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Several blog posts ago, there was mention of a mythic playtest coming end of September. Well, its almost mid October and...no word as of yet. I've been checking the blog post regularly and haven't seen any mythic posts for over a month and was wondering what happened. Did it get delayed? Canceled? or is it just tanking longer to write the playtest then anticipated?
Any relevant news would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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The Mythic Playtest document was finished being written by Jason last week friday.
Yesterday around 1pm their time, the document landed in the hands of the Editors.
It probably will come out sometime next week.
I would note that Jason estimated two weeks to get through the editing process at the end of last month.
I've never playtested something before. I would like to know what's usually involved to participate in one.
I've never playtested something before. I would like to know what's usually involved to participate in one.
It is super casual. They will put up a link to the playtest document on the blog, and create a forum for feedback. You can use the forum to report on how the rules worked in a game you ran, theoretically analyse various aspects, give ideas for additions, whatever. They then read through it and use the feedback to adjust things for the final product.
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I've never playtested something before. I would like to know what's usually involved to participate in one.
They will post it and create a messageboard.
The stuff they listen to most will come from actual play tests people run and describe in detail.
There will be too few of these.
Most people will theory test it in the forum designated for that, and the Dev read that with a grain of salt, since it is mostly complaints without actual play.
But every once in awhile, a shiny turd emerges from the sewage of the theorycraft discussion and adds to the product.
I speak as someone generally in the later discussion. How much my turds have sparkled is a matter of opinion. :)
Thanks, guys.
I didn't think I'd see the words "shiny turd" included in a response, lol.
They are kinda like the inquisition, no one expects em.
Any word on whether there'll be a hard copy available at any stage? Presumably not, but I presumed the same for the core rules.
Ah well. Disappointing, but not surprising I guess. :(
Sure. I was just hoping for a nice copy.
Yes. I was wondering if paizo might be going to produce a hard copy like they did with the beta.
I'm aware I can print out copies or have them printed professionally (I generally get that done with every PDF only product they produce) but its quicker, easier and cheaper when they do it.
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The beta was an exception I believe. Getting a print copy would delay the Playtest until January, which with a print deadline of April -May would mean an incredibly tight period to do the Playtest, analyse it, adapt the material and get it through editing, layout etc. I don't think it's feasible to do a print Playtest for anything short of pathfinder 2 towards the end of the decade, and possibly not even then...
You're probably right (and that was my presumption). Nonetheless, Paizo have a habit of over-delivering, so I figured I'd ask.
The beta was an exception I believe. Getting a print copy would delay the Playtest until January, which with a print deadline of April -May would mean an incredibly tight period to do the Playtest, analyse it, adapt the material and get it through editing, layout etc. I don't think it's feasible to do a print Playtest for anything short of pathfinder 2 towards the end of the decade, and possibly not even then...
Mythic is actually coming out in August as a GenCon release last we heard. So sadly gotta wait more.
Good point.
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I'm hoping the playtest comes out this week. I'm gaming this weekend and it would be a great time to playtest this as we are between APs so starting up something new to playtest this out would work great plus we have some characters from old game ranging from levels 5-15.
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The paizo.com website will be offline for scheduled maintenance Tuesday, October 16 at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
The downtime is expected to last between 3 and 10 hours.
This is potentially related - when the playtest comes out, the site generally needs to go down in order for them to add the playtesting fora.
CEO
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This is potentially related - when the playtest comes out, the site generally needs to go down in order for them to add the playtesting fora.The paizo.com website will be offline for scheduled maintenance Tuesday, October 16 at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
The downtime is expected to last between 3 and 10 hours.
Not related at all.
Lisa
This is potentially related - when the playtest comes out, the site generally needs to go down in order for them to add the playtesting fora.The paizo.com website will be offline for scheduled maintenance Tuesday, October 16 at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
The downtime is expected to last between 3 and 10 hours.Not related at all.
Lisa
This...reminds me of a cop on people patrol outside a crime scene...
"Move along folks, nothing to see here. "=)
I've never playtested something before. I would like to know what's usually involved to participate in one.They will post it and create a messageboard.
The stuff they listen to most will come from actual play tests people run and describe in detail.
There will be too few of these.
Most people will theory test it in the forum designated for that, and the Dev read that with a grain of salt, since it is mostly complaints without actual play.
But every once in awhile, a shiny turd emerges from the sewage of the theorycraft discussion and adds to the product.
I speak as someone generally in the later discussion. How much my turds have sparkled is a matter of opinion. :)
After hearing about things that had occured in past playtests, I choose to remain skeptical.
I'll probably watch the playtest from the side for the most part and maybe show the beta rules to my group.
Of course not. You will get a pdf playtest document, after which they will publish the rulebook in hardcover and in pdf.Actually I suspect that this will be a softcover book.
Why would it? All Pathfinder RPG rule books have been hardcovers and there really is no reason for this to change.
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Of course not. You will get a pdf playtest document, after which they will publish the rulebook in hardcover and in pdf.Actually I suspect that this will be a softcover book.
What Mythic? It's definately going to be a hardcover book, it's the Gencon 2013 release.
Hama wasn't refering to the playtest, but the finished product.
Paizo has in my experience been very good with communication. Its lack thereof then with regard to Mythic is noteworthy to me.
The handling of the PR on Mythic seems poor compared to work with other play tested works, if only because there has been very limited information as to when the actual playtest is coming out, and few updates (that I've seen) about the release of the playtest on the whole.
Perhaps Jason was speaking off the cuff when he speculated on a late September or early October release during the initial announcement (or afterwards), but regardless of whether those statements were sanctioned or not they created a public perception that the playtest would open in that time frame. That we are now in the third week of October without an official communication on the blog or through a post on the forums as to changes on that release schedule is somewhat disconcerting and frustrating.
I know many DMs (including perhaps mine) had thought to make some use of the rules on release and planned adventure arcs accordingly. A lot of that work has now fallen apart.
Is it unreasonable to ask for a blog post to the effect of "Mythic Playtest Release moved to ____"?
I think Mythic Playtest document has been done with development since October 12th (citing Jason's remarks on Facebook). I would gather its been in editing and layout.. and its probably on the cusp of being available.
Hang in there.
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The playtest is done...now they just need to edit it and make it look pretty. They care about us <sniff>
The perception of quality means a lot when judging things like that.
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Perception is very important. A good example of this is compare any Pathfinder playtest doc to D&D 5E playtest documents. Wizards obviously has enough art resources where they can recycle their artwork from any of the previous editions. But they didn't. To get a bit technical, they went straight from Word to Adobe without any layout (for example: the background file, when you dig into the document itself [the one I have on my thumb drive which isn't up to date] is titled "Microsoft Word - 081312_Backgrounds.docx"). IMO, the D&DNext playtest almost looks and feels like it was generated by a homebrewer on their home computer. If it were not for the quality of the material itself, I would say there is no way to tell them apart. Sending it the layout guys and adding in some artwork they have hanging around would go a long way into making it more eye catching (and thus inspiring).
Paizo, by comparison, makes the document look nice, even when they are giving it away for free. Little things like that make a big difference in making it look professional.
(this isn't a slam on Wizards, just an observation)
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The playtest is done...now they just need to edit it and make it look pretty. They care about us <sniff>
The playtest I have considered "successful" were the ones where the product that was released to test was basically good enough to be published as is, but that needed needed polishing to make it shiny enough we would all want to play it.
These tests includes to me the original playtest of the core classes (all of which were basically taking the well worn old classes and polishing them with new ideas) and the APG classes with the exception of the Summoner (I'll get to this later).
The playtest I have considered "Unsuccessful" were the ones where the product released to test was where they had a cool idea they wanted to work, but what they put out was more like spagetti thrown against a wall to see what sticks in the hopes ideas would appear to make it work.
These "failed" playtests I would say fell into two categories. A) Bit off more than could be chewed and B)Wrong starting point.
Under "Bit off more than could be chewed" I would file Words of Power and to a lesser extent, the Summoner. These were wonderful ideas. Let me say that again.
These were wonderful ideas.
However I felt like they were released in the hope that the community could find a way to make them work, rather than having the community check the work. Words of Power and the Summoner were ambitious dream projects intended to create more flexibility in the system and let us look behind the curtains at how Devs build things by giving us the toolkit. They were perhaps too ambitious, but I can't fault the effort.
The second category is where I would put the Samarai, Gunslinger and Ninja playtest. This is where a design decision was made at the outset that made the classes impossible to correct. In all three cases rather than making a new class, the discussion started from creating Archetypes, without actually...well making archetypes.
If any of the three had been a simple archetype of another class, it could have been fine. But none of the three match the flavor of the class because all three are married to other classes. The gunslinger starting as a fighter variant meant you added things like martial weapon proficiency for no reason.
You stopped asking "How to we make a gunslinger/ninja/samurai" and instead seemed to ask "How to we make a Fighter/Rogue/Cavalier that looks like a gunslinger/ninja/samurai"
I am hoping Mythic Rules are going to come out more or less ready to go and just looking for polish. I fear they may be more than can be chewed as Words of Power were, but I also think the Devs are smart enough to have learned lessons along the way.
I actually am pleased by the delay, as it means they want to make sure they believe it works before they test it.
The playtest is done...now they just need to edit it and make it look pretty.
How pretty? Are they illustrating it? Embedding hyperlinks?
I'd be suprised if it gets released this month or early november.
I was hoping to run a playtest for it this Sunday, so Friday release would be nice. If not chances are I won't have time to run a playtest of the rules until next year other than maybe sprinkling a mythic monster or two into an established campaign.