Steel Predator

Spiralbound's page

13 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 alias.



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"Whaah, Whaaah, Whaaaah... My book has errors, I wanted a perfect book!"

Geez guys, I know that a LOT of errors is bad, but aside from a couple of well noted books, Paizo has a very good track record! Not only is their error rate low, but they also listen to customers who point out errata, respond to all of the unhelpful complaining (like this entire thread), reprint their books with errata fixes, AND even publish free errata pdfs! Yet people are still slamming them and accusing them of being unprofessional! For all of you complainers out there, both the mild and polite ones as well as the angry and demanding ones, try this experiment:

All of you get together and with about 20 people spend several months writing, editing, coordinating your group efforts, revising content, posting playtest editions, evaluating/revising as per user suggestions, typesetting, graphic design, and then do all the back and forth needed with printers. Got all that done? Good. Now release your masterpiece to the public and host (at your own expense) a forum so that every armchair wannabe publisher can critique your efforts and see how many errors they find in your multi-hundred page publication. Having fun yet? Now, respond to their accusations that you're unprofessional and incompetent, sloppy, doomed to fail, etc, etc. and make sure that you stay professional and friendly on the forum while everyone rips into your efforts.

I'm not saying that errors don't happen. I'm not saying that we should be happy with books with errors. I'm not saying that Paizo shouldn't have their errors pointed out, but c'mon everyone - this thread alone has 68 posts in it discussing and bemoaning the presence of errors, and this isn't the only such thread here.

Every time Paizo puts out a book that isn't 100% free of errors, a bunch of people (sadly I see many of the same posters) jump down their throats because that modifier was wrong, this word was misspelt, that stat block (out of dozens or more) had an error, this page reference is wrong, blah, blah, blah. It's a wonder that Paizo doesn't just say "f*ck this noise, who needs the headache? I'll go defuse bombs instead, it's lower stress!" Who among you would like to see them pack it in? Which of you will take their place - and do a better job to boot?

If their products are that unsavoury to you then don't buy them, but do you actually believe that endlessly complaining over EVERY frickin' book they put out is somehow helping them? Just what is it about belittling their efforts do you think is going to improve their future efforts? Do you magically perform better after groups of people attack and insult you?

Instead of just complaining about errors, contribute to threads that list errata. If you've already done so, then how about posting fewer complaint filled posts too. Just because you've posted a few errata doesn't justify pages of unhelpful complaining. I'm sure that all the people at Paizo beat themselves up over errors enough as it is without everyone else joining in for a free smack. Imagine their disappointment when they work really hard to make sure that this book has fewer errors than the last one, and then there is an errata thread with dozens of errors found. Then on top of it are threads like this one which aren't actually providing solutions or even helpfully discussing the presence of errors - no, this is a "slam paizo for not being good enough" thread. How nice. Yep, that would make me feel good to come to work, yes siree!