Data Sphere

My group and I just got the Paradiso book second hand. Looks beautiful (reads like a turd, just like all the other Infinity stuff - I have seriously offered my services to CB as a proofreader and copywriter. I just cannot believe the abysmal level of translation in terms of flow and readability... BUT ANYWAY).

I asked about the optimum amount of players over on the official CB forums. Almost no response. Now someone tells me: well, Paradiso kind of sucks and you should play ITS.

WTF? Is Paradiso really that bad? Did we just waste 25 euros?

I've very much enjoyed playing the campaign so far. We're only a few missions in, but I really like it.

I would say that if your group has fun, then don't listen to other people.

We've got Paradiso planned for next year, but I see no issues with it at all. Looks interesting and fun! I think the issue is that it's been around a while, so many of the old guard on the main site have been there and seen that... it's a old now, so they've moved beyond it, that's my view anyway.

I think it is down to the newer players to reignite it.

Arachas wrote:My group and I just got the Paradiso book second hand. Looks beautiful (reads like a turd, just like all the other Infinity stuff - I have seriously offered my services to CB as a proofreader and copywriter. I just cannot believe the abysmal level of translation in terms of flow and readability... BUT ANYWAY).

The English translator is a native speaker, but CB makes the final phrasing decisions. He's not happy about that.

I asked about the optimum amount of players over on the official CB forums.

At least 4 players, and 8 would be better.

Now someone tells me: well, Paradiso kind of sucks and you should play ITS.

WTF? Is Paradiso really that bad? Did we just waste 25 euros?

Paradiso has some really interesting twists and turns in it. The biggest issue that a lot of people have is that infiltration is pretty much worthless, and you NEED to bring those doctors, engineers, and at least a plain baggagebot (requiring TAG or hacker) just to be ABLE to complete the mission. This makes list design a bit challenging.

Another thing is that most of the missions you only have 3 turns to get things done. You cannot dilly-dally, you WILL lose the mission if you do.

Also, if you table the opponent, you can still lose the mission. VPs are scored based on objectives completed, so if you haven't achieved any objectives before tabling the opponent, you get ZERO VPs for the mission. If your opponent has achieved more objectives than you even though you tabled him, you just lost. Kills do NOT matter, except as they prevent your opponent from interfering with YOU accomplishing the mission, and that's quite a mental change for a lot of people!

You need quite a bit of specialized terrain for the missions. Fortunately, you can get most of them from MAS now. The train is a bit of an issue, but Terrakami (iirc) has finally made a nice MDF train.

Also, aside from the required terrain pieces, there's pretty much no mention of recommended/suggested terrain layouts. This is really obvious in the train mission. There's just nothing suggested at all outside of the train tracks in the middle of the board. Since the mission takes place in an underground repair facility, I suggest pillars to support the ceiling, a crane over the tracks, and a few cargo containers to hold spare parts as a minimum.

Section9 wrote:

Arachas wrote:My group and I just got the Paradiso book second hand. Looks beautiful (reads like a turd, just like all the other Infinity stuff - I have seriously offered my services to CB as a proofreader and copywriter. I just cannot believe the abysmal level of translation in terms of flow and readability... BUT ANYWAY).

The English translator is a native speaker, but CB makes the final phrasing decisions. He's not happy about that.

Are you sure? Because it's not even the rules I have a problem with: it's the fluff. I have to make a conscious effort, every paragraph, to keep reading. The sentences are long, poorly constructed and filled with descriptive words that just seem to be taking up space (instead of really adding something to the phrase and/or context). All IMHO, of course.

There is a recent vocal group on the official forums that have decided they hate Paradiso. When I started playing, roughly a year ago, Paradiso was shiny and new and all the rage.

The biggest obstacle, I think, is it's not plug and play. You can't just flip open the book and suggest "let's play missin 10x". It takes a lot of time and preparation to read the mission and build a list for each specific mission. As Section9 pointed out this takes an entirely different mindset. It's not just about adjusting your tactics, it's about a willingness to customize your list for every mission and a willingness to allow yourself to proxy. There is no "general army" that will work for Paradiso. And if you were to buy all the miniatures you would be required to use to play through the entire mission you would go broke. There are fringe miniatures that you have to have that you might never use again. The obvious example is a minesweeper baggage bot. But by way of another example, there's this mission in the fourth chapter that you have to try and give everyone in your army high Phys and BTS, and you need a doctor with high BTS and PHYS. It almost demands Kaplans. But you play Corregidor. Does that mean you'll go out and buy a whole box of Kaplans just for that mission? No, you'll just have to proxy them.

That's actually a bad example for you, because your Wildcats have awesome BTS and PHYS, but imagine if you were playing Ariadna.

I predict you will love Paradiso. Your Wildcats will really shine.

Arachas wrote:

Section9 wrote:

Arachas wrote:My group and I just got the Paradiso book second hand. Looks beautiful (reads like a turd, just like all the other Infinity stuff - I have seriously offered my services to CB as a proofreader and copywriter. I just cannot believe the abysmal level of translation in terms of flow and readability... BUT ANYWAY).

The English translator is a native speaker, but CB makes the final phrasing decisions. He's not happy about that.

Are you sure? Because it's not even the rules I have a problem with: it's the fluff. I have to make a conscious effort, every paragraph, to keep reading. The sentences are long, poorly constructed and filled with descriptive words that just seem to be taking up space (instead of really adding something to the phrase and/or context). All IMHO, of course.

Yes, we are sure. The English language editor is based in Western Australia, and is part of our Infinity Aus facebook page. (Hi, Dave).
He has noted that things have been changed BACK after he hands the copy back to CB. Literal translation is often not possible, and an interpretation is generally a better way to go when it comes to English from any other language.

The way I've worked out the numbers for Paradiso, you will need at LEAST 4 players (committed - as in regular) and optimally, 8 players to keep the campaign moving. A regular schedule is ALSO NEEDED. My club meets weekly, but due to infinity NOT being the only game they play, we have to rotate game slots. This meant a monthly game/round turnaround. There are 14-15 missions - with a monthly turnaround, that translated here to about 18 months (holidays and tournaments got in the way). Maintaining the level of commitment needed to keep it going is hard - especially given the usual lack of commitment to anything by most gamers. It petered out around game 7 with my group.

Admittedly, with one member of the group who would "rage quit" when he couldn't win, and two others who weren't as committed as they indicated they could be, it was destined to fail. The missions themselves were overly complicated, when you could understand them - the layouts were not the best (several times we couldn't even find the objectives OR the order in which you were supposed to perform them.
The campaign system itself is fine. The medivac/cubevac part most useful.

The main failing with it, is that was designed FOR the more experienced Infinity players - but even they had issues with it. The noobs (who had just graduated to 300pts) had no chance.

Arachas wrote:My group and I just got the Paradiso book second hand. Looks beautiful (reads like a turd, just like all the other Infinity stuff - I have seriously offered my services to CB as a proofreader and copywriter. I just cannot believe the abysmal level of translation in terms of flow and readability... BUT ANYWAY).

Errr, after reporting some typos and some graphical issues (multiple pixelations in cover of art book? wtf!?), I wonder if they care. Pardon, I stopped wondering, I mean. When plain reprints are confused with improved revisions...

Arachas wrote: Are you sure? Because it's not even the rules I have a problem with: it's the fluff. I have to make a conscious effort, every paragraph, to keep reading. The sentences are long, poorly constructed and filled with descriptive words that just seem to be taking up space (instead of really adding something to the phrase and/or context). All IMHO, of course.

The native version reads the same way. They have a problem with redundancy and bloat. As in the should make someone redundant and contract true style editor, copy editors, quality checkers, etc. Less shiny and more quality books. After some experience with other editors, not having high hopes.

Can't be F'ed reading everyones bits right now.

Suffice to say I quick the Campaign at my local club 3 weeks into it because IT JUST WASN'T FUN! Why I can't really say. I wasn't doing badly but then I wasn't winning it either. The missions felt rushed and the two players who had already played through 90% of it were better equipped and versed to fulfill the missions.

Basically it felt to much like 'work' and not like 'play' so I'll not revisit it till I'm 100% sure I have 4 people who want to play it fully and have had some practice at it. Its not new player friendly; its not well written or fool proof its contradictory and hard to follow.

All in all I would rather play YAM'S!

Mob of Blondes wrote:The native version reads the same way. They have a problem with redundancy and bloat. As in the should make someone redundant and contract true style editor, copy editors, quality checkers, etc. Less shiny and more quality books. After some experience with other editors, not having high hopes.

That's what I feared. Just bad writing, instead of bad translation. Actually sounds like pretty good translation, then. But even GW had their rulebooks streamlined in the course of many revisions. Maybe CB isn't at that point yet.

Anyway, back to the topic of the campaign: I'm not worried about commitment on our part. We have 4 players who are totally into playing a game at least bi-weekly. So that's two games a month, minimum. I can see a campaign spurring things forward into a weekly, thing really.

The list tailoring I don't really like, though. I would want a campaign that's more about growing your units, adding shiny stuff and maybe bots or TAGS at some point (after you've earned it!).

Arachas wrote: I would want a campaign that's more about growing your units, adding shiny stuff and maybe bots or TAGS at some point (after you've earned it!).

That's definitely not Paradiso.

fixed by samurai

SgtHulka wrote:

Arachas wrote: I would want a campaign that's more about growing your units, adding shiny stuff and maybe bots or TAGS at some point (after you've earned it!).

That's definitely not Paradiso.

fixed by samurai

Nope. But maybe I can build it myself. With a team, of course.

Who's up for it?

Paradiso certainly isn't what I was hoping for when I picked it up. And especially with my group it hasn't been possible to play it out to the extent that I believe would allow it to shine.

A campaign format that encouraged growth would be good and help to get my group more involved. I'd be happy to help and contribute my thoughts to such a project.

Stormshroud wrote:Paradiso certainly isn't what I was hoping for when I picked it up. And especially with my group it hasn't been possible to play it out to the extent that I believe would allow it to shine.

A campaign format that encouraged growth would be good and help to get my group more involved. I'd be happy to help and contribute my thoughts to such a project.

I think that the campaign rules from Paradiso are pretty good. The missions are a bit... unusual, IMO.

I'd rummage through some cyberpunk, shadowrun, and d20 modern RPG campaigns for mission ideas. The 4th Corporate War books from Cyberpunk are pretty useful, but those missions are written for RPG scenarios, not tactical. Lots of defenders (20+ defenders) and large battlespaces. How large? A 4x6 table is 72x108m (at my usual building scale of 1"=1.5m), and a lot of the battlefields are pushing 500m square as a minimum.

But there are some absolutely excellent mission ideas in there. Steal a recon plane, sabotage stuff, steal data, steal a researcher, etc. I 'borrowed' the 4th Corporate War scenarios for an early attempt at a campaign system, it's saved on the official forums as "Not blood, but Money."

For my group Paradiso greatly improved the Infinity experience.

The fact that you have to tailor your list to each mission makes you use models or combinations of models you'd never normally use, HAckers, Engineers and Forward Observers as well as Baggage remotes suddenly become Starplayers and you have to think further than "how to kill your enemy".

I agree with the criticism about Infiltration being useless. Thoug I understand it balancing wise, some armies rely on Infiltration and may need the Infili minis anyway due to their specific skills. They then pay teh cost of Infiltration without reaping the benefits and do not get any compensation for it,w hich in turn I find unbalanced.

I personally have no expectations in terms of writing from CB... I enjoyed the change of game play style that Paradiso imposes. We got to use models that were never used. Its a different frame of mind than ITS or YAMs. The missions are scripted much like a movie. I see them as cinematic miniature gaming. [edit] but that leads to the suitcase effect. Players with more models (or all models) of their faction are likely to put forth lists better suited to the mission.[/edit]

Section9's assessment is close to the mark. But I would add that in some mission setup randomness (crash capsules) is too important and determines the winner. I won that mission because I was lucky to find the Ambassador very close to my deployment zone, hidden from my opponent with total cover and almost next to my dropship. THAT is the most disappointing thing by CB.

We did play the campaign up to chapter 3. But we had 1 player who didn't quite fit in the group's style of play. We were playing for fun and to have a good time but he was hell bent on just trashing his opponents and raking up maximum points each mission with the attitude that it was a world tournament. So the campaign crashed before we could start the 4th chapter…

Its a good book to have around for experienced players. As an organizer of events I find its a treasure trove to help create NEW missions. But I don't think I will do a second campaign because time commitment is too big. Our local community almost died because the 8 veterans players (including me) were occupied with the campaign and weren't available play and teach the game to the newer players...

Spanish is just a flowery language. There's no getting away from that. Especially the Galicians, I think, who are similar to the Portuguese.

They do change things because they have very specific requirements... the Marine Engineering Officer is called that because even though its not an oceangoing vessel, CB wants to bring in tones of the grand era of oceangoing vessels before air travel took over. Looking at the Fleeting Alliance scenario it does make perfect sense - the Marine Engineering Officer was modelled after the crew of The Love Boat, and it all ties in.

As for Paradiso... yeah, the problem is you can get pwnd pretty hard in the first turn even. I unfortunately have been ROFLstomping my regular gaming partner in these things even when I'm just doing a "what looks good" list. If you play Paradiso, simply have terminals unhackable until turn 2 like YAMS. Other things like XP caps for missions are a good idea and you can see them in the DF missions. Finally, remember that Paradiso is first and foremost a set of guidelines. Making your own campaigns is what the book is really for.

Lampyridae wrote:Spanish is just a flowery language. There's no getting away from that. Especially the Galicians, I think, who are similar to the Portuguese.

Sorry, but no. The text is written in baroque form, when the language allows for cleaner style. And, they, like, to, put, lots, of, commas. And repetition phrase after phrase. And again with different words in the next phrase.

And they fumbled again with the Dire Foe codes: they used a font where too many characters are similar, leading to input errors. Which would had been solved by someone telling them the font has to be one specially selected, even it means not "cute". They have a problem of form over fuction, both in graphical style and in literary style.

Also they repeat in next paragraphs. One more time. Which explains why they later complain they have lot of work to do, and that the books grow bigger than they expected. Of course if you mean that they, for being "they", are unable to do otherwise... well, maybe. It seems they have demostrated it by reverting translation reviews. Some authors are unable to ask or pay for extra points of view, others try to get as many as possible as demostrated, not only by the credits or the acknowledgments, but by the recognized quality. Or in other words, praises instead of critiques with facts.

MARC C wrote:I personally have no expectations in terms of writing from CB... I enjoyed the change of game play style that Paradiso imposes. We got to use models that were never used. Its a different frame of mind than ITS or YAMs. The missions are scripted much like a movie. I see them as cinematic miniature gaming. [edit] but that leads to the suitcase effect. Players with more models (or all models) of their faction are likely to put forth lists better suited to the mission.[/edit]

Proxies, man, PROXIES!

I don't expect anyone to have 3500 points of YJ minis alone. Well, besides me!

Section9 wrote:I don't expect anyone to have 3500 points of YJ minis alone. Well, besides me!

What about the guy bugging CB for increased Guijia AVA? Guges?

Mob of Blondes wrote:As in the should make someone redundant and contract true style editor, copy editors, quality checkers, etc.

I think you're underestimating how small an outfit CB really are.

Maybe, or maybe they could look out for free help or paid but part time workers. It's not like other editors have a staff of tens, some operate with a handful too and publish a lot. Some novel writers use family and friends as source of opinions and reviews, other publishers contract people on a per page basis. And other times it's just the mater of knowing what you have in the hands, like not fucking up the margins or not putting all the text over a busy pattern.

Just had a chat today with other editor about "the new kids and their digital toys". They use digital in that place too, but they know when form is fucking up function, and other things they can do with the eyes closed, so they save time.

And being small doesn't explain:

Section9 wrote:The English translator is a native speaker, but CB makes the final phrasing decisions. He's not happy about that.

That sounds like wasting money.

Mob of Blondes wrote:And being small doesn't explain:

Section9 wrote:The English translator is a native speaker, but CB makes the final phrasing decisions. He's not happy about that.

That sounds like wasting money.

You mean having to completely redo the page layouts, and not have the same page count for each language?

That's not cheap.

Sure, CB could probably get several of us to happily proofread sections of the books just for a free copy (hint), but that doesn't change the need to handle layout and the rest of it.

I don't know what CB makes in terms of revenue these days. But they should at least hire a professionally copywriter to make sure their stuff reads even half decent.

And yes, I did offer my services.

Section9 wrote:You mean having to completely redo the page layouts, and not have the same page count for each language?

If that is the idea, plan ahead and make sure you have space for everything, try to have "resync" points, add some optional padding illustrations, or better photos of miniatures (blister artwork so nobody would lose much), etc. Other things are automatic, like index generation. Use section numbers like 1.6.12 for referencing and not just pages. Of course, sometimes that means not using the common tool but the proper tool; after having participated in some books, and last ones being asked to be handled in "Word", when plain text would allow easier revision, explicit tagging would separate visual representation from meaning that would be used for visual detail in the final copy... well, I started to understand how some companies love to go nuts with tech.

One of the editors I know published some things in multiple languages and managed to fit things in standard page count. There is also the issue of different VAT but prices are the same, so worst case, one gathering ("sub-book", folded huge sheet) more is not going to make things impossible or break the bank.

Basic 2nd book has some nasty busy backgrounds and lots of ink everywhere, and lots of errata even if they claimed there have been fixed reprints (which makes me think they are plain reprints, not "rules rev 2, edition 2" as you would get with others publishers). Human Sphere dropped the ultra busy but still keep the heavily inked backgrounds. Paradiso went with mostly white background but fumbled the inner margin and still had issues with ink interaction in some graphics, also font faces proliferated making it looks too busy again in some areas. Artbook got some pixelated images, just like previous ones, but more flagrant as it's about images. Using the latest program is no warranty of good results (last line having more spacing than the rest of the paragraph seems to be spreading, Infinity books have it) nor excuse to avoid the basic principles like print proofs and magnifiers.

Spanish versions also have duplicated text, when it's one of those languages that takes a lot of space, not one of the more compacts. Book evolution is a clue of Corvus learning old lessons, some times falling deeper before getting back to surface, as the editing and printing tech lets you fire more bullets at your own feet (full color has become possible in recent decades, so 40 years ago nobody would complain the text is hard to read over "pretty pictures", hardly any book had so much ink then). Maybe in some books more they will manage to pin down all the details "old grumpy editors" do while sleeping and just have the stupid errata that sneaked past everyone.

Arachas offered help, I think I told you I was taking notes about fluff and also erratas, even reported some in the forum, but then I gave up; maybe I will end the fluff notes if I get an antidote for the busy layout and the repetitive text, but the other task clearly looks like a waste of time. At least if being paid, if they discard it like translation changes, I would had something in compensation even if the rest of readers still got nothing.

tl;dr: Some have offered help, and others have demostrated things are doable but require restraint, knowing the tools of the trade and paying attention to details. Lots of waste of time and words (this reply too). CB is the one with the power to change.

OT: @Arachas -> VEry cool new avatar pic!

Steam-Age Dandy wrote:OT: @Arachas -> VEry cool new avatar pic!

Agreed! Glad to see some Rurouni love around here.

Steam-Age Dandy wrote:OT: @Arachas -> VEry cool new avatar pic!

Just started rewatching the anime.

Oro?

Further derailing topic, it sure does get awful after the Shishio Arc, eh? I mean, really, REALLY awful. Between Sanosuke's hand remaining broken for the rest of the series and Hiten Mitsurugi being useless against Horses, I could barely stand it. The OVAs, however...

Hero of Man wrote:Further derailing topic, it sure does get awful after the Shishio Arc, eh? I mean, really, REALLY awful. Between Sanosuke's hand remaining broken for the rest of the series and Hiten Mitsurugi being useless against Horses, I could barely stand it. The OVAs, however...

I probably should have mentioned that the reason I'm rewatching is that I never finished the Shishio arc.