Update: Company Reorganization and Continuation of Reward Production
about 2 years ago – Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 09:38:10 PM

Exciting Changes at Next-Level Gaming

We as a company want to apologize for the lapses in communication over the past several weeks. Major changes have been afoot, and we needed to be sure of certain outcomes before we could effectively communicate a plan of action to all of you.

Next-Level Gaming, LLC was founded with a desire to bring high-level TTRPG experiences to players everywhere. The company was created with a goal to find exceptional DMs who have the ability to run games with creativity, consistency, and passion. For the past couple of years, we have been able to do that very successfully. We have a stable of excellent Dungeon Masters who run dozens of games for paying clients around the world each month. However, all of us participate in the day-to-day operations of this company as part-time contractors with other full-time commitments outside of D&D.

Since October of 2021, it has been very clear to the leadership team in place that the company operations require far more man-hours than we have had available. It takes full-time workers to keep this company moving forward, and our leaders have found themselves unable to meet the demands that have come from the rapid growth of our company while still meeting the commitments to our own families and careers. In order to maintain the growth we have been seeing, changes to the company structure are necessary.

With that in mind, Next-Level has been going through negotiations on a major reorganization of company leadership. We've been working to bring on several additional partners who will be able to contribute the time required to keep things moving forward in a more efficient and effective manner. This reorganization will result in a slight extension to our production timeline, but it will also ensure that we as a company are able to deliver the hardcover rewards that have been promised.

What's Next for Grio's Guide to the Wildlands?

Another update will be forthcoming to detail the specific steps that will be taken with regard to the PDF and Hardcover versions of Grio's Guide to the Wildlands.  Thank you for your patience as we continue to work on putting this book in your hands!

Updated PDF and Files Being Sent to Printer
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 03:00:26 AM

Thank you all for your patience while we've worked through some of our issues with the layout designer on this project.  You should all be able to find an updated PDF file that is available for download through your BackerKit account.  This will be the final version of the PDF document, and we hope that you enjoy using the wildlands content in your games.

Additionally, files are being sent to the printer so that we can begin the run on the printed rewards.  We are being assured that there are no major delays at our print shop, and we hope to be able to notify you all of shipping dates within the next several weeks.

Unfortunate Update: December 17th, 2021
over 2 years ago – Tue, Dec 21, 2021 at 12:47:43 AM

First, let us assure you all that it is still our intention to deliver an updated PDF and the hard copies of the books.  Second, we realize that some backers will not be particularly interested in this update, but we feel that it is necessary to explain the delays that we are currently experiencing.

For the past several months, our company has been fighting a major battle with the designer that we hired to complete the layout for Grio’s Guide to the Wildlands.  Although our team of 18 writers and artists worked incredibly hard to create and to refine high-quality content for the publication, and to make sure that all of this content was ready for layout starting back in August, the designer responsible for completing the work has exhibited a fair amount of negligence and apathy with regard to meeting deadlines and producing the user-friendly resource that we promised to our backers.  This is not a circumstance that we could have foreseen, and it has come as a great shock to all of us at Next-Level Gaming.

Our top priority right now is to push out an updated PDF with corrections, an added appendix, a more robust table of contents, and a more appealing aesthetic appearance.  The designer has had detailed instructions on these tasks for over a month and still has not completed the updates that we require.  All of these adjustments carry over to what we have planned for the hard copies of the book as well.

We are using all means at our disposal to address this issue, but we find ourselves in a difficult phase of the project.  Enough of the design has been completed such that it is more efficient for the existing contractor to complete the work.  However, with each subsequent delay, we find ourselves asking whether or not we should pull the contract and utilize a different firm to “fix” the files that we currently have.  If we don’t see meaningful progress by the end of December, that’s exactly what we will be forced to do.

We appreciate your continued patience as we pursue completion of this task.  Even more so, we appreciate all of the upbeat and positive members of the backer community who have been willing to overlook some of the unfortunate shortcomings of the current document and who have been enjoying the underlying content that was the true heartbeat of this project.  A lot of people have sacrificed a great deal to make this book possible, and it’s incredibly unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation.  We will continue to work diligently to press forward, but we cannot provide any meaningful updates to the project timeline until this contractor issue has been resolved.

Happy Halloween! We're almost there!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Nov 04, 2021 at 10:40:02 AM

Very important note: We will be locking all shipping addresses on Friday, November 6th.  If there has been a change to any of your shipping information, please update ASAP.  Additionally, we currently have 29 backers who have not completed the the information in BackerKit that is necessary for our team to deliver rewards.  Email reminders have been sent to these individuals.  Please ensure that your shipping addresses and shipping payment options are updated in BackerKit.

Just a quick update on our progress with Grio's Guide to the Wildlands:

• Approximately 60 natural hazard encounters have been designed, evaluated, and tested.
• Climbing, Swimming, Wound, and Disease mechanics have been expanded.
• Hunting, Herbalism, and Alchemy subsystems have been finalized.
• Over 30 wilderness-related Wondrous Items, Weapons, Vehicles, and pieces of Adventuring Gear have been created.
• Foreword, Introduction, 12 Chapters, and Appendices totaling over 240 pages and over 100,000 words - All written and edited.
• And dozens of vivid illustrations embedded to bring it all to life!

The book is filled with great content, and we're performing our due diligence at this point to make sure that it does not have any errors as we prepare to send it out to all of you.  That being said, we are taking one additional week to do our final proofs on the layout and the copy before we distribute the PDF and send the files off to the printer for the hard copy versions of the book.  We expect to have these files available in their final form on Monday, November 8th.

We do understand that this is a minor departure from our original goal of having the PDF in all of your hands by the end of October, but we feel very strongly about making sure that the product is the best that it can be by spending the necessary time to refine each page.  We hope that you'll accept our apologies for the slight delay, and we also hope that the fact that we've been able to create this content and prepare it for publication in less than five months demonstrates our level of dedication to all of you.

Thank you again for your support and your patience as we cross the finish line on this amazing journey!

Sincerely,

DM Drew,

Next-Level Gaming

Final Editing and Layout Stage
over 2 years ago – Sat, Oct 09, 2021 at 02:01:36 AM

Friends, backers, and 5th Edition aficionados, Grio's Guide to the Wildlands is almost here!

We're working on final edits to the natural and magical hazards content, we're doing another pass on our Herbalism, Alchemy, and Hunting chapters, and we're getting the pages laid out and ready to send to the printer in the next two weeks.  With all of that in mind, we thought we would just show you a few of the pages to whet your appetite.  Enjoy!

This project has had it's fair share of challenges, but so far we're still on our intended schedule.  Our plan is still to distribute the PDF version by the end of October and ship the hardcover books by the end of November.

Fingers crossed and back to the grindstone!  Thank you, as always, for your positive feedback and support.