Amanda-Cha'at wrote:As I have told you guys, I travel a lot between Israel and Denmark and I love PDFs instead of hardback books. Do you know if there is a PDF of Lemuria? It would simplify everything for me, I hate to have books with me when I travel as they take up so much space and weight.
I have been looking at DriveThroughRPG, but all I found was the Preview
Yes, there is, but only for the people who participated in the Megaverse Insider offer. As far as I know, it is not for sale now.
Head of Northern Gun Research and Development
"I'm ready man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State-of-the-badass-art!" - Private Hudson, ALIENS (1986).
I really wanted Lemuria (sunken llegendary places area nerd-thing for me), but if this is the way Palladium Books wants it, then who am I to say differently. Most probably it will not make me support this company any more as I cant afford to buy all books at almost the double cost (postage & packing). So I guess it is time for me to start looking for another game instead that actually makes PDFs as well as books.
But $20-25 a book, for poorly edited books was kinda a turn-off for me any way. So I guess that I will be hanging out on the forums, but I will not buy more books from this company until they put out PDFs of the books that I want.
I agree with you that PB needs to release everything in PDF (I like both options: real books and PDFs). Wizards of the Coast is going to release EVERYTHING D&D next year (2013); they went out of the PDF thing because of piracy concerns but they are coming back (they are loosing MONEY and fans to Pathfinder). Who knows, perhaps next year PB will do the same. Sadly, most of PB stuff is already being "shared" illegally on torrent sites!.
Head of Northern Gun Research and Development
"I'm ready man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State-of-the-badass-art!" - Private Hudson, ALIENS (1986).
Amanda-Cha'at wrote:My father collects things for Traveller (old GDW and now Mongoose), and every time he buys a book, he automatically gets a free PDF. That is service. I mean it is not that the company lose money if they offer a free PDF when you buy the book.
I like that. But regarding PB we must play the "waiting game".
Head of Northern Gun Research and Development
"I'm ready man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State-of-the-badass-art!" - Private Hudson, ALIENS (1986).
personally i love to have all my palladium books on my ipad, but somehow i think the company will fold before that happens
Ravenwing wrote:"Killing Dbee's isn't murder, they aren't human, it's pest control!"
Zardoz wrote:You have been raised up from Brutality, to kill the Brutals who multiply, and are legion. To this end, Zardoz your God gave you the gift of the Gun. The Gun is good!
Amanda-Cha'at wrote:Well, to be honest, I have the books I really need: RUE, SB1R, VK1 and VK1R and Atlantis. I would have liked to buy SA1-SA2, and Lemuria, but it was only Lemuria that actually was important for me. So until that one come out as PDF (if ever) I will stop buying to this game. I have what I need in my imagination and from wikipedia about myths and legends from all over the world.
Though I start to understand why three of the major RPG stores in Copenhagen & Malmoe does not cater Palladium Books, there is a growing demand for PDF versions of RPGs here and today I was told that: "Even if you ask us to order stuff for you, it will be 1) very expensive with postage and packing, 2) we can not set a date on when it might arrive as we have been getting the wrong dates from PB before, and 3) we do not know if said books will be sent from Palladium Books because: It is a small company, with little money, expensive and poorly written books, it is not certain that said products actually is printed even if their webpage says that it is."
This sucks.
Lemuria goes hand in hand with Underseas and Coalition Navy (I recommend you the three books; as a matter of fact, Lemuria is my new favorite book from RIFTS! I live in Uruguay, South America and there are no RPG Stores, so I order online. Why don´t you do the same? (Palladium Books website and NobleKnight.com are my favorites shops). About "the wrong dates from PB", it only happens with preorders or backorders...the other books arrive ALWAYS in a timely fashion. "Expensive and poorly written books", hahaha, with all due respect: the books are not expensive (check the prices of other RPGs in NobleKnight.com and compare them yourself) and are not poorly written
Head of Northern Gun Research and Development
"I'm ready man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State-of-the-badass-art!" - Private Hudson, ALIENS (1986).
Amanda-Cha'at wrote:Well, to be honest, I have the books I really need: RUE, SB1R, VK1 and VK1R and Atlantis. I would have liked to buy SA1-SA2, and Lemuria, but it was only Lemuria that actually was important for me. So until that one come out as PDF (if ever) I will stop buying to this game. I have what I need in my imagination and from wikipedia about myths and legends from all over the world.
Though I start to understand why three of the major RPG stores in Copenhagen & Malmoe does not cater Palladium Books, there is a growing demand for PDF versions of RPGs here and today I was told that: "Even if you ask us to order stuff for you, it will be 1) very expensive with postage and packing, 2) we can not set a date on when it might arrive as we have been getting the wrong dates from PB before, and 3) we do not know if said books will be sent from Palladium Books because: It is a small company, with little money, expensive and poorly written books, it is not certain that said products actually is printed even if their webpage says that it is."
This sucks.
Lemuria goes hand in hand with Underseas and Coalition Navy (I recommend you the three books; as a matter of fact, Lemuria is my new favorite book from RIFTS! I live in Uruguay, South America and there are no RPG Stores, so I order online. Why don´t you do the same? (Palladium Books website and NobleKnight.com are my favorites shops). About "the wrong dates from PB", it only happens with preorders or backorders...the other books arrive ALWAYS in a timely fashion. "Expensive and poorly written books", hahaha, with all due respect: the books are not expensive (check the prices of other RPGs in NobleKnight.com and compare them yourself) and are not poorly written
I try to buy online, I found the VK (original) on E-bay for $2 so that one i bought. Then I must see to my economy, i am not yet old enough to have a work, so I have a limited amount i can spend each month on stuff, including buy clothes, be out with friends, go to theatre and buy RPG books and spend on fun things with my boyfriend, not to mention travels to him. So when the postage and packing are almost as expensive as a book, then I seriously doubt that it will be worth it.
International freight through Palladium is between $20-$40. For a $20 book, I'm sure you can understand the issue.
The ironic part is that people like myself do pay those absurd shipping rates proving I am quite happy paying 200% to 300% of what Palladium is charging for a book. If they smartened up and cut out the middle man (Mr. Postman) they could be getting away with charging similar rates for PDFs.
palladium seems to have a tendency to make books available as PDF once they've gone out of print. it's unfortunate that it seems to be the only way to get them to publish to PDF, but if you wait long enough, it may actually be made available in PDF format... just not likely to be soon (but then again, maybe one of these days kevin will realize that PDF products mean no printing costs, which means that he needs less money in the bank to produce the books... that said, he's already like 10 years behind the curve on that one, so don't hold your breath).
International freight through Palladium is between $20-$40. For a $20 book, I'm sure you can understand the issue.
The ironic part is that people like myself do pay those absurd shipping rates proving I am quite happy paying 200% to 300% of what Palladium is charging for a book. If they smartened up and cut out the middle man (Mr. Postman) they could be getting away with charging similar rates for PDFs.
Yikes! No wonder she want's it in PDF. That's rediculous.
I really wanted Lemuria (sunken legendary places are a nerd-thing for me), but if this is the way Palladium Books wants it, then who am I to say differently. Most probably it will not make me support this company any more as I cant afford to buy all books at almost the double cost (postage & packing). So I guess it is time for me to start looking for another game instead that actually makes PDFs as well as books.
But $20-25 (+20 P&P) a book, for poorly edited books was kinda a turn-off for me any way. So I guess that I will be hanging out on the forums, but I will not buy more books from this company until they put out PDFs of the books that I want.
May I suggest contacting PB directly inquiring about a special purchase of the PDF version as the shipping costs overseas are discouraging you from a purchase? I do not know if they would do it, but it does not hurt to try.
Might also want to save up for the Xmas Grabbag (if they ship them overseas I don't recall) since the cost is ~US $40 (IIRC) plus shipping and one usually gets a 2:1 (or better) return. They usually start in late Oct, but there is no guarantee you'll get the books you want (it's a grabbag, but you do generate a list of "wants" which they work off of).
Amanda. Buy Christmas grab bags. They are a great value. If you can buy 3 of them you will get about a dozen books and pay for postage only once. I have rebuilt my entire collection this way.
Sureshot wrote:Listen you young whippersnappers in my day we had to walk for 15 no 30 miles to the nearest game barefoot both ways. We had real books not PDFS and we carried them on carts we pulled ourselves that we built by hand. We had Thaco and we were happy. If we needed dice we carved ours out of wood. Petrified wood just because we could.
For the PDFs, as I and others have said in other threads, PB might eventually do it. Right now 98% of the PDFs they offer through drivethrrpg.com are out of print titles with the exception of the older Rifters (which tend to about about 6-8 issues behind as well).
PB did just start offering PDFs of new books as Megaversal Insider (MI) offers, first with Lemuria which is nice (I got that way) and now with Northern Gun 1 & 2 (I also got in on those PDFs). PB may at some future point just start offering PDFs of their new books and their current cataloge. I would not hold your breath. It took them something in the area of 3-6 years of "we are looking at it and studying out options, but any company who has ever offered an ebook or PDF has gone out of business and had it stolen a trillion times!!!!" before they even offered it as an MI offer with continued "we are still looking at it".
If I had to wager a guess, expect that situation to continue for AT LEAST another year. Possibly/probably 2-3 more years before they might finally dump a load on that toilet and start offering all of their books as PDFs (or they might drop PDFs entirely for some innane reason).
I too wish they'd go the PDF route. Especially if the price was slightly lower than the printed book, but still maintained PBs margins once you cut out any costs for printing and possible warehousing/handling. I have too many books on my shelves as it is and need to downsize my collection, especially before I move. I did this with my regular books, but I need to do it with my RPG books as well. I'd love to be able to (legally) get PDF copies of a couple of dozen of PB's current cataloge so that I could do this. If not I might just have to get rid of the books anyway.
Also there are a lot of books PB comes out with that I am mildly interested in, but again I can't clutter my house with any more books unless they are REALLY "important" and also a little lower price would interest me for. For example, HU2 and Robotech I'd probably buy if PDFs were offered, but I won't buy the printed books both for space and price reasons since I don't and wouldn't play either game line, a little cheaper and no space issues and sure I'd probably buy some of them.
I also really wish PB would at least take the step of offering the Rifter as a PDF only subscription option. First off, I'd bet it would save PB a lot of money. A current 1 year, 4 issue subscription in the US I think is basically $40. I know media mail is pretty cheap, but I think it still comes out vaguely near $1.50-2 per book for something as small/light as the rifter...so shifting to PDF would save PB somewhere in the $6-8 (if not more) per year, per subscription in shipping costs. Then there are the printing costs which I also assume are probably at least $1-2 per book. So if PB kept the price the same for a PDF subscription, I'd assume/imagine they could go from maybe making $20 per subscription per year, to $40 per subscription per year, or offer the PDF subscription at a slight discount, like $35 a year or something, and still be making more money off it (and also get me to keep a steady subscription instead of just buying the occasional Rifter or once in a blue moon getting a subscription for a year).
Greyaxe wrote:Amanda. Buy Christmas grab bags. They are a great value. If you can buy 3 of them you will get about a dozen books and pay for postage only once. I have rebuilt my entire collection this way.
I am not interested in other lines of PB games. I just want a few books (Like Lemuria, South America 1-2) the rest, I can imagine up. There are many things that I wish to do with Rifts Earth without me feeling to tied to the canon. I like to imagine up new places and having 30 + world books makes the grey dots on the world map so much smaller. Instead I just want enough books to start up and the rest will be from my own imagination.
if your order is large enough you can counter act the shipping price (IIRC) Pally charges a flat ship rate for International orders and thus if you drop say $100 USD on books (at $20 to $25 USD per book thats only 4 or 5) you still only get charged $40 for shipping (or something like that I think) this would meet your requirements would it not?
DM is correct by the way. - Ninjabunny It's a shoddy carpenter who blames his tools. - Killer Cyborg Every group has one problem player. If you cannot spot the one in your group; look in the mirror. It is not a good session until at least one player looks you in the eye and says "you sick twisted evil ****"
well that is understandable. I am not a PDF user (for many reasons) but it is a direction I would like to see Palladium expand intoi (if for no other reason than your very situation.) Unfortunately at this time we can only have patience where that technology is concerned with Palladium. Ranting and Raving about it (not saying you are; but there are a select few who dont know when to let well enough alone) wont speed up the process any (and is more likely to slow it down).
DM is correct by the way. - Ninjabunny It's a shoddy carpenter who blames his tools. - Killer Cyborg Every group has one problem player. If you cannot spot the one in your group; look in the mirror. It is not a good session until at least one player looks you in the eye and says "you sick twisted evil ****"
To the OP your not the only one. I refuse to crowdsource any of their books because I have by the PDf in the allotted time. Which is not something I can always do. Sad part is you can find any of their books online if you look hard enough. I still don't see how not offering PDfs of new books is going to reduce priacy. Anyway vote with your wallet. Plenty of other rpg on the market with companies that have more buisness sense to offer both print and pdf.
If it's stupid and it works. It's not stupid
Palladium can't be given a free pass for criticism because people have a lot of emotion invested in it.
Pathfinder is good. It is not the second coming of D&D.
Surshot is absolutely right. (Kevin Seimbeda)
Enlightened Grognard
When I step out of line the mods do their jobs. I don't benefit from some sort of special protection.
You cannot find any of the newer books (as of around 2-3yrs ago).
At any rate, you could always scan the books yourself and convert them to PDF. If I hadn't run in to some issues with the conversion program I was using (PDFCreator) it would have been a lot faster. Scanning process for Triax 2 took around 5hrs (I did it over the weekend as I have been needing/wanting it in PDF format for awhile. Its maybe the 5 or 6 book I have converted for myself as I use it all the time and wanted it on my iPad). It took around 3hrs to scan all of the pages, crop and save them with photoshop. Then it took around 1hr to convert them all to PDF and a further hour to find a tool to rotate the PDF as PDFCreator insisted on creating a PDF rotated 90 degrees to vertical and pretty much NO ONE makes a workable free tool that will rotate and save a PDF (and PDFCreator won't let you rotate when you save either).
At any rate, with the process ironed out (it had been about 18 months since I scanned in a book), I could probably do another 192pg book in maybe 3 1/2hrs and with better tools maybe 3hrs. If I had cut the bindings it would have looked a little better (you can see the fold/spine on most of the scans and the last 3-5 characters are bowed down/out a little where there is the fold, but it is still very readable on all pages). It also probably would have cut out at least an hour of scan time.
That said...for 3-4hrs of my time, I'd very much rather pay PB $15 or so for a properly scanned/created PDF of the book and save my free time and the hassle (I value my free time a lot less than what I earn at my job, but still, I figure my free time is worth at least $5 an hour plus not filling it with a hassle).
PS No, I will not give anyone the copy, so don't bother asking through PM or otherwise. Buy the book yourself and scan it yourself if you are so inclined. Or, bug PB to just offer a PDF of it.
I don't think this will help for Lemuria however, in the future, if you donate to the "Crowd-source" funding you can guarantee yourself a PDF of a book that you want. Hopefully it'll be a book for which they offer the Crowdsource-offer. Until then, that's your only "legal" method of obtaining a PDF...I think.
Witchcraft wrote:I don't think this will help for Lemuria however, in the future, if you donate to the "Crowd-source" funding you can guarantee yourself a PDF of a book that you want. Hopefully it'll be a book for which they offer the Crowdsource-offer. Until then, that's your only "legal" method of obtaining a PDF...I think.
Other than making your own as Azazel just mentioned but Amanda has already expressed the fact that she is unwilling to damage/immortalize her books so that isn't an option for her.
I do apologize for the concerns in acquiring PDFs or more being availed for PB titles. "IF" PB is to produce more PDF availability, I would think it would be due to growing demand for PDFs and PDF sales to prove it. I would love to see PDFs availed for all PB titles but at what cost towards current publication's production?
Lemuria is one of those titles that you don't want to sleep on and I suggest pressing for it in the Christmas grab bag along with your other desired titles as suggested.
Well if they have the same or better profit margin on the PDF, then, within reason, what does it matter if it reduces print demand? Now I could see where if digital demand grew enough that PB was printing at much dimished volumes that the printer would have a higher per book cost, upping print costs on a per unit basis.
That said, it should be relatively easy to do PDFs and maintain or have a higher margin on them, while still offering the PDFs at the same price or lower than print. It also taps a market that PB is not engaged in in any substantial way.
I certainly doubt PB would see thousands of PDF sales upon release of a new book, but it might be a couple of hundred and I'd bet half of them are going to be dual print/PDF. Long term sales could also be in the hundreds for PDFs of a relatively recent book.
It would just be nice to see PB at least attempt offering a PDF of a book that is a new release and not strictly limited to the megaveral insider offer. Just see how it does both short term and long term. See if their pricing mechanism is working correctly, etc. Yes, I get it COULD hurt the company. There is relatively sparse evidence about that it would actually hurt and lots that it could/would help. At any rate I don't think simply offering a PDF through the MI offer is actually testing the waters in anything that relates to PDF sales of a new book (both pre-order, initial sales and long term sales).
I am just saying, PB, please try it soon. THEN judge how it went. Not based on heresay, limited time MI offers or sales of out-of-print books.
Premier wrote:I do apologize for the concerns in acquiring PDFs or more being availed for PB titles. "IF" PB is to produce more PDF availability, I would think it would be due to growing demand for PDFs and PDF sales to prove it. I would love to see PDFs availed for all PB titles but at what cost towards current publication's production?
you might be surprised by just how many people will pay to buy both a PDF *and* a physical copy for something that they really want.
probably not 100% of the people who would buy the physical book, mind you, but it's quite a bit higher than i, at least, would have anticipated.
Amanda-Cha'at wrote:I mean, I will buy all books that are interesting for me IF they exist as PDFs, though I can say with almost a 100% certainty that I will not buy any of those as hard copies/physical books, nor any other books
I am kind of getting to that point to. Rifts Black Market may be one of the last physical books I buy. I will of course make exceptions. I do for almost everything (well, other than really immoral/unethical things).
That said, it is going to take a REALLY interesting book for me to buy any more dead tree. Between space issues and the upsides of having PDF/digital copy I just don't know that I can buy any more physical books (PB or otherwise).
Semi-fortunately Kevin seems like he is going to have MI offers on the more interesting books, so I can at least get those as digital copy (I am signed up for the MI PDF offers for Northern Gun 1 & 2).
I do. I know plenty of people who don't have a very good understanding of technology at all and are uncomfortable with it. Also plenty of people who are even comfortable with it, but are not comfortable embracing change. They like to come up with dozens of reasons why something is a bad idea to justify their feelings. I don't want to say that is how Kevin/PB is, but everything I have heard from them in the past seems to indicate that. Oh, they like trying some new things, but they don't like shifting paradigms.
Amanda-Cha'at wrote:I just do not understand the technophobic nature of Palladium Books.
You and me both sometimes you and me both. Piracy is imo a valid yet not that valid reason because the pirated PDFs are out there. Where anyone who wants to get them and not give PB a dime can do so. It's like they want to make money yet with a certain range of strict conditions. I'm still a fan yet want nothing to do with the MI offers because of the draconina PDf only MI policy. I want to buy the PDF when I want whenever I want.
If it's stupid and it works. It's not stupid
Palladium can't be given a free pass for criticism because people have a lot of emotion invested in it.
Pathfinder is good. It is not the second coming of D&D.
Surshot is absolutely right. (Kevin Seimbeda)
Enlightened Grognard
When I step out of line the mods do their jobs. I don't benefit from some sort of special protection.
The perks to me of having a PDF is I am not filling an entire bookshelf in my townhouse with books. Admittedly it is in my storage room, but that is valuable space to me. Its 1,960sq-ft house including storage room and I need to fit my wife and 3 kids and all THEIR stuff in the same house. So being able to remove a book shelf, or using it for something else would be nice.
A bigger perk for me is that I can then take the books to work with me on my iPad to read on my lunch hour. Not as easy to take the book in and read it on my lunch hour. I like PB, but I am vaguely a closet nerd and more so the work setting I am in it would be a little less professional sitting around reading an RPG book on my lunch hour. On my iPad, no one knows. So that gives me a full hour, 5 days a week in which I can read the books. At home...I am lucky if I have that much time to read. Oh, I might have 2-3hrs before I go to sleep once my kids are to bed, but some of that time is devoted to spending time with my wife, talking, watching a movie or TV, etc. Some of it is its nice to spend time in the same room with her...but I am easily distracted. I can't read while she has the TV on.
So generally that leaves my lunch hours at work (and the occasional down time near the end of the day when most of my coworkers have left already) and maybe 30 minutes or so in bed before going to sleep at night. So if I had a PDF I'd have probably more than 66% more free time in which to read it.
That and if they are cheaper than the physical books, that is a big perk too. If I want to quick reference something from another book it takes a few taps and swipes instead of me having to walk down to my basement, pull the book off the shelf and then go back to where I am reading and put the book back later (or stand around looking something up).
Xmas grab bags are not such a bonus, you pay international shipping on each grab bag even if the real cost is much lower.
I bought 2 grab bags a couple years ago, paid $80 US shipping and both came in one box (with US$24.50 postage paid marked on the corner in red ink by the post office). I don't object to paying for shipping, I object when I'm paying double the price of something because of inflated & exaggerated shipping charges.
<- Banned from Explorers Unlimited for Objecting to EU GM Abuse. Be warned, GMs play favorites, and ignore rule books if it suits them. They also are not afraid to apply the rules to one person in the party but not another. This is FACT, If you need proof I have it. Fight bullying online and everywhere
Not to mention at this point I think we are beyond the whole " will they be profitable won't they" type of argument. I'm going to assume the MI PDF offers did well. It's also pretty standard in the rpg industry to offer both PDf and print. So hopefully we are beyond the stage where they think it's profitable or not. If not no amount of suggestions or posting links to the contrary is going to change. If the company does not want to do the work to convert the books into PDF than they should say so. No way no how are you going to convince anyone that it's a bad idea to offer PDFs. As I said everyone else in the industry offers them. Before anyone says "well it may work for the others guys not PB' I repeat it now is standard practice to offer both print and PDF. In some cases for certain companies only PDF.
If it's stupid and it works. It's not stupid
Palladium can't be given a free pass for criticism because people have a lot of emotion invested in it.
Pathfinder is good. It is not the second coming of D&D.
Surshot is absolutely right. (Kevin Seimbeda)
Enlightened Grognard
When I step out of line the mods do their jobs. I don't benefit from some sort of special protection.
Sureshot wrote:Not to mention at this point I think we are beyond the whole " will they be profitable won't they" type of argument. I'm going to assume the MI PDF offers did well. It's also pretty standard in the rpg industry to offer both PDf and print. So hopefully we are beyond the stage where they think it's profitable or not. If not no amount of suggestions or posting links to the contrary is going to change. If the company does not want to do the work to convert the books into PDF than they should say so. No way no how are you going to convince anyone that it's a bad idea to offer PDFs. As I said everyone else in the industry offers them. Before anyone says "well it may work for the others guys not PB' I repeat it now is standard practice to offer both print and PDF. In some cases for certain companies only PDF.
You convince them by not buying there products until they offer them in the format you want. Vote with your dollars and they will come around.
Only sort of on topic, but the one in the general PB discussion got locked. I find it amussing the discussion over whether or not scanning your own PB books breaks copyright or not.
To clarify, it does NOT, no matter what PB might ask you to do or put legal language in the front of their books. The DMCA which is basically a rider to copyright law makes it illegal to circumvent DIGITAL rights management, even if what you are going to do is fair use. Which frankly is BS in and of itself. That said, photocopying for your own use, scanning and creating a PDF, etc are ALL considered fair use under the copyright act (a physical book has no DRM to circumvent, just like audio CDs have no DRM, DVDs and Blu Rays DO have DRM on them though). A copyright holder CANNOT modify or abridge your rights under copyright law. Which means they CANNOT restrict format shifting for PERSONAL use.
The language as it is stated is correct however. You cannot scan, OCR or reproduce their books for web/internet distribution or viewing. That is more or less correct. You cannot legal distribute them. However, they can't legally prevent you from scanning, OCRing or reproducing it for your OWN private use. That is fair use. Now if you give it to other people, NOW you are breaking the law/copyright law. I am not sure the exact intent of PBs language, but at least as it is written it does read as you can't distribute it. If they meant a broader view, then they would be incorrect. They can't legally prevent that fair use.
Just wanted to throw my 2 cents out there since Severus and a couple of other seem to misunderstand copyright law (and Alex seems like he might also).
Go ahead, scan your books for your personal use. It is fair use under copyright law. Personally, I'd rather save the time and effort and just PAY PB for good quality PDF of the physical books I already own (I won't go the pirated route for PBs books as I want to support them the best I can).
