Heh, mine arrived yesterday too!
My first impressions were like many others: It's big, yes. I knew that for months now and it still surprises me whenever I pick it up. Also, it looks great! It does kind of make you think to when you first opened up your first Traveller books oh so long ago, feeling like a kid. As a beta participant, I've stared at these same pages hundreds of times, but they just look so much better in an actual book.
After spending half and hour or so reading and skimming, my hands where getting tired holding the thing, and I was running out of positions to alternate between. I was reminded of what I've said elsewhere of the other benefits if this book had been split into three like CT, or even two like Starter Traveller (like we wouldn't be missing a bunch of stuff that was cut for space reasons).
The dice look good, I'm happy to have them. My only criticism is (keeping in mind I only have 4) when I think about trying to roll 6 or 8 or 10 of them, their larger size doesn't really go well with the many-dice task system, does it?
I was really surprised to see that the book was signed both by Marc and Emperor Strephon! That was really cool, but has anyone noticed how similar their writing styles are?
The coins are awesome. I want more of those too (like the dice). But I noticed that they were minted 1116. That lets me know it's only a matter of time before the x-boat arrives here on Terra giving us all the bad news. Then again, maybe not so bad; my TAS card is from Freya in Ilelish/Ilelish, two parsecs away from the world Ilelish!
All hail Emperor Dulinor! :devil:
Rules stuff aside (I'll leave those impressions for other threads), I'm pretty happy to finally have it. Hmm, I just noticed it has that "new book smell"!
(and I still think we need a "happy-dance" emoticon!)
