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slap me and kiss me posted:This is incorrect. When Magic was first released, it was all anyone did at school. And despite the fact that the program is buggy and not that great, MTGO Streamers give them tons of exposure, and they've got a generally diverse culture that's eager to call out the shitlords on their lovely behavior (Like what happened with Alesha who Smiles At Gender Tropes)
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Mar 31, 2017 22:47
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slap me and kiss me posted:This is incorrect. When Magic was first released, it was all anyone did at school. Exactly. The big barrier they had at first wasn't finding people to play it, it was getting enough product out there for the crazy level of demand. They expected the first printing to last a year, and sold it out within a matter of weeks instead. Then they reprinted, tripling the size of the print run and it sold out just as quickly. Star Wars Destiny has some parallels there currently, I think.
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Mar 31, 2017 22:47
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Leperflesh posted:Again though, I really don't think Hasbro looks at every sub-brand the same way. I mean, do you think they're cutting support for Wizard of the Coast's game Guillotine because of poor brand performance... or alternately, demanding a Guillotine expansion because it's selling better than expected? Guillotine isn't really a brand. It's a product they print every five years or so, sometimes with revisions. It doesn't get or particularly need ongoing support. The issue with D&D and sales is not supposition on my part - ex-Wizards employees have talked about, and it's about as close as we'll get to a matter of record. D&D 4e's subscription model was a major push to try and hit that mark, but it never actually made it, mostly on account of the video game rights being hosed at the time, and because Insider ate out of their own sales cupboard, as successful as it was (or rather, because it was so successful...). D&D 5e seems to be a resignation to just cut costs and give up hope of making that sales mark anymore.
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Mar 31, 2017 22:56
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Siivola posted:It wasn't too long ago when regular people didn't play Magic at all, though. Far as I know, as a game it was super impenetrable and the smell was the least offensive thing about the playerbase. They've made very purposeful steps towards making it socially acceptable and mainstream. It's as much a question of effort as it is of resources, and I find it really hard to believe FFG or Onyx Path couldn't take at least some of those steps. Onyx Path definitely doesn't have the money or manpower to make that kind of mainstream play, and FFG probably doesn't either. Paizo has come closest with its support for the Pathfinder RPG and ACG, though both of those combined still aren't as big as organized Magic play. The only RPG publisher that might have the means to bridge that gap is White Wolf, but they seem less interested in building up a new player base and more interested in chasing a combination of the old WoD market and the existing Nordic LARP crowd.
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Mar 31, 2017 23:06
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Guillotine isn't really a brand. It's a product they print every five years or so, sometimes with revisions. It doesn't get or particularly need ongoing support. Were I ever to try and make a living at tradgames, I think I'd try something like a free introductory pdf, a single book released at essentially cost, and everything else being included in a digital subscription, and maybe the option to do print on demand books.
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Mar 31, 2017 23:09
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The issue with D&D and sales is not supposition on my part - ex-Wizards employees have talked about, and it's about as close as we'll get to a matter of record. That's really what I was fishing for, I guess; any kind of first-hand account of exactly how involved Hasbro is with Wizards' operations, particularly outside the domain of Magic. Is there anything you can link to, or are we talking about (ugh) G+ conversations and stuff?
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Mar 31, 2017 23:17
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gtrmp posted:Onyx Path definitely doesn't have the money or manpower to make that kind of mainstream play, and FFG probably doesn't either. Paizo has come closest with its support for the Pathfinder RPG and ACG, though both of those combined still aren't as big as organized Magic play. The only RPG publisher that might have the means to bridge that gap is White Wolf, but they seem less interested in building up a new player base and more interested in chasing a combination of the old WoD market and the existing Nordic LARP crowd. FFG's organized play for LCGs and X-Wing is enormous. X-Wing outsold all other minis games for quite awhile last year. The Force Awakens set was exclusive to Target for awhile. Destiny is exploding now and easily blew up Dicemasters. FFG is now part of a huge company called Asmodee. They have a ton of money and manpower. I don't really want to see them deal with D&D but they are a major player in games now.
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Mar 31, 2017 23:35
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Leperflesh posted:That's really what I was fishing for, I guess; any kind of first-hand account of exactly how involved Hasbro is with Wizards' operations, particularly outside the domain of Magic. Is there anything you can link to, or are we talking about (ugh) G+ conversations and stuff? It all pretty much comes from some forum posts Steve Jobs made over on ENWorld.
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Mar 31, 2017 23:36
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Siivola posted:It's amazing that WotC seems to do fairly well on that front with Magic. The audience is often insane though like when they manned the trenches and fought the good fight for a poor banned player who just happened to be a  convicted rapistProfessorCirno posted:All I said was "Hasbro is more likely to mothball it then sell it off" you insane stalker. I'm not a stalker, you've often posted about how D&D has no cultural worth in the past, and it was a friendly jab.
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Mar 31, 2017 23:41
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thefakenews posted:It all pretty much comes from some forum posts Steve Jobs made over on ENWorld. A lot of it is also detailed in Designers & Dragons: The '90s, and here's an article by Shannon Appelcline detailing the some of the current dilemmas they face.
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Apr 1, 2017 01:00
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Magic has ALWAYS been a very successful game but it's true that it's gotten vastly more successful over the years and especially recently. The 2012 Hasbro financial report stated that Magic had risen to around 200 million dollars annually which, to put things in perspective, is about as much money as Games Workshop made off of every game, accessory, and overpriced pot of paint they sold that year. Nonetheless Magic isn't simply some niche game that exploded, it's always been a very successful venture for being the pioneer of the CCG craze backed up by a design team that actually knows a thing or two about design (despite the fact that the game has some fundamental flaws baked in) and a product model that allows for the game to not only be profitable in game stores but comic stores, bookstores, and big box stores as well. Programs such as Friday Night Magic have only enhanced what was already a strong foundation. For comparison's sake, Magic has been published internationally in 10 different languages for many years while D&D has often relied on dedicated and enthusiastic third parties to provide foreign translations.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:04
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Kai Tave posted:For comparison's sake, Magic has been published internationally in 10 different languages for many years while D&D has often relied on dedicated and enthusiastic third parties to provide foreign translations. They might be better off doing this for Magic too because a lot of people laugh at how atrocious WotC's foreign translations are
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Apr 1, 2017 02:06
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"Magic is made by people who can actually design worth a drat" is the salient point. Or at least, it should be. 4e got lambasted for being well-designed, and 5e is drawing a crowd in spite of... well, not.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:09
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Lightning Lord posted:They might be better off doing this for Magic too because a lot of people laugh at how atrocious WotC's foreign translations are Quality is irrelevant to the larger point that it's worth WotC's time and money to translate Magic for such a broad international market while D&D...ehhhhhhh not so much.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:"Magic is made by people who can actually design worth a drat" is the salient point. I honestly think 4e would have done better without the D&D name on it. I didn't really enjoy playing it, but I could see it being a much more accepted game if it wasn't trying to deal with a rules-as-worldbuilding universe like the D&D world.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:20
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Oh and I've been drinking plus I'm phoneposting so sorry for the doublepost. Magic players probably, to grossly generalize, care more about good design than D&D players because Magic is a competitive game. People who play competitive games tend to care about balance even when they aren't good enough for imbalances to be a factor in their play, and so a game that cuts corners and generally falls apart if you push it slightly hard is going to be called out as such. WotC wants Magic to be a...whatever the pro esports equivalent of tabletop games is and so it's to their benefit that they employ people good at game design. Notice that, say, the Decipher Star Wars CCG doesn't have an enduring competitive play scene. Meanwhile for a lot of self-professed D&D fans, balance is far less important than the ever nebulous "feel." You don't need good designers to give you feel, you just need someone who can hit the right buzzwords and ensure the right strictures are followed and you're golden.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:20
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Liquid Communism posted:I honestly think 4e would have done better without the D&D name on it. It probably wouldn't have been lambasted by those who do, but odds are it wouldn't have had nearly as much success as it did just by virtue of being D&D.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:23
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Yeah solid design is secondary for role playing games in the current community. What I would like honestly is well designed and accessible rules friendly to new players. There actually are games like that, but none of them have a hope of reaching the mainstream simply because they don't have money.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:28
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Lightning Lord posted:I'm not a stalker, you've often posted about how D&D has no cultural worth in the past, and it was a friendly jab. Apologies; bad
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Apr 1, 2017 03:01
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I guess it's like if you don't need to know how to code to mod a game, and the game's rulebook actively tells you to please mod anything you don't like, then the base game doesn't really matter because you can always change Europa Universalis to cover the entire span of human civilization where cavalry evolves to panzers by 1939.
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Apr 1, 2017 03:06
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gradenko_2000 posted:I guess it's like if you don't need to know how to code to mod a game, and the game's rulebook actively tells you to please mod anything you don't like, then the base game doesn't really matter because you can always change Europa Universalis to cover the entire span of human civilization where cavalry evolves to panzers by 1939. This is definitely a large part of it yes, the entrenched idea of "well it's fine because the GM can always just change the rules to taste." Imagine if a competitive game tried to have something like Rule 0 attached to it. What you'd get is, well, actually what you'd get is something like Warhammer 40K which is a game that actually has to have a Rule 0 equivalent (I believe it's actually something to the effect of "if both players can't come to a consensus just have a roll-off to see who's right") because it's so poorly, inconsistently designed. This is a competitive game, one that costs hundred to thousands of dollars to play, that can't even be bothered to give players a ruleset where they won't have to occasionally flip a coin to see whose interpretation of the rules reigns supreme. I'm not going to claim that this is the primary reason why other minis games publishers are nibbling away at a greater portion of GW's lunch as the years go by, but it's certainly a factor. You can also draw parallels between GW's fanbase and D&D's in the sense that GW's fanbase is willing to get insanely lovely and toxic towards people who shine a spotlight on mechanical issues complete with their own derogatory terminology (WAAC or "Win At All Cost" players, so named for the temerity of attempting to win a competitive game by using the rules given to them).
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Apr 1, 2017 03:18
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Kai Tave posted:Nonetheless Magic isn't simply some niche game that exploded, it's always been a very successful venture for being the pioneer of the CCG craze backed up by a design team that actually knows a thing or two about design (despite the fact that the game has some fundamental flaws baked in) It's amazing how well that basic design has stood up to time. If you plopped a player from 1993 down to play the game today he'd just have to learn a few keywords, get an update on stack and combat timing, and be pretty much good to go.
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Apr 1, 2017 03:36
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Agronox posted:It's amazing how well that basic design has stood up to time. If you plopped a player from 1993 down to play the game today he'd just have to learn a few keywords, get an update on stack and combat timing, and be pretty much good to go. That Garfield guy can design a game or two, man.
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Apr 1, 2017 03:39
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FMguru posted:It had its share of flaws out of the gate, but it;s amazing just how much Magic got right in its first iteration. I feel like Netrunner has stood the test of time as well even though FFG has kind of made a hash of the balance, but the fundamental mechanics of an asymmetric game with multiple economies to consider and a strong bluffing element are just as solid now as they were when they were new. One thing I think that Magic definitely got right was the idea of set rotation. It helps the design team knowing that even if they somehow gently caress things up that there's a definitive endpoint for any given block of Magic within the format that most people care about on a competitive level (whatever Type II is called these days, the one that only uses the most recent blocks instead of the entire back catalog). It's something that other games, like FFG's Netrunner and even X-Wing, struggle a bit to deal with as they have to support everything from the earliest days of the game all the way to the latest entries (Netrunner has a planned set rotation but it's been way, wayyyyyy longer to get to that point than the average Magic set rotation). It just so coincidentally happens that set rotation also helps drive sales of the game since, welp, old sets rotate out, gotta buy some new stuff to remain competitive. Again, this hooks people in regardless of whether they're actually good enough to be pro players and concerned with cutting-edge meta decks or not.
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Apr 1, 2017 03:45
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Type II is called Standard now. They ditched the "type" naming scheme a while ago for one that actually gives some idea what the formats are about without having to look them up.
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Apr 1, 2017 03:48
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I wonder if there is a way to implement something similar to Standard rotation into wargames without basically telling people to throw their minis in the garbage after a rotation. I feel that a few of the more bloated wargames on the market (*cough*40k*cough*) would seriously benefit from something like it.
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Apr 1, 2017 03:54
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Is there actually a difference in the minis between editions/versions of 40k (like obviously yes between the first iteration and now, but what about between two subsequent editions)?
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Apr 1, 2017 04:01
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If the minis are cheap enough people won't mind. If they cost GW$ it's not going to happen. The trick there is being able to leverage volume on the supply side to keep costs down and hope the quality is sufficient. So far nobody's managed to pull it off though. I think you'd need a property where it actually makes sense to do a set rotation to do it successfully, and even then you'd have to work out what the ideal length would be for people to replace their armies. Probably the best way to do it for wargames is to rotate out pieces instead of entire sets, like you'd have a core of evergreen figs and then rotate out others based on the meta.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:02
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LordAbaddon posted:I wonder if there is a way to implement something similar to Standard rotation into wargames without basically telling people to throw their minis in the garbage after a rotation. I feel that a few of the more bloated wargames on the market (*cough*40k*cough*) would seriously benefit from something like it. I believe that's called Age of Sigmar and I'm not sure I'd call it beneficial exactly. To be less facetious, the problems baked into 40K would require way, way more to solve than a simple set rotation scheme. Plus there's the fact that 40K explicitly demands high-dollar investments to play while Magic can actually be played on the cheap without really depriving yourself, there have always been "pauper formats" and WotC is happy to sell people all-in-one Commander Decks that let them into the game with a nominal investment which makes things like set rotation at least ostensibly more palatable even though I'm sure there are people out there who dropped gobs of money on four Jace the Mind Sculptors that are kind of sour that they now have to go chase the latest trending rares for a "competitively viable" deck, but with 40K there is no real major difference between buying in casually and buying in competitively because everything's so fuckin expensive. If you're going to charge people top dollar for the greatest jewel-like objects of wonder in the world then arbitrarily telling them that they can't bring their expensive toys to the table would be disastrous. All of this is academic because GW doesn't really do organized tournament play much anymore these days, so set rotation would be even more dubious.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:05
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Kwyndig posted:If the minis are cheap enough people won't mind. If they cost GW$ it's not going to happen. The trick there is being able to leverage volume on the supply side to keep costs down and hope the quality is sufficient. You could probably do it based around campaign books/events. The excuse for the rotation is "x army has a basic core but is deploying certain specialist units to this warzone that we are focusing on this time". Then you just rotate at whatever interval you want and it works itself out. This also allows for pieces to rotate back in once they've been fixed or the meta requires it, while you could have a "total war" format similar to vintage or legacy. Edit: This doesn't necessarily need to be applied to GW (and probably can't be) but more as a general way to combat the bloat that all wargames eventually acquire.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:08
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What about some sort of system where the mini itself stays relatively constant and not in need of updates every cycle, but its attributes and stats and powers are updated with some sort of power card. Your army would always have light infantry, heavy inf, etc, etc etc, but the units themselves would be updated by card packs you sell every 6 months or whatever
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Apr 1, 2017 04:14
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I know there have been countless Debates and DIscussions(tm) over the issue of Dungeons & Dragons vs. Design in the past, but it really is amazing to me how hard it is to get the average gamer what it is (s)he even enjoys or wants out of a game. I watched somewhat mystified as games like Settlers of Catan blew up in popularity amongst even my non-nerdy friends, and when I ask some of these people what they like about the games, the answer is pretty much "it is fun to play with friends!" I have the feeling Dungeons & Dragons basically exists in no small part for people who think like this. Incidentally I quite frequently fall into that category too, no Obliviousness Shaming going on here. I wish I knew more about what I liked about roleplaying games other than "wanting to feel at least once or twice a session that the character I made had some important impact on the make-believe story we are telling in this basement."ProfessorCirno posted:Apologies; bad Are you ever going to join the Gen-ConGoons so we can cruise the halls fending off shitlords?!
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Apr 1, 2017 04:17
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slap me and kiss me posted:What about some sort of system where the mini itself stays relatively constant and not in need of updates every cycle, but its attributes and stats and powers are updated with some sort of power card. Privateer Press sssssssorta does this though not to the degree I think you're suggesting which is that you have a generic Blue Army Infantrydude that occasionally changes quite thoroughly in terms of what they do (like one set they're a standard sword-and-shield line infantry type but then in the next set they all become greatsword-wielding guys good against Black Army pike formations, that sorta thing). I feel like you could maybe do this but at that point the impetus to buy new miniatures would largely be gone as players would very quickly hit the saturation point where they have all the Blue Army Infantrydudes they could ever want whereas in more traditional-model miniatures games even if someone buys all the Cygnarian Trenchers they could ever hope to use, well, that just means they can move on to buying Long-Gunners or Gunmages or whatever the latest new release is as opposed to a pack of cards. All of which is to say that what you're proposing is technically feasible and could even be quite cleverly designed but I don't think it would be an attractive model for publishers.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:28
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If you're teaming up with Vox Day on anything, you're pretty much not a good person.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:41
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Kai Tave posted:Privateer Press sssssssorta does this though not to the degree I think you're suggesting which is that you have a generic Blue Army Infantrydude that occasionally changes quite thoroughly in terms of what they do (like one set they're a standard sword-and-shield line infantry type but then in the next set they all become greatsword-wielding guys good against Black Army pike formations, that sorta thing). I feel like you could maybe do this but at that point the impetus to buy new miniatures would largely be gone as players would very quickly hit the saturation point where they have all the Blue Army Infantrydudes they could ever want whereas in more traditional-model miniatures games even if someone buys all the Cygnarian Trenchers they could ever hope to use, well, that just means they can move on to buying Long-Gunners or Gunmages or whatever the latest new release is as opposed to a pack of cards. You're probably right, but at the same time, if you didn't always need to be buying new minis for Army Red, you might decide to start buying up alternative armies too; it's a heck of a lot less of an investment to build out two or three (or more) sets of dudes when you're assured that they're all not going to be obsolete in three years. Plus, I bet one could make a killing on the card sets as well.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:45
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^^^The thing is that you can't really guarantee that people will decide to jump from buying one army to buying multiples. Some people do this yeah, but a lot more people I think get attached to their army/faction of choice and if you don't keep giving them new stuff to chase, well, I think at that point you're looking at a game that's rather different from most sci-fi/fantasy minis games and you might be better served simply making a card game or boardgame.Pope Guilty posted:If you're teaming up with Vox Day on anything, you're pretty much not a good person. quote:A few – and I admit it was only a few – of us who are fans of Autarch [the publisher of Adventurer, Conqueror, King] spoke up about our concerns about this. Buuuuuuuuulllllllllllshit. Isn't ACKS the game by the Escapist guy, who also happens to be big into the whole Gamergate scene? Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 04:47
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Kai Tave posted:Buuuuuuuuulllllllllllshit. Isn't ACKS the game by the Escapist guy, who also happens to be big into the whole Gamergate scene? And, IIRC, used the Escapist to plug ACKS. lol, ethics in games journalism.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:51
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slap me and kiss me posted:Is there actually a difference in the minis between editions/versions of 40k (like obviously yes between the first iteration and now, but what about between two subsequent editions)? gently caress no. There's still sculpts from the 1990's that are the latest most up to date sculpt for some units, and even the 'recent' refresh on the Orks I just put together is dated 2005.
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Apr 1, 2017 05:03
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i never thought i'd live to see people praising set rotation as a design decision, but here we are lol set rotation is 100% a way to push more cardboard. the only problem it "solves" is that if as a publisher / dev you are dead set on constantly adding new cards / pieces / whatever it's either set rotation, power creep, or nobody buying your new stuff. the unspoken solution however is to just design a game to have a fixed number of pieces, then iterate on balance and interactions until it's polished to a nice shine and then you're done. it's just that this isn't exactly conducive to milking a single game for decades.
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Apr 1, 2017 05:04
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ProfessorCirno posted:Apologies; bad Null sweat, chummer. I don't always agree with you about elfgames but so what doing that poo poo is hosed up Kai Tave posted:One thing I think that Magic definitely got right was the idea of set rotation. They almost hosed it up by changing the card backs early on (although that wouldn't be as much as a problem now, with sleeves being everywhere and cheap too) Liquid Communism posted:I honestly think 4e would have done better without the D&D name on it. Springing off this but also putting it aside each edition of D&D is basically a completely different game with the same name more than any other RPG edition changeover (barring things like totally dead games that got revivals like Mutant Chronicles) and we'd all be better off if the whole hobby internalized this, lived it, learned it, and accepted it. Kai Tave posted:Buuuuuuuuulllllllllllshit. Isn't ACKS the game by the Escapist guy, who also happens to be big into the whole Gamergate scene? ACKS is alright but really it's just BX with some interesting race classes, a roll the body over table check instead of instadeath and a more obtuse attack roll. Instead of playing it you can just use the interesting BECMI race classes or roll your own. Teaming up with Vox Day and having the dread SJWs hordes killed in fantasy game art is definitely hilarious though, what are they gonna be portrayed as, orcs with pink hair or some poo poo? Also I wonder if Macris or Day complained about the gamergate joke Beamdog added to their Baldur's Gate remaster? If so double hilarious Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 05:07
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