An Update on “Ultima Online: The Ultimate Collector’s Guide”
Stephen Emond has posted an update on his progress on his next Collector’s Guide, and various other projects, on the Ultima Dragons Facebook page.
Ultima Online TUCG – As I continue revising and updating the original (unpublished) book I’ve also been redoing the pictures at 400dpi, which is double the resolution I used in the Ultima guide. This will mainly affect the set & variation pictures, but should show up nice and crisp in the final.
Companion Guide 2013 – An expanded version of the original will be made available for everyone alongside the Ultima Online guide. It will include an Addendum to the 2012 Ultima guide with new additions, updates and corrections.
Full Color Books – Like most of you I would have loved to release the Ultima book in full glorious color. Alas a color option was unavailable for a book of its considerable heft. The good news is full color “Gold Editions” WILL be available for both the UO & Companion Guides.
Addendum 2013 – I will also be providing the Addendum section from the Companion Guide as a free PDF for everyone who purchased the original, so that everyone has the most complete information available.
Official Website – I am also pleased to announce that the Ultima Collector’s Guides will soon have an official home at the new Ultima Codex website 🙂
RocketHub – I plan to run preorders for the new books later this year through RocketHub as I did with the original. I already have a few ideas for some exclusive pre-order swag, but I’m open to suggestions if there’s anything in particular you guys would like to see.
It’s true: Stephen Emond will soon be moving in to some new digs that we’re just in the process of setting up for him.
So the collector’s guide has also been assimilated by WTF. Who will fall next?
wcnews.ultimacodex.com
If we could get full-color eBooks, I would do it in a heartbeat. I know a lot of people still prefer books they can handle, put on a shelf, etc., but if the alternate was a full-color eBook, I’m there.
I think there was an issue with the formatting that prevents the easy release of an eBook format of the Guide. And to be fair, I can see it…Stephen has a nice image border around most of his pages, for example. And even the images themselves and their alignment on the page…I can see why it wouldn’t be conducive to easy conversion to ePub, Kindle, or whatever.
Unfortunately Ken’s right. The way they convert books into those standard formats makes it impossible for my very specific formatting requirements. I’m sure at some point there will be a way around that but sadly not yet.
Personally I do prefer actually having a physical book in hand though… I just don’t get the same feeling reading “The History of Britannia” in PDF format or looking at a scan of a cloth map… and don’t get me started on trying to wear JPGs of Ankhs :p
For me a big part of Ultima’s charm was the tangible box full of awesome. I feel a digital guide might cheapen that a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I know the majority of people out there love their eReaders and I will certainly accommodate them as soon as I can.