Saw this book for the first time yesterday, when someone gave me a copy to sign for a customer. I’ve no idea if it’s any good or not, but it’s certainly shiny as you can see 😉
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Saw this book for the first time yesterday, when someone gave me a copy to sign for a customer. I’ve no idea if it’s any good or not, but it’s certainly shiny as you can see 😉
Quirkworthy 
Have the digital version, one of the worst edited things I’ve ever come across. Full of mistakes and just terrible writing, a lot of which reads like it was written by a schoolboy learning to use a thesaurus. Other than the good campaign it’s a terrible let down given Mantic’s promise to improve this after the poor core rulebook.
I am in the same boat feel quite lwt down by the quality of the books mantic are churning out. The rules are great and the layout and non-proof reading errors and omissions are killing the game.
Where are the rules for Defender shields home come they arent in the nexus si book.
Mantic should really loom at getting a clear plan of how to set out the book something along the lines of. Rules-How to play-Fluff. Take a look at GW books the rules are all in order and easily found and lets get an index added please.
Theres is noting quite like a complaint about a lack of proof-reading which is full of it’s own spelling errors.
Haha. I’ll take that onboard no excuses really. Still there is one key difference no one paid to read my comment or got paid to proof read it so my point still stands. While the content of the Mantic books are great the lack of actually going through them with a eye for detail is so distracting that the rules are getting lost and confused. For example read from beginning to end how you would go about using a Frag Grenade and tell me how many times you had to be redirected to another page.
its*
I think Hawk Games’ Dropzone Commander has by far the best rulebook known to man. Seriously. It’s a thing of beauty.
Criticism is harsh, but it’s no negligible issue on the other hand. I’d strongly prefer to see Dreadball Xtreme’s rulebook coming out 2 months late than with mistakes. I’m disappointed that the numerous errors in Dreadball Season 3’s appendix makes the listing of the teams’ stats useless for lack of reliability… Just more time taking on editing would solve the problem, at low cost.
Just finished reading the campaign and loved it. Looking forward to getting a game on with my brother.
I also hope that there will be more campaign books in the future as this has inspired me to get my Deadzone team finished.
Regarding typos, etc. I can’t comment on NP as I haven’t read the printed version yet. I do agree with the general comment that it’s always better to have as few errors as possible. From experience, you’d be surprised how many times you can have a whole team of professional editors read a piece and still have mistakes in it when it’s printed. At times it can be quite spooky.
Is that what’s happened here? I don’t know as that’s not been my role. These days I provide a manuscript of the rules and some background to Mantic and they then get that laid out and proofed. Whereas with the original DKH I had the time to work closely with the layout and editing staff on every page, these days I have too much game design work to do for Mantic to get very involved in the later stages of production. They have other people for that. I would like to have a hand in the pie because I’m a perfectionist and want it to be just so. However, I can’t be in two places at once. Still not figured that out.
What I will do is pass on your concerns to the appropriate folk at Mantic. Whatever else you might say about them, they do listen to their customers.
Thanks Jake. My concerns are intended as pointers to look at not flame fueled slander. I really enjoy the rules within and the game and thats why I wish the books were easier to read and use in a game.
Absolutely. Which reminds me of a post I’ll get round to at some stage about the impossibility of perfect book layout.
This is something I would enjoy reading and something I am struggling with myself at the moment, there seems to be no right way to layout a rule book just different amounts of wrong ways…
crimsonsun
Fun, isn’t it?
LOL :p To be honest I’ve very much been enjoying everything, even though I am about to do my 7th ‘major’ rewrite. My issues with book layout are simply as I am not sure the best way to set out the rules for comprehension purposes. I’ve not even considered PDF layouts with artwork, and diagrams though I have enough trouble with frames in open office jumping around I am sure thats going to be a whole new can of worms when I get that far in hopefully 6-12months… 😀
crimsonsun
Thanks for your positive attitude, it’s welcome in this harsh virtual universe.
Why doesn’t Mantic take advantage of it’s Kickstarter base? Others do it with great success. You give the people who backed the thing something cool being the first to read it, and a motivated proofing staff for freaking free! What the heck is the problem here?
I’d love to a chance to proof the AI card system and would be very quick to point out any problems encountered as an example.
This seems like such an obvious solution – send out drafts to backers before anything needs to go to print and you’ll at least get several hundred more eyes looking over the text.
It won’t come out perfect, but at least a couple of the more glaring issues and omissions will get caught.