While at Gencon, I came to a realization that competitive play is no longer a viable resource for Wizkids to rely on.
17 players at a Worlds tournament just seemed sort of ridiculous to me.

So I went to the WOTC hall and noticed there were over 200 people having a blast playing DDM and SWM. The environment just felt more positive.

So I signed up for the SWM prerelease and played.
WOTC ROB had a seminar with players and he mentioned DCI sanctioned events will be put into motion for SWM. He also mentioned how extensive playtesting was the number 1 priority in a DCI type environment for a 3d minis game.

About Topps, it just makes sense.
Why else would they be putting LE's in boosters?
Why else do World rankings seem to have less and less importance?


A company executive board stares at graphs all day.
They don't think "wow, if we give, they will buy more!"
They look at a chart that shows the revenue from this month to this month and brainstorm ideas to make it better (which none of Wizkids staff is present except maybe Jordan Himself) .

They see the annual loss of revenue from Campaign freebees and adjust accordingly ( hence no more campaign send aways) . They see the patterns in the consumer's interest based on how much of X product sold during any given season and adjust accordingly (release expansions during X-mas/right after X-mas season)
They look at a chart that shows them how much money Wizkids made in a given period and compare to how many Wizkids employees are on payroll.They then compare costs of production lines with profit margin and adjust accordingly (hence 1/2 of Wizkids staff fired and low Quality control standards in production( Falcons Prey had some insane dial errors and broken/misplaced limbs on sculpts)

Since all Wizkid games have relics/cards now I wouldn't be surprised if they just started giving away cards only at tournaments.... er... wait... they alredy have.


Not that Topps is the antichrist or anything but theres a time when you have to be like "ok, this company is no longer Wizkids at all. Ever since Jordan Sold out, Wizkids as a gamers company has become worse."

Wizkids used to be a great name. Now its just Topps.
Topps should have just stayed with Baseball cards.

Wizkids was a great company. But now, its nothing more than

Topps

I play mostly board games and they are the gaming world's best deal (other than a pack of cards). I second the post about Heroscape, that looks waaaay cool. I've found Warhammer to actually be a much better product than MK simply because there is so much free support for zillions of other games you can play with the figures, plus your imagination.

Collectible games is a business model not a game.

What's the big deal with SWM? Do they have the same core rules as the D&D minis game? Why do you also get fewer minis per booster compared to D&D? I dunno about this one...

David:

What stops you from using your MK figures in other games (at home ofcourse)? I've been playing Mordhiem for years with my extra MK figs and I don't have a problem with that from other players.

Besides, who says you can't take the support from other games and use them in Mage Knight? Or Warmachine? Or Void? Or any other miniature game?

that's the beauty of miniature games, when MK goes under (if ever) I will still have TONS of mini's I can use for other games. And frankly, I can use mini's from other games in MK if I so desire. I especially use the GW support books. The skirmish senarios they released a few years ago are just awesome and would take very little effort to port over to MK. I know, I've done it. I've played both games, love both games, and use which ever models I want. It's not a big deal to me and EVERY piece in my MK collection is equally valuable to me.

I don't see the point of comparing one miniatures product to another miniatures product. Espeically when all your comparing is packaging. The ONLY thing that seperates miniature products is the rules and the look of the figures. That is it. Everything else is really comparable. Higher cost usually means higher quality (in sculpt or support), prepackaged just means paying less for a massed produced figure. Either one is still payable in ANY game I wish.

If I don't play a game system it's because I don't care for the rules. It's not the figures. It's not the cost. I don't play tourney games and the people I play with at home don't care what company a figure came from. As long as the game is FUN we will support it.

I hope they make droids for SW... the Battledroid army from Episode 1 would be so awsome to use in a conquest style game.

Hexian, if you're so obsessed with SW, why don't you get the hell out of here and leave us alone? I think they have a very nice forum(with no negative threads). I hate such people who just pester these forums, and trying to get other players for their game. If that game is soo good, it will have many players soon, no need to recruit here.

Btw. i don't really know what's all the negative stuff anyways? They made a few mistakes(K-Bow, SM and Spirit armor). OMG! 3 bad cards! 2.0 is way better than 1.0 with way more possibilities, and as Sorcery will come out, this will expand. The World Championship was messed up, i hope WK learns from it, and they will do(or at least try) as WotC does.

So much for civil discourse...

Always remember, tact is for people who aren't witty enough to be sarcastic... :D

Laugh all you want, but i think these people make much more damage for the game than the failures WK makes. This reminds me of politicans...

No, I am not going to leave it at that. Folks, grow up. There is absolutely no, and I MEAN ABSOLUTELY NO, reason that we cannot be civil to each other on this site. Personal attacks are not warranted. Leave each other alone if you cannot respond in a civil manner.

Okay, let's try it again.

Hexian, please leave us, who still want to play this wonderful game, alone, and go to another forum, where people embrace you as a SW lover. Please stop advertising, because it's not nice. Please don't reply to this, because you should even be reading this.

Is this better? :D

You know, I'm an active mage knight player who has bought a lot, and I'm supporting the love of the SWMG just as much if not moreso than Hex. What's wrong with a little competition between minis games? Not confident enough that Mage knight can stand up to a comparison?

For poor confused Hexian, and hopefully without turning this into a D&D discussion board . . .

There is an organized play system for D&D. It is called the RPGA. It covers not only their baseline games, but also has a few independent, third party campaigns, that are supported. (Think of that like WizKids recognizing and rating a tournament run by Hexian, and using a bunch of his special rules.) While that sounds all well and good, also consider the following:
Player Rewards are limited to some cards that can be used to get a minor bonus during a game or at character creation. In MK, the equivalent would be a 1 use SA itsem, or a free faction shift on a piece during army building. You need to play between 10 and 40 games to qualify for one of these cards. You also get the occassional template for a spell to be used on a grid (a free terrain template), or a common miniature.
DM Rewards are even worse. The are basically a single random booster for every 10 to 40 4 hour game slots you run. There are of course bigger rewards for running at one of the Big 3 conventions (Gen Con, Origins, and Winter Fantasy), but of course that precludes doing much of any playing. (Although I won't put down the free room I got for running 7 slots at WF. If WK offered anything like that, they'd have Warlords coming out their ears at the big events.)
Now what are the costs?
The Core Rule books cost $30 each. While you technically don't need all 3 as a player, there is a good deal of information in each required for anyone playing a spellcaster. So that is $90 just to begin.
The current set of class books (though they aren't officially called that) weigh in at another $30 apiece. With 2 out and 2 more coming, that is $120. You don't actually need them, but you will be seriously behind the power curve without them.
We are still waiting to hear if the race books will be included in the game. If so, that is 3 more at $30 each.
Then there are the optional books which can't be fully used by players but can be used against them. No, you read that right. There are rule books out there that have spells, feats, and prestige classes that authors can use but that players can not. And you thought some of the storyline events were unbalanced! OK, there are currently 4 of these (I think), with another monster book due out next month. Again at $30 each that is $150 so you can avoid nasty surprises.
They also just announced a series of terrain themed books. It is hard to say how many of those there will be, or if they will be included, but that is likely another 4 or 5 books at $30 apiece.
Then of course you probably need at least one world setting book, possibly more depending on the campaign. That is between $20 and $200 at the current time.
And finally, it is very likely WotC is planning on a 4-6 year cycle. Which means you need to buy all of that again when the next edition comes out. And if you think that time frame is off, just go search around for some comments by the writers of 3.5 about how it came out only a little early, but that they always planned to do it.
Then of course there is the FAQ. That is between 1 and 2 pages of short questions and answers every month. Errata is significantly lower, unless of course you count the entire 3.5 revision as one big errata release.
So we are looking at around $500, possibly up to $750, during each cycle to be competitive. That is cheap compared to MK? A $30 every other month is high upkeep by comparison?
And what about the support? It makes MK and WK look positively generous.
Now, does DCI do better with Magic?
Of course they do.
And of course, Magic has a significantly higher turnover on base sets and expansions, requires greater regular purchases, requires greater regular play, and is generally a much more time intensive game than MK.
As for SWM going anywhere, understand that it will have the backing of DCI, HASBRO, and Lucasfilms. I'm sure they have the cash to pump into it to make it do whatever they like. Whether it does remains to be seen.

So don't make comparisons to DDM, SWM, or D&D in general. What they have compared to what WizKids has to work with is simply on a different level. And how they support different events is based directly on how much money they can pump into it, and how much they get back.

I wasn't laughing at you at all A. I mean, c'mon, would I really be getting on someone for making a 'mean' post... ;)

It amuses me how the idea of the "new Edition" of an old game by the same company has caught on like wildfire in the gaming community.

MK made 2.0 simply because they felt 1.0 was too far gone to just repair it. Similarly, Decipher put out STCCG 2.0 because the old game had become ridiculously cumbersome in terms of uneccesary mechanics, poor original card design, and pointlessly redundant cards. This isn't counting instances where one compnay lost a game for one reason or another and that game was reissued in a new form by another company, such as with LotR or Star Wars card games (in that case you can hardly complain about the re-tapping of a market that had been successful).

But now the idea seems to be tossed around more and more, that a new game will run for a limited period of time and then be ended and remade into a new game. While this has happened before (even with non CCG's - take Warhammer's or D&D's multiple editions over their respective lifetimes) What's changed is that now this seems to be PLANNED for new games, as opposed to a response to any existing problems.

I can't say as I applaud the idea.