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Post by michael on May 3, 2019 4:35:40 GMT
Money. Infinitely expanding the existing factions is not feasible. The only options I can see are to follow the GW route and perpetually render models obsolete, or to take Privateer’s approach and go wide (more factions) instead of deep (ludicrous number of models in each faction). At this point they're only delaying the inevitable, they don't have the production capacity to maintain all their SKUs in production, so they will need to sunset a bunch if a few years. Hence: the back catalogue.
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Post by beardmonk on May 3, 2019 8:08:45 GMT
Hopefully PP can use this break in proceedings to do observe and listen to the player base and engage with the wider gaming community for a while. I have noticed an increase in the number of PP related articles in places like BoLS and other wargaming sites so it could be that PP is trying to be more aggressive in its marketing to attract new players.
In relation to number of SKU’s and so forth, I have a suspicion that oblivion will hail some form of “End Times” event for the WM/H world. Resulting in either removal of models from production, the reformatting or breakup of factions and generally cutting down on some of the bloat. A End Times event allows them to set all this within some form of fluff framework. I have no evidence at all to support this. But it would not be a surprise to me if they did.
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Post by jisidro on May 3, 2019 8:09:54 GMT
... Privateer potentially was exposed to liability for content posted on their forums. ... What do you mean?
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Post by hocestbellum on May 3, 2019 8:26:37 GMT
... Privateer potentially was exposed to liability for content posted on their forums. ... What do you mean? Yeah, I'm not sure about this. If memory serves, the very first section of their T&Cs was 'We are not responsible for the content that you guys post'. It's pretty much the first line of every forum T&C
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Post by hocestbellum on May 3, 2019 8:41:33 GMT
As to the content of the Dev Chat, I'm on board. The CIDs have seemed increasingly rushed; major changes pushed out last minute, CIDs in general getting shorter, and so on.
There is danger in this approach, though. Tharn is riding pretty high; of the 115 placements listed on DGT this year, 31 of them are Circle. In a game with 14 factions, one faction having over a quarter of placements is oppressive.
Perhaps the meta will sort it out, but no-one seems to have found an answer yet, and if the game does 'settle' into an skewed state for a year that might well drive people away.
On the other hand, Riot Quest and Monsterpocalypse have the potential to be great games; small skirmish stuff is popular. So if they can get them right it will be better for the company.
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Post by slaughtersun on May 3, 2019 9:57:27 GMT
As to the content of the Dev Chat, I'm on board. The CIDs have seemed increasingly rushed; major changes pushed out last minute, CIDs in general getting shorter, and so on. There is danger in this approach, though. Tharn is riding pretty high; of the 115 placements listed on DGT this year, 31 of them are Circle. In a game with 14 factions, one faction having over a quarter of placements is oppressive. Perhaps the meta will sort it out, but no-one seems to have found an answer yet, and if the game does 'settle' into an skewed state for a year that might well drive people away. On the other hand, Riot Quest and Monsterpocalypse have the potential to be great games; small skirmish stuff is popular. So if they can get them right it will be better for the company. I wonder what were the numbers when Ghost Fleet was around or perhaps mk2 cryx? Or when morvahna2 was released... or when anamag was a new thing? Or haley3? Or karchev? There's always a top dog in this game but it traditionally changes between cryx, circle and cygnar with the first one being the most common on top. If circle (or any faction) becomes oppressive pp will dial it down without needing a CiD.
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Post by hocestbellum on May 3, 2019 10:25:35 GMT
Ghost Fleet was everywhere from early 2017 until its nerf in Dec 2017. Morvhanna2 never made a splash. Anamag managed 4 months. Karchev managed about the same until they nuked both him and the Berserker chassis in late 2016. Haley has been pretty consistently present all along without ever really being oppressive.
Devourer's Host has been taking names since last November, so it's already outlasted three of that list. I doubt they'll suddenly nerf something during Con season, so it could easily last a year before anything is done.
Not saying that's what will happen; it's more likely that the meta will shift to deal with it. I mentioned it as a risk, not a certainty.
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snoozer
Junior Strategist
Posts: 467
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Post by snoozer on May 3, 2019 10:34:58 GMT
I think a huge problem is actually not power creep but new shiny stuff. People play the new hotness before others adapt to it (That's not to say that one should feed corpses to LoTF pregame) but it will result in the new stuff being played because it is new. If they stop cid and releases now every faction has had one and ther is no new hotness for a while. Then we will see if there is still a quarter of circle (I doubt this). And you can observe the actual power level of the factions.
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Post by hocestbellum on May 3, 2019 10:49:03 GMT
An update on the Facebook group from Will Hungerford:
"So I want to jump in here to ensure no one gets the wrong idea about what was discussed yesterday on dev chat. We mentioned that CIDs are going to be taking a break, and are not giving a specific hard date on when they will return, but they WILL return. There's so much going on at PP at the moment, that the last thing we want to do is say "Oh yeah, the next CID should be in about 2 months" and then miss that date completely.
CID has been great for testing many of the new releases. The Oblivion box set is a unique release, it very much feels like the old anthology books to me but waaaay bigger and with more content. That meant we had to do two fairly massive CIDs for just the models in that book, Infernals and all the Archon / Order of Illumination stuff. Those models are going to release over several months, well into the end of the year, so there isn't going to be another immediate massive release block that needs a full CID.
There will be other models going into Warmachine that aren't part of a larger block, like the Riot Quest models, and those are not likely to all get CIDed. RQ models are spread out with an initial launch wave, and then for months and months (well into 2021) you're going to see new heroes and expansions regularly. This trickle release makes doing a RQ only CID a bit odd. That said, not everything we release must go through CID. I personally feel like block style releases (tharn, trenchers, infernals, etc) are the best use of CID, because we're testing a larger grouping of models that need to all interact together with very specific synergies. I think the release of individual models don't necessarily have to be CIDed. Mire would be a good example of such an individual release that didn't go through CID, it wasn't really necessary to do so. I think the RQ heroes will fall into much the same category.
And then there's things that are too big to effectively CID. If we decided tomorrow we were going to completely redo every warcaster in the game (which we aren't, don't worry), we'd likely handle that one in house. We've learned in the two years of doing CID that it works best, and provides the best feedback, when its hyper-focused. Too much data, or too much to test, and the info just gets a bit distorted and hard to sift through.
Now, all that said, are there still legacy models that could use a CID? I can definitely think of a few, but I don't believe its a massive amount. But there's a matter of time and resources, and our year has been packed to the gills. In addition to streams and convention attendance, the dev team is working on the things you know about for WM, MonPoc, RQ, and Organized Play, and anything new we haven't announced yet.
So CID will be back. It's a break, not an abandonment of the system. We will be monitoring feedback and global play data during the break, our focus is never gone from Warmachine.
I do want to say that personally, I think a break for a little bit is also a good thing. We've been in a cycle of constant CIDs, and constant updates for a while now. For new models, that's great, but we've been hitting legacy models every CID. The game has had a lot of errata and updates, and I worry that not enough time is being given to all of you to allow the meta to settle and begin to adapt normally.
There is also the effect it has on new players where it can be difficult to keep up with all of these changes. This is another issue that breaks can help address.
Anyway, just wanted to put my thoughts out there. I don't want anyone to freak out or worry. Thanks for all the enthusiasm and passion. Love y'all. Eat Jimmy Johns."
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Post by michael on May 3, 2019 11:58:25 GMT
Yeah, I'm not sure about this. If memory serves, the very first section of their T&Cs was 'We are not responsible for the content that you guys post'. It's pretty much the first line of every forum T&C Like many, many TOS statements out there (anybody remember the myriad “we’re not responsible if you get hurt using our product” cases that pop up and get shot down from time to time?), you can basically claim anything you want but it might not hold up in court. www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/overviewwww.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/230Not the best links, but it is early and I am exhausted. Note that this doesn’t say “you as a service provider are 100% in the clear, nobody can touch you”, but it’s more like “you will probably win if you get taken to court.”
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on May 3, 2019 16:55:25 GMT
At this point they're only delaying the inevitable, they don't have the production capacity to maintain all their SKUs in production, so they will need to sunset a bunch if a few years. Hence: the back catalogue. Even having that back catalog available will eventually have a negative Return. The fact that you have to: 1.- Keep old molds in storage 2.- Replace old molds when required 3.- Take the time to Mount and Dismount molds from their "production lines" I've seen first hand how difficult it is for a company to keep old stuff on hand "just in case". Storage costs money.
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Post by michael on May 3, 2019 18:17:34 GMT
Hence: the back catalogue. Even having that back catalog available will eventually have a negative Return. The fact that you have to: 1.- Keep old molds in storage 2.- Replace old molds when required 3.- Take the time to Mount and Dismount molds from their "production lines" I've seen first hand how difficult it is for a company to keep old stuff on hand "just in case". Storage costs money. /shrug
It is what it is. I'm sure they have it figured out.
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on May 3, 2019 19:22:31 GMT
It is what it is. I'm sure they have it figured out. I'm sure they have it figured out also. And I'm also sure that their solution is not "Let's offer all our back catalog forever in perpetuity".
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fanguad
Junior Strategist
Posts: 210
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Post by fanguad on May 3, 2019 19:57:31 GMT
Hence: the back catalogue. Even having that back catalog available will eventually have a negative Return. The fact that you have to: 1.- Keep old molds in storage 2.- Replace old molds when required 3.- Take the time to Mount and Dismount molds from their "production lines" I've seen first hand how difficult it is for a company to keep old stuff on hand "just in case". Storage costs money.
While storage does cost money, it doesn't really cost *that* much money. Reaper Miniatures, which keeps a back catalog of several thousand miniatures, occasionally offers tours, and I've seen for myself that storage for thousands of molds and bins for parts fits into a corner of a warehouse. Molds for metal miniatures cost only a hundred dollars or so and are good for several hundred miniatures at least. Storage for boxed and blistered miniatures takes up way more room. By moving items to the back catalog, PP has cut their storage costs for these models to practically zero. If they retire models, it won't be for this reason.
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on May 3, 2019 21:05:54 GMT
I agree that it won't be for that reason alone, but sooner or later keeping a back catalogue will fall below the cost/benefit margin. Even Reaper has mostly Bones in store fronts nowadays, and they don't have the problem of coming up with new rules to move old models.
PP should do the same: Only ever have the new shiney/currently legal to play in the store front, and don't promote the expectations that some day CID will circle back to fix everyone's pet legacy model, because chances are there's no profit in it.
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