MajorTom11 wrote:


This thread is actually a perfect example of the kind of problems they may face. This is a thread created by a person looking to undermine the product. It was called critique but the person spent most of the beginning of it using it as his personal toilet in my opinion.

I wouldn't go that far. There's enough variation in what bob said that I don't think he's actively setting out to 'undermine the product'. He does praise occasionally as well as criticise. I think however, that he potentially kept playing on the same complaints over and over until the point had been hammered home with an electric drill, primarily, I suspect (as I said above), because he wasn't getting the specific type of response or acknowledgement he was hoping for. Unfortunately, that made him sound a little.....repetitive. But unlike one or two others, who seem to have just been stirring the pot for some sort of negative kick, I think he genuinely does actively want this game to do well. Certainly, he's said it several times alongside a genuine enthusiasm for a few of the products. For example;

BobtheInquisitor wrote:The drones are amazing and I am physically incapable of saying anything bad about them, except that they are too expensive. They need to be cheaper so I can buy more.

Yes, but that came later. At the beginning he said some, in my opinion, vile things directed at the team. Things like 'clearly no one checked anything, no one has any experience, there is no explanation other than the entire process being run by morons' (not a direct quote but pretty damn close) are not critique. They are conjecture, stated as fact, and are in no way anything but rude if you ask me. The fact he flip flopped a bit more later on doesn't change what he did to set a terrible tone in general.

But you are 200% entitled to disagree, that's just my take on it. Definitely, his more recent posts are a lot more polite and less aggressive... but that doesn't erase his previous actions for me.

EDIT: Still, my use of the term 'used it as his personal toilet though' is too dramatic and aggressive. You are right. So I apologize for that! Get carried away at times so though I don't retract the point of the content, I do apologize for being unnecessarily rude myself.

@MajorTom: I think we are almost in agreement then and as you write: Its gonna be a delicate walk going forwards to make sure dakka doesn't wind up as the Medge-only forums and everything else moves on Reddit or what not. But I can't even imagine that. Dakka gonna dakka for a long time!

 Gorlack wrote:
@MajorTom: I think we are almost in agreement then and as you write: Its gonna be a delicate walk going forwards to make sure dakka doesn't wind up as the Medge-only forums and everything else moves on Reddit or what not. But I can't even imagine that. Dakka gonna dakka for a long time!

I should hope SAS wants to avoid a Palladium or old GW forums type situation.

 Ketara wrote:


Let me pose a scenario for you here. Assuming you were correct (and that's a big assumption), and the Epirians are the worst thing to ever hit the market since the pumbagor (and I by no means think that is the case), you have a company that has dropped a sum in the six figures on bringing a new range of models to the market. They're running a kick-starter to drum up financial support for the new company, trying to get people excited about their game, and so forth.

What do you think the odds are that they'll do what you want, which appears to be holding up their hands and going, 'lol, sorry guys, our stuff is gak. Buy it anyway?' I mean, seriously, is that what you're after? Because SA has admitted that the models are a bit chunky when viewed closeup, but that's for a specific reason (heroic scale). They've explained the reason a number of things are the way they are, for various tooling reasons. But apparently, because they won't say, 'Yeah, our models suck' or 'This batch isn't great, but our next will be better!' in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign, it simply isn't good enough for you. At least, that seems to be my impression.

No, that is not what I am after. I am after, "When we produce the Epirian Elites/Women/whatever, we will send it back if it needs more work." Or something to the effect that they have developed some means to address the issue before the next products come out. In fact, Mantic had exactly the same problem when they released the Basilean Men at Arms, and Ronnie sent several updates describing Mantic's new contracts and preventative measures in order to smooth out the situation. That's pretty much what I'm looking fore. Reassurance.

The discussion of the upcoming female Epirians would have been a great time for SAS to address the issue and frame it in positive terms about improvements they will be making and what exciting new things await in Medge's glorious future that exists and is a thing that will happen. Much better than declaring that off topic and forcing us to address the topic through the lens of the extant and immutable Epirian Cpntractors, the understandably-imperfect first try mired in Medge's pre-Kickstarter past.

For the record, my premise is not that the Epirians are the worst miniatures around, but rather that they are the miniatures that have hurt Medge the most. Considering how they were one of the first sets shown to backers and set the tone and expectations of the campaign, I think it's fair to lay at their feet a lot of the blame for every potential backer who posted that they weren't pledging because they didn't like the miniatures. Many such backers called out the Epirians specifically.

Now, I in no way find that the models are half as bad as some people (or rather, about the same three people for 95% of it) have been harping on about. But that's because I'm lucky enough to live down the road from Lego, and to have seen the sprues/models in person (and that is literally the extent of my involvement in the whole thing). I've seen better miniatures, it's true. Yet I've also seen considerably worse. When all is said and done though, most of the things people have been complaining about the most actually don't strike you when you're looking at them in person. God only knows, the Cadians seem twice as chunky to me after seeing the Epirians. And some of the stuff done with the Minnows and the Hunters is really very technically clever.

This is good to hear. If the minis surpass the currently-low expectations on them when they reach the backers, this will create some positive feelings toward the game and help with word of mouth.

I agree that there are worse minis, much, much worse, but in the kickstarter game "not the worst" is not a winning hand.

As for the "same three people", there are a lot of posters who do not feel comfortable posting in these threads who have told me and others what they think. So many, that I find it distressing and have tried to convey the weight of that opinion to the people who need to hear it. Almost no one wants to say to Lego, "I don't like your product", but they have fewer qualms telling everyone else. Genuine criticism that matters is rare because it is often unpleasant to share.

Yes, the Epirians look a little wide when blown up to a big screen. Yes, one of the Karist heavies has a slightly awkward wrist. Nobody is denying these things. SA isn't denying them. People who like MEdge aren't denying them. They've acknowledged it, and in most cases, proffered an explanation as to why that is the case. Chalk it up as a miniature you do/don't like, and stop looking for an apology/retraction from the company for them.

I do suspect though, that what you're actually after (and not just you, but several people in this thread) isn't so much even about the current models anymore, or even some form of acknowledgement/apology from SA so much as it is a desire to influence (be it personally, or indirectly) the next batch of models. And whilst SA responds to your queries, the fact that it won't validate or acknowledge you as being right frustrates you, because it makes you think that if they've done something you didn't personally like this time around, sculpt-wise, they might do it again next time.

Well, yes, I am afraid they will do the same things again.

Attributing any opinion you don't agree with to petulance or narcissism is both easy and unhelpful.

And If that is the case squire, I think you might just need to relax, trust that your thoughts have been heard by anyone paying attention to MEdge here on Dakka (exceptionally loudly, personally speaking ), and come to terms with the fact that the company (and everyone else) will probably agree with you on some things, and not on others. But ultimately, SA will make what they want to make, and what they think their customers will buy. And if they're wrong, then the customers will vote with their feet.

If the customers vote with their feet, Medge will be stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debts they can't pay off, which is not something I want to see happen. Someone holds those loans, and I doubt they're cool with SAS just making what they want to make.


I would like to trust that I (or others) have been heard and understood, but that is not at all clear from the responses. The real problem is that there were so many ...helpful fans who rushed in to refute the criticisms that it created an endless set of responses and counter-responses that kept the same complaints visible for page after page. SAS responded infrequently, but many DCMs posted several times a week. And we responded to them. That magnified the criticisms well beyond their need, and really entrenched the two sides.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

No, that is not what I am after. I am after, "When we produce the Epirian Elites/Women/whatever, we will send it back if it needs more work."

The thing is, you seem to be working from the baseline assumption that this didn't happen this time , despite SAS pointing out the realities of the design process .

The fact that the end result isn't a miniature that you personally are happy with doesn't mean that the design process want followed through properly. It just means that the design process culminated in a miniature that you don't like.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Bob, I work in marketing. I own a marketing agency as a matter of fact. And sorry to break it to you, but you are a bit of a toxic consumer.

Tom, if you work in marketing, why didn't you help SAS more with their presentation? The game was stagnant for weeks, and its reputation outside of a very small circle was in deep trouble. Their reputation is in flux right now, and I would love to see them storm triumphantly onto the scene when they hit retail.



Also, as someone who owns a marketing agency, do you have access to a body of research that explains how cheerleading customs become toxic, why that happens to some businesses more than others, and/or what successful methods businesses use to mitigate them or win them back? Is there some marketing technique you could employ that might be more productive than blaming and shaming?

You say you support, but the vast majority of what you said was incredibly negative and some of it was massively rude, especially at the beginning/middle. In fact, I reported you for moderation more than once, but they chose to not moderate anyone in here, despite a few peoples protests to the contrary.

I'm curious what you reported me for. Please send me a PM so we don't clog the thread any further. I can only remember one or two times when I said things that were aimed to offend, and I did try to apologize.

On a similar note, did you report the guy who called me an "donkey cave" or do you only report posts that offend 'your side'?

(I generally report spam or racism, but learning about other reporting philosophies is informative.)

You probably did more damage than any other single person to SAS. In my opinion you were absolute poison. You are lucky they weren't willing to compromise their integrity and morals for the sake of good business practice and use the ability they had to get rid of you, because I would have in a heartbeat. They showed the patience of saints with you. And you were in my opinion the worst offender of claiming to be a supporter while acting like anything but... the opposite of a brand evangelist. Mostly because of the same 'my opinion is the only one that is correct' attitude a small numbers of others displayed coupled with your relentless posting and 'humour'.

First thing: I was not lucky not to be moderated. Rightly or wrongly, the Mods were stuck in a very unfortunate situation by the public perception of mod favoritism (whether or not it was real). Their hands were tied. Even if, hypothetically, I asked them to ban me for the good of the KS campaign, it would have been a disaster had they done so.

Now, onto the harder stuff. You say I was poison and did more harm than good. Please point out to me anyone who dropped a pledge because of me. I will be horrified if indeed, there is evidence that I cost SAS money and didn't notice it. However, I can point you to multiple posts in this thread, the other thread, and even in the project logs section, where potential backers have stated that they did not back or dropped their pledges because of SAS's supporters and white knights. (Send me a PM if you are interested in the list.)

My interpretation of the evidence is that my criticism did not convince anyone to hate Medge who didn't already dislike it, but a set of posters which probably includes you has indeed put people off the game. My "negativity" may not have been pleasant, but your side's ...anti-negativity has demonstrably hurt the kickstarter campaign.



You say I was not a supporter, but I have promoted this campaign on other websites and done more to bring awareness here than you would likely credit. I've pledged and stayed pledged despite a surprisingly high number of people telling me I shouldn't. If you would like to see what Medge anti-evangelism looks like, I'd be happy to share some with you by PM, with names and certain details removed to preserve anonymity.

Regarding the 'in my opinion' thing is absolutely vital if you can't tell the difference between subjective opinion and objective fact. REALLY important. You should use it all the time.

In your opinion.

'The customer is always right' is a great paradigm to use when pleasing said customer is both worth it and feasible. If said customer is using that reasoning to be unreasonable and malicious to the point of harming your business, then said customer is absolutely not worth it. No one needs customers like that. Sorry. I would have dropped you like a hot potato.

If I wanted to harm Medge, really harm them, I could have shared a number of thoughts here. PM if you would like to know more.


And "the customer is always right" has been bunk for decades.

Even now, you and Alex are relentlessly trying to drag the conversation back to negative things, some of which are completely fictitious, some of which are legitimate, some of which will never be resolved to your satisfaction. But you want to keep the tone where SAS is constantly on the defensive. You ignore anything you don't want to hear, including facts, and hammer away with your 'my way or the highway' opinions.

I have called for the conversation to move on to positive, forward-looking steps several times. However, like anyone else on a discussion forum I will respond to posts that address me, which creates a cycle.

My posts aimed at SAS were of the nature of "Here are what I see as your strengths and weakness. Please make the most of one and reduce the other. Here are some of my suggestions" Then others replied to argue with my points instead of making suggestions of their own, and my posts to them were arguments to support my case, and then they argued against my arguments, and here we are.

It seems you will be allowed to continue to do this, and that is their prerogative and I respect it. But if you can run around saying what you say, then others should be able to point out the nonsense of some of your allegations and undermine you as systematically as you try to undermine this project.

Yes. Feel free. It will produce a glorious chain of increasingly-polarized responses that will crowd out any posts that are actually helpful. But they are fun for lurkers to read, so...

I realize Alex is not likely reading my responses, but I don't really care, it's as much for anyone looking to recognize the tactics being used and to make sure you never get to say 'The over-moderated us!' or 'They don't listen to us' without a hard rebuttal. In my opinion, that is how you should be handled, no more free shots and unchallenged fictions.

I don't believe they have over-moderated us. I do believe that many posters feel as if they cannot post freely out of uncertainty over how the moderators will respond short term or long term. In short, there is a perception of potential moderator action that affects how people interact with Medge threads. I like to call this phantom menace Der Modergheist. Fear him for he is unreal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

No, that is not what I am after. I am after, "When we produce the Epirian Elites/Women/whatever, we will send it back if it needs more work."

The thing is, you seem to be working from the baseline assumption that this didn't happen this time , despite SAS pointing out the realities of the design process .

The fact that the end result isn't a miniature that you personally are happy with doesn't mean that the design process want followed through properly. It just means that the design process culminated in a miniature that you don't like.

It resulted in a miniature that received an order of magnitude more complaints than any other in the campaign, and which many have cited as a reason they have no interest in the range. That's a subtle but important difference.

How can I make any assumptions about SAS future endeavors when we were forbidden to ask about them because they were off topic? All I can do is extrapolate from what I see here and what SAS has said, which boils down to "Plastic minis are incredibly complex and we had to make sacrifices. That is unchangeable." Not exactly reassuring.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

djphranq wrote:
Read through the thread. What a poopoostorm. Mods were very gracious to let garbage like this go on this long. The title seems kind of misleading... not sure if I would use the word 'Discussion'. Don't want to say check your privilege... but check your privilege...

How dare customers know what they want and urge a struggling company to sell it to them with more skill and enthusiasm.

EDIT: Personally, I think what Spiral Arm has dished out so far in regards to Maelstrom's Edge is pretty dang good. Then again I like Karen Traviss so according to some my opinion could be suspect.

Yep.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:

I'm going to try to post something positive. I like all the miniatures that are part of MEdge so far, yes even the contractors. When I fist saw them I didn't like them at all really mostly due to the big metal shoulder pads, but even then I saw that a different paint job could work wonders. As a result of that line of thinking my opinion of the contractors changed. They are still the miniatures in the box that I like the least but I do at least like them. I'm also looking forward to having a look through the beta rules, not sure if I'll get an chance to play test them but I hope I do. I've always liked suppression systems in games and the system in MEdge looks pretty damn good. I do have to admit though that I will probably never use the tokens, instead I'll use different coloured dice simply because they'll take up less table space.

My first opinion was also that the contractors would be just fine with just a few bit-swaps. However, most people were not willing to give them a second chance. Very few people seem to be interested in minis that don't look good out of the box. I suspect the SAS team are made up of hobbyists who see minis for their potential, and thus are unable to understand that many gamers see minis through a lens of "what will prevent me from spending losing money money on this game"?

I like the tokens, but I'm not sure whether the rules are simple enough for my friends. The fiction is a huge draw for me, too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gorlack wrote:
@Tom:

I think you are right in many of your points about Bob and the gang (tm?), but you seem to be analyzing his behaviour in a vaccuum. For years Dakka has been the place where all the cool kids who probably smoke would go to hate and harp on GW games with next to no consequence from Mods - Hell, some of the mods have even started some of the derogatory meme's that constantly being posted on here.

You think there should be consequences for harping? Why?

But suddenly SAS appears and now it's not cool to hate. Now we should bring forward well thought out critique of models and buisness plans and delibarate considerations of wrist bending angles and what not, and I think that some users just wasn't clued in on the fact that the cool thing now was keeping an open mind and just reviewing the product objectively. And I think you as a mod need to realize that you have a lot of the responsibility of this culture of harsh criticism instead of threatening users with "what you would have done to them".

Reviewing the product objectively can come across as very negative indeed for those who value different aspects of the hobby.

For example: Objectively, only a tiny fraction of Dakka's users saw Medge as a purchase worth $90.

My question is "why?" I believe it is because the presentation gave potential backers a negative first impression, and things spiraled from there.

But now the product is funded so lets hope the debate about this round of products will soon die out so we can get to discuss a potentially great ruleset. So, Great News! It's time to go back hating on the H-h-h-hobby again and let SAS do their work

I agree with that. I'd love to see some discussions on the game, the rules, campaigns, fluff, conversions, etc. Probably shouldn't participate in them, sadly. I suspect people will assign meanings and motives to my posts that wouldn't be there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MajorTom11 wrote:


Frankly i would personally consider not turning your subjective statements into objective ones to be part of rule #1, be polite. Imagine the tone change if it were just generally enforced? Everyone still gets their opinion, its just a lot tougher to express it in a super offensive fashion as it limits the scale of implication? Im not a Mod anymore, but that is something i genuinely feel would help this place mitigate what you describe a bit.

Do you read editorials or have real life discussions? Typically, one can assume that everything is opinion outside of a peer-reviewed journal. It seems like you would wage war over a lack of qualifiers.

Finally, i personally don't believe Anyone, including the creators, should be pretending Medge is the same as any other game here. As a matter of principal, it sounds nice, but it makes no sense ultimately to me. The public will always be hyper sensitive in this forum to any perceived pro SAS action. Meanwhile this actually shackles the team from acting in any way 'just like anyone else' and they in turn are hypersensitive to offending said public in this forum and tie their own hands from using the powers they possess to say, get rid of poison clients hurting their business seemingly for nothing but kicks.

On the one hand, their hands are tied to get rid of people who criticize their business. On the other hand, name a game forum with the kind of active moderation you are describing and I'll name you an internet ghost town.

Plus, everyone knows the creators are right here. We arent talking about some abstract presence of a monolithic corporation, or petsonalities who are not present or active here. Its kinda like gossip, you say things things behind 'closed doors' that would not be cool to say to the persons individual face. GW as a company gets a lot of crap, but it is an an abstract here. We actually did discourage personal attacks on individuals like Ward or Romeo though. It was all how things were worded. Basically rule one applies most to our members, and can be looser on faceless corporations in my view.

And by way of that explanation, SAS is literally entirely here, all the time. Pretending it isn't different when it is does't mechanically work for me.

That being said i find it extremely unfair the sentiment that them acting on their own behalf is unfair or predatory. They have a business now, and i dont think they should be handicapped into inactivity because their is an expectation for them to not leverage any of the advantages owning this forum should bring at all. They seem to be genuinely attempting this though, and good for them, in principal, even if I think that is a mistake business wise and a bit unrealistic in the long term.

It doesn't have to be unfair to be bad business. Dakka is the largest gaming forum for a reason. Taking away that reason would also strip the site of many of its advantages to SAS.

So, based on all the above, i have no problem calling out Bob or any of the handfull of others, i think we know who they are, and defending SAS here. GW isn't on this forum as a company. They are. GW didnt build this place and gift it for all of us to use for free, they did. I won't make things up to enact that defense, nor do I seek to eliminate critique or anyone's fundamental right to their own opinions or expressing them. But yeah, if you express those opinions in an absolutely unneccesarily rude way, or start trying to install lies as defacto facts that hurt people you know are right there in the room with you so to speak, i don't see why anyone needs to pretend it's not to their face.

Point out any provable lies, please.

You make a lot of accusations and admit you would be fast and vindictive acting on them. However, I have not seen you post anything that couldn't be chalked up to your opinion.

Essentially, if you ran Dakka you would ban or drive away every poster you disagreed with. That seems like it might undermine the site and any associated gaming community.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MajorTom11 wrote:

This thread is actually a perfect example of the kind of problems they may face. This is a thread created by a person looking to undermine the product. It was called critique but the person spent most of the beginning of it using it as his personal toilet in my opinion.

Now that's just a bit far there. (No yellow triangle, though.) If I was trying to undermine the product, I would have done a far better job and had more fun doing it. Mostly, I've been collating the opinions and criticisms put forward by the people who chose not to pledge, trying to figure out why Medge did so poorly (relative to its potential and competition) on day 1, and trying to figure out how to correct or minimize those conditions.

The beginning of the thread was before Medge had gone live, when I was operating under the assumption that it would be a runaway success that could withstand some gentle ribbing. After it had became clear that Medge was underperforming, the humor comes across much less upbeat.

I was and still am trying to treat Medge like I would any other kickstarter. Posters use humor to express themselves, bond and have fun. That is how many threads are. Or do you think we've been flaying Dreamforge, Reaper, Paulson Games, and so on? Do you see all teasing humor as a barrage of insults?

Others adopted the same tone, some gave constructive critique too. But nobody, anywhere, got moderated.

The mods, and Lego and Yak, acted with a lot of integrity. A lot. They turned more cheeks than human anatomy should afford anybody lol... And some of the stuff early on in here, for any company but SAS, would have gotten MOD action, trust me. They afforded themselves LESS protection than others on here, not more.

Are you serious stating this thread dished out worse than you've seen for any other company?

Despite this, some people had the temerity to accuse them of not only stifling them but intensely moderating them. And they were getting away with it too until I had enough weren't they?

I've seen enough moderator action on this site motivated by personal dislike to question how much temerity you think it takes to assume the worse. I admit I have been very uncharitable concerning the motives for certain moderators' actions.

And this shows exactly what the 'specialness' of SAS is here on Dakka. All their integrity, unless recognized and defended, doesn't do much if they don't get credit for it. If it isn't recognized and spoken about. It might as well not be happening if no one says it. And Dakka staff, for better or worse, really don't ask for recognition or point out what they do almost at all. Because they have the integrity to be satisfied just knowing they did it, they don't seek praise.

But that will have to change for SAS I feel. Because any action they take will be considered 100X more severe because it will be perceived as abuse of power, they need regular users to step up for them when people are trying to spread malicious lies. They need people to 'see' so lies like that can't entrench themselves and dominate the conversation, wasting everyone's time and energy on a fiction. They need loyalty from the audience, not just appreciation. Most certainly they will need to earn and maintain that loyalty by doing the right thing and delivering their promises, and making a better and better product for you guys. But they can't just do it, they need to point it out to make sure it is noticed. They can't just be the quiet nice guy in the corner anymore, a little charisma needs to be injected and a little bit of sticking up for themselves via stating what they do in a way that is very against their nature will be needed.

SAS is special, basically, in that it needs to strike a crazy balance between being impartial with one hat on and yet still be able to transparently pursue their business with integrity with another hat on. It will be a fine line. But other companies don't have to worry about not being full on for their own product or being as available to their audience as some will expect SAS to be. It is not special at all in any way that requires anyone to like it if they don't, or to not offer any criticism they have so long as it follows rule #1 (which is univeral and SHOULD apply to them too! And mods for that matter lol!).

I hope this better represents my meaning! Thanks for the response though and the debate -

I think your call for Dakka's iron glove is far more distracting to the conversation than any viewpoint you don't understand "fiction".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I want to take this time to thank the moderators, actually. Despite the perception of overbearing moderation, there has actually been a very light touch in the Medge threads since the campaign opened (with one exception that I harped on quite a bit. Sorry, Insaniak).

I think the reaction of some of the superfans has been misinterpreted to have the blessing of the moderators, especially since [DCM] tags sometimes look like [MOD] tags. Many people have told me they were worried about moderator action due to previous experiences in other threads, importing a sense that this thread is at risk for heavy moderation when it really isn't. The moderators have done nothing untoward here.

Most of the moderators are people I have had some kind of non-moderation interaction with. They are nice people. Some of them seem as upset or more as we are at the reputation the Medge threads have for heavy moderation. I use the word perception because that is what it is. Everything I've seen leads me to believe the mods backed off right away when the campaign started and stayed as neutral as possible, which could not have been easy.

Bob you are too much man... your ability to twist remains astounding. Re-read. Try to eake out what I was saying and not what you want me to be saying so you can make yourself a victim. Or don't. Since you seem not to be able to recognize the difference between your opinion and facts, and believe your opinion should be the standard, there really isn't much point in debating with you. I can only say after reading that response, I remain perfectly comfortable with my previous assertions regarding your actions.

(I did lol though, at this:

MajorTom11 to Bob: You say you support, but the vast majority of what you said was incredibly negative and some of it was massively rude, especially at the beginning/middle. In fact, I reported you for moderation more than once, but they chose to not moderate anyone in here, despite a few peoples protests to the contrary.

Bob to MajorTom11: I'm curious what you reported me for. Please send me a PM so we don't clog the thread any further. I can only remember one or two times when I said things that were aimed to offend, and I did try to apologize.

LOL... you require an answer from me? It was probably those ones my astute friend, the ones where you admit you knew you were being offensive? And that means you should have been moderated, so I certainly hope my former peers are taking note of both that and your admission you knew they were hands off and the implications there-in.)

I have to wonder why so much drama over a new game, both for and against. It has certainly gained more critical attention than most games on Dakka. I and others have made reasonable comments against (mostly on the miniatures). Many have made strong comments for.

What makes this game so special that it requires a 21 page alternative discussion that mostly revolves around how the discussion of this game has been carried out?

I can't see this as being just a result of the naysayers either. What is so special about this one that has made so many gamers (who are normally a very cynical bunch of gits) so defensive of the game creators?

Dust has it's ongoing kickstarter problems, Mierce has a horrible history to get over and everyone knows the bloody problems with GW. It would be a crying shame if, before the game is even released, SAS gets a reputation for so much ridiculous drama.

 Henry wrote:
I have to wonder why so much drama over a new game, both for and against.

I agree. The KS didn't move in the direction I wanted, so I quietly withdrew. I can't fathom the arguments that are essentially ''well it's not what I wanted'' and how the thing should be changed to suit.

Certainly, I don't think that so much petty drama can't help the game's reputation.

As a quick mod note, as Henry and Akragth point out, we've gotten a bit far afield in this thread now... it's "Dakka Dakka" not "drama drama"

Perhaps it'd be best if everyone take a deep breath, and remember that all sides have made very valid points. Everyone posting on this site (almost by definition!) loves using Dakka, and wants the best for its game and creators, and have much more in common than they might otherwise, in the heat of the moment, think!

Soon, this thread won't be needed as we'll have a separate section with distinct threads for discussion of Maelstrom's Edge, just like any other game subsection on Dakka Dakka. For now we will leave it open, but please limit comments to the topic (Maelstrom's Edge miniatures, art, and books) and if you want to debate something, attack the argument, not the poster!

Thanks all

Oh RITides, always the face of amicable, rational discussion

I realize fulfilling the KS is the big target now, but I'm wondering when we might start to see ideas for future expansions of the game. Or perhaps the few missing miniatures- how might they be turning out?

Well, my main interest besides the minis will be the fiction, so I'm going to talk about them. After the Hunter, I feel like Martin has hit his stride. I would like him to write similar stories for each of the factions, including ones we have not seen yet. Ideally, he could cover all f the game units in action, what each faction is about, and how they interact.

I would also like to see a story set in space with a fairly massive space battle or space chase. Better yet, make a spaceship-set audio drama that we can play at the local FLGS to get psyched for the card game. If there is a big campaign, I would love to hear the audiobook voice guy narrate the opening and some Wasteman-style batreps. He could sell me a car with that voice.

On that note, I would really like to have PDF transcripts of the audiobooks to read, since I have trouble finding time or focus for audiobooks. Full length novels will hopefully be available for POD or normal paperback. Will there be physical faction books with art, rules and fluff? I would buy those for reasonable (40k 4th edition) prices.

I wonder what the odds would be of getting Alastair Reynolds and Karin Lowachee to record themselves playing a narrative game...

Akragth wrote:

 Henry wrote:
I have to wonder why so much drama over a new game, both for and against.

I agree. The KS didn't move in the direction I wanted, so I quietly withdrew. I can't fathom the arguments that are essentially ''well it's not what I wanted'' and how the thing should be changed to suit.

Certainly, I don't think that so much petty drama can't help the game's reputation.

This. I almost dropped my pledge more times than I can count on my finger. I feel as if being on both sides of the fence really burnt me out of the discussion threads quick.

 RiTides wrote:
As a quick mod note, as Henry and Akragth point out, we've gotten a bit far afield in this thread now... it's "Dakka Dakka" not "drama drama"

Perhaps it'd be best if everyone take a deep breath, and remember that all sides have made very valid points. Everyone posting on this site (almost by definition!) loves using Dakka, and wants the best for its game and creators, and have much more in common than they might otherwise, in the heat of the moment, think!

Soon, this thread won't be needed as we'll have a separate section with distinct threads for discussion of Maelstrom's Edge, just like any other game subsection on Dakka Dakka. For now we will leave it open, but please limit comments to the topic (Maelstrom's Edge miniatures, art, and books) and if you want to debate something, attack the argument, not the poster!

Thanks all

No, thank you.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
One thing about the rules: in a recent update, SAS described the rules as cinematic. I love that. It made the suppression mechanic click to me. From the perspective of seeking out the elegance of minimal upkeep, the tokens seem like a time burden. Now, I see the mechanic more from the perspective of ...forging a narrative. I'm really eager to houserule the suppression tokens thusly:

-Every time a token is placed on the board, the attacking player must make a sound like "pshoom", "boozh", "pkow", "blam" or "thup-thup-thup".
-Every time a token is removed, the defending player must make a sound like "ping", "pyeeoorn", "whifff", or "I ain't got time to bleed."

Amazing. Why aren't you on the rules design team again?

This is actually a really great idea, it never quite clicked with me (the cinematic bit) until you said this. This should definitely make the game more... dynamic