Hi Everyone,
I am sure many of you have seen the post in the Classifieds regarding Eye of the Dragon.  We are really excited to be able to help bring forward the production of Eye of the Dragon.  I thought some of you may be interested in a photo of some of the material I saw while at Tracy's house.  Also, here is the post by Bracton regarding a little of the history and how you can obtain a copy also.  
Cheers!

"As many members of the Acaeum know, before Tracy Hickman went to work for TSR, he and his wife Laura wrote two adventure modules, Pharaoh and Rahasia, under their Daystar West imprint.  Both, of course, were ultimately turned into modules mass-produced by TSR.  But few of the Daystar West originals were distributed, and today they are very rare.

Originally, there was going to be a third Daystar West module, to be called Eye of the Dragon.  When Tracy went to work for TSR, however, he stopped working on it (and started working on what became the Dragonlance series).  But before joining TSR, Tracy had printed off a batch of covers for EotD, similar to those used for Pharaoh and Rahasia.  A while ago, Blackmoor posted about his acquisition of one of those covers.  He obtained his copy from Melnibonean (Scott), who lives in Utah and had recently acquired all of the remaining EotD covers from the Hickmans.

In talking to the Hickmans, Scott learned that Tracy still has the original notes and maps he had prepared for EotD.  Scott contacted three members of the Acaeum he had met at Gary Con (Stratochamp, Blackmoor and me) to see if together we could work out an arrangement with the Hickmans to finally get EotD into print.

We were recently able to reach an agreement with the Hickmans, and EotD will finally be produced as a limited edition collectors' module, based on Tracy's original notes and maps.  Under the arrangement, 38 copies of the module will be printed in total, each having one of the original covers.  Twenty six numbered and signed copies (numbers 5 through 30) will be made available for purchase by collectors.  No further limited edition copies of EotD will ever be printed, and we do not expect that EotD will ever be produced or sold again in any other format.  Although timing will depend on the Hickmans (who are currently at work on the adventure), Tracy has targeted delivery of the final modules at Gen Con in August.

The price for each limited edition, signed and numbered copy of EotD is $1,250 plus shipping and insurance.  Anyone interested in acquiring a copy should PM Stratochamp or me.  Reserving your copy will require payment in advance, first come, first served.  Once payment is made for all of the available copies, the list will close. If some of the available copies remain unsold by the end of June, we will likely invite those who have already purchased a copy the chance to buy a second.

Although copies of EotD will be reserved on a first come-first served basis, the copy number anyone receives will not depend on the order of PM or payment.  Copy numbers will be randomly determined after all copies have been purchased.  If Tracy and Laura do deliver them to us by Gen Con, we'll roll the numbers up there, and all interested parties would be welcome to watch.

Thanks for your interest. We think it is pretty cool to be able to help bring this long-rumored adventure in to print.

P.S.  For those on Tracy's email list, he just sent around an announcement about EotD."

Why the ridiculous price?

Why aren't you happy to answer questions in public about the ridiculous price?

I suppose I think the original day star west modules are expensive because they were small print runs, old and became TSR modules.

These look like a cash grab and I think it is a shame that the module won't be widely available to people who are interested in D&D. It seem antithetical to the hobby (of playing D&D).

Melnibonean wrote in Eye of the Dragon Photos: ... and we do not expect that EotD will ever be produced or sold again in any other format.  

Price aside, as someone interested in the history of D&D, I do find it depressing that it won't ever be available in any other format. A low-cost text-only pdf would be useful & wouldn't hurt the collector's values, as we've seen with the orange-covered B3.

I have been watching this discussion with interest as I would love to own a copy of Eye of the Dragon myself.  I have always been a big fan of the Hickman's works, and this adventure sounds very interesting.  The price however, was too much for me.  I understand the Hickman's need to get paid for their work.   I understand the resellers issue.  I understand that whoever is coordinating this project is only doing this as a labor of love because projects like these never go as easily and smoothly or cheaply as first imagined (the LE art projects come to mind), and adding to a project is rarely a good idea.  Mission creep is one of the sneakier assassins of any project.

That being said, the prospect of a limited edition and a standard edition does present a possibility worth exploring.  The Hickmans still get paid, the Limited Editions maintain most of their value, and those who are interested more in the content than the cost have an alternative.  The biggest potential down-side is the possibility that the presence of a standard edition means potential participants in the LE issue could drop out, and second, there is additional work for the committee creating this project.  Mailing these things to everybody alone is a huge hassle.  

Therefore, in order for this proposal to work, it seems logical to me that the original project continue as planned, cost and everything, and once it is completed, then the committee or project coordinators can look into publishing a standard issue if they want.  If they don't want the hassle, then hopefully they would be willing to seek the blessing of the Hickmans and turn over the documents to another team/publisher who would be willing to publish a standard issue.  Of course, the Hickmans would receive royalties off of those issues as well, so I can imagine they'd be for it.  And if the Hickmans do receive additional compensation through these standard editions, this could mean reducing the costs of the Limited Editions for the high-end buyers, so they'd benefit too.  For example, a deal could be structured where LE buyers could receive a royalty off of these standard issues too, to off-set any perceived or real loss in value to their LE copies.  And if you think that's too good a deal for them, then you just go ahead an pony up the purchase price of an LE issue.  For all you standard issue advocates, the LE buyers need to be just as convinced as you are of the benefits of this possibility.

There is at least one more matter requiring consideration and that is, if the first coordinating committee does not want to go through the hassle of publishing these adventures, then the second group is not going to be willing to publish an unlimited number of adventures.  So, even these standard issues would be limited, just not numbered.  And for the Hickmans to be paid these additional royalties/commissions, these standard issues would probably all need to sell within a year at most.  In this way, it's a straight-forward, done and over-with contract.  This means that there will still be buyers left out in the cold, just not as many.     And not only that, a mechanism (like a poll thread) would have to be created where interest could be gauged as to how many standard issues could be sold at a certain price point, say $150.00.  There might be 100 people interested, but if I were guessing, it'd be more like 40.  Or if you went with a $50.00 price point, you might get 75 buyers.  Again, projects like these can get real complicated, real quick.  I wish the committee luck with their project, and I am pleased they have come as far as they have.  

ExTSR wrote in Eye of the Dragon Photos:I simply assumed that Trace reserved the right to reprint it himself.

Not privy to details tho; just an assumption.

He might have.  I don't know.  But even if this initial committee doesn't talk to the Hickman's about it, I am guessing it's going to come up with them sooner or later.  

If I am the Hickmans, the main things I am concerned about are working with legit people and getting paid for my work.  This group provides this.  And even if I never own a copy, for D&D's sake, I am glad this is getting done.  I realize not everyone is going to be happy about whatever is decided, but I have high confidence in the people involved, and I believe they'll carefully consider whatever is presented in these forums.  I would not want to be in their shoes.  I'd like their wallets, but not their shoes.  

ExTSR wrote in Eye of the Dragon Photos:I simply assumed that Trace reserved the right to reprint it himself.

Not privy to details tho; just an assumption.

Not privy to the details but the line in the original post "we do not expect that EotD will ever be produced or sold again in any other format" would suggest that this has been discussed although "we do not expect" doesn't sound like the door is completely closed.

Mars wrote in Eye of the Dragon Photos:I think this is a bit of a delicate situation when you consider the past experience of Bottle City.  Bottle City sold around 50 copies at the $150 price point.  When the product finally came out and it turned out that the booklet for the LE edition was the same as the standard edition, I remember there was a fair bit of disappointment about how close the the standard product was to the LE edition (i.e. what were you really getting for the extra $100+).

Now consider a similar situation with EotD where an LE edition is $1250 and a standard edition is $150.  I am guessing that if the Hickmans wanted to release a more mass produced standard edition at the price of $150, I think they would probably want to release something better than sheets of typed up text - they would probably want a more polished module so those paying $150 are getting a product worth the money.  But the same question would then be asked as with Bottle City - for the extra $1100 what are you really getting.  The only answer I can think of here is that you are getting an original cover for that price, then debate, is the cover alone worth this amount?

Agreed.  I like Badmike's suggestion of a pdf.  That solves that problem.  It also takes care of shipping concerns.