Not sure if anyone's spotted this one yet.

Page 187 under Melta-bomb.

"melta-bombs use mango-adhesives to adhere to metallic surfaces"

I love the idea of traitor legions using tropical fruit against the hated Imperium.

I can already see the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer containing an updated errata, stating "Please don't lick the armory meltabombs" .

Delicious typos.

Hahahaha - best typo so far!

And it's not just tropical fruit, don't forget the mighty CaraPearce armour and the dreaded ampuPotator shells

If Chaos utilizes weaponised mangos... suddenly the Imperial Guard looks even more like the British Army in Blackadder Goes Forth.

"Fresh fruits not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me!"

http://thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi?word=mango

(edit- I'd link it, but the forum doesn't like links...)

Don't Get Mad, Get Mango

I find it hilarious that you can pay $60.00+ for a product and it's not even complete. These are the kind of mistakes that shouldn't have made it into the final product.

Lecram said:

Welcome to the RPG hobby. Proofreading is for the weak.

Seriously, though, I don't much mind such spellcheck fails, hilarious as they may be. It's the mistakes in the rules that really get me, and sadly, BC is filled to the brim with them.

Morangias said:

I've played quite a few RPG's and I know that there are usually editing issues, but this book seems particularily bad. Was there a tight deadline? It just doesn't seem like the same quality is there.

Lecram said:

Fgdsfg said:

Tsk tsk.

That's the mindset that's plaguing the RP industry these days: low expectations. 400 pages isn't that bad.

Nekros22 said:

Indeed. BC has glaring, painfully obvious and abundant errors. This isn't a lack of 100% perfect proof reading, if anything it's a 100% lack of proof reading. When you price a product you are expected to deliver a product that has the quality of writing, design and production to match that price. BC has failed that goal in the production department. The book is full of obvious errors to the point that it actually impacts the use of said product, just look at all the contradictions in various sections concerning Two-Weapon fighting!

As for why, FFG has a spotty track record with had post-production editing in general, BC probably got hit harder because there's a lot of authors and a lot of copy pasting from past books that haven't been sufficiently checked before printing. Ergo rule contradictions and such obvious misses as the horde section mentioning space marines and the oh so wonderful "Natural armor does not stack with armor. Natural armor stacks with worn armor, but not the machine trait.".

@Nekros

That's the mindset that's plaguing the RP industry these days: low expectations. 400 pages isn't that bad.

It isn't that bad if you're writing for a large market where the sunk costs disappear beneath production costs. In comparison to mainstream books, RPGs are a ridiculously small market - meaning lower profit and thus less capital to be sunk into a product.

Cifer said:

I simply fail to see how having a small market is an excuse for providing a low quality product. There are RPG's available for free that have fewer typos than BC.

If anything providing a low quality product to a small market would be more costly than delaying the product's release to make sure it is free of errors.

@Fgdsfg I didn't say 100% perfect proof reading. Please don't put words in my mouth. As I mentionned above, I've played a variety of RPG's and I expect that some things might get missed in the editing process. What I mean is it's a lot of money for a product that has a lot of glaring mistakes.

So here you have a book with tonnes of errors and have to wait until an errata comes out and have 2 documents to refer to when looking up the rules or you can dish out another pile of cash when the next print comes out post errata.

I'm not trying to start an argument here. I just asked if there was a tight deadline. According to what I've read, it seems par for the course for FFG.

EvilHat games had a neat way of coming out with their Dresden Files RPG. They provided a "BETA" PDF that could be replaced free of charge when the final version came out. They also provided the hard copy of the Beta at a reduced price. When the errata/completed version came out, they charged full price. The book was also 400+ pages, BTW. Also, there wasn't nearly as many mistakes in their BETA version as there is in BC's final version.

I am a professional style editor (i.e., glorified copy editor for the most part) and it is painfully obvious that the last draft of these books (that is, any last-minute additions) were not proofread. It's really quite surprising considering how well written they are.

Yeah you will always have errors in the final version, but if one if my subeditors let through some of this stuff I would certainly give them a bad quality control review.

@Nekros

I simply fail to see how having a small market is an excuse for providing a low quality product.

In exactly the way I explained: Small market -> less units sold -> lower overall profit -> lesser possibility to indulge in one-time costs.

There are RPG's available for free that have fewer typos than BC.

And I take it those for-free RPGs aim to keep a company in business? Or are they produced in someone's free time, meaning he can be as un-economical as he wants with them?

Cifer said:

First of all, a small market does not equate to less overall profit. The market for luxury yachts is small too but you don't see dingy tugboats or catamarans at private marinas. RPG's, although a small market, are not exactly cheap. 60 dollars is a lot of money to ask for a book, especially one that is riddled with typos. When you look at the overall cost of core books, adventure books, and supplements for each of FFG's role playing lines, the prices quickly add up.

Second of all, quality control is not a one time cost nor is it an indulgence. Ensuring that your product is fit to sell does not occur at a single point in production.

First of all, a small market does not equate to less overall profit. The market for luxury yachts is small too but you don't see dingy tugboats or catamarans at private marinas. RPG's, although a small market, are not exactly cheap. 60 dollars is a lot of money to ask for a book, especially one that is riddled with typos. When you look at the overall cost of core books, adventure books, and supplements for each of FFG's role playing lines, the prices quickly add up.

And yet they're still something a dedicated lower-middle-class guy can afford. Unlike, say, a yacht. I was referring to the rather more similar book market. Take any bestseller - it may cost a third of the price, but it's going to be bought by a hundred times as many people. And those 33 times more profit, they're the ones that hire you a proofreader.

Second of all, quality control is not a one time cost nor is it an indulgence. Ensuring that your product is fit to sell does not occur at a single point in production.

Of course it's a one-time cost: It has to be paid once for the entire product run, it does not scale per unit sold - unless you pay someone to take a bottle of tipp-ex to each single copy.

The enormous quantity of typos and non-existent proof-reading is precisely why I will never buy another collector's edition of any of these books. I made the mistake of buying the Rogue Trader book and in massive letters on practically the first real page of the book I was greeted with "It is the 41st Millenium" - gah! A massively expensive, beautifully bound book on manuscript-quality paper, spoiled by ridiculous errors in ridiculous quantity. It's inexcusable, and the people who make excuses for it are the whole reason FFG can continue to get away with it.

@andyboy

So... where's the mistake on that page?

/facepalm

Millennium has two "n"s...

Thinking about it, it really seems to me that the writers have turned off their spellcheckers - probably because there are so many names that would be flagged as spelling mistakes. The correct way to deal with this, of course, would be to add the names to one's word processing dictionary, but I really think the writers have just turned spellcheck off - otherwise how can you explain the same character's name being spelled differently in the same paragraph?

And then, in some cases, the proofreaders seem to have their spell checkers on - hence "mango" instead of "magna".

Magna is in my Word dictionary.

I agree with Nekros22: quality should be assured at each stage of production, which means that all the playtesters, readers, "proofreaders" and so on have a responsibility to catch errors as they're going through the text. I think cifer misunderstood that.