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@The Sword: Well as you already says everyone is entiteled to their opinion. But some (more) empty promises and a(nother) piece of art is not "an update" to me.
I already knew that the artist does his job and I already know that the project is waaaaaaaay behind. So what exactly am I updated about?
"An update" for me would be if I was finally told exactly where the project stands and some educated guess when it will be finished (or even when interim targets will be reached). There is no need to whitewash this time either.
I´m absolutely with Steve here. I (and many many others) have given this man a lot of money. Even the money I personally have given him (over 300$) is a lot of money. At least it´s for me. Don´t know about you, maybe you are rich and don´t care. I need to work hard for my money. So what gives this man the right to treat me and all his other financiers (yeah.....we are his financiers and gave him money so he needs not pay interest to the bank) with disrespect, contempt and scorn?
And even if the "product will speak for itself" (imo it will probably say "Welcome to 2022, too bad for you that Pathfinder (in it´s current form) doesn´t exist anymore) why is that an excuse for the complete disregard this......person.....shows people who reached out and gave him their hard earned cash in good faith.
Give him more of your money if you like; if enough others do too he´ll just treat you like s**t again cause he´ll reckon that it´s ok to do so. I´ll never ever shoot him another dime meself.
And please do not compare this to Razor Coast. Yes, Razor Coast was very much delayed also and that was s$&&ty. But at least Logue had the guts, the decency and the manners to come clear with his funders. McBride has neither.
As I recall it took quite some time before anything was said about Razor Coast. And it basically changed ownership to come out. I wasn't part of it, but I had kept an eye on it because our GM's wife loved pirate campaigns and we considering getting it as a gift.
Not getting the updates you want isn't treating you with "scorn and contempt" and disrespectful might even be a stretch. It is a kickstarter after all and the vast majority of them fail. Welcome to investing in a failed business opportunity that you thought was a great idea. It happens. It doesn't mean the person was out to get your money or being malicious, like you seem to be portraying them.
If it is a lot of money, you probably shouldn't have put it into a risky endeavour. Most anyone in business would tell you the same.
I'm running WotW for my crew, and after reading book 6...
I think I'm going to just wing it using the info in it. My characters are resourceful, and there are non-magical ways of finding people, especially when you have 3 years to do so.
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@The Sword: Well as you already says everyone is entiteled to their opinion. But some (more) empty promises and a(nother) piece of art is not "an update" to me.
I already knew that the artist does his job and I already know that the project is waaaaaaaay behind. So what exactly am I updated about?
"An update" for me would be if I was finally told exactly where the project stands and some educated guess when it will be finished (or even when interim targets will be reached). There is no need to whitewash this time either.
I´m absolutely with Steve here. I (and many many others) have given this man a lot of money. Even the money I personally have given him (over 300$) is a lot of money. At least it´s for me. Don´t know about you, maybe you are rich and don´t care. I need to work hard for my money. So what gives this man the right to treat me and all his other financiers (yeah.....we are his financiers and gave him money so he needs not pay interest to the bank) with disrespect, contempt and scorn?
And even if the "product will speak for itself" (imo it will probably say "Welcome to 2022, too bad for you that Pathfinder (in it´s current form) doesn´t exist anymore) why is that an excuse for the complete disregard this......person.....shows people who reached out and gave him their hard earned cash in good faith.
Give him more of your money if you like; if enough others do too he´ll just treat you like s**t again cause he´ll reckon that it´s ok to do so. I´ll never ever shoot him another dime meself.
And please do not compare this to Razor Coast. Yes, Razor Coast was very much delayed also and that was s+&+ty. But at least Logue had the guts, the decency and the manners to come clear with his funders. McBride has neither.
So if there are products of the quality of his previous work on DrivethruRPG you are saying you won't buy them in protest...? Of course you can do that but my grandma would call that cutting off your own nose to spite your face.
You wrote this off as vapourware 2 years ago and since then two further books have been released. Is it glacially slow - yes. Do we know when the next one will be - no. That said it looks like we will see the completed set, we will just need to wait longer to get them.
I really do feel sorry for anyone who started the campaign hoping the others were ready. As GR Martin fans will know that is a terrible mistake. We certainly wouldn't be able to go back to a campaign two years later, which is a real shame.
For everyone else, it is what it is. We are getting an update every three months or so. It's a case of wait and see. We may have to wait until 2022 for completion. My gut feeling is mid 2017 myself. Taking it personally doesn't really get anyone anywhere though.
I'm rich enough to patronise an artistic endeavour that I knew would take several years to complete. I never saw this as anything other than that. If you saw it as a pre-order you would have been better off waiting and buying when it was released. I don't support many kickstarters, I did it because I loved WotW and wanted to help make throne of night a reality. I still do.
I'm sorry, but I'm on Lord_Hyperion's side in this. If some people here think it's OK to just toss their money at a Kickstarter with *zero* expectations of any feedback from the creator, let alone a finished product, that's on you. Some of us actually *expect* something for our money. At the very least, actual, detailed updates on a regular basis as to the project's status. Most Kickstarters, even ones that meet unexpected challenges (and who doesn't?), manage to do this. Whatever Mr. McBride's problems are, at the very least he owes us, the funders, an explanation and a real status update, because a Kickstarter project once funded is a legal contract (court rulings have determined this). And by "actual update", I do not mean just an "I'm still working on it!", but progress numbers (text 50% written, X% laid out, etc.) and a decent guesstimate as to completion time. If he would just do THAT on a regular (monthly?) basis, I would be on the side of the folks here who keep saying he can take all the time in the world. But when he takes all the time in the world and *doesn't tell us a thing*? That is NOT cool.
I am now determined that if Mr. McBride doesn't at least post a decent status update by January 31, I will call my state's Attorney General on February 1.
I am now determined that if Mr. McBride doesn't at least post a decent status update by January 31, I will call my state's Attorney General on February 1.
While I'm not sure an Attorney General is really the right level of jurisdiction for an affair like this, I'm reasonably certain that the only thing legal action against Mr. McBride will accomplish is make sure the project will never get finished.
I'm reasonably certain that the only thing legal action against Mr. McBride will accomplish is make sure the project will never get finished.
What certainty do we have *now* that this project will ever get finished? I'm not asking for a vellum-printed copy of all six modules to be hand-delivered to me by the end of the month. All I want is a status update. Give me that, and a good-faith promise from Mr. McBride to be more communicative, and I will happily revert to lurking again.
I understand where you're coming from, and I know we have no guarantees. But I fear forcing legal action against Mr. McBride will at "best" result in bankrupting him, and will probably not even get your money back.
Doesn't Kickstarter have it's own reporting mechanism after 5 years?
I guarantee suing the guy will doom the project.
And to be honest, it's kind of petty, especially since the Kickstarter maximum time hasn't passed yet.
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@Skylancer4 It's not true that the vast majority of kickstarters fail I have backed 92 of them and of them a few are not due yet and several including this one is very late but only 1 of them has actually failed. So my math skills being poor I'd say that puts my kickstarter luck at about what 1.5% failure rate. Kickstarter says 9% fail in their update so that means to me the RPG related kickstarters actually do better than other industries.
That being said I agree with those who say it's not the lateness that bothers me its the lack of the truth from Gary. I'm sure he has had things happen in his life that he didn't anticipate when he launched this kickstarter that take up all his writing time. And he could at least come clean. And no if someday after he finally finishes this one if he lanches another kickstarter I will opt out and wait for him to release the product because he has not treated us well. we gave him $40,000 and he gives us pretty artwork every 4-6 months to look at.
Its not to late either if he can out today with the truth I am a forgiving person and would love to hear the truth from him. If its going to take a few more years then let him tell us this.
And as a quick note I should point out that the one that failed was for minatures and not for a book or pdf.
Perhaps I am lucky and yes FFG is one of my favorites have backed all of their kickstarters but Skylancer4 said the vast majority and that implys like 75% or more fail that is simply ridiculous. And spreading rumors like that hurts the good companies out their trying to fund our hobby via kickstarter.
Do they have stats on projects that get funded then never fulfill?
Sorry I don't count ones that don't fund unfunded projects don't matter people don't pay for those I am talking about funded projects. It is silly to count unfunded ones since nobody is charged for those. A failed project is a project where the Creator takes money from pledgers and then fails to deliver what he promised.
I'm still waiting on a Mekton book that's almost 2 years overdue. Got an update from them on Friday.
Doesn't Kickstarter have it's own reporting mechanism after 5 years?
I guarantee suing the guy will doom the project.
And to be honest, it's kind of petty, especially since the Kickstarter maximum time hasn't passed yet.
I don't think legal action would be "petty".
It's important for people to understand that this is not acceptable. If legal action delivers that message, then so be it.I have already found a way to cope with the monetary loss, but others may not have, and that's understandable too.
Legal action is definitely premature considering that we are getting updates every three months or so with story layouts, artwork and the maps, plus we have received three out of the seven books in PDF format.
It looks to me very likely we will see the project completed, just not in the original time work. Based on the above it is highly unlikely that a civil suit would do anything other than distract from the project. Even then it would do nothing for the dozens of international backers.
To say we have had 'zero' updates is clearly a massive over exaggeration. If by 'get away with it' you mean release the books at a slower rate than expected then yeah he is getting away with it.
When was the last update?
When was the last update?
Depends on your definition of the word "update". :-/ The last two official updates (August and October 2015) were art-only. The last update on the text was July of last year, where Mr. McBride announced that the last four modules would be released as a package. Before that, he had been promising Module 3 every few months since April 2014.
So, officially, we haven't heard *anything* since October 29th. We last heard about something resembling a production schedule in late July. And we haven't had an actual Throne of Night module released since #2, back in April 2014.
Draw your own conclusions...
When was the last update?Depends on your definition of the word "update". :-/ The last two official updates (August and October 2015) were art-only. The last update on the text was July of last year, where Mr. McBride announced that the last four modules would be released as a package. Before that, he had been promising Module 3 every few months since April 2014.
So, officially, we haven't heard *anything* since October 29th. We last heard about something resembling a production schedule in late July. And we haven't had an actual Throne of Night module released since #2, back in April 2014.
Draw your own conclusions...
Lol, good lord, it's depressing when you see it all written like that!
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At this point you guys aren't likely looking forward to my updates, but still I've come across something that I wanted to add.
In the AAW Aventry Bestiary there's a mushroom golem. It's CR 10, and is actually fairly easy to make when you look at its requirements for building it. It also just needs a single mushroom stock for its body. Looking it over, I could see a few of these popping up in the Mushroom Forest from time to time, should any dwarves or drow decide to randomly venture out and explore.
Also in the book is the CR 5 ahool. It's essentially a man-bat, much like the Batman animated series. It has blindsense, darkvision, and likes to live in caves or underground. As well, there's a base race version called the ahooling.
Speaking of base races, there's another called the funglet. Basicaly a mushroom man.
What could also be found in the Mushroom Forest, much like any forest, are the giant grasshopper creatures known as chikfari. They're only CR 4, but they understand the spoken language of Undercommon. If the CR 4 isn't what you're looking for, there's a subchart that gives you weaker or stronger versions.
What's easily the scariest thing in the book, and something I would consider throwing at the PCs at the end of the game (should we ever see Book 6) is the Dark Angel (CR 23). It looks like a lich queen or D&D's Vecna, except with molted wings and really messed up looking alien spider legs.
Back to the forest for creatures once more, we have the fungiant. It's literally a giant fungus that looks like a walking mushroom (CR 13). However, it does not have any kind of darkvision.
That said, there's an undead plant called the goemul (CR 11). It definitely has darkvision.
Overall, there's a lot of underground creatures in here that could easily be adapted and brought over to Throne of Night. There's slugs and slug queens, a polymorphing slug that takes the form of drow (perhaps in infiltration backstory that could be drawn out in your campaign), a crazy number of aberrations that fit well with the apparent theme Gary seems to be going for in the later books, aquatic creatures that can be in the sunless sea, giant vermin with tremorsense, specific underground bat swarms, oozes (including aquatic ones), and templates.
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At this point you guys aren't likely looking forward to my updates...
Keep 'em coming. They're a great reference for those running underground/underdark games. Besides, you're not the problem here. :-)
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For the longest time, I was trying to remember the name of an underground 3.5 adventure, but couldn't. As luck would have it, it has gnomes. I've ran it before, and at the time the party just so happened to be all dwarves. The adventure in question is just a one-shot called Tiger's Palace, and it's written by Rogue Genius Games alumni and now Paizo writer, Owen K. Stephens. At the time it was a free adventure, but since the updating of the site to 5E, only the write-up exists, not the download.
If you can find a way to get it, this could be another potential side adventure until Book 3 comes out, or if you're dumping the campaign and doing your own thing, this would work out for that too.
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I'm grateful to hear that, guys. I'll continue to upload more. At the moment I'm trying to figure out how he planned to do up that six-armed drow. Either a drowblood marilith, possibly young (CR 17-18) or a drow noble with class levels and the variant half-fiend (half-marilith) template (any CR). If he's going the same route as with Way of the Wicked, then Book 3 should end with the PCs at level 13 and taking on a CR 15-16 as the boss. This makes me think it's the latter.
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Looking over the template, the half-marilith only grants two extra arms. The picture has six, not four. This makes me think that either Gary didn't tell Michael the exact details (possibly vague), or he's adding an extra two arms to the build regardless, or it is a drowblood marilith. In which case, it's going to be a difficult battle for the PCs if it's actually a CR 17-18. I went with a Young creature build just so it could fit in a standard drow sized throne. Despite it being a higher CR, it does say that the PCs are supposed to make her an ally, and not so much fight her. With made this with that in mind.
No idea what her name would be, but I figured I'd make one up regardless. So, here's my attempt.
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@Kevin - An email went out yesterday or the day before announcing a 20% off sale for FMG products as it was the birthday of Gary's daughter, Ruth.
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@Kevin - An email went out yesterday or the day before announcing a 20% off sale for FMG products as it was the birthday of Gary's daughter, Ruth.
What? Why do I constantly never get any of these? He's released at least three of them and I haven't gotten even one. I feel so left out. So much for being a big supporter. Totally not recognized at all.
Be happy you don't get the emails.
It's amazingly frustrating to get an email related to Firemountain Games, only to find out it's an ad for discounts on his products, rather than updates on where the current project is.
I guess the $40,600 ran out?
What? Why do I constantly never get any of these? He's released at least three of them and I haven't gotten even one. I feel so left out. So much for being a big supporter. Totally not recognized at all.
Don't feel bad - I haven't received a single one either. In fact, this is the first I have heard of it.
Seems like every bit of news I hear about this lately puts Mr. McBride and FMG in worse and worse light...
Is it possibly a DTRPG account setting? I disabled emails from publishers I'd bought from. I don't think I even get emails when PDFs get updated anymore.
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Is it possibly a DTRPG account setting? I disabled emails from publishers I'd bought from. I don't think I even get emails when PDFs get updated anymore.
Possibly. I've brought it up before and they're like "So? It's minor what was said anyway." You know, because they care. I like getting all the newsletters and any info on companies.
The emails are sent via Drive-Thru RPG. So, if you're not getting them, do you have an account there and, if so, check your privacy settings.
Kevin, I just sent you the text of the email via PM.
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The emails are sent via Drive-Thru RPG. So, if you're not getting them, do you have an account there and, if so, check your privacy settings.
Kevin, I just sent you the text of the email via PM.
I definitely have an account with them. I use them more than any other web store. They're looking into why I'm not getting the emails when I get everything else. Last year I didn't get anything for some reason. Like, at all. It was like I didn't exist. They've fixed that.
You'd have to set the Drive-Thru rpg to follow his company. In order to get these newsletters.
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KV.....you just need to write your own AP for us!
At the moment, I'm writing a 3-part 4th level adventure module for the local Pathfinder tournament in June. The first part playtest went very well. Part 2 will be in March, and we'll figure something out after that.
N. Jolly, one of the best writer of Purple Duck Games, is going to help me publish the adventure if no one picks it up. So, come July if all goes well, I'll either have my own company name, or someone will release my adventure for people to try out. My intention is to release it as a "Pay what you want". We'll see how it goes. What you plan for and what actually happens isn't always necessarily the same thing.|
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Unfortunately, due to its overwhelmingly large size, I couldn't quote it here, but I just wanted to remind everyone of the giant list of links I gave last year regarding additional adventures for your group should you Book 3 and the others not be available. Well, that's still unfortunately the case. So, here's the list link. With some people now having access to the world map that Gary released, you now know about the sunless seas. I want to point out that Night Below would be perfect for this as part 3 of the series is actually called "The Sunless Sea". The conversion pdf only gets you as far as D&D 3.0, but that won't be difficult to push it to Pathfinder.
I'm doing this because no everyone will go through all of the pages to see what's been made available, and what hasn't, and some of you are either at the end of Book 2 or nearing completion. At the very least, you can use this to do your own game.
Regarding the Night Below series, it seems someone here on the forums did a few PF conversions. That could be of some assistance.