Nov. 28, 1994
The INWO cards are here!
Well, okay . . . not all of them. Only one Starter Set, in fact. But
that was enough to bring work to a screeching halt . . . They look
beautiful. The rulebook is nice, too. Big enough to read, and
printed in two colors, with diagrams. But the cards, the cards,
the cards. Gloat! We gloat in most unseemly fashion. And there was great glee
and much slapping of hands and many foolish grins were exchanged.
We're debating whether we should auction this Set #1 over the net;
it ought to bring enough for a nice office party. We sort of suspect
that the printer made up this set specially, rather than pulling from a
production run, because of the 110 cards in it, none of them are
duplicates. That's theoretically possible in a randomly chosen pair of
decks, but pretty darn unlikely.
So maybe we'll just keep this set and giggle to ourselves
about it . . .
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 27, 1994
Some of you may wonder, "What is Steve doing at the office on Sunday
night of Thanksgiving weekend? Doesn't he have a life?" Well, to
paraphrase Bones McCoy: "It's life, but not as you know it."
Actually, this is a very good time for some kinds of work. On a
regular workday, if I'm not wandering around bugging people (Ahem!
I mean, "checking up on progress.") then I'm answering questions,
taking phone calls, or what-have-you. Evenings and weekends are the
best change I get to (for instance) read over a new manuscript.
And as soon as I finish checking my mail, I'm going to dive into
GURPS Voodoo, the new book from C.J. Carella. I'm
only about three weeks overdue to comment on it . . . the editor
and playtesters really like it, but I've got to look at it anyway.
Part of the job, and really one of my favorite parts, if I can
just get time to get around to it!
Right now, the book is scheduled to appear in early January, and
it's going to have a Tim Bradstreet cover. It will also introduce
a new magic system. Ought to be interesting. So I shall
stop typing, and start reading . . .
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 26, 1994
We announced this in the INWO FAQ a few days ago, but
just to make sure nobody misses it . . . we now have a confirmed
printer ship date for Illuminati: New World Order.
It will ship from the printer on December 7 (two days after the planned
date . . . we'll live). Distributors will be able to release the game
to retailers on Friday, December 16. This means that motivated
retailers will have it that same day, and the others will have it within
a week.
For more information - and previews of the art, if you've got Mosaic -
check out our INWO
web page.
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 25, 1994
We are very happy to announce that GURPS will soon be
appearing in yet another language. Our new Spanish licensee is La Factoria,
of Madrid. They hope to release their edition of the Basic
Set before Christmas, and we wish them the best of luck . . .
And, for those who haven't heard, the German edition of the Basic
Set appeared last month. It was released at the Essen game fair
by Spieletreff Pegasus, a new publisher. In hardback, yet!
This makes six languages for GURPS . . . English, Portuguese,
Japanese, French, Italian, German and Spanish. And we had some other
inquiries at the Essen fair . . .
We are GURPS. Resistance is at -6. You will be assimilated.
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 24, 1994
Happy Thanksgiving . . . It's a vacation day today at SJ Games. All the
turkeys have gone home :-)
Nov. 23, 1994
Wondering what's in store for you with the new ratings system,
"voluntarily" adopted by the video game industry with a Federal shotgun to
their head?
Here's a quote from the December 1994 issue of Harper's Magazine:
"The new system developed by the Recreational Software Advisory Council to
rate computer-game software defines blood and gore as "depiction of a
great quantity of a sentient being's blood or what a reasonable person
would consider to be vital body fluids, or depiction of innards, organs,
and or dismembered body parts. The depiction of blood or vital body
fluids must be shown as flowing, spurting, flying, or collecting in large
amount of pools. To be classified as Blood and Gore, there must be more
than just simple dismemberment; the dismemberment must be accompanied by
tendons, veins, bones, muscles, etc."
One of the examples cited from the actual rating system: "A sentient
being is thrown in a tree chopper and is spewed out as hamburger."
We can all look forward to the day when the Federal Department of
Taste and Morals starts rating newscasts, church sermons and, yes,
roleplaying games.
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 22, 1994
Mikael Hansson, an Illuminati from Sweden, sends the following:
One of our districts asked me to deliver a message, and I think you
going to like it.
In the election to the local church-council the nice little party
"ungdomspartiet Illuminaterna" (translated it would be something like,
youthparty the Illuminated) got one seat, to their and everybody elses
surprise. They had only one big question in their program and that was
the local church shouldn't toll the bell so early in sunday
mornings. It is a student neighbourhood, so enough people wanted to
sleep on sunday mornings. That is at least the twenty two people who
voted in their favor (only about ten percent of the people allowed
to vote actually does it). So they give credits for the name to you
and send their greetings, next year shall they try to get two seats
and have a more wellworked program. Today the church-council tomorrow
the world....
Nov. 21, 1994
Not long ago, we received a couple of issues of the fanzine CONTACT.
What's unusual about that? Only one thing, really . . . it comes from
Lithuania.
In all other ways, it's a normal zine: reviews, discussions of conventions
past and future, a bit of politics, some art. It's in English, since
most fans and gamers in Eastern Europe speak the language.
We've been providing games to the Vilnius SF club, DORADO, for a
couple of years. So have other companies, including Games Workshop, TSR,
West End and Flying Buffalo. Slowly but surely, in the newly free
countries, the gaming community is developing!
If you want to write to the zine - or send a donation of games or
other material to the club - you can reach them c/o Romualdas Buivydas,
SF Club DORADO, Antakalnio 91-16, Vilnius 2040, Lithuania.
Drop them a line.
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 20, 1994
I wonder how many of these daily columns will start off with, "Well, . . ."
This one will:
Well, we've put the most recent issue of Pyramid -- issue 11, the
INWO issue -- in the Airborne overnight box out at the
airport. Waves of relief shudder down my spinal column. A special thanks
to Eric Kunze for making the Saturday evening airport run for me so
I could make it to the Austin Lyric Opera's production of Faust -- an
appropriate way to begin the first evening back to work on In
Nomine.
The rest of our weekend has been surprisingly calm. After much cold and
rain this morning, the clouds parted and we had a lovely autumn
afternoon. And on such a lovely day, what did the Pyramid staff
(joined by Print Buyer and bane of paper clips Andrew Hartsock) do? We
sat in a refrigerated theater surrounded by Star Fleet Academy
flag wavers, solely to see Stewart out-act Shatner in the newest Star
Trek opus, Generations. We were not disappointed by the spectacle, nor
were we particularly impressed.
But, wastes of time aside, work proceeds on In Nomine.
Jeff Koke finished putting the cover graphics together earlier this week,
and his design muse has filled him with enough layout ideas to keep him
busy until the actual text is ready, Real Soon Now. Expect weekly updates on
io.games.sjg.in-nomine starting Friday -- and if you have any other
comments about it in the meantime, I'm dpearcy@io.com. Try me.
-- Derek Pearcy
Nov. 19, 1994
Still no phone access to speak of! We can now call out, most of the time,
but nobody can call in. At last count, there were seven trucks and
four little tents around the cable repair site.
Today's factoid: In 1994, SJ Games supported more than 120 conventions,
donating more than $25,000 in prizes and prize certificates. And we will
happily send loot to your convention, if you're holding an
event featuring GURPS, Car Wars, Ogre, Illuminati, Toon or
any of our other games. For details, send e-mail to dkb@io.com.
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 18, 1994
Well, here we sit, still with almost no phone access. The IO guys took
one of the modem lines and attached it to a spare phone, so we can call
out when we have to. But we can't send faxes, and nobody can call in . . .
Instant Dark Ages. Apparently SWB cut a REALLY BIG cable a few blocks
away.
INWO update: Still looks like we will hit the December
5 ship date. This means that it will appear in US and Canadian stores
around December 12 to 14, and in most overseas stores around the 21st or
22nd, unless the distributors paid for the air freight to get it there
faster.
We have given up on the idea of increasing the print run of the Limited
Edition. We originally scheduled a print run to meet our pre-orders. So
many of our distributors later wanted to increase their orders that we
spent a lot of time and effort trying to increase the print run to
match. Alas, it is not to be . . . There will probably be some overage
from the first press run, enough to package up some extra Booster Packs,
but not nearly as many as the distributors want to order. Too bad. We
would not have minded those extra sales, but 23 million cards is enough -
we're not complaining too loud.
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 17, 1994
Thanks to Jonathan Woodward for suggesting the new name for this
column; if you have a better idea, feel free to try your Affect SJ's
Whim roll.
At the moment, I'm sitting here thinking evil thoughts about Southwestern
Bell, because all the phones in the building are dead. The modems still
work, so IO is going great guns. But nobody can get a voice connection in
or out. This does not make a lot of sense. Jim McCoy called SWB, and they
said "Somebody will be out tomorrow." Big help, guys.
Other than that, the Pyramid crew is finishing up issue #11, which
will go to the printers tonight if the phone problem doesn't get in the way.
And Jeff just showed me a really evil ad for GURPS CthulhuPunk
- maybe we can get a GIF on the web for everybody to see.
-- Steve Jackson
Nov. 16, 1994
Welcome To . . . What Are We Calling This, Anyway?
Welcome to the first segment of a new feature here at Illuminati
Online. The first thing we need, of course, is a great title. Title
for what? Title for this.
This is going to be a daily news/chat/update column from SJ Games. The
writer will change from day to day . . . whoever has something to say
will grab the keyboard. If something fantastic and important happens,
we'll let you know. If nothing fantastic and important happens, we'll
probably make something up fnord.
And if you have suggestions for this "column," just send a note to
pyramid@io.com.
Enough of the administrivia. Today we DO have something fantastic and
important to report . . . we got the proof sheets for the last 100-
card "form" of INWO cards. This is the one
with the Illuminati themselves on it . . . and it looks great. Now
we can start playing with real cards!
As far as we know, the game is still on track for a December 5 ship.
The printers were rumbling about a possible week's delay; that seems not to
be a problem any more. Cross your fingers!
-- Steve Jackson