I hope you can appreciate how for a company of cbs size those can be pretty unappealing options right? There's a balance between keeping gamers informed and literally losing money. Not to mention buy back means less time for people to pick up older sculpts they might like. So now we're hurting other collectors/players. There's literally no right way to do things. Everything has its drawbacks, and it can be easy to forget about the drawbacks that don't affect you. And honestly I'd expect a lot of factors to go into the decisions, I don't think it's feasible for CB to explain them all too us. Because gauranteed some of those factors we don't want to hear because it would conflict with our worldview that we are literally the most important factor.
@Alphz With respect to informing retailers - that was a big part of the problem with Privateer Press's last edition of Warmachine. Retailers don't like when new editions are announced too far out, because it tends to drive down sales of what's out right now. But when you invalidate purchases with almost no warning, you lose customer goodwill. So it's a balance to strike. If your attitude is that the customers should just suck it up and get screwed, and that retailers deserve coddling, then don't act like your viewpoint isn't just hostile towards the other posters here.
XD This made me laught hard. GW which is by far the largest evil miniatures games producer is being used as an example of how to do stuff. Yup - the same GW which introduces new cards available to every faction in each new faction's set for both Necromunda and Shadespire. The same GW which witheld some of the weapon options from the starting Necromunda gangs, so that once people build their gangs, a new set might be droped and sells of basic peasant gangers would renew. The same GW which releases Necromunda rulebook piece by piece for a crazy high price, claims to do it for keeping players occupied etc, but is selling one book for a load of cash instead. Same GW which introduces OP unit options in 40k, just to sell by hype then after few months nerfs these unplayable. Same GW which told it's community 6th edition of Warhammer 40,000 is THE edition and it will be better and last longer than before - just to replace it in not regular four, but two years, rendering all the vehicle damage dice, objective cards and studd - useless. All the time they just wear the 'nice guys now' mask. If someone falls for it - then I can't help them. Sure - they really do well with community building lately, but behind these two awesome, smiling dudes - there's a trap. Been GW's customer for 20 years now. They never changed - it is just another trick of the light. Wish everyone who's so happy about nowaday's GW and their ways - leave this game, go GW for a while - we'll see each other here sooner or later either way.
I'm Catalan and independentist. Sure, I'm on the left wing side, and the japanazis (is this better or worse than japs? It does suit the new JSA a lot tho) are on the other side of the political spectrum, but I still can't possibly play Imperial Service and feel like "these are the good guys". I can play them from a purely gameplay point of view, that works just fine, but the whole "being the bad guy is cool" is not for me. So from a pure gameplay point of view, I will have a lot of seals to punch (and give helpful advice about the game, I'm not that much of an asshole to apply the "kick them so they learn" method). That is the only way I think can be positive about all this. I have no worries about Yu Jings competitiveness as a faction. It works, it will always work. It worked in the darkest depths of N2, where a large number of profiles were either useless or overcosted (there were proabably more useless profiles in N2 than profiles have been removed in Uprising, but this may be exageration), so there's that.
Of course. There could be some possibly cheaper options, such as shipping newer boxes for repackaging older stock for example. That might incur some additional costs (such as possible wages for those doing the repackaging) and it might be Buy back wouldn't necessarily mean that those models are removed from the game entirely. In the case of Uprising, it'd be a case of models being repackaged into JSA/NA2 branding, which would mean that Yu Jing players wouldn't be 'tricked'/accidentally misled into buying units that they wouldn't be able to use in future. There's always the possibility of made-to-order, as well. With a smaller production facility, that could possibly be hard to acheive. However, fully discontinuing a line of models is very different to repackaging them into a different faction. Domaru, for example, are still available to be purchased, they're not exactly disappearing. The old Domaru are already gone - is that an issue, in case some people wanted to flesh out an older collection? I agree, though there are ways to minimise backlash. Bottom line, the customer base is the most important factor. That's where the revenue comes in. It's entirely likely that the Uprising event will work out great for CB. The new stuff is pretty cool, and there will be plenty of people who will jump at the chance to collect and play with them. That doesn't mean that rubbing it in the faces of some players is a great strategy - if nothing else, it demonstrates a lack of respect for the player base, which in turn will negatively impact the loyalty of all those who value that kind of thing (for example, someone might be interested in Infinity, but the dismissive tone that CB has put out may turn them off, as they might consider the game/company to be unstable/might remove some of their favourite things at a later date). Interesting that you seem stuck in the old GW :P To address a couple of things: 6th Ed GW isn't 8th Ed GW. Since 6th Ed was in, there has been a pretty big change in management (one notable thing is that Jack Kirby is no longer involved in decision making, as far as I'm aware, which alone has made things a lot better). With regards to OP units; if you're talking about 8th Ed, then they have been upfront about their changes (ie, that they're doing X amount of erratas/FAQs and Y amount of big rules changes each year). This is more healthy for the game, as it means any outliers they have can get tweaked - the big example of this is Guilliman with Razorback spam being increased in cost by a healthy but not unreasonable amount. So yes, they are a good example, because they're doing what they said they're doing, and even with some missteps they're actually making an effort. I can't talk about AoS or Shadespire, as I don't keep up with it (I only recently, beginning of 8th Ed, got back into the game). Similar with Necromunda. And while I can definitely agree that there are some dodgy business-based game design things, they seem to be not nearly as bad as previous editions. I too am a long time customer of GW's, about 20 years myself. I stopped playing for a good few years because their game design and business practice was pretty awful. Whether their new face is maintained over the next few years will be important, but what they are doing currently with 40K is excellent; and they absolutely have changed, in some very important respects if not in everything they do. I do play 40K at the moment, and I am honestly very happy that I do.
Not to derail too much but hawks issues were from well before the Kickstarter and it exacerbated the issue. Great setting though i hope they do well. :)
Funny, I remember getting a physical letter from GameStop saying that my pre-order of Zelda:Twilight Princess was being delayed so that it could be a launch title for the Wii, and it had a return postcard to say, "keep my pre-order for the GameCube" or "Bump me up to the Wii version" The Wii hadn't even been announced to developers when pre-orders of Twilight Princess opened. And with computer chipsets, you need to design the chip, prototype, prooftest that it meets benchmarks and doesn't have odd math errors in it, then ramp up full production. Plus write the new OS and test *that*, since we're talking gaming consoles. I've got pre-order info on Amazon for stuff that isn't coming out till 2019. Light novels, if you must know. But OK, let's limit this to miniatures and/or games books. Privateer Press announces releases 3 months out, and usually releases ~$50 of models a week instead of that entire month's worth in a single hit. Reaper does about the same, releases weekly, and a couple months out. GW is a bit odd, they only announce pre-orders a week before the product is in the stores. But GW is heavily vertically integrated, so have pretty good control over shipping times. A company like White Wolf has releases planned out for an entire year, and usually advertises about 6 months out. I'd mention Palladium, but I'd get laughed out of the forums. I'm still out well over $400 in undelivered Wave 2 product. But generally they did a decent job announcing book releases 2-3 months out. Sure, but no offense, ISS didn't take much of a hit. Actually, did ISS lose anything? I'm not aware of anything they lost... But someone wanting to play a vanilla list with a Shinobu (or Oniwaban) assassination strike is out of luck. Or Raiden HRL surprise-shot. Or Aragoto charging up in your face. Or, hell, even just the 1pt-cheaper Tokusetsu instead of the Zanshi doc and engineer. I think the new JSA sculpts are gorgeous. I think Japan never really fit into a faction that was Greater China in Spaaaaaaaaace! Too much bad blood from the bad old days of 1895-1945. But what has gotten me all pissed off is NOT that the JSA was pulled out from YJ, but the leaked fluff of how that went down. Comments about mass graves, and directly invoking the same behaviors that got most of the historical Kempeitai executed for war crimes are NOT a way to sell Infinity. 40k, maybe. But Infinity has always been a brighter future than that (and with pervasive AI surveillance to hopefully prevent such things from happening in the first damn place).
ISS lost nothing, though they didnt get the FO ninja just like vanilla. But CSUs got 2 new specialist profiles.
Actually, your assumptions are the problem here. 1. You deduce from a couple of slides in a powerpoint presentation that the data wasn't interpreted/collected correctly or carefully, when the process of interpreting/collecting said data wasn't revealed 2. You, and several others in this thread seem to confuse "anecdote" with "data", your local meta is an anecdote
@Telcontar If they don't explain their statistical methods they leave themselves open to people assuming the worst.
Yes, that is what I said. That makes assuming the worst no less wrong or right or basing a 15 page arguement on it any more clever. The correct way to go about it, would have been to ASK for the methodology and then discuss that. But that doesn't really sit well with internet trolls so instead... 15 page arguement about nothing substantial.
Well, first thing first it didn't sit well with CB. They've certainly had ample opportunity to explain themselves. And when you're invalidating people's purchases... justify it. Or don't, and take the flak for it.
That`s a bit of uneven ground because company may claim that miniatures purpose is to be used in a GAME and will be right. That`s not Exrah case, they are still playable , just in different way. That`s mostly about companies that do non-physical stuff. When last time you hear that some particular iPhone model will be discontinued from sell few month in advance? A year in advance? Same question about discontinuing, I don`t know, particular chipset motherboard? Or particular boardgame? "We`ll stop selling Arkham Horror in 36 month!" In miniatures it`s usual "we announce new stuff" and that`s all, you should guess what stuff will go and of you have any chances to get it somewhere. Games Workshop released three Fantasy Battles books and immediately after that closed Fantasy Battles game without any forewarning. Please do not explain me how great they are. My GW distributors solved this by not having much stock or not having stock at all, effectively moving risks to another guys. Also delivery time increased badly, sometimes up to 4 month.
I am not getting dragged into this, you are argueing in bad faith: People's purchases haven't been invalidated. The proxy rules have been changed to make sure everyone could continue using all their miniatures, and those that had multiple JSA units basically have a whole new faction to play with. So no, no purchases have been invalidated.
Also I`m amused by all people for whom any explanations won`t be enough. I wonder when death threats will appear in air because of hurt customer feeling rights. In my company management provided much less information to employees at budget cut and firing times, at same times customers got no info at all on support and development force cut. Only shareholders may have some info in advance. So I was really wandering what CB shareholders are mad here, on forum?
So if they deleted your favorite sectorial, and said you could use the minis to play some other sectorial, no problem, you'd be arguing in bad faith to say you lost something?
This also made me laugh. I don't have experience of GW these days but even if they are engaging the community now, and from the outside it seem s like they are, that’s after a very very long time of being much much worse than CB at such things.
Probably pretty close to the truth really. I would happily run YJ with just N3 book units over our entire roster in N2. With a few exceptions, most people aren't actually that extreme. The arguments so far are actually pretty tame compare to say... an average day on the FFG X Wing forum.
I think that all GW-praisers should taste this in GW-way: 1) $40 Yu-Jing book without JSA but with brand-new IA. No new models, no new profiles, just some fireteam options and fluff about how brave powered-armored IA warriors shoot their combi-rifles to filthy mutineers. 2) Second $40 IA book with new models and new profiles but some shiny new unit loadouts are listed without price so you could either homerule it or don`t take. 3) Third and final $40 IA book with remaining unit loadouts, concept arts and more fluff. But to build these models you should buy again old models + special resin weapon packs that are available only direct online sale from only one online store. And to compose and play army you need all three books. That`s the only reason I`m not playing Necromunda. Models are superb, rules are kinda ok but marketing is awful.
This guy. Bought the Aragoto, Aragoto+Asuka, Shinobu, Yojimbo, Raiden and Shikami to buff my share of the Red veil starter. Wanted to buy a box of remotes, yeah, that's so not happening right now. I'll maybe come back when IA drops (thank god I didn't buy any HI blisters)
