The Expanded CRPG Book is out!

[mindx2]

I got the collectors edition of the first issue and will buy a hardcover copy of the expanded edition as soon as it is available. Amazing job, you‘re doing god‘s work felipepepe

What "Collector's Edition"?!! What came with it?

felipepepe what games are being added to the book?

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I got the collectors edition of the first issue and will buy a hardcover copy of the expanded edition as soon as it is available. Amazing job, you‘re doing god‘s work felipepepe

What "Collector's Edition"?!! What came with it?

felipepepe what games are being added to the book?

The Collectors edition has:

A solid black slipcase for the book with gold-coloured lettering "CRPG Book" (not sure if the normal edition has that as well?)
A branded dungeon map pad (A4 size)
A branded pencil
Several postcards with motives from classic crpgs (e.g. Daggerfall)
A poster

I can try to post some pictures on the weekend.

If I remember correctly, it was available as a limited run when the book was released in print form. I ordered it from Bitmap in September 2019.

 

[felipepepe]

I got the collectors edition of the first issue and will buy a hardcover copy of the expanded edition as soon as it is available. Amazing job, you‘re doing god‘s work felipepepe

What "Collector's Edition"?!! What came with it?

felipepepe what games are being added to the book?

The new edition is already out: https://crpgbook.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/crpg-book-expanded-edition_3.3.pdf

The original release was from 1975-2015, the expanded edition goes up to 2019, so it now has stuff like Disco Elysium, Divinity:OS2, Kingmaker, ELEX, Cultist Simulator, Kenshi, Kingdom Come, etc. I also added some older stuff like Caverns of Freitag, Adventure Construction Set, Tunnels of Doom, Omega, Battletech, B.A.T., Black Crypt, Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis, Konung, Prelude to Darkness, SpellForce 1-3, Boling Point, Age of Pirates, etc...

One of the things I'm most happy about are the special sections at the end of the book about non-English RPGs from France, Korea and China, as well as sections on RPG Maker and MMOs & MUDs. They took months of research, but is the kind of thing I've never seen explored anywhere else.

 

[A horse of course]

You still have the wrong release date for Descent to Undermountain, you cretin.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

You still have the wrong release date for Descent to Undermountain, you cretin.

Fat claim, fattie.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Will this be completely incompatible with previous saves, so we have to start the whole book from the beginning, like one of Larian's famous Enhanced Editions?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

You still have the wrong release date for Descent to Undermountain, you cretin.

Interestingly, advertisements for Interplay's Descent to Undermountain appeared in Dragon Magazine issues #235 and #236, which are from November and December 1996, although Mobygames lists the release date as December 1997, and the CRPG Book places it in 1998.

 

[felipepepe]

You still have the wrong release date for Descent to Undermountain, you cretin.

Interplay announced its release on January 15, 1998: https://web.archive.org/web/19980710124420/http://interplay.com/press/dtu.html

I think that's the most official source possible.

 

[A horse of course]

You still have the wrong release date for Descent to Undermountain, you cretin.

Interplay announced its release on January 15, 1998: https://web.archive.org/web/19980710124420/http://interplay.com/press/dtu.html

I think that's the most official source possible.

They announced it because they held review copies back to cover up the state of the game. There are archived pages from both the Dragonplay Message Boards (Interplay forums), and alt.games.rpg from December 1997 that both show copies were in the hands of the public in December 1997.

This is what happens when you combine the work ethic of a Catholic with the IQ of an Iberian.

 

[mindx2]

I got the collectors edition of the first issue and will buy a hardcover copy of the expanded edition as soon as it is available. Amazing job, you‘re doing god‘s work felipepepe

What "Collector's Edition"?!! What came with it?

felipepepe what games are being added to the book?

The Collectors edition has:

A solid black slipcase for the book with gold-coloured lettering "CRPG Book" (not sure if the normal edition has that as well?)
A branded dungeon map pad (A4 size)
A branded pencil
Several postcards with motives from classic crpgs (e.g. Daggerfall)
A poster

I can try to post some pictures on the weekend.

If I remember correctly, it was available as a limited run when the book was released in print form. I ordered it from Bitmap in September 2019.

Dang it! I missed that! NOW I WANT ONE!!!!

 

[felipepepe]

You still have the wrong release date for Descent to Undermountain, you cretin.

Interplay announced its release on January 15, 1998: https://web.archive.org/web/19980710124420/http://interplay.com/press/dtu.html

I think that's the most official source possible.

They announced it because they held review copies back to cover up the state of the game. There are archived pages from both the Dragonplay Message Boards (Interplay forums), and alt.games.rpg from December 1997 that both show copies were in the hands of the public in December 1997.

This is what happens when you combine the work ethic of a Catholic with the IQ of an Iberian.

Still, the official release date is January 1998, doesn't matter that some copies went out earlier. Same thing with Diablo 1, some stores sold the game on December 31st 1996 but the official release date is January 1997.

Lots of Switch games now are available on pirate websites a week before they even hit the streets, but it makes no sense to use the rom release date instead of the official one.

 

[A horse of course]

You still have the wrong release date for Descent to Undermountain, you cretin.

Interplay announced its release on January 15, 1998: https://web.archive.org/web/19980710124420/http://interplay.com/press/dtu.html

I think that's the most official source possible.

They announced it because they held review copies back to cover up the state of the game. There are archived pages from both the Dragonplay Message Boards (Interplay forums), and alt.games.rpg from December 1997 that both show copies were in the hands of the public in December 1997.

This is what happens when you combine the work ethic of a Catholic with the IQ of an Iberian.

Still, the official release date is January 1998, doesn't matter that some copies went out earlier. Same thing with Diablo 1, some stores sold the game on December 31st 1996 but the official release date is January 1997.

Lots of Switch games now are available on pirate websites a week before they even hit the streets, but it makes no sense to use the rom release date instead of the official one.

Except it wasn't leaked, it was released in December 1997. It was INTENTIONALLY released on that date to grab Christmas sales before negative reviews went out, so the date it was released is in fact a critical fact to get right. It's this kind of shit that earned you your poor reputation among the CRPG influencer community.

 

[Wunderbar]

felipepepe admit it, was it you who's been counting votes for Lula?

 

[felipepepe]

Except it wasn't leaked, it was released in December 1997. It was INTENTIONALLY released on that date to grab Christmas sales before negative reviews went out, so the date it was released is in fact a critical fact to get right.

Unless you have evidence to back that up, that's you guessing what happened, not a fact.

In your own video you don't present that as fact, you mention it as the impression people who bought the game had. That is something I can also do, but I can't go "It is a proven fact that Interplay lied about the release date to avoid bad reviews":

 

[Grauken]

Except it wasn't leaked, it was released in December 1997. It was INTENTIONALLY released on that date to grab Christmas sales before negative reviews went out, so the date it was released is in fact a critical fact to get right.

Unless you have evidence to back that up, that's you guessing what happened, not a fact.

In your own video you don't present that as fact, you mention it as the impression people who bought the game had. That is something I can also do, but I can't go "It is a proven fact that Interplay lied about the release date to avoid bad reviews":

Ed's just jelly that nothing he'll ever do with his reviews will be as good as the CRPG Book

 

[A horse of course]

Except it wasn't leaked, it was released in December 1997. It was INTENTIONALLY released on that date to grab Christmas sales before negative reviews went out, so the date it was released is in fact a critical fact to get right.

Unless you have evidence to back that up, that's you guessing what happened, not a fact.

In your own video you don't present that as fact, you mention it as the impression people who bought the game had. That is something I can also do, but I can't go "It is a proven fact that Interplay lied about the release date to avoid bad reviews".

First you get the release date wrong, then you claim "it wasn't REALLY released December 1997", then you claim "well it doesn't really matter whether it was released in December 1997 or not", and now we're on "you need proof Interplay intentionally released it in December 1997".

First, if you were such an expert on the industry you'd know how common it was to force a release before christmas regardless of the state of the game. This should've been a warning sign when you first wrote the article, because a publisher letting a gnome slip past Christmas is a big deal - when Blizzard did it in the late 90s, for example, it was specifically pointed out that they were one of the few who could get away with it.

Second, I don't know what you mean by "your video", that's just a highly regarded and extremely trim content creator I picked at random.

Thirdly, said thin person cited both a statement from the DTU team saying "Interplay forced us to release the game before it was ready", and the Game Developer article I cited which claims Interplay knowingly released the game in a broken state to get christmas sales was written in 2003 by Eric Bethke. Bethke was one of interplay's third-party developers in the 90s and worked as a producer on several of those projects, then formally joined Interplay in 1998 as senior producer, so it's reasonable to assume he had some inside information, especially considering how detailed the article was re: Interplay's internal deliberations. He may be wrong, but I'm unaware of anyone at Interplay disputing that the game was released in 1997, only that they didn't know it was in such a shitty state (as per Meghan Jenks and Feargus Urquhart) and that they didn't mean to wait until January to make an official statement on the matter.

Unless you have something other than the press release - which conflicts with numerous sources produced at the time, including posts made by Interplay's own marketing employees - I'm not sure what you're trying to claim here. If you don't want to cite both the DTU team and a former Interplay producer saying "yes they released it before christmas to make money before it got hammered in reviews", that's your right, but claiming that A: it wasn't actually released in December 1997 and B: the release date of DTU isn't important, I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

See, what you should've done is APOLOGIZED for your error, attributing it to one too many siestas, and promised to investigate it the next time you had the opportunity. Sadly, due to the mad, corona-fueled fury and misplaced machismo that comes with your latin blood, you were unable to admit to being at fault. I hope you understand now why the Japanese people will NEVER accept mediterraneans as their equals.

 

[mindx2]

felipepepe Do you know if Bitmap Books will be offering a collector's edition with the new printing?

 

[mindx2]

Hey, come on Ed123 you know I love you too...

 

[A horse of course]

Hey, come on Ed123 you know I love you too...

A shame you don't love your arteries as much as you love cinnamon buns.

 

[mindx2]

Hey, come on Ed123 you know I love you too...

A shame you don't love your arteries as much as you love cinnamon buns.

Wait... what?

 

[Grauken]

Hey, come on Ed123 you know I love you too...

A shame you don't love your arteries as much as you love cinnamon buns.

Wait... what?

He's Ed, don't expect him to make much sense

 

[felipepepe]

felipepepe Do you know if Bitmap Books will be offering a collector's edition with the new printing?

Not really sure, but I think all recent books they did have a collector's edition.

and now we're on "you need proof Interplay intentionally released it in December 1997".

No, I need proof that they lied about the 1998 release date to avoid getting bad reviews. Because they could've just kept a 1997 release date and not send review copies, or send them on release date. Gamespot's review wouldn't come out until February 6th, and the biggest PC gaming magazines were monthly, so they wouldn't be able to publish a review in December even if they got a review copy in December.

Anyway, the official release date according to Interplay is January 15, 1998. Like with Diablo, I will use the official date.

But, as I showed above, I added a note that it was rushed for Christmas and was available for purchase in 1997, before any reviews. I think that's the most complete way of covering the situation, better than just saying "it was released in 1997".

 

[A horse of course]

felipepepe Do you know if Bitmap Books will be offering a collector's edition with the new printing?

Not really sure, but I think all recent books they did have a collector's edition.

and now we're on "you need proof Interplay intentionally released it in December 1997".

No, I need proof that they lied about the 1998 release date to avoid getting bad reviews. Because they could've just kept a 1997 release date and not send review copies, or send them on release date. Gamespot's review wouldn't come out until February 6th, and the biggest PC gaming magazines were monthly, so they wouldn't be able to publish a review in December even if they got a review copy in December.

Anyway, the official release date according to Interplay is January 15, 1998. Like with Diablo, I will use the official date.

But, as I showed above, I added a note that it was rushed for Christmas and was available for purchase in 1997, before any reviews. I think that's the most complete way of covering the situation, better than just saying "it was released in 1997".

The first Descent to Undermountain patch was released in December 1997. Before you claim the game was actually released. Feel free to check the December 1997 posts on comp.sys.ibm, which are still available on google groups right now, or the December 1997 posts made on the Dragonplay forums, which are on internet archive. The only source that supports your claim the game was leaked before it was supposed to be released is a January 15th press release that conflicts with every other bit of information at the time. You're the one making the leap of logic in claiming that this is proof the December 1997 copies were sold by retailers a full month prior to release. I haven't seen a single contemporaneous Interplay source making their claim. They simply clammed up until mid January - and then said absolutely nothing about leaks or anything of the sort.

I checked your link both before I made my first poast, and after you feebly attempted to defend your murderous dishonesty, and both copies say

"Unfamiliar with the engine, the team struggled
and the game was delayed for years, then suddenly
rushed out for 1997’s Christmas. They still missed the
release date, arriving only in January 15 1998 – without
multiplayer (which was still listed on the box)"

Claiming that Descent to Undermountain was released in January 1998 is, based on all available evidence, misleading your audience.

 

[felipepepe]

Claiming that Descent to Undermountain was released in January 1998 is, based on all available evidence, misleading your audience.

Interplay is the one making that claim, not me. What I can do is give a counterpoint, which is what I'm doing now.

I checked your link both before I made my first poast, and after you feebly attempted to defend your murderous dishonesty, and both copies say

I said " That is something I can also do" and showed how I can update the book. That doesn't mean I already exported a new PDF, uploaded it and updated the links, that takes a time.

 

[A horse of course]

Claiming that Descent to Undermountain was released in January 1998 is, based on all available evidence, misleading your audience.

Interplay is the one making that claim, not me. What I can do is give a counterpoint, which is what I'm doing now.

I checked your link both before I made my first poast, and after you feebly attempted to defend your murderous dishonesty, and both copies say

I said " That is something I can also do" and showed how I can update the book. That doesn't mean I already exported a new PDF, uploaded it and updated the links, that takes a time.

Ignoring the fact it was your failure to do even a modicum of fact-checking before writing the original article that led to this disaster, you've had just shy of two months to correct this egregious error, and you did NOTHING.