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cheshire
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 Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:20 pm Post subject: |
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Eeeeyahhh... I'm still willing to call this "tangential" as it's still got a bare string still attaching it to the heart of the thread.
But right now it's still conjecture as to how Disney's plans are connected to the operations of LFL. The Episode VII is still in production, Lucas Arts is shut down, and everything else is kind of "wait and see" until there's a new tidbit of news.
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Draven
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| Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:05 am Post subject: |
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| I would not count on production releases like Peter Jackson did. As you said it might give things away and when Peter Jackson did it everyone new what movie he was making. You could get the book anywhere. No sure he had things that were not in the book or channged things some. But what he released only showed what was covered in the book. As this will be a yet untold story the trailers would be the first real news I would expect to hear. |
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Dromdarr_Alark
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| Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:16 am Post subject: |
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Good point. I was expecting the same thing.
I wonder though, with all of the imaginative methods moviemakers have been using lately, what will Abrams do to have us enraptured by the story before it comes out?
Or perhaps he knows it's Star Wars, and he doesn't need to even try to get our attention, because he already has it. |
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 11:33 am Post subject: |
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[quote="cheshire"] | atgxtg wrote: |
Yeah, I wound up with the full swath of SAGA books. It's kind of a dangerous thing to keep in the house, because now my wife and I are players in a SAGA game.  |
Yeah,, me too. And there are some things I like about SAGA. THere are some poast OT developments that aren't in D6.
But the idea of buying books for the shelves is pretty much Mongoose's business strategy. Apparently, about 80% of the RPG products gamers buy tends to sit on the shelves while we actually game with only about 20% of the RPG books we buy. So, since what we don't play outsellls what we do play by 4 to 1 it makes sound business sense to just focus on selling product rather than getting the game played.
How much money has WOTC gotten out of us compared to WEG? With the increase in prices over the years it's probably a close call as to whose gotten the most out of us.
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Anyway, I've been listening to the Order 66 podcast and I've played the Beginner game. Though I see where there are some narrative elements and it's a cinematic game, I'm really wondering how much we'll be able to convert this. Don't get me wrong, I'll try, but it won't be easy. No promises this time. |
I think stuff will convert, it's just that some system spefiuc stuff won't translate well. I kinda like some things, like how Force points are rolled per scene and such, but incorporating that into D6 would mean a radical revsion of the rules.
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Still... you raise a point because I'm definitely going to be picking up the core book to investigate how possible it is. Granted, I'm probably going to pick it up someplace discounted as $60 is kinda steep. But they're getting at least one sale out of the D6 community. |
Yeah. And considering how pricey that core book is, and that it looks like you need to buy three books to get the whole system (like with D&D), it's possible to dropp $100 just to get the basics. |
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cheshire
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| Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:10 pm Post subject: |
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| atgxtg wrote: | | How much money has WOTC gotten out of us compared to WEG? With the increase in prices over the years it's probably a close call as to whose gotten the most out of us. |
I've done some calculations while making adjustments for inflation, and it's rather surprising how consistent the pricing has been, particularly when you evaluate price per page. Also take into consideration that WOTC gave us full color hard backed books, and most of the WEG materials were B&W softcover.
All things considered, the inflation adjusted prices have not increased all that much.
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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One other factor to consider was how much got spent for marketing/advertising. I was pretty involved in the 90's in the CCG world (as a volunteer for Decipher, mainly representing the Star Wars CCG; I'm actually in Decipher's Hall of Fame and dedicated many thousands of hours going to conventions, running leagues and tournaments, doing demos, etc.). During this time I saw a lot done by the competition (WotC). Here's a couple of examples of (what I found to be) the ridiculous amount of $ they spent on marketing:
- One convention they were promoting their Major League Baseball trading card game. To do this, they had a life-size baseball infield (with pitcher's mound, bases, etc.) and then they placed fans at the various positions. IIRC they had life-sized stand-ups of the CCG cards (of various players). Then the "pitcher" pitched to the batter by rolling a d20 the size of a basketball! It was very, very cool, but really mind-blowing when you consider the cost for something like this.
- More appropros to the Star Wars license: After Wizards acquired the license, and being headquarted in my home town (Seattle area), they threw a big shin-dig to celebrate. This was a grand opening at the local Planet Hollywood, and I was fortunate enough to get VIP tickets (the line literally went down the street outside). Inside was a fancy swoiree, and there were some celebrities there that we got to meet (Peter Mayhew, Jake Lloyed, Drew Struzan, etc.). There was free drinks and hors d'oeurves, and LOTS of cool stuff (and free swag), but as I looked around and observed how many people were taking the opportunity to play the new RPG (which was set up at one table), I was shocked to see fancy shmancy people there that probably had no clue what a role-playing game even was! And this was a party unveiling the new role-playing game! These were businessmen and their wives, and lots of regular folk, but the vast majority seemed to be more interested in the other trappings (and the food and drink) and I wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't make more than a single convert or two out of the whole event! Not to sterotype, but there weren't many people there that looked like gamers, or that appeared interested in learning about the hobby.
Events like these suggested to me that they (Wizards) had a large budget for advertising and marketing. They produced a lot of cool stuff, but I think there was a lot of wasted money, that could have been put to better use in other ways. I have no idea how much, but my guess is that they spent many tens of thousands just on geting the word out about their products (this all was during the time when they were generating lots of cash from not only Magic but Pokemon as well).
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Draven
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| Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Yea wizards had plenty of money to spend. It did not hurt that the two big national book stores only carried WoTC and White Wolf products on a national scale for rpg games either. |
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: |
I've done some calculations while making adjustments for inflation, and it's rather surprising how consistent the pricing has been, particularly when you evaluate price per page. Also take into consideration that WOTC gave us full color hard backed books, and most of the WEG materials were B&W softcover.
All things considered, the inflation adjusted prices have not increased all that much. |
Oh, we probably get higher production values these days, but my point was that those of us who bought WOTC Star Wars stuff could have spent a considerable amount on an RPG we aren't playing just so we can raid it for D6. |
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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I just stumbled upon this article that claims that Lucas originally had plans to do FOUR TRILOGIES!.
It doesn't sound like there was much for the last six, but there certainly was at least talk about doing twelve pictures, back when the first one was being made.
On this site you can even see his original notes for twelve episodes.
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cheshire
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| Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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| DougRed4 wrote: | I just stumbled upon this article that claims that Lucas originally had plans to do FOUR TRILOGIES!.
It doesn't sound like there was much for the last six, but there certainly was at least talk about doing twelve pictures, back when the first one was being made.
On this site you can even see his original notes for twelve episodes. |
Thanks for the links! Interesting reads.
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, thanks. The links pretty much match up with the various storied I've heard and read over the years. Plus it is nice that it does look like they will be using Lucas' notes for Episodes VII-IX.
I bet they will be doing a lot of cherry picking and reorganizing to get some sort of coherent, epic story.
It's always been something of an assumption that the Republic gets restored after ROTJ/ I could easily see the Empire breaking up into independent systems and smaller power groups. Most of the aliens would probably be very suspicious of humans after the Empire. Perhaps the new trilogy could focus on the effort to restore the Republic? |
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cheshire
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| Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:39 am Post subject: |
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I'm sure they will. I mean, things have almost GOT to deviate from the original notes. As Lucas has said the original Death Star battle was meant to be fought with Wookiees and not Ewoks, Many of the characters and their relationships were different in the original treatment, and who knows what else might have changed from concept to film. I would wager that some of the decisions made later in the production process had an effect on the film's lore.
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 10:11 am Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: | | I'm sure they will. I mean, things have almost GOT to deviate from the original notes. As Lucas has said the original Death Star battle was meant to be fought with Wookiees and not Ewoks, Many of the characters and their relationships were different in the original treatment, and who knows what else might have changed from concept to film. I would wager that some of the decisions made later in the production process had an effect on the film's lore. |
Yes. From what I've seen it appears that Lucas had multiple ideas and then picked the ones he liked best for the OT and later for the PT. For example, the Darth Vader turning out to be Anakin Skywalker was one possibility. Lucas didn't really make up his mind on that until ESB.
Orginally Kenobi was supposed to train Luke, but Yoda got created after Lucas killed Kenobi off. It seems some people asked Lucas why Kenobi was sitting around on his duff during the Death Star trench run when he was supposed to be this great Jedi warrior, leader, and whom Organa went to so much trouble to try and contact. Killing Kenobi off solved the problem, but left Luke without a mentor when it was decided to do a sequel. SO Lucas had to come up with another Jedi Master.
I'm sure there is tons on stuff in the notes like that.Basically a lot like a GM's campaign notes and how they evolve and change as the campaign goes on. |
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DougRed4
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Dromdarr_Alark
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| Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | By the way, today it was announced that there's going to be a new movie every year starting in 2015!!! |
Yeah I saw that. I hope they don't over-do it. At the very worst, it will provide new material for us. At the very best, it will be the very best thing to ever happen to the universe.
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