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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:12 am
by cowsmanaut
I see, so he stole it from the library and is now looking to make a quick buck.. nice. Perhaps I should go smash and grab a few of those rare comics I see in the stores and sell those on ebay..

man.. some people have some big balls and no brains..

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:41 am
by Gambit37
??? Libraries get rid of stuff all the time and donate them to all sorts of places, or they have their own sales of books they no longer wish to carry. You can't assume he stole it!

BTW Cows, the email address you have registered on here is rejecting email -- I've emailed you about it a few times but got no response, so I don't know if you saw those emails? Can you please update your profile here with an email address that works? Cheers. :)

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 5:49 am
by cowsmanaut
libraries don't usually get rid of rare, let alone popular books. They get rid of trashy romance novels no one reads or boring books that no one in their right mind borrows anymore. OR, if they do get rid of any decent books it's because when it was new they purchased 8 of them and they now no longer need more than 1 or 2. I know a lot of popular and rare books get "lost" at my local library all the time. Sorry, but if he got it via legitimate means I'd be shocked.

I'm sure if someone saw that the book went for 150 pounds on ebay, they'd run down to their local library to see if it was there.. I mean really, if you have to pay them back for the book, it's the cost of the book when it was purchased at the most.. so profit wise, it makes sense.. :P

as for my email.. might I remind you sir that you changed the settings to have the forums send you all the errors :P that said, I made some adjustments..

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:40 am
by beowuuf
I'm afraid they do - one of the other LW fans bought his copy of this rare book for the vast, staggering, ungodly sum of - 20p. Just that fan decided to keep it, while this other one didn't

A ten year old gamebook is not a popular item, while lots of us love Lone WOlf, it's not like we are in the majority, and I can imagine any library dumping it, especially if it were an american version where the publisher treated the series even worse and edited it down too!

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 10:34 am
by cowsmanaut
then someone is not doing their homework, because any book that has collectors status is something you sell based on it's worth as this guy is attempting to do! I dunno, I see a large enough web presence to suggest it's big enough someone should have known about it.

As for my continuing feeling that it had been stolen.. sorry.. borrowed and "lost".. is that this happens to almost all the roleplaying books that have appeared at my local library.. books that are not easy to find in the books stores especially. Like a few of the D&D art books that for the most part you have to order in by mail or internet. I eventually gave up trying to take them out because they kept being "lost" within a couple months..

so I have a bit of long standing bias :P However, upon careful inspection of the text the second look.. (just now) it has a faded black stamp upside down which says "sold" over the original green stamp.. so I guess this one is legit. Still doesn't change the fact that lots of people steal this kind of stuff :P

yes.. I'm stubborn .. :P

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:37 pm
by Gambit37
Back to New LW and I've been reading over the Mongoose forums to get a handle on all the problems with the first few books containing errors. I can't seem to find a definitive answer about whether all the problems are now corrected in new reprints. Beo, do you know?

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:17 pm
by beowuuf
You can happily buy the first two books. Book 3 has recently had a small niggle found in the bonus adventure (a mis-directed section) but should be fine.

I'd hold off on book 4, there were a few niggles in printing, and also a text correction by JD has created a scanning section problem (funnily, there was one in the original too, the correction now flipped the problem)

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:32 pm
by Gambit37
Coolio.... now, I need to earn some money to buy them! Business is currently very sloooooooooooow...

EDIT: Do the paperbacks suffer from the same errors? I quite fancy getting one from Aamazon first, just to see how they compare to the originals.

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:08 pm
by beowuuf
The paperbacks aren't out yet, despite the schedule amazon have up (they demand the schedule way in advance)

I have my two wrong copies of book 1 and 3, if you wish to see them at their worst and how the artwork and mini game (book 3) feel

These are surplus, since thye replaced them with good copies for free

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:32 pm
by cowsmanaut
It amazes me that books these days go out with large glaring errors in them.. not talking specifically about these, but some books I've read. Especially those written by two people like weis and hickman.. I mean the two of them PLUS a final editor to go through and find all the errors and yet I stumble over sentances with missing words and words which are properly spelled but have no purpose being in the middle of the sentance :P Almost like they are left over from a select and delete during editing the text. :P

I suppose the most important thing with these books though is that mistakes do not exist in the role playing aspect of them. Last thing you want to discover is that you can't finish a quest because of an error :P

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 6:28 pm
by Gambit37
So I am amazed. I won a signed, (personalised!) copy of LW#3 on eBay and I have received it today direct from Joe before I've even paid for it. Now that is what you call trust and efficiency!

I love the new book. Although smaller than I expected, the hardback has a weight that just feels 'right' and is such a step up from the original paperbacks. I don't really want to keep opening it for fear of spoilage which is kind of silly given that it's a gamebook and will suffer damage if played properly, but hey -- these are special. ;-)

I quite like the cover. While it doesn't evoke Gary Chalk's unique style at all, it has a certain atmosphere. I do think that it's a bit generic fantasy though: everyone and his dog is churning out this style of art these days (just look at ImagineFX magazine, or browse the Fantasy section on deviantart). It does the job but isn't amazing.

I'm not too sure about the internal illustrations, I think this will be case of getting used to a new artist. I really loved Chalk's style and these are very different. I'm a bit irked by how some of the pictures are totally different Loi-Kymar, for example, had a unique and striking appearance in the original but here he just looks like a Generic Fantasy Wizard in his pyjamas. Still, the images do their job -- just not quite as stylishly as Chalk managed in my opinion.

I have a few quibbles about the production: The wrap-around cover doesn't snugly fit the actual fold, so part of the background colour is seen on the spine. Some of the text on the map is too dark to read. Some pages are not printed squarely and the random number table and Loi-Kymar's combat chart are off the page. These are annoying but not terrible.

On the whole I'm impressed and delighted to see Lone Wolf in this format. It's about time! :D

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 6:45 pm
by beowuuf
Yeah, those are the quibbles others have mentioned. The original spine of book one did seem fragile, the new ones are good.

The internal art, as you say, doesn't evoke the same feelings as the old work for me...but then that's just me showing my age and what I grew up with :D

Oh, and banedon in book 1 - someone on one of the other forums compared him to an 80's footballer!

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:05 pm
by Gambit37
For the spine, my copy is sound structurally, it's the actual registration of the printing that is off by a few milimeters so you see some of the back on the spine instead. It's all tightly bound which is good.

Which 80's footballer? :shock:

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:58 pm
by beowuuf
i think generic 80's footballer feel :D

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:18 pm
by Gambit37
I forgot to ask, on the Mongoose site, Book 1 has red text, all the others have white. Is this a mockup issue? -- is it white or red on the actual published book?

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:26 pm
by beowuuf
Do you mean the map or something else? If you mean the logo, it is red on book one. If you mean the map, it's white (I'm sure it had red writing somewhere before hence my confusion)

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:30 pm
by Gambit37
Yeah, the logo. Darn it -- how silly. They should have made them all consistently white, it would be much more classy. Is that the same on the spine?

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:34 pm
by beowuuf
No, the spine's white, which is why it didn't register instantly (my book is over there on my new shelves, woohoo!). I think the red works ok on the picture itself

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:35 pm
by Gambit37
OK, cool, thank you my little Loney Wolfey Knowledge Master. :D

Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 7:06 pm
by linflas
Nintendo DS video : http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=qsNh4v6r8lU
very nice interface !

Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 7:10 pm
by Sabreman
I've been playing that DS version and it is indeed absolutely superb. I can't imagine anyone doing a better job of translating a gamebook to a videogame format.

Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 7:42 pm
by Gambit37
You might wanna try Seventh Sense then, a PC version -- pretty damn cool!

The DS version has more info on the Aon forums too.

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:23 pm
by linflas
Mr. Joe "survivor" Dever speaks to his fans :
http://43505.rapidforum.com/topic=102369476177

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:08 pm
by Gambit37
Oh, thank you for the link, that was really interesting. I'm glad Joe recovered so well after his operation and I wish him well for the future -- and the future of Lone Wolf.

Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 1:00 pm
by Gambit37
I just won the new hardbacks from Joe on ebay, #1 and #2 - signed, with personal library seal, for £5 each! Nice.

But annoyingly, they are a different size from the book #3 that I already had, and the binding is completely different (new books are rounded, old one has a square binding).

Grrrrr! :x

Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:01 pm
by beowuuf
Someone already complained about the fact the new bindings started in book 5 when they swapped to an american printer from in-house

Still, nicely won!

Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:24 pm
by Gambit37
Yup, bargain whichever way you look at it. :-D Aren't you supposed to be 'net less?

Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:24 pm
by beowuuf
Not until after the weekend - I'm moving over the weekend (hopefully not monday, hopefully keys tomorrow) but will still probably be based in my rental room (the one with the proper bed for friend staying over while i take the futon mattress on the floor) until he goes away/ OF course, not going to be surfing normally while he's down, so basically tonight is my last night (sniff) and i've mostly been packing all the minor stuff

Re: New Lone Wolf!

Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:20 am
by Gambit37
Hey, interesting! Is this completely re-drawn and re-written?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 285wt_1166

And this sounds like fun too!

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpg/d ... 45856c0584

Oh, and I was just looking at the map of the Free Kingdoms from Caverns of Kalte and only really noticed for the first time that Holmgard to Hammerdal is about 700 miles! I never got that sense from the book at all, I always thought it was about the distance of London -> Manchester!

Re: New Lone Wolf!

Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 12:39 pm
by linflas
Gambit37 wrote:Hey, interesting! Is this completely re-drawn and re-written?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 285wt_1166

And this sounds like fun too!
I had a look at it when i met Joe Dever, it's an extension of the role playing game, not a rewrite of game books.