Catseye

I'm sory, but I have a hard time leaving things rest where I know I'm right. It IS irellevent but.... from a quick GOOGLE "Macromedia free upgrade policy Macromedia offers free upgrades to customers who purchase software from an authorized reseller during the published qualifying period for each product. Free upgrades are available for a limited time only, and all requests must be accompanied by a legible copy of the proof of purchase. Requests must be received within three months of the date the new version first ships." "Free Upgrade -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Simply download and install IntelliJ IDEA 3.0.5 and use your existing key. If you purchased IntelliJ IDEA before 2002, buy an Upgrade license. " "ISSUE: Is the new Eudora 6.0.1 a free upgrade? SOLUTION (PAID MODE USERS): If you purchased and registered your current Eudora within the past twelve months, then the 6.0.1 upgrade is free. Simply download and install and it will install in Paid mode (no advertisements)." "Do I qualify for a free upgrade to Opera 7? Platform: Windows 95/98/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP Not all registered users of Opera 6 for Windows and Linux are entitled to a free upgrade to Opera 7. Only users who bought Opera 6 for USD 39 during the Power Kit campaign, or thereafter for USD 29, are entitled to a free upgrade to Opera 7 for Windows and Linux." "Free upgrade to GFI MailEssentials 9 If you purchased GFI MailEssentials 8 or the GFI MailEssentials/GFI MailSecurity bundle on or after 15 May 2003, you can upgrade to GFI MailEssentials 9 for free. " "Who is Eligible for a Free Upgrade to BBEdit 7.0? If you purchased BBEdit 6.5 between September 1, 2002 and December 31, 2002, you are eligible to receive an upgrade to BBEdit 7.0 free of charge, provided that you send us appropriate proof of eligibility on or before March 31, 2003. " Thats just the first page.,,,

Okay. Your wrong, but its irellevent. "Standards" aren't the issue, only why those standard behaviors came into being, which I've explained as best I can. As they say this time of year, Many Happy Returns

I'm sorry Dan. That xx days is EXACTLY the industry standard in productivity software. Its not worth arguing about. Time will tell if your buyers are unique as you seem to think or you will get hit by the returns. And as I said before, its not about me. I'm perfectly happy to wait. I'm actually buying through my FLGS because I'm trying to encouage their stocking HERO products. (Which is also why I just called them to make sure they made their destributor wait for v2 to fill the order. Getting hit with return costs won't encourage them much.) Otherwise I'd just buy through the web site, which is your OTHER problem. Your FLGSes are currently screwed because you are offering V2 right now for download but all they can offer is V1. But again, its not my company. I'm just providing some experience from my 20 yrs in the software industry. You and Darren have to make the decisions and live with the results.

First off, you ain't an all powerful monopoly. Second, WIndows doesnt really count as there are reasons to prefer WIn2K to XP for example. Nonehtless, even with Windows, I think if you ask your local retailer you will find that their old versions DO go dead and they DO return them. MSFT can afford that, can you? Cut-outs are an alternative to returning software. Many retailers do this because they lose a small amount in returning (shipping.) If they cannot sell it for at least what they paid for it minus shipping though, back it goes. If it doesn't sell from the cut-out rack ina reasonable amount of time, back it goes. Dan, I *worked* for a game software publisher and destributor. Every distributor in the business has on their books a "reserve". This is the amount of sales they expect to lose in subsequent returns. (In point of fact it was failure to anticpate exactly this on the part of the old TSR when they went to the retail book channels that pushed them into bankruptcy.) Dan, no offense but there is no demand for HDV1 with HDV2 comign out. HDV2 does everyhing HDV1 does, more, and better. Quake is a different gaming experience then Quake2. This preserves some value. The same is not true in productivity software, which is the business you are in. And yes, in that business everything from Macafee Anti-virus to MSFT Word generally has a free upgrade period for exactly the reasons I described. But hey. Its no biggie. If HDV1 shows up at my FLGS, I'll return it. So will I expect many (if not all) other people. Retailers with dead HDV1 product will return it to their destributors and their destributors to HERO. And HERO can deal with it. I'm just trying to help a little company I happen to like from getting a nasty surprise. **shrug** *sigh* Your still missing the point. I *won't* purchase it. And HERO will get a return. And large scale returns will cost HERO money that I'd rather they spent on V3 or additional books. Now, if you will excuse me, i had better go tell that FLGS to tell their destributor to cancel that order until they have V2 available so my poor FLGS doesnt get stuck with shipping.

No offense intended, Dan, but thats not the point. The point is that,as a software developer distributing through the retail chain you have a problem. If you make all purchasers purchase an upgrade for an additional fee then as soon as you announce that an upgrade is in the works, you have made all the software currently in the distriubtion chain worthless. The end result is large scale product return, which costs the publisher additional money in processing those returns. It also kills your sales dead for that period of time. In order to avoid that, its pretty much standard in the software industry these days that, after a new version of a product is announced, any purchasers of the old version get upgraded free when the new version comes out. I'm not arguing fairness or any other such nonsense. I'm just pointing out the practical realities of the business.

Oh? Hm. I might have them send it BACK then and get the HDV2 unless the street price of HDV2 is going up $20 over HDV1. If you don't want others doing the same right now you may want to consider some recent-purchaser upgrade policy.... Just my 2 cents. JK

I just special ordered a CD copy of HD from my FLGS. They are ordering this week. WillI I ebd up with HD or HD2 package? (This is more a convenience question then anything else since the downloadable upgarde is free, right?) JK

Whoops. You aren't syaing that the cost in the package is double normal cost, are you? That would seem to unduly penalize those NOT going over NCM. It was this complaint that made Steve move away from the stats as "hightened Stat max" to the straight stats they are now...

Pedantism Alert! Seriously, Steve makes it pretty durn obvious in his genre books that the intent is NOT to take the FRED as a text of absolute laws that cannot be broken or modified. He actually makes a number of rules modifications suggestions himself to get different "feels". Having said that, there is a warm and comfortable feeling to knowing that others have used the same rules mods I'm leaning towards with good results :)

As I understand it, and plan on doing it myself, the stats ignore NCM rules. So lets say you have NCMs of 20. You buy your STR up to 19 with points, and you take a racial package that is +3 STR. Your STR would be 22, not 21. Follow?

Well you need to distinguish between the ability to frazzle others and the ability to avoid being frazzled. The first is PRE, the second is PRE Defense. Most fighters don't really have the former to a huge or unnatural degree. The exception might be drill sergeants. To my mind a Drill Sergeant would be a different "class." These aren't intended to be all allowable classes, merely a starting set representative of the typical simplistic fantasy archetypes. The idea actually is that the class list will grow as the players come up with other ideas of archetypes. Such growth though is throttled by some "class design" meta-rules and the fact that only the GM can design or approve classes for his/her game. The whole point here IS to force some arbitrary distinctions between classes to prevent the "swiss army knife" phenomenon I've seen in FH games in the past where all characters grow to the same end point-- being equally good in all game situations. I prefer a game where players abilities are more limited and they have to rely more on their fellow party members. Personal preference thing.

I guess I didn't explain this well enough sorry.... I'll try to clarify. Yes, cost values aren't relevent here. This isn't stats, just alternate NCM maximums. In FH Steve suggests that you can differentiate character types for the kind of archetype based world I'm going for by varying stat maximums. His suggestion is that for every-one you increase, you decrease another an equal amount to preserve balance. I've just taken that a step further in formalization by totaling them all and having them all have to reach a set value. It amounts to the same thing. The NCM coloum is there to show that, for the traditional values, the stat forumlae "work". The "normal" column is a normal in this archetypal world. Someone who doesn't have special potential coupled to special training. Well literally because a heavy fighter's STR max is 20 while a Cleric's is 15. What that "means" in ths=is world is that a heavy fighter does more straight strength training then a Cleric who has a lot of other things to spend his/her training time on. You're viewing that the wrong way. 15 is "normal". Again the heavy fighter is not chosen for his or her profession because of outstanding potential in PRE or EGO, nor do they specifically train in those areas. You kinda needs to get the "goal" of the system straight i guess for this to make sense and I didn't do a good job of explaining that, sorry. Hmm. as you say, thats NOT characteristic points which might be (will be) much higher so i think its deceptive. I look at it this way 100-125 pt characters (which is what I expect these players to start at) seldom have more then 3 stats above an 18. Given that, I actually think its oorbably "generous" when looked at in that fashion. I dunno it feels right to me but thats why I'm asking for other opinions too so thanks Costx2, with the additional small qualifier of GM's consent. For instance I'm a lot mroe likely to be willing to see a heavy fighter go to STR22 then a Wizard go to STR 19. I'm a REAL bugger when it comes to DEX and Speed because I've seen that abused in FH games in the past...

Hey Guys,I'm working on my psuedo-class system for my setting. The first part of it is stat maximums. Basically they primary stat maximum have to all add up to 135. The secondaries are figured from the primaries.I'd like a sanity check on some initial results. Some things in this are specific to my setting (like the Religion skill priests use to cast is based on EGO. The Performance skill bards use to cast is based on PRE.) But in general how do these look to others. Reasonable for a psuedo-class based world where people have very different abilities according to their areas of training? ></pre> <table frame="lhs" cellspacing="0" rules="groups" border="1"> NCM Normal Man Hvy Fighter Martial Fighter Swashbuckler Paladin Cleric Wizard Thief Bard Max STR 20 15 20 15 15 20 15 15 15 15 15 20 Max DEX 20 15 15 20 20 15 15 15 20 15 15 20 Max CON 20 15 20 20 15 15 15 20 15 15 15 20 Max BODY 20 15 20 20 15 20 20 15 15 15 15 20 Max INT 20 15 15 15 15 15 15 20 20 20 15 20 Max EGO 20 15 15 15 15 15 20 20 15 15 15 20 Max PRE 20 15 15 15 20 20 20 15 15 20 15 20 Max COM 20 15 15 15 20 15 15 15 20 20 15 20 Max Total 160 120 135 135 135 135 135 135 135 135 120 8 Max PD 8 6 8 6 6 8 6 6 6 6 6 4 Max ED 8 6 8 8 6 6 6 8 6 6 6 10 Max SPD 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 4 3 3 50 Max REC 10 8 10 9 8 9 8 9 8 8 8 50 Max END 50 38 50 50 38 38 38 50 38 38 38 Max STUN 50 38 50 47 38 47 44 41 38 38 38 </t

Well, i kinda believe in two things... (1) Players should have a chance to gain a feeling of accomplishment. Usually this means havign a goal they can reach, though maybe not the way they most like to reach it. (2) I don't deprive players of their PCs unless they are either intensely stupid, violate repeatedly some of my base house rules (such as "be a hero"), or request it. Having said that, i HAVE run two different TORG games that seem to start out with utter disaster and then gvie the players a chacne to redeem themselves. (My favorite, the one I wrote, "Time Pessages" takes them back in time to chnage the situation and then in the end foward again in time to the same scene they strated in, only now armed with what they need to succeed.) I think that can be VERY satisfying to the players. The closest I've ever come to running a "Kobiashi-maru" was ANOTHER TORg game I wrote, "The Faustus Project." the players DO end up achieving an important, even critical goal, that they were unaware of to start with. but in the process they discover at the end they have been fighting, and in fact been injuring and/or killing, the people they were originally tasked with saving. Its a sublte, bitter-sweet sort of thing and I usually don't push it too hard. I make one observation about the battlefield at the end and then leave it at that. One player actually asked me if they had done anything wroign adn i assured him that thre really was no other way the situation coudl have played out and that the scenario is desigend to sucker them in that way. Players seemed pretty satisfied. My theory is they did so because they coudl stil lsee that they did the best they coudl do with a less then eprfect situation and DID accomplish something significant and important.

Nevermind, I found the web page description

Is there any chance we could get some kind of brief description of what Sidekick is/isn't and what's been simplified before February? C

Thanks Guys. This is very useful in the way of suggestions and in general makes me more comfortable making similar kinds of changes.

Okay, I've been over and over this one and I just can't GROk it. Many package deals contain stats as part of the package. Howevre stat points can be sold off for what they cost according to the H5 rules. How, then, does putting the stats in the package deal effect anything? If i wanted the stats I could buy them without the package deal, and if I don't want them I can just sell them off and take the points back out of the package. It seems to me to be a null addition to the package. What, if anything, am I missing?

BTW. has anyone else mentioned that mages burn lots and lots of END? I only let them recharge once per day. CQ

I still think you are all over-analyzing this. Decide how important/powerful you want mages to be in your game and design appropriately. In my case the balance is real simple: Mage go BOOM! he he he CQ

I spent a lot of time on the 3 magic systems in my game so far because their strengths and limitations are really defining points of the game. (Wizard, Priest, Bard). I generated a handful of example spells myself. I expect to let PCs eventually build their own spells, subject to my approval, using the rules of their system.

Monsters Monsters! Humans exist... meat on the hoof!

Spell Failure (side effect) chart I have a simple one I'm using now that I'll clip out of my setting book (which ofcourse I;m also still working on) and post. I really want to extend it, but this has been good enough for my runs to date. (Apologies that its in percentiles. I've been meaning to convert to d6 equivalents eventually...) (From the Dragon Dreams manual) Wizard Spell Failure Chart: This chart is based on the limitation Requires Skill Roll:Magic(-1/2). If the spell in question was created with the more serious limitation Requires Skill Roll:Magic(-1) then double the effect listed. This is just a starting point. The judge should feel free to add to it. In general the effects are all based on the release of uncontrolled positive or negative energy. Whimsical effects should be avoided. (These are reserved for the planned Wild Magic expansion.) [i had to unformat it to paste it, sorry, in the doc its a nice table] 01-30 Flash of light Lose 3 END or half the END cost of the spell, whichever is greater 31-40 Flash of light, thunderclap. Lose 6 END or the END cost of the power, whichever is greater 41-50 Blinding Flash of Light Take 2D6 or ((Spell Active Points)/15)D6 Explosive Flash, whichever is greater. 51-60 Flash of Flame Take 6D6 or ((Spell Active Points)/5)D6 Energy Blast, whichever is greater. 60-64 Ball of Flame Take 4D6 or ((Spell Active Points)/7.5)D6 Explosive Energy Blast, whichever is greater. 65-74 Circle of Darkness Create a 3†radius or ((Spell Active Points)/10)†radius Darkness circle, whichever is greater. Lasts 1 phase. 75-84 Anti-magic Circle Create a 3D6 or ((Spell Active Points)/10)D6 Explosive Magic Dispell, whichever is greater. (All magical effects.) 85-94 Shockwave, Implosive Take 6D6 or ((Spell Active Points)/5)D6 Physical Energy Blast, whichever is greater. Make a DEX roll or fall down 95-100 Shockwave , Explosive Take 4D6 or ((Spell Active Points)/7.5)D6 Explosive Physical Energy Blast, whichever is greater. Everyone effected must make a DEX roll or fall down

Only if you sing a duet.... << runs for the hills >>

Its all about the magic system, baby. Really, thats what it comes down to IMO. How powerful or versatile mages are in your game is controllable by you as the campaign designer according to how you set up your magic system. I wanted mage casts to be powerful, but dangerous and unpredictable, so the mage-casting system in my house campaign requires the "skill roll" and "side-effect" disadvantages. In addition, you don't get to chose your side effect, all side effects come off of a master chart I roll on when you flub. I also seriously limit the spells available and make mages work to get them