Posted this on another thread but it occured to me that this hasn't occured to a lot of people: I certainly didn't notice it until about 20 minutes ago when I made a graph to illustrate the exact opposite of what I'm about to say.

The Y-axis is releases that quarter.

We all know releases have sped up and a lot. Most of us assume FFG knows it's found a goldmine and is releasing more and more and more to get maximum money out of it and that it's getting to the point now where it's hard to keep up. I'm going to present an alternate case, that FFG has a regular X-wing release schedule, that that hasn't changed since the early waves, and the reason we're getting so much stuff at once is because that schedule fell to bits.

If you look at the SKUs they don't match the release order at all. Red are the ones that break the sequence.

SWX 01: Core
SWX 02-05: Wave 1: X-wing, TIE fighter, Y-wing TIE advanced
SWX 06-09: Wave 2: Slave I, Millenium Falcon, A-wing, TIE interceptor
SWX 11: Rebel Transport
SWX 12-15: Wave 3: Lambda-class Shuttle, HWK-290, B-wing, TIE bomber
SWX 16-19: Wave 4: TIE defender, TIE phantom, Z-95 Headhunter, E-wing
SWX 20: The board tiles
SWX 21: Imperial Aces
SWX 22: Tantive IV
SWX 23-24: Wave 5: Decimator, YT-2400
SWX 25-28: Wave 6: Most Wanted, M3-A Interceptor, StarViper, IG-2000
SWX29: Rebel Aces

I'll now reorder these into Release Order.

SWX 01: Core
SWX 02-05: Wave 1: X-wing, TIE fighter, Y-wing TIE advanced
SWX 06-09: Wave 2: Slave I, Millenium Falcon, A-wing, TIE interceptor
SWX 12-15: Wave 3: Lambda-class Shuttle, HWK-290, B-wing, TIE bomber

SWX 21: Imperial Aces

SWX 11: Rebel Transport

SWX 22: Tantive IV
SWX 16-19: Wave 4: TIE defender, TIE phantom, Z-95 Headhunter, E-wing
SWX 23-24: Wave 5: Decimator, YT-2400

SWX29: Rebel Aces
SWX 25-28: Wave 6: Most Wanted, M3-A Interceptor, StarViper, IG-2000

What does this mean? It means the Transport started design before Wave 3. If they released in order of conception we'd have had it before we had B-wings. Why was it held back? Any number of reasons. What am I attempting to illustrate? That sometimes things take longer to design and balance than anticipated.

Galaxy Tiles, SKU20, was announced April 2013, soon after Wave 2. That means Wave 4 could have beginnings as far back as six months after the game was first released two years ago. What am I trying to prove? That a lot of the stuff we have now has been in development for a long time.

Look back at my graph. Something look wrong? For those not looking at the quarter numbers and just following the Wave 1, Wave 2, Wave 3 spikes, it looks like Wave 4 only has one ship. That's because that's Imperial Aces. Now I make my crazy assertion.

I'm pretty confident that Wave 4 was originally planned for Q1: it should have come out in February when Imperial Aces did.

Why was it delayed? Probably the same reason our friend from further up this post, Rebel Transport, was: it took longer than anticipated to balance it or get Licensing to approve it (TIE phantom's kinda obscure) or something.

Look back at the graph of the release schedule. Now, what would it look like if everything had gone to plan? If the Rebel Transport was released after Wave 2, Wave 6 is released in Q1 of next year and if Wave 4 came out on time?

Our sudden increase in releases in the second half of this year is mostly gone. This is a steady but regular and hardly excessive release schedule.

It's not much of a stretch to push this a little further to get what I think was FFG's plan. I'm going to tweak the release of Imperial Aces a quarter backward and Rebel Aces a quarter forward: one quarter of drift between planned release and actual release is hardly unreasonable.

Bearing in mind that Q3 14 is only that short because Wave 5 only has two ships, who would complain if FFG released like that? A wave every six months and a misc expansion between them. I'm very confident this was the plan. With the graph like this, it goes Wave, Huge, Wave, Acepack, Wave, Huge, Wave, Acepack, Wave.

Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy. They got Scum ready for their big reveal at GenCon and seeing as it was ready went for Christmas release as any wise business does, Wave 4 was a quarter late and the Transport even more so.

This isn't FFG stepping up the release schedule, it's all the stuff they planned to release earlier turning up with the stuff they planned to release now. It's two buses turning up at once syndrome: there's only two now because one of them is 30 minutes late.

Thoughts?

"There are three types of lies in the world: lies, D*** lies, and statistics." -Mark Twain

We hardly got to even know wave 5 and everything is about wave 6 now. =/ idk. its too fast on a feeling basis and thats all that counts when it comes to marketing reaction

They have found a gold mine and are welcome to as much of my money as they want .

"There are three types of lies in the world: lies, D*** lies, and statistics." -Mark Twain

I've heard this quote being attributed to various historical figures - Twain is the least likely - he was far too smart to say something quite that stupid.

In my experience that quote only gets rolled out when cold hard evidence kicks the legs out from under someone's warm fuzzy assumptions

Thoughts?

Never try to confuse the masses with reason.

Actually, I appreciate your work and explanation. I'd be happy to buy new stuff every month, even though am lucky to play once a week (if that, some weeks).

If I were going to recommend something to FFG, I'd split up the waves into monthly release. LCG chapter packs frequently give TEMPORARY advantages to one side or another, only to be thwarted the following month.

I believe folks could stomach a new ship per month, its the three sets of different stuff in a time frame they feel is too tight that is "the problem". Dole it out in small chunks monthly, and I believe a lot of consternation would be avoided.

My two cents.

I agree with Blail for the most part. Maybe they're just previewing too early but as i've said before most people don't even have yt2400's rebel aces or vt49's in hand but here we are with the curtain blown off of the next wave. I would not have objected at all had Scum and Villany been q1 15

So just to make sure I've got this... FFG is releasing things too fast because the discussion forum is too flighty?

Yeah, the LCG model doesn't exactly work here. In those, you only need one pack. Whereas in X-wing, people will often want more than one of the expansions.

So just to make sure I've got this... FFG is releasing things too fast because the discussion forum is too flighty?

No. My assertion is that FFG is releasing a lot of stuff at once at the moment because it was stuff they intended to release earlier and was delayed. They'd planned to spread it out by releasing stuff like Wave 4 before now. If you look back to (North Hemisphere) winter there were fewer releases than there had been previously.

In the last three or so months we've got Rebel Aces, the Decimator, the YT-2400, the Tantive IV, the Rebel Transport, the TIE defender, the TIE phantom, the E-wing and the Z-95 and Wave 6 has been announced. That's a hell of a lot of stuff. However, half of that stuff is only coming out now because it was delayed and was meant to be released earlier: I'm fairly confident had everything gone to plan this time of year would have had Rebel Aces, the Tantive IV and Wave 5 and that's it. Wave 4 and the GR-75 being pushed back to now makes there appear to be a huge swarm of releases and it causes the assumption that this rate of release is FFG's new approach. I'm making a case that it isn't, the release schedule just didn't go to plan.

if they release things to slow people complain, too fast and people complain.

if they release things to slow people complain, too fast and people complain.

If they release things too slow people gobble it up when it gets released, too fast and people will put it off... or not buy it at all.

So just to make sure I've got this... FFG is releasing things too fast because the discussion forum is too flighty?

No. My assertion is...

That was directed at the post above mine, not you. Your evaluation makes perfect sense. The "It's bad because people aren't talking about what I want them talking about"... less so.

I definitely prefer releases to be spaced out a little more than they have been.

Too much at once can be information overload for a lot of people to handle. Slower releases can give newbies more of a chance to 'catch up' without feeling overwhelmed by new products.

Patience, we must learn patience!

They should start selling forum posts. Most people post to the forums more than they actually play the game. Wave 8: "The sky is falling" introducing: Arguing Mathwing, Sales Skepticism, anda dozen other ways the game could be ruined. Bundle of 3 posts for only 29.95!

Quite frankly, I for one would be happier if less stuff was spoiled so far in advance. It's like knowing what your XMas gift is, and then having to unwrap it anyway. I really wish they wouldn't spoil all of the ships, cards, etc.

"There are three types of lies in the world: lies, D*** lies, and statistics." -Mark Twain

I've heard this quote being attributed to various historical figures - Twain is the least likely - he was far too smart to say something quite that stupid.

In my experience that quote only gets rolled out when cold hard evidence kicks the legs out from under someone's warm fuzzy assumptions

Then I hate to disappoint you...

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19987/19987-h/19987-h.htm

I was deducing from the above that I have been slowing down steadily in these thirty-six years, but I perceive that my statistics have a defect: three thousand words in the spring of 1868 when I was working seven or eight or nine hours at a sitting has little or no advantage over the sitting of to-day, covering half the time and producing half the output. Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

...granted, he was attributing the quote to someone else, however that person never did say that, and Mark Twain most certainly DID make the reference.

For a more complete read on the source of that particular phrase, see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

So just to make sure I've got this... FFG is releasing things too fast because the discussion forum is too flighty?

Not quite. I just think i'm not asking for too much when I say i'd like to have a wave in stores before the next wave is announced.

Quite frankly, I for one would be happier if less stuff was spoiled so far in advance. It's like knowing what your XMas gift is, and then having to unwrap it anyway. I really wish they wouldn't spoil all of the ships, cards, etc.

Yes exactly.

spoiled WAYYYY too far in advance. Rebel Aces has been spoiled for like half a year now.

I agree, it does seem like stuff is coming out rather fast. But Wave 4 was released in July, and Wave 5 isn't going to get here until October.

The real issue IMO is the mostly the announcements. We have wave 6 announced and we don't even have Rebel Aces, let alone Wave 5 in stores yet.

IMO FFG need to wait at least a month after a wave releases before they announce the next one. But I do get that at GenCon you want to drop as much as possible.

I agree, it does seem like stuff is coming out rather fast. But Wave 4 was released in July, and Wave 5 isn't going to get here until October.The real issue IMO is the mostly the announcements. We have wave 6 announced and we don't even have Rebel Aces, let alone Wave 5 in stores yet.IMO FFG need to wait at least a month after a wave releases before they announce the next one. But I do get that at GenCon you want to drop as much as possible.

I agree quite a bit here.

While on one hand I was really annoyed by Imp Aces because it meant I bought more interceptors then I needed in wave two. On the other hand I'm suffering with too few B wings because I've been anticipation Reb Aces. It's nice to know ahead of time what's getting a bonus release so we don't end up with too many ships that we can't use but this has been a very long wait.

This is one of those problems that could be mitigated by card-only releases, but that's not the real issue. A wings were already an under-utilized ship. Now they're even more so since people are waiting for the updates.

I'm not really sure what the solution is but I do think that the huge gap between announcement and release is a bit much. I also would appreciate FFG not announcing wave 6 till wave 5 is released etc.

It's definitely coming out too fast. I finally finished buying the last 2 ships from wave 4 last night I hadn't gotten yet. I haven't even played with wave 4 that much, and my transport is collecting dust as it hasn't been used once.

Now I have Rebel Aces, Wave 5, and Wave 6 all in the next few months to purchase and play with.

Here's a radical idea. Do one wave a year, and maybe an aces or some other release as well, but space them out. Instead of releasing all the ships of a wave at once, release them one at a time every few months.

I think you're on to something.

This theory sounds reasonable, there was a very large lull after wave 3. I remember when this forum used to lament how much new stuff Attack Wing was getting while we were getting nothing.

I think that's why Attack Wing got so much traction was because of that lull.

Now everything has turned around, we're getting the more interesting releases and so far it's all far better balanced. Sometimes patience is a virtue.