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Terrible Opinions posted:20668*12=248,016 Congrats, you win the Pedant Award.
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Aug 30, 2021 01:50
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I'd unironically also love to see Critical Role shut themselves down because they were scared they'd be asked to.
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Aug 30, 2021 01:52
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Hypnobeard posted:Congrats, you win the Pedant Award. This is a dumbshit argument but when you’re talking about an income divided between an unknown number of people the difference between 250k and 500k a year is pretty loving big.
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Aug 30, 2021 01:53
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Also it bares noting the 20k per month number is not normal, it's a huge jump immediately after the GW bad announcement that will almost certainly disappear if their next work isn't some mega hit. The previous amount, before fickle nerd rage bucks being 8k per month.
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Aug 30, 2021 02:02
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I forget, is it a small business using unlicensed IP or a fan production? Which one lets you just get money without consequences? Regardless, the drama surrounding it is an extreme case of fandom cannibalizing itself.
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Aug 30, 2021 02:04
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Whichever actual plays use, I'm not sure what their excuse is. Or the guys who do nothing but summarize lore books for tabletop games and video games, or really the entire youtube media commentary guys.
Terrible Opinions fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 02:07
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I also maybe dismissively called it drama, but this is arguably the same parasocial phenomenon CR enjoys where people charge into any discussion to defend their "friends." I feel like it got a boost in 2020 when our actual friends largely became online personalities, so the distinction between "friend" and "content creator I enjoy" got a lot blurrier for some people.
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Aug 30, 2021 02:18
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moths posted:FFG recently released an app-mandatory version of Descent, probably the first big-brand endeavor into this "hybrid that consistently satisfies nobody and inevitably fails" model. Every review I’ve seen of this has concluded: it’s good!
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Aug 30, 2021 02:35
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moths posted:
It's not their first app mandatory game, so obviously the model is succeeding enough to warrant another trip to the well.
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Aug 30, 2021 03:30
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Tendales posted:It's not their first app mandatory game, so obviously the model is succeeding enough to warrant another trip to the well. Yea, I think the first one was 2nd Edition Mansions of Madness.
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Aug 30, 2021 03:45
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hyphz posted:Yea, I think the first one was 2nd Edition Mansions of Madness. IIRC it was their XCOM board game actually. Either way, it's not a totally new thing for FFG at this venture.
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Aug 30, 2021 03:57
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Terrible Opinions posted:Whichever actual plays use, I'm not sure what their excuse is. Or the guys who do nothing but summarize lore books for tabletop games and video games, or really the entire youtube media commentary guys. Actual plays are just people playing games. There is no world where a company should be able to shut down one of those. It is like the very definition of transformative work when it comes to fair use laws. People who summarize lore books/lore for games likely fall under fair use, albeit a bit more iffy, as like you can write a report about something using official things as sources, so long as you provide your own editorializing. Now a number of them probably just pull poo poo whole cloth from official sources. And Plagirize the poo poo out of them. But It's likely not worth it for a company to care as it only builds interest in your game/book. Mostly these companies prooobably could win/starve out a case if they really really wanted to bring a charge against Joe Streamer, but realize that in at least the situations brought up in this post that it's literally just free advertising. Edit: Like Critical Role as an example. They can use the trademarked D&D names in their tabletop game(Vecna, Tiamat, Lolth, etc etc). They used them in their Official book they partnered with WotC for their Campaign 2 continent. However outside of that Ecosystem for their own stuff, books about Matt's world, and probably the Cartoon they are making, they have to use alternative names(The Whispered One, The Scaled Tyrant, Spider Queen etc etc.) Dexo fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 04:19
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moths posted:I'd unironically also love to see Critical Role shut themselves down because they were scared they'd be asked to. I often like to see people I don't know have things they like taken away from them, or face non-harmful, but still upsetting disappointment. I basically can't get into the mood anymore unless Nintendo announces a disappointing character for smash bros.
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Aug 30, 2021 04:54
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hyphz posted:I mean, it could be that it's trying to go deeper and look at the themes and story bases of Avatar rather than the exact setting, which I couldn't tell you because you'd probably need to know Avatar much more than a few googles hitting the fan wiki, but equally maybe not; and cartoon narrative weight is difficult to estimate. I've never watched the first cartoon but from multiple sources who have it's pretty narratively and thematically dense, at least for a kids show. I'm pretty confident that the setting can support a lot of game ideas.
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Aug 30, 2021 05:21
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:I basically can't get into the mood anymore unless Nintendo announces a disappointing character for smash bros. I think the difference here is that Nintendo will always disappoint someone but Critical Role will never stop promoting the lackluster hack product of the industry's favorite abuser enabler.
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Aug 30, 2021 05:28
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Falstaff posted:Some people don't play D&D to tell a story.* For some it's more akin to a cross between a puzzle, a war game, and a board game, where you're presented with predetermined challenges and are expected to use the tools at your disposal to overcome them - and any story that occurs in the meantime is nice, but incidental and not really the point. It's a perfectly valid way to play, but certainly not the only way to play, and not a way that holds a lot of appeal for me these days. this is the part of D&D I enjoy the most, but even then it's nice to have just enough of a narrative to make the gameplay feel cohesive, like each puzzle-encounter is part of something larger and they all relate to each other. in that context, i like straightforwardly presenting my players with out-of-character prompts where i'll say, for example, "okay your starship is being tracked by a much larger capital ship, if you try to break and run you will most likely make it out, but you'll have to shoot your way out and you'll make a long-term enemy. on the other hand, she's looking for information, not your heads, so if you play along your lives won't be in immediate danger" in a more narrative-centric game this would obviously kill a lot of the suspense, or at least risk doing so, but because tactics-heavy games tend to take more prep and have a little less flexibility in terms of story anyways, being extremely up front about what the "branches" are and giving the players themselves as much agency as possible without (or at least "before") derailing can be really helpful i also sometimes just say "yeah you can absolutely do that but the session will definitely lean more towards improv from there on out", not even as discouragement, but simply as a note about what to expect
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Aug 30, 2021 06:08
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moths posted:I think the difference here is that Nintendo will always disappoint someone but Critical Role will never stop promoting the lackluster hack product of the industry's favorite abuser enabler. I'm not even sure WotC is the industry's favorite abuse enabler. Most popular, maybe. TheDiceMustRoll posted:I often like to see people I don't know have things they like taken away from them, or face non-harmful, but still upsetting disappointment. I basically can't get into the mood anymore unless Nintendo announces a disappointing character for smash bros. What about when they force an independent tournament to cancel its Smash event?
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Aug 30, 2021 06:28
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moths posted:I'd unironically also love to see Critical Role shut themselves down because they were scared they'd be asked to. Hasbro/WOTC actually understands that fan works drive engagement and bigger sales, they're basically the Gallant to GW's Goofus in terms of corporate policy
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Aug 30, 2021 06:29
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Hasbro lets companies make and sell, for profit, entire original toys based on Transformers characters because they have determined it is more beneficial to stay on the good side of fan whales and use third-party products as free market research. They are almost preternaturally chill.
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Aug 30, 2021 06:32
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Omnicrom posted:IIRC it was their XCOM board game actually. Either way, it's not a totally new thing for FFG at this venture. They also used it for their most recent LOTR release, which I enjoyed. I think the app-mandatory thing is really smart - almost everyone has a little computer on them at all times, and the alternative to having the app do stuff you're going to automate anyway is a lot of components and bookkeeping to do the same or potentially a worse job. For example Gloomhaven, where turning all the monster stat cards, specific monster decks, and so forth into a single app would be a tremendous savings of components and player effort. I think there might even be an app that does this now, it's been ages since my Gloomhaven run and it didn't exist at that point, but might well have come out since. So conceptually it's great IMO. You cut out components from the box letting it be smaller or contain more, and players spend less time fiddling with the components and more playing the game, awesome! I will say though that the Descent game in particular looks to compare pretty unfavorably with Gloomhaven on price/content levels. Granted, Gloomhaven is an all-time great, but like, this giant Descent box is SRP $160 USD vs Gloomhaven's $125 (I understand both are cheaper online but I run an LGS so I just know the SRPs offhand), and Descent is labeled "Chapter 1," so presumably doesn't even conclude the story, which Gloomhaven absolutely does. It has a handful of enemy types and four base characters plus two unlockables. No idea how many scenarios because I haven't gotten it to the table yet, but I'm going to venture a guess that it's not 95 of the things. Meanwhile Gloomhaven has as many starting character options as are in the entire box, plus 10+ unlockables, and vastly more enemy types. I have no idea why there's such a difference; I suspect it's a combination of all the minis (which I don't care about at all and I get some people do) vs the paper standees for enemies, the 3D terrain, an increase in the general price of board games, and at least a little greed. But it's pretty jarring IMO that it's more expensive than Gloomhaven, doubly so when the box doesn't even make it appear to be a complete experience. I got myself a copy because I liked the old Descent, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it when I get it to the table, but it's going to have to be a really incredible game for me to be interested in stocking it and recommending it all that highly given the price point, even with Gloomhaven perpetually out of stock.
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Aug 30, 2021 06:40
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The problem with app based games is the input throttle. Everything that the app needs to allow for has to be entered into the app separately, usually with an awkward form based UI. That cancels out a lot of speed gain, and in the worst case transforms the game from a board game to a painful app game. Alchemists IMHO is the one game that did it fantastically by having almost no input throttle. Then again it’s technically app optional. XCOM didn’t need to track everything; it mostly served as a timer.
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Aug 30, 2021 07:07
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moths posted:I see that you're posting from the camp where your six-figures / month patreon is still a humble fan work. Oh I bet GW really hurts losing the six figure sales from people who already buy and are interested in their eight figure product. Disgusting parasites.
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Aug 30, 2021 07:33
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I really don't think there's going to be much of an exodus to other games regardless anyway. There's a lot of memeing about Battletech, but that's not something that can really happen. Catalyst game labs is not really in a position to overtake GW or even function anywhere near the same level as GW.
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Aug 30, 2021 08:57
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:Oh I bet GW really hurts losing the six figure sales from people who already buy and are interested in their eight figure product. Disgusting parasites. The policy seems intended to be selectively wielded for their own benefit, against media that doesn't help them. Competing animations and problematic streamers, like the next Arch - come immediately to mind. It gave them something to point at when a YouTuber causes more harm than good. This had seemingly already been their policy, based on how both Helsreach and ETTS had both been and allowed to continue monetized and unmolested. The statement planted a big "NO SWIMMING" sign next to their pool, but the intent was only to point to it when it wasn't beneficial. ie: When they wanted to kick out a problem swimmer. They can't say "you've got to make us look good" in an open license because that's subjective. But they can have a blanket policy that's only someimes invoked. It's what they'd been doing all along, except more overly. ETTS didn't get a letter - does anyone think GW legal was simply unaware of them? The statement only seems to add uncertainty. I can see why you'd choose not to work under uncertainty, especially when big money and effort was involved, but that uncertainty was there from the start. The risk of shutdown was mitigated by "free" art assets and an instant audience. I expect that Hasbro has a similar non-public policy drafted for Critical Role, should they ever turn on the hand that feeds them.
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Aug 30, 2021 11:46
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DoctorWhat posted:Hasbro lets companies make and sell, for profit, entire original toys based on Transformers characters because they have determined it is more beneficial to stay on the good side of fan whales and use third-party products as free market research. Also, no they aren't that chill because well look at what Hasbro owned WoTC did when they found out that one of their books was pirated. They pulled out all the pdfs and haven't released their books in pdf form since then. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 13:24
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MadScientistWorking posted:Didn't they shut down multiple knockoff companies recently or was that just random fans panicking about something that was wrong?
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Aug 30, 2021 13:33
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It also wasn't just "one of their books," it was all three 4e core books, about a week before their street date.
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Aug 30, 2021 13:57
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moths posted:It also wasn't just "one of their books," it was all three 4e core books, about a week before their street date. The versions that were for the printers too, they had the guide and color markings in the margins for it.
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Aug 30, 2021 14:12
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Hunter Noventa posted:The versions that were for the printers too, they had the guide and color markings in the margins for it. Yeah, someone at WotC's printers had been leaking the actual printer's proofs since midway through 3.5.
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Aug 30, 2021 14:19
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how does stopping pdf releases help with printer's proof leaks?
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Aug 30, 2021 14:24
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MadScientistWorking posted:Also, no they aren't that chill because well look at what Hasbro owned WoTC did when they found out that one of their books was pirated. They pulled out all the pdfs and haven't released their books in pdf form since then. They haven't released PDFs of most core 5e stuff I don't think, but it's been quite a few years since they've put a ton of back catalog up for sale, even to the point of providing PoD options for some pretty old titles. Andrast posted:how does stopping pdf releases help with printer's proof leaks? Very good question! That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 14:41
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MadScientistWorking posted:Didn't they shut down multiple knockoff companies recently or was that just random fans panicking about something that was wrong? It took a long time, but as of something like 2019 (possibly earlier, I'm not going to go back to check precisely) most if not all of WOTC's back catalog has been released in PDF, with the exception of 5th Edition. Andrast posted:how does stopping pdf releases help with printer's proof leaks? It doesn't. WOTC thought, despite everyone else telling them otherwise, that the pirated PDFs were customer copies that were being passed around.
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Aug 30, 2021 14:42
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moths posted:The policy seems intended to be selectively wielded for their own benefit, against media that doesn't help them. Competing animations and problematic streamers, like the next Arch - come immediately to mind. It gave them something to point at when a YouTuber causes more harm than good. Media that doesn't help GW, like *checks notes*... loving Astartes? Maybe GW didn't shut down the subreddit, but a bunch of stls got dmcas. They also took down several very popular fan animations, like Astartes. And all this happed around the same time as they hired at least one person to protect thier ip full time.
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Aug 30, 2021 15:26
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Ego Trip posted:Media that doesn't help GW, like *checks notes*... loving Astartes? Yes? Given that they're going to be streaming that guy's future works (and almost certainly including Astartes), they feel it's in their interests not to have it available for free on a rival service. Whether that's true or not is going to be borne out over the next few months, I guess.
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Aug 30, 2021 15:38
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hyphz posted:The problem with app based games is the input throttle. Everything that the app needs to allow for has to be entered into the app separately, usually with an awkward form based UI. That cancels out a lot of speed gain, and in the worst case transforms the game from a board game to a painful app game. The other problem is what happens when the app disappears. The internet can be forever for any given thing, but it's never guaranteed to be forever for any specific thing, and if you base your game design on something people have to download online to see basic mechanics, you run the obvious problem of your game not working when that resource is no longer available. (See also: my continued dissatisfaction with Blades in the Dark not just putting the bloody numbers for basic things like "how many stress boxes do characters have" in the book, and at least in the edition I have, not having the sheets in the book either, just as separate online downloads. That's going to be a problem down the line for someone.)
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Aug 30, 2021 15:47
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Ultiville posted:But it's pretty jarring IMO that it's more expensive than Gloomhaven, doubly so when the box doesn't even make it appear to be a complete experience. I thought they were trying to cash in on the enthusiasm for Pandemic's "seasons." I played through the tutorial mission, and it seems as though the designers consciously decided to do the opposite of what Gloomhaven does whenever possible. Where Gloomhaven: * Keeps the same characters for every mission until they retire, * Puts the characters at odds with each other at times through the scenario goals and individual retirements, * Uses monster standees and flat terrain markers, * Shows you the whole map in advance, * Only has you interact with terrain for the scenario, * Never has long-term character consequences for road and city events, and * Puts every mission on a timer the new Descent says "nah." These are not necessarily improvements, just extensive differences.
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Aug 30, 2021 16:54
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moths posted:Yes? And fans shouldn't be mad at this? And content creators shouldn't be weary of creating around their properties?
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Aug 30, 2021 17:27
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GW fans exist in a perpetual state of rage, which has resulted GW becoming one of the most financially successful figures in the industry. Fans have successfully demonstrated that their anger can be ignored. Creators should be wary of creating around any property they don't own. It is insane to me that people are still trying to create unlicensed Star Trek or use unowned/unleased/ no permission granted assets a hundred years after Disney lawyers made that a minefield.
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Aug 30, 2021 17:34
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This is why all of Kevin Crawford's stuff is built on his version of OSR D&D and he hasn't jumped on the 5e train.
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Aug 30, 2021 17:37
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Ego Trip posted:And fans shouldn't be mad at this? And content creators shouldn't be weary of creating around their properties? Didn't Astartes get basically bought out by GW? It is up for free on GWs site now. It's not really a cautionary tale.
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Aug 30, 2021 17:47
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