out so that they need 900 pages of errata.

TheDarkeldar said:

Sorry man, but this is just ridiculous. Yes if they'd done it that way Doombot might have gotten his. But then someone else (oh maybe drgabe, perhaps) wouldn't have. Your solution would not add to the number of players who got the book, it would just move around who was pissed off. Not fix anything. If they did it that way we'd be here reading from someone who went the first day, got told "we sold out of the ones alloted for today try tomorrow", then got told "Oh the last one went 5 minutes ago" the next day.

FFG can't control how quickly things will sell. They have to guess about how many to bring to the con. This is restricted by how much time and space they have to ship them, printing, and everything else. They sold out. Guess what, sometimes that happens at the local gaming store, or Amazon or any other vendor.

@Doombot: As to "FFG missed an opportunity", hell they sold every copy they could print and bring to rabid fans by mid-day the first day. How much more of an opportunity do they need to grab.

We all need to remember that there are a lot of us who want these books. How fast did the original Dark Heresy collector's edition sell out at BI? Wasn't it something like 6 minutes? And you expect copies of Rogue Trader to stick around longer somehow?

Then again I'm not cranky b/c I'm getting my copy tomorrow.

DocIII said:

But I did miss out on picking up a book I wanted to get as well, because I went for Rogue Trader first. I only missed out totally because I was only at GenCon one day. I would have been at the doors the next day if I could have been there. But now my FLGS will order the book for me. Waiting for the doors to open is part of the "Con" game.

Honestly, having been at GenCon this week, I was impressed that FFG was able to keep their booth stocked with Rogue Trader as long as they did. They had an absolutely MASSIVE pile of Rogue Trader copies on Thursday morning. The number of people that lined up to buy a copy was truly astonishing. I was actually surprised that they had copies up till around noon on Friday there were so many people buying it on Thursday. If I hadn't already preordered a collector edition I would have snagged one myself.

As to whether they should have rationed them, I'm of two minds. On the one hand, it would be nice if those who couldn't get there till the weekend had a chance at a copy, say with rationing. On the other hand, the FFG booth is always pretty swamped so having a massive line every morning for a limited commodity would actually probably be detrimental to the heavy flow of traffic that their booth always sees. I feel for anyone that missed getting a copy if they really wanted one at Gen Con, but I don't think FFG could have pleased everyone whichever way they chose to go with the sales. At any rate, I did at least get to thumb through a copy and it is absolutely gorgeous. Not much consolation I know but at least we know that when it comes in, the book will definitely be worth the wait.

A few random thoughts-

My impression is that they had what they had from the printers and they brought all of them to GenCon. On Thursday morning, it was indeed a massive pile as my buddy got his as soon as possible. It was clear that the product was going to sell a ton of copies, regardless how you wanted to parse them out. Heck, BSG:Pegasus sold out within a couple of hours. People were disapointed at that too.

Gaming at GenCon- it is true there were no scheduled games of RT which stunk. However, you needed to have submissions in several months ago to get in the catalog. It always seemed unlikely that RT would see this years GenCon. I did show up for a DH game, hoping for a spot. Not only did the table expand on the fly from six to eight, but there were six more people wanting into the game. Clearly, the interest is there and I think next year DH/RT will have several games available. If things go well, I hope to run one of them.

FFG had a tremendous booth at GenCon. Far more impressive than anyone else's booth for that matter. The lines to purchase were always long, tons of people were playing table/card games on the convention floor, and the FFG game room was always jammed with players. Despite how anyone may feel how RT was handled or not... FFG wa a huge winner as a corp at GenCon this year. Congrats to them. Now get to work on the next source book!

Wilfred Owen said:

Easy. You bring "too many". If they don't sell at GenCon, then you ship them off to the distributor who in turn sells them to the retailers who sell them to the people who live 1000 miles away from GenCon.

The only real excuse for not having any is the printer screwed up and you had limited supply which you couldn't control.

It matters not to me, as GenCon is in ...Wisconson or something. If I was tempted to fly to GenCon just to get a RT book, I might as well punch in the CC numbers and get one of the super-groovy Collector's Editions.

GenCon Indy (where the book was released) is in Indianapolis.

And its more than just RT/DH, I believe you would find plenty of other things to do to occupy your time.

drgabe said:

I had my first gen con experience this year and it was really just attending a couple panels. That said, it could be a lot of fun to run RT and/or DH next year. Is it simple to submit an event? Is it arranged totally through gen con?

I too am "Extremely Disappointed!" but that is with the people here complaining. I attended my first GenCon this year and was completely blown away by the FFG booth, the guys working it and the amount of product they brought to sell. I knew for a fact that if I did not get my copy Thurs morning (which was just less than an hour wait) then I would not get one, period! Anyone who thought otherwise was Extremely Naive.There was nearly a constant line every moment the Ex. Hall was open, each day, at the FFG booth.

People keep talking about rationing (which would just screw other people) and a limited supply but they are simply not being realistic. If your hobby store sells out of a product on its release day are you flaming them for not buying enough and having to wait? I guess every company should make enough for everyone to buy on day one (like Nintendo and the Wii or Chevrolet and the new Camaros). And Yes, BI sold out the DH Collectors in under 6 minutes! No one has even brought up the matter of logistics... I wonder just how many books, board games, etc. they brought? How many semi-trucks did it take to get it all there? I am pretty sure that if they would have brought double, they still would have sold out!

Seriously, if you went to GenCon just to get one book, you really missed the whole point of the convention. I demo'ed and played in over a dozen games and not a single one I had ever touched before. I met great people, from players, forum members (Hi Aethel!, Kommissar, etc.), artists and authors (Stackpole, Hickman & Weis) and project leaders, designers and others in the industry.

-Cynr

Cynr said:

By rationing, do you talk about the "one copy per customer" policy? How does that "screw people over"?

Let me illustrate an example:

Sneaky guy approaches the booth, and have stood in line or about an hour, and said line fills up constantly with hopeful buyers, and he goes:

"Hello! I'd like 15 copies of Rogue Trader please, because I intend to abuse the fact that they are only in limited numbers right now and sell them off on ebay for thrice the price I bought them for here. Chop chop!"

That, my friend, is screwing people over. Limiting the amount of copies a customer is allowed to buy is only fair when there clearly aren't enough to go round.

However if you were not refering to this phenomena im refering too, please disregard this post...

Varnias Tybalt said:

Nah, I would be cool with one per person. I actually came for 6 total (I have 5 players) and bought one after waiting through the line. I would have felt like a big arse... and was worried about the people in costume wielding swords, etc.

-Cynr

They still would have sold out, though.

Cynr said:

Good thinking mate.

And yes I also believe they would have sold out. I guess I just take every opportunity I get to vent my contempt for these capitalizing bastards buying tickets, and other limited edition merchandise only to profit from it through ebay.

Scum of the earth they are!

Hi Folks,

A few things about copies of new games at GenCon from someone who used to have to deal with this very situation professionally:

1. Despite most companies' best intentions, the games never get to the printer on time or take far longer than expected to be shipped back.
2. The printers thus ship a quantity of the book via air-freight instead of the typical sea-freight.
3. The cost of air freight pretty much destroys the profit for whatever quantity is thus shipped, and sometimes causes a loss.

Companies have to balance a fine line between having the game on hand and making any money.

Personally, I'd rather FFG have the cash flow on the 40KRP line to keep making more books than to get any one book a few days early.

Surely though they would have known this and said ahead of time:

"Very limited Rogue Trader availability! First in best dressed! If you don't come on the first day there is no guarantee you will get one!"

Being honest up front means people have absolutely no wiggle room to complain. The best they can whinge about is having to work on the first day and it not being fair that there won't be any on the second day when they can actually get there. But as it was said 'first day only' there's not much can be said.

However they really didn't say that. I don't live in America but the only indication I got from availability was that it would be available at gencon. As gencon consists of more than the first 3 hours of the first day, it didn't occur to me that it could be limited. Because it wasn't stated as so.

I have a limited edition copy coming to me and I haven't received that yet. Despite paying in advance BEFORE gencon I won't get my super expensive collectors edition for ages while anyone that had the good fortune to live in the US and went to gencon gets a copy for cheaper, earlier. The DH collectors edition appeared a month before the release of the standard game. Considering the absurd amount of postage I had to pay to get the RT collectors (more than TWO THIRDS the cost of the book) how is it fair I'm not getting it before anyone else? I'm paying for the book 4 or 5 times over to get it last.

Hellebore

with all due respect, I firmly believe that most people know that the available copies of the game would have gone quite quickly. by the way, everyone, the "see you next year" news article features release dates for all games at gencon. Rogue Trader is slated for late September, and both the normal and collector's version will ship at the same time.

Then why am I paying such an absurd amount in shipping? Where is the $10 6 week by sea option? If I'm not getting it shipped to me 24hours after printing on a velvet pillow, where the hell is the shipping cost going? We weren't even given an option as to how to have it shipped. I wasn't AS concerned because I assumed it was super fast light speed airfreight, but if it comes out at the same time as the normal book, well that's a complate money gouge. Obviously they thought if you have enough money to buy the collectors edition you wouldn't mind paying 'collectors edition' shipping prices.

I've ordered less from the Warstore in the US with cheaper shipping.

Hellebore

>Where is the $10 6 week by sea option?

As far as I know, the US mail service doesn't *have* a surface option anymore.

As to the date, it was already stated here http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=697 that the 'normal' edition and the limited edition would ship at the same time, that's hardly a surprise.

Hellebore said:

Don't know where you live Hellebore, but did you pay the same shipping fee as I did? (around 60 something dollars)

Still, I live in sweden and I guess that you have to expect some pretty expensive shipping costs. But it seemed a bit over the top, to me. Then again im not used to ordering things from abroad, so this might be normal shipping prize for a book weighing roughly seven pounds?

Anyway, im just glad I got a hold of pre-ordering a copy. Well in fact I didn't have that kind of money at the time. Thank the Emperor for having an understanding grandfather whose a veteran in the bookbinding industry. Meaning he understands the value of first editions and collectors editions of books in general, and is willing to lend some money for such expenses, regardless of the high cost.