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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by EltonJ on Today at 11:13:53 AM »
Quote from: pawsplay on May 28, 2024, 05:04:58 PM
Quote from: EltonJ on May 28, 2024, 12:25:51 PM
I certainly agree with Pastaav.  A kickstarter can be the wrong strategy for Iron Crown Enterprises right now.  When I worked on Phaeselis so long ago, I had no budget and DAZ Studio.  I chose to work on it as a wiki, since publishing through Drivethru was something I couldn't do.  I could do some art myself, being a 3D artist at the time.  i thought of doing a kickstarter many times, but lacked the resources to do it.

So let me see if I'm understanding this correctly. You decided not to run a Kickstarter, and thereafter failed to publish your game. What are you blaming on Kickstarter?

No, I'm not blaming kickstarter for anything.  I just didn't have the resources to publish using kickstarter. :)
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by pastaav on Today at 07:49:27 AM »
Quote from: pawsplay on May 28, 2024, 05:07:05 PM
There is no reason you have to run the Kickstarter in the middle of project. You can create the whole game, then run the Kickstarter at the end, and buy good art. In fact, that is probably the most common approach these days.

They could have done that and I would be among those that this day complain that I cannot run RMU at all while we wait for the last book to be finished.

We are having this discussion because Ironcrown made the hard commercial descissions to do partial releases. Something that comes with a lot of risks and has forced them to do a number of tradeoffs. Time will tell if was the right choice and none of your objections are objectively sure to the decissive from what we know now.
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by pastaav on Today at 07:39:47 AM »
Quote from: pawsplay on May 28, 2024, 05:01:44 PM
Quote from: pastaav on May 28, 2024, 12:09:00 PM

I simply took your suggested art budget of $6000 for a book and multiplied by 5 to cover all the books.

So you took a number at the top end of what I suggested, then applied the whole budget to cover art instead of the whole book, and multiplied it by five for books that haven't been published yet. Okay.

I never been talking about just the cover art and I cannot comprehend how you think that ICE could assume any level of sales before all 5 books are out. Of course they must budget for art for every book in case the first books doesn't start to sell very well because the system is incomplete.

We now know that the core book sells strongly with the current art and that Ironcrown probably could have aimed for more impressing/expensive art, but hindsight is 20/20. They did not have a crystal ball and made the commercial descissions they dared to make. There are plenty of arguments in the thread about why those descissions was not as trivial as you claim.

I suggest you reread the thread and think about you have something really new to add to the matter or if you are just rehashing the same argument.
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by DerGraumantel on Today at 06:41:25 AM »
Ok, I will also say my piece.
* Some of the art is fine.
* The page making/layout is the real problem. Drop shadow on the tables? All art is in a box? Those fonts? Most rules are not fitted tightly to the page size.

When I look at the FRP Core Rules, I see great art by Wayne Reynolds, Paul Jaquays, Kent Burles and Angus McBride set in the right place. Nice Header fonts. One profession per page. One race per page. Most rules tightly formulated to fit exactly on a double page, which makes later referencing easy. Ok, also tons of not so great art:)

I get that Fenlon/Charlton ICE was a real company and not a hobby project, I mean these guys run Catan now($$$).
Still the design elements and decisions made are not optimal. The best art should be the art for the races and professions, since that is what comes into contact with most people.

Many of these pieces are, how to put it, horrible, only the Dwarves and the Hvasstonn seem usable. Maybe black and white art would have been the way to go.

The layout looks like something done in Word by 9th grader before co-pilot came out. Many rules cross a page border, the Orc stats are for example on the next double page after the description. In the professions the laborer and the thief are on top of each other on one page, while the warrior monk and the scholar get a column each. The chapter on stats starts in the second column of a page. I could go on forever...

I get this is a labour of love and I don't want to be mean. I still have to point these things out, since Rolemaster really means a lot to me (just found War Law for a good price:)
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by EvilWilliam on Today at 06:37:04 AM »
Quote from: Dean7777 on Today at 04:17:42 AM
Hello there, I am writing here because despite of the game itself that for different reasons we love somehow, it is obvious that the art is very poor in Rolemaster Unified

It's really not obvious to me: the art seems suitable for the sort of marketing and the look and feel they were going for.  They do the job of brightening the page, and depicting gaming situations.  Clearly, they didn't want a dark world or a painted look (POD constraints might have featured in the colouring decisions, but that for me gives them an old four-colour comics feel). 

I think the naivity is deliberate: if it's not your cup of tea it's not.
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by Dean7777 on Today at 04:17:42 AM »
Hello there, I am writing here because despite of the game itself that for different reasons we love somehow, it is obvious that the art is very poor in Rolemaster Unified and in my opinion it does few to expand the community of players because a rol game that appeals to the imagination needs the right dosis of appealing art to do so. So simple so real. It's a must, and it's sad that Rolemaster cares of it. The effort to make RMU real deserves it and if an economic effort was needed it would be well paid because once the books are out what can be done? Really, now all seems to be simple in rolegames, Rolemaster should not be never this way because offers and advanced way to play as unique, but,  art should be evocatively superlative!. Salutations
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by pawsplay on May 28, 2024, 05:07:05 PM »
Quote from: pastaav on May 28, 2024, 12:09:00 PM
Of course, if the kickstarter had given enough money to be able to pay the freelancers to skip their daytime job the release schedule could be  made much more user friendly but that requires a very different scale of money. Essentially it require hiring the freelancers as full time employee, but only for a very limited time. If the person is really sure they can get their old job back afterward, they might consider it but myself I would require lots more than $100 each hour even complement to accept such offer.

I didn't respond to this before, but I meant to.

There is no reason you have to run the Kickstarter in the middle of project. You can create the whole game, then run the Kickstarter at the end, and buy good art. In fact, that is probably the most common approach these days.
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by pawsplay on May 28, 2024, 05:04:58 PM »
Quote from: EltonJ on May 28, 2024, 12:25:51 PM
I certainly agree with Pastaav.  A kickstarter can be the wrong strategy for Iron Crown Enterprises right now.  When I worked on Phaeselis so long ago, I had no budget and DAZ Studio.  I chose to work on it as a wiki, since publishing through Drivethru was something I couldn't do.  I could do some art myself, being a 3D artist at the time.  i thought of doing a kickstarter many times, but lacked the resources to do it.

So let me see if I'm understanding this correctly. You decided not to run a Kickstarter, and thereafter failed to publish your game. What are you blaming on Kickstarter?
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by pawsplay on May 28, 2024, 05:01:44 PM »
Quote from: pastaav on May 28, 2024, 12:09:00 PM

I simply took your suggested art budget of $6000 for a book and multiplied by 5 to cover all the books.

So you took a number at the top end of what I suggested, then applied the whole budget to cover art instead of the whole book, and multiplied it by five for books that haven't been published yet. Okay.

Anyway, for those saying art isn't the deciding factor... I think this is the first time it ever has been for me. Maybe it's just me. In that case, carry on. That sucks for me, but there are plenty of other games out there.
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Rolemaster / Re: Rolemaster Unified art: what happened?
« Last post by EltonJ on May 28, 2024, 12:25:51 PM »
I certainly agree with Pastaav.  A kickstarter can be the wrong strategy for Iron Crown Enterprises right now.  When I worked on Phaeselis so long ago, I had no budget and DAZ Studio.  I chose to work on it as a wiki, since publishing through Drivethru was something I couldn't do.  I could do some art myself, being a 3D artist at the time.  i thought of doing a kickstarter many times, but lacked the resources to do it.
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