I don't know....the silence can be related to the revamp of the wk forums. I mean they have to plan and initiate the plan. The 3 week break seems like an appropriate amount of time to prep for the actual work involved.

Wow. I first came in with Dark Age and walked out after Falcon's Prey because I didnt think the game would go anywhere without listening to its market. I recently decided to give MW another chance with my hard earned money and tracked down all new the units for my faction as well as the ones I missed.. just to see it come to this. Im hoping that things change for the better and actually think that the new packaging strategy might save me some money as a player but once bitten IS twice shy.

I like pudding.:laugh: :cool:

I posted a bit ago about the negative feelings towards Wizkids and the games. Mostly these were along the lines of "Wahhhh, I don't have my pieces, WK suX0rs lolz!11!1". At least Marauder put some rationale behind it. A good post to be sure. Now that someone has piece-meal identified the problems we face, I think we need to turn this around.

I propose an open letter from the fans at Realms and the fans at Wizkids to the higher level people at Topps. This letter should contain our concerns as consumers for a product line they might be considering dropping to try and boost their overall profit. Granted they may not listen, but I am considering something other than a single internet-signed petition.

I'm talking about FLOODING their mailroom. Personal letters sent from a LARGE number of their fans, detailing each and every concern they have for the product line they love. These letters MUST NOT be inflammatory. Remember, their job as managers is to improve profit in every way they can. They would not consider removing the game if there was not a serious problem SOMEWHERE. What our purpose is as responsible consumers is to help them find the problem and aliviate it. This also means we should voice our concerns in an appropriate and impacting manner. Hence the use of snail-mail; I imagine if they even got 50 paper letters from concerned consumers of their product, it might give them pause to reconsider the plans they have set in motion.

So that's my idea. I'll see about writing up a basic open-letter for people so if they simply want to print it out and mail it, that would be just fine. I will also see if I can get the address of Topps and the names of their Higher ups. If you want to write your own and send it, that is fine too. Just remember, be polite and considerate. These are everyday people and they don't work for the RIAA, so they still have their souls :-P Let them know how you feel.

I think it would be great if they could answer us. But I also believe they themselves dont know what direction to take or what to say to us. With most of the staff let go a few months ago.

I think their just waiting on Topps to tell them what to do. Either push ahead and continue Mechwarrior with the small battleforce sets, Solaris, and ??? until 2008, or to shut down production and clear out your desks.

Having started this thread, I feel a certain amount of responsibility.
To wit:

-WK's & Topps PR may indeed be struggling to send out a positive message in light of recent events both expected and unexpected.
-Three weeks is a not an eternity, though it seems like one online.
-There indeed may be web-based technical challenges in issuing news such as that which started this thread to particular audiences.
-WK's online support for MW has noticably declined. Note the lack of website updating. Yes I recognise that this may have been a marketing experiment gone awry, but its been months since there has been non-news substantive content.
-WK has become a loss center for Topps (see threads on Topps quarterly financial postings).
-Topps is more inversted in sports and comics
-WK has stated that this is a retooling year

My sense is that WK will play out the rest of product in the pipeline and then see what happens. The action packs are one way of doing this (recouping costs on unreleased scupts). Beyond that, I have no idea.

I want to make clear that I am not beating up WK or Topps. I respect the business realities with which they contend. MW may no longer be viable as a product line, period. I would regret that fact, but have very limited capability to change it. Having invested so much into the MW line, I believe that they would like it to continue, but they are not going to continually throw away money on a line that is unprofitable.

I think that ScoobySchmitty's idea is good but will fall flat if the letter writers do not buy boosters from their locaal store. $$$ speak louder than words.

It may also be worth considering that Topps's acquisition of WK may simply have been a strategic IP acquisition. HC are only going to appreciate as big budget blockbusters based on comics continue to issue forth from Hollywood. HorrorClix has a similar though weaker brand strength. Even Pirates has such an appeal. MW does not have a big budget hollywood film pushing its message to the masses. MW may just be jetsam.

All this being said, I enjoy playing MW and have a tidy collection of figs (all regular, unique and LEs from all sets for DF/HK & SW/WH/CW) that I will continue to use and play. I'll happily continue to buy figs if WK releases them; I just suspect that the MW product cycle is coming to an end and that saddens me.

I recall a two month break in the FAQ being updated, which prompted speculation that 'MechWarrior is dead!' Note that this was shortly after Liao Incursion, if I remember correctly.

WK personnel are also pulling duties across multiple lines.

Actually, with the release of Wolf Strike, WK would have most likely been at a 'clean slate' moment. With the layoffs over the summer, Outlaws would have still been in the development stage, and could have easily been written off since the expense of physical production wouldn't have been laid out yet. So every time I hear "WK is trying to clear the pipeline" or "clear out the warehouse" I shake my head, because they've already done it. WK considered Wolf Strike sold out months ago. Since then, they went back and started committing to the manufacture of new product.

WK has been burned repeatedly by attempting movie-tie-in product. The realities are that their production schedule is tighter and less flexible than a movie's. It's also a more serious commitment for WK than it is for most movie studios. Both Hulk and Catwoman had direct movie tie-ins. Both movies were flops. The Danger Room action pack was carefully scheduled to coincide with the original release date of X-Men 3, which then got rescheduled at the last minute. Armor Wars was carefully planned to coincide with the release of the Iron Man movie!

That's my point!

This is exactly what I wanted to ask.

There used to be a time when MechWarrior didn't have its own section of the web site. For a good chunk of MW's history, the people developing it never made an appearance on the forums--that pretty much started with Draddog. Previews used to be completely non-existant. For the first three sets the big reveal of what was in a set came on release day, and the few days after, or when someone managed to get a poster out of a case.

It's kind of like when people complain about repeat prizes. They've either forgotten or were not aware of the time when every event had the same four prizes, or every event for a month had the same prizes. We've been spoiled a bit by the level of communication we've had over the past couple of years, and unfortunately, with the reduced personnel at WK, we haven't enjoyed the same level of communication since the summer. Keep in mind that the people who work on MechWarrior work on most of the other WK game lines as well.

While the rest of your post was right, you forget that WK gave MWRealms some of the first previews of the first few MW expansions. You forget the tankdrop scare weeks before DFA? Or the double preview of the Stormhamer faction and the Field Arty? All long before DFA was released.

While the rest of your post does have merit, and I always forget that WK does have smaller number of employees all working double (maybe triple) duties. I find it hard to believe that it's been only 3 weeks since the update. Yep, I checked. Only 3 weeks. Wow.
Just when I post Qs in the WK forums, it seems to only get answered by players. Many whom have just as many unanwsered questions as I. All I wanted to know is if AP were going to include other units. Cards, infantry, vehicles, etc. and how they would be released (all at once, few at a time, one at a time, or something else). So far my Question has been ingnored.

Not good news for a BM that is lossing his venue, his place to introduce players to the game, and may lose what little compition I had in the area. See I gave up prizes long ago. Only the few raer ones did I hunt (pilots, certain gear/Mechs) that matched my playing stlye. See I play for the fun and have been known to give away some of the prizes I've won.

But I will still consider myself lucky that I have a table at home and enough room to have 4-6 guys over for fun.
Hoping the best for MW in the next seasons.
-LordNth

Well, I can't speak for the rest of the MW crew at WizKids. I know for myself that I'd rather hold off on the information, give it once, and have it be accurate. I don't like retracting statements; I like giving out inaccurate information even less.

I know it's vexing to not know. But I want to be correct in what I tell you.

Is that enough to restore your faith, or even offer you a small kernel of said? Heh. I wish it could. Your mileage may vary. And I don't expect you to believe me just because I say so.

But if Mechwarrior has no future, I've been putting an awful lot of time and energy into a black hole recently.

And I don't like wasting my time.

T-

Tony - Any idea when the WK forums will be back up? Curious timing and all that...

Joe & Rhonda

According to the Wk site, the forums will be up tomorrow.

As an IT person for a large corporation, I find the amount of downtime on the forums disturbing. Its one thing if it was just a place for players and staff to chat, but, as we all know, the Forums also hold a great deal of the tournament legal rules, in the form of clarifications and affirmations from staff and the Rules Arbitrator. Its actually a part of their product that has been unavailable for days now.

Hi,

Myself I am optimistic.

a) This game always makes a big impression on the 6-12 year old crowd and I think War Hammer style army sets and adding a Campaign map and some roleplaying will appeal to the older crowd. I think this is where they are headed with a nod to the longevity of Battletech.

b) After a spike in interest and a decline in 3-4 years, like in any product cycle, MWDA will continue in the same way Battletech has. As a small studio output product, with a core following and constant sales. A small group can keep it going and making a reasonable profit with opportunities for expansion when a new consumer cycle begins again.

2 pennies in 'ching'... 'ching'

^
The question remains, though, whether Topps will allow for the second possibility.

My belief is that they will not and Darcy's predictions for WK in 2007 will be realized.
Topps will never allow WK and its lines to simply be "small studio products".

There have been posts on both sides of the issue, WK and the MW line are going down hill and will die off or they are working really hard for the 2008 changes that will really excite us like the chat said.
Seeing this I know from a bit of experience working at small single shop stores to large international companies that information to the public can be sketchy, heck even information to the employees can by sketchy. Just look at the fact that WK let go/lost a good portion of their staff. People are pulling double duty and more. WK and Topps are corporations, corps. do not move fast. That should not be a surprise, the more people you have working on a single item the longer it takes. Scott Adams said it best with the amount of time it takes to get anything done is inversely proportional to the amount of people working on it (to paraphrase).
These people at WK are gamers, they think like us most of the time. They are working on a game that they know will have people pick and prod it to find loop holes in the rules and what mistakes they can find and exploit. You know those type of players, they are not fun to play with so let them take their time to "fix" the game.
I for one am NOT worried. I started with AoD and have bought from every expansion sense then and have bought/traded units from the older sets even when retirement was still in effect. I just like to play the game, lose myself in something other than work and school. Yes I have invested a good amount of money into it, but who hasn't in any hobby? This is one also one past time that really doesn't depend on how much you spend to play. I won't really care if the game dies; I will still play it with my friends and create our own games and probably our own house rules if the game loses WK support. Remember this is a GAME. This isn't your life or family, just a game. Enjoy it.