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I have not been received any information about that yet.

Are we there yet?

I gotta pee!

So as the subject line says, any word yet on when we'll be able to make some purchases to help Alex?

We know from experience that pesting Wayne with questions is unlikely to get us answers any sooner. Wayne will talk with us when he is ready and not before that. Nonetheless, I intend to call the office some time in August.

Give them 2 weeks post GenCon to unwind, relax, recover and get back onto their crazy 80 hour treadmill.

But I still gotta pee!

Now that the Contributors' copies have been released, please feel free to discuss what you find within. Several contributors are anxious for feedback.

Any word from Palladium?

This is the message I sent to Alex:

Subject: Rifter #0.1 and your stake in it
Hey Alex,

I don't know if you have seen Rifter #0.1 or not. I corrected a spelling mistake on the contributors' page this week. Since I am sending out links to all the contributors so that they can get the corrected version, I decided to send you a link as well. (link edited out)

Look, we sent a finished product to Wayne several months ago along with a huge stack of signed Unsolicited Manuscript Forms. We haven't heard back. We all understand that Palladium continually has a lot happening every week, and we understand that this project is a low priority. Nonetheless, there has never been a mention in Kevin's Weekly Updates nor has Wayne even let us know he received the package.

The bottom line is that you are the guy with the most to gain or lose. We are talking about money going into your pocket or not going into your pocket. You are the only person with a horse in this proverbial race. Whether or not a copy ever gets sold is ultimately your business, not mine. I am just making certain that you know the situation.

That Guy,
Scott Z

This is the response I got on October 18th...

Thanks for the heads up Scott. I will talk to Kevin about this.



Regards,
Alex Marciniszyn

So, that is all we know.

Thanks for the update. Here's keeping the fingers crossed!

Unfortunately, a lot of the material is dated for a 2011 release. The legal jargon and even the material itself in the BtS is specifically dated for 2011. Since a 2011 release is now looking all but impossible, this material will have to be updated again for the year that it is put out.

Lord Z wrote:Unfortunately, a lot of the material is dated for a 2011 release. The legal jargon and even the material itself in the BtS is specifically dated for 2011. Since a 2011 release is now looking all but impossible, this material will have to be updated again for the year that it is put out.

Well im happy to sign another UMF if that is required

krispy wrote:

Lord Z wrote:Unfortunately, a lot of the material is dated for a 2011 release. The legal jargon and even the material itself in the BtS is specifically dated for 2011. Since a 2011 release is now looking all but impossible, this material will have to be updated again for the year that it is put out.

Well im happy to sign another UMF if that is required

Same here.

Involved Observer wrote:

krispy wrote:

Lord Z wrote:Unfortunately, a lot of the material is dated for a 2011 release. The legal jargon and even the material itself in the BtS is specifically dated for 2011. Since a 2011 release is now looking all but impossible, this material will have to be updated again for the year that it is put out.

Well im happy to sign another UMF if that is required

Same here.

Same

Thank you for the offer, noble contributors. Unfortunately, we do not know what Palladium still needs from us. It might be UMFs for contracts or anything. I did call Alex on Sunday afternoon. He was on his way to package some Grab Bag Specials and only had a minute to speak with me. I did not have time to mention any of our suggestions. He explained that the office staff is struggling to get caught up following his own illness -- that much is what I expected to hear. He told me that he would specifically discuss the situation with Kevin after the first of the year. He is supposed to call me sometime in January. I offered our services to help do 'whatever it is that needs doing.' He thanked me and restated that he would call me back. I told him to take care of himself as best as he could, and we said goodbyes. I seriously do not expect anyone to call me in January, but we will see.

Lord Z wrote:Thank you for the offer, noble contributors. Unfortunately, we do not know what Palladium still needs from us. It might be UMFs for contracts or anything. I did call Alex on Sunday afternoon. He was on his way to package some Grab Bag Specials and only had a minute to speak with me. I did not have time to mention any of our suggestions. He explained that the office staff is struggling to get caught up following his own illness -- that much is what I expected to hear. He told me that he would specifically discuss the situation with Kevin after the first of the year. He is supposed to call me sometime in January. I offered our services to help do 'whatever it is that needs doing.' He thanked me and restated that he would call me back. I told him to take care of himself as best as he could, and we said goodbyes. I seriously do not expect anyone to call me in January, but we will see.

Wha...what? You talked with Alex and you didn't even wish him a merry Christmas?!!

Seriously though, thanks for keeping all of us in the loop.

And merry Christmas to all!

Shame this is taking so long.

I was hoping that we could begin work on a new RifterZero in early 2012, but it doesn't make sense to get people excited about a new project until the old one is published.

BTW, how difficult would it to be to format the R0 for e-readers like the Kindle?

To answer Spinichcat's question, I don't know. I would have to look up the specifics of each e-reader, but it does seem to me that they all read pdfs well. So the text portions should load just fine. It would be interesting if someone with a Kindle, Nook, or Sony were to try this just to see how it loads.

if you have .PDF's, you can run it through calibre to get 'rough and ready' versions in any of the major ebook formats. palladium PDF's would have an edge up there, since their books are simple text with B&W images already..

Let's try redirecting our attention to what we have already done. I suspect that all of us contributors are interested in receiving some feedback. We have had our contributor-pdfs for about half of a year now. We should start posting some specific feedback for each other.

It appears that we might have a break through, thanks to Glitterboy2098. He spoke with Kevin at VisionCon and specifically told Kev about the Rifter #0.1 project.

i also plan to mail some CD's with the PDF's to kevin sometime in the next few weeks, just in case the original submissions had been misfiled or something.

Cool

Yes! Very cool indeed!

Just got the word your forwarded by e-mail, my Lord Z. Please count me in as one of the contributors still in this 100%. Thank you for carrying the torch so long on all our behalves!

Oh, and way to hit a home run, GB2098! You're my newest hero! (Two thumbs way up!)

In Kevin's March 1st Weekly Update, this line was included...

UPDATE: The Rifter® #0.1 (PDF). No word from the contributors yet, hopeful for the future of this project.

Does anyone know what this means?

Lord Z wrote:In Kevin's March 1st Weekly Update, this line was included...

UPDATE: The Rifter® #0.1 (PDF). No word from the contributors yet, hopeful for the future of this project.

Does anyone know what this means?

Uh, maybe he thinks you're going to call him, since you are the main organizer of the project, O Mighty Lord Z?

Lord Z wrote:In Kevin's March 1st Weekly Update, this line was included...

UPDATE: The Rifter® #0.1 (PDF). No word from the contributors yet, hopeful for the future of this project.

Does anyone know what this means?

Should give him a call.

Glitterboy has volunteered to make the call. I am just puzzled as to what Kevin might still need from us.

I have been thinking about this for a few hours. My best guess is that Kevin would like us to handle splitting the project into two issues and supplying the second piece of cover art. Kevin's e-mail was a little vague on this point for me. If this hunch of mine is correct, I can take care of the split and knock that out rather quickly. Some contributors were interested in tweaking their materials, so this could be an opportunity to do that and hand in a final-final revision.

either that or the switch to two documents requires extra UMF's.

got done talking to wayne a few minutes ago, the issue should be resolved soon.

Thanks

I just spoke with Wayne. Julius is proofreading the documents for us to catch as many errors as possible. Because Julius has already started doing this, there will be NO further tweaking of the materials -- the only changes will be making corrections.

1 -- Here is what needs to be done. All of the recycled artwork from previous Palladium products needs to be cut. It was my decision to include these pieces in the first place, so I don't mind editing these out.

2 -- Kevin wants the product divided into two parts. That means redoing the layouts (sucks to be me). Wayne wants us to combine these into as few files as possible. This is done for ease on his end as well as lowering the total data size of each download. So, the printer friendly versions of each file are getting axed.

3 -- We need to designate or create some new cover artwork. We will need a second cover for #0.2. We will also need a new cover for the novella, Acceptance.

4 -- We will be correcting all mistakes that Julius finds.

5 -- I will try to add internal hyperlinks between the tables of contents and the actual articles. My wife will show me how to do this.

Very nice.

All hail our Mighty Lord Z, fearless leader and slave to our writing foibles!

Contributors might be interested to know that Zack has decided to color the pen & ink battle scene that he already submitted. Link! What do we think?

It looks nice.

Great looking piece of art!

That's a crazy awesome cover.

If you like Zack's picture, please tell him on his Deviant Art page.

In other contributor news, author L.J. Gastineau has completed her first book. She contributed to Rifter Zero's Dead Reign article. Frozen Reflection is her first novel, and it is now available for purchase at Smashwords, Lulu, Kindle, iBookstore, and hopefully soon Nook and DriveThruFiction. The cover art was created by another contributor, Steve Young, who also illustrated After the Bomb and Mechanoid Space articles for us.