Cheer Up Heroscapers!~NEWS FLASH!

[kenjib]

Originally Posted by Jim

But to be fair, FFG also put out an Upgrade Kit to allow the older version (4th edition) to work with their expansions (4th Edition revised).

It also costs $22, which turns a $25 expansion into a $47 purchase for a game that was only out for one year before revision... That said, if a company put out a revised version of heroscape but also release an upgrade kit with updated cards for all of the units, glyphs, and destructible objects, as well as rules updates for the lava, tundra, shadow, etc., I wouldn't mind so much. Of course if they don't have rights to the older units they can't do that anyway...

[mad_wookiee]

Originally Posted by jbbnbsmith

Surely no one is suggesting that we should have bought product we didn't like to help the game move further down a path we didn't want it to travel?

Heroscape for me ended with the introduction of MS3. I didn't stop buying for any reason other than I did not like the new direction.

You should have bought only the product that interested and excited you. If D&D didn't do that, then you did the right thing for your collection. Lots of people deciding to do the same thing financially impacted the line; "blame" somehow got attached to this thought but is probably the wrong word here because it carries moral connotations. The bottom line is that people not buying D&D for whatever reason was bad for the bottom line. If a product line has poor profitability, then it's a foregone conclusion that it's in danger of being canceled.

Some people thought that by not purchasing they were somehow sending a message to WotC. The message that was received was not the one that they intended to send. That's all that I'm saying. Whether that was a right or wrong decision is one that can only be answered by the person who made it and their level of comfort with its outcome.

[GGGames]

It sure is interesting that wizards has decided to discontinue our favorite game. In a press release on october 27, 2010 with the announcement of a new Vice president of marketing Jerome Lalin the president of wizards says "Wizards has achieved many milestones over the last year and is enjoying tremendous momentum right now," said Greg Leeds, President of Wizards of the Coast. "This is the perfect time for Jerome to add his experience and expertise to our leadership team as we continue to move the organization to the next level of performance."

Is the next level of performance downsizing? I mean eight days later they decide to focus on core brands. You just took our favorite core brand and re-branded it to your core brand of DnD. Wizards and Hasbro hasn't updated the www.heroscape.com website for years. WotC doesn't even show the Heroscape Brand easily from there website; which in turn leads back to the previous site which isn't even current.

Anybody could do a better job with this brand than what has been done since wizards took over.

[jbbnbsmith]

Originally Posted by mad_wookiee

You should have bought only the product that interested and excited you. If D&D didn't do that, then you did the right thing for your collection. Lots of people deciding to do the same thing financially impacted the line; "blame" somehow got attached to this thought but is probably the wrong word here because it carries moral connotations. The bottom line is that people not buying D&D for whatever reason was bad for the bottom line. If a product line has poor profitability, then it's a foregone conclusion that it's in danger of being canceled.

Some people thought that by not purchasing they were somehow sending a message to WotC. The message that was received was not the one that they intended to send. That's all that I'm saying. Whether that was a right or wrong decision is one that can only be answered by the person who made it and their level of comfort with its outcome.

Sure, I get all that, and I agree with your original statement that the decrease in purchasing contributed to the ultimate demise. And contrary to the eye roll that I think was directed toward me (from another poster), I was hardly offended.

I just am not convinced that Heroscape would still be produced had I and a handful of other "naysayers and doomsdayers" purchased our usual 4x quantities of D&D expansion. I believe there were other, much more significant contributing factors.

But even if I am wrong, I certainly won't be losing any sleep over not buying something I don't want. That was all I was getting at. As you said, "blame" certainly doesn't fit the situation.

And if WotC's goal was to eventually bring back the classic 'Scape (which I'm not convinced it was), then ultimately they are the ones who own the failure, not the consumers.

Bottom line as I see it, Heroscape was a mass-market game that developed a hobby-market following, it had a good run but eventually died under its own weight. D&D 'scape was just a last attempt to squeeze a few extra bucks out with minimal investment.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by kenjib

It also costs $22, which turns a $25 expansion into a $47 purchase for a game that was only out for one year before revision... That said, if a company put out a revised version of heroscape but also release an upgrade kit with updated cards for all of the units, glyphs, and destructible objects, as well as rules updates for the lava, tundra, shadow, etc., I wouldn't mind so much. Of course if they don't have rights to the older units they can't do that anyway...

I wasn't saying it was a free upgrade, only that there was an upgrade made available, as your original post seemed to imply that the version you bought was completely useless.

[southwest ninja]

screw it, I'm just blaming Clan for it all!































this is a joke......

[Arcus]

Originally Posted by marroking1

MS3s terrian was pretty cool I do really love the shadow spaces and I think that they are a great addition to the game. The dungeon tiles is the one I dont get. They dont look good inless you have 4 of them. But the outcrops are cool.
On a happy note me and my brother are hoping that Warhammer40k will pick up the right. Just out of curiousity could they be one of the contender.

I agree with you both Marroking1, but your avatar cat from "Pet Cemetery" is kinda creeping me out.


Just sayin'....

[markwars]

Originally Posted by GGGames

It sure is interesting that wizards has decided to discontinue our favorite game. In a press release on october 27, 2010 with the announcement of a new Vice president of marketing Jerome Lalin the president of wizards says "Wizards has achieved many milestones over the last year and is enjoying tremendous momentum right now," said Greg Leeds, President of Wizards of the Coast. "This is the perfect time for Jerome to add his experience and expertise to our leadership team as we continue to move the organization to the next level of performance."

Is the next level of performance downsizing? I mean eight days later they decide to focus on core brands. You just took our favorite core brand and re-branded it to your core brand of DnD. Wizards and Hasbro hasn't updated the www.heroscape.com website for years. WotC doesn't even show the Heroscape Brand easily from there website; which in turn leads back to the previous site which isn't even current.

Anybody could do a better job with this brand than what has been done since wizards took over.

Fantastic points...rep given.

[Cyborgs Gaming]

Originally Posted by jbbnbsmith

But MS3 also could be purchased for $25 - $30, so that's not a truly fair comparison. And it did have the painted glaciers. (wow-I'm defending MS3!)

I'd like to point out that after the SotM set and before the DnD set that it was talked about on here quite a bit about a better way to package master sets. The vast majority of us agreed that it would be better to have smaller master sets packaged for 2 players instead of 4 players like RotV, or even more silly the figures for 2 players but components for 4 players that SotM did. I'd point out that this one done with the DnD set. Of course it's very unlikely that WotC did this because of what we said, they never listened to anything else. Still I don't think the smaller sized master set at a lower price was a problem, I think it was actually a good move, it's just everything else that WotC did that was wrong.

I think the scaling-down part was not the bad decision. In fact, they could have easily taken MS1, separate it into three parts (10 figs each), and sell it at the $30 price point.

[robbdaman]

Originally Posted by GGGames

It sure is interesting that wizards has decided to discontinue our favorite game. In a press release on october 27, 2010 with the announcement of a new Vice president of marketing Jerome Lalin the president of wizards says "Wizards has achieved many milestones over the last year and is enjoying tremendous momentum right now," said Greg Leeds, President of Wizards of the Coast. "This is the perfect time for Jerome to add his experience and expertise to our leadership team as we continue to move the organization to the next level of performance."

Is the next level of performance downsizing? I mean eight days later they decide to focus on core brands. You just took our favorite core brand and re-branded it to your core brand of DnD. Wizards and Hasbro hasn't updated the www.heroscape.com website for years. WotC doesn't even show the Heroscape Brand easily from there website; which in turn leads back to the previous site which isn't even current.

Anybody could do a better job with this brand than what has been done since wizards took over.

I said much the same pages ago. New blood up high ends up dismantling a lot in the way of product. The laugh of it all is that WotC has not done anything but focus on their core brands for years. If it wasn't Magic or D&D they really did nothing for it, low production, minimal backing marketing or financially. Dreamblade was their last attempt where they put a good amount of effort into it and that bombed like Hiroshima. Which I predicted from the get go BTW. After they changed D&D Minis and then almost immediately canceled it I should have known them getting Heroscape was the death knell. They can't do anything right beyond Magic or D&D, and even the latter is questionable. 4th Edition was a stupid idea and came too soon. Their whole web concept for it failed miserably and they are always recounting their losses from stupid moves. Clearly I could do a better job of R&D and Marketing than any of the bozos that work at WotC can anymore.

[markwars]

Well then you get some rep too.

[Dredd Stev]

Originally Posted by robbdaman

I said much the same pages ago. New blood up high ends up dismantling a lot in the way of product. The laugh of it all is that WotC has not done anything but focus on their core brands for years. If it wasn't Magic or D&D they really did nothing for it, low production, minimal backing marketing or financially. Dreamblade was their last attempt where they put a good amount of effort into it and that bombed like Hiroshima. Which I predicted from the get go BTW. After they changed D&D Minis and then almost immediately canceled it I should have known them getting Heroscape was the death knell. They can't do anything right beyond Magic or D&D, and even the latter is questionable. 4th Edition was a stupid idea and came too soon. Their whole web concept for it failed miserably and they are always recounting their losses from stupid moves. Clearly I could do a better job of R&D and Marketing than any of the bozos that work at WotC can anymore.

I actually couldn't agree with this more!

The reason WotC gave for thier decision to dis-continue the Heroscape line was utterly laughable. "Focus on our core brands"? Gimme a freaking break! They had scape for ONE year and all they did was slap DnD on the packaging and toss a bunch of re-used minis at the design team. How is that not focusing on your core brand? Name of core brand on box - check. Mini's from core brand re-used - check. Changing the base size to fit better with core brand - check. Wow, really branching out from your flagship there guys...

If not for the passion and creativeness of said team, this would have probably been the most amazingly poor releases in the whole heroscape line (As it is I think that they fantastically designed, the only fact that kept me buying into the game really).

I think the mere insinuation that heroscape was a problem that DnD needed to save is insulting. You know why your core brands aren't the big money makers they used to be? Cus they've been around for 500 years and people are burning out! There are more magic cards that you AREN'T allowed to use than you are and the list of what you "need" is constantly changing with every new release. (Not to mention that blind buy is the worst thing in the world).

And DnD? Yea you've done a SWELL job with that. 3rd edition - cool! 3.5 - well... that's kinda neat I guess, at least they cleaned up some classes and touched up some spells. I can get behind that I supp... WHAT? 4E? SERIOUSLY? now ALL my core rule books are useless? (This leaves out the fact that the new system is a hot steamy mess, that's a whole different argument / rant).

The only game WotC has released in the past year or so that's even worth LOOKING at was heroscape. And what did they do? Used it as a marketing tool for their crappy new version of DnD. Heroscape was a real chance for WOTC to branch out into a new game system and really give the company back some legitimacy as leaders and innovators in the industry. But, like always they just mismanage and bumble and run back to their cash-cows when things even look like they aren't going as planned.

Bunch of jokers running a two-trick pony show is all they are, and those two tricks are getting VERY old.