Ask the Design Team thread.

[Lord Pyre]

Originally Posted by clancampbell

Haha!


I'm pretty sure it was Thorgrim who was supposed to be the 5th Tarn.

I heard somewhere that Eldgrim was to be a 5th Tarn, but that it was too much to handle with 5 figures, so they saved the sculpt until wave 6. I dunno.

[fomox]

I love this thread.

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I do wonder if WotC plans on some LOTR fans buying up the phantom knights to use as the 'Army of the Dead'. (Intended or not, it might be a nice source of extra sales, even if it's a bit asymmetric.)

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Question for the design team:

The 'preview' of Kurrok has led to a lot of discussion and playtesting by people on the site. Do you think WotC would ever be interested in releasing a semi-final version of the cards early enough that there might be changes to the card before it is printed?

(There's some benefits from that, but also some drawbacks, I think.)

[Warlord Alpha]

Originally Posted by fomox

Question for the design team:

The 'preview' of Kurrok has led to a lot of discussion and playtesting by people on the site. Do you think WotC would ever be interested in releasing a semi-final version of the cards early enough that there might be changes to the card before it is printed?

Following from that, do you think that the discussions we have had about Kurrok may lead to you to make changes to Kurrok that you otherwise wouldn't have made?

And Fomox, I just had a thought. You see this kind of thing with the video game industry now. We are starting to see more "public betas", used as a way to let 100,000 people test a game and find flaws and exploits rather than an test team of say a couple hundred. Halo Reach is going to have a public beta, and I know another game is going to have one but I forget what it was.

I wouldn't be surprised if the early disclosure of Kurrok's abilities was a sneaky way of doing just that. Let the community see if it can totally break the current version of Kurrok.

Just don't confuse "not being surprised" with thinking that is what is going on, though. I doubt that is what they actually did, but it's a neat idea. To be honest, the real reason is probably something along the lines of "See guys, this is why you need to buy LOADS of elementals!!!"

[Velenne]

Once more with feeling (I'll use the BILLY MAYS KEY if I have to):

Originally Posted by Velenne

Speaking of the unreleased, can you share any new information regarding the release of the Reinforcements Arrive wave for Marvel? If it's not coming out, could we maybe see what would have been on those cards?

Maybe?

[Kroc]

OK, not really, but this is a pat on the back, not a question. And I've posted this elsewhere and then realized this is the right place to share my congratulations.

What do the drow, elementals, raider, and hydra all have in common?

Terrain specific bonuses.

I get the feeling that pre-D&D'scape the design team was implicitly thinking about the tournament metagame when designing units. In the tournament metagame terrain specific bonuses are bad because they are overcosted if that terrain isn't around.

Now they are thinking about campaign specific monsters, and it's a lot more fun. I love all of these units, and can't wait to play them, and want to thank the design team for bringing out creative, fun units even if they are not perfect for the metagame.

Go D&D'scape! I just hope the next "classic" expansion has lots of robots. And some historical figures, but nothing fantasy please, I'm already getting a little tired of it.

[chas]

Kroc: The question is, will the "Vydar Love" coming in Wave 12 be Sci-Fi, or Fantasy, or Something Else? Probably they can't answer that one yet. Probably..?

[jschild]

ok, here's my questions:

Since WotC are linking DnD to Heroscape due to sales issues, did you go out of your way to make Waves 11 and 12 more "competitive" than most typical waves to help encourage sales?

I'm not saying that this wave is overpowered or anything, but there are many wonderful and exciting new units, even more so than usual I feel, and far more competitive at least in my mind. Was that a strategy to help drives sales by having such dynamic figures? And was it harder than normal or pretty much the same to develop the cards since WotC pretty much handed you the figures that they wanted you to use?

[Jexik]

Originally Posted by jschild

ok, here's my questions:

Since WotC are linking DnD to Heroscape due to sales issues, did you go out of your way to make Waves 11 and 12 more "competitive" than most typical waves to help encourage sales?

It might just be because Rÿchean and I were among the most active playtesters at the time.

GB, truth, and theGuru never said, "Hey, we want these guys to win tournaments."

To my knowledge, there was no such directive, but I personally tried to test them in (and have them face) solid armies.

So if you think stuff is too good, blame the playtesters. If you love how much fun you're having, congratulate the designers. This sounds like a joke, but I mean it.

[jschild]

That's cool.... it's a bit of both to me, because they are good (but by no means "too good", just more tourny worthy) but also really fun looking units.

I personally can't wait!

[Roland]

Will the maps and scenarios in the Master Set rulebook be released in a .pdf format similar to the downloadable scenarios on playdnd.com and heroscapers?

[Rÿchean]

Originally Posted by Jexik

It might just be because Rÿchean and I were among the most active playtesters at the time.

GB, truth, and theGuru never said, "Hey, we want these guys to win tournaments."

To my knowledge, there was no such directive, but I personally tried to test them in (and have them face) solid armies.

So if you think stuff is too good, blame the playtesters. If you love how much fun you're having, congratulate the designers. This sounds like a joke, but I mean it.

Just some further info, as Jexik said there never has been a mandate to make any one release or group of releases affect meta game or tournament scene or whatever you want to call it. However, Truth and co have all been a part of the tournament scene at certain intervals and they do have eyes. They have a pretty good idea of where some things might need tweaking.

Anyone with half a brain can look at the repulsors and tell that their design had to have some thoughts towards the meta game to come out the way they did, and of course they would be right. But that doesn't mean big wigs from on high said, "Hey, fix this!!" or "make this uber awesome!"; it is more the guys realizing there are opportunity areas and then making an effort to address them.

The real focus the guys have is to come up with fresh ideas, new mechanics, new ways of playing the game. I wouldn't call it pushing the envelope, necessarily, but more so giving us new things, stretching the bounds of the game, if you will, to allow for other mind sets and styles of play. Naturally these efforts can and will lead to some shift in the metagame. I think that is a good thing, for the most part, so long as there isn't anything too drastic.

The only other thing I want to add, is if you are impressed with the efforts in Wave 11 aka D1, you will be even more impressed with the ideas and concept put forth for Wave 12 and beyond. The guys are really thinking outside of the box and presenting unique ideas and units to the game. I think their efforts will invigorate the game in new ways, while building on the past.

You ain't seen nothing yet!!!!

[ZBeeblebrox]

Originally Posted by Rÿchean

Just some further info, as Jexik said there never has been a mandate to make any one release or group of releases affect meta game or tournament scene or whatever you want to call it. However, Truth and co have all been a part of the tournament scene at certain intervals and they do have eyes. They have a pretty good idea of where some things might need tweaking.

Anyone with half a brain can look at the repulsors and tell that their design had to have some thoughts towards the meta game to come out the way they did, and of course they would be right. But that doesn't mean big wigs from on high said, "Hey, fix this!!" or "make this uber awesome!"; it is more the guys realizing there are opportunity areas and then making an effort to address them.

The real focus the guys have is to come up with fresh ideas, new mechanics, new ways of playing the game. I wouldn't call it pushing the envelope, necessarily, but more so giving us new things, stretching the bounds of the game, if you will, to allow for other mind sets and styles of play. Naturally these efforts can and will lead to some shift in the metagame. I think that is a good thing, for the most part, so long as there isn't anything too drastic.

The only other thing I want to add, is if you are impressed with the efforts in Wave 11 aka D1, you will be even more impressed with the ideas and concept put forth for Wave 12 and beyond. They guys are really thinking outside of the box and presenting unique ideas and units to the game. I think their efforts will invigorate the game in new ways, while building on the past.

You ain't seen nothing yet!!!!

Sometimes this thread is torture

-ZB, jealously