Accessibility of the EU

My main gripe with the EU is one of accessibilty. If all of the stuff from WEG is considered EU, then shouldn't LFL make it available again for the fans?

Thankfully, DH is heeding this call by reprinting the entire line of Marvel comics.

My question is that of availability of the old source material and short stories of WEG. ARe there any other sources of EU that are no longer on the market?

What should be done about this problem? is it a problem?

 

I've found several WEG sourcebooks and other stuff at a Barnes & Nobel that's about an hour from my house. I can go to the local comic shop and still find WEG stuff, as well as they only toy store in the area that really has a RPG selection. Granted, now they have fewer WEG stuff at that store in favor of the WotC stuff. But they still carry it. It all depends on where one looks.

 

The thing to remember is that at some point nearly all of the books will also face this "problem."

Books from the TTT to BHW may all fall out of easy reach. You can bet, however, that they will be reprinted if a need arises. The same thing happened with the early Del Rey novels - Splinter of the Minds Eye, Han Solo Adventures, Lando adventures. GoDV will face the same problem.

New post-VP fans of Anakin Solo and Tahiri are facing this if they want to get the Junior Jedi Knight stories to find out about his childhood.

Basically, wait long enough and the information will make it back around in some form or another.

 

I wouldn't say that the availability of certain books or comics or what have you is that big an issue. Like Genghis said, if anything is truly that important as far as preserving continuity, whatever it may be will be reincorporated in the EU eventually.

 

To some degree, that's what the "Essential Guide" series is for. To give you the essential information if you can't find everything in the bibliography.

But, the Essential Guides are not the 100% perfect solution to not having to own everything. There's even things which unfortunately didn't make it in. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

I think between the Essential Guides, a strong reselling channel (ebay, amazon, websellers, etc.) and actual Lucasfilm reprints we have a lot of options available to try and get a story that may have been missed the first time it was released.

Star Wars has been exceptionally good in that regard.

 

Hopefully some of the Marvel characters will appear in the new Essential Guide to Characters. Seeing Genghis mention the Essential Guides caused me to realize that I know virtually all the folks in the original Essential Guide to Characters from the OT, the novels or from the Dark Horse comics. But none of them that might have appeared solely in the Marvel comics. There are probably those who first appeared in the Marvel series, who later appeared in one of the novels, who made it into the Essential Guide.

 

Is WotC adapting or incorportating any of the WEG stuff into the new RPG materials?

 

I believe their only mandate is that they are required to not contradict it.

That is, they may be free to not ever touch it, but if they refer to something WEG has done (almost impossible not to), then they must incorporate the WEG version.

I doubt we'll ever see strict reprints of WEG books, but we will certainly see most of the information regurgitated in some form or another. We already have with respect to just about all of their products thus far.

 

I would expect some of the WEG SW materials to gain further life in the Wizards of the Coast Materials. To an extent, you're still dealing with the same WEG SW audience, plus - gaining an entire new following of SW RPG (or Non-RPG-but-still-EU) fans.

Star Wars Gamers aside, High Inquisitor Tremayne has been incorporated into Wizards Dark Side Sourcebook and the Charon are mentioned in the Rebellion Era Sourcebook. Those are just two examples of what are perhaps several RPG creations from WEG that are making thier presence known in WotC materials.