Sure, there was an SWG before and it didn't last long... it supported WotC SW RPG.
Now, what if we had an SWG magazine to support Fantasy Flight's RPG ???
Personally, I feel it would be awesome and would really support this game and it's expansions.
Leave comments to support or not support...
If you want it to live, it'll need to be digital. It will also have to offer some high quality resources and content. Fan made podcasts, adventures, npcs, etc. are really, really good.
PDF would be the way. International customers and no printing cost would give it a fighting chance. Also content would have to premium.
And so won't happen until the license gets updated or a new one is negotiated with LucasArts.
The only way something like this could possibly work right now is either as a dead tree magazine which could be sold (but I don't think the venue would support such a product) or as a free pdf (all the work for none of the recompense). I don't see either happening any time soon, unfortunately. I enjoyed the SWG mag and was lucky enough to get all the issues for its short run. I even have 4 issues of the Star Wars Journal WEG produced, also a fine product. No, any additional information will come in dead tree supplements, the occasional online supplement (maybe), or fan-made stuff.
The only way something like this could possibly work right now is either as a dead tree magazine which could be sold (but I don't think the venue would support such a product) or as a free pdf (all the work for none of the recompense). I don't see either happening any time soon, unfortunately. I enjoyed the SWG mag and was lucky enough to get all the issues for its short run. I even have 4 issues of the Star Wars Journal WEG produced, also a fine product. No, any additional information will come in dead tree supplements, the occasional online supplement (maybe), or fan-made stuff.
I was lucky and have all the issues of the Journals that WEG put out. I keep my eye out for them as a few of my copies are showing signs of binding damage after all this time and use.
Sure, there was an SWG before and it didn't last long... it supported WotC SW RPG.
Now, what if we had an SWG magazine to support Fantasy Flight's RPG ???
Personally, I feel it would be awesome and would really support this game and it's expansions.
Leave comments to support or not support...
Gamer? Naw - it was a pretty piss poor magazine. Now the old WEG Adventure Journals - now THAT is an idea I could get behind. Those were some quality publications!
Star Wars Gamer was okay, it's just that unless you were into all the aspects of SW gaming it covered, there were sections of the magazine that were of no use to you.
Case in point, I'm an RPG guy. I've zero interest in the CCGs and minimal interest in the various video games, so any articles on those topics was a waste of paper.
That said, I don't see this sort of thing occurring. FFG can't sell PDFs, and the time and resources needed for something like this could be better spent (from their perspective) working on the stuff they can sell and make a profit on.
Not a bad idea for a fan site....
I was thinking just a few days ago that a fanzine for this might be fun to put together. There are a lot of great content creators around and to get some of them together in one place I think would be useful. Seems like there might be some interest.
Gamer? Naw - it was a pretty piss poor magazine. Now the old WEG Adventure Journals - now THAT is an idea I could get behind. Those were some quality publications!
YES! agreed good sir!
I was thinking just a few days ago that a fanzine for this might be fun to put together. There are a lot of great content creators around and to get some of them together in one place I think would be useful. Seems like there might be some interest.
If you think herding cats is fun, try doing a zine for no pay. Fanzines don't tend to last very long because they really do take a lot of time and effort. The big issues are things like artwork (few artists like to do work for nothing) and getting authors to finish up on a promised article (because paying things take priority over work for free).
I was thinking just a few days ago that a fanzine for this might be fun to put together. There are a lot of great content creators around and to get some of them together in one place I think would be useful. Seems like there might be some interest.
If you think herding cats is fun, try doing a zine for no pay. Fanzines don't tend to last very long because they really do take a lot of time and effort. The big issues are things like artwork (few artists like to do work for nothing) and getting authors to finish up on a promised article (because paying things take priority over work for free).
I figured as much for artwork, would most likely try to get artists to let me use EXISTING artwork they have in SW Universe, and plug it as promotion for the artist. As for writers, may have to look at compensating them.
I know that fair use will give me some protection is i publish it for free from Star Wars rights, but I wonder what would be the implications of doing a Kickstarter just for writers/artwork, and still releasing the final project for free? Hmm.
(Also, best to avoid writers missing deadlines is to do quarterly, and leave huge gaps anticipating missed deadlines. At least i think this is the path I might take.)
As a guy who ran a fan site for a long, long time (fandomcomics.com) that dealt with these sorts of problems, I can tell you that yes, it is a lot like herding cats. However, it is also amazing when you get it all to come together. Any endeavor worth endeaving in the first place is hard. Besides, who knows, it might lead to a career in writing or editing or something.
I was thinking just a few days ago that a fanzine for this might be fun to put together. There are a lot of great content creators around and to get some of them together in one place I think would be useful. Seems like there might be some interest.
If you think herding cats is fun, try doing a zine for no pay. Fanzines don't tend to last very long because they really do take a lot of time and effort. The big issues are things like artwork (few artists like to do work for nothing) and getting authors to finish up on a promised article (because paying things take priority over work for free).
I figured as much for artwork, would most likely try to get artists to let me use EXISTING artwork they have in SW Universe, and plug it as promotion for the artist. As for writers, may have to look at compensating them.
I know that fair use will give me some protection is i publish it for free from Star Wars rights, but I wonder what would be the implications of doing a Kickstarter just for writers/artwork, and still releasing the final project for free? Hmm.
(Also, best to avoid writers missing deadlines is to do quarterly, and leave huge gaps anticipating missed deadlines. At least i think this is the path I might take.)
Fair Use doesn't give you the rights to use someone's work wholesale. Fair Use allows you to do things needed for reviews and research where you can show a bit of the original work (in the form of quotes or snippets). Doesn't matter if you're doing it for pay or not.
Reducing your publishing schedule does a few things. One, gives you more time to collect works, but it also means that you lose your audience's attention. Especially if you can't keep to a good schedule for the release. Releasing late in one quarter makes it harder to be "ontime" in the next quarter as you have less time before the next quarter starts.
I was thinking just a few days ago that a fanzine for this might be fun to put together. There are a lot of great content creators around and to get some of them together in one place I think would be useful. Seems like there might be some interest.
If you think herding cats is fun, try doing a zine for no pay. Fanzines don't tend to last very long because they really do take a lot of time and effort. The big issues are things like artwork (few artists like to do work for nothing) and getting authors to finish up on a promised article (because paying things take priority over work for free).
I figured as much for artwork, would most likely try to get artists to let me use EXISTING artwork they have in SW Universe, and plug it as promotion for the artist. As for writers, may have to look at compensating them.
I know that fair use will give me some protection is i publish it for free from Star Wars rights, but I wonder what would be the implications of doing a Kickstarter just for writers/artwork, and still releasing the final project for free? Hmm.
(Also, best to avoid writers missing deadlines is to do quarterly, and leave huge gaps anticipating missed deadlines. At least i think this is the path I might take.)
Fair Use doesn't give you the rights to use someone's work wholesale. Fair Use allows you to do things needed for reviews and research where you can show a bit of the original work (in the form of quotes or snippets). Doesn't matter if you're doing it for pay or not.
Reducing your publishing schedule does a few things. One, gives you more time to collect works, but it also means that you lose your audience's attention. Especially if you can't keep to a good schedule for the release. Releasing late in one quarter makes it harder to be "ontime" in the next quarter as you have less time before the next quarter starts.
I was referring to Fair use for just having character likenesses and locations, ie someone that looks like a Jedi, or fanfic that includes named planets in the SW universe. There is a strong precedent for this as long as the product is free.
The goal, albeit a difficult one, is to be on time or not set that deadline at all. I would run the risk of people losing interest, but I want it to coincide with product releases in that each issue will have some new product or rules to incorporate or discuss since its quarterly. Basically quarterly might be the safest way to start IMO.
I can tell you the best two lessons I learned from Fandom Comics, have assignments out for issue 2 before you release issue 1, and keep the scope/size of the project small.
Now the long explanation for why this is important. Our original goal was to do 4 issue mini series of full length comics, that's 88 comic pages from one artist, plus 4 covers. I had no idea how impossible a goal that is when you aren't drawing the pages yourself. I love my artists, but they had real life stuff, paid commissions, and more going on. Some would lose interest, or work in short bursts. I was also releasing pages as quickly as I got them. This inevitably led to missed deadlines, or vanishing artists, and is what forced us to delve into RPG material on the site in the first place, because that was something myself and co-founder Ryan Brooks could do all on our own. However, even that treadmill got exausting, we'd hit 9 monthly deadlines, but generally vanish for 3 months before returning with more RPG material, and the comic book pages seemed to just show up when they could. Storylines were abandoned because the artists were gone.
What we learned to do, was begin to bank material, and reduce the size of the stories. New stories were all under 20 pages, and we actually finished a few of those. We kept quiet about them too, until we had like half of the project banked, then we would announce the pages and dole a few out at a time, keeping a few backed up at all times. We were also banking RPG material. Life got a lot easier.
To make this a success is a lot of work, and will require a lot of hard-won lessons. You will inevitably have to write a bunch of the material yourself. Your edits on material people actually do submit will piss some of them off. You will be forced to spend countless hours browsing deviantart.com and messaging artists with fewer than 10k views that seem to like Star Wars to ask for free commissions, or messaging bigger ones seeking permission to use existing images they have done. You will inevitably forget which artist and which message applied to which image, and somehow screw something up. People will bail and flake on you. You'll push someone too hard with their deadlines and force them to quit the project. These are all things I have gone through during my tenure with Fandom Comics. You will likely go through them all too, and more.
Still, you never know what might come of it. I was recently given permission to let people know that I am a freelance writer at FFG now for the Edge of the Empire line. I'm getting paid to do what I was struggling (but loving) to do anyway.
I say go for it. If you have any questions on how to go about it, let me know and I can give my two cents. Otherwise, just fumble your way through it like I did, and keep your head up.
Thanks for the advice! Very insightful and I will keep you in mind with future questions (and maybe one day you can be a writer I pester)