Re: [NetEpic ML] Fw: JANUARY FANATIC NEWSLETTER (late!)

From: <deaconblue3_at_...>
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 14:14:34 -0500

> I've said it before, but I'll say it again, Epic 40,000 is the game
design
I
> am most proud to have worked on. I think it's an absolutely superb
game;
its
> elegant mechanics create a tense and exciting game with plenty of
manoeuvre
> and action, and it rewards carefully thought out strategy & tactics
better
> than any other GW game, with the possible exception of Warmaster. Above
all,
> it is a game designed to be played, and I think it is telling that most
of
> the criticism the game has received has come from people who have never
> played more than a game or two.

-->you know, it's times like these that I depsair of ever having the
presumptive arrogance of GW ever coming back to Earth. As with most GW
products, E40K rewards the best rules lawyer, and not "carefully thought
out strategy and tactics." I've played about 10 games of E40K, and three
ended with no "casulaties" (ie models removed from the board), but were
"won" solely on Blast Markers and morale depletion. It's not much fun
when your opponent sits at his end of the board and just pounds you with
disrupts and blast markers so that your morale runs out before you reach
thgem to engage. I've lost 2 games, and "won" one in this manner. Not
very satisfying at all. Warmaster I will say is probably the best game
from GW I have ever played. Simple, straight forward, with enough flavor
and dpeth from the WFB world to see the correlations. Orks are
distinctly different from Imperials or Bretonians, or Chaos, or Elves.
The price is good, the rules solid, and it's a fun and satifying game.
Warmaster tells me that they did learn from the mistakes of E40K, but for
whatever reason, still refuse to see them as such for E40K. I don't get
this.

> None the less, love Epic as I do, I have come to think that what is
really
> needed to revitalise the game is a brand new edition of the rules.
Above
> all, I've come to think that the game needs a healthy injection of
'gritty'
> new rules to help differentiate the units in the game and give Epic
more
> flavour.

-->As Peter said, I could have told them this two days after I got the
game. The biggest draw to WH40K, and Epic was the universe in which it
was set, and not the rules per se. It was the fluff and minis that
attracted people originally. This is where they miss big time. The
rules themselves to most players are inconsequential. they will use
whatever it is they prefer. But the minis and fluff are what grabbed
people, and kept people. Just look at the "fluff" arguments we've had on
this list alone. part of GW's problem here is consistency. The fluff
keeps changing to fit whatever "kewl neato idea" they have at the moment,
and don't bother usually with reconcilling it to the existing fluff, as
well as playability with in the rules. But, I hold hope in that instead
of moving from extreme to extreme, as happened with SM2/TL to E40K, they
opt to find that "happy shiny middle ground" that attracts peopel from
both ends, and brings the Epic community back more into a whole, rather
than two amred camps.

> Game Play vs. Flavour
> Considering how proud I was of Epic, you can imagine my disappointment
when
> the game was released and proved much less successful than I had hoped
or
> imagined it would be. With hindsight it's possible to see that there
were
a
> number of reasons for Epic's poor showing; the game and the miniatures
were
> poorly marketed, the release schedule was patchy, all support stopped
in
WD
> soon after the games release, and so on. However, the most common
complaint
> raised by players that didn't like the game was that it was not
detailed
or
> realistic enough (whatever realistic means in this context). Rather
than
> appreciating the elegant game mechanics and superb game play, these
players
> felt the game was abstract and lifeless - it simply failed to fire
their
> imagination and so they didn't want to play the game.
> We've talked about this complaint quite a lot in the Studio since Epic
came
> out. As a designer I am interested in making games that are fun to
play.
For
> this reason I worry a lot about over-complex rules and turgid game
play.
On
> the other hand many players clearly like detailed rules with lots of
chrome.
> Previous editions of Epic (Adeptus Titanicus '1' and Space Marine) had
tons
> of special rules and detail, but suffered from turgid and unimaginative
game
> play as a result, while Epic 40,000 is superbly playable but at the
cost
of
> very abstracted game mechanics. What interests me now is to try to
create
a
> modified version of Epic which will balance off these conflicting
interests
> and create a game that works well for both groups, and as a result will
make
> Epic gaming once again a vital part of the 40K hobby

-->Oh the arrogance and self martyrdom is disgusting. E40K was a nice
set of generaic scifi ground comabt rules, but was not Epic. But, at
least they see that marketing and release schedules helped deter many
people from trying out Epic. And failed to keep them because of the lack
of support. "No, we won't be carrying the Epic line anymore. Don't you
want this nice $150 Leman Russ model for 40K?" But do they apply this
lesson? No. "We will initially be releasing only the Orks and
Imperials, with a 'get you by' army lists for the others." Big mistake.
Sure, just alienate and keep from investing in the game, everyone who
plays Chaos, Eldar, or Bugs (not to mention Squats). Good way to kill a
good portion of your market potential. But what really gets me is the ad
nauseam self pitying whine and martyred "no one appreciates my game
design genius" bit. If it was so elegant, and so perfect, and so
wonderful, it would be GW's biggest seller, because evryone would be
falling over themselves to get it and play it. Get over it, and yourself
Jervis. Mechanics aren't everything. You need something to grab and
hold teh interest of the players. Previous incarnations of Epic did
exactly that. The image of massive armies of Space Marines, Titans,
mobile fortresses going up against teh swarthy hordes of Eldar, Bugs,
Chaos, and Orks was cool. It still is to me. But it's not there in
E40K. Let's face it. If Jervis wants the new edition of Epic to take
off better than E40K, it needs a reworking from the ground up. the basic
design is fine, but needs some severe changes to the victory
determination, morale, differentiation between units, Titan integration,
fluff, and army structures.

> Since Epic was released there has been another GW game that uses almost
> identical game mechanics, but proved far, far more successful. I am, of
> course, referring to Battlefleet Gothic (BFG for short). One of the
most
> interesting things for me about BFG's success is that I've seen hardly
any
> comments to the effect that it is too simple or abstract. Which begs
the
> question, why is this when BFG uses the same 'engine' as Epic?

-->Apples and Kumquats Jervis old boy. Two different settings, and two
different purposes in the rules. Comparing the two is like rying to use
Spearhead to fight teh Battle of Leyete Gulf, or fighting the Marne using
Cordite and Steel. Not gonna happen. The design philosophy was better
behind BFG, than it was E40K. BFg started with all the little stuff that
can be added into a star ship combat game, and boild it down to the stat
lines. Take SFB for example, as a game with a large ammount of detail,
or even Bab5Wars as one of middling detail, and BFg is a simplistic game
by comparison. But in BFG, unlike Epic, there were fewer unit types, and
with star ships, unlike ground units, they tend to be more generic than
their ground pounder counterparts. The real worl dcomparisons are also
poiugnant here. While, for example the US Navy, has 4-5 different
classes of destroyers, they all preety much fall into the same general
structure and set up (specialist ships not with standing). While say the
US Army and Marine Corps has a much wider variety of specialized units,
and each unit varies in purpose and TO&E from each other. The engine
itself is not at issue, but the purpose of teh engine, and the desired
result from said engine. Just beacuse it works for one type of game,
doesn't mean it will for all types of games. That's just bad game
design.

> All of which leads me to conclude that one of the big failings for Epic
was
> in terms of its presentation, and that we need to do a new edition of
Epic
> in order to put this right. My current thinking is to take a leaf from
the
> BFG book (I know, bad pun) and focus on one campaign in great detail.
The
> campaign I've decided to concentrate on is the Armageddon campaign,
partly
> because it's an important part of the 40K background at the moment and
so
> lots of potential new Epic players will have heard about it, but mainly
> because 'Epic 40,000 - Armageddon' is just about the sexiest title for
a
> game ever!

-->what was that? Another death knoll tolling for Epic? this is a real
bad idea. Focusing on a single campaign is great for scenarios and
campaigns, but not for a general game release. as I said before, this
alienates, and effectively drives away initially, all those who don't
play either Orks or Imps. And guess what, presentation was only part of
the problem. The other part was that the "presentation" didn't translate
into game play. So, while he talks about improving teh presentation, the
question remains, will it translate into the game play itself, or will it
just be a prettier version of E40K? And will I want to invest another
$50 for this, only to get better fluff and art work?

Simply keeping Epic around in its
> current form is in effect throwing a pebble into the pool, the ripples
from
> which will only affect a small group of players. On the other hand
bringing
> out 'Epic 40,000 - Armageddon' will be the equivalent of throwing a
boulder
> in the pool, and hopefully the waves it creates will affect a lot more
> people, and get them playing Epic scale games.

-->Well, yes and no. It will only be a boulder if the existing players
sign on, and promote it. If they don't do that, it'll be just another
pebble. But this current plan threatens to drive more players away than
draw in. Simply keeping the line around, keeps the existing community
active, and working. If Epic finally goes teh way of the Dodo, then we
won't have the ability to get new models, and to support the Epic line.
Fanatic should be very careful not to kill off potential market while
redoing this. I don't see Armageddon drawing in any new players really.
Not enough variety for it to do so. When, oh when will they ever learn?

>snip rules possibilities<

-->OK, most of these I agree with in principal, if not application. The
new stat lines are better than the old. I mean, a heavy bolter is as
different from a battle canon as a GPMG is from a 120mm rifled canon.
So, it's about time that such differentiations were made in teh game
mechanics. The Axis of Attack is interesting. Some sort of command and
control rule needs to be applied, and is better in a scifi game to be
more liberal, in that the units action need only be dictated by the HQ
unit. The command radius rule doesn't always work for me, especially for
the high tech armies like IG, SM, Eldar, Squats, and even Bugs (but for a
different reason). I mean, if a modern day army can take a division
spread over 100 miles and effect a coordinated attack succesfully on a
regular basis, why is it more difficult for such Epic armies to do so?
Jervis has a good compromise here, and one perhaps we should look at for
NetEpic. Now, what was that about stealing and copying? The changes in
the phases/actions is interesting as well. Somebody finally recognized
that troop quality does matter. And that troop quality makes a
siginificant difference even on the scale of an Epic game. Huzzah! One
thing that I do wonder about from this, is if Jervis has played a
historical game at all in the past few years? i mean, I think he would
benefit greatly by getting away from 40K, WFB, Warmaster, and even Epic
for a while. Get back to the "roots" and play Battlefront, battleground,
or Command Decision for a year or two. Play some Napoleonics too. I
think he misjudges where much of the original support from Epic came
from. Not so much from teh 40K community, but from teh historical
players. People who played Micro-Armor, and the 15mm historicals took to
Epic like ducks to water. Similar scales, the basics still applied, and
it was "familiar" to them. Not a big jump there. So why does he see
this all as a "closed community"? Shouldn't they be trying to attract
those historical players again, as well as keeping the existing players?
Does Jervis even have a clue as to what the historical players are using,
and working on? I don't know, but I feel that he would benefit greatly
from such experience.

Josh R

"No matter where you go, there you are." B.Bonzai
Received on Sun Feb 10 2002 - 19:14:34 UTC