deinol said:

I stand corrected. Legalese always confused me, but yeah, I was taking too much liberty with "mechanics" being listed under open content. Forgot that that didn't necessarily include the stats for monsters, magic items, etc.

And $10 is great for the .pdf, but I'm not going to take that as grounds to ***** about FFG. They can set their prices how they like, and when you take a look around, pretty much everyone else is charging more than most people think .pdf's should cost, myself included. And while Paizo is an industry leader, so is FFG, and Wizards being the richest company of them all by far, can do whatever the **** well it wants if it thinks it will bring them success in the long term, because they have more than enough money to take a loss (hell, WW might even make a comeback in the next few years). They neither get to dictate how the others do business, nor suffer from any stigma for not following the others along.

And since things are touching on .pdf's vs. hardcopies, for the record I buy both. I usually get the former for reasons of lack of local availability (sadly, some of the FLGS's in my area over the last decade, have only been LGS's), sometimes price because .pdf's are still cheaper. Hardcopy's tend to be core books (Exalted, D20 Modern, L5R), or game lines that I'm really in to (DH and DW right now), and the occasional release that really piques my interest (Soul Reaver).

TCBC Freak said:

Well first, I don't remember any of the .pdf core books being $50. But more importantly, your complaints are a lot of crap. Someone who buys Only War in 2 years, having just discovered the game, doesn't get the Beta for free. In fact, the only people who get the Beta for free ARE THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY GET THE BETA (..and still want the full .pdf).

And the only perk of getting the Beta is that you get to play Only War a few months before everyone else. That's it. Though I'll admit, that's a pretty **** good perk. But once Only War is actually released, anyone who subsequently buys it is not "getting the Beta for free", because the 'only' thing you got was early access to the game (and you don't need that anymore). Yeah, it sucks that people who want to buy the hardcopy, and not the .pdf, do not get to apply the rebate to that book. But you, like Signs, keep acting like this is a surprise, or something you're being forced to do. If you're adult enough to have $70 to spend on the beta and book, you should be adult enough to take responsibility for seeing that yes, you are essentially throwing money away, that it was your choice to do so, and accept noone else is to blame.

Is not being able to have Only War a little earlier than otherwise such a travesty? Such an outrage to your sensibilities, and all decency, that people are really ranting about it as much as they have?

Oh yeah, and the implication that FFG added the $20 rebate in a panic, as if from the (meagre) feeback in this thread… well that's quaint. It's more likely that DriveThru flubbed the post. I can think of several times in the past where they've made minor screwups (and no surprise at all, the forums of the product publisher in question were blazing with people's outrage). Even posted an anecdote of one of them earlier in this thread.

ItsUncertainWho said:

signoftheserpent said:

Simple numbers.

The more people look over a given document during a given period of time, the greater the number of errors and other problems will be noticed.

That is literally the only significant difference between open playtesting and closed playtesting - the latter uses a (relatively) small number of established testers, while the former provides a greater number of eyes to look over the document.

However, a larger playtest has inherent potential issues as well - the main one being the signal-to-noise ratio. In essence, the more people are involved, the more difficult it is to sort through the feedback to find the parts that matter.

It's a balancing act in either case, and neither method is inherently superior to the other.

I do like the "wisards is not that stupid" concept. Wisards would charge you for playing DnD if they could besides the cost of the books.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Therefore it would have been even better to have an earlier open call for playtesters months ago when it was actually being playtested.

Charging people doesn't increase the numbers of people it reduces them.

And again mere numbers isn't a guarantee of quality. You need people who know what they are looking for and will play the game under appropriate conditions.

It will take people a few days to read the rules at least, then set up a game and learn the rules so they don't interpret them wrong before you can even test them. That doesn't take into account the proper process of playtesting. This is not supposed to be a cheap way to get the game, people shouldn't be buying this pdf thinking they can just go and run the game. Certainly not according to how ffg want this to operate. If that's what people are going to do then the playtesting process that ffg claim to want (even though it's already been tested) will be flawed.

It also means that FFG will have to regularly provide answers to questions that arise. They will need to provide rules updates and fixes as necessary and then make them available to everyone that has the document so they can playtest these fixes.

If this is a proper playtesting process for the final print product you are looking at a very very long time before this is released, at the very least.

Why are you still here?

You obviously have grave issues with this entire process, so why are you sticking around? If you don't want to be involved, and find the idea of being involved so utterly repugnant, then why are you actively antagonising others here on the board set up for those who chose (note: 'chose' , not 'were forced' ) to buy the Beta and are participating normally?

Your posts serve no purpose and you are just repeating yourself. Go away!

BYE

Because everything FFG does to run its business is wrong, despite the fact that they've been immovable from third place in the RPG business for a while now.

And Signs is here to save us, from being gouged and cheated by their scurrilous behavior, and show us all the 'right way' a publishing company shoudl act. Only to be constantly foiled by foes like you and me, shills for the company (screw you, I and others have actually been accused to being FFG stooges for calling out people on their BS), who come along with our sense and reason.

(Yeah, I'm past grumbling about people being whiny •••••• for now, and just kinda having fun it with…)

[ADMIN: Edited for language. Keep it clean, people.]

Well, I could wait to get my slightly discounted hardcopy book (as HBMC alluded to earlier), but I'm also going to grab the beta copy of the rules. I have no idea what they changed since I last saw the book, and I want to be able to continue helping craft the game into the best it can be - that's the sole reason I got into playtesting the books in the first place.

Even if I don't go on to buy the full PDF with the rebate once it's released, and just get the hardcopy, it means my players have a copy of the rules they can refer to, whilst I use the hardcopy - it's essentially a copy of the rules suited perfectly for players.

If you think it's a rip-off, or don't want to buy the PDF - don't. No one is forcing you to. If that is the case though, you won't be making any contribution to the beta process, and I'd suggest you stick with the general Only War forum to discuss your outrage, while the rest of us make suggestions and contributions towards any rules tweaks we think are needed.

I'm fine with the $20 fee.

1. You're getting to a fairly complete version of the rules early.

2. If a private business wants to make some particular decision regarding how they release a product, they are within their rights to do so (so long as it neither steals from my wallet, nor hurts my person. These beta rules do neither). The free market will dictate if its a "good" idea or not.

3. People (FFG) can make mistakes. Its OK. Its how we learn. Is it gouging customers? Hardly, they can get the books at the normal price when they're released. Is it diminishing the test quality? I don't know to be honest, but what I'm looking at seems very similar to the other RPG lines I've seen (that is to say, it looks like it has at least gone through some testing).

4. Not to be rude to some people, but those that say "I want it for free, but I'll buy it if I like it" strike me as lying about 90% of the time. Given that the printed material has value (FFGs employees intend to be able to put food on the table for their families by writing this), I don't feel the majority of the written guts of the game should just be handed out to just anyone who wants a copy for free (and I don't really care that some other business does it another way). Plenty of people out there would probably be just fine with sticking with the "free" beta rules, and just find a log of changes between the beta and the release copy.

Quite simply, everything is worth what the purchaser is willing to pay for. If people are willing to pick up OW's beta rules for $20, let them. Just because its too much for you does not obligate them to make it available in the manner you want it.

@Those complaining about print vs PDF versions:

This is what laser printers are for. They're pretty fast, cheap, and you'd barely use 1/4 of your ink printing these rules. Also, a good bit of the rules, you don't need on hand on the fly. Regiment creation rules are pretty academic at the start of play.

At first I was a bit skeptical, and so was one of my friends before he just broke down and bought it so he would have more source material fro his 40K game. It was so worth it that he looked at me and said, "will you run this I really want to play it?" (I'm normally our groups D&D DM). So after looking it over, and liking what I saw, I am very excited to GM this.

The 20.00 price tag is only "a scam" if you never planned on downloading the game's PDF when it came out, or worse, planned on just pirating a copy. After reading through this version, it is pretty much complete, and only omits some art and fluff (according to FFGs) that I don't even notice is missing. It does't have flashing flags saying, "Coming Soon Art Work Here!". Instead it has a lot of art including pieces for the character classes.

The way I look at it is it's 20 dollars to play the game WAY before it comes out. If it doesn't have an announce date by now, you can expect some time around GenCon Indy in October and that will only be prerelease (like Black Crusade), with a realistic release around December considering the playtest phase last through August.

They have 8 detailed Regiments and the following classes, hope it convinces some players to check it out and give Fantasy Flight a chance…

@TCBC Freak

To be clear. The problem is not that they are charging 20 dollars. The problem is that they are charging some people 20 dollars and "giving" it to other people for free with a rebate. I plan to go to my game store the day it comes out and get it in hardback. This action wont change my plan. Nor will my little rant change what FFG had made up its mind to do.

They're being inequal there, no mistake about it. However, people are inequal all the time. As I already noted: When you guys in the states get the book, I usually have to wait about two or three more months, to say nothing about the lucky bastards at GenCon. So I'm being disadvantaged there just because I live somewhere else and it would be expensive for FFG to prioritize shipment to the stores over here here while you're being disadvantaged just because you like another form of publication (hardcopy vs. electronical) and Drivethru probably prefers giving bundle deals on PDFs rather than hardcopies.
As with many, many other forms of inequality, I guess we'll both have to deal with it.

(Well, in this case you'll have to deal with it - I'll get me the beta.)

Man alive, it's optional people. I'm not going to reiterate every asinine comment I've read in this thread, but I've never seen people so up in arms about OTHER people choosing to spend money.

I for one think this is a great idea. It's directed at a self-selecting (people who want to pay) audience to cast another set of eyes over the book so they can fix as many mistakes as possible. And for your effort, you get to (a) play the game hella early, (b) get the PDF at a rebate cost later on down the road. If you, like me, have been anxiously waiting for this game for what feels like ages, then this is a pretty cool opportunity.

If you have no intention of getting the final PDF but still want to get the game early, then think of it this way: assuming the game comes out November 1st (total guess here, but that gives them basically a month to send it to the printers and get on shelves -- that actually is pretty optimistic I would think), that's 130 days from now, then you're paying roughly 15 cents per day that you play the game early. That's a pretty solid deal if you want to play the game MONTHS early.

And finally, if you have no intention of getting the final PDF, and you don't want to play the game early OR you don't feel like paying $20 for the game now…then your life continues on as if this beta was never announced. Good for you.

It's a hobby, for god's sake. Step away from the computer and get some fresh air if you're so cheesed off. It's not good for your blood pressure to get that upset so easily.

PS: for those who feel it's "unfair" to people only planning on buying the hardcover…boo hoo. That's like saying it's "unfair" to sell the games (like Black Crusade) at GenCon, because I can't go to GenCon. That's on you. If you don't want to buy the PDF version, more power to you. But FFG is not under any burden to distribute the Beta to everyone who wants one under any conditions possible. This is a cool optional thing they're doing for fans who want to go the extra mile. It's not a general pre-order for the entire gaming public.

It is funny really. Some people (who shall remain nameless) did not even read what I wrote, or they decided to shut off their brain. Nit picking about the final cost not being 50 dollars… really? You are right the final price could be 12 dollars, or 300 dollars, we do not know because it is not out yet, but the point was the same (one groups paying 20 and getting 20 back, i.e. paying nothing, the other group is not getting their 20 back). I am not "outraged" about it costing money, I am simply pointing out a flawed way of doing this kind of thing in the hopes that in the future this kind of action will not happen. And I clearly put that I am fully aware that my words will most likely have no effect but this is the internet and I can have a voice if I want. You also missed my point entirely which addressed the Topic I am posting in, "Is 20$ worth it for just the beta?" My answer was clear, yes if you plan to get the PDF, no if plan to get the Hardcover, but you were more interested in arguing about my semantics, the hyperbole I used and then ignoring my actual point.

And then some people are reasonable like Cifer (thank you by the way). Who acknowledged I had a valid point and in fact pointed out another issue with how over seas sales are often handled poorly, but then stated in a clear way his point that we are not going to change it today. Cifer did not insult me or say I should just quite the forum.

Just a bit of extra; a friend of mine who plans on getting the PDF got the beta, I will be play testing it with him, so far I like what I see. I said from the start that I had no problem with the cost (the bit some folks ignored) it was the inequality of the actions taken around the cost.

TCBC Freak said:

I will just point out that while there is a cost inequity, there is *also* a cost inequity on FFG's side: it costs more money to print and ship a hardcover book than to digitally distribute a .pdf. Whether that justifies a price imbalance in regards to this beta is up to you to decide, but in my mind since the costs to produce are different, it's justifiable to balance out the endcosts as well. Again, not to invalidate your point, but just to bring up something no one else has mentioned (I think).

HTMC said:

My first comment was on the page after your last, so I do apologize if you felt my little bit of ire in this post was directed towards you. It was not. I understand what you mean. I was a little frustrated at those who seemed to be going after me for answering the topic with hyperbole about the “Unfairness of it all,” and saying that I felt it was not worth it if you planned on getting the hardcopy. Though I do believe it to be an unfair practice that the dealers are partaking in (as it may not be FFG but the two internet companies making the decisions about the rebate) I actually do not care that much. But I was not willing to let other people berate me for my comment (especially since it was, I thought, a deliberate and obvious exaggeration used for effect). I do thank you for your civility and am once again sorry if you felt offended as you were not my intended target.

TCBC Freak said:

Which is of course why the forums are here. It's too bad this thread devolved so quickly, because the original question was legitimate. My post may have seemed irate, but it was more directed at the people (or, perhaps more accurately, person) who were bandying about terms like FFG losing a customer because of this, which frankly seems like an overreaction to me.

It is entirely legit though to let FFG know that you think this is a bad move on their part. It's entirely possible they'll rethink their method next time they do this to try and make people who only plan on buying the hardcover more interested in the beta process (though in their defense…I can imagine it being significantly more complicated to work out a rebate for the hardcover, as that would have to be arranged with every FLGS they distribute books to, whereas with the PDFs they only have to deal with two companies).

TCBC Freak said:

And that, to me, is the most important part! In the end, regardless of how people feel about the beta test, it's good to see that people seem to be enjoying the game itself!

My 3 cent:

The one thing I remember from the economics class I took a few years ago: Money you have now is better than money you will get later. So there is financial gain involved for FFG (by being able to put it into a bank account and get interest or reinvesting it into another project).

Pathfinder's Open Gaming License is a slightly different matter than Warhammer 40k. The rules Paizo gives out for free are generic. If you see a fantasy movie the odds are good that you will be able to recreate most of it with those rules. However Paizo does not hand out their setting-specific material for free. If you want a generic fighter or holy warrior the core rules are your friend, but as soon as you want to play as a Chelaxian Hell Knight you have to pay. Warhammer 40k is far more setting-dependent. You can't release "generic Space Marines" or "generic Space Orkz who can make their cars go faster by painting them red."

Still, I think it's a bit sad. So far I have bought every Pathfinder product I tested even when I originally thought I wouldn't need it. I don't think I will need Only War either it is the FIFTH human-centered 40k game, the only truly new things it brings are Ratlings and Ogryns, and I'm not paying 20 $ for the chance that it might change my mind.

I think it's a matter of phrasing really.

"is it worth $20 to -buy- a beta" versus "is it worth $20 to -join- a beta"

In terms of -buying- it's a pretty good deal. You spend $20 to get a pre-release of the PDF before everyone else that you can help proof and find (objective) problems with. And when the final product is released in PDF, you can either claim $20 off of the final corrected version or decide you're happy with what you have and not buy any more (or decide a final version wouldn't be your thing and walk away). But say you wanted a print copy (the boat I'm in). In that case you wait longer, don't get any input in the final product, but you have a corrected and improved version. And you're not out any money now. Furthermore, this is the situation you would've been in if they -hadn't- done a beta PDF release; only now, there's the chance that thanks to beta testers/proofers, your final product is better than it would've been otherwise.

On the other hand….

$20 to join a beta of -anything- strikes me as steep. Which is why I would never do it. Note the subjective tone there. I'm not saying it's bad, just not for me. But since FFG is releasing a (hopefully) complete game in terms of mechanics and playability, they know that simply giving it away freely for people will result in lost sales. Heck, it'll certainly result in a smaller percentage actively reading and editing the dang thing if it were free, but by being free it may also motivate people to care less about helping out than if they actually paid for the privilege. By spending money to join a beta, people are -literally- investing in the quality of a product. And depending on the costs for FFG to license the 40k universe, they would likely have added incentives to turn a profit that smaller companies who own their IPs do not.

For those saying that they suspect people will just torrent the game now… people were going to torrent the game anyway, only now there'll be -two- versions of Only War scattered on the internet. Charging or not charging for a beta doesn't matter; somebody will torrent whatever they can get away with regardless of anything else. For those saying FFG lost a customer… if you're continuing to follow this thread, I doubt you really will quit FFG (or at least quit for long). In theory, this will make the game -better- and I don't see people rushing to drop a product line that's actively improving.

I do have to wonder if the people who are complaining the loudest are either

1) hoping to have gotten the PDF for free, with vague promises on their part of buying the final product at a future date. Or

2) wanting print copies, but also wanting in on the hot newness of the PDF that's floating around now, without actually having to pay for it.

I mean, I'll admit that I was disappointed that the beta wasn't free, but I don't see how FFG could give the internet a complete game for free and hope it would help their bottom line or their quality control. And ultimately, I respect that FFG is a business first, that this is an experiment on their part, and that I'll get the product I want in the format I want with better quality than I would've gotten otherwise. As for feeling like I missed out on the beta, that's the price I pay for wanting print, and it'll be a moot point in a year's time anyway.

H.B.M.C. said:

I know I'm here complaining precisely because I want to be involved in the process, but I object to how it is being done. I've been buying 40k RPG books for quite sometime. My Dark Heresy book has the Black Industries logo. I have a shelf full of Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch books. But I haven't purchased a single PDF because I feel FFG prices theirs too high.

I would prefer a free, open, public beta. I think those are better for the business (exposure to a wider market, more feedback, etc.) But I do understand that it is FFG and GW's choice on how they handle things.

I would participate if spending the $20 meant a discount on *either* the final PDF or the hardcover. Hell, I'd participate if it was pre-order the hardcover and get the Beta PDF.

But as it stands now, I will not participate. And this is the best place to tell FFG why.

Hey everyone who is after Dark Heresy 2.0 listen up. I just got a copy of the latest rules for only $20 bucks and it is called Only War.

Awesome. Totoally worth it.

Interrogator Z.

Zakalwe said:

Yeah, I just thought the same thing.

deinol said:

Really? Wider exposure?

Charging them for a beta only gives them more money. I don't mean to be condescending at all so please don't take it this way, but these days, the moment a book is released, be it a physical book or a PDF, tons of people are downloading pirated copies within a day, if not on the release day.

So FFG is getting probably roughly the same level as exposure anyway, except they get some money in their bank.