Weapons Locker info

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Considering its all d20 modern, and primarily stats...hrm.....looks like it will be a better product then big bang. At least from my consumer prospective of what I'm looking for to buy.

Descriptions are nice, but I dont need a guns entire history, i need a short description and its stats. D20 Modern Locker seems to be just that! And its d20modern only!

Its got my money, despite the fact that I cant afford it! :-D

Well, as I said previously, you're a minority gamer. Most play several game systems. After I added stats for additional systems, sales increased by close to 225%.

And while you consider an extensive descriptions pointless, they are very important in providing details you won't otherwise learn. Like with FN's P-90, the biggest example of a gun in D20M based exclusively on its coolness factor, when its really no more powerful than a hot loaded .22 LR carbine, like the AM-180. And nobody else points out that FN claims the M240 receiver is good for in excess of 100,000 rounds, failures start occuring at 26,000 rounds fired, malfunctions at 70,000 rounds, and the receiver will fall apart in your hands at any point after firing 90,000 rounds. Or how about the Ares FMG, mentioned in so many places that you'd think it was a hot new gun, even though you don't see it anywhere. They never mention that the gun was actually designed in the 70's, never got past prototyping, and less than 3 dozen were manufactured and sold to the Secret Service. If you want a folding SMG, you'll have to turn to the Russian PP-90M. These little nuances, which don't get mentioned on those short descriptions, are what help separate two guns with otherwise identical statistics.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Oh Dana dont get me wrong, the descriptions are exiting and usefull, definatly they are. And i LOVE reading crreamy on the john, hell thats why I buy print books to begin with! But at the moment, i just need raw stats more, because i'm not using that level of realism in my games.

 

[Krieg]

Oh Dana dont get me wrong, the descriptions are exiting and usefull, definatly they are. And i LOVE reading crreamy on the john, hell thats why I buy print books to begin with! But at the moment, i just need raw stats more, because i'm not using that level of realism in my games.

What?! You mean you don't want a 4 page treatsie on the Longsword for D&D?!

For shame!

lol

 

[C. Baize]

I have to agree with ArtQ, here...
I want a short description of the weapon's normal service (who uses it), and the hard stats for it. I like bookkeeping in games, but even *I* am not going to keep track of when someone has exceeded 26,000 rounds on a P-90, and start messing with possible failures... Failures happen on a critical miss, thanks, that's all I really want, and for my money, in a game, there's only two critical failures on firearms... a jam, or a hangfire. I like hangfires, and my houserule for them.
I bought the Big Bang Christmas Pack, and there's a lot of good information in it... And when I want to see your take on the history and relative worth of a firearm, I'll read that part of it... But honestly... for a game... I don't need all that. I need to know where it's usually found, whose hands it's usually in, the rate of fire, what firing settings it has (single, burst, auto), how many rounds the clip holds, and how much damage it does.
Really... I'm good to go with about 2 paragraphs and some stats on each weapon. You have a pretty good product, but it DOES sound like sour grapes... "They don't even do a full page per gun... they're clearly inferior." Well... not for a game. The more crunch, the better.
Your product is good, don't get me wrong... but ... it's not as crunchy as it could have been. On the other hand, it's a PDF... I'm not carrying around an extra couple of pounds of fluff, and some crunch.
There's room for other books, not just yours.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

I have to agree with ArtQ, here...
I want a short description of the weapon's normal service (who uses it), and the hard stats for it. I like bookkeeping in games, but even *I* am not going to keep track of when someone has exceeded 26,000 rounds on a P-90, and start messing with possible failures... Failures happen on a critical miss, thanks, that's all I really want, and for my money, in a game, there's only two critical failures on firearms... a jam, or a hangfire. I like hangfires, and my houserule for them.
I bought the Big Bang Christmas Pack, and there's a lot of good information in it... And when I want to see your take on the history and relative worth of a firearm, I'll read that part of it... But honestly... for a game... I don't need all that. I need to know where it's usually found, whose hands it's usually in, the rate of fire, what firing settings it has (single, burst, auto), how many rounds the clip holds, and how much damage it does.
Really... I'm good to go with about 2 paragraphs and some stats on each weapon. You have a pretty good product, but it DOES sound like sour grapes... "They don't even do a full page per gun... they're clearly inferior." Well... not for a game. The more crunch, the better.
Your product is good, don't get me wrong... but ... it's not as crunchy as it could have been. On the other hand, it's a PDF... I'm not carrying around an extra couple of pounds of fluff, and some crunch.
There's room for other books, not just yours.

Obviously you don't actually understand what you're asking for. If you did, you'd realize that what you want cannot be done when one tries squeezing two or three weapons onto each page. When that squeezing occurs, you start getting lots of errors, such as the errors for the G11 in UMF D20, where the weapon is listed as having 50 round magazines, when 45 round magazines were the norm for the production version.

Tell you what. Take your favorite word processor, set it up with a custom 8.5 x 4.5 inch page size and half inch margins all the way around. That will give you a 7.5 x 3.5 work area, a third of a page. Then squeeze in a 2 paragraph description, stats, an illustration, and the gun's worldwide service record. It simply isn't adequate space to do things right. Trust me, I tried, and all I ended up with is the same half-assed results the other gun game books provide.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Trust me, I tried, and all I ended up with is the same half-assed results the other gun game books provide.

Dana, you're getting way too stressed over other products faults and into pushing that yours is better. No need to insult other companies books, that is bad ju ju and makes me less likely to wanna buy big bang :-(.

The best way to push your book is push its positives and leave others negatives alone. People will decide for themselves, and as you've mentioned, you got a %225 increase in profit. So thats fine. You'll do well without attacking other gun books.

 

[Krieg]

Not gonna go there.

 

[JPL]

I imagine the details will be pretty lousy.

I.e., "suited to the needs of 99% of gamers."

But if the other 1% wants to purchase and print out a six-volume set, then I guess that's money in your pocket, Dana.

 

[C. Baize]

Actually, Dana, I do understand what I'm asking for. A couple of paragraphs and stats. You don't have to sell ME on Big Bang... I've already purchased it, and it's a good product. To be quite honest, though, I've skipped over almost all the history and peripheral information on the individual guns, and gone for the crunchy bits. And I don't believe that I'm an atypical gamer.
Don't be so sour, man. Everyone's saying that your product is good, and that this one probably will be, too. Nobody's attacking you or your product. There's no need to get defensive, honestly. There's also no need to attack another person's product.
If you don't like the company, that's one thing. I don't care for WotC for their changes in the D20 STL. It doesn't have anything to do with them putting out products that compete with my favorite ones, or any that I have worked on.

 

[C. Baize]

Oh... And just so you know, for future reference... Telling potential or current customers that they really don't know what they want is really not conducive to creating new, and return customers.
Take this discussion for what it is: gamers stating what they want in a product. This is incredibly valuable FREE market research. For you, and for anyone else thinking about putting out a product on modern weaponry. Knowing what people will buy is a great thing for a publisher to know. Take or leave this advice, however you want, but in my opinion, this particular thread is a great research tool on what people want in a product. If I had the slightest desire to put out a gun book, I'd be paying a great deal of attention to this thread, and others like it.