Quote from: JeremyR;1017720I'm sure this is a screw up rather than deliberate (since I really doubt anyone at OBS ever even thinks of the Pundit, much less maliciously), but they shouldn't be excused due to amateurishness, it's basically the only source of RPG PDFs.

Lulu has a good number, I recently bought the Stonehell Dungeon pdfs there.

Quote from: S'mon;1017902Lulu has a good number, I recently bought the Stonehell Dungeon pdfs there.

Lulu exists and RPGs have a presence there, but most people are making well over 90% of their PDF revenue from OBS. And I am seeing a surge in people doing their print services through OBS as well. You have options if you don't like OBS. But they are not economically viable for most companies at this point (believe me, if they were I would have a presence there). There are obvious exceptions to this. WoTC doesn't need OBS, and Paizo doesn't either. I don't have an exclusive agreement with OBS though, so I am able to put my PDFs on other sites.

Quote from: Moracai;1017899This reminds me when I was working timetableing car mechanics. A customer was very angry because of unforeseen complications, he was on the verge of assaulting me physically. Then he finally saw my side when I told him that we have money riding on it too in the form of spare parts and mechanics time, and we are losing money because of the delay.

Why would a company intentionally hurt their sales?! Incompetence is the likely answer, and the fact that they have timetabled their tech guys unprofessionally.

Never ever ever underestimate spitefulness to be trumped by money. People have willfilly taken huge losses just to spite someone else or cost them money. This happens like clockwork in Hollywood for example.

And the more likely someone thinks they can get away with it the more likely they will be to do it. And the loss of revenue from screwing with someones game on OBS is small compared to the gains they get from everything else. so if they want to they can and not really lose much.

Which leads back to my point before. If there was another incident then there is no way of telling if its malice, mishandling or bug because the site IS buggy.

Quote from: Omega;1017905Never ever ever underestimate spitefulness to be trumped by money. People have willfilly taken huge losses just to spite someone else or cost them money.

Is that a subtle Howard Thompson reference? Also, I think you meant "money to be trumped by spite," no?

Quote from: Moracai;1017899Why would a company intentionally hurt their sales?! Incompetence is the likely answer, and the fact that they have timetabled their tech guys unprofessionally.

Well, Marvel comics intentionally hurt their sales.

But I don't think that's what happened here. This isn't "a company hurting their sales" this may be "a rogue employee not giving a shit about their company's sales in their pursuit for revenge".

Quote from: cranebump;1017900This. Anything else, especially the allusion to some sort of weird conspiracy, just doesn't make any sense, especially if this is a big seller. They'd only be hurting their own pocketbook.

Right, because corporate employees, especially employees working for what is probably a really shitty wage for a small nerd company, never ever do anything that would hurt the company's bottom line.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017918Right, because corporate employees, especially employees working for what is probably a really shitty wage for a small nerd company, never ever do anything that would hurt the company's bottom line.

Right. Like make you a specific and intentional target, because you are just that important, Jason Bourne.:-/

Quote from: cranebump;1017920Right. Like make you a specific and intentional target, because you are just that important, Jason Bourne.:-/

Important enough that some of the SJW-assholes of the OSR came along to cheer the sabotage; like James Young and human-garbage David Black.

Lion&Dragon/RPGnow Fiasco Conclusion & Some Reasons To Buy It Now!

In short, if someone was responsible for trying to sabotage Lion & Dragon on RPGnow, they're probably kicking themselves right now.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, over the last 4 days either through massive incompetence or intentional malice by some disgruntled employee, Lion & Dragon had been effectively rendered unreachable not once but TWICE, just as it was celebrating a month on the top-10 list, which it of course lost as no one could find the book anymore.





First, all the good news; and basically, this is all about YOU. Against ALL odds, and in spite of essentially losing all its viable links TWICE in the last 4 days, Lion & Dragon has made it back into the top 15! As of this writing, thanks to all the people who came forward and purchased the game, it went from being way down at #30 and dropping, all the way up to currently #13 and rising on the bestseller list for RPGnow.

I want to thank all the people who have stepped up and helped spread the word. The ones who bought the game obviously, but also the ones who made the effort to share the links to the new L&D URL and telling other people about what had happened.


So, we may now be finally at the end of all this. Maybe.
Today I got another email from RPGnow, a fairly curt and formal one. All it said was (again I quote) "After talking with my tech team it seems the forwarding is not something our site can be set up to do", meaning that I'll have to try to find any of the non-working links and replace them with current links myself.
However, they did also make a promise to me that "I can assure you that the current link will not be changed and should be considered stable from here on out so please feel free to use the current link for any future promotion".

OK, RPGnow, I'll have to trust you on that one, after you previously told me to change all the links and then summarily altered the URL.

As for any other kind of compensation for what happened? They stated that they'd only speak with my publisher about that. That's fine, it's obviously dismissive but fine, because I trust Dominique Crouzet will take the right tactic.
And more importantly, really, because what I'm focused on is something they already said they can't or won't do for me, which is to restore the position of my book. Only YOU GUYS can help me with that.





We're very, very close to breaking back into the top 10 bestseller list! So please keep sharing the link and checking out the book!
If you haven't bought the book yet and want to, please do! And thanks!  But if you can't or won't buy the game you can still help by sharing this link to L&D on all your social media!

And thank you all again. There was one really good side to all this: it truly showed me who my friends are, how great the OSR is, and even helped me get to discover some new friends I never knew I had.


To close, here's just a few of the 1001 reasons why you should buy L&D, by the way:

Reason 104: In Lion & Dragon, magic-users who study Alchemy end up being able to make Byzantine Dragonfire flame-throwers. And yes, this is historical.


Reason 209: Lots of unique magic items based on real myth, including the sword of Roland.




Reason 521: People always argue "but you can't have real magic & real miracles & faeries & monsters and still have cultures that look anything like the real middle ages!"
I always answer: "If you don't have ALL that stuff, whatever you've made won't look anything like the real middle ages."

Reason 830: Magic users who learn curses/battle-magic techniques can also make copper-plated sticks (wands, staffs or rods) that blow shit up, all Tim-the-Enchanter style. They're called "blasting rods", and were detailed in some historical grimoires.




Reason 999: If Lion & Dragon gets back on RPGnow's Top-10 list after all this, it will piss off all the right people.



So, keep buying and sharing the new link to Lion & Dragon! And if you're one of the people who discovered the book in the last while, please let me know what you think of it. Thanks again, all.

Blasting rods are pretty badass.

Mind you, as others have already stated on the forum, fighters are also really badass in the game.

Which, frankly, is the top point that's selling me. Just need to save up the pennies.  Sadly, that's literal at this point.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1017954Which, frankly, is the top point that's selling me. Just need to save up the pennies.  Sadly, that's literal at this point.

Understandable. Anyways, if you want to help out for now, share the link on your social media!

We're now at #11!  This fast a return from complete erasure a month after release is something probably unheard of in RPGNow's history.
We're almost returned to the rightful top-10 slot.

I have just ordered the hardcover!!! Can't wait till it's in hand. Reconquista viva!!!

Cheers,

H:0)