For those of you who have ordered or plan on getting the collectors' edition of Deathwatch buyer beware was not something FFG had planned on telling anyone but here it is. The misprints and missed letters and horrible grammer of the original printing come with the collectors editions printings as well. No, FFG does not plan on fixing this before they are shipped out.

If you have any doubts about this post please feel free to go to the shop tab, click under holiday FAQ, and proceed to dial the number at the bottom, I asked a guy in sales personally if they would be fixing this issue, even the sales person knows and I quote "both editions were printed at the same time if there is a mistake in one there is a mistake in the other unfortunately."

So what can we do about this problem? Simply post here that this 200$ for our copies we would like to keep and cheerish should not come complete with misprints. We paid too much money to see that happen, who knows with enough people complaining they may actually remedy the situation.

Warhawk X said:

Doubtful Warhawk., The price I pay for a typical Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch book is too much for as many mistakes as we got. There is no reason to expect the special editions to be any different, wasnt so for Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader.

No, I learned my lesson from the Rogue Trader Collectors Edition. Normal editions for me from now on.

At least if they gave us unlocked editable PDFs we could fix the errors ourselves. And some of the rules LOL.

Somehow I doubt it, they didn't have a seperate print version for the Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader collectors so I don't see it happening for Deathwatch. I mean they will of already shelled out the money for printing the books so they'll hardly scrap them and reprint a proof read version. As we know from Rogue Trader the main reason for the delay is the hand calligraphy stylee Warrent of Trade/Apocryphon Oath. Don't mean to sound so negative or anything just being realistic. Personally I liked the free pdf idea someone had but whilst actually feasable it's highly unlikely too and talked about to death in another topic.

Warhawk X said:

You are paying for a case and a personalized letter. There is no remedy for the "situation" you are complaining about. You are getting, and ordered, a first printing book.

For those that don't understand or know about printing, press time must be blocked out months in advance and is horribly expensive. FFG could reprint the books with corrections but you would be looking at at least six to eight months or longer before they could print and another month or more for import then another 2-4 weeks for shipping. So almost another year. Beyond that the $200 price is, at best, cost for this product. Unless FFG found some super cheap place to manufacture and assemble the cases I would be shocked to find out FFG is making any profit on the collectors edition.

If anyone held any illusions that the the collector's edition would somehow magically contain an updated and re-laid out printing of the book incorporating errata, I want some of what they were smoking, because that's really some premium stuff. As stated, the premium price of the CE is for the case, letter, and parchment-like paper the book is supposedly printed on. That and the ability to be able to say you got a limited edition premium product. You may say that in hindsight you would not have bought the product knowing that it would have as many errors as have been pointed out since the standard edition became available, but you are no more owed corrected copies than is anyone who picked up the standard edition.

I know there are people out there that actually plan to use the CE book to game with, but I bought a standard edition book for that. I bought the CE as just that, a collector's item and would never consider risking damage to the book by actually using it at the table. Now if my CE shows up with a misprinted letter with the name wrong, or the case is dented, I'm going to be pretty pissed, but as the book it contains will never get used anyway, I'm not impacted by any errors it may contain. If anything, it's an updated version of the standard edition that I really need.

Not to beat a dead horse, but it should have been clear, when the orders for the CE went up before the book shipped, that the book that was to be packaged with it would in fact be the 1st edition copy, with all of its (implied) errors. Whats more, is I'm fairly certain that there is/was a period of time where you could cancel your order, while holding the normal book in hand. In other words, yes, the book does need a fairly serious errata to clarify some things (squad mode ability costs anyone?).

As others have stated, it is unreasonable to expect a sudden 2nd edition printing in the 5-6 week window between book release and the time the CE would need to be done by to get it across the drink, especially before the errata is even out (and probably not out for 5 more months).

The cost is for the case, the physical print quality, the customization, and the premium status of the item.

Pro tip: People deserve nothing, nobody owes you anything (well, unless you have it in writing), and you get what you pay for, in all things, buyer beware.

Me personally, I don't mind I guess, I knew what I was paying for, I just want that case (for that eventual space marine costume I'm going to try and make). I just have my fingers crossed that I'll have it in time for my next game of DW (since my players are lazy and alot won't get the book for themselves).

As mentioned, the CE went to the printers very soon after (or even before?) the standard edition. Getting an errata'd copy would require someone at FFG to be proficient in the use of a crystal ball and even then, that fair soothsayer would have been remiss not to hand those corrections to the people working on the standard edition printer's proofs.

This is just one more example of the current generation of entitlement in the world today or at least, the small part of it I inhabit.

Now, a pdf? Sure, I could get behind that if FFG didn't sell their PDFs through a third party (and thus not have the right to provide them to customers). I wonder why that decision was made?

Bottom line considerations, I'd imagine. And who can blame them? A profitable FFG keeps its employees fed.

Timberboar said:

Distribution infrastructure would be my guess. FFG doesn't have anything like that in place and it isn't cheap to set up or maintain. Third party vendors are much more affordable.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Actually they are assembling them on site in Minnesota right now according to the guy I talked to in sales, so if you think they are spending alot on assembly I'm afraid your wrong.

I understand the materials are of higher quality and the "Situation" I'm talking about is a lack of a good editor or someone who at least read through the book. I am not talking about errata I am talking about the dark angels lore page with 15 missing letters on key words. Simple **** that any moron reading the book would have caught.

Now I guess I understand if people have gone through this same shindig with the other collectors but this is my first one so I guess I am completely new to the "FFG does not have an editor or one who cares" idea.

I guess I thought quality was something FFG stood for in their products and am sadly mistaken, and dissappointed that no one feels that they should have some ******* pride in thier products enough to hire an editor.

Apparently they didn't learn the first two times from Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, and that's again, a ******* shame.

Warhawk X said:

To be fair:

a) Dark Heresy first printing and Collector's Edition was done by Black Industries and not by FFG (and I have one wheeeee!).

b) I am of the strong opinion that even the first printing of Rogue Trader was very solid and did not have even half the issues that Deathwatch first printing has.

FFG use playtesters. They use freelancers. Perhaps they could combine th two and have playtesting versions of editors that can comb through the document and point out the greater majority of the problems that seem to crop. Sure there's nothing that can be done about the rules (not saying there needs to be), but always something worth considering. I mean, it's not as if their NDA can get worse.

Kage

You can't change your complaint midstream. That's just bad form.

Warhawk X said:

Firstly the language is uncalled for regardless of your frustration.

As far as FFG and their products, they take pride in their work and keeping their customers happy. The Rogue Trader CE shipped out in what was thought to be solid padding and protection. A large number of the custom CE boxes ended up being damaged from the weight of the books, causing tearing and damage to corners and edges. FFG reprinted and replaced the boxes to everyone who provided pictures of the damage at no cost. They lost money by doing that, but they gained many loyal customers in the process. Me being one of them.

Proof reading is very difficult and errors, major errors, can be found in first prints of any book. I have read at least three novels in the last month, all major publishers and titles, that all had many grammatical, spelling and formatting errors, that I caught. I have never claimed to be, nor would I want to be a proofreader.

Many hands touch the text of any book during production and errors can happen all along the way. Writer>Editor>Layout>Printer, and who knows how many others, depending on the specific item, have their hands in the pot. Anyone of them could be to blame. People make mistakes. No matter how many eyes look at something mistakes can still get by.

ItsUncertainWho said:

So true. I think that the OP is questioning the quantity of mistakes, not that they happen. As above, though, one has to wonder whether there is a stage taht can be introduced to moderate them since obviously it does seem to be a problem, even if somewhat improved over the days of BI (many would argue).

Kage

On the note of editing, the fact that we, the customer FIND these errors so readily is proof of a quality setting. We care enough to notice the minutia of a mispelling of a few words out of what, a hundred thousand? couple hundred thousand? We read these books like holy texts, pouring through them, looking (as GMs) for all the nuances to best run a fun time for our friends, or how to play our new favorite characters. The Editors of a book like this might go through it, what, twice? three times? By week 2 any one of us has probably doubled or tripled that number, especially at release. ItsUncertainWho has it right, I'm an avid reader (as a substitute teacher, really aside from making sure the kids aren't eating each other I don't have much else to do lol), there are ALWAYS errors, the more you enjoy a book (or the more you hate it) the more likely you are to find things to nit-pick over. For the book quality, we are actually getting a very good deal, especially compaired to other gaming company books (D&D 3.0... 3.5... 4.0 anyone? I know I like replacing my books with the errataed version 6 months later, for the same 40$, and then the new D&D WoW was good /sarcasmoff).

Maybe Im just past blinded by fond memories, but I do not recall this many errors in general with old school 1E and 2E AD&D books I owned (own) back in the day.

Of course, back then you had 3-5 core AD&D 1E books coming out over a few years, not 5+ books a year with what looks like a future release of 1 40K RPG book a month.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Rose colored glasses. First, if you are only counting "Core" books, the 40k rpg line doesn't breakdown that way. A conservative count there are 3 "core" 40k rpg books released to date, roughly one every 1.5 years.

If you look at this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=188346 on EN World you can see that from 1980 on TSR released at least a dozen D&D products per year. In the 90s it was far more than that. Times have changed so the market for products has changed. ~1 book per month seems like a good rate for an rpg line as it keeps continued interest in the series as a whole. Not everyone needs to buy every supplement or adventure for the game.

As for mistakes in books, those products were overall a lot smaller. There definitely are errors in every book ever produced. While I do wish that FFG spent a little more time during their final proofing phase, I do appreciate the challenges of publishing a complex book on a deadline.

Also remember that the AD&D books evolved from an earlier work. In many ways it has the benefits of being a "second" edition of a game, which means the basic rules had already been polished at that point.

It's all well and good if a few people turn round and defend FFG because of their personal experience, but no sane company sits there twiddling it's thumbs and ignoring glaringly obvious errors that customers pick up on as soon as they purchase a product.

The QA team needs to be expanded or disciplined, the fairly swift release schedules relaxed and generally more effort put into each product.

I know FFG never plan on re-printing older books with updates and corrections (which is bad enough in my mind) but they should at least draw a line in the sand and say "from this point on we will endevour to do better". It's just basic customer service skills.

I work frontline for local government in England and i can tell you that the second we recieve a customer complaint even half as serious as FFG seem to be regularly recieving on these, their own forums, that we pounce upon it. Conversely though we also lavish up any and all praise we recieve, as it's good for staff morale. I'd love to sit down and do a little training seminar with FFG, but then i reckon a lot of my issue with them is the UK/US division on what makes a good customer service and a good product.

When it comes to silly misstakes like typos, FFG-products easily have the most of them compared to other RPGs I have. Misstakes do happen, but there is something to be said for doing at least some proofreading.

Kasatka said:

In my experience the only divide here is The Pond and not the desire for quality products and good customer service. I would qualify this statement, but would probably end up just insulting the Americans and the English (I live/work in America but am British), so I'm not going to go there. Again, though, while all products certainly come with a number of typographics or errors the 40k RPG line seems to have more than its share. Thus the question becomes how would a company go about moderating them rather than whether they exist or not.

To turn the frown upside down, as it were, it's probably worth recognising that FFG have reduced the number of errata as well as introduced basic considerations that seemed to stump Black Industries , e.g. an index.

With that said, surely if you want FFG to "fix" what you perceive as the problem it would be best to send a complaint to them? While venting on the forums can be cathartic, one imagines that exploring more traditional feedback/complaint mechanisms might get more of a response. It's easy to ignore forums, but when you've got several dead trees of complaint letters on your desk it might draw your attention to the fact that at least some of your customers have a valid concern. And not email! Dead tree. And if you're feeling guilty about the dead tree, think about the postal service that you're keeping employed and get involved in a tree planting charity.

Kage

Kasatka said:

I've had nothing but good customer service from FFG, from replacing damaged books, to swiftly answering any rule questions or complaints, and always unfailingly polite (unlike some other RPG companies that I've had to deal with). Incidentally you're wrong about FFG never re-printing older books with updates and corrections as they had reprinted Inquisitor's Handbook in hardcover and with major changes from errata and customer comments, and Dark Heresy likewise has had at least two prints. I've also worked as a professional editor and technical writer before and it is a ton of work to edit and proofread, and even then there's going to be mistakes in the final release. I have lavish editions of cookbooks - which would seem relatively simple and have low word-count compared to RPG products - that have glaring errors in them. If you think there's a problem with wrong spelling of Dark Angels or something, you should see what a problem a missing word in a cookbook can cause in a kitchen!

Alan Merret makes it a point in the foreword how a Space Marine RPG is like a Holy Grail of systems and how long it took to get implemented.

To be frank: to get an RPG with that many inconsistencies, ambiguites, etc. is a bit of a let down. If they were treating this RPG as a holy grail (and I think they should have), they would have made sure they could delay a release date by some time to get it right on first shot.

I think as it is, it has been tarnishing the image of FFG a bit. If the next supplementals are good and there is a an errata in the next few months, I don't think it will have too much of a long-term impact.

But FFG will have to live with the first Space Marine RPG being a quite error-riddled product.

A bit of a let down although I personally don't mind all the errors all that much. It just strikes me as if they haven't been all that enthusiastic about DW making as perfect as possible. Perhaps an unfair impression but that's how it comes across.

Alex

Has anyone compiled a concise list of how much errata is actually needed? It may be that I just auto-correct things with my knowledge from DH and RT, and I know there have been a lot of questions people asked about the intent of some rules, but I've found the game quite playable. I've only played a one-shot so far, so I don't have a real campaigns experience yet.

ak-73 said:

The problem with any delay is us and print time.

We are, in general, a bunch of whining, selfish geeks who want instant gratification. Just look back to the RT threads around Gen Con before its release and the DW threads earlier this year. There are many people on these forums who would have screamed bloody murder if their precious books were delayed at all.

Delaying DW to fix things would have pushed back release by 6 months to a year, based on my experience with printers. Reshuffling print times would cost more money to cancel and reschedule a print run and the whole product line would be delayed and cost more money.

I can't imagine anyone at FFG being happy about putting any product out that has errors. The overall quality of their products seems to speak to them taking pride in their work. The problem is that there is a point where, perfect or not, a product must ship and there is nothing they can do about it.

For rules issues, I find it's more of how one reads something than a wrong or ambiguous rule, in a lot of cases.

ItsUncertainWho said:

I wasn't among the impatient.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Ah, com'on. Squad mode abilities? Righteous Fury rules? Can psy powers be dodged? Over-powered Bolters? Etc. etc. etc.

I understand what you're saying. But if to FFG this had been the holy grail wouldn't they have scheduled printing so that they could be sure that the output had the necessary level of quality? DW should have been the pinnacle of the product line after all. It probably isn't.

All I am doing is pointing out the divergence between lofty foreword rhetoric and reality in the pages that follow. And with all the unfair customer whining in mind, let me point out that FFG are professionals. It's not unfair to expect a higher standard from them given that mission statement in the foreword.

Alex