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Why do some gaming pdf's not have covers and not come in/with a color version?
What prompts this question, I saw a book and loved the design and I wanted to pick up the pdf until I buy the hardcover. The pdf had no cover and the interior was black and white. It really killed the design aspect, the colors dead. It has made me not want the hardcover as much now. (Though I'll be getting it anyways... but still.)
I understand people want to print these out and save money ink and print a black and white version. Some of us don't. If they book is in color why not put the color pdf with the b&w pdf? It's an extra couple mouse-clicks worth of work.
And I know that some products make the book cover and the inside pages as separate files and maybe they just post the inside pages. It is not much work to put the cover in the pdf with the interior pages.
Maybe I'm spoiled by paizo and their pdf's.
Indeed. There are a couple of reasons, the aforementioned ink reason (which is strange, because the printing party could simply choose to print it in B&W), or perhaps the fact that they want to give something extra to folks who buy the hardback. The covers are usually built as a spread with a bleed, which means that it is a far different size than the interior pages (also usually built with a bleed: where the ink is printed off of the final cut area so the art goes to the edge of the page). However, as Paizo and many others prove, it's not that hard to make it work.
Now, a real, honest-to-gosh important reason may be a legal one. They simply may not have paid the artist for the right to have their work redistributed in electronic format at a certain resolution. The legal rights to artwork can be tricky, but usually not a big deal. It can make a difference, however. The same could be said of why the art is B&W. Perhaps the artists and designers limited the rights so that only B&W could be used.
The other concern is file size. With cheap terabyte hard drives, it's not a huge concern, but downloading the Core Rulebook from Paizo on dial-up would be...unpleasant. Perhaps they made a conscious decision to keep the file size down. After all, an RGB product has three times the color information included vs. a B&W one.
Have you contacted the publisher? They might not realize it, or may be able to give you access to a color version, especially if you express concern. Heck, they might not even realize it for some strange reason. It's worth a shot.
A relevant aside: as gorgeous as Paizo's PDFs are, I wish they would take a page (or rather e-page) from Eclipse Phase's awesome PDFs. The layers function allows you to get rid of (and separately choose, mind you) different parts of the layout. Don't want to print design fluff (like the 'parchment' background)? Hide that layer. Don't want to blow ink on the art? Hide that layer. Don't want sidebars? Or maps? Or maybe you might want an ink-friendly map that would otherwise be dark? Or on the map folio/AP PDFs you could put DM-only info on a layer and then print out the rest without needing to hide the secret doors and traps.
Ideal world and all.
A relevant aside: as gorgeous as Paizo's PDFs are, I wish they would take a page (or rather e-page) from Eclipse Phase's awesome PDFs. The layers function allows you to get rid of (and separately choose, mind you) different parts of the layout. Don't want to print design fluff (like the 'parchment' background)? Hide that layer. Don't want to blow ink on the art? Hide that layer. Don't want sidebars? Or maps? Or maybe you might want an ink-friendly map that would otherwise be dark? Or on the map folio/AP PDFs you could put DM-only info on a layer and then print out the rest without needing to hide the secret doors and traps.
Ideal world and all.
This would be super rad.
Being as new as I am to the whole RPG world, I was terribly disappointed when I found out that Deathwatch wasn't offered as a PDF at all. So yes, we are spoiled by Paizo and their awesome PDFs. My only two grips are that you can't choose layers like mentioned above, and that the APG wasn't fully linked.
Being as new as I am to the whole RPG world, I was terribly disappointed when I found out that Deathwatch wasn't offered as a PDF at all. So yes, we are spoiled by Paizo and their awesome PDFs. My only two grips are that you can't choose layers like mentioned above, and that the APG wasn't fully linked.
Do you mean this PDF of Deathwatch? DriveThru RPG link
FFG provides PDFs of their products, although they're a bit slow in releasing them. (patiently waiting to play in Frozen Reaches)