Corvus Belli should implement an ongoing system of rules review, and provide clarifications and rulings for the Infinity rules in a way that would be similar to the way Wizards of the Coast provide Oracle for their trading card game, Magic: the Gathering. Oracle is a database of definitive up-to-date wordings for all their cards, and also provides a continually maintained list of all formal clarifications and rulings on the cards and their interactions with other cards. This ‘Oracle for Infinity’ might be a discrete technical solution, but should probably be integrated into the existing rules Wiki to provide the formal clarifications appended to the existing rules entries. The following is an example of how Oracle rulings are integrated into the Gatherer page, showing a newly published card “Traxos, Scourge of Kroog” that provides all the card’s attributes and all its Oracle rulings, and note that three were made in advance of the cards official release. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=443122 Note that the rulings use plenty of positive and negative declarative statements, and also prohibitive clauses that are important to native English readers in clarifying possible meanings.
This would be amazing. I have joked that you need access to the forums as opposed to just the wiki for many rules issues.
There used to be a summary of rules questions that'd been resolved, but without something similar, it's extremely difficult to find an authoritative answer to any particular question. It can involve reading several pages of a thread that isn't resolved, or isn't concluded in a way that's readily comprehensible.
I have said before that winning infinity is 20% being able to argue the rules better then your opponent. So there was this game called Star Trek attack wing. The rules for the game were kind of a mess so Wizkids employed a semi official guy to make temporary rulings/faqs tell a more official answer came along. They were called Worf rullings. It's kind of same as what IJW will do here. Anyway they collected all the Worf rulings on cards and interactions on to an unofficial wiki along with a slightly passive aggressive suggestion on how to reword cards to be in line with new rullings. I would much rather have a mtg style Oracle but honestly I would take any improvements because having to find and then link to threads that IJW popped up and having to explain why IJW is official is a real pain in the ass that will sometimes not have clear answers anyway.
I think a lot of people consider @ijw's and @psychoticstorm's rulings to be as-good-as-official right up until they say something that they don't like CB could fix that by creating a new title on the forum, something like Rules Official. Then in the normal course of events they can just knock out their answers, and people can take it as the right answer. If something came along that was more difficult, they could discuss amongst themselves, perhaps go back to CB and discuss it there too, and take a bit more time to come up with something definitive. They would be the same people writing the rulings into the Infinity Oracle, so they'd have their finger on the pulse of what needed to be formally clarified that way. Basically, CB would give them the authority to get on with what they already know to do anyway.
I came from warmahordes and one thing that i loved that they did was infernals. Rules authority who could give ad hoc faqs to questions to ensure everyone played by the same rules. If a complex rules they would contact the devs first. The way that that forum was handled was 1 specific question, once answered by infernal or normal poster the thread would be locked with answer marked. Infernals would use links to answer on more complex problems instead of posting the same answer so if that changes (not that it would, but if it might), they can change one post and all threads are updated. This was important as it made it easy to quickly google the questions and get the answer. For infinity, updating the wiki and linking to post seems like the obvious solution. And one i sincerely want as they is my last big issue with the game: corner case rules being unclear.
@ijw and the wiki are already essentially this, Storm is not perceived the same way because he is the moderator and is not involved in rules in anyway. The old forums basically had this where occasionally the rules team would add the "correct" answer, or point out which conclusion drawn by the player base was the correct one. For the most part IJW is still operating as that and most Metas will accept his word on how something works. Realistically it doesnt matter what system CB put in place to address rules concerns, merely that they update and respond to those concerns in a timely matter. The current FAQ system which is incorporated into the wiki would works perfectly fine provided it is used often enough. once a year is not enough for any system and realistically it should be every 3-4 months in order to keep on top of the various rules interactions.
I somewhat disagree. Aping the MtG system might not sync over as well, and the reality is, Infinity isn't actually as easy to correct as a card game. The nature of a card game means that there are consistencies within the thing to be addressed - a miniatures wargame, however, has a far larger amount of possible variables. Improving the existing systems would be better right now than looking towards a system that, as far as I can tell, might be better off built from the ground up.
IJW should just be given the authority to give a temporary official ruling, as long as it is put in single a known collated place on the Wiki. Then CB could come along however often they want and either confirm his ruling or overrule it. Problem solved.
So why is it taking so long? Why is the wiki not getting updated with the clerifacations IJW is posting... sometimes on bloody Facebook! Are they just understaffed? Preoccupied with making the (very sexy) models? Just don't understand the importance of clear and updated rules In a competitive game? Also wherever happened to the other guy who also did rules updated?
Ijw doesnt update the wiki until he gets to confirm it with Gutier. Realistically the bottle neck on the FAQs with CB is the real problem. CB is aware that we all want them to clarrify rules at a greater pace and hopefully are taking steps towards that effect. But until they are able to maintain the pace of support any system instituted will suffer the same issues. Personally I think it's a combination of staffing and creative control issues. Which is fine. The other guy was palance and he has been the game dev for aresteia for a long time.
What could solve the problem is a duplicate live semi-unofficial wiki that has links to the temporary rulings provided until FAQs can be added to the official wiki, just to bring everything into one place... maybe even call them the Maya(official) and Arachne(live) versions. I'm not sure @ijw has time to run two, but it needs to be said that whoever does the job has to post the rulings whether or not they agree with them personally... Ideally CB would eventually move to a living rulebook hosted on the wiki in this way, this might make the rulebooks obsolete but, honestly I'd be fine with that, and when N4 comes along in 2023+ they can just not print the rules in the first place and give us more fluff...
Part of the issue becomes that there are a huge number of questions and rulings that IJW specifically stays out of. means the "working answer" typically ends up being whatever your impression of consensus is, and that is an inherently subjective determination.
Yeah, it only works when we actually have a ruling, and that probably needs a list of appointed persons as well as @ijw and @psychoticstorm that are able to give those rulings either first come first served or by a majority of the (much smaller, maybe 7 in total at very most) group, which itself leads to the need for quicker FAQs from CB on the issues they've ruled, and I don't think any of this is at all possible during this year of CB's very intense schedule... The unofficial wiki could also be set up independently like the alternate mission systems for TOs to use optionally, and if need be include multiple solutions presented as neutrally as possible so people don't need to wade through 150+ pages of vitriolic arguments, accusations, and name calling, just to find out there's no answer.
Paging @Koni @HellLois and @Interruptor as they're the people who would need to see this. One thing to bear in mind when looking at Oracle and MtG is that CB are roughly 1% the size of Wizards of the Coast, so the resources available don't compare very well...
Still you basically do this defacto / unofficially anyway - it'd just be more useful and consistent to have it be official on a page on the wiki, and likely take less resources from CB to do if they don't have the resources to do it themselves with better / more regular FAQs. Plus it'd mean you might have to answer the same questions less often, and perhaps clarify some things you currently can't for the good of the entire player base. Rules clarity is a really good thing. IJW would be the only non CB employee I'd trust to do it, and in fact due to his history answering community questions and high regard / connections within the community I think he'd probably do it better than anyone other than perhaps Gutier could.
I very much agree, but think a suitable system might not be too onerous for Corvus Belli. It'd be a chain of command kind of operation, with a group of well-known and experienced forum members in a working party reporting to a couple of CB's associates, in turn escalating issues to perhaps a single CB employee who can raise a flag internally if something critical arises. Most of the work is already being done this way, so there's very little additional overhead; it's more a matter of ratifying it and applying a process of control to what is made official or not. Exactly; and yes it is. It's almost incredible that we need to point this out, but CB clearly aren't getting the message, so bloody well said, mate. I may be wrong, but I have the strong impression that IJW and PsychoticStorm would like to see a lot more rules clarifications than Gutier... As far as the personnel, it's worth recognizing that there are a number of intersecting issues which should properly influence who you'd choose to work on the process. Knowing what the rules are (or their intent) so's to explain a situation they already cover Knowing how to apply the rules (or their intent) to resolve hitherto unforseen situations appropriately Having the authority to resolve those situations appropriately Having the will to resolve them and an appropriate system in place for doing it Having the ability to express any rulings clearly and succinctly (and probably some other issues I haven't thought of ... ) So for example, many of the Corvus Belli game design team will have all the requisite skills, but there's a lack of corporate will (#3) to see their insights usefully applied...
This needs to really be emphasized. IJW is really the only non-CB employee who would be or should be trusted with this. Hell given he does the translation and works on the structure of the rules significantly with gutier im not even sure its accurate to say he isnt a member of the rules team. EDIT: For clarity sake this pretty much leaves IJW Interuptor HellLios Koni As the only ones who really are in a position to institure this, and hell, even Koni, while being a CB employee deals with other parts of the company
LOL. That's a legitimately funny suggestion. Edit: my point being that due to Storm being knee deep in recent debates within the forum community, he's not seen as impartial nor as across the rules as people like IJW.
Well, there are also discrepancies between language on some rulebooks... (G:Synchro in english ask for both to realize the same action, in spanish just to declare... RAW you can argue that english has the wrong wording, because with that one you cannot repair using the bot: the engineer is unable to realize his declared order, thus the order fails)