Interest in Second Darkness seems a little low by looking at the posts in this forum versus posts in the Rise of the Runelords and the Curse of the Crimson Throne forums.
I know that the customs delay on the second adventure could be making some of the interest fade, but the forum seems almost dead.
In another forum, Lisa Stevens says that Paizo does not have enough money to make second printings of sold out Pathfinder AP editions. Is the end of the Pathfinder AP looming towards us?
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In another forum, Lisa Stevens says that Paizo does not have enough money to make second printings of sold out Pathfinder AP editions. Is the end of the Pathfinder AP looming towards us?
as little as two or three weeks ago they were saying that they were still selling more than expected on most products, and the AP books were still outselling most others... so no, I don't think this is the case. I think the issue with second darkness is just that some people loath the drow (like me) and refuse to play anything with them in it.
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Out of curiosity, you don't plan a reprint ? Such as the case of Pathfinder 2 ?Btw, we only have less than 10 of these in non-mint condition, and once they are gone, we will be out of Pathfinder #1 forever! Yesterday, we have one copy of the alternate cover, but that could be gone also. Can't believe we sold out in about a year! :)
-Lisa
Nope, we have decided to let our Pathfinder volumes go out of print. We just don't have the money to keep everything in print, so something has to give. We are trying to print enough of our Pathfinders going forward to have a 2 year supply, but I'm not sure how good of a job we are doing, since they seem to sell out pretty fast. All I can say is to get them while you can. Volumes 3, 5 and 6 are also almost out of print!
-Lisa
I think the answer to your 'looming end' question can be found in what she said. Pathfinder is selling very well (it's selling out in about a year) and in the future they will be printing extra pathfinders to handle demand.
In another forum, Lisa Stevens says that Paizo does not have enough money to make second printings of sold out Pathfinder AP editions. Is the end of the Pathfinder AP looming towards us?
I think it's sort of an out of context thing. They need to print in large batches to make things worth their while. Printing up hundreds or thousands of copies of an out-of-date AP is expensive and it's unlikely they will sell another 2000 copies. So they try and buy enough copies in the initial run to last them for 2 years so they don't have to deal with reprints. James has said repeatedly that subscriptions are up over the last year.
As for why this board is 'dead'... I would guess a lot of people are distracted by the beta and playing RotRL and CotCT. I haven't even started the adventure yet because I'm otherwise occupied.
I would guess that the majority of Pathfinder subscribers don't start playing the adventure path the instant it arrives. I could be wrong, though.
Chief Technical Officer
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Interest in Second Darkness seems a little low by looking at the posts in this forum versus posts in the Rise of the Runelords and the Curse of the Crimson Throne forums.
I know that the customs delay on the second adventure could be making some of the interest fade, but the forum seems almost dead.
In another forum, Lisa Stevens says that Paizo does not have enough money to make second printings of sold out Pathfinder AP editions. Is the end of the Pathfinder AP looming towards us?
Pathfinder is doing great. Subscriptions are up, retail sales are up. The Pathfinder RPG is driving people to the site, and they're learning about the AP and liking it.
The main issue with reprints is that economics are tricky. As most people know, print costs are based on volume—the more copies you print, the lower the print cost. So in order to make a reprint profitable, we have to print in quantities similar to the original print run. (Since the art and editorial costs are already covered, we can afford to pay a *little* more per copy, so the print runs can be a *little* smaller... but not much.)
This means that we have to know that we can sell a lot of copies over time, with a significant quantity of those selling immediately (since, after all, we have to pay the print bill immediately).
The upshot of this is that if we *massively* underestimated demand on the original run (as we did with Pathfinder 2) we can afford to do a reprint. But if we think we only underprinted by a little bit, then reprinting doesn't make any sense.
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I would guess that the majority of Pathfinder subscribers don't start playing the adventure path the instant it arrives.
There are still people posting to AoW and STAP boards.
For example, my group hasn't even gotten to any of the Pathfinder AP's yet. We're currently in Chapter 9 ("Wells of Darkness") of STAP. Once we finish (sometime after the New Years), we're moving to the Star Wars RPG "Dawn of Defiance" AP from WotC. So it'e likely to be at least another year before I'm reay to run any Pathfinder AP's.
The upside is that we'll have plenty of choices (probably 5 AP's to pick from) and the PRPG rules should be good and ready.
Here's to Pathfinder's continued success!
-Skeld
In my case, I just have to finish one AP before starting another (and I am running two iterations of it). There are a lot of questions already answered and a lot of resources available. I used to post like a frickan fiend in the early days, but even I run out of questions eventually.
I think the Paizo strategy of having each Chapter add something besides the module (monsters, some fiction, god write-ups, background articles) is genius on their part. It makes the Chapters do more than sit around until you have an immediate use for them.
If they were nothing but one solid adventure cover to cover, the temptation to just get them when I needed them would be much greater. I am completely aware of the fact that model might be more convenient for me, but I also know it would kill the company... so I'm cool with it the way it is.
Its a model for sustainability, and if I want to continue enjoying Golarion, I recognize that is the way it has to be.
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I think the Paizo strategy of having each Chapter add something besides the module (monsters, some fiction, god write-ups, background articles) is genius on their part. It makes the Chapters do more than sit around until you have an immediate use for them.
I have no interest whatsoever in the Second Darkness AP, but those articles have me buying anywhere between 2 and all issues of any one AP, including that one, regardless of my intent to run.
I buy them for the pictures and the monthly centerfold.
Mmmmmm... Pathfinder pr0n.
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Creative Director
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Second Darkness is only just starting. Only 1/6 of the campaign is out, as opposed to the entire campaign for Runelords and Crimson Throne. I suspect that once more installments of Second Darkness become available, things will pick up on that part of the messageboards. It IS frustrating that the customs thing put such a huge delay in getting the second adventure out, though... :(
Interest in Second Darkness seems a little low by looking at the posts in this forum versus posts in the Rise of the Runelords and the Curse of the Crimson Throne forums.
I know that the customs delay on the second adventure could be making some of the interest fade, but the forum seems almost dead.
In another forum, Lisa Stevens says that Paizo does not have enough money to make second printings of sold out Pathfinder AP editions. Is the end of the Pathfinder AP looming towards us?
Pathfinder is doing great. Subscriptions are up, retail sales are up. The Pathfinder RPG is driving people to the site, and they're learning about the AP and liking it.
The main issue with reprints is that economics are tricky. As most people know, print costs are based on volume—the more copies you print, the lower the print cost. So in order to make a reprint profitable, we have to print in quantities similar to the original print run. (Since the art and editorial costs are already covered, we can afford to pay a *little* more per copy, so the print runs can be a *little* smaller... but not much.)
This means that we have to know that we can sell a lot of copies over time, with a significant quantity of those selling immediately (since, after all, we have to pay the print bill immediately).
The upshot of this is that if we *massively* underestimated demand on the original run (as we did with Pathfinder 2) we can afford to do a reprint. But if we think we only underprinted by a little bit, then reprinting doesn't make any sense.
Will compilation "books" eventually start appearing then?
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I am starting my own Second Darkness campaign on Oct 11, btw if you live in Los Angeles, we need one or two more players ;)
I buy them for the pictures and the monthly centerfold.
Mmmmmm... Pathfinder pr0n.
The Pathfinder Fan Service is over here (NSFW).
I think the lack of posts is due to the delay of SD #2. Once that arrives, I guess you will see the usual amount of discussion, playing experiences, and errata posts that we have come to expect.
Well, ROTRL has been out for more than a year, and there's 12,000 posts in that section.
Second Darkness came out a month ago, and there's 1,300 posts, so it doesn't look that different on a month by month breakdown.
The other two Paizo AP forums have multiple posts in multiple threads over the last hour or two. The last post in any thread other than this one in the Second Darkness thread (as I write this at 9:35 on a Wednesday morning) was about 1pm Sunday. That is almost three days with almost no post activity.
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Creative Director
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The other two AP forums have a full 6 adventures out or does that simply not factor into your theory?
It should. That follows the pattern of posts I've seen over the last 5 or so adventure paths we've done. Also, the delay of 14 has slowed things down a bit too. But for the most part, folk have 1/6 to talk about for Second Darkness, so it's to be expected they'll have about 1/6 the posts in those forums.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Well, I'm still running STAP and starting a ROTR game next week. I'm planning to run second darkness after stap but that's at least a year away. I love the AP and buy every episode anyway - as much for the other stuff as for the adventure. I'm happy browsing the forums anyway, even if I'm not posting much!
I've figured that adding more posts that basically say how much I love the newest AP edition really isn't that interesting. Regardless of how much I love reading the new APs.
That being said, I'm playing in a Shackled City Campaign, and I'm DMing RotRL. At the pace we are playing, we won't be done until 2009. Then we have to decide if we want to start CotCT, or 2nd Darkness, or get our hands on Savage Tide, or Age of Worms, or start all the homebrew material I've been writing in my spare time, or start Legacy of Fire.
And by then another 3-4 APs will be waiting for us.
Err.... I'm still running Age of Worms. I'll get to Second Darkness in, oh, about 10 years?!?!
Pathfinder is doing great.
Lies and gorilla dust!!! Things are bad man, real bad. James and me are chained to folding chairs right now being forced to bang out Second Darkness by sharing one Commodore 128.
Send fan art, and cookies, and booze.
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What's a "Commodore"? Is that a form of typewriter? :)Pathfinder is doing great.Lies and gorilla dust!!! Things are bad man, real bad. James and me are chained to folding chairs right now being forced to bang out Second Darkness by sharing one Commodore 128.
Send fan art, and cookies, and booze.
A bit fancier. I think they use punchcards or something.
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Creative Director
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Pathfinder is doing great.Lies and gorilla dust!!! Things are bad man, real bad. James and me are chained to folding chairs right now being forced to bang out Second Darkness by sharing one Commodore 128.
Send fan art, and cookies, and booze.
And more gorilla dust. I can almost see color again, and that's how I know I need more ook!
Err.... I'm still running Age of Worms. I'll get to Second Darkness in, oh, about 10 years?!?!
Still working on Shackled City...
Well, I still think there is too much adventure for too little time for most people
I decided to subscribe at CotCT even though I wasnt sure of when Id be able to run it. We began only on June and had a long game freeze due to vacations and work, so We're still on Edge of Anarchy (nearing its end)
Now, I actually prefer it, as I was able to read the world campaign and add some foreshadowings and connections I saw my players make or what I felt was missing.
Best of all: with AP13 in hand, I saw a way of using most of it's encounters as part of Edge of Anarchy. And it all fits perfectly!
So, even if I probably will not run Second Darkness to this party, Im using both APs at the same time ;)
(And Im using PRPG's slow progression)
Well, I still think there is too much adventure for too little time for most people
I second this thought. It seems like no one is really able to complete an AP in 6 months. Thus, the pace of the publishing of adventures quickly outstrips the demand. I'm sure that there are new customers finding Paizo all the time, but eventually, given enough time, those who are actually interested in running APs will fall so far behind the publishing schedule that it doesn't make sense to maintain their subscriptions (even though the secondary information is generally very valuable).
For example, I have run Age of Worms and Rise of the Runelords for my party, and we are a little over halfway through Edge of Anarchy. Knowing that it will likely take well over a year for my party to complete CotCT (it's been 2 months and we're not done with the 1st adventure), I intended to cancel my subscription for Second Darkness and renew it in a year (for AP 5 or 6). Unfortunately, of course, Paizo shipped Pathfinder 13 WITH Pathfinder 12, so that blew my plan, but I certainly will cancel before the beginning of the next AP. I see many people following this plan, which seems to lead to a problem for the AP model down the line.
O
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Creative Director
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I'm not too worried about "outrunning the game," to be honest. Not everyone who buys Pathfinder runs the adventure paths immediately. A lot of our customers hold them until they have the entire campaign to run, and a not-insignificant number NEVER run them; they just read the adventures and articles, and at most use one or two things from the book for other games.
If we do ever reach a point where there's Adventure Path fatigue and we see a mass drop-off of subscribers and we get the feedback of "I've got enough adventure paths," then we'll have to change our tactics a bit. We're certainly not there yet, though.
Contributor
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Count me in that "not-insignificant" number of folks who purchase but (may) never run the APs. I'm running ROTRL via PbP, so it'll probably take me years to get through it all (though I hope not). I will probably never run CotCT, but Second Darkness looks like fun and may see use if I can ever get a tabletop game going again.
I personally love reading the adventures for their entertainment value and the fact that each issue comes with more info on Golarion makes them even more valuable. I also have become a fan of the fiction at the end of each issue, especially since I've seen how the stories can cleverly foreshadow events from future APs.
In all, I'll be keeping my subscription to the APs, even though I'll likely never be able to run the majority of them at home.
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It seems like no one is really able to complete an AP in 6 months.
The group I'm currently DM'ing through STAP completed levels 1 through 16 in a year (effetively, a Pathfinder AP). That's about as fast as we can go without sacrificing the fun of it.
If that holds true, then the year it takes me to complete an AP, means I have 2 new ones to choose between to run next. I get to cherry-pick which I think are best for my group. If the publishing rate was 1 per year, I wouldn't have as many options.
I like options.
-Skeld
Interest in Second Darkness seems a little low by looking at the posts in this forum versus posts in the Rise of the Runelords and the Curse of the Crimson Throne forums. I know that the customs delay on the second adventure could be making some of the interest fade, but the forum seems almost dead. In another forum, Lisa Stevens says that Paizo does not have enough money to make second printings of sold out Pathfinder AP editions. Is the end of the Pathfinder AP looming towards us?
I think there's multiple reasons:
1) The aforementioned 1/6 of the AP is out, so there'll only be 1/6 of the posts.
2) People can't finish an AP that quickly, so they haven't yet got to the 3rd Paizo AP. My group, for instance, is just finishing Zenith Trajectory in the SCAP. Yes, the SCAP.
3) It's my opinion that people are figuring out that they're doing their players a disservice if they run an AP without getting all the books (because they are, AFAIC). It's far better to run an AP when it's all out. Yeah, I'm editorializing here, but there you go.
4) Now on to my very-much-personal-opinion and broken-record harping: Second Darkness seems to be the most Golarion-specific AP, and thus the most difficult to adapt to one's campaign setting. This could reduce a number of people's interest in it. (I'm still looking at it with a wary eye, because there was no "First Darkness" in my campaign setting...)
Count me in as another who buys any and all adventures, whether I'll get to them "soon" or not. As Skeld mentioned, "I like choice". Getting more than I can use at any one time is a good thing for me, because I can then choose among what I have based on what everyone feels like at the time. This is a very good thing for us.
Lies and gorilla dust!!! Things are bad man, real bad. James and me are chained to folding chairs right now being forced to bang out Second Darkness by sharing one Commodore 128.
But think of all the quality time you're spending together! How often do two people get to say that they're chained to chairs writing adventure paths together? It's like a real life geek romantic comedy!
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It seems like no one is really able to complete an AP in 6 months.The group I'm currently DM'ing through STAP completed levels 1 through 16 in a year (effetively, a Pathfinder AP). That's about as fast as we can go without sacrificing the fun of it.
my "old" college group (2 years ago) ran through AOW in 3 months (one dungeon mag a week) it was sickening (more because we played from 5pm-2 or 3am every week)
After having problems with this in RotRL and CotCT, my group will no longer consider playing an AP until all issues are in hand. So, little to no commentary for another 4 months.
That said, unless it's significantly different from its summary I don't think we can play SD as written; to us it seems to have severe problems with PC and player motivation. Maybe it can be adapted in some way to work. But trying to adapt something we've only got 1/6 of in hand definitely sounds like a bad idea.
Mary
Our group will be alternating GMs and running RotRL (my husband as GM), CotCT (myself as GM), SD (our best friend as GM for her first time behind the screen! Yeah!) one book at a time over the next several years. Being as we can only get together one weekend a month it takes us three to four months to get through one book, so one book per AP per year, approximately. I think our gaming schedule shows us finishing these three APs sometime in 2014 :) And I am already thinking ahead to all the new AP choices we'll have then to use!
As to posting on the boards, we three GMs try to stay only on our own boards, so as not to get any extra hints by accident of the ones we're players in. And until she's got more books to absorb, I don't think our SD GM is doing much posting yet :) Given time and more books, it'll go up, I'm sure.
I just signed up at the start of Second Darkness, not because I didn't want the others (I do), I just had to get a job first. I had planned to just skip the first two APs but after seeing Second Darkness, it confirmed for me that I want the first two as well. (Reading forum posts about how graphic some of them are also encouraged me.)
A shame that I won't be able to get the first PFAP since some of it is already sold-out, but I'll be getting #7-12 soon. (Next payday?) I'd consider getting AP #1-6 in PDF but I really don't like reading them in PDF and, as I've found with my PFAP#13 PDF, the PF PDFs are hard on my computer. (Crazy, huh? I can run Quake 4 but get crap performance from a PDF. I blame Adobe.)
I love reading the books but I may never get around to running them either. My group doesn't play very much and we're still playing "Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave."
I HATE missing something good, so I'm happy I'm subscribed. I need to pick up some of the older stuff still before it's gone. (Classic Monsters Revisited springs to mind.)
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my "old" college group (2 years ago) ran through AOW in 3 months (one dungeon mag a week) it was sickening (more because we played from 5pm-2 or 3am every week)
My group basically is my old college group. We've been playing together for 15 or 16 years (some feast and some famine). We used to pull weekenders, but now that we're all "busy professionals" and family folks, it's much harder to game much more than every-other-Friday night. We still manage to bang out 6-8 hours of socializing and gaming though.
-Skeld
A shame that I won't be able to get the first PFAP since some of it is already sold-out, but I'll be getting #7-12 soon. (Next payday?) I'd consider getting AP #1-6 in PDF but I really don't like reading them in PDF and, as I've found with my PFAP#13 PDF, the PF PDFs are hard on my computer. (Crazy, huh? I can run Quake 4 but get crap performance from a PDF. I blame Adobe.)
Eh... The APs are major memory hogs. I use other PDF viewers with similar speed issues. It's not quite as bad but close. The other viewers all have that stupid missing A though.
my "old" college group (2 years ago) ran through AOW in 3 months (one dungeon mag a week) it was sickening (more because we played from 5pm-2 or 3am every week)My group basically is my old college group. We've been playing together for 15 or 16 years (some feast and some famine). We used to pull weekenders, but now that we're all "busy professionals" and family folks, it's much harder to game much more than every-other-Friday night. We still manage to bang out 6-8 hours of socializing and gaming though.
-Skeld
Same here, man I miss those days! Maybe when the kids get older and don't want to stay around us anymore we'll rev it up again ...
After having problems with this in RotRL and CotCT, my group will no longer consider playing an AP until all issues are in hand. So, little to no commentary for another 4 months.
That said, unless it's significantly different from its summary I don't think we can play SD as written; to us it seems to have severe problems with PC and player motivation. Maybe it can be adapted in some way to work. But trying to adapt something we've only got 1/6 of in hand definitely sounds like a bad idea.
Mary
Bah, you're doing that whole "give the players a choice" thing, aren't you? I just read the adventures straight out of the book to my players. Way easier.
Same here, man I miss those days! Maybe when the kids get older and don't want to stay around us anymore we'll rev it up again ...
Totally! The awesome, "Hey, what's that light outside" nights/mornings. I miss those.