Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

...

Trying to make major edits on a PDF is way too difficult and time-consuming to be worth doing. I think the best decision would be for UK to revert back to a word document (or several documents) until things are actually finished. And only then make a PDF. Otherwise the process is even longer and more painful than it already is.

Well, unless the mechanics are getting a huge overhaul, I dont think it would take too much to change. Perhaps some time contumplating numbers and scaling, but Ascensions' powers are a good basis to work from. While the VSCs make up a good chunk of the system, they seem to be the big question right now. That, and where U_K comes up with some of his stuff.

U_K: I read to a friend of mine via Skype your description of Surtur. He said if I or any other DM read something like that to him, he would give up and quit out of fear. Parts of your mechanic seem a bit bumpy, but you still have style to fall back on.

 

[Pssthpok]

Ascension wasn't 'released' prematurely, it was sold before it was written and as such UK has been pressed to deliver what was already bought by many people before he even knew what it was. It was poorly planned, as far as business moves go. I mean, we're on v1.6 here; the text was released as v0.4. That's 12 updates, people.
120 days, give or take.
That's not a matter of dusting off the material - it's a matter of conception, generation and layout; this book wasn't even put to pen before it was sold, and that's causing a lot of problems.

Frankly, given the way things in the UKU (Upper_Krust Universe) go, I'm surprised that Ascension wasn't the first book to be written, released and errata'd by the fans, so that when the Bestiary was pressed it didn't have to look forward to how its own abilities would be measured. I mean, the templates and portfolios are the cornerstone of the system, yet they weren't detailed before the first volume of creatures that use them? There's a phrase that comes to mind: 'bass-ackwards', though I've been willing to ignore that fact because this is UK's first real attempt at putting his ideas into solid form, and a little leeway is expected, but c'mon... Volume II of the IH series is months overdue and now we're talking about fixing what could be a major problem in Volume I? Play-testing couldn't have helped this problem since the necessary rules still aren't in place. It's like trying to collect rainwater in a net.

Furthermore, I think a lot of what's happening in Ascension is based off necessary feedback from these boards, systemic of the fact that UK doesn't have much of his ideas in long-hand, let alone in a word document. The problem with this is, as evidenced recently, that we're going to see a lot of real savvy people discredit some (otherwise) clever ideas that just don't add up once they're off the drawing board. VSCs and their relationship to giga-beings, for example, is not balanced, at least not the way that the UKU sells itself as being. It's one thing for a system to need a tweak, but changing the VSC rules is going a whole book in reverse, and I'm surprised that so many people aren't more upset about this. How will Mongoose Publishing feel if UK suddenly refits a feature in a book they're planning on printing en masse? Poor planning, poor play-testing, poor results.

Another major problem that I can see is whatever program UK is using to pen his texts. Something that takes 4 hours to change half-a-dozen instances of one word is mind-bogglingly slow and warrants serious consideration. MS Word documents can be converted to PDF using any number of programs, from Adobe to JAWS, and would require 1/60th the time to make edits like the aforementioned. This affects UK's productivity, as we have seen in the past 12 updates: painfully slow, little to no real progress from update to update, and limitations on last-minute fixes.

All in all, given the fun I've had reading the Bestiary and the (ever-dwindling) excitement at the prospect of each Ascension update, I have to say this project is turning into a joke to me. I want to see it released and polished and nice, but I don't have the enthusiasm to wait another six months to see that happen, which is what we're looking at if we have to go back and revise Bestiary I.

As such, Ascension is the last book I'll pre-order from UK, and possibly the last I'll buy unless he can address the problems that keep him from doing a better job than he has in the last 4 months.

 

[Anabstercorian]

As much as it pains me to say it, I agree with Pssthpok completely.

 

[GQuail]

As much as it pains me to say it, I agree with Pssthpok completely.

Me too. In paticular:

Another major problem that I can see is whatever program UK is using to pen his texts. Something that takes 4 hours to change half-a-dozen instances of one word is mind-bogglingly slow and warrants serious consideration. MS Word documents can be converted to PDF using any number of programs, from Adobe to JAWS, and would require 1/60th the time to make edits like the aforementioned. This affects UK's productivity, as we have seen in the past 12 updates: painfully slow, little to no real progress from update to update, and limitations on last-minute fixes.

I think this is perhaps a symptom of the cottage industry model with U_K is working by: just like the issue with the art originally, whereas as the only man he had to take time out of doing the book to do the cover. I don't know how he's wrtten his books exactly, but if he's started doing it a clunky way, then converting to the "better" way is still alot of work up-front for future gain: and time spent just moving the document into an easier to edit format is time spent not actually editing the product.

I dunno if the various tables of Feats, broken up per page, are made in something a little obtuse which requires manual editing: but even so, I agree that not changing a name because it's too much effort to alter the rest of the document implies something could be imptroved in the document editing process.

Re: the "12 updates, 120 days": remember that not all updates have been exactly ten days. There's been little creeps here and there, including IIRC a week without an update because it wouldn't have been much. But the semantics don't matter: the end result is a product tht was released with the implication of it being a three or four updates from completion job is still dragging on, and I don't even want to guess as to how long it'll be ebfore we'll see it actully done.

All in all, given the fun I've had reading the Bestiary and the (ever-dwindling) excitement at the prospect of each Ascension update, I have to say this project is turning into a joke to me. I want to see it released and polished and nice, but I don't have the enthusiasm to wait another six months to see that happen, which is what we're looking at if we have to go back and revise Bestiary I.

As such, Ascension is the last book I'll pre-order from UK, and possibly the last I'll buy unless he can address the problems that keep him from doing a better job than he has in the last 4 months.

I've been feeling like this for a bit myself: when Ascension's first deadline came about, I got quite into it and was counting the days, checking the website all the time. Now, I still subscribe to and read this thread, and download each new version: but i haven't really read one in ages. The wind of the project has most certainly gone out of my sails.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the Bestiary and it's given me a lot of potential high-level gaming - and with a full set of Immortals Handbooks I'd probably find all kinds of funky new ideas. I don't want to sound like I'm just whinging, because like the other people on this thread, I'm genuinely interested in this product. (I paid money for it, after all, and I don't often do PDF purchases.) But iif I'm going to be buying another U_K created product, I just can't bear to go through all this rigmarole again.

End of the day, these will no doubt be great products when they are finally done, but perhaps the scale is just too big for a one-man operation. As Pssthpok says, the stuff just seems to flow into the text and then get worked out here, but then it's such a huge undertaking with so many new feats et al that it's no wonder one man can't playtest it. With a PDF purchase this isn't so big a deal, as updating to the new version is just a download away and a clued-up person can avoid a fancy printing job or whatever until then - but ultimately, I don't think we've got much option but to see a "release and alter" model. It just stings more this time round because we're seeing things we've already paid for but aren't quite ready yet get hacked apart.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Pssthpok mate!

Ascension wasn't 'released' prematurely, it was sold before it was written and as such UK has been pressed to deliver what was already bought by many people before he even knew what it was. It was poorly planned, as far as business moves go. I mean, we're on v1.6 here; the text was released as v0.4. That's 12 updates, people.
120 days, give or take.

It was a dreadful mistake releasing Ascension when I did, certainly not one I will ever make again. But there is no point crying over spilt milk. I just have to get on with it and finish the darn thing.

That's not a matter of dusting off the material - it's a matter of conception, generation and layout; this book wasn't even put to pen before it was sold, and that's causing a lot of problems.

The devil is invariably in the details. So even though I had the bulk of the ideas in place, a lot of it needed not only fleshed out, but also balanced. So things were inevitably going to change as the book took shape.

Frankly, given the way things in the UKU (Upper_Krust Universe) go, I'm surprised that Ascension wasn't the first book to be written, released and errata'd by the fans, so that when the Bestiary was pressed it didn't have to look forward to how its own abilities would be measured. I mean, the templates and portfolios are the cornerstone of the system, yet they weren't detailed before the first volume of creatures that use them?

The templates were finished when I wrote the Bestiary, the problem was that I changed them (for the better) when I wrote up Ascension. The portfolios were always going to be reliant on the abilities in Chapter Four.

There's a phrase that comes to mind: 'bass-ackwards', though I've been willing to ignore that fact because this is UK's first real attempt at putting his ideas into solid form, and a little leeway is expected, but c'mon... Volume II of the IH series is months overdue and now we're talking about fixing what could be a major problem in Volume I? Play-testing couldn't have helped this problem since the necessary rules still aren't in place. It's like trying to collect rainwater in a net.

What is this 'major problem' you speak of?

That Time Lords 'might' be unbalanced?

Furthermore, I think a lot of what's happening in Ascension is based off necessary feedback from these boards, systemic of the fact that UK doesn't have much of his ideas in long-hand, let alone in a word document. The problem with this is, as evidenced recently, that we're going to see a lot of real savvy people discredit some (otherwise) clever ideas that just don't add up once they're off the drawing board. VSCs and their relationship to giga-beings, for example, is not balanced, at least not the way that the UKU sells itself as being. It's one thing for a system to need a tweak, but changing the VSC rules is going a whole book in reverse, and I'm surprised that so many people aren't more upset about this. How will Mongoose Publishing feel if UK suddenly refits a feature in a book they're planning on printing en masse? Poor planning, poor play-testing, poor results.

No one is changing the VSC rules.

I solved the Time Lord 'flaw' in my previous post.

Another major problem that I can see is whatever program UK is using to pen his texts. Something that takes 4 hours to change half-a-dozen instances of one word is mind-bogglingly slow and warrants serious consideration. MS Word documents can be converted to PDF using any number of programs, from Adobe to JAWS, and would require 1/60th the time to make edits like the aforementioned. This affects UK's productivity, as we have seen in the past 12 updates: painfully slow, little to no real progress from update to update, and limitations on last-minute fixes.

I only takes four hours to change one word when you have to re-edit the entire numbering sequence, positioning and shaders on the tables and in the document proper because that one change throws the rest out of sync.

All in all, given the fun I've had reading the Bestiary and the (ever-dwindling) excitement at the prospect of each Ascension update, I have to say this project is turning into a joke to me. I want to see it released and polished and nice, but I don't have the enthusiasm to wait another six months to see that happen, which is what we're looking at if we have to go back and revise Bestiary I.

No one is going back and revising Bestiary I.

As such, Ascension is the last book I'll pre-order from UK, and possibly the last I'll buy unless he can address the problems that keep him from doing a better job than he has in the last 4 months.

I respect your decision, I'd probably feel the same way myself if the shoe was on the other foot.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi GQuail mate!

It just stings more this time round because we're seeing things we've already paid for but aren't quite ready yet get hacked apart.

If it pains people to download/scour each and every update, then perhaps they should only read every other update. Or one per month.

 

[GQuail]

If it pains people to download/scour each and every update, then perhaps they should only read every other update. Or one per month.

This is certainly what I'm doing now. I was surprised to look at the latest update yesterday and notice that, hang on, the portfolios are done now!

The problem, I guess, is that the "updates every 10 days" were originally envisioned and billed as being a bit more radical: what we've instead got is mostly little changes. Of course, anyone who was building their life plan around an Upper_Krust deadline deserves what they get but I would certainly say that 12 updates down the line, including various delays to those updates because even you thought they were too small to be worth it, and all your unfortunate maladies re: covers, viruses, and what not.... well, like I said in my post, it's sapped at my enthusiasm for the project in general.

...Though clearly, while I've been filled with malaise, you've been cracking on at adding in the actual Immortals themselves: so I now feel abit bad about the length of my previous disparaging post. ;-)

IMHO, the fact that I'm not checking each update with any real interest anymore isn't a solution, it's a problem.

 

[GQuail]

No one is changing the VSC rules.

I solved the Time Lord 'flaw' in my previous post.

I think the point of his post was that he doens't really think you have: or rather, that it's a bolt-on fix rather than a bigger re-jig which he reckons would be more warranted. See his "cure is worse than the disease" post to see what I mean.

(I don't really have an opinion on this: just saying, that's how I read the previous post)

I only takes four hours to change one word when you have to re-edit the entire numbering sequence, positioning and shaders on the tables and in the document proper because that one change throws the rest out of sync.

Yeah, I figured this might be a factor. Numbers is one thing, but I can see how the pretty shading on the list would probably eb done manually. Like I said, if there's a way to fix that, ti would still take as much time as a full re-write would anyway, and I can appreciate why that wouldn't sound tempting to you when you could be spending that time advancing the product.

Again, this is perhaps not going to be a factor with future releases since you've said you have no intention of repeating this model of release: but I think a plain text or far less fancy Word-style document for the first few releases, and full PDF-ization only when you go gold and hit a proper version 1.0, would be a far better way to spend your time. That you're putting off changing a feat name not because you don't agree it's confusing or whatever but because it's too hard a propsect to carry it out is a pretty poor situation to be in, but at this stage in Ascension I don't know if it's necesarilly worth "fixing" (at least not until you actually completion of the product and can perhaps give it a second sweep)

No one is going back and revising Bestiary I.

I think this is perhaps the crux of Pssthpok's post is that you either (A) should be, or (B) shouldn't have done it first so there was any doubt on the matter.

This is probably really obvious, but: is there a reason the Bestiary was released first? There's the portability factor (monster books are a lot easier to drop and use than a new set of rules) so it was probably a cash injection factor, and perhaps a little bit of a nod to Gygax's AD&D release structure ;-) but Pssthpok's point that these fundamentals of the immortals system should have been ironed out before books reliant on them were published is a fair one. You may not think the VSC rules he worries about are a problem, but should we be this far into the project before you have to think about it?

 

[Pssthpok]

GQuail is on the money regarding my posts and concerns.
It's too late in the game to go changing fundamentals to the system like VSC, especially with a print release pending. I mean, we're dealing with elaborate houserules no matter how you slice this pie, so content is not necessarily as important as consistency. I'm glad to hear thatVSC won't be changing, but even tacking on x# HP rules is a duct-tape solution bound to create problems later. It happens in haphazard design all the time, especially when the necessary rules for playtesting aren't in place.

As far as the tables and numbering go, four hours is still overboard; I don't care if you're doing it in binary. I'll stretch my estimate five-fold and say 20 minutes, tops, but you're the man at the keyboard, so what you say goes. I'm just certain there's a faster way to compile things to make on-the-fly edits more feasible. I mean, if you're going to come to the forums every other week and ask how we think things should go regarding certain fundamentals of the system, you should be prepared to make those edits when called for. Use Word for Betas, IMO, and PDF for a 1.0, as GQuail suggested. It will save you time and face.

Anyway, good luck. How many more updates to Ascension can we expect?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey GQuail dude!

I think the point of his post was that he doens't really think you have: or rather, that it's a bolt-on fix rather than a bigger re-jig which he reckons would be more warranted. See his "cure is worse than the disease" post to see what I mean.

(I don't really have an opinion on this: just saying, that's how I read the previous post)

I'm more amazed at how seriously people are taking the issue of balanced Time Lords. Time Lords are by their very nature unbalanced (They can have infinite strength for goodness sake!). While I am trying my best to give them some semblance of balance, they were really just included as a bit of fun. More flavour than anything else. The stats should be viewed more as a warning sign than an invitation to roll up a party of Time Lords and go around stomping universes.

Yeah, I figured this might be a factor. Numbers is one thing, but I can see how the pretty shading on the list would probably eb done manually. Like I said, if there's a way to fix that, ti would still take as much time as a full re-write would anyway, and I can appreciate why that wouldn't sound tempting to you when you could be spending that time advancing the product.

Exactly.

Again, this is perhaps not going to be a factor with future releases since you've said you have no intention of repeating this model of release: but I think a plain text or far less fancy Word-style document for the first few releases, and full PDF-ization only when you go gold and hit a proper version 1.0, would be a far better way to spend your time. That you're putting off changing a feat name not because you don't agree it's confusing or whatever but because it's too hard a propsect to carry it out is a pretty poor situation to be in, but at this stage in Ascension I don't know if it's necesarilly worth "fixing" (at least not until you actually completion of the product and can perhaps give it a second sweep)

With the benefit of hindsight there are a number of things I would do differently.

I think this is perhaps the crux of Pssthpok's post is that you either (A) should be, or (B) shouldn't have done it first so there was any doubt on the matter.

I don't see perfectly balanced Time Lords as critical a feature as others seem to.

Given the sheer amount of potential powers and abilities that can be min/maxed to destabilize the official rules up to 20th-level, you'll forgive me if I take this particular outcry of "OMG Krusty are you saying the game could be broken at 1000th-level!?!?" with a pinch of salt.

This is probably really obvious, but: is there a reason the Bestiary was released first? There's the portability factor (monster books are a lot easier to drop and use than a new set of rules) so it was probably a cash injection factor, and perhaps a little bit of a nod to Gygax's AD&D release structure ;-)

It was more a factor of time. 96 pages, versus significantly more than 96 pages.

but Pssthpok's point that these fundamentals of the immortals system should have been ironed out before books reliant on them were published is a fair one. You may not think the VSC rules he worries about are a problem, but should we be this far into the project before you have to think about it?

Again, people worrying over Time Lords boggles my brain, but at least I'll know not to 'air my dirty laundry in public' in the future.

So while I can understand the frustration over delays I cannot understand the frustration over an early build of a time lord able to kill a duplicate of itself with one critical hit because its damage starts to outweigh its flat hit points when you are dealing with beings who possess about 40 combined size and virtual size categories. How many hundreds of camaigns have been ruined by that old chestnut!?