Super busy (lazy) and pretty confused ...

[elizzar]

Hello all.
Could someone who knows / pays attention please pop a simple summary reply of where we now are in terms of LW CE publishers / books etc, from an original Mongoose Megadeal customer who stayed with them [to then get books from Mantikore etc]?
I'm very confused (and tbh with work haven't had time to do much than skim read these forums now and again).

I get the impression Mantikore are not doing any more LW CE books in English, but Joe may be himself - I have ordered book 29 from him, basically as 1) I can't wait b) have heard nothing from Mongoose on the matter

I am a Megadeal customer who stayed with Mongoose honouring the deal to supply all 32 books; is it likely this will actually happen - has anyone spoken to Mongoose or is 'in the know'?
I suspect I won't and that's it now.

Sorry if I'm being super lazy and the information has already been posted ... !

[greylord]

Hmm, well, Mongoose dragged their feet a LOT. It took a LOT longer than they stated originally. (personally felt ripped and jerked around a little bit, as the biggest reason for me to go all in was to get books 29-32...which they didn't even come close to delivering...ever). 

Rights went to Mantikore verlag and they seemed to be doing a great job, at least getting the books out at a reasonable pace.  I understand it was a little more trouble for many to get the books in English for many people, but I'm not quite certain of everything that happened.  For me, it worked out wonderfully in getting the books.

However, whatever the reason, Cubicle 7 got the rights. They wanted to make a game (RPG) and promised to print the books too! Then they apparently reneged on the book deal (and personally, though no evidence to support it, it felt like they ONLY wanted to make their own game and had no real interest in the books, just used that as a latch point to obtain the game rights...but I have NO insight to the real reasons or anything like that.  That could be absolutely inaccurate and be nowhere near the truth, but it felt like what happened). They continue to make their game, but announced they would no longer print the books.

This meant that though Mantikore Verlag had rights to print the New Order books in German, others had the rights to French and Italian (and I believe Italy got the first book 29s out there), the original English readers were left in a lurch with no one to print the books.

Mr. Dever very graciously, despite his overwhelmingly busy schedule, was trying to find someone to print the English version, and promised that if he couldn't find anyone, he would do it himself.

It appears that in order to hasten the printing of the books, he has very kindly taken it upon himself to get the book printed and shipped. This is something Mr. Dever is doing for the fans, and we should absolutely thank him for it as he's taken it upon himself to deliver the book to us! 

[duk3]

If I were you Elizzar I would order book 29 from Joe.. otherwise you could be waiting years! He only has a few copies left but doing another print run in July. 2016

Duk3

[Black Cat]

May 7, 2016 7:58:33 GMT greylord said:

However, whatever the reason, Cubicle 7 got the rights. They wanted to make a game (RPG) and promised to print the books too! Then they apparently reneged on the book deal (and personally, though no evidence to support it, it felt like they ONLY wanted to make their own game and had no real interest in the books, just used that as a latch point to obtain the game rights...but I have NO insight to the real reasons or anything like that.  That could be absolutely inaccurate and be nowhere near the truth, but it felt like what happened). They continue to make their game, but announced they would no longer print the books.

Just to clarify something here: Cubicle 7 got the rights to make the RPG in 2013, way before it was announced that they were going to print the gamebooks. At the time of the announcement for the RPG, Mantikore had already the rights for the gamebooks. In fact, the Lone Wolf Adventure Game (the Cubicle 7 RPG) came out BEFORE anything concerning the gamebooks was said. It's only in December last year that Cubicle 7 announced that they were picking up the rights to publish the gamebooks, but it only took one month before they decide to not go with this.

It was probably the worst business decision ever in this whole saga: Joe took away the rights from Mantikore, although they were doing a good job, to give them to a company that, in the end, didn't do anything! With Cubicle 7 out of the deal, Joe had the rights to publish the gamebooks with nobody else in sight to pick them up (although Mantikore should had probably picked them back up). With hungry fans waiting to complete their CE set, he decided to print them himself.

Well, at least, there's something good that came out of this: I doubt Joe will remove the publishing rights from himself! I think it is safe to say that we will finally see the end of the saga with no more interruption in the publication schedule.

BTW, I'm also a Mega-Deal subscriber and from what I understand, I'll still get the books even if it is Joe that will publish them.

[ramthelinefeed]

If I understand correctly, when Mongoose lost the rights to produce more of the Collectors Edition book, they ended up having to buy stock from Mantikore to supply to 'megadeal' customers? One would imagine they'd be obliged to do the same with Dever's 29-32 Holmgard Press editions too?

If however, you think this is extracting the Michael too far, you would be well within your rights (as I have said on these forums before) to simply insist Mongoose refunds the relevant pro-rata portion of your 'Megadeal' money. And if they don't, take this up with the payment provider you used. God knows what they spent all that original megadeal money on!

[kiwiwolf]

I did read a post from Joe that they will still be purchasing and staying true to the megadeal, but don't quote me on it!

[pjagum]

Hmmm, so it´s to fear and to hope again...

[TYA]

I got a reply from Joe on the FB group - Copy and pasted below to save you trawling back through it all. It may ease your worries a bit pjagum.


Mark: Hi Joe, sorry to bring up a possibly unpleasant topic, but will Mongoose be acquiring any copies for the Mega Deal customers who are still onboard? I know Mongoose and Mantikor worked something out, any chance of the same sort of thing happening with yourself, or do I give up hope and buy directly from you and attempt to get a refund on my outstanding balance with Mongoose.

Joe Dever: Hi Mark, Mongoose are purchasing copies of LW29 (through Cubicle 7) to send out to Mega Deal customers who are still onboard. These are unlikely to be signed first editions though, and it maybe a month or so before they dispatch them.

Mark: That's excellent news. Thanks for the response Joe. I can live with that. Financially it makes sense to stick with Mongoose and I've waited this long... Another month or two won't kill me.

Joe Dever: Glad I could your mind at ease, Mark.

[Black Cat]

Jun 9, 2016 13:27:58 GMT TYA said:

I got a reply from Joe on the FB group - Copy and pasted below to save you trawling back through it all. It may ease your worries a bit pjagum.


Mark: Hi Joe, sorry to bring up a possibly unpleasant topic, but will Mongoose be acquiring any copies for the Mega Deal customers who are still onboard? I know Mongoose and Mantikor worked something out, any chance of the same sort of thing happening with yourself, or do I give up hope and buy directly from you and attempt to get a refund on my outstanding balance with Mongoose.

Joe Dever: Hi Mark, Mongoose are purchasing copies of LW29 (through Cubicle 7) to send out to Mega Deal customers who are still onboard. These are unlikely to be signed first editions though, and it maybe a month or so before they dispatch them.

Mark: That's excellent news. Thanks for the response Joe. I can live with that. Financially it makes sense to stick with Mongoose and I've waited this long... Another month or two won't kill me.

Joe Dever: Glad I could your mind at ease, Mark.

When did you get that answer? Because earlier this week, here's what I got for an answer by Matthew Sprange.

"I regret to say that, despite a number of proposals from us, the new publishers are simply not prepared to supply us the new books under any reasonable conditions. When they finally deigned to talk to us, they made this position very clear, despite arguments that the only people hurt by this would be Lone Wolf fans. The best we could get out of them was an offer to sell the new books to Megadeal customers at a 10% discount, which you can take advantage of by emailing them at [e-mail]"

[hawkytom]

I got the same reply as Black Cat.... RIP Mega Deal

Honestly I'm upset that after all this turmoil we've been put through that the original deal with not be fulfilled... I don't think I will continue to support the remaining books being published by Joe Dever....expecting us to shell out so much more cash for the remaining books 23-32 that we already paid for.

Not Pleased

[marksmith]

The whole megadeal thing strikes me as an especially long Kickstarter that didn't quite manage to deliver.

I didn't go for the mega-deal, but if I did have them at this point I would probably just ebay them for silly money since they're all getting Holmgard press reprints over the next few years anyway, and that looks like it will be the definitive edition of the series.

[elizzar]

That sucks. TBH though since the Megadeal left Mongoose's hands I've felt a bit narked. It's always seemed to be me chasing them / Matthew, they have never emailed me with updates or news. I've not heard anything from them since it left Mantikore for instance. As I have mentioned before I sold my original paperbook set of books 1-28 to fund my Megadeal, so I've been without the books I originally bought for ~£5 pounds each for over 9ish years now, and I effectively paid £300 for books 1-22 complete with misprints, and another £20 for a signed book 29. Yes I've got the bonus adventures and luvverly hardbacks (ignoring the Maters ...), but it has put me right off kickstarters and their ilk. Which is a shame as some really nice stuff seems to be being funded by this model. It's just left a sour taste in my throat. I'm not too fussed about the cost of Joe's books direct, as I have to credit him with drawing me into deeper roleplaying, wargames and Larp that his Lone Wolf stories started. Realising there were books a bit like the Lord of the Rings, but that I could play and change, wow. Fighting Fantasy was ok, but Lone Wolf with character development and a linked story blew my (young pre-teenage) brain. I'd rather he had my £20 every few months than Mongoose - who, after all, had my £300 since July 2007 and spent it on what they liked, really.

[greylord]

Jun 10, 2016 2:57:13 GMT hawkytom said:

I got the same reply as Black Cat.... RIP Mega Deal

Honestly I'm upset that after all this turmoil we've been put through that the original deal with not be fulfilled... I don't think I will continue to support the remaining books being published by Joe Dever....expecting us to shell out so much more cash for the remaining books 23-32 that we already paid for.

Not Pleased

Put blame where blame belongs. It's not Mr. Dever's fault.  It's Mongoose that fooled us all by taking faaaar too much time on their own pet projects rather than keeping their eye on the ball.

In my opinion Mongoose had good intentions originally, but screwed the pooch. I'm a tad upset at Mongoose (the only reason I actually backed the megadeal originally was for books 29-32, and as you could see, that really never occurred.  In my opinion, they were too busy trying to sell their "OWN" adventures with the reprints than doing anything to promote or guarantee or ensure books 29-32.  Even worse, they screwed over the Americans who hadn't gotten the New Order books [which I was lucky enough to have gotten years before], instead reprinting the adventures from Mr. Dever that had already been in our hands for years.  The only advantage we got was the added material from Mr. Dever for Flight from the Dark!  The other benefit for some Americans is that they finally, after a while, got the unabridged versions of the Grandmaster books 13-18, and if they stuck with it 19 and 20).

Just my own take. I could care less about their fan fiction adventures that they added to the end of the "collectors" editions, what I really was after was the stuff written by Mr. Dever...not the other people they had.

(In all fairness of course some of my perturbed attitude is probably because I had time to write, and had prior experience in writing gamebooks and LW, but at the time, they seemed to have a Mongoose authors and friends of those guys only club, and had the resources at the time to actually have helped get 29-32 published if they had the material available...and even then supported Mongoose fully...until...well...you probably know the rest of the story).

I didn't get a little bitter against Mongoose until the entire time when they lost the license...after YEARS of having it and FAR after their own deadlines had passed...multiple times over.  Even then, to tell the truth, I'm not THAT bothered, as the money wasn't THAT big a loss for me (others it may have been).  I just wish they had done more to print the New Order books for the fellows in the states that never got the chance to read them, and were more dedicated to publishing books 29-32 rather than their own RPG lines and books.  Overall, it's more of a...let bygones be bygones.  They tried their best...and things just didn't work out.

Hopefully that didn't sound too over the top.  I'm really not that upset, just a little perturbed about it because I feel like a sucker who got fooled by someone else.  So, in truth, most of how I feel is only due to feeling foolish and perturbed at my own trust rather than anything Mongoose really did.

However, I still fully support Mr. Dever and his efforts to get the books published for the fans.  He had some serious ailments (from what I understand) which greatly impacted his ability to write books 29-32, and other things in life got in the way.  This isn't something he has to do, I feel he's writing these books as his own way to support the fans who have supported him for all these years, and am extremely grateful that he is taking the time and his own personal effort to get them published.

[TYA]

[/quote]When did you get that answer? Because earlier this week, here's what I got for an answer by Matthew Sprange.

"I regret to say that, despite a number of proposals from us, the new publishers are simply not prepared to supply us the new books under any reasonable conditions. When they finally deigned to talk to us, they made this position very clear, despite arguments that the only people hurt by this would be Lone Wolf fans. The best we could get out of them was an offer to sell the new books to Megadeal customers at a 10% discount, which you can take advantage of by emailing them at [e-mail]"
[/quote]

Sorry, didn't see this, I don't drop in as often as I used to.

Skimming back again, that was the 15th April, definitely *after* you got that from Matt, which is a little annoying to say the least.

Head->Desk.
Head->Desk
Head->Desk

[duk3]

Alas, I think everyone should have demanded a refund from Mongoose as they were the publisher. Anyone that elected to stay with them under the Mega Deal got screwed by Mongoose and Mongoose alone. Just my opinion. Duk3