Kelmor

Nice write up Steve. Once again you were a great help at the show. I hope we can give Malifaux a even bigger showing next year!

I am glad the event went so well and I hope we can continue to help make Malifaux a bigger deal every year at Templecon. (we have a long way to go to catch up to WM/H ) Special thanks goes out to the NJ Gamer guys for providing the awesome terrain and taking care of business! Kevin (from the Warstore)

I am going to be there and its going to be a great time!

Wow, you really said that

I heard that in book 2 we will learn that book 1 was a dream.

We have a group that plays on Wednesdays at Games and Gizmos in Redmond http://maps.google.com/maps?q=games%20and%20gizmos&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

Actually they only printed the errata in Escalation. The issue with printing errata is that if you make an additional change to a rule, you have to make the change in 2 places now (or more depending on when the update is made) Miniatures games rules are fluid, they must remain so to react to growing competition and evolving play skill.

Thats kinda refining the thing a bit. I think GW makes amazing miniatures and I wish that they made a game worthy of them. There are currently situations where you can win the game by not allowing your opponent to deploy. That is a HUGE rules issue. They talked about a guy winning a event that way in White Dwarf and how cool it was. This is where GW fails at rules

I dont think anyone is missing the point, I just dont think that is what they were talking about (at least I was not). I think you might be a tough overly harsh in your assessment of the rules language, I know there are places where it needed some clean up but the rules work really well, especially for a new company that has never made a miniatures game before. I know I was impressed with them. I am assuming that you actually like the product, and are writing from a perspective of tough love here. I think you will find plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes in all of the books from the products you list above. Malifaux if the first Miniatures game to come out in as long as I can remember that actually brought something new to the table. They have a lot going for them. I think you might put a lot more weight on the things you mention than is warranted. I appreciate what you are saying (or what I think you are trying to say) but you seem to forget that it has taken Warmachine almost 7 years to get where they are today. Go find a black and white copy of prime and then look over the Malifaux rules. Now a lot of this is your opinion of how things should have been done. I don't disagree with the intent of what you are saying but you could step down off the pulpit and communicate much better than you are Here I disagree with your assessment, additionally you get more insulting. I think you are mistaking a common trait among humans. Anyone who was there "first" feels like they have tenure on those that come later. This is true in all things, not just gaming. I do not think that Wyrd is going to vanish any time soon. I think we will only see improvement. Expecting them to come out of the gate with a product that looks the same as what has come before them is foolish, and forgets where those other products have been. The growth of a thing is what makes it interesting, what keeps it alive, you cannot expect a baby to come out and start winning wars, you need to allow for that baby to develop and grow. You do that by taking care of it, and nurturing it, and yes some times it requires tough love, I just think that you are a little early on that application Just like that? You know the writers who can work for what Wyrd can afford? Why would Wyrd copy a style when they are clearly setting out on their own image? I appreciate that you brought it back home with the errata, but I have to ask, what gamers out there dont look for errata when they start a new game? Maybe that is the message missing from the book. In concept you are correct, I think you are skipping a lot of time and many steps in your solution, and I think you will only see better and better products from Wyrd. Please take this as intended, which is as a open and frank discussion with no malice intended

I wont speak to the money involved as I do not know the details but i do know that changing a print run costs money. Most miniatures games live by the community they create. Game companies do not function in a traditional business model sense, they are almost entirely word of mouth driven in niche markets. I know in my book (and on the cards) I black out anything that has been changed, and red out anything that has been removed. That way I can never miss that something has changed

And lets not forget the ever popular "now I have to buy another book" syndrome. I think we are in agreement in general. Its really a question of timing. When do you release the revised book with all the errata. I think that its pretty easy to tell when that time is from a development perspective, then it just comes down to, will the community accept a revised book right now.

That is a fair confusion which I can lay to rest with an example as to why its not the best idea. Imagine that you and a buddy are both looking in your books, at a section that had errata trying to figure something out, and your both coming up with different answers. Errata is consistent. Go find it, it adjusts the snapshot of whats in print. I personally do not think that once a book is printed it should ever be changed until released as a clear new edition.

It all comes down to philosophy of design. I come from a philosophy that what is more important than anything is making sure that the play environment is stable and the rules are working as intended. I believe that if things need changing, they should be changed. They should also be caught first, but the reality is that it will take at least a year of public play for some issue to come to light. There is no way that any miniatures company in the market could generate that kind of playtest volume let alone in the time frames they usually work in. So what that leaves us with is Errata. I don't view errata as a bad thing. I think it proves that the devs are watching and care about their product.

Glad to see you here Sam. See you at the convention!