Issue # 4 (February 2014 Issue) - Suspense & Decision magazine

[GrimFinger]

NOTE: Click on the image to download Issue # 4 of Suspense & Decision magazine.

[GrimFinger]

WHEW! Well, that's done, at long last.

Final compilation of issue # 4 into PDF format began at 11:59 p.m., Eastern Standard Time on February 28th, 2014. So, I am going to declare victory in meeting our publication deadline. HOORAY!!

I tried to make it a good issue. I tried to get a lot of stuff in it. I tried to persuade people to submit articles, and game companies and game moderators to submit advertisements. Hopefully, our readers will enjoy the issue as a whole, even if you don't like every last article or ad.

I made a conscious and active effort to improve the editing of this issue, compared to the editing of the previous three issues. I also tried to double-check all of the links on the images and the text. If I missed anything, or if I simply left something out, inadvertently, then my apologies for such oversights.

One of my own articles was originally scheduled to be published in our last issue, Issue # 3, but I misplaced it, and located it too late to include it in that issue. Sorry about this! I went ahead and included it in this issue, rather than just discard it. I figured that it would be better to have too many articles, than not enough.

It looks like our site user, Greybeard, was the first to log onto the forum, here, after I sent out the mailing announcing that Issue # 4 was out. I appreciate that degree of enthusiasm for what we are publishing!

Jim Kemeny is a great asset to our magazine. I know that I can count on Jim to deliver on some content. I hope that he will continue to enrich our magazine with his presence.

People like site user Walter really make publishing Suspense & Decision worthwhile. I appreciate Walter's kind words that he recently conveyed unto me.

This issue featured some new additions, on both the article front and on the advertisement front. It's great to have both Harlequin Games and Middle-earth Games join us with some advertising. I single them out, because of their gaming roots that stretch well back into PBM antiquity.

There was some RPG material in this issue. That was a quite deliberate decision on my part. Our assistant editor is to be held blameless - if you can find him. On a serious note, however, my congratulations go out to the Mark Wardell family on the occasion of his son's engagement. Congratulations!

This issue was a very time-consuming one to produce. This issue was also out biggest issue published, to date. I honestly don't know if that trend, of increasing the number of pager in each subsequent issue, can be maintained.

Ironically, though, there were at least three different sets of interview questions sent out, which we had hoped to be able to include with Issue # 4. But, things have a way of happening, in life. So, maybe we can include some or all of those in a future issue of Suspense & Decision magazine.

This issue featured several player ads by the fine folk over at the Phoenix: BSE forum. I'm sure that they would love it, if some of you would check that game out, and join their respective affiliations. Not all active Phoenix: BSE affiliations took me up on my invitation to send in a recruitment ad for their affiliation, but for those who did, thank you. I hope that I did OK in implementing your ads.

In terms of sheer size (not number of pages, but actual size in terms of megabytes), Issue # 4 is pretty hefty. I'm going to try and keep an eye on our web hosting account's bandwidth, to try and ensure that we maintain sufficient resources on that front, to avoid the site exceeding its bandwidth limitations. If it happens, it will likely be a gradual thing, so we should hopefully be able to avoid any problems of this kind. I suspect, though, that at some point, I am going to have to either upgrade my web hosting package, or I'm going to have to utilize a different site for storing the finished issues of the magazine.

I included some "hard numbers" in Issue # 4. I suspect that at least some of our readers will be interested in those kinds of figures. If you don't care for it, then hopefully, there will be enough other stuff in issue # 4 to facilitate you being able to still feel as if you got a good read from this issue.

In spite of its size, there were several things that I wanted to include, but which I had not gotten around to writing, yet. One of those things has to do with sponsorships and partnerships. I don't know if that sort of thing will appeal to anyone or not, but it is an area that I might begin to explore, as we continue going forward with future issues of Suspense & Decision.

I hope that you enjoy this issue!

- Charles -

[GrimFinger]

Oops! It looks like I inadvertently ran the same ad for Machiavelli twice in this issue.

Hehehehehe. That was very Machiavellian of me.

Sorry, folks. My bad on that one. >sigh<

[GrimFinger]

OK, if you downloaded Issue # 4, already, I just now uploaded an update to replace the duplicate ad with a different ad, and I also corrected a few small typos on one page.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Same link, above, will download only the revised file, now.

[Zigic]

Thanks for this again.

A couple of suggestions though
1 Please place ads between articles and not in the middle of them - the 2 page Olympia ad in particular breaks up the flow of an article.
2 where an article extends beyond a page please include the game name and the name of the article as a header at the top of the page

[GrimFinger]

Thanks for this again.

A couple of suggestions though
1 Please place ads between articles and not in the middle of them - the 2 page Olympia ad in particular breaks up the flow of an article.
2 where an article extends beyond a page please include the game name and the name of the article as a header at the top of the page

You're welcome, and I'll keep those suggestions in mind.

I am inclined to agree with you, on placing ads between articles. The approach that you suggest will have the result of having a disproportional amount of ads occur in sequence, though. What I have been trying to do is to provide a balance. Not all ads are image ads, or have an image in them. It shouldn't be difficult to implement that, in order to maintain the flow of articles.

The other suggestion, I'll experiment with a bit, and see what I think about how it looks and works.

Fair enough?

[ixnay]

Grim, I've only begun to scratch the surface of this issue. I will say that while I have hungrily read every article in the prior 3 issues, here I think you have kicked things up several notches. The quality and quantity of articles are increasing dramatically. The layout is improving. And the energy is contagious. This issue, at least upon my first scannings, is really showing that S&D is becoming something special. Bravo!