Approximately 4 months have passed since the official release of Deathwatch, three months since the release via brick and mortar stores. The rulebook is full of glaring holes, discrepancies and unclear rules, a set of official responses has already been gathered. How much time and effort would it take to consolidate those in a single PDF Document and complement it with some not yet adressed points? Is it truly so strenuous on the release schedule of currently planned products, to invest this time, i vaguely estimate it at about 6 working hours, including proof reading and formating, in order to provide the community with the necessary update ? I suggest that everybody who thinks, that an official compilation of corrected rules and answers to frequent questions is long overdue, responds to this thread and shares his opinion. Maybe just maybe it will set some things in motion.

+1

gogo.

I have send an inquiry about this this week. Maybe I'll get a reply in the coming days.

Alex

I'm sure most people here would like the Deathwatch errata to come out ASAP, but I'm just as sure that FFG has a good reason for waiting on it a bit, perhaps to address as many issues, questions, and changes as possible.

The holiday season tends to delay projects that otherwise might only take a few hours of work. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we don't get anything until January at the earliest.

I want it NOW!

That beeing said... I would rather wait and get a good errata/FAQ then a hasted one.

But I would like to know an aprox. ETA.

I for one don't think the errata will come out until The Emperor Protects has been on the shelves for a while, gives FFG time to finalize the errata for the core book plus look at TEP and the GM screen. I would also like it now, but we all know that rushing a product out only results in these topics showing up later. I want it done right the first time.

E

FAQs and Erratas can never be truly complete, as long as the product line evolves and we keep seeing new releases. It does not make sense to wait till Emperor Protects (which is an adventure book, therefore next to not important for clarifications), or Rites of Battle or whatever the next product might be, questions should be answered and corrections should be compiled for the already released products. It is of no use to postpone adressing the issues which are already present, as new issues will definitely arise, that is why such documents can and should be constantly updated but not delayed. Dedicating a day, or even two, if the issues at hand are overly complicated, is nothing which would destroy their current schedule. The problem with Deathwatch is that core elements are wrong,unclear or incomplete in the current book. Some things have been adressed, but even there are discrepancies in between various responses given to the community. A compilation of answered questions and corrections is in order. Final versions of the documents are available to the team a month or probably even months in advance of release. It is even possible then to adress some glaring errors which might be in the printed version on release day or shortly afterwards. The community provides extensive proof reading information within just a few days, adressing those issues would take a week tops, which would mean an extensive FAQ and Errata can be easily released within a month of a product hitting shelves.

I agree with the last two posters, it's not like you can't easily keep a FAQ updated as a PDF or plain text webpage. In fact just compiling the questions in answers for the FAQ thread into the first post should have already been done, why not I don't understand.

There are products that hit shelves with immediate online FAQs out there, what's so different here? I understand the high costs or reprinting, wouldn't an FAQ just occur the minimal compared costs of hosting?

They're up to version 3.0 of errata for DH, if I remember correctly, so there's no reason they can't do the same for DW.

They will have multiple versions as more info is discovered. Each PDF still has to go through several stages to be produced, collecting all the errata and FAQs is only the first one. Then answers have to be carefully worded to avoid further confusion. Reviewed by the resident Rules Expert to make certain everything is correct. Laid out by the graphic designers into a pdf. Final proofing, etc. All of that is work on top of the other duties the staff may be doing, which likely becomes a secondary priority when worrying about getting new books to printer, etc.

My guess is they purposely wait a few months before even starting the FAQ and Errata document to try and catch most of the big ones the first time around. Then a second Errata/FAQ file can be scheduled in around a years time to catch any smaller glitches that went unnoticed the first time. With the holidays my guess is we won't see a FAQ until late January.

I'd love to see a compilation of the existing official rulings. The FAQ thread is massive at this stage, assuming that all of the ruling are in there.

I can understand why FFG might be delaying, but would an interim compilation of replies to queries in html be so hard?

ak-73 said:

What came out of it ?

tkis said:

Nothing. Somebody else please ask to reaffirm the interest of the community in an errata. The minimum of what they should do is assign someone to leaf through the answers given and compile a re-explanation of Squad mode abilities. It is impossible to play it RAI given RAW unless some GM comes here and reads at least two threads about it (errata thread and squad mode confusion). I wonder how GMs who've never been here handle this?

Alex

We are also waiting for it.

Sad thing!

ak-73 said:

They debate for 8-10 hours with their group over it, someone would end up with hurt feelings because they built their character a certain way, then they'd just grab whatever interpretation makes sense to them. I bet you'd see as many varieties in use out on the table as you saw in our debates .

EDIT: P.S. I pinged them through their official question tool as well, maybe the reinforcement will be what the doctor ordered...

I would seriously like to see that Erata coming up. So FFG, think of it as a Christmas gift yes?

Maybe not for Christmas, but soon; from Ross:

- Original Message -
From: "Ross Watson" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 2:50:08 PM
Subject: Re: Fantasy Flight Games [Rules Questions] - Deathwatch

Hello there,

Creating the Errata/FAQ for Deathwatch is very important to me!
Currently it is planned to go up on our website around the first week
in January.

Thanks for checking in!

Charmander said:

Good news. Seems my message got lost in the warp though. Too bad about the other part which was about the Wings Of Sanguinius.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Maybe they're just tired of you pestering them

Lets wait and see then, how much plans could change due to heavy workload and numerous new projects being worked on during Christmas Holidays.

Charmander said:

Perhaps I have been too critical of some of the stuff? I guess giving DW 8.5 out of 10 wasn't good enough.

Alex