Monte At Home
Explorer
Wow! We weren't expecting all this discussion before we even put the website (www.ptolus.com) together. However, it's up now. There, you'll find lots more details about the book and about preordering (and some of the benefits of doing so). You can also see an art preview, a sneak peek at the page layout and organization the book, and a FAQ. Lastly, there's a list of our publishing partners with this product, including a few details of the upcoming Ptolus comic book series.
There's lots more info coming in the coming year, but this is a start.
To address some of the things brought up in this thread (in no particular order):
1. There will probably be about 8 pdfs, not 3, in order to keep each individual pdf's price low. That way, if you're not sure about the whole thing, you can just try a small piece to see if this is for you. We have no plans of making it a single pdf, but if you buy all the pdfs, you'll have the entirety of the package's contents.
2. This isn't a special deluxe version of Ptolus. It's the actual thing. Aside from the pdfs, there won't be another version of Ptolus. (To be very frank, I don't know what we'd cut to make a "lesser" version. It's all pretty integrated.)
3. I don't think Malhavoc is known for inflated prices. In fact, I think it was here where someone mentioned that Arcana Evolved is, page for page, one of the best values in gaming. When you add in all the content from the CD Rom that will be included with the book, the package offers well over 1,000 pages of content. I proudly stand behind the value of this package, and I think the preorder package is an amazing deal.
4. The "bells and whistles" aren't meant to be meaningless fluff. Things like the bound-in bookmarks, the use of color, the handouts, and so forth are all designed for functionality. That said, I'm not going to apologize for putting together a deluxe book with a fantastic cover, amazing artwork, high quality paper, handouts, a full color poster map, and so on. Personally, I think the game industry deserves some really kick-ass high end products as well as the smaller, less-expensive ones, like our 32-page Player's Guide to Ptolus that we're releasing in May for $1.99 (yep, that's 2 bucks for the print version, and the pdf will be free).
5. We're working hard to make sure that the binding of this book will be super-sturdy. There are interesting processes available in publishing that I don't think anyone in the game industry has tried before that will make the book sturdier, and we're looking into all of them.
6. Why yes, I am crazy.
7. Since Ptolus is a city, it is uniquely designed so that it can be added to an existing campaign world that uses the basic d20 assumptions (monsters, elves, dwarves, wizards, etc.).
Is this book for everyone? No. And I knew that going in. If you're interested even slightly, however, check out the website with the previews of how the book will look and what we're doing that's different. Stop in at montecook.com from time to time over the next year and check out the extensive previews, design diaries, and more that we'll be putting up each week for the next 50 weeks.
Thanks!
There's lots more info coming in the coming year, but this is a start.
To address some of the things brought up in this thread (in no particular order):
1. There will probably be about 8 pdfs, not 3, in order to keep each individual pdf's price low. That way, if you're not sure about the whole thing, you can just try a small piece to see if this is for you. We have no plans of making it a single pdf, but if you buy all the pdfs, you'll have the entirety of the package's contents.
2. This isn't a special deluxe version of Ptolus. It's the actual thing. Aside from the pdfs, there won't be another version of Ptolus. (To be very frank, I don't know what we'd cut to make a "lesser" version. It's all pretty integrated.)
3. I don't think Malhavoc is known for inflated prices. In fact, I think it was here where someone mentioned that Arcana Evolved is, page for page, one of the best values in gaming. When you add in all the content from the CD Rom that will be included with the book, the package offers well over 1,000 pages of content. I proudly stand behind the value of this package, and I think the preorder package is an amazing deal.
4. The "bells and whistles" aren't meant to be meaningless fluff. Things like the bound-in bookmarks, the use of color, the handouts, and so forth are all designed for functionality. That said, I'm not going to apologize for putting together a deluxe book with a fantastic cover, amazing artwork, high quality paper, handouts, a full color poster map, and so on. Personally, I think the game industry deserves some really kick-ass high end products as well as the smaller, less-expensive ones, like our 32-page Player's Guide to Ptolus that we're releasing in May for $1.99 (yep, that's 2 bucks for the print version, and the pdf will be free).
5. We're working hard to make sure that the binding of this book will be super-sturdy. There are interesting processes available in publishing that I don't think anyone in the game industry has tried before that will make the book sturdier, and we're looking into all of them.
6. Why yes, I am crazy.
7. Since Ptolus is a city, it is uniquely designed so that it can be added to an existing campaign world that uses the basic d20 assumptions (monsters, elves, dwarves, wizards, etc.).
Is this book for everyone? No. And I knew that going in. If you're interested even slightly, however, check out the website with the previews of how the book will look and what we're doing that's different. Stop in at montecook.com from time to time over the next year and check out the extensive previews, design diaries, and more that we'll be putting up each week for the next 50 weeks.
Thanks!
