Hehe. I figured this might cause some divided opinions.ÂÂ
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Pros:
This is a one time opportunity to make NetEpic look as good as possible. Having the ink consumption restriction really limits the possibilities a lot.
Cons:
The ink consumption. Those who do not have access to a professional printer, want to spend money on several cartridges of ink or (in case Primarch decides to put a Raiders style printed version for sale) want to buy a printed version, probably won't print it.
Readability: True that heavy graphics may decrease readability somewhat. This is of course a balance issue, some pages may look busier than others and the sample pages here would be some of the ones with heavy graphic (This is the Ork book so it is supposed to look somewhat busy and slightly chaotic
).
It should be noted that the NEtEpic 5.0 documents on which NetEpic Gold is based are also available (or will be) for those who just want the rules and don't care for fancy-schmanzy graphics. I'm not too keen on doing a Gold and "Silver" version of the books as it does require quite a bit of extra work and will slow down the process we've been trying to speed up.
In defense of a heavier graphics version I'd also point out the (in my view) decreasing importance of physical books. The increasing popularity of netbooks (not to mention regular laptops) and with portable and very affordable E-book tablets just taking off, it is easier than ever to take your pdf files with you. Given the choice between a stack of 6-700 pages of home print and the pdf on a netbook I'd say that the second is a bit more handy
The final argument is more of a "sales" one: Why make NEtEpic Gold in the first place? Isn't it enough to just have the easily readable Word documents with the rules available? That's all you really need to play the game. Well from "the real world" we all know that technical litterature is usually tremendously boring to look at, but we buy it anyway because we need the contents for our work/education, etc. Would someone who haven't got a clue about philosophy go buy Kant's Critiques when strolling through the bookstore? Probably not. Would the same person pick up a colorfull gossip magazine or comic book or whatever? More likely. NetEpic Gold is eye candy. If you're browsing the net and suddenly come across some free downloadable game called NetEpic I think you're more likely to give it a go if it really captures the imagination in those first 5-10 seconds of looking through the PDF file on your screen. For that purpose I think readablilty and ink conservation becomes secondary issues.
Now this is just my opinion of course, so please keep the input going
