Free M2E stats cards in pdf format are worth fighting for .. don’t You think so?

[Cronus3166]

Summarising: I fully second the author of this thread. Wyrd, don't be greedy like certain other, well known company from Europe!

I feel that ship sailed away when they made the active choice of not including all the models in the first beta, forcing their fan base to buy at least 2 new books to have all the rules for models they've purchased already and have stats for. I was greatly displeased when they mentioned that they would be doing 2 waves of the beta. They're not doing what's best for the game by splitting up the betas, they are just doing what is best for their wallets. So I highly doubt we'll ever see a pdf.

[thebarbalag]

Reproducing rulebook pages is not a good solution. Easier is to make changes to Beta Cards. This will be legal?

Technically? Probably not. However, as I said, if you keep it to yourself, the likelihood that anyone will find out, let alone care is relatively small. I don't endorse it, personally.

[Forar]

Wyrd already has a service to sell cards for models you don't have. It would be no effort for them to stick with that model.

Have you actually used that service? Their S&H for $3 in cards is $16, last time I checked, as the system uses a small Flat Rate box, rather than the actual distance in question to determine the cost.

Also, while 50 cents per card isn't terrible to add onto another order if you lose or destroy a couple, I highly doubt people would be excited about paying $5 or more per crew in replacements. That cost would need to be closer to 10 cents per card (with reasonable S&H) before it'd be remotely palatable, and that's before the considerations of shipping times, and the warehouse would probably collapse under the weight of thousands of orders all showing up within the span of a couple days.

Note: I am in no way arguing they should be giving out free cards, as per the base topic. I still think that'd be crazy (given their actions as a company over the last year and a half that I've been watching).

But the Wyrd online store and distribution system would probably need extra people and a serious revision to accommodate supplying global demand for updated cards.

---------- Post added at 11:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 AM ----------

Reproducing rulebook pages is not a good solution. Easier is to make changes to Beta Cards. This will be legal?

Depends on what you mean by "legal".

If you mean "Could I take this to a tournament and play with them?" No. Wyrd tournament rules require use of Wyrd produced cards.

If you mean "Could I take this to a casual table and play with them?" Yes, in that the likelihood of Wyrd pursuing legal action over such a move is so close to zero we'd need a new form of science to discover the actual value.

But as noted, that's personal use. If you decided to fire up your printer and begin mass producing cards to sell to local players, someone might take issue. As with many things, people often don't care all that much until tangible financial harm can be established.

[Duck21]

I don’t know if it’s relevant, but a game called Bushido (some of you may have heard of it). Had a big rules update earlier this year, all the stat cards got changed. And they chose to replaced everyone’s cards for free. I had nearly all miniatures released to that point, so it could have cost me.

[caen]

OK, so I need Rulebook and Arsenal Boxs wave I and wave II for:

- Guild

- Neverborn

- Outcasts

- Ressers

- Arcanists

- Gremlins

I suppose it will take me some time to buy it all. I plan to focus in the begining on one fraction and slowly expand my interest on additional one or two.

Edited July 25, 2013 by caen

[HalcyonSeraph]

Unfortunately, that's not exactly true. Just because you bought something does not mean you have permission to reproduce it, even for personal use, in the US, at least. Whether or not anyone cares is a different issue.

I am positive that photocopying game stats out of a book for personal use in a more convenient tabletop form is an example of Fair Use.

---------- Post added at 01:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 PM ----------

I feel that ship sailed away when they made the active choice of not including all the models in the first beta, forcing their fan base to buy at least 2 new books to have all the rules for models they've purchased already and have stats for. I was greatly displeased when they mentioned that they would be doing 2 waves of the beta. They're not doing what's best for the game by splitting up the betas, they are just doing what is best for their wallets. So I highly doubt we'll ever see a pdf.

You should think things through before you say them. How big a book do you think it would have to be to have every model from books 1-4 in New Book 1? And I assume you still want fluff in that book too. How many pages do you think that would take? How much do you think that book would cost? How much useful information do you think they would have gotten if they beta'd everything at once and didn't focus the testing at all?

Betaing every model in the game all at once was never a practical possibility. Neither was a single book with models from 4 other books plus fluff and art. Even the faction decks would cost, wait for it, twice as much if they had to be twice as large.

[Jonasty]

It's been mentioned before but just to chime in again. I'd be totally happy and hope that Wyrd offers electronic pdfs/cards for sale in addition to the physical ones. There are tons of people who use various devices for gaming which would help them immensely and it would also help address the crazy S&H for folks overseas. If they're ordering something else online then they can tack on a pack of cards as needed but if all they need are the cards, they don't have to pay an arm and leg to get them.

Requesting they give them away for free is fine but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[HalcyonSeraph]

It's been mentioned before but just to chime in again. I'd be totally happy and hope that Wyrd offers electronic pdfs/cards for sale in addition to the physical ones. There are tons of people who use various devices for gaming which would help them immensely and it would also help address the crazy S&H for folks overseas. If they're ordering something else online then they can tack on a pack of cards as needed but if all they need are the cards, they don't have to pay an arm and leg to get them.

Requesting they give them away for free is fine but I wouldn't hold my breath.

An app like the Warmahordes one would be amazing and I would buy it in a second.

[Squirrelfreak]

I would like to see an app too. And I don't even own a smartphone.

It can be updated and it can't be illegally distributed (I think so anyway)

I don't think they will give them away for free (pdf's I mean). It's a company and if you have to exchange all the cards then they would lose a lot of money I think.

A company with a game like boshido is a small company and exchanging all the statcards there is not a huge cashinvestment. Besides, even wyrd did so in the past with their V2 cards for certain book one models.

If Boshide would develop more and have more modesl, I don't think it would be viable for them to excange all the cards ass well.

But maybe what I'm saying is allready said like 10 times. Sorry I didn't read the entire thread

[Math Mathonwy]

I take your point that they weren't going to refuse to sell M2E cards separate from the models, but Wyrd already has a service to sell cards for models you don't have. It would be no effort for them to stick with that model. I'm simply saying that, as a UK player with an existing collection, I appreciate being able to buy them off shop shelves. I'm also saying that Wyrd won't be making much money off them and that sales will drop extremely rapidly after M2E's initial release.

No, my point was that the uproar would've been gigantic. I know I would've abandoned Malifaux right then and there, if the only options of getting the new cards would've been through their own webstore from the US paying outrageous shipping and tolls (not Wyrd's fault, mind you) or by buying the minis again. Most people here would've dropped it then.

While we're talking about what's "patently insane", are you aware of any of those companies with card-based miniatures games releasing said cards for free?

How many examples do you want? Eden, Bushido, 1650, and Hell Dorado just to name a couple. Infinity doesn't use cards, but they give out all their rules and stats out for free (as do all others with the exception of Hell Dorado). If you want more names, I can give them.

It's not a falsehood, and what you are saying supports my point.

Eh? What you said was a falsehood and no, what I said didn't support your point.

Historically Wyrd has been extremely customer-friendly when doing business releasing the rules manual for free as a PDF and so on. I can very easily see them releasing the old minis' cards as PDFs.

[Adran]

I feel that ship sailed away when they made the active choice of not including all the models in the first beta, forcing their fan base to buy at least 2 new books to have all the rules for models they've purchased already and have stats for. I was greatly displeased when they mentioned that they would be doing 2 waves of the beta. They're not doing what's best for the game by splitting up the betas, they are just doing what is best for their wallets. So I highly doubt we'll ever see a pdf.

If anything I would say that the beta had too many models in for pratical purposes.

The last I heard is that they are doing a short run of wave one and wave 2 Arsenal boxes, with a full faction box being a likelyhood next year. That may well change/have changed as I heard it on the Podcasts and they were clear to point out that that area of the company is nothing to do with them.

Now I have no idea on the costings, but would imagine the full faction box costs less then the 2 wave boxes, with the down side of having to wait till the game is released. So you might only need the Rule book, and 1 Arsenal box to get your crews.

or 2 books to own all the stats for the approx 250 different figures the game has produced so far

[Ausplosions]

I'm sure that wave two will not be released along with a book. Just decks.

[caen]

I'm sure that wave two will not be released along with a book. Just decks.

It was mentioned in the podcasts announcing M2E.

WYRD Staff also stated in this Podcasts that they may consider some kind of Army Books in the future.

[HalcyonSeraph]

I'm sure that wave two will not be released along with a book. Just decks.

I'm not. I don't think we know anything one way or the other. Could be a book 2, could just be cards.

[Forar]

Maybe it's my (not actual) OCD showing, but I'd find it very odd to have one book with a ton of characters and then a second pile of characters that aren't in a book.

Also, the books are good as 'catalogs', giving me an opportunity to peruse through to decide on models I might want to grab in my faction, or branch off to another faction, or just read up on what the opposition is capable of doing.

Having all of the model info available in one (well, two) place(s) seems like a pretty solid idea.

And I could swear we were told there'd be a Book 2 outright, perhaps during a podcast info dump back when M2E was announced?

[HalcyonSeraph]

And I could swear we were told there'd be a Book 2 outright, perhaps during a podcast info dump back when M2E was announced?

All the infodumps have blurred together for me, but I can't remember if we ever were told that. We were definitely told there would be two waves, and people started using Book 1 and Book 2 as shorthand for those pretty quickly, but I don't think we were ever explicitly told that there would necessarily be a physical book for wave 2.

[Forar]

All the infodumps have blurred together for me, but I can't remember if we ever were told that. We were definitely told there would be two waves, and people started using Book 1 and Book 2 as shorthand for those pretty quickly, but I don't think we were ever explicitly told that there would necessarily be a physical book for wave 2.

Huh.

A quick jump to this page indicates you may be onto something there.

How will it release?

May 31st will see the public beta rule release - you can play for free!

Phase 1 will be out for August at Gencon (October for the rest of us) - will cover V1.5 book 1 models plus 3 Ten Thunders crews and 3 Gremlins.

Phase 2 will be out after the end of the year (Dec 2013) and cover all the rest of the models.

Feb 2014, Malifaux 2.0 is Tournament standard (until then its 1.5).

Phase 1 will see new book plus faction decks released with cards for models covered. Additionally new (plastic) boxsets will be available (see Rasputina below)

Phase 2 will see supplementary faction decks released.

Faction decks should be relatively inexpensive.

Now makes me wonder if Book 1 will even contain card stats. It could just be another assumption, when in reality they could simply go with releasing all of the rules and fluff they intend to in one book, and leave the stat cards for actual unit info.

But that seems a bit backwards to me. I've always used the books as a source of info, both as sort of a "hrm, what do I want to buy" and "oh god, what can those other crews do!" Knowing the stats of the models was a big part of helping me choose what to buy. We can't seriously be expected to make such choices blindly, or will the conceit of the Faction Decks be that they're basically a catalog you need to pay an extra bit of cash to gain access to? Sort of a larger micro-payment system to cross factions? Obviously the boxes themselves will come with cards, but if I don't know what something does, I'm not going to pony up $10-50 for it without a really good bit of convincing otherwise.

[Guy in Suit]

Then just buy the faction decks...

[TroyPerez]

I feel sorry for Leveticus and Marcus players who have to buy multiple faction decks in order to run everything they have access too. I support PDF cards for this reason. Or I will be asking for people who have the cards I need to send me copies of them so I don't have to buy 8 faction packs in order to get all the beasts, undead, or constructs I can get.

[dgraz]

I feel sorry for Leveticus and Marcus players who have to buy multiple faction decks in order to run everything they have access too. I support PDF cards for this reason. Or I will be asking for people who have the cards I need to send me copies of them so I don't have to buy 8 faction packs in order to get all the beasts, undead, or constructs I can get.

As a Marcus player, I wholeheartedly agree with this.

[HalcyonSeraph]

Yeah, cross factioners are hit a little. But if you don't want to buy the Resser deck for the Canine Remains or the Neverborn deck for the Silurids, you can always just play tyhose models out of the book.

[Squirrelfreak]

But aren't we all completists and want to collect them all

[Mike3838]

I always imagined the faction decks as being marketed to existing M1E players only, who have models but need cards.

Going forwards, I expected the stats to be in the book (and cards to be in future purchases), so there'll be no need for anybody to be buying faction decks come this time next year.

[dgraz]

Yeah, cross factioners are hit a little. But if you don't want to buy the Resser deck for the Canine Remains or the Neverborn deck for the Silurids, you can always just play tyhose models out of the book.

That is absolutely not an answer. So if I'm playing with Canine Remains and a Silurid I'll need to flip back and forth between those pages in the book? And what about the next book....and I want to play with Night Terrors or whatever else they plan to throw in as beasts.......so now I have to flip pages and switch between books? Awesome.

[caen]

I always imagined the faction decks as being marketed to existing M1E players only, who have models but need cards.

Going forwards, I expected the stats to be in the book (and cards to be in future purchases), so there'll be no need for anybody to be buying faction decks come this time next year.

Faction deck will be needed much, much longer - or WYRD will have to repackage with M2E cards all available blister and boxes. What will be told to the person who will buy in next year misaki box produced before M2E was announced if there will be no Faction Decks available? - play v1.5 or use the pages from the book?