Jamie and I have mostly avoided patching the Vulcanverse books once they're published, as obviously it's not as easy to deliver a patch for a book as it is for a videogame. We wouldn't want people who had already bought the book to miss out. If we do tweak anything in the text, we're always careful to make sure that it's backwards-compatible with earlier editions and doesn't invalidate anything that's already established.
Here's an example. The latest version of The Pillars of the Sky has this section:
The only difference from the earliest edition of the book is in the first line of that section. Previously you only got the codeword Quire; now you also get another codeword, Quell. The reason for the patch is that Quire tracks the setting of that switch. If you turn it off you lose the codeword. Turn it back on and you get Quire again.
That was fine, but we realized it would also be useful to record whether you had found the switch, regardless of whether you happen to leave it on. So once you've got the codeword Quell you can't lose it.
The only place Quell is used is in section 1155 of Workshop of the Gods (book 5):
And that works fine even if you have the original editions (which are collector's items now; only a few dozen were sold before the update) and so you never saw the codeword Quell. The patch adds a little more fine-tuning but doesn't break anything -- which is our policy for any changes to these books.
I just checked my copy of Pillars of the Sky and it only has Quire. Guess that means I have a collector's edition!
ReplyDeleteIf you see me and Jamie at a convention, Armaan, be sure to get us to sign it.
DeleteI have the old version too! Really need to track you down one of these days Dave… you owe me a death paragraph for the weird spine on my Court of Hidden Faces as well đ
ReplyDeleteYou're not the only one, Tim. I'm beginning to think Jamie and I should get a deck of death-para cards printed up to hand out at conventions.
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