Castle Zagyg
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Post Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 4:15 am 
 

MShipley88 wrote:An interesting note....

   A check of the Troll Lord Games Website reveals that the Castle Zagyg project has been cut back from seven planned volumes to only three.

  In addition to the three Zagyg books there will be another on classes and feats and the already-published Dark Chateau.

   This probably reflects the fact that Rob Kuntz has left the project and that seven books was simply too large of a series.

Mark   8)


Yep, they may even be doing box sets for Castle Zagyg due to all the maps.

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Post Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:21 pm 
 

I regard it as good news, since the project as planned was simply too large and too unlikely to be completed....and highly unlikely to be bought by anyone at the total asking price of just under $1 million for all seven installments.  (Although, as an installment project, the individual money hits would not be as painful.)

I like the idea of a box with lots of maps (since maps are what I want).  The problem with this is that any publisher who goes to a boxed edition these days also goes to a $70+ price tag.

Like Monte Cook's $100+ Ptolus project, the price inevitably makes it more of an artistic statement....a collector's item rather than a useable and popular game publication...much like The World's Largest Dungeon.....or some sort of game industry version of a Heritage Mint product.

It was a similar price that doomed Necromancer's remix of Wilderlands of High Fantasy.  

The installments following Yggsburgh's $40 price tag were supposed to come with a $20 price tag.  It seems unlikely that a box with lots of maps will come to us with anything under a $40 punch in the nose...and likely twice that....which means guys like me cannot afford it.

Of course, given the choice between having to scrounge for a used or low-end copy of Castle Zagyg would be better than never seeing it at all.  But, if I'm going to pay a premium price, what I'd rather have is just copies of Gary Gygax's notes and maps, with commentary and personal anecdotes appended to them.

I wonder if these forums ever make their way to people at Troll Lord Games?

Mark   8)


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Post Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:43 pm 
 

grodog wrote:I concur Xaxaxe:  at GenCon 2004 I offered to edit the Castle Zagyg stuff for *free* in order to insure that the products were as good as possible.  All I heard back afterward was crickets.

That said, at $10 for CZ:Y I'm willing to put up with crappy editing in order to get the goods :D


They paid someone to edit CZ:Y. Truth be told, I don't know how much of the poor editing of CZ:Y is his fault, though, because in places the text looks like it was taken from a draft rather than an edited version. So errors could have been introduced in the layout.

Another amusing TLG anecdote. Some months before Living the Lejend was released, I pointed out to them (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) that the preview cover read "Living the Legend". They thanked me for pointing it out -- but it never got corrected, and the module was published with "Living the Legend" on the cover and "Living the Lejend" on the title page.

And yes, the dungeon maps in CZ:Y are a disaster. I thought the town map was fine, though -- the areas are color-coded so that one can see to which social class each area belongs. And detailed maps will be forthcoming when the Yggsburgh Town modules are released. The editing on these should be quite a bit better -- Jon Creffield is doing it.



  

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Post Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 3:40 am 
 

I notice a trend toward computer-drawn maps these days.  Just because it was made with computer graphics does not make it better.  In fact, the computer often makes horribly ugly maps...and the snazzy color just makes them hard to photocopy.  I prefer maps drawn by a graphic artist that have some quality to them rather than what Uncle Larry can bang off on his Apple.


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 6:33 am 
 

MShipley88 wrote:I notice a trend toward computer-drawn maps these days.  Just because it was made with computer graphics does not make it better.  In fact, the computer often makes horribly ugly maps...and the snazzy color just makes them hard to photocopy.  I prefer maps drawn by a graphic artist that have some quality to them rather than what Uncle Larry can bang off on his Apple.


i appreciate a hand drawn map far more.

Al


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:51 am 
 

MShipley88 wrote:I notice a trend toward computer-drawn maps these days.  Just because it was made with computer graphics does not make it better.  In fact, the computer often makes horribly ugly maps...and the snazzy color just makes them hard to photocopy.  I prefer maps drawn by a graphic artist that have some quality to them rather than what Uncle Larry can bang off on his Apple.


Well, some computer-drawn maps are all right. The ones in RJK's Cairn of the Skeleton King were rendered on a computer.

Most publishers would probably rather not pay for a cartographer.



  

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Post Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 5:14 pm 
 

dcas wrote:
Well, some computer-drawn maps are all right. The ones in RJK's Cairn of the Skeleton King were rendered on a computer.

Most publishers would probably rather not pay for a cartographer.


And, of course, there is a reason why a cartographer costs money...although maps are not that hard to draw and even an amateur map is better than a comically robotic map that looks like it was drawn by Kryton, from Red Dwarf.


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 11:07 pm 
 

MShipley88 wrote:And, of course, there is a reason why a cartographer costs money...although maps are not that hard to draw and even an amateur map is better than a comically robotic map that looks like it was drawn by Kryton, from Red Dwarf.


I can't let this thread go without another amusing TLG anecdote (your mention of amateur maps made me think of this). They actually published Gygax's own map of Ludnum in The Canting Crew rather than getting it re-drawn by a cartographer or rendering it on a computer.



  


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:29 am 
 

grodog wrote:
Par for the course with Troll Lord Games  :roll:


And thats a real shame.  But so very true.  :roll:

  

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Post Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 6:55 am 
 

dcas wrote:I can't let this thread go without another amusing TLG anecdote (your mention of amateur maps made me think of this). They actually published Gygax's own map of Ludnum in The Canting Crew rather than getting it re-drawn by a cartographer or rendering it on a computer.

That's what Troll Lord Games is: a friendly, always well-intentioned but occasionally bumbling company.  :wink:

  

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Post Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:51 am 
 

Melan wrote:That's what Troll Lord Games is: a friendly, always well-intentioned but occasionally bumbling company.  :wink:


ummmmm yea :?


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