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Firstly, this is not a Paizo bash. I call myself a Paizo fanboi. Love the system and the people who make the system and products happen.
My friends and I have recently had a discussion around the quality of recent releases. There appears to be a large number of products coming out (not a big increase) and lots of editing issues/errors. This is echoed in people's review of products. In recent times the number of 5-star ratings of products referring to poor editing amazes me. It feels that Paizo is aiming high but striking lie... Sometimes. What amazes me is that people give product review if 5/5 even when there is bad editing.
I am wondering what others think? My personal gripes are with the player's companion series and my pet peeve is the error riddled PFS scenarios. Most pathfinder lines appear to get an errata update and correction for next printings but I was all products would regardless.
I would love Paizo to slow down/reduce the number of products and use this times to have the products thoroughly proofed, edited and play tested.
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I give 5/5 star reviews when there is bad editing, because I don't give much of a damn about editing. Have you ever seen how many editing mistakes there are in an average WotC 3.5 monster book? I honestly don't understand all those folks who write 1/5 "There's one typo and one thing is badly written, the sky is falling" reviews.
This is especially funny with Ultimate Magic. You see, everybody bashes UM for being full of errors and at the same time praise APG for being the ultimate splatbook etc. etc. Well guess what, the errata to APG is four pages long. So far.
Now, there are books where the amount of errors pretty much kills it, one example being the infamous Adventurer's Armory.
And I'd rather have Paizo not slow down - they're on the verge of knocking The Illustrious Industry Leader out of the top spot, it's not a good time to consider reducing income.
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While I rarely review Paizo stuff. I also rarely deduct stars on reviews for editing mistakes. Unless the mistake makes it hard to understand. If it is a misspelled word, or poor sentence structure I honestly don't care. As long as I can understand what is written and it is usable than I won't deduct stars for it. I mean a large book is going to have errors that's just human nature.
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Are they knocking on the door because of quantity or quality?
I truly believe the quality, not just in editing, is slipping. UM is not in the same league as APG. I agree that pathfinder is sticking it to DnD but let's hope it us not because of fanboi attitude. I buy pathfinder because it is different and quality. I hope that Paizo does not go down the same path... Humans of Golarion is example that shows some concern.
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It is hard to say. I mean the Armory book was one of their worst books done. Then you have a couple of the Second Darkness AP books which a lot of people feel have issues. I don't think the quality is slipping over all anymore than it was. They just sometimes come out with books below their average. I mean a lot of people thought the Game Masters Guide was subpar too.
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Are they knocking on the door because of quantity or quality?
I truly believe the quality, not just in editing, is slipping. UM is not in the same league as APG. I agree that pathfinder is sticking it to DnD but let's hope it us not because of fanboi attitude. I buy pathfinder because it is different and quality. I hope that Paizo does not go down the same path... Humans of Golarion is example that shows some concern.
You say Humans of Golarion (which isn't a bad book per se, it's just not that useful if you have the setting book), I say Rival Guide (best NPC book, like, ever?). Paizo had a few not-so-cool books in the past (Memory of Darkness? Guardians of Dragonfall?), so I don't think it's any recent trend. A so-so book will happen every once in while.
CEO
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I have said this before in other threads, but it bears repeating in this thread. We give each of our books the same tender-loving treatment. Doing less books wouldn't change anything other than having to layoff excess staff members, because we would give the exact same tender-loving treatment with the less books that we are right now. Nobody is giving any book less editing or development than they would if we only published one book per year.
So why are some books "worse" than other books? Well, think about it in game terms. When you develop or edit a book, you make your develop or edit rolls. Sometimes you roll really high and hit it out of the park. Sometimes you roll low and what comes out isn't up to your usual par. Developers and Editors have good days and bad days, just like anybody else. With more products on the schedule, you just have more chances for having that "bad roll" than you would if there were less products. But the bad rolls would happen even if there was one product coming out per year. Looking back, you have to be pretty impressed with the rate that we hit things out of the park vs. not being up to snuff. My staff members have pretty high numbers in their skills. :)
Having done both development and editing on many books, I can tell you how hard it is. You will read through a book five times and then it gets released and everyone starts finding all the errors that you swear weren't there. I used to keep my edited books with all my red marks just to prove that those errors weren't there. Most of the time, the actually were there. But other times, I found that the writers had snuck in to the finished and edited manuscript to get a few more paragraphs in. Heck, there was actually a product which listed me as "Lisa Steven, Editer" in it. Not kidding. Of course, I hadn't edited that particular product. :)
Back on subject, it is a fallacy that errors in products or the quality of the product has anything to do with the schedule. I know that gamers love to think that they are connected, but they really aren't.
-Lisa
I'm the opposite in that I wish they'd increase their production rate rather than decrease it. I haven't noticed any drop in quality over the last year or so. In fact, I was expecting to lose interest after the kingmaker "peak" and found myself getting drawn into sourcebooks/adventures I had very little interest in - largely due to the revamping of the various product lines and a concurrent increase in quality.
<Hates on people how make typos and grammar errors they're posts.>
Lisa Steven! Quit posting on the internets and get back to your editering!
-Lisas' boss
Compared to the amount of errata I've had to deal with in games put out by other companies, Paizo's books are a godsend. When you put out hardcover titles with the amount of content that these books have, there is going to be errors. Human beings have to do the editing, and just by the nature of that, mistakes not only will happen, but HAVE to happen. It's just reality. Paizo's track record remains amazing compared to other companies bought from, and so Paizo continues to get my unwavering support.
I can understand issues in being able to edit print releases but that should not stop a pdf, or in this case the original design files (InDesign I believe) from being updated as errors are noted and released on a regular basis. This has the benefit that instead of having to go in prior to a reprint to edit a ton of changes, you saved time by doing it over time. It also keeps every release up to date which is nice. Errata files should be for print owners, updated pdf files should be a new standard to shoot for.
So why are some books "worse" than other books? Well, think about it in game terms. When you develop or edit a book, you make your develop or edit rolls. Sometimes you roll really high and hit it out of the park. Sometimes you roll low and what comes out isn't up to your usual par. Developers and Editors have good days and bad days, just like anybody else. With more products on the schedule, you just have more chances for having that "bad roll" than you would if there were less products. But the bad rolls would happen even if there was one product coming out per year. Looking back, you have to be pretty impressed with the rate that we hit things out of the park vs. not being up to snuff. My staff members have pretty high numbers in their skills. :)
I take it that Adventurers Armory was a fumble then.
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I wish someone had rolled a 20 on Ultimate Magic. That's the only book I've bought from Paizo where the editing foul-ups were bad enough for me to not only notice them (I generally don't), but actually be annoyed by them.
And they would have slipped by me if the Rakasha bloodline wasn't so darn cool that I actually flipped to the feat section to read what the bloodline feats did and discovered that some of them simply don't exist.
Oh well. At least the errata is free, right? And when the errata comes out, all will be forgiven.
Heck, there was actually a product which listed me as "Lisa Steven, Editer" in it. Not kidding. Of course, I hadn't edited that particular product. :)
Ouch!
(Hilarious, but....ouch!) :)
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Thanks for the feedback from all. I appreciate Lisa taking the time to post.
I am generally happy with the books from Paizo. There are some product lines I will no longer buy hardcopies of. I will continue to support and volunteer my time to promote to friends and pfs.
I would strongly recommend that editing and playability/readability attention be given to the player companion and pfs scenarios. Please take time to update/errata the obvious errors. I not jus referring to spelling or grammar mistakes. A number if pfs scenarios are just badly put together and are difficult to just pick up and run.
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So why are some books "worse" than other books? Well, think about it in game terms. When you develop or edit a book, you make your develop or edit rolls. Sometimes you roll really high and hit it out of the park. Sometimes you roll low and what comes out isn't up to your usual par. Developers and Editors have good days and bad days, just like anybody else. With more products on the schedule, you just have more chances for having that "bad roll" than you would if there were less products. But the bad rolls would happen even if there was one product coming out per year. Looking back, you have to be pretty impressed with the rate that we hit things out of the park vs. not being up to snuff. My staff members have pretty high numbers in their skills. :)
I take it that Adventurers Armory was a fumble then.
If we were to be brutally honest, when it comes to stat blocks, gramatical errors, and sentence structure, Lisa Stevens explanation of fumbling is pretty lame in my opinion. I believe, of all the complaints I have read, the amount of errors seems many. But I will admit that I am not making a comparison with pathfinder and wotc. I am simply surprised at the amount of errors I catch on my own and I am no editor.
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Firstly, this is not a Paizo bash. I call myself a Paizo fanboi. Love the system and the people who make the system and products happen.
My friends and I have recently had a discussion around the quality of recent releases. There appears to be a large number of products coming out (not a big increase) and lots of editing issues/errors. This is echoed in people's review of products. In recent times the number of 5-star ratings of products referring to poor editing amazes me. It feels that Paizo is aiming high but striking lie... Sometimes. What amazes me is that people give product review if 5/5 even when there is bad editing.
I am wondering what others think? My personal gripes are with the player's companion series and my pet peeve is the error riddled PFS scenarios. Most pathfinder lines appear to get an errata update and correction for next printings but I was all products would regardless.
I would love Paizo to slow down/reduce the number of products and use this times to have the products thoroughly proofed, edited and play tested.
I am simply surprised at the amount of errors I catch on my own and I am no editor.
There is your answer.
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As someone who spends his work life staring at a spreadsheet editing and updating and producing mini sheets from the work, I know exactly how easy it is to miss things. When you are staring at something day in, day out, you start to miss things that are glaringly obvious to others who pick it up for a first time and read it.
Not that I am saying a load of spelling mistakes etc. are acceptable, but I understand why it happens even when carefully editted. Most novels I read also have errors dotted throughout them which again seem careless to a first time reader, but when you are staring at the work and reading and rereading you do miss things
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CEO
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As someone who spends his work life staring at a spreadsheet editing and updating and producing mini sheets from the work, I know exactly how easy it is to miss things. When you are staring at something day in, day out, you start to miss things that are glaringly obvious to others who pick it up for a first time and read it.
Which is exactly why we have a number of different people look at each product, because you up your chance to catch errors. One person's blind spot might get caught by another person right away.
We are always looking at ways to improve and learn from past mistakes. When a product comes out that is below our quality threshold, we look deeply at why things happened the way they did and make changes to our process to lower the chance that they will happen again. Perfection is a never-ending quest.
-Lisa
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Chief Technical Officer
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I take it that Adventurers Armory was a fumble then.
Yes, the table on the inside back cover has part of one column shifted up a row, which messes up six items, and there are a few other minor errors (the errata for the second printing fixes three others), but it's far from a fumble in any sense. (It's also our best selling Pathfinder Companion ever, by a wide margin.)
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I take it that Adventurers Armory was a fumble then.Yes, the table on the inside back cover has part of one column shifted up a row, which messes up six items, and there are a few other minor errors (the errata for the second printing fixes three others), but it's far from a fumble in any sense. (It's also our best selling Pathfinder Companion ever, by a wide margin.)
Which just proves editing errors or no, people love new gears. :)
Are Companions and Modules monthly yet?
I certainly think Paizo should look at their schedule and see if they can fit more awesome products in.
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I take it that Adventurers Armory was a fumble then.Yes, the table on the inside back cover has part of one column shifted up a row, which messes up six items, and there are a few other minor errors (the errata for the second printing fixes three others), but it's far from a fumble in any sense. (It's also our best selling Pathfinder Companion ever, by a wide margin.)
I own the second print and have stats for a buttery knife. When you make the decision to imbed fonts that ignore the letters "f" and "l" when they appear consecutively and then make the same mistake on the reprint then a little humble pie is in order.
I would also suggest that the fact it is the best selling companion is in spite of these issues. Goes to show you that your fan base really wants crunch heavy companions.
You guys work hard and clearly have passion for your products, and with good reason, but Adventurers Armory is not the place to stand up and tell the world about how you got it right.
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I generally agree that maybe some reprioritization might be in order. It's too much rules crunch coming out too fast - it's clearly overwhelming the internal rules editing structure and it's overwhelming my group. The pace of big rules books seems to be going up dramatically (three not counting bestiaries in 12 months!?!), and it's hurting sales in our group. We're not done integrating APG yet, we don't want more stuff for the already-new classes. And knowing we should wait for errata is making more and more of the books long tail sales rather than when-they-ship sales.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I take it that Adventurers Armory was a fumble then.Yes, the table on the inside back cover has part of one column shifted up a row, which messes up six items, and there are a few other minor errors (the errata for the second printing fixes three others), but it's far from a fumble in any sense. (It's also our best selling Pathfinder Companion ever, by a wide margin.)I own the second print and have stats for a buttery knife. When you make the decision to imbed fonts that ignore the letters "f" and "l" when they appear consecutively and then make the same mistake on the reprint then a little humble pie is in order.
I would also suggest that the fact it is the best selling companion is in spite of these issues. Goes to show you that your fan base really wants crunch heavy companions.
You guys work hard and clearly have passion for your products, and with good reason, but Adventurers Armory is not the place to stand up and tell the world about how you got it right.
I didn't say we got it right—I said the product wasn't a "fumble." As in, on a scale of 1 to 20, it was certainly nowhere near as bad as a "1". (Though you're right that I forgot to mention that a font issue caused a ligature to drop out in one single paragraph in a 32-page book.)
The fact that a miscommunication with the printer caused the second printing to be almost identical to the first, after we had sent files correcting the errors we had identified, though... yeah, *that* was a fumble.
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The fact that a miscommunication with the printer caused the second printing to be almost identical to the first, after we had sent files correcting the errors we had identified, though... yeah, *that* was a fumble.
Then again - you think how many times you've had these kinds of discussions with printers and how many times this kind of result happened. You're way ahead of 1/20.
BTW, any chance you're going to sell out of the second printing and we might get an errata-ed harcopy at some point?
Are Companions and Modules monthly yet?
I would dearly love this to be the case at some point in the future.
Are Companions and Modules monthly yet?I would dearly love this to be the case at some point in the future.
Companions are going monthly sometime next year.
Companions are going monthly sometime next year.Are Companions and Modules monthly yet?I would dearly love this to be the case at some point in the future.
Terrific news. (News to me, anyhow). Hopefully the modules will eventually follow suit sometime, though I suppose there's a considerably smaller market for them..
Lisa said it at a seminar at Paizo Con, so it must be true. :)
yep that was where I heard it.
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Ya ... as much as I like having a constant stream of materials, I've begun to run into the reality of only being able to read so fast.
I've long come to accept the fact that I'll only be able to use and take advantage of about 3% of the material coming out, but I enjoy reading them.
Frankly, part of the reason I still keep my Planet Stories subscription going is because I strongly believe in its intent, but I haven't had the cycles to read the last 6 or 7 releases as is.
I'm not sure I can handle any more monthly releases LOL
Hm, monthly Companions. I wonder, what kind of content Paizo have in store for us. Races and Faiths are more or less through, so it might be more country books. Or something completely new.
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Here's another that would have to rethink his subscriptions if they go monthly.
Actually rethinking them now....I mean already overburdened with editing and thinking about increasing the number getting put out....
My own opinion but hope Pazio's success doesn't cause Pazio's demise.
Sean
EDIT: If it comes out as a monthly it would also just mean we would have three to four around July...if history repeats itself...instead of monthly.
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I won't steal Sean's thunder by relating the fact that, statistically speaking, most of our books are more dependable than the most common forms of birth control. (Wait... damn....)
What I will say is that the FDA has guidelines for how much rat poop can show up in your food. Same with hair, dangerous chemicals, etc. Those numbers are not zero, because they *can't* be zero. Rat poop happens. What they've done is set the bar as high as seems feasible (and, hopefully, safe).
Editing is a lot like that. We do the best we can, but things will inevitably slip through. Are we always trying to make things better? You bet. And when errors crop up, we're terribly embarrassed (you should see the look in Chris Carey's eyes when he sees something he was *sure* he fixed). But the willingness to risk imperfection--and in fact, to totally bomb on occasion--is necessary for any artist or entertainer. It's part of the job. (Terrifyingly, the same is also true of surgeons and other professions where the consequences are much, much greater.)
This is not an excuse, it's just how it is. We're going to keep doing our best, and if that's not enough, it's not enough. But I hope that the totally awesome content in the books will continue to outweigh the occasional "teh" or convoluted feat description.