I appreciate that we have 17 pages of discussion about "meta shake", and there's no focus on the fact that we're getting 6+ new Sectorials this year. I'm pretty sure CB has a good handle on what it takes to shake up the meta. We've already seen it with the presence of Datatrackers in ITS, and we're continuing to see it with this year's release schedule. As for Backdoor, I think the reason behind is straightforward: it was created so that the community felt there was something at stake with this year's storyline. It's pretty clear that the characters weren't selected to have huge (or negligible) impacts on how the game is played. If CB wanted big impact, they would have pulled Joan and Wallace. If they wanted minimal impact, they would have kept Mansuri. I don't know why they chose the characters they did, but it definitely wasn't for gameplay effects. I think there may be a story element (either for the characters themselves, or for their current/upcoming sectorials) that helps to define why they were chosen.
Still, JSA were supposed to have been YJ for this event, so a bit more to choose from than just Xi. Sun Tze was "needed" to provide a semblance of counter balance in Uprising, so it's more than just being protected by being a recreation.
Yeeeeah... "hey, new faction! New models! But you cannot use this cool one for 2 months!" Like, ban Kuroshi, Shinobu, Neko... ? Because Yojimbo or Saito are Merc characters, and thus quite unimaginative for the Backdoor (it's not like they have the required access, or trust, with being mercenaries and all). Pulling recreations into "suspect of collusion with the EC" would open a can of worms that would be quite hard to justify or explain. I mean, the whole recreation program would be called unto suspicion, meaning all recreations should be banned at the same time... with the problem of Aleph having several (three) and you can't really ban 1 character for all others and 3 for one... And if Uprising looks bad when it comes to spam, imagine pissing off the internet. Not even Rache Bartmoss was that crazy!
Actually, a similar conversation was started in my group when the B4ckd00r repercussions were announced. From the get-go I was almost certain these units wouldn't be compromised: Jean De Arc, Sun Tze, William Wallace and Saladin. If any of these were accused of Treason, their Factions would simply wash their hands from them and blame it on Aleph. After all, they are all Recreations. So I was pretty confident those four were untouchable, form a Story Point of View.
Obviously. But it looks like they just made Yu Jing eat it *again* so that JSA can look good. Throwing the existing faction under the bus for the shiny new release, gw-style.
From memory, Backdoor was supposed to finish much earlier - before Uprising. And fluff wise I think it is a precursor event as well. Had it gone the other way around, and Backdoor ended first... Would've been cool to see Asuka "disappeared" into a black bag, never to return. Would've made the Kuroshi a bit more meaningful (I say without having access to the fluff in the new book).
There's a lot of ways they could have done it smoother. They shouldn't leak so much and be more okay with delaying things for timing.
I do. It completely fits the recent pattern of behaviour by CB which @psychoticstorm white-knights incessantly. Doubtlessly he will defend this interpretation by claiming impeccable writing and that it is entirely consistent with the past decade of background. He will round this out by again claiming disagreement can only be a result of stupidity on the part of the customer*. *see signature for example
I've been saying a lot of bad stuff recently, so I thought to stop by this thread and point out that Data trackers was an example of a perfect way to shake things up and keep the tournament scene fresh without completely fucking things up and putting people off-side. I can't think of a negative experience as a result of the addition of Data Trackers for the season. I used a bunch of profiles I might not have last season but nothing else lost value. Really good job there on the Data trackers.
Or of you expounding on something you hadn’t and couldn’t have read at the time... po-tay-to, po-tah-to...
