[Mäx]

See, that's the funny thing. I get people telling me this in one ear, the first time I remember seeing anything about this was over at TGD. A place that I have no faith in. In my other ear, I have Jason telling me something else. Guess who I'm going to believe?

Did you even read the rest of that sentence, if you believe that errata isn't ready even thought its already in a printed book your the most gullible person in the world.

[PeterSmith]

If these were normal times then I would agree. That was a stupid statement.

However, as we all know these aren't normal times. People left in unprofessional manners, I would not be surprised if whatever data that was handed back was the bare minimum needed to avoid getting themselves into trouble.

[Bull]

More importantly...  The question is how much of that Errata is currently "separated out" right now?  And in English on top of that (For the stuff that's been Errata'd in the German books).

(This is a question I'm trying to find out, actually, especially from the German freelancers)

Just because a books been updated doesn't mean that there's a list floating around somewhere documenting all the changes.  THere must have been at one time, but the question is...  Where is that list now?  And if it doesn't exist, going through and trying to do a line by line comparison of different editions of a book would be more work than creating a new Errata from scratch.  And an all German Errata doesn't us any good either, since most of us can;t read German.  If anyone wants to volunteer to collect the German changes and Errata and translate them for me, I'll see about getting them PDF'd and posted though.

I don't really know what the status of all of this is right now.  I'm poking at folks and trying to find out, but...  For now, all I'm saying is that just because a book has been reprinted with some Eratta doesn't mean that this data exists in a format that's readily available for the masses.  It may never have been created (Handwritten notes or emails that were edited directly into a book document), it may have been a casualty of change-overs in personnel buried on someones personal computer and never sent over or uploaded somewhere to anyone else (Jason is, after all, the 6th person to have the Developer Title in the last 6 years), or it's possible that it was in a big bulk of data that was sent over after Adam & Co left, and is currently lost in the piles of disks and hard drives that the Layout guy has.  I have no clue. 

For the record though, I do agree that there should be Errata published and the PDFs updated periodically.  Not that I have anything resembling the free time to work on something like that though.

Bull

[Cain]

But come on, Bull.  If Toyota lost a few pages of errata to their users manual, they wouldn't stop looking for them or even divert resources away.  Losing the errata is bad business practice.  Not fixing it is worse. 

And there's no shortage of volunteer proofreaders.  Just because I have a background in English doesn't make me the only one qualified.  Plus, Posthuman Studios manages to put out high-quality products without so many typos, and they're a two-man operation.  Manpower isn't an issue, it's priority.  The priority is currently on cranking out product instead of making sure that product is of high quality. 

[Dread Moores]

Plus, Posthuman Studios manages to put out high-quality products without so many typos, and they're a two-man operation.

I don't believe that's quite accurate. There's at least four core folks involved with Posthuman (Adam, Rob, Jack, and Brian). Those would be the folks who accepted the Ennie awards EP won. Though granted, it is a small operation. I have no idea on what they have or use in regards to additional freelancers, or if there's more core folks than that. Or on how their size in numbers compares to current SR staff/freelancers size in numbers. I won't speculate on it either, since I have no freaking clue.  

[Mäx]

Just because a books been updated doesn't mean that there's a list floating around somewhere documenting all the changes.  THere must have been at one time, but the question is...  Where is that list now?

A more imprtant question is, why on earth wasn't errata released when that list came in or at the very least when the new errated books hit the printers.
I can possibly understand why the errata isn't possible to release now, but not why it wasn't realeased back when it should have been(ie: when the new errated book was printed)

[Bradd]

Only the editors and layout people can answer that. It may have been just as impractical then: We don't know whether a central list or compilation of errata ever existed, or whether it was sent to layout as each issue arose. Likewise, we don't know whether English translations of the German errata ever existed. Of course it would be a good idea to track and translate all of this stuff, and hopefully they'll get back on top of that now that the internal issues have improved.

[Bull]

Only the editors and layout people can answer that. It may have been just as impractical then: We don't know whether a central list or compilation of errata ever existed, or whether it was sent to layout as each issue arose. Likewise, we don't know whether English translations of the German errata ever existed. Of course it would be a good idea to track and translate all of this stuff, and hopefully they'll get back on top of that now that the internal issues have improved.

Hell if I know.  I wonder the same thing.

[Lansdren]

This is somewhat the problem.

There have been errors but no real answer on how its going to be fixed apart from the odd comment of its getting better and at some point we will fix the previous mistakes.

Now I think I'm reasonably fair if they said we have it and heres the timeline most of us could live it. Now I'm not talking about future releases because thats far more nebulous and I get that but putting a fix together that can go on the website is something that can be timelined or at least given a deadline to work too. Now I know sod all about publishing but I know a damm lot about working to deadlines and measuring timescales and I know its doable. To even pretend otherwise is simply accepting that things cant be made better.

Now I've heard arguments about the RPG industy being always crap at fixing things or even doing it right the first time and I dont accept it. That might be how things are in some instances but that isnt a good enough reason to accept it as thats how it will always be.

[Cain]

Now I've heard arguments about the RPG industy being always crap at fixing things or even doing it right the first time and I dont accept it. That might be how things are in some instances but that isnt a good enough reason to accept it as thats how it will always be.

Hell, CGL has done better than this.  The SR4.5 core book is beautiful, and has fewer typos despite being much larger. 

[Mäx]

Hell, CGL has done better than this.  The SR4.5 core book is beautiful, and has fewer typos despite being much larger. 

Thats not really a fair comparison, most of it isn't new stuff after all.
But Seattle 2072 is also very beautiful and a much fairer comparison IMO.

[Cain]

So, what's your comparison?  I see fewer typos and more interesting material in approximately the same page count.  Do you see the same?

CGL isn't even living up to its *own* standards. 

[PeterSmith]

A more imprtant question is, why on earth wasn't errata released when that list came in or at the very least when the new errated books hit the printers.

I disagree, I think that's one of the least important questions facing us. It's in the past, it's not something we're able to answer, and there's nothing we can do about it. Well, we can harp over it but that doesn't accomplish anything productive.

Focus on the here and now. Expend energy on things we can improve, in the long run that's what's better for the game.

[Sengir]

As the old adage goes, "You get more flies with honey than vinegar". Posting on the boards with polite comments regarding the errors in the books, detailing what you've found in the Errata subforum

Better plan: Write your error list on a piece of paper and place it in the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Chances are that god will descend from heavens to hand out errata on stone tables before CGL gets around to putting a pdf onlne...Did I mention I'm a convinced atheist?

About the first thing you learn in any "producing" job, whether it's brick-laying or literal rocket science, is that fixing errors gets more and more complex the longer the error has been around. So if a company's development process can't catch the most glaring errors before release, don't expect them to fix stuff until they're also able to release quality products again...and that's before you get into the allegations (by bitter ex-Freelancers) of JH simply ignoring error lists.


Regarding the German errata, as far as I've been told Pegasus has to get CGL's approval for every change and addition they do for the German releases. If they want to get approval they need to submit proposals. And if they submit proposals that means a list, even if it's just a series of informal emails, has to be around somewhere. That agreement probably does not cover obvious typos, but at least the more serious changes should be documented.

[JM_Hardy]

Let me jump in here and say that I know of some corrections that need to be made to certain books. What I don't want to do, though, is release errata in drips and drabs--if we're going to release errata, it should be complete. I'm working on a process to make that happen, but designing new processes takes time, especially when I have many other things I'm doing. I wish errata had come out quicker than it has, but I have a limited amount of time in a day to make everything I want to happen, happen.

Jason H.