WizKids letter to the Mechwarrior Community

For a number of weeks, many of you have been asking about the future of MechWarrior. The absence of information regarding our next MechWarrior release has some people nervous, and the rumor mill is beginning to churn. Additionally, our recent reorganization affected the MechWarrior team, so it’s not surprising that people have questions.

Accordingly, we would like to take a moment of your time to give you a MechWarrior update.

First and foremost, MechWarrior has not been cancelled. We look forward to supporting this game in 2007 and beyond. To do so, we need to make careful decisions about the best way to move this business forward for the fans.

We made numerous changes to the game configuration with Wolf Strike, and though we believe these changes were for the better, we need to see their effect on the community before we take further action. Player and retailer feedback is coming in on the new configuration and we will review this information before making future decisions for MechWarrior products. (In fact, if you have an opinion on the new package configuration and price point, we want to hear about it.) We are also aware of some Wolf Strike quality-control issues, and want to assure you that our goal is to release expansions without these issues in the future.

Though the line is not being cancelled, we will need time to incorporate feedback from the community and retailers as well as revisit the quality-control issues. Our goal is to have another MechWarrior chat sometime in November, when we’ll tell you specifically what’s in store for MechWarrior in 2007 and 2008.

Please be assured that we have exciting things in mind for MechWarrior. Come join us at the chat in November; we think you’ll like what you’ll hear.

Joe Hauck
EVP of Sales, Marketing and Product Development

hmmm hurry up and wait!

Int'resting.

Which means no set in January since it obviously hasn't done to the factory yet.

woooohooo 2008 that's two years from now!!

I was hoping for something a little more informative, or at least the status of the Davion BattleForce Set... oh well. Hopefully the mentioned chat is early in November

So that gives us some more time to win LE prizes before the next set.

Is Outlaws pushed back then? Anyone know?

I'm not sure we can make that assumption(maybe I'm being hopeful.) To be honest, I think we are more likely to see a pause in the sets after Outlaws, especially since no sets after OL have been announced. I also think this explains the lack of news/surveys for the BF sets.

EDIT: Or maybe not. I was just over at the WK forums. Jonas had a chance to clear up the question on OL's release date, and he didn't. He said to basically hold all the questions until the chat. That doesn't inspire confidence in me that OL is coming out in January.

Sounds like this letter is telling us to "shut up and wait" to me. This is hardly the "big announcement" it was made out to be on the WK boards. I never thought MW might be getting cancelled, I was already sure we'd have another chat this November (either we were told, or I just guessed; I dunno), and I don't really care about Outlaws right now, myself. My venue still hasn't been able to get WS in yet, so I'm more concerned with getting WS boosters than I am with a set we won't see for months. There's also SWM's newest set, and the upcoming DDM set, too, so I'll be busy for a while.

I wouldn't be surprised if Outlaws is late, though. If the factory doesn't even have all the necessary info to begin production, it'll probably be April or May when Outlaws comes out. That could be a painful wait, once WS is sold out at my venue.

It is nice that they validate the claims of "quality-control issues" and want to eliminate them in the future. What are they going to do about the issues now?

Would you be willing to wait a few months for Outlaws to ensure that we don't get the production problems we've had with WS? I would. I wouldn't be surprised if they took a little time to straighten out the production facilities, given the piss poor performance of the factories on this set.

Tony

That's what the figure return/exchange policy is for.

Well as the ol' saying goes .."Standby to standby" !:laugh:

However, unlike alot of people I have faith in their system,if they need time to straighten things out,thats fine by me. I can wait longer than 3 months or so for an expansion. It gives metime to play with the bunch of stuff i do have(and i don't get to play that offten.) also allows me to save money up for later.

remember "patience is a virtue ..or just a bunch of victims to make a doctor rich!":p

I'm glad they've actually said something regarding a few issues:

* QC with Wolf Strike
* slow down of info to the website and the MW community in general
* rumour of game closure

But I'll bet that Outlaws is going to be delayed.

:)

Outlaws probably will be delayed.

Though if so, I can't blame them.

After the quality control problems in Wolf-Strike, they need to make a serious re-evaluation of the factory producing the miniatures for the new format. That alone could be the cause the Outlaws set to be pushed back slightlty. Coupled with the reorganization in Wizkids, the MechWarrior Team is probably short handed as well. That would explain the lack of and lateness of updates, especially coupled with the quality hell Wolf Strike is.

With the near Annihilation fiasco of Wolf Strike, I think we'll all be glad if the delay ensures that Outlaws holds up the same quality we've seen in the other sets.

Though I guess I should ask on the WK boards if this will effect the November release of the Poseidon.

Having said all that I now need to go occupy my mind with other thoughts than "What's in the Davion Battle force?" and "What will Outlaws be like?"