Well, this was an odd review, in several ways.
As to the "How does it look?" question...well I like it more than the earlier versions, but that's because I prefer books that don't use too much art. I know that's an odd preference, but when I see art, I feel my book is unnecessarily expensive. So, when I saw the lamented Star Trek book ,my first impression was I'd have prefered it half the price without the colour.
Why the odd colour choice? I presume its a nod to rubricisation, the main use of colour in the game period in books.
Basically it doesn't disentangle the game from its successors. I'm one of the people who sometimes writes for the line, so mostly for clarity, I'd like to respond to the following pieces:
"Unlike the later White Wolf games Ars Magica has no technocracy." True - insofar as it goes, although there are many mages who see their Art as something that can be studied like a science. Indeed, that's at the core of the Order, IMO. There's also no Celestial Chorus, or Verbena, or...well, just about anything from the other game, you know?
"There is no goal of either personal or universal ascension." False. There is no general goal of personal ascension, but two of the Houses of magi have goals comparable to ascension (Criamon and Merinitia) and individual characters may join a Mystery Cult with ascensionist goals. This does noit appear in detail in the core setting book, however.
"Of course the setting wouldn’t be complete without house Criamon, a group of enigmatic and at time incomprehensible magi who embrace twilight. " True...but directly counter to the "no ascension" claim before. If you want to play ascensionist magi, you certainly -can-, but it isn't the be all and end all of the life of every magus, as it was in the later game.
"The impression that Ars Magica requires a Ph.d in medieval history to play was not helped by several supplements for the forth edition that were in fact written by Ph.d’s in medieval history. " Name one? David Chart has a PhD I believe...so does Mark, I believe. Niether are in medieval history, as I recall. The rest of us didn't have doctorates, as far as I know.
"Against a mundane target a Magus (or Maga as Mages in Ars are called) will make the target quickly and messily dead." This is a misreading. A maga is a female magus.
"The game is well balanced, at time though it becomes too well balanced and refined sucking the life from the rules. Reading through the virtues and flaws section I couldn’t help but wish that they had brought back “immortal +7”."
Immortal's back: it's just something you don't get as a starting character, if you define your starting characters as being around 20 or so, and human. You can be immortal in several other ways, though. I should know: I wrote, like, four of them. I assume that more ways to start immortal will come out of the pipe as new character types are rolled out in future supplements.
"Some of the older virtues were clearly unbalancing but they gave the game character (even if that character normally began his career 5’4” and ended it 4’8”).
See, this lost me: Is this losing a Size point?
"Adding to this is the lack of material for online download."
Well, there's some...Atlas has just shifted online download distributors.
"Early in the era of online delivery Atlas offered the fourth edition of Ars Magica as a free download at
www.rpgnow.com. This caused a number or retailers to decide that the game had died and that the time had come to put a permanent hold on reorders. "
I'm an Australian: my FLGS didn't know Ars at all until I asked for it. Here it's in the Walrus and Carpenter catalog, and thus definitively not dead. I'm amazed that American storeowners do not have a similar system for checking lines with their distributors.
"Today out of print material can be found on either RPGnow or SJGame’s e23 site."
No longer true: Atlas has pulled their involvement with RPGNow.
"In print material is never offered for download."
This isn't true, you know. Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults is in print (or is about to return to print) and is available for download. Guardians of the Forest, similarly.
"This is regrettable, more and more the life cycle of a small rpg is becoming dependent on (legal) downloads. If not addressed soon this may threaten the long term viability of the line. "
I back John Nephew's business judgement against mine, or the reviewers, basically. The current Atlas method, which seems to be "do two printings and then .pdf" means that the material you get as .pdf is hardly stale old rubbish.
MC, for example was available as a .pdf almost immediately. TL and MC shipped to distributors around 17/04/2006. MC was up as a .pdf on 26/06/06. Ten weeks. MC is getting a new in-print run, too. I can't quickly find a .pdf publishing date for TL as a comparison, but its out there.
Basically, most new players to Ars will be using the .pdf versions.