Yup! There will be a “big announcement” on Thursday the 5th.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the first few minutes of the Dark Watch 1-6 episode of The Letters Page to hear Christopher and Adam get excited about Prime War.
*fingers crossed* I'm trying to keep my expectations reasonable and in check, but I didn't really expect any major info until just before Gen Con itself.
I listened to the first few minutes of The Letters Page. I'm not familiar with the process of how the subjects covered work but it appears the Patreon supporters submit and vote on the subject matter of future podcasts? That actually doesn't seem unreasonable to me, taking feedback from the subscribing fans. But they ask if people are excited for Prime Wars, and I have to wonder why anyone would be? GTG has done nothing to lay groundwork to generate excitement, repeatedly going out of the way to avoid giving any information. I hope Thursday's announcement is significant enough to prime (no pun intended) the pump for the enthusiasm they desire.
This is a relatively recent development, but is how things are proceeding at present. Historically, they just picked a Hero/villain/etc. and talked about it but they’re about out of non-OblivAeon stuff and so have opened things up to the fans to make suggestions. The podcast is primarily about the story underlying the games, and while there’s been little in the way given to us about the Prime War game, we’ve gotten a bunch of snippets of info about the setting over the course of the podcast as they discuss little bits of the story of the two post-SotM product timelines at the end of most episodes. Stuff like briefly saying what each character is up to in that timeline. We’ve got summaries of the episodes in the official wiki.
I kind of don't want them to talk about Prime War yet, as a setting. Sell me on the mechanics first, before getting me invested in the lore. Although the lore is already so depressing I kind of hope it's all bad so I can just avoid it.
The mechanics are what I’m interested in as well. The universe, or in this case Multiverse, can help, but can’t shine a bad system.
Very disappointed in GtG over the recent announcements.
I think it was good for GtG to (finally) reveal information on the state of the project. I just wish that the information they revealed hadn’t been another blatant bait-and-switch on this beleaguered product.
To be clear, I do not take particular umbrage with any of the following:
1. The fact that the project has been delayed
2. That the information in the latest update is underwhelming/incomplete
3. The fact that the Sentinel Tactics system was not working out and was scrapped
I DO take issue with these problems:
1. The lack of transparency on the status of the project given the long delays and many changes
2. The way in which the transition from “Battle for Broken City” to “Prime War” was handled, with GtG trying desperately to avoid people pulling their money out by delaying the cancellation of the former until they could pull together materials to sell them on the latter.
3. A second bait-and-switch when they revealed, just now, that Prime War will NOT be an expansion to Sentinel Tactics and that the original game is effectively being discontinued. This is clearly something they have been aware of for a while and have left any backers, some of whom may have been enjoying the current game and just wanted additional content for it, intentionally in the dark. We have known for a while that Prime War would be overhauling the game to an extent, but the assumption that Prime War was an expansion implied that the core of the gameplay would at least be similar to Flame of Freedom. According to GtG, the only similarities we can expect will be hex-based maps and miniatures. This is a very different product than what people signed on for.
4. The map scenarios being grudgingly released as an afterthought, and only after they revealed that the “shiny new scenarios” they’ve been working on will not be compatible with the original game. Why couldn’t the people who bought and paid for these scenarios have them before now? It seems as if GtG withheld these for no other reason than to hide the fact that they were abandoning Sentinel Tactics. The particular language used, that “some people have expressed an interest” in the original scenarios, just served to twist the knife. When you offer a product for purchase (even through a kickstarter), it feels incredibly disingenuous to talk about providing that product to the paying customers as if you were indulging an unusual request.
Shame on you Greater than Games.
Shame.
I’m not sure how you got to point 3 since they’ve said since the intial Prime War announcement said they were going back to the drawing board. While they may not have expected drastic changes it was certainly a possibility even then.
I don't see how you got #2 either. Broken City/For Profit was cancelled a very, very long time ago, and refunds were offered for anyone who cared to claim one. Granted, they could have been more proactive about contacting pre-orderers directly instead of letting them find out through the grapevine, but I don't see this "desparation." They could have been a lot more conniving about drawing things out if that had been their intention.
I'd be surprised if they were purposely trying to hide it. A more likely explanation, IMO, is that they're just disorganized and garbage at communication at GtG. You can be bad at a thing without having bad intent.
The communication regarding the change of Battle For Broken City and For Profit to Prime War and Rise Of The Ennead seemed clear to me that there was going to be a rules revamp of some sort. The longer it went on without any real info the greater the change I expected. So I don't see this recent communication as a revelation at this point.
But to me it has also felt that Sentinel Tactics/Prime War has been a low priority for GTG compared to Oblivaeon, the RPG, and their other more recent games. Likewise it seems to me that communicating to the pre-order customers the status of Prime War has also been a low priority. A regular reiteration of 'We're working on it, you can have a refund anytime' in response to requests for status over the years is IMO poor customer service. There should be some sort of middle ground between 'Wait and shut up' and 'Take your money and shut up'. Likewise no response to people who have asked for the status of the scenarios they purchased in the original Kickstarter is poor customer service. That the scenarios were distributed upon being asked about compensation for failure to deliver on the original Kickstarter add-ons is suspicious in timing at best.
I expect this will go back and forth with no minds changed and no resolution. For myself I won't feel any apology GTG can give at this point will be meant or meaningful. I think GTG puts out good products eventually. But for future purchases I'll likely wait until they've actually produced the items. I feel they're not trustworthy.
This ^
Whether through intentional deceit or unintentional neglect, GtG hasn't shown a great deal of consideration or respect to its customers during the course of all this.
That would be all well and good. They are their own company and don't owe us anything, EXCEPT they asked for pre-orders and took money. If they had issued automatic refunds or at least sent out something equivalent to a backerkit to all those who had pre-ordered as many of these changes were happening, then I would be much more likely to credit them with good faith efforts in a bad situation. As it stands now, it is entirely possible that someone who pre-ordered the expansion for Tactics has no idea that they will be receiving an entirely different product at some point in the indefinite future.
As I've stated previously, I'm pretty much done with GtG as a company over all this. I've gotten my refund and they belated fulfilled the map scenarios, so they can finally go back to owing me nothing.
This project has been a disappointment. Compared to their othe Kickstarted projects, this one has suffered not just delays but a lot of redesigns to the point where fans of the original have all but fallen off. I love GTG and hope this game is good, but I do find my interest waning...especially after 3+ years with mini9mal communication. Even the most recent update says the game is still a year or so out, is unable to show us artwork/scenarios/components, and has basically said the old game is obsolete. It also doesn't help that C&A are basically viewing this as a dying branch of the multiverse while the RPG will continue on with a more hero focused stroy line.
I am starting to feel the same way with the RPG and its several Kickstarter delays. Hopefully all the content is good and they are worth the wait.
Do they really put out good products eventually? After SotM, they put out Galactic Strike Force, then Tactics, then a couple of little time waster games. It wasn't until Spirit Island came around that they actually had a second hit, and that was made by someone else. People seem to be excited about the RPG, so maybe that'll be good, but the rollout of OblivAeon was a hot mess. I think healthy skepticism is the right position to take. GtG feels like a great game company to root for, but I'm not so sure they make better games than anyone else.
Darren Watts is working on the RPG, and boy howdy he knows the genre and the industry. OTOH I'm a Hero System gamer from way back and am not inclined to budge from it. The background material may be nice but I'm not shopping for a new rpg system. As for GTG products overall, I was including all of the company including the other divisions. I'll take things on a game by game basis once Prime War is delivered. YMMV.
I've been wondering about the good sense of even mentioning the "Tactics Timeline" on the Letters Page podcast all this time. It feels fairly certain that Tactics is pretty much dead, until they decide to start hyping Prime War or whatever's coming next.
That having been said, I'd hesitate to accuse them of shenanigans on Broken City, etc. I'm involved in the Kickstarter for Super Dungeon Legends, and I truly believe there has been bad-faith activity, lies, lack of transparency, and genuine contempt for the backers who gave them well over a million dollars to produce a product.
I didn't back Broken City, and I haven't been eyeballing the news constantly, but even I knew they were closing down Tactics in favor of some nebulous future Prime War thing. That's a level of transparency I'd have loved to have on SDL.
I just wish they weren't talking about a "Tactics Timeline" as if there was an actual living game that exists using that setting.
It isn't correct to say that Spirit Island was made by someone else. The designer is not an employee of GtG, but that's typical for the industry. GtG was closely involved in the final development of the game, and also commissioned all the artwork and produced the components. These are a significant part of the success of the game. (I know you saw Eric's playtesting designs for the cards, for instance–the final components look much better, and not just because they have art.)
There are definitely a lot of great companies making great games.
The news that someone else has been designing the game for the past year was the final straw. I just sent off for a refund, hopefully i get it and i can pawn the orginal game off on someone that does not knw how much of it is now worthless.
Your choice to sell the game but to sell it without the explaining the current standing of the game seems wrong.
Any different than Greater than games doing the same thing? Look at the tactics products on the webstore here, no mention of the state of the game. If someone did not research the game, they could buy the tournemant pack right now just to get promo that are worthless. I am just following greater than games example on that point.