Rappan Athuk Reloaded at DTRPG.COM

[sjmiller]

Sadly, I think that Clark's view on value/limited edition aspect of the pdf is greatly flawed. I will agree that the print version of the book is, and should be, a limited edition book. But, as many have already pointed out, a print book and a pdf do not have the same value. Electronic media should be thought of as a totally different product with a different pricing structure. The resale value of a print book is, as we all know, quite high. This is especially true of limited edition books. The resale value, if any, of a pdf is much less. I cannot give a single example of a "limited edition" pdf reselling for anywhere near the original price. It just doesn't happen.

The printed book should be a limited edition, we all agree on that. If you miss out on the printed book, that is the price you have to pay for a limited edition. Selling a pdf of the book to everyone else will not, in any way, dilute the value of the limited edition book.

If you are afraid of this happening, simply wait until every copy of the limited edition is sold, which I believe they are. At this point, everyone who purchased the LE book has the book at its optimum value. Selling a reasonably priced pdf will not hurt that value. The only way it will hurt the value is if someone purchased the book in hopes of making a profit off of it by selling it again. Even then, those in the market for the LE book most likely want it for the fact is is a book and not a bunch of electrons on their harddrive.

I had hoped to get this book at a later date, when personal finances allowed me to purchase the pdf. Would I have preferred the printed book? Yes, I always prefer print over pdf. I just resigned myself to not being one of those lucky few. I had hoped to count myself among the group of those who were able to purchase the pdf and spread the joy of the product to their many players (by playing it, of course, not passing out copies).

 

[alan]

So NG is making the 1,000 people who get it happy and everyone else unhappy. Uh, yeah, that makes good business sense.

I just read this thread today, and as you can see from my post count, it takes something special for me to respond.

As a little bit of background, I own many Necromancer products: from the early (Crucible of Freya, Tomb of Abysthor, ToH, etc.) to the later (Wilderlands). I also own the RA series. In total, I probably own 12-18 NG products, and I considered myself a fan of their work.

However, I can now say that I will not purchase another NG product. I have not ordered RAR, as I couldn't justify the cost of another mega-supplement sitting on my shelf, not getting used. I don't mind that NG priced this as a premium product, and don't feel like I should have it at some discounted rate. I don't grudge Lexus making $50,000+ cars, either.

However, if the pdf product cheapens the value of the printed product, then it certainly doesn't seem like a true premium product. Instead, it sounds like a product priced at a high point due solely to planned scarcity. A collectible module, if you will (or ultra-rare).

I understand that you don't want people who shelled out $75+ for it to be pissed off at the price of a $20 pdf. So, I would have made sure that the physical production quality of the printed product was worth it (which you don't get with the pdf). What you are inferring with your post is that this is not the case. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the product, or the company that produced and planned it as such, is it?

Furthermore, the "we told you so" attitude you reserve for those who ordered from amazon instead of directly from NG, frankly amazes me - especially from a principal of the company. I might expect this example of customer interaction from a disgruntled tech support person after a night on the town and 15 minutes of sleep, but certainly not from one of those who have a direct stake in the long term survival of the company.

I am *most* certain that Clark's post would not be found in a chapter from "How to Win and Retain Customers".

 

[PatrickLawinger]

I just read this thread today, and as you can see from my post count, it takes something special for me to respond.

As a little bit of background, I own many Necromancer products: from the early (Crucible of Freya, Tomb of Abysthor, ToH, etc.) to the later (Wilderlands). I also own the RA series. In total, I probably own 12-18 NG products, and I considered myself a fan of their work.

However, I can now say that I will not purchase another NG product. I have not ordered RAR, as I couldn't justify the cost of another mega-supplement sitting on my shelf, not getting used. I don't mind that NG priced this as a premium product, and don't feel like I should have it at some discounted rate. I don't grudge Lexus making $50,000+ cars, either.

However, if the pdf product cheapens the value of the printed product, then it certainly doesn't seem like a true premium product. Instead, it sounds like a product priced at a high point due solely to planned scarcity. A collectible module, if you will (or ultra-rare).

I understand that you don't want people who shelled out $75+ for it to be pissed off at the price of a $20 pdf. So, I would have made sure that the physical production quality of the printed product was worth it (which you don't get with the pdf). What you are inferring with your post is that this is not the case. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the product, or the company that produced and planned it as such, is it?

Huh? The boxed set is of the highest production quality and was incredibly expensive to produce. It is a revision of books already released with new levels as well as new maps and artwork. I am not sure what you are trying to say, but the person you quoted is not with Necromancer Games, just one of those flaming us (again).

It is difficult enough to get retailers to carry boxed sets, let alone $75 boxed sets, without risking their anger by putting out the .pdf at a low price.

We have complete confidence in the high quality of the printing, paper, as well as the new maps, etc. That has nothing to do with .pdf pricing. We provide .pdf sales as a SERVICE to those people that can't acquire our products in other ways. While this might anger people focused on getting cheaper .pdf products, overseas servicemen and individuals in certain countries have been more than happy with this service.

Furthermore, the "we told you so" attitude you reserve for those who ordered from amazon instead of directly from NG, frankly amazes me - especially from a principal of the company. I might expect this example of customer interaction from a disgruntled tech support person after a night on the town and 15 minutes of sleep, but certainly not from one of those who have a direct stake in the long term survival of the company.

I am *most* certain that Clark's post would not be found in a chapter from "How to Win and Retain Customers".

Clark is one of the nicest people in the business, he is also one of the most honest. If you knew Clark, you would be highly unlikely to say this. I have had the pleasure of meeting a number of people in the industry and I choose which people I want to work with, Bill and Clark are at the top of the list.

Necromancer Games has been honest about this being a limited edition product from the beginning, that might be why we announced it as a limited edition product (Surprise!). We were very pleased it sold out of the warehouse and very surprised at the anger over that fact. We warned people to order from a gamestore, whether online or "LGS," or direct from WW and that Amazon was unlikely to get it. Monte announced a while back that he was NOT selling Ptolus direct to Amazon at all, if they get it, they get it the same place as your LGS, I am not sure if that announcement had the same reaction here as RAR not going direct to Amazon or not.

Bill and Clark have both been very honest about their dislike of what Amazon and other major discounters have done to the presence of Local Game Stores. Yeah, that comes through in their posts, a number of other publishers feel the same way, trust me.

Patrick

 

[PatrickLawinger]

I had hoped to get this book at a later date, when personal finances allowed me to purchase the pdf. Would I have preferred the printed book? Yes, I always prefer print over pdf. I just resigned myself to not being one of those lucky few. I had hoped to count myself among the group of those who were able to purchase the pdf and spread the joy of the product to their many players (by playing it, of course, not passing out copies).

I have said this before, but it gets washed out, apparently. Alliance has it, you can still (probably) get it through your LGS or possibly even someone like FRP. We have a "sellout" in that it is out of our warehouse.

I am guessing the final price for the full .pdf is going to be around $45, but that is a guess right now and dependant on Bill and Clark discussing it. That is still (probably) high enough to piss people here off, but lower than what it presently is.

Patrick

 

[sjmiller]

I have said this before, but it gets washed out, apparently. Alliance has it, you can still (probably) get it through your LGS or possibly even someone like FRP. We have a "sellout" in that it is out of our warehouse.

I am guessing the final price for the full .pdf is going to be around $45, but that is a guess right now and dependant on Bill and Clark discussing it. That is still (probably) high enough to piss people here off, but lower than what it presently is.

Patrick

Patrick, I had not heard this aspect of the sell through yet. All I had heard was that the product was sold out. I am hopeful that, in a month or two (after paying off hospital bills) I can still find it.

I have to admit, $45 for a pdf sounds a bit steep. That will depend on the number of pages, the quality of the pdf, and how obtrusive the watermarking is on maps. The last pdf I got from Necromancer Games, the Player's Guide to the Wilderlands, has some of the worst pdf production quality I have ever seen. If RAR is of a similar quality, then my $45 would be well spent trying to find the print copy elsewhere.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Well...for anybody who wants to dare the depths of Ebay for a RAR...here is another one.

http://cgi.ebay.de/D-D-d20-Rappan-A...ryZ44112QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[ShinHakkaider]

The new low price for the RAR PDF is....


...Wait for it....


Waaaaaaaait for it....

$49.99.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Too many of the posts on this thread read like they were written by spoiled children.

First of all, Necromancer Games isn't going to go out of business. And Bill and Clark aren't in any danger of losing their homes -- they are both professionals with good careers.

Rather, they are gamers who decided to give something back to the community by spending their precious free time writing and editing modules for you, selling at print runs guaranteed never to make them wealthy or allow them to quit their day jobs, and running a risk with each product of losing thousands of dollars if they misgauge demand and print too many copies. This is exactly what happened with the Wilderlands Campaign Setting.


Now, they make a decision to go with a safe print run, rather than risk once again losing THOUSANDS of dollars, and people here who have never put a tenth of this amount of money at risk for the hobby, bitch and moan about being entitled.

And the threats to pirate RA: Reloaded PDFs because you don't like the price? What ingrates.

If NG ever goes away, it will not be because anyone went bankrupt. It will be because good people got tired of donating their efforts to a community with a perverse sense of self-entitlement.

Ken

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Monte announced a while back that he was NOT selling Ptolus direct to Amazon at all, if they get it, they get it the same place as your LGS, I am not sure if that announcement had the same reaction here as RAR not going direct to Amazon or not.

Yeah it did there was a thread a while back where some of monte's fanboys got on a few of us for actually trying to find it for a cheaper than listed price.

(As an aside, I just got my copy of Ptolus from Stiggybaby.com along with a copy of the Night of Dissolution for $84.99. and honestly after flipping through the actual product and seeing how well it was put together...I TOTALLY would have paid full price for this. D**M this is a NIIIICE product.)

 

[PatrickLawinger]

Okay, so I was wrong about the .pdf price, but it still went down didn't it?

The page count is very high, I couldn't give you an exact number, but you'll probably still not be happy with it.

Those that have the print product; if you ordered from WW I believe you are supposed to get a coupon to get it from DTRPG. Not really sure how that works. If you ordered from somewhere else, not sure what we can do for you (basically, hard for us to know for sure) but I am sure if you are willing to take the time to email Bill about it he'll check into working something out.

Patrick