2 hours ago, Random Bystander said:

Today is not yet over....

But the Upcoming page update has already happened for the day, and none of the upcoming books moved. So for purposes of seeing new stuff in our hands, today is over .

EDIT: Okay, theoretically, we could get a new book announcement tomorrow - Unlimited Power was announced on 9/22/2017, and Ghosts changed to Shipping Now exactly one week later, on 9/29. So IF (and that's still an "if") next week is the week, we could have the same pattern happen with an announcement tomorrow, and a status change next week.

...I don't have hope for it, but it is technically possible.

EDIT 2: Oh, also, we better hope we get a new announcement this week or next. If we don't get an announcement by next Friday, we break the record for the longest time without an announcement. You know, that record set between when the Edge Core book was announced and when Beyond the Rim (i.e. the very first book) was announced.

EDIT 3: Okay, technically both Ghosts of Dathomir and No Disintegrations did change to Shipping Now on a Friday, so there's a possibility that we might see things update tomorrow instead of needing to wait until next week. However, FFG has been fairly consistent since then about making all major changes happen on a Thursday, so I'm not expecting it.

I think FFG Star Wars team is still arguing over whether The Last Jedi was good or not...

The Genesys Terrinoth book just moved to OTB... it hit the printer only 6 days ago! (Printer on 25/1... or 1/25 for you lot) Is that some kind of print record?

Eight days? Yes, that's a record. Heck, it hasn't even been announced for a month yet and it's already On the Boat !

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm probably going to buy it and love it, but this annoys me somewhat. Star Wars made Genesys possible, and has been massively delayed. Couldn't they use some of that haste on Star Wars instead? If it starts shipping before any of the current batch of Star Wars books make it to shelves (entirely possible of its boating time is the same as Genesys Core), I might legitimately get angry.

1 hour ago, robus said:

I think FFG Star Wars team is still arguing over whether The Last Jedi was good or not...

Should be much of an argument. There are those that think E8 was awesome and those who are wrong.

EDIT - this post subtitled for the humor impaired.

4 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Should be much of an argument. There are those that think E8 was awesome and those who are wrong.

Mr. Penguin, I'm gonna say this once: I enjoy your antics and can appreciate you point of view, even if I disagree. But let's please not start that discussion up again in my thread. The previous thread got WAAAY out of hand and locked because of it.

Thanks.

My bad - I should have accounted for Poe's Law . It was strictly made in jest and not intended to spark discussion and/or hijack the thread.

5 minutes ago, Desslok said:

My bad - I should have accounted for Poe's Law . It was strictly made in jest and not intended to spark discussion and/or hijack the thread.

No trouble . Thanks!

17 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

Eight days? Yes, that's a record. Heck, it hasn't even been announced for a month yet and it's already On the Boat !

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm probably going to buy it and love it, but this annoys me somewhat. Star Wars made Genesys possible, and has been massively delayed. Couldn't they use some of that haste on Star Wars instead? If it starts shipping before any of the current batch of Star Wars books make it to shelves (entirely possible of its boating time is the same as Genesys Core), I might legitimately get angry.

It was printed in the US obviously. There are a couple reasons for this, but most importantly that they can afford to do it, the profit margin is much larger.

It would seem that Genesys sales were pretty good.

I am sure that many folks on these forums are like myself and have seen this happen with the Star Wars RPG before.

I'm familiar and perfectly okay with things like X-Wing and Imperial Assault and the various Lovecraft games outpacing us. Those are completely different genre of game, for a wider audience than RPGs. I'm even fine with the idea of Genesys running faster than Star Wars going forward - FFG doesn't have to get every little scrap approved by Darth Maus, it has a wider appeal by being setting agnostic, and FFG can also make more money due to the aforementioned no-Disney.

What irks me is that it's happening right now . Star Wars had its demonstrably worst year ever, and still hasn't recovered, yet they fast track Genesys while we are still struggling behind? If they had slowed Genesys just a bit to help Star Wars get back to its regular pace, and then let Genesys run up ahead, I'd be entirely cool with that. But...I dunno. Obviously I can't see everything going on, the timing is just frustrating, I guess.

I don't think they can just apply more "haste" to Star Wars, instead of Genesys. I thought they had to print Star Wars with an overseas printer due to some sort of stipulation with the rights-holder, or ongoing business relation with the printer, if I didn't completely mishear that some time ago. Does the printer need to be approved by Disney/Lucasfilm?

Genesys they're free to print how they please. At least, if I'm not totally off-base.

Edit: I mean, I like my FFG Star Wars a lot. But I hear so much random lamenting or doom and gloom over nothing. Even cries of favoritism, or failure of the RPG line, which is just silly. Everyone should be well aware by now that we're still seeing the cascade effect of the Hanjin bankruptcy, which has had yearlong repercussions. It's gonna take time.

7 minutes ago, CeilingSquid said:

I don't think they can just apply more "haste" to Star Wars, instead of Genesys. I thought they had to print Star Wars with an overseas printer due to some sort of stipulation with the rights-holder, or ongoing business relation with the printer, if I didn't completely mishear that some time ago.

Genesys they're free to print how they please. At least, if I'm not totally off-base.

And that may be entirely the case, and if so, then I hope FFG can forgive me my griping. But it's also possible that they had the ability to print one set of books here in the US and one in China, and they chose to spend that extra money on Genesys instead of Star Wars. I would think, based on how large the Genesys books are (both in size and print run), that they could probably have fit two of the current Star Wars books in the place of Terrinoth.

But of course, I'll reiterate, you may be right and they are contractually obligated to do things this way. Maybe I'm just impatient, cranky from waiting, sore from my workout the other day, and sad we didn't get an update today, and it's combined to make me grouchier than usual .

There definitely seems to be some reason Star Wars is printed overseas, is it a FFG/Disney contract issue? Is it an FFG/Printer contract? Is it simply that the size of print runs is so much larger with Star Wars?

Hypothetically speaking FFG should have entered into a contract for a certain volume of prints over a set number of years to secure cheap prices for Star Wars RPG. When the doo doo hit the fan last year with shipping company liquidation Asmodie/FFG would have probably touched cloth.

If I was them I would have started looking to either acquire a print business or form a partnership on home soil. But the size of that print business would depend on their willingness to invest, it’s possible they started smaller to test the waters. They then can print smaller runs of board and card games as well as Genesys product. If the project works then they could increase the size to handle larger volume products such as Star Wars.

Now the fact paper versions of Genesys sold so quickly may have caught them by surprise (I hope they are happy) and they could already be looking to increase capacity... or not and my wild speculation could be completely wrong.

17 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

If I was them I would have started looking to either acquire a print business or form a partnership on home soil.

The problem with buying a print business is that FFG would be kind of in the same boat as Nintendo was when the Wii was massive back in '09. You couldn't get a console unless you had a massive stroke of luck, and everyone was saying "Why doesn't Nintendo build Wii Factories?" That might solve the problem in the short term, but in the long term, when the Wii popularity dies down, Nintendo is stuck with excessive production and no demand. Oh sure they could retool the lines, but that's another additional cost.

So while it's frustrating to the Layman (AKA, us) I'm sure that the Bean Counters at FFG have determined this to be the route to follow.

Remember: You can have it fast, you can have it cheap or you can have it right. Pick two.

I really want these Star Wars books that were promised to be out so long ago to finally release. I think we have waited long enough.

32 minutes ago, Desslok said:

The problem with buying a print business is that FFG would be kind of in the same boat as Nintendo was when the Wii was massive back in '09. You couldn't get a console unless you had a massive stroke of luck, and everyone was saying "Why doesn't Nintendo build Wii Factories?" That might solve the problem in the short term, but in the long term, when the Wii popularity dies down, Nintendo is stuck with excessive production and no demand. Oh sure they could retool the lines, but that's another additional cost.

So while it's frustrating to the Layman (AKA, us) I'm sure that the Bean Counters at FFG have determined this to be the route to follow.

Remember: You can have it fast, you can have it cheap or you can have it right. Pick two.

True, although a printer could possibly do LCG/CCG printing as well, then there’s the possibility of selling print time to other publishers, retooling is not exactly an issue.

1 hour ago, Banditks said:

I really want these Star Wars books that were promised to be out so long ago to finally release. I think we have waited long enough.

I think that's been out of FFG's hands for a while now, and no amount of hand-wringing or impatience will speed it up.

Stuff is moving, on a boat. It'll get here when it gets here.

We're simply dealing with the reality that any of the multiple parties and moving parts in book production can fail at some point, leaving it out of the developer's hands. A massive shipping company goes belly-up, and an in-progress shipment is lost. FFG has to suddenly devote extra money to a new print run, while working on a limited budget. This pushes back other projects waiting in the wings, which pushes back other projects after that, and so on...

None of this is particularly surprising, but people have a tendency to get worked up about the health of the entire RPG line over what are, effectively, simply unforseen delays. Release "promises" cannot account for failures outside FFG's control.

Edit 1: fixed typos

Edit 2: If FFG did anything wrong, I think they could've communicated the ongoing problems more clearly, to cut down on speculation. Other than that, I can't really blame them.

2 hours ago, Absol197 said:

But it's also possible that they had the ability to print one set of books here in the US and one in China, and they chose to spend that extra money on Genesys instead of Star Wars.

There could be contractual obligations, so maybe it wasn't FFG's choice. One can only imagine that the Star Wars budget is considerable compared to Genesys just based on the social media offerings - so if money is no object, something else must be. And let's face it, RPGs aren't FFG's bread and butter.

16 minutes ago, themensch said:

There could be contractual obligations, so maybe it wasn't FFG's choice. One can only imagine that the Star Wars budget is considerable compared to Genesys just based on the social media offerings - so if money is no object, something else must be. And let's face it, RPGs aren't FFG's bread and butter.

I know . In fact, in the same post that you quoted, I think I admitted that it was a definite possibility. With all this waiting, my Brain is casting out like the grasping tentacles of a kraken for some sinister plot to be the answer to our troubles. But as everyone has made clear, there's unlikely to be an evil plot, just logistical constraints that we can only glimpse in tiny part.

My apologies for my earlier pessimism, everyone! I shall attempt to steel myself against such instincts hereout!

10 hours ago, Absol197 said:

My apologies for my earlier pessimism, everyone! I shall attempt to steel myself against such instincts hereout!

None needed. This is your thread and I think everyone would agree that you can vent in it if you want to. And I hope you realize how much people appreciate you... your predictions actually give us some hope to cling to when FFG is on radio silence.

My wild guess would be that they print more Star Wars books than they do Genesys Terrinoth books - because Star Wars is a huge brand, while Terrinoth is not so much, plus you need to have the Genesys book to use the Terrinoth book (so your audience is further limited). Perhaps they get a better deal with the China printer for the number of Star Wars books they print than they would with those numbers using the US printer. Ergo, for Star Wars, print in China because it makes more sense. The Terrinoth book, though, is fewer pages and perhaps not as art heavy, so for those lower numbers, printing in China vs printing in the US might not save as much as with the higher volume. Then add in the savings from no license fees and no Lucasfilm approval process, and that might make US printing feasible. Opportunity costs and all.

Or maybe they've found a new printer in the US, but the four SW books on the boat were already contracted with the China printer, but future SW RPG books will go through the US printer. Only FFG business folks know for sure!

Do note that they already have samples of some of the SW RPG books; Pablo Hidalgo posted photos of his copy of the d6 SW reprints. Those were probably proof copies, though.

Did you notice that the "Updated" date for Dawn of Rebellion changed (from 12/21 to 2/1) but the status is still "On the Boat"? None of the other three books did that. In the past, that often happened to things that would move to "Shipping Now" in a week. I'm betting Dawn of Rebellion will go to "Shipping Now" status on 2/7 or 2/8, with a release date of 2/22.

17 hours ago, TrainedMunkey said:

It would seem that Genesys sales were pretty good.

Yeah, but I'm not sure they've taken into account just how large a portion of that was sales to people who play the SW line who just wanted some "alternate" rules, and won't be buying any of the additional content for Genesys.

So, Dawn of Rebellion has an updated, dated 2/1/2018 as on the boat.

8 hours ago, Dr Lucky said:

Did you notice that the "Updated" date for Dawn of Rebellion changed (from 12/21 to 2/1) but the status is still "On the Boat"?

15 minutes ago, Rithuan said:

So, Dawn of Rebellion has an updated, dated 2/1/2018 as on the boat.

I definitely noticed it, but what that means is incredibly inconsistent, so much so as to be nearly worthless. It's something to take note of, but by now I'm fairly certain we can't draw any conclusions from these pseudo-updates.