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Fashionable Jorts posted:I'm curious as to what you'd think of the activation system I'm working on... Now if that high damage output is predicated on some other game aspect (positioning, use of terrain, unit synergies, use of some other limited resource to "power up" attacks, etc) then I think maybe you're OK. Obviously without knowing the details it's hard to comment, but I do generally agree that it's fine to have a system in which not all of your units activate every turn, especially if you provide some system that allows for limited activations. I think Sharp Practice 2 is a really good example of this, and I would encourage you to check it out. Yes, it's a filthy historical game, but its activation mechanics are really clever and elegant.
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Oct 18, 2018 22:33
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It's weird how, on the one hand, taken as a whole tabletop RPGs and miniature wargaming are doing better than ever. But if you zoom in to either segment it's really just two companies (Paizo/Wizards, GW/FFG) doing 98% of the business while everyone else fights for the scraps. It's like those monoculture crops where it's giving you bumper output but one blight and it's all gone. Healthier and yet also more vulnerable than ever. Like what happens to the local FLGS if people as a whole suddenly decide they don't like Magic the Gathering.
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Oct 18, 2018 22:44
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Fashionable Jorts posted:Does this sound interesting? I suggest checking out 7TV. It's a fun little system with some traction here in the UK, partly due to heavy nostalgia factor, and it works by having leader models generate activation tokens which are then spent to activate units. You can also spend them on certain powers (usually the very big ones). Being a game based deliberately on cult 70s television, it naturally wants to have masterminds waving goon squads into the heroes' guns, and the villainous factions in particular have an excellent sense of clueless mooks led around by competent but dubiously loyal lieutenants, who in turn take their orders from Glorious Leader. Having activation as a manipulable resource also lets 7TV have good capture and command-disruption mechanics, too. A captured figure is forced to spend its activation on itself being marched to the cells, and your opponent probably wanted that to let him shoot with his terror lobster!
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Oct 18, 2018 22:55
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It's so heavily based on momentum it's crazy. People invest in both the literal sense of dollars spent on models or cards, and also in terms of placing value on brand and companies. I've played plenty of card games better than Magic that never got anywhere close to the same foothold, and same deal with wargames and GW fare. Another element is the fact that people want that high level of concentration when it comes to player bases. I know I'm driven by both the hobby and the competition aspect, and if there's no community to interact with in person the value of a game plummets. Big games make a positive feedback loop because people ask themselves, and legitimately so, "what's the point in investing in something other than the biggest game with the biggest playerbase?" If Wizards or GW managed to gently caress up in a spectacular enough way to sink their flagship IPs it would certainly be weird financially speaking, but it would probably be a net positive for the players because it would allow better games with more humble beginnings to get off the ground when they would have otherwise caved to the giants. The medium will never go away, after all. Related to this idea and previously sticking up for Legion, I've legitimately wondered a lot of times other the past few years how you pull new stuff off in this environment. You go to a game store, or browse the clearance stuff at Miniature Market or whatever and it's really nuts how many failed lines of tabletop stuff there is. So many Kickstarters or whatever with huge ambitions that barely even make a ripple, and wind up clogging up shelves. You're put in weird place as a developer where you aren't competing with launch-day versions of these gargantuan games but rather decades of progress. Realistically you've got to launch with a limited range and scope, but like with Legion or something similar you have the situation of there not being enough models to choose from until a certain time frame has passed and more have been developed. Same with card games. It's like a rock and a hard place; you can't launch with a dozen expansions and poo poo out of the gate because what if the game is just lovely and flops? But then you can't keep it too basic or have a rollout of new products be too slow because people will get over the initial honeymoon really fuckin quick. I don't know how you even start to approach that as a game developer for this medium.
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Oct 18, 2018 22:58
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Gumdrop Larry posted:I don't know how you even start to approach that as a game developer for this medium.
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Oct 18, 2018 23:09
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:poo poo's bad when private companies are dunking on the PM. Haha its funny because England is doomed heh Oh geez
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Oct 18, 2018 23:35
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Mugaaz posted:Weird how every game maker other than GW was thriving when GW was making GBS threads the bed. Was
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Oct 18, 2018 23:38
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MCPeePants posted:Jigsaw pegs killing it for you? It's a real shame you can't cut them off and replace them with magnets, because they definitely affect the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeSYqJ5WzTw&t=46s I don't know, do they affect the game? My FLGS actually has it on sale so I looked at the link you posted and the Chronopia/Warcraft style football armor isn't helping either. Link sink some good paint jobs that will change my mind.
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Oct 18, 2018 23:42
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https://i.imgur.com/2Jp7t5j.mp4
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Oct 19, 2018 00:22
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Ilor posted:Now if that high damage output is predicated on some other game aspect (positioning, use of terrain, unit synergies, use of some other limited resource to "power up" attacks, etc) then I think maybe you're OK. Some of it is based around this. Each faction has some sort of temporary gimmick to it that requires strategy to really get the most out of each model. Being in hard cover does more for a unit's survival than anything else. Ilor posted:Obviously without knowing the details it's hard to comment, but I do generally agree that it's fine to have a system in which not all of your units activate every turn, especially if you provide some system that allows for limited activations. I think Sharp Practice 2 is a really good example of this, and I would encourage you to check it out. Yes, it's a filthy historical game, but its activation mechanics are really clever and elegant. I'll have to read that. My friends and I have taken up a couple ancient historical games, so I'm already knee-deep in the filth. Loxbourne posted:I suggest checking out 7TV. It's a fun little system with some traction here in the UK, partly due to heavy nostalgia factor, and it works by having leader models generate activation tokens which are then spent to activate units. You can also spend them on certain powers (usually the very big ones). Never even heard of that one, but it sounds neat. I'll check it out to see how they work it. At one point in an earlier revision of the game, I had Order tokens that a player would generate at the beginning of the round to either activate a unit, or give another unit a special ability. I dropped that for more army-specific buffs, whos resource is created in different ways. Alternating Leaders who rule over a handful of units might be a really good fix, since the number of leaders would stay very close regardless of what kind of army you build. Thanks again. I know it's hard to give great tips without knowing more about the game, sometime this weekend I'll have to make a post in the game writing thread about it.
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Oct 19, 2018 00:39
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Brits deserve starvation. Sink Shithole Island back into Hell.
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Oct 19, 2018 01:01
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Fashionable Jorts posted:Never even heard of that one, but it sounds neat. I'll check it out to see how they work it. At one point in an earlier revision of the game, I had Order tokens that a player would generate at the beginning of the round to either activate a unit, or give another unit a special ability. I dropped that for more army-specific buffs, whos resource is created in different ways. Alternating Leaders who rule over a handful of units might be a really good fix, since the number of leaders would stay very close regardless of what kind of army you build. They're running a Kickstarter right now for a post-apocalyptic starter box.
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Oct 19, 2018 01:05
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Ilor posted:Somewhere deep in the guts of that industry, dudes are doing some hard-core actuarial math to figure out how many units they need to sell over what kind of time-frame and what kind of advertising budget is going to be needed to propel that (and as an aside, I'd love to see some of those analyses). 
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Oct 19, 2018 02:27
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Gumdrop Larry posted:If Wizards or GW managed to gently caress up in a spectacular enough way to sink their flagship IPs it would certainly be weird financially speaking, but it would probably be a net positive for the players because it would allow better games with more humble beginnings to get off the ground when they would have otherwise caved to the giants. The medium will never go away, after all. GW did do this for a solid few year during 7th ed 40k and first couple years of AoS. All the other companies did start thriving during that period, but virtually all of them shot themselves in the foot shortly after. In my area, Infinity is the only one that seems to get bigger year over year in my area. Warmahordes/Xwing still sees solid amount of play, but is shrinking very slowly. Malifaux/GuildBall/Gates of Antares/Dropzone/etc seem to have completely vanished. I backed Warpath on KS as an alternative to 40k during its dark times, but 40k and AoS seem to have been reborn prior to Warpath/KoW getting a critical amount of traction, and now those games seem destined for the clearance bin. One critical thing I noticed is that games with area based facebook groups, like "Warmachine players of Atlanta" or "Tampa 40k players" seem to do soooo much better than anything else. It is such an effective way for getting a community going and increasing awareness. Mugaaz fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 04:31
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Mugaaz posted:Can we talk about how GW's push fit models are like 10 years ahead of the competition from a technology standpoint? I think you can perfectly assemble an Underworlds Warband in under 10 minutes, and there is absolutely no loss in sculpt quality. The join lines are practically invisible. Yeah you can't pose them and converting them is tougher than ever, but they are so drat easy to assemble. Assembly is my absolute most hated part of the hobby. Anything that makes it easier is a god send in my book. The new push-fit Cultists a pretty great like this. They hid the model lines incredibly well. Moola posted:Haha its funny because England is doomed heh I mean, that's kinda transparently why GW's looking at uncertainty ahead, isn't it? Brexit seems poised to gently caress their exports business, which makes the lion's share of their money, right in the ear. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 05:50
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But they already ordained that no two hemispheres shall trade together so, i don't know how MUCH of a difference it'll make to them... 
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Oct 19, 2018 07:57
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Ilor posted:Easy - you either have gobs of cash because you are a recognized name in the industry and someone is willing to take a risk on you, or you do poo poo over KickStarter (with all of the headaches that entails) and get your money up-front. In some sense it's the same with board games, which have exploded in the last decade in terms of titles on offer. Somewhere deep in the guts of that industry, dudes are doing some hard-core actuarial math to figure out how many units they need to sell over what kind of time-frame and what kind of advertising budget is going to be needed to propel that (and as an aside, I'd love to see some of those analyses). But given the stupefying amount of choice in that sphere, I don't know how anybody makes any money. And I think the answer is: a lot of them don't, and that's probably why we have seen so much consolidation of IPs as big players like FFG and Asmodee gobble up the smaller fish. I want to like Kickstarter boardgames so much more than I do. To me it feels like the prices are inflated all to hell not because they're being made by people who don't have the backing of a big company but because they like to go "over 300 miniatures!" and instead of giving cheap affordable tokens double down on expensive tiddlybobs. And I mean if that's what makes people pay insane amounts of money for your game cool but to me a boardgame should be an affordable all in the box thing not a multi hundred dollar monstrosity, that's what miniature gaming is for
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Oct 19, 2018 12:16
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Len posted:I want to like Kickstarter boardgames so much more than I do. To me it feels like the prices are inflated all to hell not because they're being made by people who don't have the backing of a big company but because they like to go "over 300 miniatures!" and instead of giving cheap affordable tokens double down on expensive tiddlybobs. Welcome to the business model of CMON games, among others. There's still indie projects (bee lives, orc stabr, take a look in the KS thread) and small companies (container, battlecon, 18xx stuff), some of which require a high price due to making extremely deluxe versions or just paying for development time on a small print run like xx. But yeah, the KS companies that exist to prey on FOMO with the threat of KS exclusives are the worst. Most of those games aren't very good anyway, so it not like you'd be missing out. Only real notable exception is Cthulhu Wars, which could've been done with cultist cubes and Cthulhu blocks/counters. But, there's a huge subset of people who like their "thematic" (read: cool themes, not necessarily mechanically supported) games to have big minis with fantastic table presence so here we are. Not to say I'm innocent, since I backed the Container reprint due to the jumbo 7" ships. Just a ridiculous size. The only way to know if a KS boardgame is good is if it's just a reprint of an OOP game. Capstone tends to do that with sweet economic games, but it looks like they're moving on to regular distribution methods with the winsome titles.
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Oct 19, 2018 16:54
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That’s a big part of what’s keeping Mantic from getting any serious traction. What’s to convince a FLGS operator to devote valuable shelf space and capital to a game where most of the interested players already bought everything at a 30-40% discount? Without shelf space a game has a very minimal influx of new players and it ends up stagnating. Their The Walking Dead game actually tries to counter that with an Xwing wave style release pattern where a chunk of the boosters are retail exclusive. It also seems to be their best supported post KS game. Macdeo Lurjtux fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 17:22
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I have to admit I considered backing the Dark Souls game for the minis with no consideration given to the actual game itself. Glad I didn't, but I may pick up one of the boss expansions to have a cool monster on my computer desk.
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Oct 19, 2018 18:05
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Imagined posted:It's weird how, on the one hand, taken as a whole tabletop RPGs and miniature wargaming are doing better than ever. But if you zoom in to either segment it's really just two companies (Paizo/Wizards, GW/FFG) doing 98% of the business while everyone else fights for the scraps. It's like those monoculture crops where it's giving you bumper output but one blight and it's all gone. Healthier and yet also more vulnerable than ever. This was a good post until the last sentence. The whole reason that the big companies dominate their segments is that successful games have a massive network effect- once enough people like something, it takes an unbelievable amount of effort to make them all not like it. Magic got popular because it made a splash as a new kind of game back in the 90s, but its successful today because you can walk into a nerd store and find a community of people to play Magic with. It’s the same thing with D&D or warhammer- the big players have distribution and marketing that makes sure their playerbase has easy access to their products, and because the playerbase is big it becomes self sustaining to a degree. GW a couple years ago showed us how it’s still possible to poison that well if you really try, but the resurgence shows how quickly it can be reactivated if you do things even half competently. Magic isn’t in a super great place right now (lots of bannings in standard a couple years ago, the pro tour is bleeding players to hearthstone and will be losing people to artifact because the money from blizzard/valve is much better), but wotc has plenty of runway to get things humming again. The giant network effects are also why the smaller games will never be meaningful parts of most distributors/FLGs bottom lines. It takes a giant amount of money in marketing, outreach and distribution to launch a game that requires a community to sustain it, and that kind of capital just doesn’t exist for nerd games. Privateer Press probably came the closest to breaking through the Wotc/GW/FFG/Asmodee game store hegemony, but being the second biggest fish in the pond is way more precarious than being on top.
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Oct 19, 2018 18:08
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Imagined posted:
Didn't WOTC recently make some kind of distribution change for MTG cards that is going to screw over FLGS's in favour of box stores and amazon?
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Oct 19, 2018 18:15
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tallkidwithglasses posted:Privateer Press probably came the closest to breaking through the Wotc/GW/FFG/Asmodee game store hegemony, but being the second biggest fish in the pond is way more precarious than being on top. Also resting on your laurels when the leader had a retard fit rather than plowing straight ahead doesn't help. I can't speak for their games but their models have absolutely shown very little evolution since they first appear. Contrast that to GW or one of the other newer companies. They had the size but failed to properly capitalise on it.
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Oct 19, 2018 18:21
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Seldom Posts posted:Didn't WOTC recently make some kind of distribution change for MTG cards that is going to screw over FLGS's in favour of box stores and amazon? Not really. They made a direct distribution deal with amazon and some other e-commerce retailers to sell booster boxes. The issue was that over the past couple years there were a number of high-volume 3p sellers on those platforms that were selling boxes for slightly over distributor cost (like $90 bux for a box of boosters) while MSRP was $125. No one was actually paying MSRP anyway. Wotc cut out the middleman and negotiated a direct deal, and then cut a break to FLGs by including special unique foil rares in the kits to stores, so if you spend $100 or $110 on your box in store, you’ll get a special card that occasionally has substantial secondary market value. Or you can buy the box for $90 online and not get the card. It’s a reasonable solution to what was happening.
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Oct 19, 2018 18:23
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StuG Jeebus posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeSYqJ5WzTw&t=46s Yeah they're part of the unit's base in every capacity. Mostly it doesn't come up, but the rules would just be every so slightly cleaner without them. Removing them mid-game can be a hassle. I mean, if you don't like the aesthetic then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong. The minis are mostly in the range of decent, with a few standouts, and the setting started as a deliberately generic fantasy world for instant boardgame readability - the dwarf drinks and has an axe, the elf is aloof and uses a bow, and the humans are shining and noble knights. I tout the games mechanics because that's what I really care about. https://www.flickr.com/photos/143447216@N03/ https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/279224-gnutten-paints-terrain/ https://community.fantasyflightgame...comment=3379697
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Oct 19, 2018 18:59
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tallkidwithglasses posted:Not really. They made a direct distribution deal with amazon and some other e-commerce retailers to sell booster boxes. The issue was that over the past couple years there were a number of high-volume 3p sellers on those platforms that were selling boxes for slightly over distributor cost (like $90 bux for a box of boosters) while MSRP was $125. No one was actually paying MSRP anyway. interesting, thanks.
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Oct 19, 2018 19:56
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Edit: Somehow wrong thread
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Oct 19, 2018 20:21
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Local stores seem to get the majority of their magic revenue from single cards and booster packs anyway.
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Oct 19, 2018 20:44
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Badablack posted:Local stores seem to get the majority of their magic revenue from single cards and booster packs anyway. Boosters come from boxes 
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Oct 19, 2018 21:22
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mango sentinel posted:Boosters come from boxes They’re different SKUS at different MSRPs though, with very different customers. As a magic customer, you can buy a box of 36 boosters for $90 no problem, while individual boosters are between $3-4. If a store runs a $15 booster draft every week, after prize support they’re effectively selling booster boxes for $110. The best analogue I can think of here is the difference between a convenience store selling loosies compared to a native rez selling cartons of smokes. They both have niches and customer bases, but the convenience store isn’t exactly losing their customers to the rez.
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Oct 19, 2018 21:37
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They are only separate SKUs for convenience sake. The actual MSRP of a booster box is 143.64. https://wpn.wizards.com/en/products/core-set-2019 Lots of casual players who normally only buy boosters and bundles also buy boxes, especially around release time, even at stores that are selling the boxes for 120-130. I see it all the time. Wizards going direct with amazon, etc etc isn't the end of the world, but for stores who like to sell magic and do events without making it a huge center part of their business, it's sending bad messaging that's very contrary to the 'get people in stores playing games' message that they've been cultivating for some time now.
S.J. fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 22:07
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I'm still mad that Skaven never got an 8th edition book and that 9th edition didn't happen. Not mad enough to care anymore though! Nightvault looks kinda neat.
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Oct 20, 2018 04:10
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Admiral Joeslop posted:I'm still mad that Skaven never got an 8th edition book and that 9th edition didn't happen. Skaven are great+fun in Underworlds at least.
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Oct 20, 2018 04:39
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k2SzIpPOck And the person responsible for the artwork. http://www.abigaillarson.com/ Irate Tree fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 05:57
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Hey folks! So I've been reminded that the Death Thread moved to BYOB and it's still active there, so to keep things neat and tidy I'm gonna redirect this thread to that one for now. I gave the Unspiration thread a name change to hopefully prevent future mixups so if there are still problems let me know and I will see what I can do.
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Oct 21, 2018 03:46
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I took another look at this after several goons sent me some Good Arguments and actually I'm fine with leaving this open as a GW industry thread. Raising a thread from the grave for Halloween   
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Oct 24, 2018 05:04
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Skelettin posted:I took another look at this after several goons sent me some Good Arguments and actually I'm fine with leaving this open as a GW industry thread. Raising a thread from the grave for Halloween  So, GW: bad? 
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Oct 24, 2018 05:09
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Thanks Ettin! Now we can stop boring other people in the Unspiration thread.
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Oct 24, 2018 05:15
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We're BACK BABY!!! Best thread in the forum. Long live GW.
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Oct 24, 2018 05:38
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I play these dumb games largely because I like the tactile feel of pushing models around the table and seeing units bash into each other. What I don't need to do is pay a premium to undo someone else's garbage work. I'm by no means a pro painter, but I'm better than 99% of the poo poo I see on eBay and there's no way I'm paying a markup to fix your poo poo. If you really don't care about the hobby aspect, fine, but why not do a chit based game instead?
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Oct 24, 2018 05:50
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