The Daily Illuminator
January 1 through January 31, 1995
Jan. 31, 1995
We sat down today and talked about releases for the next year ...
not
as a formal schedule-setting meeting, but just "what kind of things
should
we do?" Here's what it boiled down to:
At least a half-dozen new or revised GURPS products, and reprints
of
older ones where they're needed most. But no Fourth Edition GURPS
for
1995. Maybe 1996, maybe not.
Get In Nomine out, really, and support it with a ref screen
and
a couple of supplements.
Keep INWO in print and well supported on the net. Release one
supplementary card set, with an interesting theme, well before
Christmas,
and maybe another one about this time next year.
Release one more new trading-card game before Christmas,
not based
on an existing SJ Games product. (We have several candidates. Time
to
do some development, and later some [gasp] market research.)
Please don't cross-examine for details ... they don't exist yet. This
is just a look at our wish list for 1995 and early 1996.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 30, 1995
The new Casus Belli came today. That's a big French
game magazine,
published by Jeux Descartes. Anyway, they had a Car Wars
article ...
"Oh, Mere-grand...Comme vous avez un gros canon!" Which translates
as
"Oh, grandmother, what a big gun you have!"
Vive la France!
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 29, 1995
Before the big remodeling panic, we received Michael Andre-
Driussi's first
draft of GURPS Book of the New Sun, based on the
award-winning
Gene Wolfe novels. Those of you who read Pyramid will
remember Michael's
excellent article in issue #4. This worldbook promises to be 128
pages of
the same ...
Before long we'll have the playtest draft posted for IO members'
comment. It's
far too soon to guess about a publication date for the book, but
there's at
at least an even chance that it will be in 1995, if the playtesters
like it!
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 28, 1995
Shea Ryan and John Kovalic, two of our three INWO artists, are
here
today, signing press sheets ... and signing, and signing, and signing.
Dan Smith was here a couple of weeks ago for his turn.
Autographing
a thousand press sheets is fun. Kind of. For a while. That's why we do
it
in groups ... misery loves company. Some of the signatures and
notes get a
little weird, but the people who buy these will like it ...
If you don't know about the press sheet auction, hit the INWO
home page and see. Bidding closes Jan. 31 for the first hundred
sheets.
We'll auction 100 more sometime later, but we're going to wait a
while.
Our retailers didn't get advance warning of the first auction, and
some of them really want to bid the second time around.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 27, 1995
Andrew Hartsock, our veteran Print Buyer, is leaving SJ Games to go
back to school. That means we've got a job opening ... If you have
significant experience buying (or selling) book or game printing,
check out my posting on rec.games.board, which goes into much more
detail. Note that experience is necessary ... please, no "Ooooooh,
I wanna work for a game company" mail.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 26, 1995
Scott Haring has been promoted to Managing Editor. He'll continue as
editor of Pyramid Magazine, but he'll be taking some
administrative responsibilities off my hands. For which I am
profoundly
grateful ...
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 24, 1995
Back in the saddle now, kind of ... still not a happy camper, but
better.
Got a letter from eris recommending I eat kim chee. I'd rather be
sick.
Good news from Japan. The translations for the Japanese version of
GURPS
are done by a company named Group SNE, in Kobe. That's right ... the
city that was
flattened by the earthquake. I fired off a fax to Hitoshi Yasuda, their
president. He assures me that his staff and their families are OK.
And he
prods me to finish In Nomine ...
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 21, 1995
Yeccch. Still sick. Spent some time in the office yesterday after
closing,
when I wouldn't breathe on anybody. Getting better, but still not a
happy
camper.
I need to shake this off and get back to work on INWO - the printer
wants the changes to the rules and cards NOW NOW NOW
and
they're not ready. Nor will they BE ready until I finish going through
nearly
3,000 messages on rec.games.trading-cards.misc, giving them some
heavy
thought, and going over them with our INWO braintrust.
You know something? Having a hit on our hands hasn't made life any
calmer. (Awww. Don't everybody feel sorry for me at once.) :-)
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 18, 1995
Yes, I know. Long time no login from Stevie.
No, it wasn't that I was having that much fun at
Dreamation -
though it was a good con. But my connection back to here
was
kind of dicey. If we ever have to set up an account with that New
Jersey
Internet provider again, we'll start a lot more than a week in
advance.
The short report on Dreamation: I had some fun; I got to see the
alpha-test
of a truly impressive LARP system, which ate everybody's minds. (To
the
extent that literally nobody showed up for most of the
convention
panels, because panel attendance was worth no character
points.)
And I got to spend some time talking about future GURPS stuff
with Bob
and Peggy Schroeck (GURPS Werewolf, Mage, IST and
others)
and with Barbara Manui and Chris Adams, creators of
Yamara, who
also want to create a worldbook (no, not for Yamara's world!)
I also spent part of Monday at the American Museum of Natural
History,
and some of my notes will come in very handy when I start going
over
Stephen Dedman's GURPS Dinosaurs manuscript.
And I came down with a flu bug (again!) and got sicker than a dog,
and
haven't done anything useful since Monday night. Yeccch. Modems are
nice; I
can bring you this report without breathing on anyone.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 16, 1995
Steve's still not back from Dreamation (and he didn't send us any
notes
over the weekend -- can only assume he was having way too much
fun...),
so I guess I get to ramble some more.
Things are returning to a semblance of normal. The workers are
pretty
much done upstairs, and those folks are busy unpacking and
reordering
their offices. The paint-and-carpet crew have moved into the
Illuminati
Online part of the building, and it's their turn to work around the
mess.
I have a desk, but no storage shelves or computer, so I continue to
work
at home. Got a nice set-up here: not state of the art, but pretty good.
And the new 28.8 modem I got myself for Christmas makes doing
things like
the Daily Illuminator downright easy.
And modems are quickly becoming a necessary part of any computer
set-up.
One of the trends in computer games I saw at last week's CES was
that
everybody was making sure their new games could support head-to-
head play
over a modem and multiple-player play through a network. It's
become the
cool add-on to re-releases of old games, too. Play-by-modem became
hip
when Hollywood rumors had Steven Spielberg dialing up Robin
Williams for
head-to-head Wing Commander games on a regular
basis. More
gossip as it becomes available.
-- Scott Haring
Jan. 13, 1995
Friday the 13th! Good think I don't have triskaedekaphobia, or however
you spell it... And happy birthday to my sister, who turns 29 for the 6th
straight year.
Got a couple of photos up on the Web from last weekend's Consumer
Electronics Show; Click here to take a look.
Just a couple of photos so far (the office remodeling has slowed us down
considerably); check this space for more photos in the future.
Yes, we're still remodeling. My office got paint and a carpet
this week, and my desk reappeared today. Now where are my files?
-- Scott Haring
Jan. 12, 1995
When at the Consumer Electronics Show, it's always nice to have a neat
new electronic toy; it just impresses the heck out of everybody.
I took a brand new QuickTime 100 electronic camera with me to Vegas. Made
by Apple, it's an automatic camera (auto focus, auto exposure and flash,
just your basic idiot-proof point-and-click camera) that instead of
exposing the image to film, converts it instantly into a digital file and
stores it in the camera's memory.
I got stopped dozens of times on the CES floor by folks who wanted to
know how it worked and how I liked it (I liked it just fine). The
camera's memory can hold 32 pictures taken at the low-resolution setting,
but only 8 at the hi-res setting. When the camera got full, I would pull
out my Power Book (OK, it was Derek Pearcy's Power Book, but he loaned it
to me for the trip), hook up a serial cable and download the camera's
contents to a file on the laptop. Then I'd clear the camera's memory and
do it all over again.
I'll try to post a few of my CES pictures in the next day or so -- look
for links here in the Daily Illuminator. The pictures will
also be published in Pyramid, of course -- watch for 'em in Issue
#12.
-- Scott Haring
Jan. 11, 1995
Spent last weekend in Las Vegas at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show,
and while Steve is out of town at Dreamation in New Jersey, I thought I'd
tell you a few stories.
Nobody from the "paper side" of the industry had a booth at the CES or
anything -- but there were a bunch of us there. All the senior TSR
executives were there; ever since they ended their exclusive arrangement
with SSI for computer game versions of their RPG properties, they have
been in hot demand. With 11 separate license-able roleplaying worlds,
they were very busy.
Ran into Mike Nystul and Aaron Loeb of Pariah Press (of Whispering
Vault fame), looking for a computer game license. Saw the Wizards
of the Coast folks, who were busy at the MicroProse booth pushing the
soon-to-be-released computer version of Magic: The
Gathering. (And it looked real good, too.)
A few celebrity sightings: Larry Bird promoting the NBA Jam
video game; Rich Hall telling jokes for the folks at Magnet
International; Penn & Teller doing magic tricks for Absolute
Entertainment, pushing a new release called Penn & Teller's Smoke
and Mirrors; and tons of Playboy and Penthouse models (mostly
plugging car stereos, of all things) and porno actresses (How did I know
they were porno actresses? They just kinda looked the part, y'know?)
Anyway, more stories tomorrow.
-- Scott Haring
Jan. 10, 1995
And when the dust cleared, the pre-orders for the Unlimited INWO Edition
had closed. This will be a bigger print run than last time; the total
number of cards ordered (in both Starters and Boosters) is 23% greater.
This batch will ship sometime in the second half of March; the official
ship date is "March 20," but we'll advise you later as to when they should
really show up in your store.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 9, 1995
Orders close tomorrow for the Unlimited Edition of INWO - and Dana
is working overtime to keep up. Every so often she comes out of her
office, kills someone, and dashes back to take another phone call. The
rest of us cower in hidden corners and lay bets about what the final totals
will be.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 8, 1995
I promised a little bit more information about Dreamation, the convention
I'll be attending next week. It's at the Holiday Inn Jetport in Elizabeth,
NJ, the weekend of January 12-15 . . . I will get there on Thursday. There
will be a couple of INWO events, an Illuminati tournament, and a lot
of GURPS. I will also be running an Ogre Miniatures event.
Other guests will include Sam Lewis of FASA, Dave Frank of Games Workshop,
and Bill Smith of West End.
For more information about the con, send e-mail to salviusea@eworld.com,
or phone 718-881-4575.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 7, 1995
Dan Smith is in town today to sign the INWO press sheets for the artist
auction (if you don't know about this, check out rec.games.trading-cards.misc).
This is the first time that a lot of us (myself included) had actually met
Dan, so we're having a great time.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 6, 1995
The upstairs remodeling is finished now, except for touchups. Everything
reeks of paint, but it's beautiful. After more than ten years of living
with a rug in Squashed Armadillo Orange, it was time for a change. The
new one is deep blue . . . if I ever get around to finishing that Lego
pirates game, I've got a perfect ocean.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 5, 1995
Today's surprise-in-the-mail was a Combine Light GEV model from Jeff
Valent at Soldiers &
Swords Miniatures. They're the ones doing the new Ogre
miniature line, and this was the first prototype I'd seen. These are
going to look nice . . .
I'll be at Dreamation weekend-after-next, in New Jersey (more details
when I find that file in the shattered shell of my office.) Jeff will
be there too, with more miniature prototypes, and yes, we'll be playing
some Ogre - so if you're anywhere around New Jersey, look me up!
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 4, 1995
Our new phone system is up and (kind of) running. We've needed this
for years and years; finally, we have it. Our old phones were
primitive and evil, and the building's phone wires were crufty.
Now we have lots of big black phones with buttons
and LEDs all over them . . . and a long instruction manual
written in Martian. Clearly these phones will do everything except
cook your lunch, if you just know the right commands. Which we don't.
But the phone guys are supposed to come out here soon for a training
session. Welcome to the Nineties, when you have to be trained to use
a phone.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 3, 1995
More of the same. Chaos, chaos. Those people who can work at home, are
doing so. Those who have to be in the office are almost all working
at someone else's desk. Are we having fun yet?
Adding insult to injury, the weather is hovering around freezing,
and occasionally spitting rain. All in all, this would sure be a
good time to take an extra week of vacation, preferably in another
hemisphere.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 2, 1995
Remodeling is running a bit behind schedule . . . my office won't have
carpet in it for at least another day. So I'm sitting at home working.
I finished looking at Chris McCubbin's GURPS CthulhuPunk
manuscript (looks good - should be in stores in late February),
and I'm about to dig out the INWO file and start dealing
with some of the questions that have stacked up over the holidays.
Almost all the editorial staff worked at home today, and may do the
same tomorrow, so if we're slow to answer your e-mail, that's why.
-- Steve Jackson
Jan. 1, 1995
Happy New Year! We're not here. Why are you?