Anyone know if there are any plans for more mini-expansions? Especially new environments. I've seen it stated that there are more expacs and another mega in the works. But the minis seem like a great way to change the game up without having to release a full blown boxed expansion.
I can confirm that min-expansions are likely. I specifically asked Christopher about that in October. He didn't give me any details (of course), but said that mini-expansions are in the plan.
I hope that they will continue the pattern established by Shattered Timelines of releasing two Environment mini-expansions for every one Hero or Villain, so that eventually we will have equal numbers of each. Currently there are 23 heroes, 23 villains if you count the Vengeance Five individually (rather than either as one team or as 16 permutations of that team), and only 14 environments. This needs a lot of work.
I really doubt that we'll see equal numbers of environments to heroes and villains, considering that we'll probably have around 30 or each by the time the base game is done. We'd have to more than double the current number of environments to get equal numbers and it's hard to imagine it being worth it economically for GtG to realease that number of mini-expansions.
I've said this before, one data point is not a pattern.
Although I do hope for more environments too... but not at the cost of more heroes or villains
I would completely take it at that cost. We have enough of both to provide huge replayability, and repeating the same 12 environments over and over is getting incredibly tedious. They don't even begin to suggest all the places a battle can happen.
What would be really nice would be if there was a set of "generic" environment decks where you shuffle two of them together to create an environment. Say "Jungle", "desert", "ocean", "ruins", "creatures", "storm". One of the first three plus one of the second three...nine combinations. "desert ruins" and "ocean ruins" would be like Anubis and Atlantis respectively, while "desert creatures" might be the Final Wasteland, but that'd still be three new environments we don't have, and a quadratic potential for more.
When I first started playing this game, I thought more generic environments would be great (in fact, I made a handful and posted them to my site). But as things have progressed, I've found I really enjoy the specific nature of the environments. It's a subtle difference, but I think it would be less interesting to play in a generic Egyptian tomb or floating villain fortress. I like playing in one that's tied so closely to the story going on in my head.
Having fewer environments also makes sense from a flavor point of view.
Most comic book battles tend to take place in a select few places. Astroid M, Gotham, Metrolpolis, the X-Mansion, New York, Space, the Negative Zone, the N Zone, the Savage Land.... etc...
ALso, the number of heroes tends to outweigh the number of villains. So, I prefer having more villains and heroes than environments. If solely on flavor alone.
More heroes/villains is of course a great thing. My thought is Legacy, Tachyon, Tempest vs Omnitron on dino island has a completely different feel than Legacy, Tachyon, Tempest vs Omnitron on the mars base. Environment decks would seem cheaper/easier to make. All I'm saying is couple new environments should be a relatively inexpensive way to breathe a little new life into the game.
I agree that Environments do change the game a lot, and I’d like more environments. But i have to disagree with Envisioner on how many environments there should be compared to heroes and/or villains
[quote="Envisioner"]
I hope that they will continue the pattern established by Shattered Timelines of releasing two Environment mini-expansions for every one Hero or Villain, so that eventually we will have equal numbers of each. [...]
[/quote]
I like more environments, but not having equal amounts of everything. To me it's not "flavorfully" sensible.
If I understand the plan for the remaining expansions, we will likely end up with more villians than heroes, and more heroes than environments. But frankly, environments are the least important of the three, and heroes have more combinations than villians do, so I think that this pattern makes sense.
Well considering at least 2 villains simply used the same Nemesis as before (Iron Legacy and The V5) there are still many heroes who need Nemeses. This will meant here are more villains than heroes - if just by 2 extra, or more for other repeated nemeses patterns.
Which is, yet again, a tremendous failing on their part, which I believe modern works should not emulate. If the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man all have their headquarters in New York, then why the bloody hell would anyone try to commit crime THERE, when they could go knock over a bank in Podunk, Idaho and get off scot-free? There should be battles in the Canadian pine forests, battles on paddleboats going down the Mississippi, battles in rural Mexico with drug cartels shooting at both sides, battles in the Amazon rainforest, battles in the Australian Outback, battles at a Buddhist monastery in Tibet, and battles at some random village in Bavaria. Anywhere might be the location of a dimensional rift, a lost artifact, or just two supers who both walk into the same bar and then argue about whose fault it was.
Spider-Man doesn't have a headquarters. The Fantastic Four and the Avengers aren't crimefighters.
Could you develop this a little more? I think I mised you point, as my reading of comics is that there are considerably more villains than heroes. A simple way of looking at it is each hero has a stable of villains, with some villains doing double duty but generally staying with "their" hero. Look at the following sets:
Doctor Doom, Mole Man, Galactus
Baron Nemo, Loki, MODOK
Green Goblin and clones, Clones, Doctor Octopus, Rhino, Vulture
Magneto, Sentinels, The Brood
This is not solo heroes though, how many of those threats were big enough to warrant a team of super heroes going against them?
We have a new group of Nemesis that would probably warrant some pretty good comic storylines vs. their opposed hero, but they are minor players in a fight vs. a team of heroes.
Who is "Baron Nemo"?
It seems that my points weren't explained clearly, and I will do my best to give my best explanation. It might be long but hopefully it works.
Though there seems to be a lot of villains, ESPECIALLY on Spider-Man and Batman's side, there are more heroes. I am not counting the X-Men, the Avengers and the justice League as one hero. But how many Teen Titan's, Mutants, Avengers, and JL members are there?
One of the biggest problems in comics now is trying to introduce new characters, and places. For the most part they don't fare well. They either get called redundant for being too similar to something else, such as a teenage-this, or a female-version-that, or these-IN-SPACE, or those-but-alternate-uiverse.
You can't add a new location simply because it's new. It has to be different enough to be interesting, but not too crazy that it's kitschy.
The good thing about having only a set few of tools is that writers and artists don't need to constantly create, new worlds, and explain what they are to the heroes, why they should be there, how they got there and what it is. Doing something new without explaining WHY or HOW is a risky move in the comic book industry.
In relation to SOTM? I like the way the things are numbered. H>V>E
Also, I believe what i just did was create an off-topic post. Should I, or if it is a moderator/administrator's duty, move it to a different section of the forum? I don't want to go off the intended topics goal.
I think he means Baron Zemo, a perennial Captain America (and Avengers) foe.