Author Topic: Director's Briefing - June 2014  (Read 3611 times)

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Offline NicholasHMCaldwell

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Director's Briefing - June 2014
« on: June 06, 2014, 03:35:38 AM »
Welcome to the thirty-sixth Briefing and the sixth scheduled Briefing for 2014.

Marking and Grading

The teaching portion of the academic year is now complete. The nightmare that is marking and grading is already underway. Fortunately all the materials that I have to mark are word-processed (even the exam scripts) so I don't have to decrypt illegible scrawls, but unfortunately there's a lot of it to mark - sixty research essays, forty programming assignments, and 150,000 words across a dozen dissertations. (I have already cleared the exam scripts.) I expect most of my June will be spent in the marking process. My commiserations to all my fellow academics who are similarly burdened.

Progress on the ToDo List

Despite the marking mountain and despite the home broadband dropping out again for over a week (two simultaneous faults, now fixed), there has been progress on the todo list.

The financial data for 2013 was duly assembled and sent to the company accountant. At some point this month, he will report on how much profit GCP made last year and how much corporation tax needs to be paid. Why do you care? A profitable GCP means that in addition to being able to pay all our freelancers without quibble (which means happy freelancers who will continue to work for us in the future), we can invest the profits into additional product development and marketing and take a longer view of return on investment, without worries of cash flow crunches. Which translates into we can produce better books, even if these get delayed by events outside our control and pay the freelancers even before income has been generated by the first sale, and we can keep on doing this.

Complete Guild Adventurer #4. The introduction has been updated and I have been in contact with the contributors to ensure that I have their most recent payment details. Still to be done is an update of the HARP stats in the adventures and conversations with Terry regarding the cartography. We know a lot more about what works for OBS/LS printing than when we started TGA#4 and I would like to ensure that the maps will look right in OBS/LS standard colour.

Shadow World: I have sent a review of the Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn draft to Terry and have ongoing email conversations on a number of projects.

For HARP Bestiary, all of the other contributors have reported in and are making steady progress on their current assigned chapters.

For HARP Folkways, Jonathan Cassie is quietly working away on the project and I have a projected draft delivery date.

In Cyradon, I completed my review of the "M is for Murder" adventure module draft by Phillip Ellis. Really good, only a few minor things for Phillip to adjust. We will need a better name than the original adventure idea title as listed in the Cyradon setting book. Suggestions welcomed.

For the Spacemaster Imperium setting project, I went through all of the old products currently owned by Aurigas / ICE and the list of desired text is now on the forums. The first recovered text has already arrived and the process of recovery is ongoing.

Maximiliano Tabacman's ERA software continues a successful public playtest.

In Unified Rolemaster, I continue to nag "Are we there yet?".

Until next time

Time for more marking and more GCP work. The next scheduled Briefing will be in July.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd
Dr Nicholas HM Caldwell
Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
Publisher of Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Shadow World, Cyradon, HARP & HARP SF, and Cyberspace, with products available from www.drivethrurpg.com
Author: Mentalism Companion, GURPS Age of Napoleon, Construct Companion, College of Magics, HARP SF/HARP SF Xtreme

Offline Kirin

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2014, 09:46:57 AM »
It is irksome (that's right - I'm irked!) that RMU gets nothing more than a single line. Perhaps the team that's working on it could weigh in with a more substantial update?

I work in software development. I know that, sometimes, the only update is "we're still coding" - but sometimes the bosses demand to know more, and while I'm no boss here, I'd love to have more detail on where they're at, projected timelines based on recent work, that sort of thing.

Offline The8thDwarf

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2014, 04:05:21 AM »
Even a teaser for RMU would be nice.

Offline Ynglaur

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2014, 11:43:13 AM »
Thirding the wish for a more substantive update on RMU.

Offline jdale

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2014, 01:36:01 PM »
The newsletter (I'm sure you've all subscribed already) which came out today says:

As it has been some time since we gave an in depth outline of where we are with the new Unified Rolemaster system, I have got in touch with the team working on it and have been given the following report:

"The Core rules (Character Law and Arms Law) have been combined into a single text and have gone through a lot of changes based on the feedback from the beta.

Due to the complexity of the interlocking rule sub systems, simple corrections to one area need to be mapped out over every other rule they touch to check they don't cause a break elsewhere. A positive sign here is that the majority of the issues still being worked on are now style and flow of the content and explanations rather than rule issues, indicating we're approaching the end point of this process.

The latter two books (creatures and treasures) are essentially assembled structures of the pieces defined by the first two, so while they are in a less finished state, their derivative nature means they should wrap up faster. I thank you for patience, and look forward to feedback as we get these off our screens and into your hands."

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Offline Pheidias

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2014, 02:17:09 PM »

"Due to the complexity of the interlocking rule sub systems, simple corrections to one area need to be mapped out over every other rule they touch to check they don't cause a break elsewhere. A positive sign here is that the majority of the issues still being worked on are now style and flow of the content and explanations rather than rule issues, indicating we're approaching the end point of this process."

This is the kind of babble speech that my boss tells his boss when projects at work are running late. Sounding just complex enough that he doesn't quite understand what is needed to be done, but with a positive outlook so he thinks it's going to be ready soon.

Offline Hurin

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2014, 02:57:54 PM »
I think by 'the latter two' books they meant, not creatures and treasures, but 'Spell Law' and 'Creatures and Treasures'? I can't imagine Spell Law not being part of the 'core rules'.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

'Every party needs at least one insane person.'  --Aspen of the Jade Isle

Offline NicholasHMCaldwell

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2014, 03:13:22 PM »
Spell Law is in-between Arms Law / Character Law and the latter two Creature Law and Treasure Law.

(I have the actual list of remaining issues. It is genuinely small. And I am copied in on all the remaining discussion emails.)

Best wishes,
Nicholas
Dr Nicholas HM Caldwell
Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
Publisher of Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Shadow World, Cyradon, HARP & HARP SF, and Cyberspace, with products available from www.drivethrurpg.com
Author: Mentalism Companion, GURPS Age of Napoleon, Construct Companion, College of Magics, HARP SF/HARP SF Xtreme

Offline jdale

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2014, 04:22:11 PM »
You may recall we were previously told (in December) that Character Law and Arms Law were being merged into one book: http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=13927.0  Although it no doubt took a fair amount of additional time to merge them, there were a lot of places in Character Law that we criticized it for leaving explanations to Arms Law (e.g. size effects for the races, effects of the various combat expertise skills). I imagine the whole will benefit. Spell Law is too big to merge in, and also wasn't causing problems by being separate.

And it has been previously noted that Treasure Law and Creature Law would be two separate books, for example here: http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=13973.0 Not surprising in any case, they were already separate in RMFRP.
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Offline The8thDwarf

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #9 on: June 25, 2014, 04:12:22 AM »
 :)

Can't wait.

Offline Ynglaur

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2014, 07:03:23 AM »
Thanks for the responses.  Now I need to find the newsletter subscription link...

Offline markc

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Re: Director's Briefing - June 2014
« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2014, 10:29:05 AM »
Here is the link, http://ironcrown.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1730d3188d2e7829f557ff314&id=604c551076


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