Math Mathonwy Posted April 14, 2011 Report Share Posted April 14, 2011 My Adobe Reader says that the PDF is password protected and can't be printed. Chrome can't print it either. Since the file is so insanely huge, none of my portable devices can utilize it efficiently (meaning that changing a page takes a loooong time). These things combined make the PDF completely useless to me. Am I alone in this? Has someone gotten it to work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoboStele Posted April 14, 2011 Report Share Posted April 14, 2011 Don't know that I would bother printing it. You'd pretty much HAVE to print it in color in order for it to be readable. The actual manual only costs $15. By the time you blow through 60 pages of printer ink, you might as well just buy the manual itself. I haven't tried printing my copy of the manual though. And it is like 70 MB, so yeah...mobile devices will have a bit of trouble with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Posted April 14, 2011 Report Share Posted April 14, 2011 (edited) You'd want to print it if e.g. you wanted to create a new pdf file of the manual that was less clunky and would actually work on a mobile device (as I tried). The size isn't the problem. I've read 250 MB RPG books on my mobile device. It's the multiple layers in it that causes the problems. Printing to paper makes no sense if you can buy the book this cheap. Edited April 14, 2011 by Eddie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karn987 Posted April 14, 2011 Report Share Posted April 14, 2011 You'd want to print it if e.g. you wanted to create a new pdf file of the manual that was less clunky and would actually work on a mobile device (as I tried). The size isn't the problem. I've read 250 MB RPG books on my mobile device. It's the multiple layers in it that causes the problems. Printing to paper makes no sense if you can buy the book this cheap. Oh it's not a flattened PDF? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q'iq'el Posted April 14, 2011 Report Share Posted April 14, 2011 Oh it's not a flattened PDF? It's generated by Quark and rather heavy. Wyrd Chronicles suffer from the same issue. It could use some flattening and quite possibly the graphics could be re-compressed. The pages take eternity to display compared to typical PDFs and even some older notebooks/desktops have problems scrolling that stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karn987 Posted April 14, 2011 Report Share Posted April 14, 2011 It's generated by Quark and rather heavy. Wyrd Chronicles suffer from the same issue. It could use some flattening and quite possibly the graphics could be re-compressed. The pages take eternity to display compared to typical PDFs and even some older notebooks/desktops have problems scrolling that stuff. Ahhh I see. Well maybe you could ask Eric nicely and get him to generate a flattened version of it to make it easier to use for most people. I've not had an issue with them before... but I guess my machines are just up to par for it and I don't have any sort of mobile browsing sooooo never noticed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoboStele Posted April 14, 2011 Report Share Posted April 14, 2011 Ooh, interesting. I hadn't considered that they weren't flattened. That would explain why they seem to load pages in pieces (like background, then foreground). My lap top does take 2-3 seconds per page, but I haven't tried it on a mobile device yet. Flattening should certainly help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Math Mathonwy Posted April 15, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 Don't know that I would bother printing it. You'd pretty much HAVE to print it in color in order for it to be readable. The actual manual only costs $15. By the time you blow through 60 pages of printer ink, you might as well just buy the manual itself. Could be but I've been promoing the game to my friends as having a free rulebook available online and it's not looking all that good when, though technically true, the rulebook is completely useless. Compare and contrast to, say, Infinity or Alkemy which really do have the rulebooks available in a usable format (Alkemy's is downright brilliant, but that's a high bar I don't honestly expect other companies to follow). I do own the rules manual, but promoing this game is kinda awkward at the moment. "You need to buy these two books to know the fluff and then you need this small book to know the rules as the rules in the previous books are outdated. Oh, and they contain stats and such, but they're not reliable. For those you need the cards but the cards you get in blisters might not be the right ones so if that happens you need to order new cards from over seas. It's a really fun game, though." I'm not critiquing Wyrd here of all those things here, mind. Things happen and on the whole I think that they've done a good job fixing stuff and I don't know how one could've done the fixing better. It's just that the Rules Manual pdf is kinda negative ATM as it's like a tease in that it's there but unusable. I mean, yeah, it's possible to read it on a powerful desktop computer, but at least when I read the rules, I flip back and forth quite a bit and it's such a paint in the behind with this ultra heavy pdf even on my powerful desktop that I really wouldn't want to learn the rules that way. And yeah, I was hoping to print it into a smaller, flattened pdf, though an ink copy would've been nice for promoing purposes to be able to show the free rulebook they offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magicpockets Posted April 15, 2011 Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 I can't even get it unzipped (on a Mac) so you're doing better than me Btw - if anyone can dropbox the unzipped file I'd really appreciate it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Posted April 15, 2011 Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 (edited) Edit: link removed Edited April 15, 2011 by Eddie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magicpockets Posted April 15, 2011 Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 (edited) Thank you, downloading now Edit: Done, thank you Edited April 15, 2011 by magicpockets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Math Mathonwy Posted April 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2011 Thank you, downloading now Edit: Done, thank you So.... did you get it to work in a satisfactory way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dahli.llama Posted April 18, 2011 Report Share Posted April 18, 2011 I would really like to see a more manageable version of the PDF as well. I own a Nook color and I was very excited to be able to put a copy of the rules onto that for reference, but in the current format it is completely unreadable. It literally takes 4-5 minutes to load each page, and even then it doesn't always load them completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Math Mathonwy Posted April 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 I'm rather disappointed that no one posted anything positive in defense of the pdf. I mean, I was hoping that I was just doing something wrong and it was working as intended, but I'm kinda forced to conclude that no one is actually using the pdf for anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadaka Posted April 19, 2011 Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 I have had no issues with it down loaded and works fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Math Mathonwy Posted April 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 I have had no issues with it down loaded and works fine. It works fine for me, too, in theory. But did you do anything with it? I mean, can you use it as a reference during a game (the great thing about PDFs is that they are searchable and nicely portable given the right devices)? Or did you read the whole thing through to learn the rules? Because currently both of those prospects seem like they're not working for me (the first because the PDF is too heavy for my portable devices and the second because it's so slow to go from page to page on my desktop comp). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadaka Posted April 19, 2011 Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 I have a printed copy i look at frequently. I all ready know the rules so it hard to learn the game from it. I find it to work well enough to look through when I dont have my rules manual handy ( I keep it at my desk at work when I try and figure some thing out) I dont see any reason you could not use it to play a game tho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Math Mathonwy Posted April 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 I have a printed copy i look at frequently. How did you get it printed? In my PDF the printing has been disabled. Could you maybe print a flattened PDF version as that would basically solve all my problems with it? I all ready know the rules so it hard to learn the game from it. There were quite a number of changes in the Rules manual, though. I at least read it from start to finish. I find it to work well enough to look through when I dont have my rules manual handy ( I keep it at my desk at work when I try and figure some thing out) I dont see any reason you could not use it to play a game tho. I promoed it as a resource for new players who, when they tried using it, got quite disappointed, so that's where I'm coming from. Personally I own the Rules Manual and think it's a good product. It's just that from a newbie's perspective the PDF could've been really nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadaka Posted April 19, 2011 Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 Sorry for first question I have to stand by the first rule of PDFight club. I have read through it but knowing the rules before hand made it easy to follow. It was mostly just going o thats different then how they played it. I think the PDF works ok to play a game or to if you have a computer handy. I would not want to play over the long hall from a pdf but I think it works ok as a intro rules set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anathema Posted April 19, 2011 Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 I complained about it being useless in the now locked thread but was shouted down. It's unusable for me at present and definitely not a selling point. They should have re-released book 1 and put a full erratic up for existing owners. Either that or put up a usable pdf minus all the pretty but useless graphics that slow it down and make printing pointless. I wouldn't claim its useful for new players at all. The thing that got me into Malifaux was the low entry price and only needinbg one book for everything. That's no longer true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadaka Posted April 19, 2011 Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 A 15 buck book and around 40 bucks for a starter box is a dirt cheep entry price for a mini game. Not sure what other book you need. If any thing I could see people complaining the old books are useless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anathema Posted April 19, 2011 Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 Call me old fashioned but id like to know the background behind the game and also some idea of who and what I'm up against. The manual and your cards give you the mech!nice for the basic game and your crew. Book one gave you the whole game and its story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wodschow Posted April 19, 2011 Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 Call me old fashioned but id like to know the background behind the game and also some idea of who and what I'm up against. The manual and your cards give you the mech!nice for the basic game and your crew. Book one gave you the whole game and its story. So you'd rather that the game never developed further? No new fluff and no new minis/rules? Or are you saying that each new book should contain everything from the old books aswell? Either way sounds ridicolous to me.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Math Mathonwy Posted April 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 So you'd rather that the game never developed further? No new fluff and no new minis/rules? Or are you saying that each new book should contain everything from the old books aswell? Either way sounds ridicolous to me.. Not speaking for anathema, but before the starting cost was one book and one starter. Now it's basically one book for the fluff and another one for the rules and then one starter. Now, Wyrd saw that this wasn't what they wanted, so they released the updated rules for free. An excellent solution that I lauded and was very happy to pay for the Rules Manual knowing that newbies could ease up into the game just as efficiently as before. Unfortunately the release was in a file that is cumbersome enough to be unusable to most of us. If they would just flatten the pdf into usability, I at least would be more than happy with how they handled the situation. But right now it feels somehow... bait and switchish. That's too strong a word as I'm 100% sure that Wyrd isn't doing this for some kinda cheap gain and, like I said, I lauded their handling of the situation. Merging the unwieldy errata into a new rulebook and then releasing it free of charge was a great idea but right now it's kinda unfinished and makes honest promoing a bit awkward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anathema Posted April 19, 2011 Report Share Posted April 19, 2011 I was explaining why I disagreed with tadaka. Math did indeed say what I tried to. I'm the same as him, I thought releasing the pdf was a great way to reward early adaptors by giving them the updated rules but not requiring them to buy yet another book. Then I saw the pdf and found it unusable. It could be fixed by releasing a basic file with the rules or errata for book one that is usable on mobiles or easily printed. I'm a bit disappointed Wyrd didn't do that. I like the game and eagerly bought book 2. I'll be buying more miniatures for it tonight. I'm just annoyed that book 1 is rendered obsolete without a suitable free replacement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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