2014 was a pretty good year for EN World. In fact, since that big hacking attack a couple of years ago, things have gotten better and better. Traffic is back up to pre-hacking levels, the community is re-invigorated and is busy and active, and various projects have been successfully undertaken. That's not to say there haven't been goals not met or missteps along the way, but the trend has been upwards and onwards in a very positive and hopeful atmosphere. This post contains a look at my plans for 2015.
[h=4]EN World[/h]
EN World has had a whole bunch of new functionality added in the last couple of years. From the O.G.R.E. random tables creator to the new reviews system which has over 1,000 reviews in it already to the downloads area which has had over 2,000 items added in 2014 (and the character sheet part of that which has 500 character sheets and over half a million downloads of them!) to the fan content databases which have hundreds of fan-created backgrounds, archetypes, monsters, spells and more. It has been a wonderful year for new functionality!
[h=4]Inclusiveness[/h]
On thing that Google Analytics tells me is that EN World's community still is not nearly as diverse as I'd like it to be. Over the last few years, I've made efforts (such as the Season of Sexism series of videos) to promote a more inclusive environment, asked some blatantly unpleasant people to leave the community, and have made sure that any product produced by EN Publishing depicts a mix of gender and ethnicity, but I feel that more can be done. I have one or two ideas - more on that later this year! - but one resolution is to keep working hard at improving overall inclusiveness in all aspects of EN World, EN Publishing, the ENnies, and everything else.
[h=4]Kickstarters[/h]
First and foremost, there's some catching up to do. While some things have forged ahead, others have lagged - and in the last couple of years, the sheer amount of work has been mind-boggling. There are still some outstanding stretch goals from Kickstarters, but they are all underway. Here's where we are with those:
[h=4]Adventure Paths & EN Publishing[/h]
ZEITGEIST is probably the last big adventure path EN Publishing will produce. These things are such enormous projects, they tie us up for a long, long time, and we find it incredibly hard to compete economically in the Pathfinder market in the face of so many other really fantastic content producers (and 4E sales have obviously dropped off almost completely). While we're immensely proud of WotBS and ZEITGEIST, in future we'll be concentrating on smaller, less monolithic projects which make us a little more agile. We're still discussing ideas right now, as it's some way off, but ideas include mini-APs (3 adventures or so, different theme/setting for each) amongst other things. Additionally, we need to wait to hear what's happening with 5E licensing to see if we can make any plans on that front.
One big idea is something I currently term ENsider (working title only!), a Patreon-based subscription 'magazine' which produces a dozen or so rules articles and an adventure each month (think DDI) which would replace the current EN World subscription system, although that's only an idea right now. In an ideal world, assuming all licensing announcements worked out well, it would produce content for D&D 5E and Pathfinder, plus WOIN. How that would be structured, I don't know - different subs for each, perhaps, so folks don't have to pay for system content they'll never use. That sort of thing would mean bringing on a bunch of new people, though -- people to manage content and submissions, layout, etc. It may not happen, but it's an idea!
Talking of bringing on new people, I wanted to touch on why some stuff takes so darn long. EN Publishing has always had a manpower shortage compared to the massive quantity of stuff we do, and people work really, really hard to produce what we think are really top-tier products. This year, I need to do something about that. The largest blockage is in layout (as some ZEITGEIST fans are painfully aware of) - ideally, we need a bunch of people, but we've never had more than one at any given time, which is not at all fair on that one person, nor on the customers! And given some of the upcoming projects, great layout folks are gong to be badly needed so that we can greatly improve the product turnover.
One last thing that is in the planning stage is a short, weekly comic-strip based on the Perturbed Dragon characters created by myself and my brother, Darren (we made an animated series of cartoons with them).
[h=4]ENnies[/h]
I don't have a lot to add on the ENnies front, other than that I'm so happy with and proud of them. Gabriel Whitehead, the new Business Manager, picked up where former Business Manager Tony Law left off, and his first year was a resounding success. I feel we get a little better every year! Sometimes I see folks attack them for various reasons, but I honestly feel that they're a wonderful way to show apprecation to individual designers, artists, writers, and more in a way that simple sales don't. Sales are for the company, but the awards are for the people who make these wonderful games for us.
[h=4]Happy New Year![/h]
So that's about it. A kind of catchup-summary of the last year, combined with plans (some tentative) for the new year. I hope everybody had a great Christmas/New Year period, and I wish everybody a wonderful 2015!
[h=4]EN World[/h]
EN World has had a whole bunch of new functionality added in the last couple of years. From the O.G.R.E. random tables creator to the new reviews system which has over 1,000 reviews in it already to the downloads area which has had over 2,000 items added in 2014 (and the character sheet part of that which has 500 character sheets and over half a million downloads of them!) to the fan content databases which have hundreds of fan-created backgrounds, archetypes, monsters, spells and more. It has been a wonderful year for new functionality!
[h=4]Inclusiveness[/h]
On thing that Google Analytics tells me is that EN World's community still is not nearly as diverse as I'd like it to be. Over the last few years, I've made efforts (such as the Season of Sexism series of videos) to promote a more inclusive environment, asked some blatantly unpleasant people to leave the community, and have made sure that any product produced by EN Publishing depicts a mix of gender and ethnicity, but I feel that more can be done. I have one or two ideas - more on that later this year! - but one resolution is to keep working hard at improving overall inclusiveness in all aspects of EN World, EN Publishing, the ENnies, and everything else.
[h=4]Kickstarters[/h]
First and foremost, there's some catching up to do. While some things have forged ahead, others have lagged - and in the last couple of years, the sheer amount of work has been mind-boggling. There are still some outstanding stretch goals from Kickstarters, but they are all underway. Here's where we are with those:
- The Rebuilding EN World Kickstarter from a couple of years ago has done almost everything it set out to do. The site was rebuilt, new functionality was added, and things slowly returned to normal. That was one of the most wonderful things to happen in my 15 years of doing this. However, there are still some small things left to do, and I intend to complete those soon. These include some of stretch add-ons (dice, t-shirts, a couple of Pathfinder updates to older products) which lagged behind everything else, and some art pieces.
- To Slay A Dragon had a stretch goal of a sequel, To Stake A Vampire. This is now in layout (Kickstarter backers already have the manuscript). There is also a (fortunately very small) handful of folks who are missing bits of rewards - I gathered the info on those in December and those are all on their way now.
- What's O.L.D. is N.E.W. is still most of a year away. Playtesting has been fantastic, and has influenced the game's development in many ways. It's now moving into a phase where I need to start wrapping up the writing side of things and moving into the production side; I plan to continue playtests until Easter, at which point it will be time to draw a line under it and prepare it for release (which itself will take months). Both O.L.D. and N.E.W. have had numerous playtest iterations, and the changes are getting smaller each time; it really feels like it's getting close. N.O.W., by Mike Myler, is 50% written, and we hope to have a playtest document for that by the end of January.
- The ZEITGEIST compiled hardcover Kickstarter resulted in a truly beautiful 500-page book. Those have gone out to Kickstarter backers, and the book is on sale. I'm very proud of it!
[h=4]Adventure Paths & EN Publishing[/h]
- ZEITGEIST: The Gears of Revolution has been a long, long process. We just released Adventure #9: The Last Starry Sky, which brings the end into sight. Also this year, we released an NPC card deck, extended Player's and Campaign Guide's, a bonus adventure called Crypta Hereticarum, a gorgeous pack of premium cardstock player handouts, and more. We're now focused on bringing out the last few adventures, plus the subsequent compiled hardcovers. ZEITGEIST is something I'm so enormously proud of; it has been a truly titanic effort and it has resulted in something I feel is unique and memorable.
- War of the Burning Sky is an older AP, and one of the stretch goals of the Rebuilding EN World Kickstarter was to bring it to Pathfinder. We had a couple of major setbacks along the way, and had to start the whole process again just a few months ago, but it's well-underway. I have some manuscripts already, and I can't wait to start releasing them. That probably won't start going out until mid-2015 at the earliest, but fortunately there's no actual deadline on it.
- SANTIAGO: A Myth of the Far Future, our sci-fi adventure path, is in a bit of a problematic area. Sadly, we've not really gotten much interest in it and to date have only sold a handful of adventures; added to that, the line designer had to step down suddenly this year due to other projects, leaving the AP somewhat rudderless. I have not yet made a decision on what to do about that - I still have the license to product RPG products based on Mike Resnick's wonderful books. I'll report more on that later.
ZEITGEIST is probably the last big adventure path EN Publishing will produce. These things are such enormous projects, they tie us up for a long, long time, and we find it incredibly hard to compete economically in the Pathfinder market in the face of so many other really fantastic content producers (and 4E sales have obviously dropped off almost completely). While we're immensely proud of WotBS and ZEITGEIST, in future we'll be concentrating on smaller, less monolithic projects which make us a little more agile. We're still discussing ideas right now, as it's some way off, but ideas include mini-APs (3 adventures or so, different theme/setting for each) amongst other things. Additionally, we need to wait to hear what's happening with 5E licensing to see if we can make any plans on that front.
One big idea is something I currently term ENsider (working title only!), a Patreon-based subscription 'magazine' which produces a dozen or so rules articles and an adventure each month (think DDI) which would replace the current EN World subscription system, although that's only an idea right now. In an ideal world, assuming all licensing announcements worked out well, it would produce content for D&D 5E and Pathfinder, plus WOIN. How that would be structured, I don't know - different subs for each, perhaps, so folks don't have to pay for system content they'll never use. That sort of thing would mean bringing on a bunch of new people, though -- people to manage content and submissions, layout, etc. It may not happen, but it's an idea!
Talking of bringing on new people, I wanted to touch on why some stuff takes so darn long. EN Publishing has always had a manpower shortage compared to the massive quantity of stuff we do, and people work really, really hard to produce what we think are really top-tier products. This year, I need to do something about that. The largest blockage is in layout (as some ZEITGEIST fans are painfully aware of) - ideally, we need a bunch of people, but we've never had more than one at any given time, which is not at all fair on that one person, nor on the customers! And given some of the upcoming projects, great layout folks are gong to be badly needed so that we can greatly improve the product turnover.
One last thing that is in the planning stage is a short, weekly comic-strip based on the Perturbed Dragon characters created by myself and my brother, Darren (we made an animated series of cartoons with them).
[h=4]ENnies[/h]
I don't have a lot to add on the ENnies front, other than that I'm so happy with and proud of them. Gabriel Whitehead, the new Business Manager, picked up where former Business Manager Tony Law left off, and his first year was a resounding success. I feel we get a little better every year! Sometimes I see folks attack them for various reasons, but I honestly feel that they're a wonderful way to show apprecation to individual designers, artists, writers, and more in a way that simple sales don't. Sales are for the company, but the awards are for the people who make these wonderful games for us.
[h=4]Happy New Year![/h]
So that's about it. A kind of catchup-summary of the last year, combined with plans (some tentative) for the new year. I hope everybody had a great Christmas/New Year period, and I wish everybody a wonderful 2015!
