So, 'Savage Spirits' was announced start of January, and there's been no previews subsequently. We're not even sure of the species or spec skills yet.

How long normally does it take from announcement to release? About 4 months, roughly? Anyway, it's now May and there's nothing on the horizon for anything else in the lines, meaning that we're discussing the movies and Infinite Backpacks for want of anything else game-related to talk about.

Now I'm NOT saying 'the sky is falling!!!' at all.

And I'm not expecting the playtesters to comment obviously. They have dropped hints there is more in the offing.

But there does seem to be a lull. Holding everything back for GenCon maybe?

Or something else afoot? Force Awakens rules-set? 2nd Edition about to be announced?

Feels like... something ... is up, something is going on. I don't know what.

Thoughts?

I think their printers have been booked up with reprints, I sure hope we get some new news soon though, refreshing the home page is getting depressing

May the Forth.

Yeah, I'm thinking that they're holding to announce something (and hopefully multiple somethings) on May the 4th.

And if you're curious, I have a ridiculous amount of data I've tracked related to the timing of books. I could share it; without getting into the details, this is pretty much the biggest lull we've had since the lines started.

Also, I believe you meant "Savage Spirits." "Savage Species" is the D&D book for playing monsters .

Yeah, I'm thinking that they're holding to announce something (and hopefully multiple somethings) on May the 4th.

And if you're curious, I have a ridiculous amount of data I've tracked related to the timing of books. I could share it; without getting into the details, this is pretty much the biggest lull we've had since the lines started.

Also, I believe you meant "Savage Spirits." "Savage Species" is the D&D book for playing monsters .

Ugh, yeah, apologies... 'Savage Species' is a total abomination of a book for 3.0, singulary responsible for most of the bad press that 3rd edition gets.

It's my least favourite RPG supplement ever: 'playing dragons and demons, great! What could possibly go wrong?'

And yes, I figured if anyone would know about schedules and stats, it would be you, Absol Please share. It will stop me talking about Infinite Backpacks, at least.

Gencon is what - mid August? Assuming that Savage Spirits takes a ridiculously long time to come out - lets say June - it seems very odd to have the product line in hibernation for July and August, so I very much doubt that they will hold off until Gencon for announcements. Looking back at previous May 4ths, I don't recall any FFG announcements on those days, so I doubt they'll roll something out there.

My money is on "random date pulled out of the air."

Sure! Apologies in advance for any weird typeface issues – for these big posts I type them up in Word and paste them into the forum, which can result in some…interesting things happening.

So! You mentioned wondering how long it takes books to come out. I have this broken down in several different ways. For these first stats, I’m not going to include Savage Spirits, because we technically don’t know when it’ll be released, even though we have a very good idea (most likely 06/02). All timeframes are given from the News post announcing the book to the one announcing its release.

For the lines themselves, I’ll give the mean timeframe for both the entire line, and the line without the CRB.

EotE: 125.91 / 121.40;

Shortest Book: Beyond the Rim (92 days); Longest Book: EotE Core Rulebook (171 days)

AoR: 146.17 / 145.80;

Shortest Book: Lead by Example (101 days); Longest Book: Strongholds of Resistance (253 days*)

F&D: 169.50 / 169.00;

Shortest Book: Nexus of Power (136 days); Longest Book: Chronicles of the Gatekeeper (209 days*)

* Book was affected by the dockworkers’ strike in Q4 2015.

By book type, we have the following:

Core Books: 163.33

Shortest Book: AoR CRB (148 days); Longest Book: EotE and F&D CRBs (171 days).

Adventures: 132.40

Shortest Book: Beyond the Rim (92 days); Longest Book: Chonicles of the Gatekeeper (209 days*).

Career Books: 124.44

Shortest Book: Far Horizons (98 days); Longest Book: Keeping the Peace (162 days*);

Setting Books: 167.00

Shortest Book: Suns of Fortune and Nexus of Power (136 days); Longest Book: Strongholds of Resistance (253 days*).

From this, we can see a couple of interesting things: first off, F&D books take the longest to get from announcement to release, on average, although that is likely biased by the small number of books and the fact that the first 2 of 3 (not include the CRB) were delayed by the strike. Career books are also the quickest. The average for all books so far is 140.00 days, so just under 5 months, but if we remove the CRBs from that it drops to 136.11, about 4.5 months. Savage Spirits will (most likely) come in at 147 days, or just over average.

I wasn’t able to track the mean timeframes for each of the stages of release (“In Development,” “At the Printer,” “On the Boat,” and Shipping Now”) for most of the books; I didn’t start tracking data until the start of 2016, and for some reason FFG doesn’t archive the exact days they changed the status on each of their products. Weird, right ? But I can say that, so far as I have data, the shortest time something can be “On the Boat” is just about 6 weeks (40-43 days, depending on what day of the week it went “On the Boat”). Also, at least as far as I have tracked, everything changes from “On the Boat” to “Shipping Now” on Tuesday, and we see it on Wednesday. Then, it takes 2.5 weeks to arrive, and the status changes to “In Stores Now” on Thursday (with accompanying news post, if it’s a new release). Additionally, Both Special Modifications and Nexus of Power, our two most recent books, had no news posts at all until exactly a week before their release. So I would think we would expect something similar for Savage Spirits.

Now, for how big of a lull we’re in: it’s a big one. We can track this in a couple of ways: the first we’ll look at it time between announcements: the average amount of time between announcements before this gap was 51.76 days. We’ve had waits as short as 2 days (between MotPQ and Keeping the Peace), to as long as 142 days (between the Edge CRB and Beyond the Rim, when we had only one line and no actual releases yet). Until now, there had only been three waits of 100 days or over, and the aforementioned one at the beginning needs a big asterisk next to it. They were the 106 days between Far Horizons and Stay on Target, and the 110 days between Keeping the Peace and Lead by Example. But now, there’s a fourth, and it’s in second place so far: the current wait is at 116 days and still climbing.

The next thing to look at is the line specific-gaps, where we look at how long any one line has gone without any books upcoming. Edge has done so a total of 5 times now, and this is the third time Age has done so. With the exception of the massive, 133-day gap between Fly Casual’s release and MotPQ being announced, the current gaps are the longest for each of their respective lines. And the only reason they’re not the two longest ever (aside from the one mentioned) is that there was a 45-day gap between Stay on Target and Desperate Allies. But the current Edge gap is closing in on that one. If I’m right about May 4th it won’t catch it, but if I’m wrong there’s almost no way it won’t go over.

Numbers time! Shown Without Current / With Current

Edge Gaps: 5 (54.25 / 51.20)

Shortest Gap: MotPQ to SM (14 days); Longest Gap: FC to MotPQ (133 days).

Age Gaps: 3 (26.5 / 47.00)

Shortest Gap: OaAI to SoT (8 days); Longest Gap: LbE to ??? (88+ days)

Total Gaps: 8 (45.00 / 49.63)

Interestingly, at least so far, F&D has never been without an upcoming book. Also, the 8 days between OaAI’s release and Stay on Target’s announcement is the only other time two lines have been without an upcoming book at the same time, and the only time the entire product line has been without an upcoming book.

Finally (for now, at least), one last bit of data trivia: the average number of upcoming books at any one time throughout the entire line’s run is currently 2.50. That number is slowly dropping right now as we add days with only 1 book upcoming, though.

Okay, that should be fairly comprehensive! If you have any specific questions, let me know! Playing with numbers is fun!

EDIT: BtW, you got the names backwards again in your most recent post .

Amazon says it'll be in stock at the end of July, so... believe it as much as you'd believe anything from them?

EDIT: BtW, you got the names backwards again in your most recent post .

Fixed, thanks! My head hurts

Anyway, fascinating analysis. We have an AoR PC who loves her stats and gives everyone else glazed expressions

And very solid facts to back up my vague hunch that we are in a peculiar lull at the moment.

So, this entire thread was just a trap to get me to show up and shower you with numbers, wasn't it?

Amazon says it'll be in stock at the end of July, so... believe it as much as you'd believe anything from them?

While I don't have all the data I'd like to have, my numbers and estimates are based on actual figures I've crunched regarding past releases, as accurate as I can get them.

So when I say we'll likely have the official release of Savage Spirits on June 2, you can trust that fairly well. Barring some boat or shipping mishap, that's when the numbers and patterns say it should release.

So, this entire thread was just a trap to get me to show up and shower you with numbers, wasn't it?

Ahaha, you saw through my cunning plan!

I'm an insurance underwriter, it's my job to see patterns and systems...

NNNNNNOOOOOO! I took the bait!

Could someone help get this hook out of my mouth? It tastes like worms...

2nd Edition about to be announced?

Don't mean to be a Jerk, but, EotE isn't finished, AoR has barely any Career Splat books, and F&D has 1 Career Splatbook.

It will easily be another 2 full years before we can even think about predicting the end of the line.

Hey, I would be happy if they finally supply all their distributors with copies of special modifications or that fly casual reprint. Waiting since 6 months or so for those ;-)

I wish they would stop fooling around and release the Jedi Warrior source book already.

I wish they would stop fooling around and release the Jedi Warrior source book already.

The bounty hunter PC I've been playing since Sept. 2013 is willing to offer you tips on how to be patient.

I wish they would stop fooling around and release the Jedi Warrior source book already.

The bounty hunter PC I've been playing since Sept. 2013 is willing to offer you tips on how to be patient.

Aye. I'd rather have a bounty hunter book instead of diplomat or colonist.

I wish they would stop fooling around and release the Jedi Warrior source book already.

The bounty hunter PC I've been playing since Sept. 2013 is willing to offer you tips on how to be patient.

Aye. I'd rather have a bounty hunter book instead of diplomat or colonist.

Well, someone has to be in the last position and my Politico was thrilled that it wasn't them! Besides, those homestead/business rules were the bomb.

Let's see:

Game of Thrones announcements - almost weekly

Star Wars Card game announcements - almost weekly

Netrunner announcements - almost weekly

Rebellion and Imperial assault announcements - almost weekly

Roleplaying announcements...hmmmmmmmmm!!!

For those keeping track at home: I do not count the TFA Beginner Box announcement. We are still in a gap in announcements of 119 days and counting.

For those keeping track at home: I do not count the TFA Beginner Box announcement. We are still in a gap in announcements of 119 days and counting.

I'm with you there. (And I think the new Beginner box is a good thing, don't get me wrong...)

But it does at least explain why everything else seems to be on hiatus. Especially as I feared a 2nd edition.

Fingers crossed this gets the ball rolling again

2nd Edition about to be announced?

Don't mean to be a Jerk, but, EotE isn't finished, AoR has barely any Career Splat books, and F&D has 1 Career Splatbook.

AOR has half the allotted career books released. I would not call that barely any. That is 2 behind Edge and 2 ahead of F&D