I don't see the problem in asking for fewer typo's, I don't think that FFG give away forum points to people who stick up for them. Though maybe they do and that's what I'm doing wrong. I don't know why anyone would leap to the defence of the kind of mistakes that have riddled these books otherwise. I enjoy reading them and using them but nothing breaks immersion and that feeling of satisfaction on buying one when reading that my melta bombs use mango glue and that it's the 41st Millenium…

DW

…that said, in the Warp Mango-glue Melta Bombs could well exist. But in that case there should be rules for them not being able to survive outside of the Empyrean. Hmm, I wouldn't put it past the foul forces of Chaos to use fresh fruit and veg actually, seems particularly diabolical now I think about it.

DW

MILLANDSON said:

THis is the most extraordinary thing I've ever read.

It is in no way anyone else's responsibility but FFG's, through their editors, writers, proofreaders and/or playtesters as appropriate, to spot and fix mistakes prior to publish.

We are not paying them to do their job for them (though certainly that's what they seem to think now). I find your comments utterly unbelievable. There seems to be a genuine notion that it's up to us to fix their mistakes after buying the books.

That could not be more wrong.

signoftheserpent said:

For reference, you're not paying the playtesters at all. All the playtesters are volunteers, doing the playtesting in their free time.

The people playtesting Only War have had to pay FFG to do the job for them, which is why I consider that unacceptable.

Frankly I don't care how it gets done: what i care about is that FFG publishes books that are not full of mistakes. It has nothing to do with low print runs or that gaming books don't sell like bestsellers. That's irrelevant. Either you can afford to put out quality product or you can't. If it's the latter then don't bother publishing. Anything else is just exploiting the customer.

DarkWinds said:

My feeling exactly. I find it so jarring that I stop reading for a couple of seconds as my brain attempts to process the nonsense. I've played many different RPGs over the years & refuse to buy into the notion that I have to accept these errors as a part of the RPG industry. There have been plenty of lines from various companies where errors are rare to non-existent. I write a good amount of material for my job, although I'm not a writer. When I'm done, I don't just trust spell check. I READ it. Every line, sometimes twice. Occationally I will ask a co-worker to read something over just to be sure. Anything I write is a reflection on me & submitting a document infested with typos or other errors is simply not an option. It boggles my mind that a professional writer, someone who is paid to write, would hold themselves to any less of a standard. That being said, the writers put out some great stuff & I don't really see them as the ones who are really responsible for the problem. Enter the paid proofreaders. Their job is to find & correct these mistakes. I don't see how they are fulfilling their job duties if we still have all of these problems. I find it frustrating that FFG doesn't seem to care about this issue, when they put so much obvious effort into the design aspects of their books. 

Maybe the problem is not in the software they're using, or amount of spellcheck.

Throughout school I was (and probably you too) were taught that you grow "blind" to your own written text, and best way to check it is to have someone else read it. Maybe FFG did not bother to switch the person to proofread?

Even as I wrote this I am blind to it's grammatical and spelling mistakes, of which someone else might notice instantly. I usually edit my posts multiple times as I look at them in the boards.

signoftheserpent said:

I agree that typos, etc., can be quite jarring to the reader but… are you serious? You would rather have no 40k RPG products at all than put up with a few typos? For full-color hardbacks, the FFG books are very reasonably priced. While I would love it if they were free of error, I still find the books to be a quality product; I certainly don't feel "exploited."

When you notice a continuity error in a film that you paid to see and otherwise enjoyed, do you feel that you have been exploited?

PnPgamer said:

That's very true. If you look at the credits on the first page of one of the books, you will see proffreaders credited in addition to the writing staff. With the volume of errors that get past them, I would be taking a serious look at their performance if I were their boss.

or an additude check. It might be also one of those "I am doing this crappy job just to get a few bucks" -cases. 

Yeah play-testers aren't asked to (or meant to) find spelling and gramatical errors (unless those errors would impact the rules they're testing, of course). If they notice something while they're testing then they can point it out (I always do - but then again I'm obsessive about these sorts of things!). Proof-reading is a completely different job to play-testing though. Play testing is fun. You get to play games and try out new rules. Proof-reading on the other hand is time consuming and gruelling, and you always always find something you missed after the book has come out. And that’s really annoying!

And Alpha Chaos is 100% correct. "Can't see the woods for the trees" syndrome happens to everyone. You always read what you think you've written, not what's actually there. 99 times out of 100 what you're reading is what you've written, but you'll always miss something. It's impossible not to. You can do things to mitigate it - changing the format is the simplest way (stop looking at a raw word document, change the font and the spacing, and turn it into a PDF - suddenly it looks different and you'll spot things you didn't see before), but you'll never catch every mistake you make.

Still, best type to date remains the critical chart result with the Toughness Test that doesn't do anything (pass or fail). I love that result. Glad it was amended in the errata.

BYE

Lecram said:

Did any of you know that the human brain fixes typos as you're raeding them? It's why (most people) dont just suddenly find their trian of thought grinds to a hlat when they come accross a mis-typed word, the brain actually makes you think you read it correctly, and it is not uncommon for you to not even notice the mistake at all. The trcik works best when it's not the first or last letter of the word that's been flubbed. Basically your brain extrapolates what the word should be, based on the sentence you've presiously read.

Hope that mistake-filled little praragraph helped illustrate my point. (it being about typos, the ones I put in might have been more noticable as well)

Besides, I've been gaming for 13 years, I remember the spelling in some of WW's books.

I've been gaming for 34 years, and started on Gary Gygax's tomes. Mistakes in those were few, and far far between. The prose was odd, and stilted, but it was mistake free, for the most part.

Gaming companies today just skimp on proofreaders and editors, and use unqualified interns, wives, girlfriends and in some cases, a pray for the best approach. Its unprofessional, but the gaming public largely gives them a pass (except for WoTC who got destroyed for their error riddled books in the 3rd edition days, and mostly cleaned up their act) so they choose to spend resources elsewhere. (or pocket extra profits, not sure)

H.B.M.C. said:

That's a neat trick that I'll have to try. Thank you sir!