Just some thoughts and questions that are swirling about in my brain.

Most games that are in a Beta phase have continued revisions, changes, and modifications to the game. Most of the time, the players are an interactive part of the Beta process, players playtest, give feedback, developers modify, resubmit to the players or community, and the cycle continues until the game eventually goes "live."

I wonder how this will play out with this game. Will the developers respond to player feedback(most likely)? Will the community see what changes are being made as time progresses or the game develops? Will the developers provide ongoing updates and/or errata to the book? or will we just have to wait till the final product is released?

You could just take a look at how they handled the recently ended Only War beta. Weekly Errata updates. I imagine its a bit slower coming out for this system as the books actually have to ship out and such.

I have never participated in a beta quite like this before with a printed book and all. Reading it, it seems pretty baked already. It seems they are just looking for things mostly that are A) completely broke in some way they did not expect, B) see if there is anything that genuinely upsets the community, and C) have 20,000 geeks proofread for them. LOL

I might be wrong though. Just seems the others I have done (Pathfinder, New D&D) they are more rough documents that change a lot over time.

BrashFink said:

I think it's mostly proofreading. From the books I have read (mainly Dark Heresy), there has always been a lot of typo's.

SergeantVau said:

Remember that FFG didn't make Dark Heresy, that was Black Industries, and I don't think any of the subsequent books have ever been as bad as the 1st printing of DH was.

Plus, look at Only War - there's quite a bit of scope for changes to be made, way beyond just proofreading.

SergeantVau said:

I was actually wondering if this was all we are doing.. Not that I'm complaining. I just didn't know the scope of what the Dev's are looking for and are willing to change based on community feedback.

MILLANDSON said:

This is my first foray into FFG. But, over the last few weeks I've played a lot of their games.

KommissarK said:

I wouldn't imagine they would send out new books after each errata (if that's even what you are saying), but I would like to see updates via PDF's in the support section. Somewhat frequently would be preferred.

The book is clearly not in near-final form beyond just typo errors. Sections of rules are missing, rules contradict each other, finding the rules for one task often requires visits to multiple chapters, and references to stats are included without any mechanical effects. I was personally expecting a product closer to launch readiness. What it really looks like is something they needed to rush to the printers to get physical copies available for the GenCon revealing.

Once the book gets reorganized and the voids fixed up, it really only needs some solid playtesting. The typos make it clear it hasn't had a fresh set of eyes on it in some time, but the overwhelming majority of the system is there.

I've heard that the licensing rights of Star Wars make it difficult, if not impossible to put out a product like this in digital form, so we're probably out of luck on that part, but I would appreciate a lot more effort from the designers to address clear-cut issues we've pointed out here in the forum so at the very least we could start putting together a beta errata to clarify contradictory rules or clarify intent.

The designers wanted feedback, and we're giving it. We're just seeing little evidence that they're getting it or that it will make an impact.

nyriv1 said:

I totally disagree. We've seen a few posts clarifying some things, and this is when the designers have actually been at Celebration. And that's the second event weekend in a row. They must be exhausted.

Now, if we hit next week and don't see anything, then you can fairly criticize, but at this point, I think they deserve a little slack.

Plus, the majority of people don't even have books yet.

nyriv1 said:

You've obviously never played RIFTS, or tried to read that mess of a rulebook if you think Edge of the Empire is muddled. Yes, it does need some tweaking and clarification, but it is a finished game, completely playable with some slight extrapolation on the part of the players and GMs. There has been some obvious, heavy playtesting of the rules (seen by how smoothly the starship combat rules read alone). Besides, if they want a 2013 release, production time requirements don't give them time for a complete rewrite and overhaul (which then requires another round of playtesting). Getting everything polished and some tweaks that come up in open playtesting? Doable. And that's what we're seeing.

It's not that Lucasarts makes it difficult, it's that publishing electronic format from them is a separate license, not included in the gaming license. There will flat out, point blank, never be a legal electronic release of this game, because it's not included in the gaming license.

Inksplat said:

I understand the con issue, and frankly, I forgot about celebration. I certainly hope they will be far more active once they're through their beta book tour. Early on, ynnen posted some excellent questions and analysis that helped show the designer's viewpoint early on, and did a wonderful synopsis of the issues on skills that we've reported. If that continues with us seeing some clarifications and adjusted rules, they're on the right track.

I suppose time will tell. I do hope you're right.

Fechik said:

Wasn't trying to say shipping out booklets of the errata, but rather that there is little purpose for them to worry too much about getting the errata out the door just yet, the books have hardly finished shipping.

I fully expect PDF errata changes in the coming weeks. But as others have said, patience for now. They're pretty busy until they get back into the swing of it.

The one possible point of concern I see with getting errata/updates out there is if FFG has to follow the approval process much like WotC had to any time they wanted to issue errata for their products. That meant making even a minor change could take weeks to get thru the LFL approval process.

So I'm not saying we won't see updates (I sincerely hope we do), but I imagine they are going to be infrequent; at most once a month, but probably something like every couple months to try and get as much bang out of a rules update as they can.