RE: Pathfinder
I would be curious to know if the release time for Pathfinder is "set in stone"? I'm unfamiliar with the publishing business, so I don't know if you have to reserve print time, and have supplies pre-ordered and standing by, etc.
The reason I ask, is that based on the discussions from the messageboards and the playtests, is that it appears that there may still be a lot to be done and experimented on before the final release. I'm also quite certain that the developers are also working on other projects, and yet they still somehow manage to find time to be active on the forums. Add in a few meetings here and there, and I wonder if the dev's are regularly pulling 16 hour days?
One thing I really respect about the video game developer, Blizzard, is that they are likely the only developer that will hold back publishing their game until they are satisfied with the product that is being shipped out (rather than the standard business model of caving in to the demands of the investors and releasing a product when it is not ready, hoping to fix it with a plethora of patches, while hoping and praying that the half-finished game will keep the buyers interested enough to stick around and wait for the patches).
Paizo's open development process is very commendable! The only thing that could make it better is publishing a game system that will not require a revised version 1 year later. I have no problem waiting 1 more year for a system with tight rules mechanics.
Perhaps Pathfinder is well on track, and my thoughts are wasted here... but I plead with Paizo to please not rush the development of the system. If it needs more time, and if it's possible, please hold back on publishing the system until its ready.
Creative Director
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If we don't have Pathfinder out for Gen Con, we miss our biggest show of the year. We also miss the opportunity to launch the new game in tandem with the launch of an adventure path. We don't want to switch systems in mid-adventure path, so if we miss the August Gen Con release, the next time we can legitimately release the game would be in February of 2010... not a really good month to launch a new game. And after that of course we're looking at Gen Con of 2010.
SO! Unless we do something super-crazy like cut an Adventure Path short, we're pretty locked in to a Gen Con 2009 release for the Pathfinder RPG. And yes, there IS still a lot to do before that releases, and yes that does mean that there'll be some 16 hour days for us in the future.
But that's actually part of the package for publishing... for ANY deadline-driven industry. One does one's best to get things done early and before the deadline arrives, but invariably things come up and as the deadline approaches, editors and developers and art directors get to work long, long hours. It's pretty much been the way of things forever.
Paizo is not Blizzard, unfortunately, and we can't delay product because the way our business is set up, the proceeds and resources for one project lead directly into the next one. If a project is late, then that robs the next product of editor attention as we have to now steal time from the next project's cycle to keep working on the late one. And likewise, money that was going to come in from one project helps us to pay the regular monthly bills, so when too many projects are late, bills start to get sad.
And in the case of REALLY BIG PROJECTS (like the PF RPG, which is arguably the largest RPG product we've done yet), the results of being late would be pretty catastrophic.
We don't want to release a game that needs to be revised a year later. That's why we started the public playtest a year before the game's release.
And in the case of REALLY BIG PROJECTS (like the PF RPG, which is arguably the largest RPG product we've done yet), the results of being late would be pretty catastrophic.
It sounds like the PathfinderRPG may yet make both Ms. Stevens and you "old people" before it comes out. :)
The reason I ask, is that based on the discussions from the messageboards and the playtests, is that it appears that there may still be a lot to be done and experimented on before the final release. I'm also quite certain that the developers are also working on other projects, and yet they still somehow manage to find time to be active on the forums.
As far as I know, they consider being active on the forums part of their jobs, not a divine boon the great luminaries bestow upon us mere mortals (that's what the web involvement of certain other RPG companies always comes across like).
And it's still half a year until the game is released. That should be enough time to tidy up things.
Add in a few meetings here and there, and I wonder if the dev's are regularly pulling 16 hour days?
16. Hour. Days? What's this? A spa? I'd give them 45 minutes for a power nap, and, say 25 for an efficient ingestion of aliment. Round it up with 20 minutes for excretion of excess biomass and various leasure activities, and we have 22 1/2 hours per day to work. And I feel I'm being generous here!
One thing I really respect about the video game developer, Blizzard, is that they are likely the only developer that will hold back publishing their game until they are satisfied with the product that is being shipped out (rather than the standard business model of caving in to the demands of the investors and releasing a product when it is not ready, hoping to fix it with a plethora of patches, while hoping and praying that the half-finished game will keep the buyers interested enough to stick around and wait for the patches).
I don't know. I'm not a Barker*, but I know a couple of Barkers, and among the incomprehensible gushes of articulation they throw at each other I think I hear sometimes something that is close to real people language and is about the newest patch and all the things that suck now because of the latest patch.
Plus, while certainly few to no computer games ever get by without any patches, more than just a few are quite playable right from the start. Sure, there are Banana Games** out there, but not nearly all.
Patches are often unavoidable, because we're not talking about a standardised system here, but rather about a kind of system that can consist of countless variations of every single component. Different graphics chips, with different graphics cards for each chip, with different driver versions and different firmware versions, and different settings - and the same goes for everything else. Add to that a myriad of different programmes you may or may not have installed and you have a system that can have unforseen consequences in certain combinations of hard- and softwareproducts you just cannot test before releasing the game.
The better publishers go to lengths to iron out most problems like this, but getting all is, still not quite possible, despite the effort to standardise all interfaces.
And then comes the thing that with something as complex as your average computer game, there can be hidden bugs that only show up in very specific constellations of circumstances, and again, it's quite hard to find all that with anything short of a long, public beta test (and even then, it's not guaranteed, of course).
I agree that those games that are unplayable without a patch - or even those who are quite annoying without one - are an outrage, and people should be put against a wall and shot for some of those offenses, but not all patches are like this.
And I'm quite confident that Paizo will do a better job than wizards did with their core books (3.0 core had its share of errors, and so did 3.5, and apparently 4e was no better - and don't get me started on some of the supplements!), and we'll get a book with few errors and inconsistencies.
Paizo's open development process is very commendable! The only thing that could make it better is publishing a game system that will not require a revised version 1 year later. I have no problem waiting 1 more year for a system with tight rules mechanics.
Maybe not you, but besides Paizo themselves (who, as Jimmy pointed out, are greedy and really want that money to to decadent things like pay their bills and buy food ;-)) there's a lot of fans who don't want to wait another year.
And I doubt that they'll do such a bad job that they'd need to revise PF RPG a year later. After all, it is basically a revision itself (I don't consider it a new edition of D&D, but rather the second revision of 3e).
*Barker: Someone who goes "WoW! WoW!" all day.
**Banana Game: Like a banana, you buy them unripe and let them ripen in your home before you can enjoy them.