William, I don't want to sound rude, but I don't think you get it.
A week ago there was no plans to make a Coveanant supplement AT ALL. Now, if presales shows that the supplement merits construction, then it will be made. So I don't think feeling the crowd out for business is shooting one self in the foot. They are protecting their business while determining if there is potential business to be made. The alternative is they protect the business and make no product at all.
My point is that if to decide to market something, you do it the best way possible so that go gain as much as you can of the situation.
The fact that there were no plans for convenant a week ago should not impact on the current marketing of the product.
Given a working product,
Bad marketing leads to a product that is not self sufficiant
Good marketing leads to a succesfull product
Great marketing leads to an overwhelming responce for the product
Where do you think metacreator stand right now ?
I thnik it's marketing strategy improoved lately with added visibility on the atlas website & books but I yet to see a copy of it sold with the core edition or any supplements.
I have other pointers but right now I have to go pick up my wife...
W
William,
IF you would like to see Metacreator support Covenants for your use, I'd say at this juncture the best thing to do is preorder the Covenants book. Assuming it hits 50 preorders, Covenants is guaranteed and you can then purchase Metacreator and the Ars 5th combination, secure in your knowledge that your campaign is going to work within the Ars 5th core and Covenants. There may just be a desire to keep things as simple as possible on Alter Ego's side - it is after all a small, and possibly part-time, business.
Vrylakos
What Vrylakos said. You only lose the little bit of time of going back to AE's site and downloading the Metacreator&ArM5 package if you order Covenants now, no loss of money or a big hassle.
True.
It would have been nice to see an all in one packgage for Ars, sspecially since I want it all on one CD.
I still maintain it would be a good idea.
W
I figure more options is always a good idea. For whatever reason, it seems to be one not on the table at this time, but at least we can preorder in hopes of getting the functionality that we want and then expect a refund if it falls through. A little bit more trouble, but with luck we'll all win in the end.
Vrylakos
Agreed.
I find that 50 pre-orders is pretty low. I would have imagined that it would be someting more in the 500-1000 range. 50 orders garanties about 250$ which is not much.
I wonder how many copies of the Arsmagica template they have sold.
Anyhow, let us just be happy that it will probably be created & that metacreator will still be here for Ars fans.
W
Many well made, hardcover RPG books, core rulesbooks, don't even sell 500 copies. I'm thinking the number of MC: Ars5 templates sold, a supplemental work that requires some technical expertise to use, is a lot less than 500.
So here's hoping that 50 orders gets tallied up post haste!
Vrylakos
Ok, folks... things have slowed down a good deal:
23 preorders as of today.
Shake the Ars Magica tree! Tell friends about it who might not catch the info online! 37 more preorders...
Vrylakos
I would gladly make a Covenants preorder, too, as of now, but I apparently can't find the right address to do it, either on the publisher's site or on RPGnow. Could someone please post the correct link ??
Moreover (this is for the publisher), does meeting the ransom requirements for Covenants mean that they will make a template for Mystery Cults, too, or will it require another ransom ??
I hereby state my full intent to buy templates for all ArM character sourcebooks (including, but not limited, to Divine, Infernal, Mystery Cults, Covenants, and Mysteries Revised), as soon as given the opportunity.
Please, head me to the right place to help breathe life in Covenants 
Right here.
I suspect it would be another ransom, tough if Covenants doesn't sell, there is little hope to ever see Mystery Cults.
Right here.
Thank you. I've done the right thing and bought a copy, registering my interest in Mystery Cults in the comments section of the order. I suggest all those who are interest in getting HoH:MC support as well, to do the same.
Agreed, if everyone jumps on and clearly says they want Mystery Cultsas they buy Covenants the blip will continued to be noticed. The Ars Community is small, but we can make our money matter! If this fails to merit interest, there's likely no chance that future products will follow.
Quite frankly, and I apologise if others don't feel the same, I'd pay substantially more than $8 for each Ars MC expansion. Maybe even as high as $8.50...
No, seriously, for what we get and the utility we get, that's worth more.
I'm glad to see the interest, fellow Ars Magica fans! For niche products, I'm betting the ransom model is a good way to make sure the desire for the product is out there before investing time into its creation.
I'd also pay a bit more for Metacreator supplements. The more rules crunchy ones like Mystery Cults and Covenants demand more programming, while others are not so involved.
In any case, I'm hoping we're nearing 30+ preorders. Last I heard it was 23...
Vrylakos
Are you willing to pay $15.90? You could buy two copies....
I've just tested MC. It's really nice, but I fear all the management work would fall on the SG (me!) if I purchased it. Right now, it is distributed among the players. How does it go for you? I'm not so inclined to buy extensions and extensions to match the sourcebooks too.
As the main SG for our group, I do manage a lot of the character progression through MC. But, I've decided I want to farm some of the management out so one guy is picking up the library and stores and another is looking after money and morale.
In fact, I think I have the easy job at the moment because MC makes my life easy. I'm hoping that the Covenants expansion will help the others in what they have to do.
And of course, it goes without saying that we each manage out magi characters through the app so the effort is pretty well distributed.
If you've got a solid group that plays a lot of Ars, and has embraced the troupe style of play - with beta storyguides and so on, I believe Alter Ego offers a package deal of some kind for groups that want to have Metacreator used by multiple people in the group. I can't remember any details, but it's something that a few groups might dig.
I can see if there's more info out there, if you like...
Vrylakos