What do you think of MMP's stewardship of ASL so far?

[kdalton]

Well it has been almost a year I have been waiting on MMP. I want to get back in but I also want my money to go to MMP. Gee they seem to need it worse than a wino.

I see there is a starter kit I might can intice a newbie in with and get reaquinted.

Well better than that and before that I stepped on their liscences. Yes MMP I am violing copyright by finding a pre-ASL rule book in pdf and vasal. Guese what guys you put me here. Negligence of your CORE product no matter how you want to slice that one is lacking. For kdalton to recomend to me to get the rules v1 off of ebay is just so unproffesional it is sorry (nothing personal this is bidness, thanks for the concern).

I am not buying this broke hand out approach. Fire up the rest of the guys on your ass for poor buisness managment, where is Les. Look I know you need money. Guese what I see Kurt Schilling is involved. I garuntee Kurt can walk out of a bank with more money than I could with an M1. Sorry to bring personalities in this but sometimes personal fortunes are needed to make a company rock.

I am still impatiently waiting the MMP versions of the core game and refuse to use ebay, that dosent help that money thing. From a years worth of observing MMP I am sorry but I aint impressed in a good way.

Curt Schilling is not MMP's personal piggy bank, regardless of what you might think.

You asked me if the second edition was coming out relatively soon, if I recall correctly. I had no publishing date. To the best of my knowledge HONESTY is entirely professional.

And we'd love to have the rulebook in print right now, too. But we're not putting it out with a bunch of new errors because we got lazy or hurried.

 

[kdalton]

Gee, I gotta buy a company, have a celeberty incharge and all the while preform like an incompetent moron.

Scott

Must ... resist ... straight line....

 

[kdalton]

Before the p# system, money was a critical issue. The issue now is the layout bottleneck for new products, which we're working to alleviate, and the rulebook issue is simply the fact that the progrm we used to lay it out, Quark XPress, went through 2 major upgrades since we laid it out.

What does that do? Makes us have to check EVERY page to make sure stuff didn't go to hell in a handbasket. We also had to double-check our notes to make sure the version of the files we got from our former printer is the FINAL version we approved. That's time consuming. Incerdibly time consuming. I've worked in journalism, PR, and marketing all my life, and trust me, most of it is tediium.

 

[paulkenny]

oh come on you should be able to bang that out in a long weekend! :nuts: :devil: :laugh:

 

[kdalton]

For all you AOO-philes. Just thought I'd pass along the news that Brian got some counter sheet work done this weekend. I know he was working on one of the AFV counter sheets.

 

[Doughboy]

Before the p# system, money was a critical issue. The issue now is the layout bottleneck for new products, which we're working to alleviate, and the rulebook issue is simply the fact that the progrm we used to lay it out, Quark XPress, went through 2 major upgrades since we laid it out.

Hi Keith,

forgive my ignorance, but although Quark may have went through a couple of upgrades since the latest work, why does the previous file need to be moved into the newer formats?

Essentially the work was already done a couple years ago and as far as I can tell, you would merely send this file to the printers to put it through a print run.

On the otherhand is this more an issue with the printers who are constantly keeping abreast to the latest versions of Quark for the production side of the printing process?

Perhaps some insight to these details will qwell the masses out there to see the reality of the printing business. :smoke:

 

[kdalton]

The problem is that the printer has to set the stuff up for their system. Now, sure, if they could do that without having to save it, that would be fine. Problem is, Quark is only one generation backwards compatable. They do that to make you keep buying the new stuff. We're in 4X -- the document, that is -- & the printer is at 6X. Once they saved it over to their system to output for blue line proofs/press, everything reflows according to scripts in 6X.

Theoretically this changes nothing. In reality, it has the potential to throw a lot of minor crap in there, like causing slighty increased leading of text ... that causes the last line on a page to disappear. That's not good.

I've been using Quark since 2X and I've seen it do all sorts of minor crap like that.

 

[Doughboy]

The problem is that the printer has to set the stuff up for their system. Now, sure, if they could do that without having to save it, that would be fine. Problem is, Quark is only one generation backwards compatable. They do that to make you keep buying the new stuff. We're in 4X -- the document, that is -- & the printer is at 6X. Once they saved it over to their system to output for blue line proofs/press, everything reflows according to scripts in 6X.

Theoretically this changes nothing. In reality, it has the potential to throw a lot of minor crap in there, like causing slighty increased leading of text ... that causes the last line on a page to disappear. That's not good.

I've been using Quark since 2X and I've seen it do all sorts of minor crap like that.

Hey Keith,
I hear ya, definitely equates to a lot of work though..a real pain.
If I last recall the v2 of the Rulebook only came out a couple of years ago did the printers at the time use Quark 4x?

Even if you're still on 4x and the printers are using 6x, does it make more sense to move to 6x so that the file formats are compatible? I figure with your long experience with Quark the learning curve is very short. Unfortunately, the amount of checking is enormous as the slight formating between the different version will create numerous offset errors.

Very tedious and time consuming work. Especially with a rulebook in excess of several hundred pages. I wonder if there are alternatives that can be pursued in terms of having some of the fans assist with the proofing to save time; or maybe this is not practical? :surprise:

Let's say your company does upgrade to the latest version of 6x but a couple of years later 6x is changed to 7x, once again proofing is needed again..a never ending and thankless job. I guess this is the reality of the printing business, hey perhaps some of the guys can volunteers help with this aspect of the knowledge base releasing your team to concentrate on new product development. Whether this is practical or not, your the pro...I salute you.

Cheers

 

[kdalton]

Quark 4X was the weapon of choice when the rulebook layout began. Quark 5.0 was released, IIRC, in 2001. Quark 6 was released in Summer 2003. My personal machine is still on 5.0, but I'm planning an upgrade for Christmas.

I know MMP had already had the rulebook out for at least a year when I got seriously involved in like early 2002.

 

[sgtono]

Different versions of major standard software products have been rampant in the last two years, it is one way software companies generate revenue.

This is a typical post from Quark users:



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atw: Re: Quark versions
From: John Bennett <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 10:56:40 +1200
Hello again Tracy,

As far as I know there is no way to open a Quark 5 document in an earlier
version of Quark (as is probably the case with most software programs ? later
versions normally let you open earlier versions, but not the reverse).

The only fix I can see is to make sure you create the document in the earlier
version and then it should open in the later version (providing there are not
too many version changes in-between).

Cheers
John B

Tracy Jenner-Lawson wrote:

> Hello
> I use Quark 4.1 on a Mac at work, and at home I work on a pc using Quark 5.
> My boss thought these versions would be compatible for copying and using the
> files in both locations, yet this does not seem to happen. When I create a
> doc at home and take it to work, I cannot open it there. Does anyone know
> what we can do to remedy the situation, if anything?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Tracy

Signing off - Keith, a software engineer who's paycheck comes from versions

 

[Doughboy]

Quark 4X was the weapon of choice when the rulebook layout began. Quark 5.0 was released, IIRC, in 2001. Quark 6 was released in Summer 2003. My personal machine is still on 5.0, but I'm planning an upgrade for Christmas.

I know MMP had already had the rulebook out for at least a year when I got seriously involved in like early 2002.

Keith,

this must be driving you guys nuts..this version revision schedule is more frequent than bloody Micros##t!
You must get a lotta of headaches and dizzy spells from too much screen time not to mention the carpal tunnel thingy :shock:

 

[Doughboy]

> I use Quark 4.1 on a Mac at work, and at home I work on a pc using Quark 5.

Signing off - Keith, a software engineer who's paycheck comes from versions

Yikes!
hoping for compatibility between Quark files between MAC and PC..forget it.
MAC all the way..the Printers do and so should you

 

[kdalton]

You should see Quark's registration key for their products. It's literally like 40 characters. Then they make you either call their hotline or register online or the product suspends itself in 20 days.

 

[Doughboy]

You should see Quark's registration key for their products. It's literally like 40 characters. Then they make you either call their hotline or register online or the product suspends itself in 20 days.

Keith,

those guys are nuts!
I can't believe this product is the still the industry's standard after all these years with such irritating policies. Oh well, as least it's not like some of the really big guys like SAP or Oracle in which you can only obtain through certain channels and marketing tiers

 

[kdalton]

Forward Compatability? LOL.

FWIW, until Adobe came along with Open Type Fonts -- which work on either platform -- if you had the same version on both PC and MAC machines there would still be problems.

I love Open Type. :laugh:

Oh, and all our new stuff is now on 6X. It's just the old stuff we're having to do this with.

 

[sgtono]

"Yikes!
hoping for compatibility between Quark files between MAC and PC..forget it.
MAC all the way..the Printers do and so should you "


Most programs make files that are compatible between MAC and PC, but evidently Quark chose not to between different versions of the software. Quark 4.1 files on the PC and MAC are compatible, etc. Microsoft keeps its Word documents compatible between MAC and PC. But printers are usually feature driven, so they keep up with the latest and "most stable" version.

Keith- the other one

 

[Bryan Holtby]

Keith, its amazing that you are giving us so much ammo for an eASLRB. So...why is it that MMP DOESNT do one anyways?

 

[Aries]

Quark..... ouch.

That whole explanation makes me cringe.

Got some sympathy from me on that I guess.

Groan, doesn't sound pleasant at all.

 

[Doughboy]

Quark..... ouch.

That whole explanation makes me cringe.

Got some sympathy from me on that I guess.

Groan, doesn't sound pleasant at all.

Yeah,
I have to agree, I know pros out there..Quark is practically a full time job :nuts:

That's why I stayed with IT...less work, easier on the eyes

 

[kdalton]

Quark is a damn fine and versatile program, but not without its eccentricities.

EASLRB has been looked at over and over. Hope to get some traction on it someday. Personally, I'd love one for the PDA. My Palm Pilot takes up a lot less space than a 3 ring binder. We had a couple of people looking at it, but we just haven't made a lot of progress of late.