Age of Annihilation - Backer Trend and Discussion

[caps]

Skyknight said this in the discord this morning. I'm not going to make further commentary.

Originally Posted by skyknight

Hasbro is a battleship. It doesn’t turn on a dime no matter how many times you ask it to. They have heard the feedback.

[caps]

Originally Posted by caps

Right, if multiple people say the same thing, that still counts as saying the same thing over and over / more loudly.

I believe that people have more to offer than the same (sometimes constructive) criticisms we've seen before, so from my perspective asking people not to repeat the same arguments over again is not the same thing as rejecting the people themselves.

Regardless, I am glad to see people joining the site. The community here is a truly special place, with remarkable longevity.

Maybe we need a "Haslab Campaign Feedback Thread" where people can leave their complaints, criticisms, and job-well-dones (constructive or otherwise) without distracting from other ideas, topics, etc.

If people feel that posting their constructive criticism is helping the campaign, that's fine. But if the goal is to help the campaign then I have to ask: in addition to the negative energy of criticism, what kinds of positive energy are you bringing to the campaign? Have you talked about the things they're doing well? Have you told your family, friends, and co-workers about the campaign? Have you highlighted the things that are cool and exciting about the new stuff, or only the things you don't like?

I have more thoughts about positive and negative energy/vibes/presence, but I can't find words for them that I like.

EDIT: I thought Episode 25 of Casters of Valhalla attempted to bring some positive energy while still being critical, FWIW.

[rudyvalentine]

I think if we knew anything about the new stuff as far as game play goes, you’d find some buzz about it. But what do we even know about any of it besides their names and the flavor text lore?

And no, I would not point anyone to this campaign that doesn’t already know about it yet. It needs more fully fleshed out with useful info before I’d comfortably suggest someone unfamiliar to the game check it out.

To be positive, I’m hopeful this info will be coming.

[SuperSamyon]

Originally Posted by caps

You've got it. I don't understand why their actions have worked out the way they have, but I suspect it has to do with Avalon Hill being a pretty small shop (I sometimes wonder if Intergalactic Patrick is not just the Director/VP of Marketing, but actually their entire Marketing Department?). So it could be they had too much to do to meet the deadline Hasbro gave them for launching the campaign, or it could be they prioritized the wrong things. I'm not sure. But the verbal statements they have made tell me that they intend for the game to be inclusive of both new and old players. They have some work to do on getting new players on board. Luckily I've been able to show the game (and the campaign) to a lot of new players that are excited about it. Ideally the campaign page should cover some of that ground as well.

If it's anything like the HeroQuest set was, it will be worth a lot after it comes out, especially the exclusives, even if they release the same set (sans exclusives) to retail.

I'd buy 2+. (I already bought at least two)

We were told this is the WIP box cover:

We covered this earlier this week. The team has seen every single kind of negative feedback imaginable for this campaign already. I'm not sure what purpose further negative feedback is supposed to serve. Saying the same things over again (more loudly?) doesn't make them any more persuasive, or change the underlying constraints that made things the way they are.

Others have already covered this but as was said earlier, multiple people with the same opinion tells you a lot. If one person complains about something, it's easy to ignore. If multiple people say the same thing, you take notice.

I'll leave you with this thought. There is a well celebrated thread on this forum about "How to save Heroscape." In it, people were encouraged to send one piece of terrain to Hasbro to show their solidarity to the game's revival. Now, why was it necessary for multiple people to take part in this? By your argument, only one person needed to send in the terrain and anything beyond that was repetitious. But we all know why, and that that was because we recognized there is power in numbers. If we celebrated that moment, how can we not celebrate this moment?

People are voicing their opinions because now is the time to do it. Nothing is final. If you want change, speak now or else wait and your concerns will be nothing more than useless complaints.

[S1R_ART0R1US]

Originally Posted by rudyvalentine

I think if we knew anything about the new stuff as far as game play goes, you’d find some buzz about it. But what do we even know about any of it besides their names and the flavor text lore?

And no, I would not point anyone to this campaign that doesn’t already know about it yet. It needs more fully fleshed out with useful info before I’d comfortably suggest someone unfamiliar to the game check it out.

To be positive, I’m hopeful this info will be coming.

While I certainly understand this perspective, I personally have trust in the War Council from general activity here/personal interactions and have been blown away by the high level of engagement from Encarmine/Chris and Patrick with the community. Just to offer another perspective, if I thought somebody would have enjoyed OG Heroscape I'd have no qualms at all suggesting they back this Haslab.

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by CapAp

I promised myself I’d stay in lurk mode after being told my opinion was so ridiculous that it must have been sarcasm, but I feel this warrants response.

I think the issue is that nobody (at least in here) is saying anything “over and over”. lots of us are saying our thing once. You’re *seeing* the same things over and over because those things are common criticisms.

The purpose this serves (in a “community”) is for everyone to be able to feel that their opinion has value, even if goes against the majority consensus.

For my part, my first post taught me that this is not a place where disagreeing with the groupthink is encouraged. If you’re supportive of the HasLab, by all means post about your support as often as you’d like. If you’re not, maybe go to the FB or discord I guess, because that’s where the “haters” hang out.

Which is weird to me. We all bothered to seek out a a fan site for a game that hasn’t been commercially available for 15 years. By definition you have to assume we’re all big supporters. Does anyone here want the campaign to fail? Of course not. We just wanted it to provide us with a product we desired - and if we don’t feel like we were offered that, we wanted to feel like someone hears our disappointment. A fan community seemed like a more constructive place for that to me, but I quickly learned otherwise.

Honestly, other than Caps strapping on a cape for the project, I've seen less pushback on criticism here than in Facebook or Discord. I think it's been one of the most reasonable, well-measured places to discuss all of this and I hope it can continue to be.

If this level of pushback concerns you though, I really cannot stress enough how much you should avoid the Avalon Hill Discord.

As an Admin, I want you to know that I personally welcome everyone to share their thoughts as long as they stay appropriate. We don't need a separate thread for campaign feedback because *that is an appropriate topic for these threads* especially with so little information about the product itself. And I think it'd be healthy if folks don't try to police each other for having an opinion different than theirs. I've seen plenty of repetition on either side of the aisle and it's largely because there are valid points on either side. There's plenty there that we can and should be able to happily agree to disagree on.

That said, I do hope we can continue to be moved past the whole painting thing. I think that clear just is what it is.

As a small additional note, I'm not into the "what are you doing for this campaign" standard. No one here is tasked with the duty of making this a successful game. If you're considering backing it, it's reasonable to feel you need it sold to you, rather than you need to sell it to yourself and ten friends as well. If you feel that duty has somehow been thrust upon you, that's fine, but don't expect that others will be drinking from the same straw. We each have the right to consider this offering in our own way.

[rudyvalentine]

Originally Posted by S1R_ART0R1US

While I certainly understand this perspective, I personally have trust in the War Council from general activity here/personal interactions and have been blown away by the high level of engagement from Encarmine/Chris and Patrick with the community. Just to offer another perspective, if I thought somebody would have enjoyed OG Heroscape I'd have no qualms at all suggesting they back this Haslab.

To be clear I have complete faith and confidence in the war council and Craig and anyone else affiliated with our community involved with this relaunch. I would be shocked if the new units were not top tier quality designs.

This opinion is just based on the Haslab presentation as it appears today, which I’m sure none of the above mentioned individuals have anything to do with.

[Master Roshi]

I think people need to explain their point of view so that Hasbro can see both the quantity of people that believe something and the intensity with which they believe it, and as long as people aren't being vitriolic or mean spirited then having open disagreements is good.
I agree with a lot of the restrictions that were placed on the Facebook group, because that place was becoming truly antagonistic and rude rather than just debates, but that doesn't mean that any form of conflict is bad.
It's much better on this website, and I haven't really seen anyone say anything that's just absurd, even if I disagree.
If people don't voice what they're upset about, they're going to become even more frustrated and angry. I'd rather someone tell me why they believe I'm wrong than just not have the conversation at all

[IAmBatman]

And honestly if those voices weren't in the conversation, what would be left in the conversation? I imagine it'd mostly be people wondering why there weren't more backers and trying to come up with strategies for getting more.

Seems like knowing why is pretty helpful in that case.

[Master Roshi]

Right
Hasbro can only adjust if they know what people like and dislike, which is why I would have preferred different option on the haslab. That way they can say "Oh, Clockwork Combine has only 40% as many orders as the other figures, looks like we should design less of those for future expansions."
Including only an all in set means their only way of showing their dislike for a particular aspect is to be all out and buy nothing

[CapAp]

Originally Posted by caps

Maybe we need a "Haslab Campaign Feedback Thread" where people can leave their complaints, criticisms, and job-well-dones (constructive or otherwise) without distracting from other ideas, topics, etc.

This comment made me understand where you are coming from better.

I assumed this thread was the place for any discussion about the campaign, but from the title perhaps it meant that it was intended for backers to discuss the trends and campaign. So I can see why those folks might feel comments from non-backers, even if intended as constructive, are out of place.

Probably “the horse is already out of the barn” as they say, but such a thread might still be useful.

[Finrod]

People griping that Hasbro is this giant mega-billion corporation and doing a bad job of marketing need to remember: this is not Hasbro as a whole. This is Avalon Hill, a (very) small division of Hasbro. That affects things.