Forums of the Megaverse®

D'oh! We do have a HU article, quite a large one in fact. Phantasia Dominia is a new world setting for HU, sort of similar to the Astral Domain. The article includes three new spellcaster classes who draw on the power from this realm in different ways and several new monsters. It was actually the first article given to this project after the greenlighting. I somehow left it out of the above list -- sorry, Mephisto!

DONE! The package goes into the mail, addressed to Wayne as soon as I can find time to visit a post office.

Awesome Sauce Sir!

The package has been sent.

Woa woa... I submitted some stuff to Rifter 0.1 over two years ago. Is any of that stuff added? How did these guys get selected? Augh gesh, never mind.

Definitely PM Lord Z.

Since we are waiting for Wayne, I wonder if an addendum could be created. Or barring that, maybe it would be good to start on Rifter 0.2 even before 0.1 comes out to pump the pipeline so a Rifter Zero can come out each year.

I like this idea.

Someone let me know if they are doing a 0.2 and I will submit my stuff to that.

The time is right for CONTRIBUTOR COPIES! All contributors, please check your e-mail inboxes for a message from Rifter Zero@ live.com. A link will be contained within for accessing the downloadable files. The message should have been sent to every contributor, but it is almost inevitable that I missed someone. If I missed you or if you would prefer that I send you your copy on CD or flashdrive, please contact me immediately at that e-mail address.

So does this mean we'll soon be seeing the Rifter 0.1 for sale as well?

Yay! It's done! Wohoo!
Thanks for the email Lord Z. Unfortunately the link says that the item doesn't exist. Am I the only one that's having this issue? If so, any ideas on what I might be doing wrong?

I had to play around with the link before I got it right. I sent an e-mail back to Lord Z about it, so hopefully he can send the fix on to anyone else having problems.

Been perusing the 0.1 for most of the evening - gotta say, there is some very cool stuff in there. Can't wait to dig into the point-based Megaversal article more, and the New Navy article rocks. Also interested to find out what people think of the Rifts novella.

That did it. Thanks for the idea. I removed the last bit after the "]" and it worked!

Now I have some good reading to get to.

THANK YOU LORD Z!!!!

It looks awesome. So very, very awesome. Dude, you doth rock hardeth. Verily, I say!

BTW, now we need a campaign to make the R0.1 available in POD. Seriously. DriveThru has the POD option and this could be PB's first POD offering.

Thank you Lord Z and thanks to all the contributors! Can't wait to dig in!

Ok, so is it time to start barraging Wayne with e-mails and PMs about when it's going to officially be published? I really want 0.1 to start selling so that 1) Alex can get help meeting the medical and home repair bills he's accumulated over the last several months and 2) so my friends and family members can get this awesome product and see how awesome we all are!!!

Woot! Also, don't forget to ask for PB to set up the Rifter Zeros on Print on Demand (POD) via DriveThruRPG.Many people prefer dead tree and since PB doesn't have to front any money for the POD (just the customer), its an awesome way for the RZ to be "in print"!

Let the pestering begin!

Late last week, I called the Palladium Books office. I left a message for Wayne explaining that I had released the Contributor copies. I'll count that as a reminder that the product does exist.

Print on demand probably won't work with this particular product. A few of the files included are stuff like 3D models and huge banner artwork which just does not print well (or at all). Also, the page count is monstrous. I tell you what -- if the product turns out to be a hit, I might offer to set up a new version designed for P.o.D.

As for pestering Wayne, sure, go ahead. Now might actually be a good time to do it since he has had the files for a few months, Alex is back to work, and the convention season is over for PB. Wayne never has time on his hands, but now is better than most other times to press him with questions.

What is total page count? What about it being printed as 2 books? How difficult would it be to remove the 3D models and banner art to make printing happen?

The problem with a later POD is that people might feel bummed they didn't have the options up front. Also, I think we can spur PB into offering OOP products as POD in the future if R.01 does nicely.

The page count is over 700. That includes both the full color and printer-friendly versions. If a PoD version were demanded, I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to redo the layouts and make a third version with select items included which would best suit the new medium. One of the complications is that the contributors agreed to give their creations under specific circumstances. A printed version was never part of the deal, and I wouldn't assume that all the contributors would agree to it. It would involve more than just a matter of cutting out a couple of files, but I could probably do it in two days.

So, has anyone tried calling, e-mailing, or facebooking the office yet about Rifter #0.1? The guys are probably sick and tired of hearing from me.

It's that time, folks. January has come and gone, and we still have received no word from the Palladium Office. We have not even been able to confirm whether Wayne received the paperwork or not last summer. The time has come to discuss how we are going to dismantle the project. Please post to the thread at Tank 9 or else send me a message to the Rifter 0 at live dot com e-mail address. I would very much like everyones input.

No, idea where Tank 9 is as Google returned over 800 million hits. As for idea been in sever pain the last few hours, will get back when I can think straight.

I'm rather sure Prysus is right that the UMF give Palladium Books control of the material till they release it. We could ask Wayne if the authors could submit their work to the regular Rifter.

My questions is why are they dragging their feet on at letting Lord Z know what the hell is going on with this? IIRC this entire project is FINISHED. Not like anyone at PB actually has to do any work on it and no one can convince me that since this whole thing was submitted they have been completely and totally unable to let those on point know a yay or nay about the project. It just smells funny that it is languishing the way it is.....

I tried to respond on Tank Nine, but it said I could not register because the Admin had switched off registrations.

So here's my 2 cents:

I am confused.

When we launched R0.1 the folks at PB were on board and thought it was a good idea. Clearly, they are no longer interested in fan created PDFs, but I don't know why they won't say it. I am usually happy to give PB the benefit of the doubt and say give them time, but its been 6+ months. R0.1 is pure revenue even if it only sells a hundred copies in the next decade.

Sadly the message being sent inadvertantly is that PB fans should just be PB consumers and that is our desired role as a community. Not overly surprising as this is the general pre-internet, pre-social media view by traditional companies in regards to fandom. Sure, there were some 20th century examples that were different (aka, the Star Trek fanfic in the 1970s semi-"approved" by Paramount), but they are the rare exceptions.

So where does this leave us?

I don't know. I don't like the idea of just giving up and dismantling the project. I was excited about all of us working on another R0 project this year. But if an author wants to, they should just resubmit their work to Wayne for the regular Rifter.

Of course, we don't know how much work Wayne had to put into the original R0 and we have no idea how many have sold to date. Perhaps, the number of PDF sales from R0 do not make further efforts worthy on a time to dollar ratio. Who knows? Without exact figures, we are just guessing.

What are the rest of you crazy cats thinking?

The game has changed again! Kevin sent an e-mail to the Rifter Zero at live dot com address. I have forwarded it to all of the contributors (except for a very few without e-mail, I will be speaking with them personally).

Does this mean it is going to be made available for purchase or not?

I don't think that the message was intended for public reading, so I am not comfortable discussing the specifics here. It seems more likely now than before that Palladium is in fact interested in releasing The Rifter #0.1 in some form.

Close enough answer for me

The email was a nice piece of news to have waiting for me when I got home from the hospital.

Everything ok? (Not trying to pry into your private life, just want to show concern & support.)

Went to RadCon (17-19) and got the norovirus as a nasty souvenir, stuck me in the hospital for three days and still sick.

Shawn, you look good, and that's what's important!

Just goes to prove that even the lowest forms of life love PB's freelancers! (wait, maybe that didn't come out right...)

Thanks

I just spoke with Wayne. Julius is proofreading the documents for us to catch as many errors as possible. Because Julius has already started doing this, there will be NO further tweaking of the materials -- the only changes will be making corrections.

1 -- Here is what needs to be done. All of the recycled artwork from previous Palladium products needs to be cut. It was my decision to include these pieces in the first place, so I don't mind editing these out.

2 -- Kevin wants the product divided into two parts. That means redoing the layouts (sucks to be me). Wayne wants us to combine these into as few files as possible. This is done for ease on his end as well as lowering the total data size of each download. So, the printer friendly versions of each file are getting axed.

3 -- We need to designate or create some new cover artwork. We will need a second cover for #0.2. We will also need a new cover for the novella, Acceptance.

4 -- We will be correcting all mistakes that Julius finds.

5 -- I will try to add internal hyperlinks between the tables of contents and the actual articles. My wife will show me how to do this.

@Lord Z - Awesome. I look forward to buying it/them

Dang it, I liked that cover for my novella. <sigh> Oh well. Can't wait to see what the new cover looks like.

Last night, Wayne sent us this message:



Okay, we won't do anything until we hear from Julius. Also, Krate and I have been discussing our options for cover art as needed.

Not bad, only three years in the making... Maybe more with edits.

Here is an update for April. The current plan is to wait for Julius to finish reading the material we have (poor guy), and then lay out the product again. In addition to whatever changes Julius wants, we will be cutting out all of the recycled artwork from out-of-print Palladium products and dividing the project into two products, Issues #0.1 and #0.2. It's too late to submit or change any text, but we can take on new artwork submissions at this time. We have discovered some fresh new artwork for the cover of #0.2 by our own Zack.

By the way, Kevin did mention the Rifter Zeroes in his last Murmur. He wrote that so much material went into Rifter Zero that PB needs more material for the regular print issues of The Rifter.

Any questions?

Oh yeah -- we are also looking for some cover art for the Rifts Novella, Acceptance. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Glad to see things moving forward. I hope they like what I did.

Thanks Shawn!

I am not expecting to hear from Julius until after the Open House, but this is just my own personal hunch.

700 pages!!!

That's freaking awesome. Congrats again everybody.

FYI: At the POH Julius gave me his feedback document for my novella. It was typed up on a single page and was really good. I could tell he'd taken the time to read it, not just skimmed through it. No wonder its taking the poor guy so long to get through it all!

Just figured that people might like confirmation thar R0.1 is indeed being worked on.