Discussion YMMV / Exalted

Good Q.

I added it back in the hopes that we'll get some discussion on the matter.

Looking at them, they seem to be pretty erroneous. The completed Compass is currently at Silver and wasn't the subscription at Electrum or Gold? Though be fair though, the entire discussion is kind of natter and off-topic. It would probably be best to cut it of at the second line, after "combust.". The rest is either off-topic or pointing out YMMV, which is kind of redundant on the YMMV.

Cut the whole Autochotonia part off. It seemed a lot like a natter, but if we want, perhaps we could find a new home to it. We need to get the sales right though. Suggestions for a proper trope, or should we just drop it?

I'm not quite sure what the proper trope would be.

The point was just that calling it winning back the crowd is premature.

Re: Compass Sales Figures.

Actually, according to Drive Thru, Compass never went Electrum in its subscription model. If you combined the subscription, after the fact, and print sales, it still didn't quite make it.

However, Drive Thru's reps say this is the case of a lot of products, not White Wolf alone. The whole market shrank around that time.

Yeah, I'm not really sure if it was appropriate, regardless of it's success. I don't have a perfect knowledge of the ebbs and flows of the fandom, but if anything wasn't Glories more of a winning back the crowd moment?

Autochotonia seemed more like a well-received followup to the well-received Alchemicals.

This whole thing got muddled in a series of edits. That section was originally placed after a part on how Glories won back the crowd, Ink Monkeys provoked a quite visceral reaction (even on the White Wolf boards, before fan consensus there emerged), then the Daystar split the base further.

Then Autochthonia won them back, was another poster's supposition. Well, the data does not support that Autochthonia won anyone back. It supports that it was a solid follow up to Alchemicals (which sold more, but the hard backs always do).

To avoid looking like a complaint alone, that warranted some explanation on how sales trends for gaming book (for exalted: core book sells best, followed by Manuals, followed by Compass/Sorcery scrolls, trailed in the end by adventures like Daughter of Nexus) and how that shows the market has shrunk. An Exalted adventure has sold better than the Compass, but the adventure was at a high point in the market.

The long and short of it was we don't know if they actually won back the crowd. Maybe they did, but Exalted's future is still quite uncertain. (Holden himself said while they have several books green-lit, any of them could tank the line if they don't sell well. Contrast that with 5 years ago when several books were considered massive screw ups and the line was in no danger).

Current Word OF God is that the Exalted line is no longer in any danger.

And apparently Compass sales were higher than reported owing to an oddity in sales format.

Quoting Holden, who is talking about this page:

"That page is wrong as all hell about Autochthonia, incidentally. The original subscription sales page for the book went Gold in under a week. Because the book's sales were scattered into so many parts, and the subscription page was deleted once the full book came out, I have no idea what the actual final sales were. But they were at least strong Gold, possibly Platinum in aggregate. Every metric I have available to me says that post-Glories, Exalted has consistently been White Wolf's best-selling game line."

"Also, that Word of God bit is dead wrong. Sales were not "enough to generate a few new books, but not enough to guarantee the line gets to continue to exist." Exalted is currently set to continue indefinitely."

Then he changed his stance from his forum past last week where he said if Masters of Jade doesn't sell well, Exalted is basically done.

Also, I work for Drive Thru and I can tell you that's not true about the Gold-Plat (basically, two golds don't make a platinum, in terms of sales, and the subscription didn't hit Gold). While he's right that it's White Wolf's strongest selling line, it's still a shadow of what White Wolf (and the rest of the market) used to move.

Pretty sure that it did hit gold. I have [url=http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1037646#post1037646]evidence[/url] from the White Wolf forum. If it hadn't hit gold, I'm sure someone would have said something there.

(Hopefully url tags work here.)

Don't know anything about the rest of what you said. Does Holden have his own forum? You make it sound like he does, but I don't know of any such thing.

Sorry: meant to say THE, not his. By the I mean the White Wolf one.

Uh... yeah, the subscription did go gold, dude. So my bad on that one, but if you have the actual sales figures you should know that.

Then he changed his stance from his forum past last week where he said if Masters of Jade doesn't sell well, Exalted is basically done.

Completely untrue. This is a blatant misrepresentation of what he did say. Exalted, as a line, has not been in danger for quite some time.

Considering when it was announced he said if Masters of Jade didn't sell well that more book swould not be green lit, I don't think it is a blatant misrepresentation. He changed his position.

Incorrect. His position for the past month or so has been that support for Exalted is planned well into 2014. What he said was something along the lines of "Sales for Mo J, Shards, and Sot M 2 will determine how much support Exalted gets, and how much creative control we, the writers, have. You want us to have creative control, trust me. We have so many awesome things planned, you have no idea."

(Obviously those weren't his exact words, but it's the general gist as I understood it.)

Basically, it's the difference between Exalted getting one or two books a year as it has been recently, and Exalted getting as much or more support as the entire Wo D, classic and new. But the complete withdrawal of support for Exalted has never been under consideration.

I guess I can understand how someone might have taken "we need sales so the higher-ups will pay more attention to us" out of context, but that someone would have had to have ignored pretty much everything else Holden, the other Monkeys, and Eddy Webb himself have been saying for weeks now to come to the conclusion that the line is at any risk of ending in the near future.

So that's why there's that pledge not to buy Mo J until after that decision is made.

Like Exploding Frogs, I have received the impression that the line is in excellent shape.

But I can't prove anything.

So why don't we just ask White Wolf directly? I doubt that they're hard to contact. And it would lay this issue to rest quite nicely.

EDIT: What pledge?

Several game stores in my area have taken up pledges they'll be mailing to White Wolf stating they won't be buying Mo J until after White Wolf has made its decision on amount of support, as a sign that they do not like the current development staff.

They have 200 pledges right now. Which is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but is decent for 3 stores in the tri-county area.

I know of 1 forum which has started an online petition.

I saw it on /tg/.

Is there a link to it? I might be misunderstanding, since I'm trying to piece this together from Chosen's post and the post it seems to be replying to, but is the pledge to not buy Mo J until White Wolf makes an official and public decision on how much support (which I guess meaning what number of new books they are planning to invest in?) they are commiting to the Exalted line?

If I see it, I'll post it. Can't find it right now, but i've seen it too. I think it was a pledge not to purchase until White Wolf decides to change the direction the design team is going in.

Yeah, I caught the context of that one and should have earlier. Removed it.

Looking at it further, perhaps the Daystar part should go as well? While I personally might feel it's a great part of the setting, it actually feels a bit forced to put it under C Mo A. Actually, if we do that, the rest of the text is about encouraging in-game awesomeness, and should probably be moved to the main page.

All C Mo A has to stay in YMMV, I thought (since it is, by definition, a YMMV moment).

Personally, I think the Daystar section should stay. It was not my cup of tea by any stretch of the imagination, but many fans DO consider it to be pure awesome.

The YMMV page talks about how in-universe or invoked examples still goes at the main page. What the section is about is really how the game tries to facilitate players in-game creating C Mo As. Then again, stunts are already mentioned under Rule of Cool, so perhaps it's redundant.

If we're talking Stunts, then it's probably redundant with Rule of Cool. Can we list it as both?

Could reference in Rule of Cool how the stunt system aims encourage players to create their C Mo A, or something like that?

Where's it from? That is, which Ink Monkey article?

Volume 39.

To the best of my knowledge yes. As for the disagreement I've heard of no such thing. The Ink Monkeys go through Chambers, and they stated in there first post to be developer approved canon, and as official as the core book. And in the trope, that point of choosing or ignoring what you want applies to all of Exalted

Two of the in-house developers have said they are not canon material. When asked for clarification from the audience, the response was something akin to they are a place White Wolf freelancers can put stuff they want to (and is vetted) but are not really canon (as in "this is") for your game.

They are not de facto canon, they're appendices you can use is the best explanation I've heard of.

EDIT: By the way, there's more than 1 developer for Exalted. John Chambers is the senior line developer. You also have Holden who is a freelance developer for them (which is what Chambers started as - grooming a replacement, maybe?). Then there's also the web developer, who is responsible for more than just Exalted and also does a lot of the SAS stuff. Lastly, you have the brand developer, who is above Chambers, and maintains Wo D, Exalted, and Scion (and other misc). There are also other developers at various times.

Well according to this and this they are as official as any other White Wolf product. Which is to say as official as you decide it is, as the appendices thing applies to all Exalted products. Out of curiosity where do these other developers say they aren't canon?

The Exalted Writer's Bible. Which does not say they are not canon, just to not reference their material. Be self contained to the printed works.

Oh! Excuse me, except for the note from Mister Webb, which does say that.

Well, I don't see how that is possible, since the official Errata use charms and rules from the Ink Monkeys, and I've never actually heard of the Exalted Writer's Bible.

It's given to the freelancers as part of their guidance.

Notice the Official Errata, with the exception of some Charms, is self-contained. Everything from Ink Monkeys the Errata uses is IN the Errata for rules.

Some Charms provide a bonus if you also use those Ink Monkeys Charms, but they do not require them. Some have them as prerequisites, except for the Core Rule charms, which do not (but may often provide bonuses with them).

I'm just telling what I know, that's all.

I'm having trouble understanding the point your trying to get across. Just because it's not printed doesn't mean it's not official, and if it's included in the errata I have trouble seeing how they are not official. It doesn't matter if they provide a bonus or not, the Ink Monkeys are as cannon as the Core Rulebook. I've already shown posts asserting as much, backed by the Exalted Line Developer, who I'd say has ultimate authority over the issue, and whose word on Exalted would trump any other developer. Due to this, until equally valid evidence tells they aren't canon, I think it'd just be best to get rid of Armed with Canon bit about the Ink Monkeys.

Considering the multiple messages I have sitting in my inbox from Eddy Webb (who is OVER chambers) that they are not, I'd disagree. But since you all seem intent on shitting all over someone who does not agree with perceptions of reality, I'll take the initiative and just remove it anyway.

Well, sorry if I seemed rude, I've been trying to be as polite as possible. It's just that I've seen it said multiple times from people who'd know if they are canon that they are, and have seen more evidence that says they are canon rather then not.

I didn't think you were being rude, but whatever, I guess.

My only point was that the in house doesn't seem to quite have it straight, what's going on. I'm not going to ask you to take my word for it, but I also can't show my proof until 2016 per the non-disclosure agreement everyone signs.

If Borked Up's post was based on some such internal messages from time spent as a freelancer, he might want to review the NDA also. If they were just fan questions, then that's another matter.

F it.

Ok. It's in Flaimbait. I see it now.

I am going to look for a more appropriate way to make sure those are mentioned, however.

For future reference, read What Goes Where on the Wiki, fifth bullet point under YMMV.

I'll take note of that too.