Re: [DL] Re: Product updates

[PEGShane@aol.com]

Hi all,

Time to speak.

PEG had 5 books ready for print in September. They would have hit store 
shelves around 2nd week of October given usual print times. They were: 
Collegium, Waste Warriors, Epitaph #3, Rain o' Terror, and the 1st Lost 
Colony novel, Horror Lords. Upper management decided not to print these books 
at that time and slowed down the schedule. For the record, I *do* disagree 
and think the company lost money in the two months since. To be fair, upper 
management has run several successful businesses and is calling the shots, 
and it's my job to support them.

Disagreements over particulars aside, both myself and the new management are 
trying to get to the same place--more profit and the ability to do cool new 
products. For those of you who are new around here, I've always been fairly 
open about PEG's financial status at any given time. The truth is that after 
the summer cons, our products hit a small dip in sales and slowed down a bit. 
We would have been just fine except that our reserves were drained in July by 
an unexpected event. The event was completely unforseen by us and was 
incurred in older days. Please don't speculate endlesslly about it because I 
won't talk about it, and generating false rumors will only hurt Pinnacle and 
thus the products that those of you on this list know and love.

In August, I was approached by several parties about selling Pinnacle. I did 
so to keep the current staff (then 7 of us, and by far the best crew we've 
ever had--including John Goff, Zeke Sparkes, Chris Libey, and Dave Wilson). 
That didn't work out, unfortunately, as the damage had already been done. One 
of the two parties I spoke to was, of course, Cybergames, and while I don't 
agree with all their decisions, they do have some amazing potential down the 
road.

Another dose of truth. The party answering questions on the Hero listserv 
doesn't really know what the situation at that time was. No one has told them 
the complete story. They are simply trying to do their best to not make 
anyone look bad. So please give them a break and ask me the hard questions if 
you need any more answers after this email.

Now let's move forward.

Cybergames hasn't released the .pdfs for a couple of reasons. First, the 
e-storefront isn't ready yet. Second, we're adding more books to the list. 
You should see Back East North and South, Law Dogs, Perdition's Daughter, 
Independence Day, Epitaph #3, and Rain o' Terror all available as .pdfs. 
Third, some of these were backed up on Matt Forbeck's old Mac, and we don't 
have a Mac in the office (they have cooties, you know). We finally borrowed 
one and have done some of the conversion. Now we need to update a few of the 
books (black magic errata for Perdition's Daughter, weapon speeds for 
"revised edition," and so on. Another part of the problem is that the books 
are absolutely huge. Most folks can't download 44 meg files. So we're 
stripping out the backgrounds to get 'em down a bit. That takes a little more 
work than we'd thought.

As for me, I'm working on Lost Colony. It very likely will not be released in 
the same format as WW and HOE. Right now, our best guess is that it will be 
released around March. This IS NOT a release date. I'm passing this on to you 
as a guess, and I'd appreciate it if you'd treat it as such. The first novel 
for LC will be released with the RPG, though we'll likely put up the first 
chapter or so here.

Now, my turn to ask for a favor. One of the reasons we delayed the novel is 
because preorders are so bad. That's not particularly unusual, our preorders 
here are always low. We make up for it on reorders. Our new management 
doesn't think it's smart to print books and *hope* we sell them, and it's 
hard to argue. So, what would really help us get it out is if you bug your 
local store, or preorder it on the web when that option becomes available. 
And yes, it is *very* good. It's by Clay and Susan Griffith who did three of 
the best stories for the Deadlands anthologies. Go read their stuff and 
you'll know why I contracted them to write this trilogy.

As for future projects. No, I don't know what the future of Lost Colony: 
Showdown is. The story line for the proposed expansion is incredible, and the 
most negative comment anyone's had (the small card set), is addressed by it 
as well. Cards are very expensive, however, as is the coloring, design, 
playtesting, etc. They're also far more profitable than RPG books once you 
get 'em done. So that's that. We'll be discussing these projects as we get 
the ball rolling again between our company and Cybergames, and the list will 
be the first to know.

As for Fields of Honor, we've almost sold out of the initial print run. I am 
severely disappointed by the flimsy box, but I think the game is great--those 
of you who haven't played historical games before (board or minis) would very 
likely enjoy it. I don't know if or when the Napoleonic set will be out. 
Again, this discussion has been tabled until we get our current projects in 
gear.

Same for Last Crusade. The Russian Front has been done for months and is just 
sitting on a CD, but we can't send it until we either get more orders or find 
a cheaper printer.

Whew. I guess that's about all anyone cared to know about what's going on 
around here. In general, just be patient. Play D&D for a month or two while 
we iron out our wrinkles. Then come back and play a real game ;).

Shane