FFG just announced a 100% fan-based expansion to Cosmic Encounter where they clearly stated their design team had to step back to allow said fans to push through their ideas and preserve them the best way they could. I don't know in details how this worked out but there seems to be history for effective connection to the customers that is more than just posting a post in a random thread.

I will also say that the "ask a question" facility has been working very well for me, with quality replies from the designers. On many forums you can wait for days for an official response (if it ever comes) using a regular forum. If this email thingy is the tool FFG chose to address these rules points in an effective manner than so be it? If that's their support model then why would you want to criticize it because of some supposed "standard" amongst other companies? It works very well as far as I know, for the reasons why I would need direct contact to FFG.

Would I like to see official replies on these forums? Probably. But I wouldn't qualify them as necessary. The community is run by the fans themselves, as long as FFG can connect to said community in some way then I don´t see the necessity to throw resources into forum posting. We're not brainless sheeps either, we can answer most of our own questions without involving FFG and that's a great resource.

I wouldn't like to see an overwhelming presence of the designers on these forums. I like to express positive critique of the game and its mechanisms, which is not something you would feel very confortable doing if 80% of the forum was about previews, announcements and further advertisement of the product. Some sites are like that. Facebook is like that. If that's your thing, if you like FFG to take your hand and pre-format the community work for us then fair enough. I think the number one quality is listening, which I think they do (and they read these forums, I´m sure about that given some replies from the designers). They don't need to be omnipresent. We can do a lot ourselves. I prefer high quality response from FFG for those important matters rather than some random official poster telling pieces of information and trying to keep us happy. No BS policy, yeah I´m fine with that.

The "Rules Questions" form is a valuable resource, and FFG definitely made a good call in having it. It cuts through a lot of complications for quicker turn around on answers. Under no circumstances do I want to see the "Rules Questions" form go away.

My point is more, if we have that form, what is the point of these forums? They aren't here to communicate to FFG, so why is FFG hosting them? Hell, the forums at BGG are more active for this game, and sadly game designers actually post there instead of here.

Building a community is not just having a place for people to talk together, it's interaction with the customers. You talk to them, even if the talk has to be "Let me get back to you" or "Give us a little time, you'll be surprised". People want to know you're listening, even if you can't say anything yet. If a company isn't willing to do that, or can't spare the resources to do it, then their forums are a waste of their budget.

As an aside, the usual problem in places like you describe isn't that people aren't comfortable expressing critique of a product, but that any critique that presents things in a negative light is usually moderated away so other people won't "get a bad impression". Over aggressive moderation is it's own separate issue, though I believe you can have open communication with a company that doesn't go down that path.

Q: If a hero is under the effects of “Dark Host,” can the overlord play “Dash” or “Frenzy” on him?”

A: No. “Dash” and “Frenzy” are played when the overlord is activating a monster. Though the overlord receives a move and attack action with the hero affected by “Dark Host,” it is not considered to be an activation.

... which indirectly enforces the concept of "activation" as being a specific moment in time (when you pick your monster basically before executing its actions), which conflicts with the idea of an activation covering the whole time while a monster is performing its turn (as per discussion about Dash and Frenzy in the other thread). Semantics seem to matter.

I don't think it enforces it at all, directly or indirectly.

Dark Host doesn't mention ANYTHING about activating a figure. It just says you may perform 1 move action and 1 attack action. But there's also nothing saying that move/attack actions have to happen during activations or that they are always separate from activations either. An activation is simply the period of time encompassing the actions of a figure (most heroes only have one on their turn, heroes with familiars have 2, allies have 1 that exists between turns, overlords have 1 per monster). If it was meant to refer only to the start of that activation, it would say "at the start of turn/activation".

That way they can quickly "answer" difficult grey area rules questions and then later publish an altered official answer in their FAQ when they have had time to think more about the question.

*glares at Steve-O*

It is a little weird that FFG only communicates to their community through press releases and specific email answers. It comes across as kinda stand-offish and aloof in the age of forums and twitter where almost every creator talks to their fans directly. I know FFG has forum moderators but I think their only responsibilities are to remove inflammatory or derogatory messages. That's not community building, that's company liability and PR.

I think there is a break down between FFG and it's customers. Somebody should be reading the forums and showing those issues to the game designers. Instead it seems like problems are only getting communicated when somebody uses the email form. Nobody from FFG seems to be interested in actively fostering a community of their fans, which requires direct communication and not product teasers. If I can't communicate with the company on their own forum it really does make the company forums useless. There are already much better and long standing sites for finding like minded gamers.

I'm pretty sure the same people answering emails are actually reading the forums:

My point is more, if we have that form, what is the point of these forums? They aren't here to communicate to FFG, so why is FFG hosting them?

They clearly are reading them and getting feedback / information from them, so it's not like they're useless.

Building a community is not just having a place for people to talk together, it's interaction with the customers. You talk to them, even if the talk has to be "Let me get back to you" or "Give us a little time, you'll be surprised". People want to know you're listening, even if you can't say anything yet. If a company isn't willing to do that, or can't spare the resources to do it, then their forums are a waste of their budget.

That assumes that hosting / moderating / watching the forums is a significant cost compared to the cost of a designer's time. Hosting costs are relatively low compared to man-hours unless you're running large server farms. Moderators often only look into things that look important or are flagged, and designers will spend a little bit of time reading each thread.

On the other hand, responding to forum posts in a way that is constructive is a relatively time consuming process, especially when the community is likely to handle most of the answers on their own. Then when the community can't come up with a consensus, they direct people to the email form, and it helps to eliminate dealing with repeat questions.

This thread gave me a good laugh.

I think its pretty obvious that the devs read this forum.. i mean if you made a game and were continuing to develop it would you not read your own forum.... highly unlikely !

I can also see why they would choose not to post here under their official names, or at all for that matter. Getting caught up with fighting over rule decisions and reasons behind them publicly is just ugly.

Either way we have a good community here People are incredibly helpful with rule interpretations and i have certainly picked up a lot of mistakes to the point where i am pretty confident i am playing the game as intended 99.8% of the time.

Jeez, trying to quote stuff in the form is a pain, I can't figure out how griton does it.

I don't know what hosting costs. Also griton and BentoSan make good points, they are at least reading the forums to a degree. The people that post her a lot are helpful and pretty knowledgeable about the games too.

Lurking just isn't making a community to me though, talking to your fans is. Since that is what the forums are called at the top of the page, I assumed that was their intended purpose. If FFG isn't doing that then I just don't see the point in these being here at all no matter how little it costs them. It's a subjective opinion, I know. I guess I'm too used to others talking to the fans like people, not a business addressing it's customers on the PA.

This thread gave me a good laugh.

I think its pretty obvious that the devs read this forum.. i mean if you made a game and were continueing to develop it would you not read your own forum.... highly unlikely !

I can also see why they would choose not to post here under their official names, or at all for that matter. Getting caught up with fighting over rule decisions and reasons behind them publicly is just ugly.

Either way we have a good community here People are incredibly helpful with rule interpretations and i have certainly picked up a lot of mistakes to the point where i am pretty confident i am playing the game as intended 99.8% of the time.

Totally agree... imho it is quite self centred to expect FFG staff to adress each and every weird question there is. And if they just answered the good ones...well, where to draw the line. Which thread to answer and which not.

That being said I'm quite content (and happy) with the help I get from the community and the forums in general...

Why not just dump that forum and leave the community to BGG? Well I find BGG not so great and can understand that FFG has a policy of keeping people close to their products...

Jeez, trying to quote stuff in the form is a pain, I can't figure out how griton does it.

I tend to use the MultiQuote button a lot. And when I need to quote different parts of a single post, I will cut out everything but the first part, make that, then position my cursor where I want the second one and go click the Quote button again. It takes some extra time, but I find it worth it for the sake of clarity.

Jeez, trying to quote stuff in the form is a pain, I can't figure out how griton does it.

I tend to use the MultiQuote button a lot. And when I need to quote different parts of a single post, I will cut out everything but the first part, make that, then position my cursor where I want the second one and go click the Quote button again. It takes some extra time, but I find it worth it for the sake of clarity.

Thank you for the post, but dear god that is a pain in the butt. Good to know for the future.

I tend to use the MultiQuote button a lot. And when I need to quote different parts of a single post, I will cut out everything but the first part, make that, then position my cursor where I want the second one and go click the Quote button again. It takes some extra time, but I find it worth it for the sake of clarity.

I do most of my quoting and editing in "basic text mode" (click the little light switch icon in the top left corner) where cut and paste works like one would expect. =P

Then, if I want to add boldface or italics, I switch back to "GUI mode" to do that. I could just enter the HTML-style tags in text mode, but I find this easier.

I tend to use the MultiQuote button a lot. And when I need to quote different parts of a single post, I will cut out everything but the first part, make that, then position my cursor where I want the second one and go click the Quote button again. It takes some extra time, but I find it worth it for the sake of clarity.

I do most of my quoting and editing in "basic text mode" (click the little light switch icon in the top left corner) where cut and paste works like one would expect. =P

Then, if I want to add boldface or italics, I switch back to "GUI mode" to do that. I could just enter the HTML-style tags in text mode, but I find this easier.

Steve-O, thank you. I was banging my head trying to get something like that to work.