Paizo is the company that published Dragon and Dungeon magazines during their last few years.  They wisely branched out before their contracts with Wizards of the Coast were not renewed.  In particular, they created “Game Mastery” and “Pathfinder” imprints among other imprints including some for non-RPG games.  Game Mastery products centered on upscale game aids such as encounter maps, miniatures, and magic item cards.  Pathfinder at first took the concept of linked modules from Dungeon magazine and published them as stand-alone compilations.  (They took the one adventure from each of several Dungeon magazines that were each part of a larger arc and published that arc of adventures as one book.)

When the magazine licenses were not renewed, Paizo continued on with their other product lines including Pathfinder (but with material that wasn’t from Dungeon magazine).  When Wizards of the Coast decided to launch the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons and encourage everyone to move to 4th edition, Paizo saw this as an opportunity for a new fantasy adventure game.

Most gamers were tiring of the 3rd edition (or even the 3.5 edition) rules.  Over time, people had found issues with those rules and some of these critiques were almost universally agreed upon.  GMs made fixes as needed and in the 4th edition rules Wizards of the Coast addressed many of these issues and more.  However, some would disagree with the way Wizards of the Coast changed the game to address the issues, particularly making the 4th edition rules completely incompatible with the earlier rules.  Some felt the game was radically changed.

Enter Paizo.  Because the 3rd edition (and 3.5 edition) rules were published under the open game license, the rules could be picked up and changed and largely republished by others.  In fact other publishers had already done this to create other RPGs such as Mongoose’s Conan and Babylon 5 games and Green Ronin’s Mutants and Masterminds and True20 games.

Paizo has attempted to address the issues many have found in the 3rd and 3.5 edition game rules in a different way.  They plan on calling the game Pathfinder and have created an open alpha playtest process to allow anyone to give feedback on the game.  It should be mostly compatible with the older rules, yet still fix many of the issues with those rules while staying more true to the spirit of the game.  Hopefully.

Check out their web site at Paizo.com, especially their Pathfinder game that is in testing and participate in their very active message boards.

I’m ready to put make the link to the Coat of Arms Creator publicly available.  In this message I’ll list some caveats, give out the link, ask for feedback and give you an idea of what’s next.

Caveats

I’m calling this a late alpha release because there is still a lot I want to do.  But I also want to get more feedback and let people start using it with the understanding that several features are still in the works. (Those plans are at the bottom of this message.)

You will need a high-speed connection to use the software.  (It might take hours to load if you use a dial-up connection.) There are a number of fairly large libraries needed to display the graphics and these take some time to download.  On cable modems or DSL it may only take 1 minute or it may take 5 minutes.  That simply depends on the speed of your connection.  There are instructions on the web page that will load first, so please look at them while you’re downloading the program on the other side of the web page.  It should load faster if you return to the page later because these libraries should be already on your computer.

It is a Java Applet, which is a computer program that essentially runs inside a web-page. Therefore your web browser will need to have Java installed.  Most people already have this, even if they don’t know about it. However, if you don’t a message/link should appear on the web page and it should be a fairly easy installation process.

I am actively working on getting more creatures, symbols, and ordinaries into the system.  Also, creatures and symbols have a small graphic preview next to some of them.  I’m working on completing the previews even as I add more creatures and symbols.  I home to add 10-20 each week for the next few weeks.

My knowledge of Heraldry is probably just barely beyond the “beginner” level.  I became very interested in the topic a few months ago and this is a way for me to learn it.  Please bear with me and let me know if something I’m doing is wrong.

My target audience for this program is much larger than heraldry experts.  I want it to be a good tool for beginners as well.  But even more than that, it think it could be used by people who might want to create a logo for an organization, amateur sports team, a fictional country in a book series or fantasy game, a fictional character in a book or game, SCA members, etc.  Or at least people could use this tool to quickly develop a few ideas before meeting with a professional designer.

I am trying to go a little slow spreading the word about this tool.  I guess I still want some time to make fixes based on early feedback. Therefore, please don’t post the link on web sites quite yet.  I’ll be doing that as I am ready and once I can declare it “beta” (the next phase of software development) I would love the word to be spread.

Link

I figure people might not want to read much further before they try it out, so here’s the link:
http://www.inkwellideas.com/coat_of_arms/

Feedback Request

Thanks to everyone who wrote to me earlier and provided feedback on the earliest versions of this software!

As you can tell, I’m actively working to make this as complete as possible.  I know there are some significant things I need to add. Please let me know if there is something you can’t do using the tool AFTER checking the enhancements list below in case I already know about the issue.

Secondly, please let me know if you encounter any bugs.  Please try to describe the bug and what you were trying to do at the time.  (For example: “I was switching the type from a creature (a lion rampant that was 80% and 80% with a vertical of 20 and a horizontal of 10) to a bend ordinary and the bend ordinary that was displayed was shifted off of the shield.”)  Also, if you know how to send me a screenshot of your issue, please send it.

I’m looking for a better name that “Coat of Arms Creator.”  If you have a suggestion, please send it.

If you have a particular creature or symbol you’d like me to add to the system, please let me know.  I won’t be able to do every request quickly, but I will prioritize adding them based on requests.

This takes up just about all of my free time.  Please send words of encouragement as you see fit.

Planned Enhancements

Note: the Coat of Arms Design program is now available. Read more about it at this link.

As mentioned in my prior post, I’m nearing the first public release of my Coat of Arms Design software.  I’m still planning on making it available next week.  But I’ve got two requests at the moment for anyone who is interested in using the software.

1. What charges (lion passant, eagle displayed, cross flory, fleur-de-lis, etc.) do you plan to use?  Initially, I think I’ll have 50 available to choose between.  I’d like to make sure those 50 are the 50 that most people want.  However, I’ll be adding 10-25 each week or so for the first few weeks that the software is out available and more occasionally after that.  So if a charge you want isn’t there at first, email me and I’ll do my best to add it.
2. Do you have any ideas for a better name for the software than “Coat of Arms Designer”?  I know there was older software that I was never able to see called “Blazon!” but as best as I can tell that isn’t available and hasn’t been updated in years.  Also, when making suggestions keep in mind my target audience is people with only a casual interest in heraldry, so names that use some arcane term in heraldry may not be a good fit.

Please post comments here or email me at joewetzel at gmail dot com with a list of charges I should include as a priority and/or ideas for names for the software.