Fiery Dragon's plans for 2004

[BryonD]

I just got the Summoned Creatures collection. It is mostly very good, but I am unclear if mine is short or something.

I have noticed a few monsters so far that ARE on the Summon Monster lists that are NOT in my pack. I noticed that your web page stats "just about" every. But the flier states "every". Also, your web page features a hound archon, which is one I specifically do not have. I am also missing several others in the same range (SM IV and SMV), specifically Giant preying mantis, Large spider, Huge Viper, Howler, Giant Stag Beetle, achaieria, bearded devil, and dire wolverine.

It seems to be a very obvious gap of clustered monsters? It makes me think I am missing one or more pages.

Is this an error, or did I miss something?

Thanks

EDIT: FD is being very cool and fixing this.

 

[Evil-B]

ByronD, if I may ask, how are they fixing this?

I am missing those counters as well (although I wouldn't have noticed personally if you hadn't mentioned it here).

Lest this come across as a complaint...I was already going to post a (positive) impressions piece myself. I too just got my copy fresh last Tuesday, and I'm mightily impressed overall.

I was thinking at first that I would just sort the counters into my existing (3.0) collection's Plano box and use the provided tin for something else. However, when I actually got it in my hands...it looks real nice. The label's nicely-done and durable, and the digest-size box would fit perfectly into a pocket on the case I use to carry my Tact-Tiles in, so I'm just going to use ziplocks and keep the collection in the provided tin.

The counters...the thicker quality cardstock makes a difference. I am, shall we say, a bit, er, OBSESSIVE with counters and mounted the majority of the 3.0 set onto posterboard before cutting. With this collection, the cardboard's durable enough that I'm just going to cut them out, perhaps clip the corners and use as-is.

The counters themselves are the sharp and vibrant print jobs that have been the norm since FD took the product back from S&S (not to put down the job that S&S did, of course, but the difference was noticable). Plus, Claudio's art is as stellar as ever. And, I noticed that there's a lot more new artwork that I thought would be present in the set...there's little duplication from past sets.

My only minor issue (and it's truly minor) is (other than the possible missing counters)...it was said by James earlier that there was no more room for anything in the box...no sheets, not another counter. Yet on some of the sheets there's outlines of "blank" counters...why? I mean, if I wanted to draw my own counters I could obviously just cut blank ones out of posterboard. I would have though the extra spaces could be used for extra duplicates...come to think of it, perhaps those are the "missing" counters...?

Anyway, this isn't really the appropriate place for detailed product contents, I just wanted to say that the new collection is a winner. Frankly, I can't see how a product of this quality with the excellent packaging can be sold at it's pricepoint. If you use the Counter Collections and have moved to the 3.5 rules then you'll be wanting these. Well done, guys!

*eagerly awaiting CC Gold*

 

[Klaus]

First of all, thanks for the praise, Evil-B! I had a great time doing those counters, and CC Gold has even MORE new artwork (something along the lines of 120+ new images).

Now, as to correct the "missing creatures case": Fiery Dragon will be including the missing counters into CC Gold, which is in the final layout stages, and will also make them available for download shortly at www.fierydragon.com . You can print these out and paste them onto the blank counter bases provided with CC5.

These are the missing counters:

Achaierai
Archon, hound
Devil, bearded
giant praying mantis
giant stag beetle
giant wasp
Howler
Monstrous Spider - Huge
Viper - Huge

Thanks for the heads-up and sorry for the incovenience!

 

[Axegrrl]

"The connection was refused when attempting to contact www.fierydragon.com."

(Netscape 7.x, Windows XP)

 

[Klaus]

The server appears to be down temporarily. But we'll let everyone know when the missing counters are available for download, which should be in a couple of days.

 

[Evil-B]

That's good news. Hopefully nothing is getting "bumped" in CC Gold to make room for the new counters, but I'm glad there was time to get them into a upcoming product.

Did I mention that I'm looking forward to CC Gold?

Two questions, though:

1) Are you still planning to include dungeon tiles? Can you detail these a little bit?

2) Are you still planning on diecutting the counters? I only ask this because if Gold follows the same digest-sized format of Summoned (I assume it will), cutting with scissors isn't really that big of a deal. I don't know about your diecutter, of course, but with the S&S packs, sometimes the diecutting was off, so that the top or bottom portion of the art actually got scored with the cuts, causing part of the art to get lost when removing. Remember, I'm obsessive...

 

[Klaus]

CC Gold will indeed be of the same size as CC5. That will force us to make Colossal creatures (such as the Tarrasque, the largest counter ever) to be in a web-enhancement.

To make room for these additional counters, we may have to bump the swarms into the web-enhancement as well. But since swarms have a shapeable area, this may work for the best.

As for the other questions, I'm pinging the Powers That Be as we speak... er, type.

And keep them suggestions comin'!

 

[FDP-jason]

Two questions, though:

1) Are you still planning to include dungeon tiles? Can you detail these a little bit?

2) Are you still planning on diecutting the counters? I only ask this because if Gold follows the same digest-sized format of Summoned (I assume it will), cutting with scissors isn't really that big of a deal. I don't know about your diecutter, of course, but with the S&S packs, sometimes the diecutting was off, so that the top or bottom portion of the art actually got scored with the cuts, causing part of the art to get lost when removing. Remember, I'm obsessive...

Hello Evil-B,

1) Currently I have 12 great e-tiles from Edward Bourelle that are destined for CCGOLD. It is a dungeon themed tile set and they are 5" x 5" square (so it will fit into our tins!). Whether they all make it into CCGOLD remains to be seen - we are still finalizing some things before going to press in a short while. 40 counters sheets for CC5 was definitely the maximum we want to place into a tin - in the future it will be somewhat less than this, we expect to standardise on the actual # of pages soon. This type of packaging is certainly new for us and you learn quite a bit from your first print run

2) CCGOLD, at a price point of $24.95 will include diecutting. It was a big fan request so we our going to offer it on this one product and see how it goes, it certainly is expensive (You didn't see it on the last version of Ogre/GEV by Steve Jackson for this reason). You can make or break your profit on the diecutting aspect. The technical problems are definitely there as you mentioned and we are unable to completely escape them - there will always be a little misalignment on the counters with the diecut. We are tweaking the borders to hopefully compensate for this issue. If it's too big of a problem after this product then we'll avoid it for future products. The Counter Strike Mini-games are definitely diecut - but they are wargames and we'd probably go through a thorough thrashing if everyone had to get their scissors out to enjoy "out of the box action".

Glad you enjoy the counters, we have some other products in the works we hope can make it to the table involving companies outside our own.

-Jason

 

[Evil-B]

Thanks for the replies!

Hopefully the diecutting will work out fine. I'd hate to see a great product marred by a production error (I'm sure you agree )...but I for one could live without it, particularily if it allows FDP more profit. After all, more profit=more products. See! I'm an economics whiz!! *har-de-har*

Er, anyway...awesome news on the dungeon tiles. I say: squeeze 'em all in! squeeze 'em all in! Honestly, I of course know that there's likely to be sacrifices, but hopefully we'll get the 40 sheets one last time...

Again, I can't wait!

 

[allenw]

The server appears to be down temporarily. But we'll let everyone know when the missing counters are available for download, which should be in a couple of days.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was posted 26 days ago, and I have yet to see a mention of the missing creatures (also missing in my copy, so I assume in all copies) anywhere online but this thread.