Those of you who frequent the site, or are simply observant, will have noticed that it has been a little quiet on the OB front lately. Why? Well, put simply we are lacking muse to write with at the moment, partly due to a lack of movement from the company which produces the splendid war game that we hold so dear to our hearts. (This may read slightly passive aggressively; it was meant too. We just want something to get excited about!)
Never fear though, stopping our mouths from chatting off is like trying to stop a conservative from selling a public asset; it can't be done! Join us for the worst news section ever recorded by a human, for an update on our general hobby, and to hear more about the much whispered about escalation campaign!
Looking forward to seeing you guys at Coastal Assault, and seeing what new armies you're all trying out. I'll no doubt be swanning around the bottom tables...
ReplyDeleteI'm trying out something a bit new with my Scourge and will be interested to see secret's Dan's have to show off.
Did you ever publish your massive special character fest game with Hawk? I'm still interested to know how they all played.
My secret has actually changed a wee bit, should be interesting though.
DeleteIt never did, it was a mammoth project for Ed and Hawk never asked for it, so it just never got edited. The important thing to know is that I crushed 5 Apollos with Cavebreaker in the first turn!
Ignore Dan and the silly Cave Breaker. The circular table meant that he set up about 10 inches away from my poor Apollos. Nothing I could have done. All you need to know is that he didn't win.
DeleteErm enough of your slander, I think you'll find I did win! Louis cheated, dutty sob.
DeleteBut that wasn't the best thing that happened was it Dan......
ReplyDeleteI think 2 Rapiers taking out a Poseidon with Barros on board and blowing him out of the sky on turn 2 is a winner
I completely agree on the general sentiment of the cast, there's a lot of things that make you wonder "why?". It's great but it could be so much better.
ReplyDeletePersonally i'm really hoping for a second edition after Phase 2. Take the opportunity to closely examine everything with the benefit of hindsight. Tidy and streamline things and reset the baseline. It's again my warmachine past speaking but i'm still remembering fondly what the second edition did for that game. No idea where it's nowadays balance wise but at the time it really was a much needed refresher.
Over at something awful we had a little discussion about how even for people who actively try to follow the game it's currently a complete mystery what's going on. The new blisters just started showing up at online retailers without and sort of announcement and press releases and up until the point where someone got their hands on them everyone assumed they'd contain the rumored statcards. I hope that hawk is able to hire enough and competent enough people to actually deal with the workload while still balancing the books. At the moment it quite frankly feels a bit unprofessional.
And lastly i've personally soured on the forums, to me it feels like the prevailing attitudes and atmosphere don't really foster the sort of discussion i'd want to participate in. I'll still occasionally check if there's anything interesting or shoot a PM but that's about it.
This all reads very negative but i still really like dzc and want hawk to succeed. C'mon guys, you can do better.
I'm glad to hear we're not alone, although it comes with a pang of frustration at the same time. What I mean is that, if more than one group (albeit a very vocal group) think this way, then a shake up is most likely needed.
DeleteI'm not so sure that the game is ready for V2 yet though, and that is simply because Hawk have lagged behind their planned release schedule. If Phase 2 was out (as it should have been for a minimum of 6 months) and phase 3 on the horizon, the game would have more of a shape to be remoulded. As things are, some of the best units are still in the experimental phase (some of which screamed for playtesting before even Beta release), and we have been teased with nothing but the smell of new units for months.
When the DfC Kickstarter rolled into town, I thought it was too soon, and sadly I've been proved right. They were struggling to keep up with DzC's workload at the time, let-alone an extra game.
I want Dropzone to be the game it should be, which is the best damn wargame in the market. All this said, it probably still is. I still love zone, and still love Hawk in all the naughty ways, but it's time for the company to grow up.
Damn I need to download this today to listen in the drive home! At Invasion Dave seemed to consider the basis of DZC finished and a second version is a bit far off in the future with no current planning of a new ed.
ReplyDeleteBTW it is great you have some stuff up. The Swedish blog seems to suffer from children cries at home...
/Egge
Hot damn, I forgot about baby Egge, congratulations!
DeleteWe barely have content up to be honest, our muse has been a little quiet recently. Anyway, we discuss that in the cast, enjoy!
I'm probably jumping the gun with a second edition, a part of this is that to me there's a bunch of small instances where the core rules could be tidied up, defined cleanly, or streamlined. I'm projecting my hopes and dreams for all these on an imaginary second edition. :V That said, i do look forward to seeing how the technical writing aspect has evolved once i get my hands on the dropfleet rules.
ReplyDeleteYou guys probably have a way better grasp at the planned trajectory of the game too and way more insider information. This was the first time i've heard a phase 3 mentioned for expample.
All in all i could maybe see two years as the earliest realistic timeframe.
One thing i've been wondering for slow times is a community showcase. Would you be willing to gather up nice armies and tables to show off? Or maybe accept submissions? I feel like it's sometimes hard to catch a glimpse at all the nice dropzone stuff out there and the prospect of being on a big name blog might motivate people to take some nice photos.
I agree that a certain amount of clarification is necessary (my biggest bug bear is the lack of specifying when you decide when not to take part in a CQB as the occupier) although I think a more thorough rewrite of the current rules, rather than a whole new edition, would suffice.
DeleteTime frame-wise we don't really have any more ideas than you, Dave just said early in 2015 that Phase 2 would be out in the winter of 2016 and Phase 3 2017.
I'd be happy to showcase the communities work, there is plenty of gorgeous stuff out there! I've found that people don't really respond to asking for pics and such though, to be honest.
It's actually a good question whether a more thorough rewrite would constitute a new edition. I guess you could call it 1.2?
DeleteI could talk a lot about tiny tweaks and rewordings i'd like to see but there already was a big second edition post :V
I think one thing that could inject some "freshness" in the current state of the game would be some new missions. I would like to see some Asymmetrical missions with the players trying to achieve different things.
ReplyDelete