Kickshart My Heart: Or: Why Kickstarter Sucks Yet Should Not.

Ahh Kickstarter.  A brilliant idea ruined by greed and basic human selfishness like every other good idea in the history of ever.

For those not in the know, Kickstarter is presumably a way for small and start up companies to get ideas the large idiotic corporations (who ruin Capitalism every day speaking of good ideas gone horribly wrong..) simply will not do because of lack of vision and the modern aversion to risk and selling crap to the lowest common denominator until it doesn't sell any more and they run something else into the ground.

(See Call of Duty and the Guitar Hero games for electronic examples of this.)

Sadly instead Kickstarter is mostly a preorder program.  A preorder program of failed promises.  Almost nothing but failed promises.

Companies whose products are all but guaranteed success use it now constantly even when their previous KS item in the same franchise succeeded in the first week.

Much like it's spiritual cousins Patreon (a way to give money to people who make stuff you enjoy so they can keep making Youtube videos instead of working a real job), Indiegogo (its like Kickstarter except where Kickstarter has to reach a funding level by a certain date to succeed and only then is your money taken out for the project Indiegogo gets it anyhow), and Steam Early Access (basically you pay money for unfinished computer games and hope the developer actually finishes and makes the game good eventually) Kickstarter is like low price investing.

Except for things you might like.

If they come out on time.

And keep most of their promises.

However you are giving them money months if not YEARS in advance and very rarely get what you want or even know if it is good ahead of time.

Just like every other preorder program in the history of ever.

Instead of waiting for a good sale or good reviews or seeing if a game community forms up to make it even worthwhile you have to give your money now and hope.

All the while the producers get to pretend you are involved and helping them make something great.

It's really just low risk production for the producers which I honestly cannot blame them for even if as a consumer it SUCKS ASS.

I am basically done with Kickstarting anything.  Nearly every project I have interest in succeeded by leaps and bounds regardless of my involvement and having to give money to a thing within a month window is generally bad for my finances.

But let us take a look at what I did Kickstart so we can see exactly why I am sick of it and what I have gotten out of it eh?

(The answer is mostly disappointment.)

See this is pretty much everything I have Kickstarted.  Of these items and note the dates I have only gotten FIVE of them at all.  Four of them are not out yet by their own estimated date.  Thirteen projects.  Nine supposed to be out by now.  Almost half of them aren't out yet that should have been.  And as far as I can remember not a single one remotely was out on time.

The usual excuses?  DURR WE WERE OVERWHELMED BY OUR OWN SUCCESS.

UHH STUFF CAME UP WE WEREN'T AWARE OF.

CHINA HOLIDAYS.

So if you were buying any of these sort of projects as a gift for another or in preparation for a convention or other sort of holiday or event?  You done screwed up!

Now that we have seen the master list and how much money I wasted sight unseen, let us talk about each one so I can go back and see exactly how much I got screwed?

Cosmic Star Heroine: It isn't out yet.  I mostly just see the odd update once in a blue moon about it being worked on and here is a screenshot of a thing.

Shantae:  Again not out.  Higher tier backers get to vote on enemy sprites for the game and stuff.  I've seen pictures and the like.  Yay?

Warmachine Tactics:  So far it is mostly coming out when prescribed or close enough.  Except well.. two problems.

1: The solo campaign isn't due till LATE NOVEMBER.  They had a series of limited edition miniatures you could buy as well with a special coin.  For 20 bucks.  In general the now normal wide release (but coinless) versions that came out four odd months later have better sculpts. For 15.  Yes.  I grabbed the Mercenary figure because I disliked the Khador sculpt.  And guess what he looks like?

 

That's right kids!  HE DOESN'T WORK FOR ALL THE FACTIONS!  And as far as I could tell his stat card wasn't spoiled or anything till well after the purchase window closed.  He works for three out of six depending on your viewpoint of Mercenaries as a separate faction.

2: The game is.. so far not so good.  In fact a lot of people are unhappy about it.
 You see, mostly the game has been selling to Warmachine/Hordes fans as a way to play the game online or against the computer with an RPG Tactics styled solo campaign.  Well the game takes serious liberties but keeps just enough to annoy while playing slow as hell in multiplayer.

One nice thing they eventually did was open Early Access play to all backers while earlier on suckers who backed at a higher level got to play it early in a MUCH less polished state.  Or suckier suckers who paid the equivalent (65 dollars US) to get in early after the fact.

And I just did normal game backing due to funds and not wanting to pay more for a WORSE GAME.  So I got to see what they did recently.  The game changes a lot for the hell of it and most of the changes make for a slower game and a more boring one.  Squad units are now individuals who always have Hit Points even if they did not otherwise in tabletop.  A number of attributes are no longer listed in numbers even though the game uses die rolls.

Oh, and lots of mechanics aren't working like tabletop though they are supposed to.  Some of this will be patched in later but not all.  And much like Mechwarrior Online I am guessing online play metagame will quickly show this to be a bad idea.  Either go for 1 to 1 translations as much as possible, or don't even try.  Going half ass is just a big mistake.

It looks pretty though it runs very slowly in both game design for multiplayer and in engine FPS speed.

I am not ready to write the game off yet but their "everyone is an individual" design conceit actually makes the game slower and clunkier than just having squad movement options.  A fair amount of people I have talked to are less happy with it than I am.

Robotech RPG Tactics:  Well this one is super late.  Like ultra late.  And it is even worse than it seems.  You see they had a "poll" to see if they could be allowed by backers to sell some of the first copies of the game at Gen Con this month.  Well magically a near 80% of voters said it was ok for people going to a midwest gaming convention to purchase the game before people who paid money for it over a year past.  Thankfully the game got "Held up at the customs port" and nobody got it.

Even worse?  I am one of the people who just bought in for a couple of the LE figures.  We aren't even in the first wave of products.  Probably our stuff is due NEXT YEAR.

Keep it classy Palladium!

Torment:  Not out yet.  I've seen a couple pictures I think.  It might already be declared as late.

Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls:  Well it isn't out yet and they do not know when it will be out.  They are working on it.  On the upside they have given preview PDFs and various freebie PDFs from RPGNow/DriveThruRPG which is nice of them.  Disappointing in being so goddamned late but at least they are giving extra goodies.

Sword of Fargoal 2:  Another late as Hell with no release in sight project.  They have given us the original remake that I paid money for on iOS for free (which is quite good), and a couple early alphas.  Disappointing.

Transforming Collections:  It was a couple months late.  But we got a lot of full or nearly full PDFs of the book in development.  He later on did a second book but I decided to not bother given the short(ish) delay on this one.  Again if the first book did well why would you need proof a second one would do ok?  Its sending risk over to the consumer.  Because in our modern world of Ron Paul's Blessed Randian Free Market the consumer is always the bottom.  Because we take it where it is uncomfortable.  And not in the backseat of a Volkswagon.

Reaper Bones:  I cannot recall how late this one was.  It might have been close enough to ship date for me to be ok with it.  But the end product was.. I was unhappy.

See these miniatures don't want you to use spraypaint or spray primer.  You are supposed to paint right on top of the unprimed plastic otherwise you end up with eternally tacky feeling paint.

I am still not sure how this model ended up allowing me to prime her.  (She has a bit more paint on it than this now.)

You DID get a lot for your money if you don't mind painting right over unpainted white plastic.

Most pieces are single part but a few of the larger ones are not and need a little glue and gap filling.

I traded and sold off a few and a few more I am keeping but overall I am gonna trade/sell these off once an IRC friend gets off his Philly ass.

Oh, and they did another Bones Kickstarter in spite of this one doing super amazingly well.  I passed given the sheer disappointment I felt with the model's inability to accept any form of spray paint ever.

Sedition Wars:  Another one I recall being late.  But not too too late.  The included rulesbook was generally considered to be massively flawed but I got a revised book for a couple bucks and they have had beta PDFs with new missions and a solo mode option.  The game did NOT do well to the point the 100 dollar core game was on flash clearance sales for 35.

The models are very nice but use that kind of plastic that is kind of rubbery when warm and needs super glue.  Which is good because getting the infantry figurines for the humans together would be hell other wise.  And I still have not assembled everything.

I did mostly paint up the cybernetic zombie figures for a Gamma World game that never even got to the point of using them.  I still need to finish these guys up but I don't need them immediately so you know, why worry about it?

Ogre Designer's Edition:  Its great.  But it was an entire YEAR late.  I have covered it previously so no need to post pictures and the like.  Plus whenever I get around to posting about my Ogre collection there will be more pictures.  Until then just search the blog if you want to see how absurdly BIG it is.

http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/search?q=ogre  here.  I did the work for you.

Shadowrun Returns:  This one was about six months or so late.  And is tied with Ogre in being one of the only KS projects I am overall pleased with in spite of a massive delay.  However if I hadn't KSed it and waited a couple of weeks I would have had a generally slightly better game.  The expansion I got free (Dragonfall) was EXCELLENT.  So excellent in the next month or so it is being released as a stand alone release with expanded content.  If you are silly enough to want to replay the whole game.

Or like so many things based around preordering or the like:  I COULD HAVE WAITED SIX-TWELVE MONTHS AND GOT A BETTER AND CHEAPER EXPERIENCE.  You see this is another reason why Kickstarting or preordering things is bad.  Unless you are one of those who simply has to be first and at the forefront why not wait and get it better and cheaper?  See if it is any good.  See if a community exists for it if needed.  Wait till the flaws get fixed with bug patches or an FAQ.  A sale.  You know, what a non consumer whore does.  Do you really need to talk about it online current events style?  If so.. ask yourself WHY.

But the game is so fun I cannot say I wouldn't mind going through it again though.  Eiger is totally cool.

Shadowrun Dragonfall kicks butt.

Wasteland 2:  It is so late it isn't out until next month!  To be fair I could play Early Access for months but why play a limited and less patched version of the game?  I should not do this.  So why not wait?  They did give some free digital downloads of older titles though which ones Wasteland 2 gave me and which ones Torment did (or if they both did) I no longer recall.  Still.. a YEAR late?  REALLY?

http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2013/11/retro-computing-why-bother-special.html

But at least they try.

And that is the biggest problem.  Kickstarter wants to be a way to patronize projects that otherwise wouldn't be made.

Instead it is a preorder program so companies can constantly be months if not years late giving you anything.

And that is why I simply avoid almost any and all Kickstarters.

Well, for the hobby games segment there is another reason too.  Perhaps that will be another post eh?

40K Has me so in its vile grip!

Curse this game!

I was gonna give a friend my Black Reach Marines and a Codex as his Christmas present.
(I'll get him something else he would probably like more anyhow.)

I had gotten BR for 30 bucks so the Marines were practically free. Today at the 40K game I saw about getting some more Marine bits for him. Sadly one player wants to magnetize all his Terminators so he can switch weapons, meaning the 2 Thunder Hammer and 3 Lightning Claw Assault Termie idea could not happen.

Another dude sold me a 5 man assault squad for 8 bucks with one Power Fist, rest CCW and Bolt Pistol.

On the drive home I had an epiphany: The Blood Angels codex is free outside of printer ink. Why not do BA as the army instead of vanilla Marines?

Then I had a secondary epiphany: I should keep these Marines, throw in my spare Lead Mk6 Techmarine, my Mephiston model I used as a Chaos Lord, and 5 Space Hulk 2nd ed Terminators and have an army.

The concept: Pre Heresy World Eaters that have come out of the Warp a bit messed up and counts as a Blood Angels force. They have been pirating and stealing and killing anything they don't like, Imperial or otherwise.

My eventual goal is 3 Vindicators, 2 Terminator Squads with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shields, and a shit ton of Assault Squads and a Death Company.

I converted a spare 2nd ed era metal Legion of the Damned body to counts as Lemartes, and have currently added his pal, a venerable Dreadnought with Heavy Flamer attachment. And clearly their time in the Warp has messed em up a little:



My current army design is:

HQ: Mephiston (WE Captain that thinks his Pysker powers are really his ANGRY HATE) 225 points.
Lemartes: 125
Elites: 2 Terminator Squads, 1 W Heavy Flamer. 200 and 205 points each. (200 each if I convert to Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield.) Venerable Dreadnought with Heavy Flamer and Multi Melta. Extra Armor. 165
Techmarine 75 points.
Troops: Assault Squad Vet Sgt with Power Fist, Meltabombs, Combat Shield. 1 of the other 4 Assault Marines with Plasma Pistol 195 points. 10 man tac squad Sgt with Meltabombs, Chainsword. 1 Tac with Flamer, 1 Tac with Missile Launcher: 210.

1400 points. An army whose total cash expenditure was effectively 40 bucks if we count 10 for Mephiston, a couple of bucks for the Techmarine, 10 for the BR Marines, 10 for the SH Termies (50 dollar game) and 8 for the Assault Marines.

For 1500 point games I will probably just get 2 Drop pods or 2 Attack Bikes. For larger games more Assault Squads, and a trio of Vindicators. Hell, once I get them I may tweak the above instead of having 2 Terminator Squads.

Wednesday Game Report (And other musings)

For the last week or so there really hasn't been much to report on. An utterly awful failure of an attempt at playing videogames with people? Nahh, nobody cares about that.

Last Wednesday was the first actual gaming day I had. And it was a pretty darned good one. Went down to Sarge's and got in a 2 on 1 40K game. 750 points of Tyranids (me) allied with 750 Space Marines versus a 1500 point Witch Hunters force.

Turn 1 went to the Sisters, whose excellent setup allowed their heavy bolters to kill off most of my Genestealers. Their commander (Saint Celestine I think? The one that keeps coming back to life with 1 wound at the cost of Faith Points..) took a few more out with flamers, leaving me REALLY worried as close to 33% of my army points died in a single shooting round. Then she charged and my two surviving Genestealers and one angry Patriarch (Its officially a Broodlord, but it will always be a Patriarch to me!) made short work of her. My Hormogaunt brood charged in to a big squad of Sisters Repentia while my Zoanthrope, Warrior Brood, and Biovore provided some fair fire support. Actually fantastic fire support for Tyranids. My Marine ally was dependable and solid, taking few casualties, but bringing his bike and character heavy units where they were most needed, and his Scout snipers providing some nasty cover fire. Even the Grey Knights showing up did little to halt our advance. Hormogaunts are NASTY against S3 T3 units. Their sheer speed makes up for their lack of "oomph". And whatever they didn't take out, my Patriarch did. It was a solid, fun game.

It was followed up by a quick game of Magic where the Witch Hunters player took the day with his green megamonster/token beastie deck. He got revenge and played a damn solid game of Magic.

I picked up the Chaos Daemons codex while there and now I REALLY want to start up a Tzeentch army. I already have a Lord of Change.

For my starter 1000 point army, my initial expenditures would be as such:
3 5 man Pink Horror squads. (20 dollars a squad, 60 bucks total, 120 points a squad, 360 points total.)
3 Screamers of Tzeentch. (40 dollars for a 5 Screamer squad or 30 for a 3? Yeah. Look to the future. 48 points for the squad.)
2 Daemon Princes. (35 dollars each, 70 bucks total. 170 points each, or 340 total.)

Points: 748.
Cost: 170 dollars. (At Warstore 20% off it would be 136 dollars.)
Once I add in my Lord of Change (250 points), I have a solid 1000 point army that can go to 1030 max.

If I need to do a higher point army I split the force with my Chaos Marines. Later expansions would probably include more Screamers (at least another 40 dollar box), another Daemon Prince (35), and trio of Flamers of Tzeentch (15 bucks, 35 points a model.)

90 more dollars (72 Warstore) and it would add 387 points total to my army (counting the 2 extra Screamers from the first 1K.).
Not the greatest value add on mind you, but it would add flexibility and usefulness.
Whenever they release the Blue Scribes HQ model I could hit a solid 1500 with a few guys left over. If I keep them all on square bases it means I also have a small extra Warhammer Fantasy army as well.

I was thinking about getting into Field of Glory, but the odds of anyone else buying into the game (even with 48 plastic Roman or Celts for 30 bucks an army box) is rare right now, and the models haven't even been released yet.

With my cutting down on gaming purchases, as long as I do the army slowly and don't buy the whole blasted thing in one week, I could have myself a nice Chaos Daemon army to support my Chaos Marine army. I play 40K the most of any game and despite the game's flaws and Games Workshop being run by a bunch of tools, I love it the most beyond almost any other tabletop game I play.

With my AT-43 armies nearly complete, I can do it. Its just gonna take most of the summer to do. Maybe a unit a week, or every other week at MSRP from Sarge's since I play there. So a month and a half if I buy one unit a week.

Man, why did I buy the Chaos Daemons codex? My love for the darker powers is too overwhelming...

Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports Plus a Little Bit More

This previous week was a mixture of limited gaming on Tuesday, and a TON of gaming on Wednesday.

Tuesday was a little Solace on my iMac with Starfury, MagicDrew, and 9IN followed up by some Three Dragon Ante. Solace is basically a medieval version of Axis & Allies, albeit one with no air units and with a vastly improved balance between the two sides. We played it as a free for all, with me winning, taking MagicDrew out with some devastating cavalry unit attacks and running roughshod through an AI player and Starfury. Three Dragon Ante was a pair of games with me getting utterly demolished in the first game, and winning solidly in the next one.

Wednesday was the feast day. A late start, but the trip to Sarge's included myself, 9IN, and Pico, with Starfury meeting us there. A nice game of Necromunda was started up, but called with my Van Saar gang holding a tenuous lead. With it being a holiday week, comics come in a day late. Meaning the store had to close an hour early so the books could be picked up in the morning the next day. We did meet some interested people who might join into the Necromunda games while we were there though.

A dinner run and then it was back to my house for the old ICE Hobbit Adventure Boardgame. Its a rather simple and modestly fun boardgame based heavily around drawing cards to boost your Hobbit or give you monsters and events to deal with where you then try to take out the Dragon who is totally not Smaug. *Snicker* Pico won and I bailed out towards the end game. See there is actual player vs player opposition. But its done with riddle cards. You play a riddle card and the opponent has to have a riddle card with the answer on it. I had one card in my hand. EVERYONE took this to mean it was time to gang up on me and get the victory perks from winning. One of my items, money, or these special amulet type items.

Needless to say, there was no need for me to keep playing. My gaming rules include NOT PICKING ON THE WEAKEST PLAYER, so having this rule broken took what enjoyment I may have had out of the game. Its not cool. Whoever is on the losing end just feels belittled and has almost all their chances of winning removed to boot. While everyone should try to win, there comes a point where it should not happen.

After this was a 3 lap race of Formula De using 1 lap car sheets. It was a fair match, though most of us made some mistakes or hit some bad luck during the race. Pico ended up winning, 9IN came in second, Starfury third, and me fourth. I probably wasn't thinking all that clearly because of the last game and took too many risks. And once things got bad, I had to take more risks. Which meant I tended to screw up more. Usually given be being me I would have been lapped multiple times, but I actually pulled back into second place for a short time so for me that was pretty good. It was an early gearshift rules confusion that hurt me. 9IN read the rules to us as I had forgotten most of them (I waited for ThoughtHammer to get the game back in stock for at least 6 months. We have played it once in the near year I have owned it until now. Yeah.) and forgot to mention there were bad penalties for multiple downshifting. Oh well, its only a game and I learned from it. I can tell I played it MUCH better than the first game oh so many months ago.

Starfury is looking into a store that has more tracks for sale which are getting tough to come by so we might get a nice league going sometime. He also had some car issues and has gotten my old Ford Escort off of me. I now had money for a Warstore order to all but finish what I need for my AT-43 Therian forces, and some extra UNA forces, with the UNAs doing double duty as my Necromunda Van Saar gang, the Raiders of Sherwood. I ordered it Monday. It will arrive on Tuesday. WOAH.

Thanks to Ebay I have gotten a hold of 7 more of the old 2nd edition 40K Ork Stormboyz I need, bringing my mob up to 12. I just love those old WW2 German outfit inspired Orks with Rokkit Packs over the current Mad Max Orks we seem to be stuck with. The big green clown Orks were more fun somehow.

On that note this week is a Tuesday only gaming week unless I decide to schlep down to Sarge's even with the ever increasing gas prices. I've been playing 3 times a week and not doing anything but gaming and Internet. Very few projects are getting done, very few chores are being completed, and my DVR, DVD, and Videogame queue has gotten to the point I don't get much new. (Though with my current Saturday and Sunday no Internet sabbaticals I did FINALLY get through my DVR list and even a DVD disk.) Pico and 9IN are off to a Yankees game this week. This also delays our Warhammer Fantasy game another 7 days giving me more time to at least get all my Gobbos painted up in two colors and with flocked bases. Ok. I have around 50 Gobbos to paint their skin and do their bases so I might not reach my main goal. Painting is such a boring chore! It is a big reason I want AT 43 to do well. No painting, yet no collectible blind buy nonsense. But compared to how many Gobbos I had ready when I called Pico to war I have made MASSIVE inroads. Army built, figures assembled and organized, models assembled and base colors thanks to Krylon Fusion applied. Beats a bunch of unpainted plastics and metals in a bunch of big Ziploc baggies!

The challenges hobby gaming faces.

In handy bullet point format!

1: Increase prices!

My response? FRAAAACCK YOU. These books are already more expensive than equivalent page count books in the bookstore. I spend anywhere from 10-200 bucks a month on gaming stuff. Increasing prices means I will go from buying lots to buying little to NOTHING. When WoTC decided to raise their minis game prices I virtually dropped out of buying D&D minis. The last 2 expansions went from 3-6 boosters to.. 1.
People tried to sell World of Warcraft boosters for 7.50 or more a pop. Everyone I knew who wanted to play didn't even buy a starter. I took a risk on Castles & Crusades because it was 20 bucks. Its caused 2 other people to buy the book because its such a reasonable price. Every GW price increase just kills their market that much more. Their stock price just keeps slipping.

RAISING PRICES REDUCES THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE YOU ARE SELLING TO. GAMING REQUIRES PEOPLE, AND LOTS OF THEM.

A lost customer in such a small industry is catastrophic. Because 1 lost customer really means closer to 10 lost customers in the long run.

I would also bring up the fact game companies should not go public and build their business around smaller audiences. WoTC has ZERO business being owned by Hasbro.

2: Getting an audience.

You know why Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon did so well? Advertised on TV, using the best kind of ad. A 30 minute TV show that was really a promotional vehicle. There is a reason Transformers and GI Joe are still around to this day. A hugely popular cartoon and comic line designed to make you want the toys.

Its half the battle right there.

You expect to make lots of money selling in the gameshop and comic shop you are pretty much outta luck! That's preaching to the already converted. And they have their own dispositions I will get to in another number. Even bookstores are dubious unless you get some endcap thing or some other form of promotion. Game fiction is the low end equivalency to a cartoon show. (And honestly they tend to have about the same quality..)

Once you get an audience, the product has to be popular enough to keep going. The more people you get the more people they introduce forming an endless supply, or at least enough to deal with the churn.

Games Workshop with their ever increasing prices and the VERY small window of people they target is part of what is hurting them. Keeping someone in for the 6-12 months they want (Drop your 300 bucks and get the fudge out kid!) simply isn't enough.

3: Accept that many people already have the game they want and aren't interested in yours anyhow.

I know on RPGnet a new edition or a new game gets everyone's hearts aflutter, filling RPG Open's frontpage with 10-20 threads on a game not even available for a month, but in the real gaming world this is NOT how things work. New editions cause old players to stop buying anything since they are happy with what they have.

But these types aren't the main thing.

Of course I have mentioned MANY times about the ONE GAEM TO RUELZ DEM ALL!!! types which seem to be about 75% of the gaming hobby.

Most Magic players are NOT gonna become Risus players. Most D&D players aren't the slightest bit interested in trying AT-43. Hell, most D&D players aren't interested in D20 Star Wars or Castles & Crusades!

Gaming is PACKED with people like this. Many games do their best to latch on to people so their perceptions are always skewed to "that's the way every game is".

Many D20 D&D players thing every other RPG is a 256 page per book over complicated megagame that requires massive effort to learn and master. Many Games Workshop players have bought into the long expansive and expensive art project elitism spiel White Dwarf blabs on about every issue. Many Magic players think every other collectible game REQUIRES nearly 1000 dollars a year to be competitive. (And the tournament play or NOTHING mindset many collectible games gamers have. I guess playing for the sheer joy of a FUN GAME is dumb to them.) Eurogames boardgamers think everything else is trashy and inferior.

Gaming is trying to sell new ideas to these people and for the most part IT JUST WON'T WORK. There aren't that many open minded gamers in my experience. And many of us just get tired of trying to open the minds of people who won't ever play anything without D&D or Game X on the cover. EVER.

4: Complicated games and ease of entry.

Gaming keeps selling to the same people instead of finding NEW people. A perfect balance would be to make things attractive to new blood while not annoying the old.

If you keep selling to the same crowd, its just gonna keep shrinking. Videogaming is a multibillion dollar industry. Yet one classic genre, SHMUPS are selling in numbers generally worse than D&D is in a much bigger market. Why? They kept selling to the same crowd who wanted everything tougher, more challenging, and more aimed at them. In the 16 bit days 2 or 3 SHMUPS came out every month. These days that's about how many come out per system per year. If that.

You can see the same thing in wargaming. ASL is the gold standard of hex n chit wargames. Even with the Starter Kits its not a huge game by any means. Yet the game that got most of these middle aged guys playing wargames and such was the original Squad Leader, a much simpler programmed instruction game. But these same people poo poo that old classic because they want MORE. You see the same in all gamer games. Would D&D be as huge as it is now without the 4 Basic Sets? No way!

Of course I could go into other topics like how gaming is considered nerdy and public perception keeps people from trying something fun even though its complete frigging hypocracy (hell we believe these lies ourselves in many cases!), but its enough for one post I think.

(This was originally posted on my long unused 1up.com blog. Expect more very soon. Like as soon as I find ones worth posting.)

A quick comment on the old game Clan War

For those of you who don't remember, in the late 90s AEG released Clan War, the Legend of the Five Rings miniatures game. It was a Warhammer Fantasy scaled game where Samurai and other Asian themed models fought in a fantasy world that took bits of medieval China and Japan as its main inspiration. Legend of the Five Rings, the CCG was (and still is!) the game where all the story and the basic fiction came from, and its also an RPG on its third or fourth edition. Not counting the D20 version.

What happened? Short version: The first version was effectively a beta test, with a later cleaned up edition afterwards. Games Workshop was still king of the hill at this time and it already had an upwards climb because of it. Customers effectively being beta testers did not help any. By the time the fixed edition came out, it was too late, and for a while you could find the figures which were really great in many cases (Oni no Jimen, the Elemental Terror of Earth has found a place in my Warhammer 40K Chaos Marine army as either a Chaos Spawn or a Greater Demon.) at dirt cheap clearance prices.

What follows is my initial thoughts on the game as inspired by a comment on the Bell of Lost Souls blog when Clan War was brought up as a superior to Warhammer Fantasy 5th edition game. (A hint: It was just as flawed and pretty much for the SAME REASONS.)

Clan War? The game that was more hero and magic centered than Warhammer 5th yet also added in buying packs of cards to make your armies do anything?

The game that actively PUNISHED people who didn't have expensive heroes because morale was so abusive losing a commander or failing a break test generally meant that unit was leaving the table?

Where a single wound left out of spells mage could chase a unit who lost 2 soldiers off the board merely by staying within 8" or so of it?

Where you could lose 20 models moving in to combat, but kill one guy and cause a daisy chain morale break where an entire ARMY ran off the board?

Where the infantry was pointless since getting into stupid commander duels was the whole point of half the armies?

Where the big bad EEEVIIILLL army was effectively the weakest army in the game since there were so many pieces of equipment, those dumb cards, and spells that ONLY screwed over that faction?

Clan War was one of the WORST miniatures games I ever had the displeasure of playing. And I am glad it fell apart for being a buggy betatest as first edition pile of garbage. As flawed as Third Edition 40K was, I vastly preferred it. A friend of mine and I actually stopped playing Clan War to go back to 40K, then the Clan War group pretty much fell apart as the two "boosters" of the game had to stop playing and the few remaining players finally realized nobody liked the stupid game.

A shame because it had a killer backstory and some fantastic models.

Yeah. Everything above is true. I saw all these things happen in actual games. And you needed to buy MULTIPLE packages of cards for special game effects, and each pack usually had 1 or 2 of these cards.

Showing off the Collection Part 1

Given that the man whose vision is responsible for my colossal waste of money has left us, its all too appropriate to show off my goodies. It'll take a while to show it all off, but today I will display the D&D, Horror, and Retroshelf!


Top shelf has the White Box Original D&D with all the main books except for the Gods, Demigods, and Heroes book. The messy bits are hiding many classic AD&D 1st edition adventures still waiting to be run, and a fair number of 2nd edition too.


Some 1st and 2nd edition books. I have a few more here and there, and that reminds me I need to get Deities and Demigods back from Magicdrew.


My horror shelf, celebrating Call of Cthulhu and Ravenloft. The binders contain legally purchased PDF printouts of classic adventures I missed over the years. When I put all my in print White Wolf stuff up, the binders will be moved.


About 1/3rd of my D&D box sets, more adventure modules, and some Dungeon Magazine issues.


One of my "Where the hell am I gonna put this?" stacks. In this case most of my Warhammer RPG collection. Another copy of Dark Heresy, WHFRP 1st edition, and the Dark Heresy GM pack aren't featured.


The stuff from Sarge's Comics' 1 dollar RPG book thingie. Its gonna get bigger over the next few weeks. Again, I have to figure out where to put it. And my camera continues to pick up dirt, dust, and stuff my naked eye doesn't see. Time to get out the vacuum!


A mixture of stuff to find a place for (the AD&D stuff I got for a great price from a Something Awful sales thread), and my go game stuff ready to be played. The tote bag has my New World of Darkness books I actually use in play (Rulebook, Second Sight, Armory, Dark Alliance: Vancouver (oWoD). The plastic thingie is my Federation Commander collection ready for classic Trek action. The black bag is my Warhammer 40K bag. Currently my Tyranids are in it waiting to eat things for the Hive Mind.


Part of the board and wargames closet that isn't yet set. ASL, Squad Leader, some CCG stuff (World of Warcraft and Magic the Sucking), Ogre, Car Wars, and Battletech stuffage. Itll be pretty eventually. Below it not seen is a couple tubs full of Heroscape hex terrain.

I have more to show, but its too messy and disorganized for even me to show. Sigh. Project to do number who knows out of HOLY COW DO THIS ALREADY!

More Ogre Stuff!

With my income tax goodies I have been getting more Ogre stuff. Counting what is in the mail to me I currently have the following forces assembled (some I did today while listening to podcasts, the nerd's talk radio!):

Combine:
6 Light Tanks
7 Heavy Tanks
1 Superheavy Tanks
7 Missile Tanks
14 GEVs
8 Light GEVs
6 GEV PCs
1 Howitzer
2 Mobile Howitzers

1 Ogre Mark 2
1 Ogre Mark 3

7 1 Squad Infantry
7 2 Squad Infantry
6 3 Squad Infantry

3 2 Squad Marines

Paneurope:
6 Light Tanks
4 Heavy Tanks
3 Superheavy Tanks
7 Missile Tanks
6 GEVs
6 Light GEVs
6 GEV PCs
1 Howitzer
2 Mobile Howitzers

1 Ogre Mark 1
1 Fencer

5 1 Squad Infantry
5 2 Squad Infantry
5 3 Squad Infantry

3 1 Squad Marines
8 2 Squad Marines

THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE:
1 Ogrethulhu Mark 5

Not a bad little selection of models! I would like to get both factions to 100 points of armor and 50 points of infantry when all is said and done, but I doubt I will be doing much more purchasing till the summer at the earliest.

As it stands, I have 77 and 70 total armor, 51 and 68 infantry. By and large a 4 or 5 Mark Ogre on each side would fit the bill, though I will probably not add in any more cybertanks and get more conventional armor units instead. It would make for bigger and more interesting battles that way.

Ogrethulhu is obviously different and is its own minor faction. I may or may not buy some of its infantry support to assist it in its dark tentacled schemes...

I may or may not use a box of old Epic 40K Imperial Guard to make some militia units for both factions. I haven't decided yet on that one.

Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports

This Tuesday was an off week so we played Rock Band at Starfury's. We also got rid of my dad's old bed sadly Starfury has an.. aversion to bungee cords and a very nice, outstanding if I do say so myself headboard went kerblooey on the road. And so far the debris has not caused my tires to go flat.

Overall Rock Band is pretty good, though I vastly prefer Guitar Hero 3 which I just picked up earlier in the day. Better guitar controller too. I might get Rock Band when it gets cheaper to play the guitar or singer parts. All they need is the 80s Transformers the Movie soundtrack and it WILL BE MINE.

Wednesday was a 3 way 1500 point Warhammer 40K game cut too short so my Tyranids vs Orks vs Chaos never got completed though a sneaky move by the Orks killed my Broodlord. I did vaguely learn how to do Barrage attacks though. The Ork player and I seriously want a rematch. 2 close combat armies battling will provide a lovely bit of megaviolence.

Sarge's also had a clearance on RPG books. A buck a book. My first runthrough got me these:


Not a bad haul for 9 bucks. Hell, most of these books were MSRP twice that when they were released!

I'll give it another pass next week and maybe see if I missed any other books. For a buck even kinda interesting is worth buying!

On Nerd Stereotypes and Defending the Hobby...

(Warning. Harsh language ahead.)

Now anyone who breathes knows that being into hobby games is wrong, sad, and evil, or at least that's what braindead morons who waste their lives watching sports and American Idol would have you believe. (Because their waste of time is allowed but ours is not.)

Apparently we all suck. Stereotyping ahoy!

While all stereotypes have a grain (ok, sometimes its more like a half a loaf of bread...) of truth to them, its not everyone, merely the flock following sheep idiots who are the type of moron who would in fact jump off a bridge if everyone else did it.

And every group bashes every other group for it. Because its an excuse to hate other people or something like that.

I'm a comics reading, Warhammer playing, cartoon watching, toy collecting nerd.

According to every other group on the planet I am a virginal emotionally stunted manchild who doesn't bathe and lives in a basement with maybe a McJob.

Why? Because a couple assholes (and EVERY group has assholes in it. Some groups are 90% asshole.) are considered to be the shining example of the entire group. Whatever you believe in, are genetically, or do for your freetime is only acceptable if enough other people do it that its public perception is OK.

Hell, there are idiots out there who expect people of their same racial stock to "act" a certain way. Even though the way they are supposed to act is generally in a manner roughly equal to "dipshit".

Its why its socially acceptable to drink alcohol, something that kills hundreds if not THOUSANDS of people a day (Its taken a cousin and an uncle from me, and its effects have damaged almost everyone in my family in some way or another) yet playing Dungeons & Dragons makes you a worthless piece of shit.

Its basically all a bunch of hypocritical nonsense spouted by assholes without the sense your god of choice gave a monkey.

My stupid waste of time and money doesn't hurt anyone and we gamers tend to be less harmful to others or ourselves compared to most socially acceptable forms of timewasting.

If it aint hurting someone, shut the fuck up. You don't have to like it or accept it, but you better damned well respect others' rights to do it even if it makes your head hurt why anyone would want to do it.

Oh, and all those nerd stereotypes? At my job dealing cards at a casino I see behavior just as bad if not worse than every gamer horror story real or imagined. For the most part the only thing nerds are a threat to is a bag of Cheetos and a six pack of Mountain Dew.

Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports

No pictures or anything this time as there was no game played Wednesday, and Tuesday was more Heroquest. While we now have an old member back in the fold, who I will currently refer to as 9 Iron Nuke, or 9IN if you will, not a lot really happened. The Priest of Sigmar and Dwarf Slayer both seem pretty well balanced and fun to play, though my playthrough of the Slayer was anything but.

Almost everything bad that could happen to my character did, killing him off in the final battle, meaning due to bad luck I spent a good 90 minutes of gaming having very little fun whatsoever. I might as well have taken a nap frankly.

Nothing like bad luck totally ruining the game. Then again, the only luck I seem to have in Heroquest is bad luck.

Not exactly the gaming week of legend by any means.

I got the 40K RPG in and the book is HUGE. Very impressive to look at! A few of the Warhammer Fantasy RPG items showed up too. But being books, until I get some time to read them, there isn't much I can say.

Sorry few people who read my blog. I just don't have anything interesting to update right now.

I'm not sure if I need gaming antidepressants or just antidepressants period...

*sigh*

40K Ork Codex first look and other ruminations

While wasting more time and money getting some tests done (again!) at the hospital I had some time to start reading the newest Ork codex for Warhammer 40K.

The good news is that its true to old school Orkiness, though nowhere near as hilarious as "Ere We Go!" was back in the Rogue Trader days. It also keeps the easy to build setup from the newest Chaos Marines codex and adds in handy page references for whatever fiddly bits that aren't located under this or that part of wargear and such. I built an army first time without having done much but browse the book (as mentioned on the last post) in under 30 minutes or so. According to the Codex, I can do about 1604 points total. I need to model wrecking balls on all 3 of my Trukks, but other than that its as shown.

Looking at my army, I need about 3 or 4 more Runtherds (need 1 per 10 Gretchin), another Trukk for one of my Boyz squads, some more 'Eavy Armored Nobz, and more of the cool WW2 German outfit inspired 2nd edition era Stormboyz to be a decently flexible force. With careful ebaying and such I can probably take care of it for well under 50 bucks or so. About 120 at current Games Workshop MSRP but I am not stupid and am also cheap. And broke. 2 for 1 in the NO WAY category.

I have also started looking to see what I need to replace in my Heroquest game. I recovered 4 goblins, the Gargoyle, and the Sorcerer who are now chilling with the Fmir and Chaos Warriors. The Skeletons are easily replaced with Reaper's Legendary Encounters line of prepaints. 5.50 MSRP for Orc and Skeleton prepaints is a good deal. Not to mention the 3 packs are gonna have improved paint jobs over the original single figure blisters. I can use a couple of the Skull Pass Night Goblin command extras for the missing Gobbos, and I should still have my mummies in my Blood Bowl kit someplace. I just need a couple hero figures, which I am sure I already have from various other miniatures games. Under 25 bucks should bring Heroquest into playable condition.

Why I don't buy many new videogames..

Over the years I keep buying games, either on hype or word of mouth. Many of them only get played for a couple hours. Some are lucky to just get the wrapping taken off.

This was the season when all the OMG MUST HAVE games come out, which as usual will barely get touched, or take my attention off whatever else I was playing.

That won't get finished or touched either.

Or would have if I had been stupid. I wised up!

Right now I have the following games as barely played or untouched that I bought within the last year or two that I can recall. Some were bought cheap, some not. All have gotten a sub 2 hours gameplay.

Arc the Lad Twilight of the Spirits
Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence
Silent Hill 3
Dynasty Tactics
Suikoden Tactics
Fatal Fury Battle Archives
Future Tactics
Paper Mario 1000 Year Door
X Men Legends 2
Zelda Twilight Princess
Metal Slug Anthology
Dragon Ball Z Wii "Holy cow this game has a lot of stuff in it and I was vaguely nostalgic at the time."
Timesplitters Future Perfect
Phantasy Star Online 3
Disciples 2 Gold
Divine Divinity
Dig Dug Digging Strike
Neverwinter Nights 2
TMNT (Came free with the movie. Supposed to be bleh, but it was free!)
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3
Railroad Tycoon 3
Roots: Gates of Chaos
The 2 N Gage Splinter Cell games
Lumines
Metal Gear Acid 2
Gripshift
Jeanne D Arc
Spectral Souls
Vagrant Story
Final Fantasy 9
Neverwinter Nights 2 and expansion (the expansion was the only new release I bought this holiday season!)

And that's just ones I remember and am not counting most retrocollection games. Nor am I counting any pre PS1 purchases.
I'm also not listing Virtual Console and XBLA titles.
If I was counting unfinished games I got more than 3-4 hours on the list could triple or quadruple. (Probably closer to a factor of 10 though.)
I haven't finished Dragon Warrior 8, or Disgaea 2, or some older games like Baldur's Gate 2 or the first Fallout, or one of my favorite niche games, Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land.
I have a metric buttload of games to play already! Some were bought on the cheap, but..

I really need to stop buying games!

And from the looks of it, I am doing well. I did buy Valkyrie Profile Silmeria out of enjoying the previous one (which was one of THREE PSP titles I finished in the last month and a half or so..), but it was a sub 30 price.