Just saw the message about a potential price increase for Ars next year. I've been impressed with the $20.00 softbound books white wolf has released for Vampire recently. Now I doubt we're going to see $20.00 Ars books anytime soon. On the other hand a hardbound 140 page book has always felt a bit excessive to me.
Realistically would softbound books work in the current distribution system? Is there enough of a price difference to make softbound distribution viable? I'm assuming there were good reason to go from softbound in the 4th edition to hardbound in the 5th. I realize the folks at Atlas need to eat but hardback novels are around $22-25, would be nice of the price point of supplements stayed somewhere around hardback level.
I'm not familiar with the books you describe. If you have one to hand could you tell me how many pages it has, and ifthe font size is comparable to the Ars books?
Those seem to have some fancy layout work, and some occasional 'novel/pretty' interior sections that border on the 'padding the wagon' area. There's a lot of waster space between blank areas and half/ful-page art. They look nice, and of good quality, but the info density is not as high as Ars IMO. In fact, most of the book is background, fiction, or fluff.
Ventrue: page 73,
101, 118-119... etc. etc.
Info is scare on those pages.
Rules fu is harder to write than fiction, or background info, IMO. They are interesting reads, and worth 20 bucks, but an Ars book that had the same ratio of fluff/fiction/background/rules would not be worth it to me, as Ars does not rely so much on player engrossment with setting details, as far as I can tell.
This is a very unpleasant news because a $35.89 book in America cost EURO 35.89 in Italy instead of Euro 24 circa. I need to win a jackpot to play Ars Magica (and other RPGs too)
Speaking for myself, I prefer the hard covers...Gaming books take a beating, and the covers protect the pages from curling and worse..They also look better...
Make mine Hard Cover, and I'll take a side of Herbam with some Aquam to wash it down...
I was a bit shocked by your report of prices in Italy, as here in Germany ich manage to get the ~30$ books for less than 24 € including delivery, and the conditions for the retailers (taxes, shipping from the US) are aproximately comparable. So I quickly checked the Italian IT-stores. Dragonstore seems to offer the stuff for ~25€ now, so a 36$ book should cost about 30€ then. True, they take at least 5 € for delivery, but that's usually less of a problem if you bundle your roleplay-shopping and wait until there are two or three articles that you really want to have. Probably there are stores with less extreme prices for delivery anyway, but as my understanding of Italian is only derived from Latin and rudimentary French and Spanish, I didn't continue my search. Anyway, if your local retailer really charges ~1€ for 1$, then you should just mail-order the stuff.
Yeah, i know what you mean, here in Sweden the books range from 268 to 358 SEK, ie roughly 35$US to 50$US...
Personally i have used British Spirit games for that a few times, but its a serious problem if ever you get any kind of problem with the shipment if its from outside the border.
Sometimes, like my dealings with Leadtek in Holland, it works out perfectly fine, but it still took several months of back and forth, even though they were extremely nice and helpful and trying to fix everything the best way possible asap.
A friend of mine once dealt with a company in UK for similar reason and lets just say it wasnt anywhere near as happy as my own example above.
Where i buy from normally, i know they´re trustworthy, i know they will take care of it asap if something is wrong, but above all, i can simply call them up and talk to them if need be, or in extreme case i can go there even if its a fullday thing there and back.
Spirit games is the best mail order i found sofar, but its still an extra level of complexity where things can go wrong, regardless how good the store itself is.
I am fortunate not to have to deal with international delays and charges. I am also happy to pay the price increase for Ars Magica - the quality of the product is just that good.
That said, if the international customer base has that much difficulty getting the books, maybe an extra dollar of the price increase could be utilized to strengthen Atlas' distribution channel. I am not familiar with it at all, of course, but if a portion of the price increase can support the hobby abroad, and in turn make Atlas more revenue so they can keep developing products - count me in. Plus, it has the nice side effect of a better, broader and happier Ars community.
Still haven't it, nor Arts & Academe
My Game Store had some problems with one of their suppliers (who just stopped distributing Ars Magica, they wouldn't have seen it if not for me ), and the one supposed to take over is taking its time
Thank you for your precious help but let me explain my past experience. It is true that Dragonstore offers the new stuff for ~25€ now but has a very bad delivery service, often delayed for various problems and with a final cost superior of the 5€ promised... The local shop in my city do not sell Ars Magica because it has a very little audience and prefers to sell D&D
They got RoP: Magic at last (a friend is retrieving it for me, since I don't have the time to make the trip now), I hope things will be smoother in the future. I don't want to order by internet, since I prefer to help a local game store to live, but it is hard to wait.
