Let the Pillaging Commence!

[Agent 333]

MartialIX was quoting one of their best known songs, "Should I Stay or Should I Go". Hence, the reference... sigh.

[MartialIX]

Wait.  That song existed before "Rock Band"?

I'm kidding.  Promise.

</hijack>

[Crafty_Pat]

What's Clash?

Wait.  That song existed before "Rock Band"?

Owie. 

That hurt my soul. 

[Crafty_Pat]

Sparks's departure?  Was that a typo, or did I miss something major?  Goodchilde died and LeVan started The Phage, but did Nathan leave the Banshee?

And if so, is there going to be a complete turnover in leadership?  Poole's "gone", Sparks ?left?, it's probably about time for The Orphan to step into a new role...

Part of the first arc of the storyline involved this sort of chaos at the higher ranks, but the fiction never got that far. Sparks, for instance, gains a very personal mission at the end of Extinction Agenda that sends him on a private cover operation of his own design. At the time of the RPG - shortly after the climax of the first arc - Sandman's in charge.

Since the core book doesn't deal with the heroic Factions in anything other than broad strokes, this wasn't appropriate information for that release. It'll all be in the Flags though.

[Agent 333]

What's Clash?

Wait.  That song existed before "Rock Band"?

Owie. 

That hurt my soul. 

You and me both, Pat. You and me both.

[Psion]

I like holes.

I like ideas.

You don't want to tell me what the deep dark secret is in some part of your setting? Fine.

Give me 3 options.

Speaking of which, I haven't had a chance to exhaustively read yet, but: I'm satisfied with the level of depth behind the Eternals, but I'd like to know more about Paradox. Been killed multiple times by Beowulf? What's up with that? Just not something I've read yet? Or something being saved for the Flags?

[MDL]

I forgot where I saw it mentioned, but I seem to recall reading that in the various versions of the WoF backstory(initial CCG plan versus WoF sourcebook for instance), the nature of Paradox has shifted somewhat.  Originally Paradox was essentially an individual, but now a faction with various individuals who are all Paradox.  I recall somebody making a Dread Pirate Roberts franchise type comparison.

I suspect I'm remembering this from something on one of the Living Spycraft mailing lists or similar, probably discussing the mission packs that related to core WoF story points...

[Crafty_Pat]

I like holes.

I like ideas.

You don't want to tell me what the deep dark secret is in some part of your setting? Fine.

Give me 3 options.

Rest assured that every bit of information I have about the setting either went into the core book or will go into a Flag or supporting document. I'm not holding back; everything's there. Now, there are some holes in my understanding of the setting, in a few cases because I missed them but mostly because I consciously chose not to fill them in. GCs are constantly asking for this kind of treatment from our setting writers, so with this one we strove to give it to them.

World on Fire won't be featuring multiple-choice background. It's not that kind of world. Everything's in there for a particular purpose and there's only one assumed story, albeit one that's highly modular and easily adjusted.

And for the record, I wouldn't build a deep, dark secret into a setting and then avoid putting it out there. I mean, what's the point? Where's the satisfaction for me, the reader, or the player? No thanks. I'd say I dropped about half the setting's deep, dark secrets in the core book and all the ones that are critical to play in the overall setting are in there. Everything else is particular (or peculiar) to a certain faction, so it's being reserved for those releases.

Speaking of which, I haven't had a chance to exhaustively read yet, but: I'm satisfied with the level of depth behind the Eternals, but I'd like to know more about Paradox. Been killed multiple times by Beowulf? What's up with that? Just not something I've read yet? Or something being saved for the Flags?

Never fear! Paradox is one of the planned Flags, as it's more a heroic faction than anything else.

[Nyarlathotep]

I should however mention an odd problem - when I am printing the file in Acrobat 8 the program crashes when ever it reaches the pages in the mid-eighties. Even trying to print those pages separately brings it down. This only happens with Acrobat 8, which makes me glad that I still have Acrobat 7 installed. (Yes, you can have both, thank the gods. )

The printer involved is a Brother HL 2040 laser printer that I got for $50 near Christmas. After I get a new cartridge for my older HP laser printer I will try it again on that, but I think the problem lies in Acrobat Reader 8. I have had other issues with it, involving older DRM protected documents. It also pages much, much faster under 7. Number 8 does not much like WoF at all.  It may have to do with 8 being optimized for Vista, which I am avoiding like the plague Bubonic. I will take a look to see how it runs on the laptop tomorrow, which came with Vista (I need to get another copy of XP for my laptop.)

I got the same thing also. Reader 8.1, XP Pro SP1, Samsung CLP-510 printer. Cannot print page 95-96, but everything else worked. I'll have to try finding an older copy of Reader, because I get this with almost all protected PDFs I buy.

[Crafty_Pat]

I got the same thing also. Reader 8.1, XP Pro SP1, Samsung CLP-510 printer. Cannot print page 95-96, but everything else worked. I'll have to try finding an older copy of Reader, because I get this with almost all protected PDFs I buy.

Huh. I'd love to know what's causing this, so if anyone out there with Acrobat knowledge can shed some light on it, by all means...

[Agent 333]

It's simple really. If you'll notice, the upgrades that came with Acrobat Reader 8.0 were:

Enhanced slowness.
Harder to find bookmark button.
Processor requirement increase.
FailRight(tm) Crash Inducer.


Seriously, I can't see anything good about 8+, and I really wish I still had 7...

[TheAuldGrump]

Actually, the biggest change was in how they handle 'Digital Editions' - since even Adobe got sick and tired of the DRM on Acrobat 7....

Otherwise 7 is vastly superior.

Agent 333 - if you really want version 7 of Acrobat Reader then it can be found at Old Version (motto: Because Newer Is Not Always Better). It is where I got it when I needed Acrobat 7 to read some older DRM protected Fantasy Flight PDFs.

The Auld Grump

[Agent 333]

Grump, I'm well aware that there were actual upgrades I was just being, well Grumpy. You don't hold the patent on it you know. Thanks for the link!

[Salsa]

Btw where do I get all the fiction around the CCG. I know I can't find anything at AEG's website, so I suppose you guys could light things up for me.


omg... The Day the Earh Stood Still is airing on TV...

[Crafty_Pat]

Btw where do I get all the fiction around the CCG. I know I can't find anything at AEG's website, so I suppose you guys could light things up for me.

As it happens, I'm rereading it now as part of my World on Fire Flags work. The process is partly to make sure I catch all the details that still need to go into the final products, but also because we intend to release them soon-ish. They'll be part of what we've got planned to support the line.