[Mara]

Which actually deviated from standard CGL practice.

Wrong. Printing options exist now that did not exist in the past, that's why it's different.

*arches an eyebrow* Well, hopefully they learned from this experience, and will go back to the releasing the PDF
a bit before sending off to the Printers so that errata can be found ahead of time and included in the first printing.

[Cormroc]

Thread nerco time.

  Since there was some time between the PDF release and the  print release was there any time used to clear up some of the errata or was the book pretty much already at the printers when the PDF went out?

The book was already off to the printers when the PDF was released.

OK thanks,hopefully the second printing will have everything cleaned up

Considering the first printing sold out before the street date and they have already begun the process of the second printing I would be very surprised if there were any changes between the 2.

[Kincaid]

Which actually deviated from standard CGL practice.

Wrong. Printing options exist now that did not exist in the past, that's why it's different.

*arches an eyebrow* Well, hopefully they learned from this experience, and will go back to the releasing the PDF
a bit before sending off to the Printers so that errata can be found ahead of time and included in the first printing.

This would require months and months of lag time between the pdf and print version.  Getting a 500-page book through layout, printing, and binding is not an easy (or cheap) feat.

[Mara]

Which actually deviated from standard CGL practice.

Wrong. Printing options exist now that did not exist in the past, that's why it's different.

*arches an eyebrow* Well, hopefully they learned from this experience, and will go back to the releasing the PDF
a bit before sending off to the Printers so that errata can be found ahead of time and included in the first printing.

This would require months and months of lag time between the pdf and print version.  Getting a 500-page book through layout, printing, and binding is not an easy (or cheap) feat.

It did not take months and months to incorporate initial feed back from the SR4A initial PDF release. Or any other book
they have done where they started incorporating Errata from the PDFs into the final release. Why would it be any further
of a delay? And those books had the months of over sea transit because they were made in China. This was done in
the U.S., so should be faster.

[Reaver]

From 1988 to 1993 I was one of those 'greeks"* that was in the photography/year book club in highschool.....

Back then, we had to get the final layout off to the printers by March 13 (first day of spring break) IF we wanted the book for June 21 the second to last day of school. That usually meant the yearbook club pulling 6 to 7 hours a day AFTER SCHOOL. for about two weeks to get all the last minute changes in.

Adding a sentence, or changing a caption is a BIG deal as it can throw the flow and continuity of a book all out of whack. Meaning, that adding a sentence is not a simple matter of sitting down and typing in a sentence... It's typing in that sentence, THEN checking every single page afterwards for the errors created by adding in that sentence... and then correcting them, which can end up costing you hundreds of man hours, and then several dollars more at the printer due to adding volume to the book, extra pictures to fill in blank spacing, blank pages, etc...


Yes technology has changed a whole lot since highschool. (back then, you were "cool" if you had a Walkman and a cordless phone in your room....and forget about a computer... they were $5000+!!) but the simple fact remains that is cost big money to reprint a massive book when they could to a printed errata for a fraction of the price... or just release it as a PDF on the main webpage for free (to us)... and could keep CGL out of "panic mode" for a while.

And really, when you look at the "real" problems, and not include the whiney ones, the number of clarifications and changes is actually pretty small.

as with any time a company releases a new PnP product, use the most up to date sourcebooks and fluff combined with the new rules to flesh out the details until they can get the new errata and sourcebooks out. And above all remember the 3 golden rules:

1: If something seems to powerful, you are probably missing or overlooking something.
2: RAW and RAI can be two different things... figure out which way you want to go, and stick with it throughout a campaign, if your wiffle back and forth, the chances are great you are going to "break" your game and be a very unhappy (whiny) poster.
3: Common sense rules the day! Use your common sense to problems that creep up and move on. If you don't have common sense, FIND SOME!




*(Or "that supreme asshole that just blackmailed you cause you really pissed him off" to dozens...)

[Dangersaurus]

Hah, good times - when I was in high school (85-88) we did layout with typed blocks and hot beeswax. Not even kidding. In college we had access to better computers and layout software... but we still had the crowded room full of galley tables and the stink of hot wax. "Hey (Dangersaurus), clean those rollers!" still pops up in dreams now and then.

Nowadays I work at a major printer during fall and winter where have thousands of unique layouts to pump out the door every month (including those damn yearbooks - generally schools farm that out these days). We probably discard more work in a month than CGL prints in a year. Thank god I just do memos and QA most of the time, but depending on the crunch I'm all over the place. When we need something and need it now... I'm generally the one riding crop 6-8 times a day trying to get someone on track with our goal dates. Guess that carries over.

[Reaver]

Hah, good times - when I was in high school (85-88) we did layout with typed blocks and hot beeswax. Not even kidding. In college we had access to better computers and layout software... but we still had the crowded room full of galley tables and the stink of hot wax. "Hey (Dangersaurus), clean those rollers!" still pops up in dreams now and then.

Nowadays I work at a major printer during fall and winter where have thousands of unique layouts to pump out the door every month (including those damn yearbooks - generally schools farm that out these days). We probably discard more work in a month than CGL prints in a year. Thank god I just do memos and QA most of the time, but depending on the crunch I'm all over the place. When we need something and need it now... I'm generally the one riding crop 6-8 times a day trying to get someone on track with our goal dates. Guess that carries over.

Damn, would have been nice. We had to do the photography, Develop the film (YES! FILM!!! 35mm wide and it holds a picture!!! works by magic you know!!), then paste that to the page, then add in all the text, (and editing of that text.. guess who did NOT do that ). we had to make sure that it all fit in our per book budget... as I recall, it was like $0.01 per 5 characters + $1.00 a page, + $0.04 a B/W picture and + $0.10 a color picture.

As for software..... yea... there was some available, but at the pricing of it at that time, it was totally outside of a single school's budget.

[Michael Chandra]

And really, when you look at the "real" problems, and not include the whiney ones, the number of clarifications and changes is actually pretty small.

Either we got a different opinion on what amounts to a small number, or I'm a whiner. Not entirely sure which. That or you're grouping all removals of a single wrong version together as a single change.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I think they did a great job despite the rush and I have faith that they'll fix them all (even though I won't like some of the fixes, but that's neither here nor there) but I think there are more than a small amount.
Lessee, we got AoE dodging (remnant -2 in multiple parts including examples that needs to be removed), Gunnery snafus, Dwarf/Troll cost snafus, Noise needs to be clarified to never block communication only wireless bonuses (which actually defies my own common sense, I probably should buy a new one), Multiple Attacks has a significant part missing which will throw off the layout badly, we got some collissions on how Augmentations/Boosts of different types are meant to combine or clash where once more my own common sense betrayed me since it applied the definition of Augmented Maximum on what is meant with Augmentations, Instruction has two versions in the rules, Connection rules either contradict or aren't clearly labelled as both effective, Condition Monitor doesn't state you go K.O., Mystic Adepts are getting an errata, there's no rules on how to repair vehicle/drone damage, Rigger and vehicle/drone dodging rules are vague, it's not entirely clear whether Cyberprograms count for a Drone's Sharing (I think no but who knows), Initiation needs clarification on whether you can default (and if you take the -1 penalty for it) on Arcana for it and I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few Clarification things since these are mostly errata-only stuff. The 200+ typing errors and archaic terms used aren't a big deal yes.

[Reaver]

And really, when you look at the "real" problems, and not include the whiney ones, the number of clarifications and changes is actually pretty small.

Either we got a different opinion on what amounts to a small number, or I'm a whiner. Not entirely sure which. That or you're grouping all removals of a single wrong version together as a single change.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I think they did a great job despite the rush and I have faith that they'll fix them all (even though I won't like some of the fixes, but that's neither here nor there) but I think there are more than a small amount.
Lessee, we got AoE dodging (remnant -2 in multiple parts including examples that needs to be removed), Gunnery snafus, Dwarf/Troll cost snafus, Noise needs to be clarified to never block communication only wireless bonuses (which actually defies my own common sense, I probably should buy a new one), Multiple Attacks has a significant part missing which will throw off the layout badly, we got some collissions on how Augmentations/Boosts of different types are meant to combine or clash where once more my own common sense betrayed me since it applied the definition of Augmented Maximum on what is meant with Augmentations, Instruction has two versions in the rules, Connection rules either contradict or aren't clearly labelled as both effective, Condition Monitor doesn't state you go K.O., Mystic Adepts are getting an errata, there's no rules on how to repair vehicle/drone damage, Rigger and vehicle/drone dodging rules are vague, it's not entirely clear whether Cyberprograms count for a Drone's Sharing (I think no but who knows), Initiation needs clarification on whether you can default (and if you take the -1 penalty for it) on Arcana for it and I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few Clarification things since these are mostly errata-only stuff. The 200+ typing errors and archaic terms used aren't a big deal yes.

for a 500 page book, thats pretty small. Lets put this into perspective.  The Canadian electrical code book is updated every 3 years, and is roughly 700 pages long. In the 2012 release there was 2800 changes. (Two thousand eight hundred)...

And that is just changes like an errata... and when you consider that the code book is supposedly written by 'the top experts of the electrical trade' that is a whopping number of changes, especially since its usually in the neighborhood of 40 to 100....

[Michael Chandra]

Sounds like the kind of thing that's much easier to make errors in though. I guess we just differ on opinion on how many issues amounts to a small number. When we're around two dozen problems scattered around in multiple places each, plus a few hundred typing errors, I wouldn't call it small. I wouldn't call it horribly broken either though.

[Noble Drake]

I think gamers in general are prone to exaggerating the impact of errors in a gaming book.

Not that the errors present in SR5 don't cause some serious issues - namely Gunnery and it either being the skill to use every time you are firing a mounted weapon of any kind in any way, or only ever being used when remote firing a mounted weapon.

Most issues, however, (including spelling errors) barely affect the general playing of the game... and yet I have seen at least one poster claiming that the game is quote "impossible to play," because of the errors present.

[Michael Chandra]

Yeah, impossible to play is rather much an exaggeration. I mean, the errors only complicate a few of the character types. We got what, perhaps 5% of the characters will run into them 5% of the time?

[Noble Drake]

I'd say that is a pretty fair estimate... if given a special exception for the multiple attacks vs. a single target question, since that one could plausible come up at any table that has combat involving characters with combat skills of 4+

Really though, as a long time Shadowrun player, my table has zero issues that will require errata from Catalyst - I've got all that knowledge of how it used to work (in a number of editions) that easily fills in any blanks and easily undoes any "what where they thinking?" changes (such as the new scatter rules, and counterspelling, my pair of personal problems with SR5)

[Reaver]

Not saying that the book is error free or couldnt use some improvements
, but totally broken? Not by a long shot.

And lets be fair Micheal, we have both seen some wild exclamations that the game is broken... when in reality it is just laziness and hyper exageration on the OP side of things. (And usually compounded by a lack if will to follow ALL the rules listed)

There are no real "game breaking" issues in 5th edition that a little rational thought and common sense can't fix (or at least make workable)

[Dangersaurus]

The book is rife with small errors, and there are some puzzling rules issues... but who ever said it was broken or impossible to play? I think you guys are getting even more defensive about it than CGL themselves.