Wyrd and QC

[r4st4f4n]

Ok, let's start this.
I'm pretty sure someone else will find a way 100 times better to put this down, and he/she will be welcome.
I just want to say, every time I'm, or someone else is, complaining about Wyrd, I get very sad. That's because all I'd like to hear and say about my most beloved company, would be only good things.
I wish old players and newcomers had mountains over mountains of congrats to the devs to say, for their attitude and inventiveness, for giving us such a cool world to play and dream about.
And I would like to share this passion with everyone I'm in touch with, or not yet. I'd like every tabletop wargames player around to take a look at this fantastic game, and get definitively caught!...

But...

It's becoming evident that this is not coming out as simple as it sh/could be.
Because, when I'm totally frenzy, explaining how cool are things here, then suddenly the listener comes out with a question...
"Wow, this looks very cool! What about that?""Oh...Erm...Well, that is actually missing...but don't worry! It will be allright, it's a matter of a few months! Probably..."
"Oh, ok... I noticed that thing is different, what does it mean?""Erm...technically, it's just a production early mistake, you know, the company is quite young... Maybe one day it will be rectified...I think..."
"I see...Well, I'll buy this box and try a game. Do you recommend it?""Oh, sure! ...Just remember to check the Errata file on the net, I may remember wrong, but one of the cards inside..."

This is not what I'd actually be willing.
And, as kind as this wonderful community can be, there is always someone who says "Oh, that doesn't seem such a bad mistake to me, I can live with it" or even "No, I like it, I want more of them".
But, we all have to take into account that we're dealing with a world that is scaled 1:60. We can absolutely make fun of it often, but most modelists have non-grave OCDs. And every little flaw in the real world is reflected with titanic proportions in our miniaturized wonderland, and the effects of those here-and-there downers on the morale of a possible newcomer, are catastrophic.

What I want to say, is that I had a dream, of a future world where I won't say any more than minimum necessary things such:
"No, you don't automatically do double damage! the Duel's Total Chart on the rulebook was copy-pasted wrong"
"Erm, I know AHoffman/Cojo/Brass Arachnid/H.Langston/Barbaros/Oxfordian Mage/Skeeter/S.Hopkins/etc. doesn't fit the base well... You just have to perform some imaginative basing, until/unless the cards get tons of Erratas, or, more unlikely, the moulds gets redone. Ah, next month AShenLong is released on a totally new fancy base size, they don't even sell in the first place, so that it barely fits."
"What do you mean? Flesh Construct's victim/ Wendigo's victim/Guild Marshal/Samurai/Young LaCroix look out of the scale of their comrades, like if their mould size was relative to something else than an objective size grid? Oh, erm... I follow the "Hormones" explanation..."
"Oh, I see you won your first game and you're happy! Wait... Did you use that Ability? Oh, no! That was errata-ed! You were cheating against your poor opponent!"
"I want to do an Henchmen led quick tourney, we'll play just 30SS or so. No, the box of yours cannot compete, you don't have a Henchman. And that other model SUMMONS! It is absolutely illegal un unbalanced in smaller games! Ban it immediately!"

...and so on.


In my dream, it was one year from now, GenCon 2015, two players were talking:
"Do you remember, Wyrd's first years production?" "Yeah, it threatened to become quite a mess, indeed" "Thank god, since last year's GenCon they've been seriously face those production issues, instead of just suffer them" "I heard they finally got a QC or something, by popular demand" "Whatever, they did a great work! I'm so satisfied of last year's releases! They weren't the same uncertain nightmare of the previous ones. I really hope it keeps going better, this is the money I spend more willingly!" "Me too. I got into Factions I hadn't even taken into consideration, because there were models it was a shame not to buy"...



As I said, my intention is not to keep complaining louder and louder, but exactly the opposite, I'd like this to end up into something constructive...
Now, I think I wrote enough ungrammatical babbling, I will leave the thread to you

[DocSchlock]

I agree on most counts minus the "doesn't fit the basing well" and Errata arguments. I play Warmahordes too and barely any 50mm-based models actually fit on their bases -- doesn't seem to have hurt their game any.

All games have errata, period. It's just how these types of games work and anyone getting into the hobby as a whole should be made aware of it. I always keep an errata printout or pdf on hand for whatever game I'm playing, and I gently encourage, not demand, this behavior in players I play against.

I got one of the Lucius boxes without Guild Guard and had to go back to the booth. Nathan apologized and gave me a sprue of Guard, but it still shouldn't have happened in the first place. I understand the boxes were flown in just that morning and quickly packed up, but they really need to sort out ALL of their issues for Gencon next year.

[Ratty]

Misprints and issues do happen especially with the number of models in Malifaux, and the number of abilities each model has. If you compare it to X-Wing, which is a very popular game made by a well regarded publisher, but which has many fewer different models and only 1 ability on each model. 69 cards have Errata's or clarifications, none of these have been reprinted, and just appear in an FAQ. Where issues have come up Wyrd makes their best effort to a) get them Errata'd b ) have added all the Wave 1 errata'd cards to the Wave 2 Arsenal decks. I think we would all love to live in a world where no mistakes were ever made and no model was ever Overpowered or Underpowered. But the nature of Wargaming just doesn't allow that, people will notice combos that weren't spotted in playtesting, and in 300+ cards some typos will slip in. However we will make every effort to keep up to date Erratas up and get out regular FAQs. As for answering queries in the forum, about rules issues, we prefer not to any more, it caused so many issues in 1st Edition. Therefore only the Erratas are official though one of us may step in saying it should probably be played like X occasionally it is not official till it appears in a document.

[Ausplosions]

Surely the more worrying issue is the seeming rapid increase in issues relating to out of scale miniatures.

Because THAT is how a miniatures company is no longer taken seriously.

[r4st4f4n]

Misprints and issues do happen especially with the number of models in Malifaux, and the number of abilities each model has. If you compare it to X-Wing, which is a very popular game made by a well regarded publisher, bu which has many fewer different models and only 1 ability on each model. 69 cards have Errata's or clarifications, none of these have been reprinted, and just appear in an FAQ. Where issues have come up Wyrd makes their best effort to a) get them Errata'd b ) have added all the Wave 1 errata'd cards to the Wave 2 Arsenal decks. I think we would all love to live in a world where no mistakes were ever made and no model was ever Overpowered or Underpowered. But the nature of Wargaming just doesn't allow that, people will notice combos that weren't spotted in playtesting, and in 300+ cards some typos will slip in. However we will make every effort to keep up to date Erratas up and get out regular FAQs. As for answering queries in the forum, about rules issues, we prefer not to any more, it caused so many issues in 1st Edition. Therefore only the Erratas are official though one of us may step in saying it should probably be played like X occasionally it is not official till it appears in a document.

I am a very (maybe too much) avid reader of this forum, Ratty.

Those are things I already know(except that X-Wing was such a disaster, but I'm not interested in it, so ok). What I was trying to say, is that I am already addicted, for three years now.

I can understand every mistake. I can sympathize with the Developers, since they showed us themselves, their humanity, their developing processes, and their incoming issues so close. We've been following this game like a newborn all together.

I can. You can. A new player, most of the times, cannot. And this cannot be denied by whatever argument me or you can produce verbally in defence of Wyrd.

Fact is, I concede not all (like the Amazon Viks one year ago) mistakes are easily spottable. I.E. it was impossible to see that one before receiving the casted sprue.

As it would be very difficult to spot every punctuation, bold, italic, symbol and every other possible typos.

But some of them, instead, seem to have missed just a last check by a very involved volunteer, e.g. the Damage Grid in the Pocket Manual, the wrong big SS numbers on some of the new cards, the Samurai render showing a crouching guy, that if standing, would have ass at the same height of his comrades shoulders...

I'm not saying it is possible to avoid every single mistake, but just filter some of the biggest ones would invaluably help.

I tend to say things in a less drastic(probably more confusing...) way than Ausplosions, but the message is that one. Who wants to approach a serious, realistic, amazingly sculpted miniature range that looks like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Gulliver's Travels", when it's not supposed to?

As you can see, I don't want to attack Wyrd, last thing they need is friendly fire. But, someone is making clear mistakes, and not once, but the same ones repeatedly, and these mistakes are no good for the company affairs, neither for the customers.

So, we can keep doing infinite lawyers harangues, while Wyrd and us keep undergoing disappointments again and again, or we can eventually face those evident problems humanly, and resolve them as easily as it can be once and for all.

I really trust no one's dream here, GenCon 2015, still be complaining about some newly released models scale issues...

[rancor709]

Wel I've got one thing to say. I'd rather have the oversized brass arachnid than have to deal with another zombie chauchua tail. Or lose detail to make sure a crouching model if it stood wouldn't tower over the other ones. To me these crouching poses are cinematic close up represented in model form. So I have way less of an issue with it as in those cases it's an artistic choose and my big meaty fingers would rather not have to manipulate tiny parts. Height is an abstraction in the game I do have a slight issue with the tendency toward base over hang. But that is mostly do to playability as some abilities require the bases to directly touch. Or the over hang actually obscures the base size from booth opponents view.

.errata does and always will exist for any game that takes its rules seriously.

It's a typo however will correct if only there were some kind of writing implement that I could put the proper value on the card or, if only when wyrd in there ignorance recognizes the mistake if they could put up a proper revised card that I could freely print, oh wait they done that for other card erratas already.

At the end of the day still I love nitpicking 2.

[stinkoman]

FAQs/Erattas/Misprints are easy to deal with as a Henchman.  Its the nature of the game.  out of scale miniatures on the other hand are not.  i don't think i've come across that many in other ranges, and i play/played a lot of mini  games from different companies.  

 

It is hard to defend when trying to promote the  game to new players that are into the  new look of the minis.  

[Ausplosions]

FAQs/Erattas/Misprints are easy to deal with as a Henchman. Its the nature of the game. out of scale miniatures on the other hand are not. i don't think i've come across that many in other ranges, and i play/played a lot of mini games from different companies.

It is hard to defend when trying to promote the game to new players that are into the new look of the minis.

Agreed.

It's very difficult to promote the merits of Malifaux. When you have to tell people that crews are delayed due to production issues, and others have deliberately oversized miniatures, and that some boxes also have miniatures that are NOT in the scale that Malifaux is advertised to be. But know one knows if it is intended or not.

Oh by the way, that book that just came out? Several errors. The monthly chronicles? Loaded with spelling and grammatical errors.

I LOVE Malifaux.

Love it.

I also LOVE Wyrd. They are one of the most accommodating and talented miniature and game rule design companies out there.

But I worry that they do not take issues regarding QC, particularly in relation to the new plastics, as seriously as they should. Which is a worrying development.

[dgraz]

It's quite shocking to me, considering how strict they were with QC before.

[nogoatsnoglory]

Maybe we could start a community QC, at least for proofreading.  As Ausplosions mentioned, the chronicles has a few errors.  Its not the end of the world, but if there were maybe a private forum for this community we could go in and do the extra proofreading before being officially released.  

 

By no means would I walk away from this game due to the errors, but why not take the extra step and have the community help push it toward perfection? 

[mythicFOX]

I think we're blowing a few relatively minor errors out of proportion here.

1) Crossroads has two typos.

2) A relatively small number of minis in the range have genuine scale issues. Most ranges do to some extent.

3) Wyrd have had some production delays which they're upfront about.

There's a saying something like; "We don't have to be perfect, we just have to be better than the competition."

Right now Wyrd are better than everyone else IMHO. Would I like them to be perfect? Sure. As things go though I still think they're out performing the curve with the quality of their product in rules and miniatures. It's very easy to forget that.

[Fireuser]

Just want to add, that I expect Wyrd to make mistakes.  They are a fantastic group and they do their best to get the product into my hands.  And to the best of my knowledge they do everything that they can in order to fix and address any mistakes that are made.  Therefore, I shall continue to give them my money.  

[SpiralngCadavr]

I'm okay with some mistakes, but the systemic ones are the really embarrassing/irritating ones:

 

The TTB female sprue looks pretty seriously large.

There are apparently cards which have been set for a while, which have errors in new print runs?

There are definitely a lot of errors in TTB, including "suits" being victim to a "find & replace" error, and a ton of missing hyphenations.

 

I'm fine with individual errors, but ones that appear a lot are less forgivable.

[Uktena]

Weird sized models might be an issue with people around the local scene here - I haven't asked.  The odd tough to base model (or model that doesn't like to get glued/pinned easily) doesn't turn people away though.  Not that we like it, but it's not a deal breaker.  Neither are the typos.  We just understand that there's things printed wrong and then play the game correctly from there.

 

Not that some QC wouldn't be nice - I'm sure we'd prefer our Mature Nephilim to fit on his base, or Candy to have more points of contact for example.  It's never prevented someone from playing around here though.  It just makes for conversation.

[DeleteAccount]

Well, I don't really care about the unscaled models too much, but I'm not a modeler, I'm a gamer and I can perfectly understand why the modelers would be less than pleased. I love the crouching Death Marshal, but he is HUGE and looks like the crouching Samurai is exactly the same and seems like everybody that crouches in the world of Malifaux grows an extra foot or two.

 

What irks me and I still can't understand is how cards that have been set in stone for more than a year in a pdf document can go bad (Zoraida), I mean, I consider it bad enough that it happened in book AND cards for Tannen, Blessed of December and Dreamer (yes, I know now it's the accepted as correct cache, but it probably stems from not being a big enough problem to warrant an errata for an immediately released box that probably sold like candy, not from the dreamer needing any help) when they were pretty set in stone already, but Zoraida not having the Gremlin icon is pure insanity to me.

 

Why? because now, I have to explain it to people, explain that those cards are bad and don't have the correct content and explain to a confused Zoraida player who is pissed for picking it for his Gremlins and being convinced she doesn't after seeing the card when it's not the case and it shouldn't be the case. And what will they think of Wyrd?

 

I'm already invested in Malifaux, I love Malifaux and like the company and it's people, but I still demand quality in the products I consume, though I can accept a slip up since again, I'm invested, and I like you people. But maybe a few new players here won't understand, not at all, I'm already hearing people complain constantly about how the distribution chain is a mess and how the local shop isn't getting stocked, how announced models take eternity and beyond to actually come out. When people want to take a product of your hands but they can't get it, that is a big problem, last thing this needs is to stack in rules problems and confusion because that can easilly make people loose interest. Will it be in the Faq and being attentive keep it clean? Yes, it should, but I'd rather we kept in the FAQ and Errata stuff that needs tweaking or explaining, not stuff that should have never even been an issue.

 

I mean, book one only had the Fuhatsu TN not existing from madman with a machine gun and that one made sense to me since it didn't even exist in the last beat file. The rest were forceful errata of base sizes because the miniature scales goofed up. I'm pretty sure there were no other Typos, and certainly nothing near as problematic as a SS cost or Cache cost. Oh yeah, and a ortega card missing, which is a bigger deal of course, but at least the guy that buys the Ortega box has it in there as well as in a guild deck.

 

I KNOW that the ones most pissed off at these things are the people of Wyrd, I KNOW because I work as a software developer and I KNOW how incredibly pissed I get when a customer calls telling me something is screwed up and it's making their life hell because I made a mistake, but enough mistakes cost you clients. I was unable to deliver enough times that we lost a client, not a big guy, but they made cash flow in the company, and we are a very small company. I'm just trying to make it clear that it seems like too much stuff is going through the cracks lately, specially stuff that shouldn't be happening because it has already happened before.

[TanukiD]

There is a reason that the creative industries are full of soulless grey suited bureaucrats. It's because creative people are so busy dreaming up the next cool idea they suck at boring business stuff. Never mind an RPG dev. Wyrd need to spend a soulstone to buy a suit..  

[paradoxstorm]

Typos and stuff happen, I can understand that.  But the comments about confused new players are spot on.  My time on the forums is limited and I will take long breaks.  For someone like me it is going to be nearly impossible to keep up on the errata and it is going to be frustrating when the more active player ruins my plan 'cause he knows about an errata I don't.

 

Not really sure you can fix this or stop it from happening, but to the extent that Wyrd can address it, they should.

[SpiralngCadavr]

The game has been really cool so far, but every time there's a random capitalization or clearly unintended word, it really takes us out of it. I hope I'm not upsetting anyone, but...

 

We've been reading through the TTB books this afternoon in particular, and it's pretty disappointing, honestly. It feels rushed, and like there are a lot of flaws that a professional editor wouldn't have missed.

 

I notice that both of their editors are also credited as writers- while writers are often good editors, it's not the same, particularly with a project of this scope and potentially while editing your own work. Even on the comparatively small projects I've worked on, anything with a serious budget has also warranted an outside professional editors. Does anyone know if either of the Wyrd editors are trained as such?

[Ratsmitglied]

Typos and stuff happen, I can understand that.  But the comments about confused new players are spot on.  My time on the forums is limited and I will take long breaks.  For someone like me it is going to be nearly impossible to keep up on the errata and it is going to be frustrating when the more active player ruins my plan 'cause he knows about an errata I don't.

 

Not really sure you can fix this or stop it from happening, but to the extent that Wyrd can address it, they should.

Errata/FAQ are released bimonthly (odd months) and downloadable from http://wyrd-games.net/community/files/file/21-malifaux-2e-faq-errata/

As such, it is easier to keep up-to-date with the errata/FAQ unlike previously when you'd have to check the rules forums regularly to do so.

In my experience, QC and editing are both much more difficult than they seem on the surface, and require a particular skillset to be able to do accurately and quickly - this is why it is possible to hire professional editors - which would be why some things are being missed before release (particularly things like the Arsenal Decks and figure scale)

[DeleteAccount]

I notice that both of their editors are also credited as writers- while writers are often good editors, it's not the same, particularly with a project of this scope and potentially while editing your own work. Even on the comparatively small projects I've worked on, anything with a serious budget has also warranted an outside professional editors. Does anyone know if either of the Wyrd editors are trained as such?

Oh god this may explain volumes. Having the guy that wrote something check it for mistakes tends to be an exercise in futility since they unconsciously get used to how it's done and gloss over flaws. Happens to me constantly as a programmer, since I know how it's supposed to work, I tend to avoid pitfalls without noticing when I'm supposed to be hard testing and smashing the thing all I can to see where it bleeds. This is supposing the write edits his own content. If it's that they write but then edit each others content it should work decently enough, but from what I'm hearing, more stuff came through in book two then one, so a third layer might be warranted. No idea, just throwing suggestions to the wind, no idea how much an editor costs, even if it's just as a freelance paying per word or however that works.

[Pierowmaniac]

I used to work as a CAD draughtsman for a good 12 years+ and would shudder at the thought of having to check my own work.

Even trained as I was to spot my own inaccuracies I accepted that checking other peoples work is the done thing to ensure nothing gets through the net.

 

Same principal goes for writing and editing in my eyes.

 

I do wish Wyrd would take on board some of the comments in this thread as constructive critique and put in place better and more rigorous editing and QC, even if it is just making sure a designer and writer of one game book doesn't also edit the same book.

 

I love the game and want it to stand out as the premium quality game in the market

[Lucidicide]

We are certainly not ignoring any criticism. No one likes errors, and we are going to do what we can going forward to ensure the highest quality of product.

[SpiralngCadavr]

That's great to hear- the Malifaux setting is probably my favorite, it's just frustrating when there are what feel like foreseeable errors which are uncorrected.

[monkeyboy30672]

I used to edit White Dwarf in the US for about 3 years while I was a photographer, then they hired a true professional to edit both the magazine and the web articles, plus anything else written by the US Studio. I am kinda a grammar and spelling nerd (though I write like I talk, which shatters grammatical rules incessantly), so I could do it, and I actually enjoy doing it. If any Wyrd folks wanna hire me, I'm totally down with that.

 

I grew up in SC, so I wouldn't mind moving to Atlanta.

[thebarbalag]

I'm as cheesed as anybody by the errors and production delays (ok, maybe not "as anybody," I'm a pretty chill guy), but I have this feeling that the Wyrd staff have been pulling their hair out about it.

 

Not that I think we shouldn't voice our concerns, it's our money that's buying the stuff, after all, but we should remember (as I think everybody in this thread so far is) to do so with compassion. We're the ones waiting ages for product, or buying messed up product, but for us, it's a game, for Wyrd, it's their life.

 

That said, I'll add my voice to the "fouled up models are way worse than typos" crowd, and the "writers make poor final editors or their own work" one as well. My wife is a professional writer, and there are always multiple editing passes done by people who aren't her before publishing.