FFG care about their tournament scene but they aren't going to delay things for their overwhelming majority of non-tournament players to make a slight improvement (and even that's subjective) for the minority.

I disagree greatly. As I said - it's exactly the same with every other game with reasonable management. Look at this - people already are waiting for raider, waiting a month longer won't change much while it could irresponsibly shake the official tournament scene at it's foundations.

Why bother catering to competitive player base if you would not care about them enough to provide them proper, stabilized tournament season? Also don't look at it like it's delaying - think it's just scheduled to release after those just for that reason. That's extremely logical and perfectly understandable in my opinion, especially when, again, you look at every single other game that matters on the market and see that they would never do such stupid things as releasing expansions in the middle of tournament season.

it seems more likely they are holding off on shipping them until the wave seven shipment in time for gencon; since that way they will have a big splash release for the convention, and they won't invalidate regionals by inserting the tie advanced upgrade into the nationals metagame.

FFG will release it when they are ready. Really don't see it as an issue of being "meta changing"/altering the tourney scene. We've seen almost all the cards except for palpatine (if it is indeed him). Other than that there's nothing in there that I've seen that will alter the meta so drastically that it messes up a tournament season midway. I mean come on really?! Yes there are some new cards that will breathe some new life into the advance but it's really not that big of a deal and I really don't see FFG delaying a release for this reason. If they were concerned about that they would not have slated it for release during this time of year. It will be released when it's released and that's how it's always been.

Why would FFG give a **** what the meta is?

As long as they sell stuff and people are generally happy enough that they go and buy more stuff, life is good... from their perspective.

Don't really see where they would give a "hoot" what that does to the current meta or what the new meta becomes.

This is short term thinking. FFG is clearly into long term thinking. Tournament players aren't just a few people with a small number of dollars, they are the early adopters and ambassadors capable of great boosts, or great damage, to a company's PR. That affects the bottom line, and the effect sticks arround a lot longer than most marketing moves. Just look at GW and how the negative PR sends money from their game to this one.

I highly doubt it's sitting in a warehouse waiting for tournament season to be over. If the ships disrupting the meta was a worry, all they would have to do is make some sort of statement like "You can't use the components found in the raider in regional level or higher tournaments until after worlds 2015 have concluded." Way better option then withholding a product from loyal customers.

Why would FFG give a **** what the meta is?

As long as they sell stuff and people are generally happy enough that they go and buy more stuff, life is good... from their perspective.

Don't really see where they would give a "hoot" what that does to the current meta or what the new meta becomes.

This is short term thinking. FFG is clearly into long term thinking. Tournament players aren't just a few people with a small number of dollars, they are the early adopters and ambassadors capable of great boosts, or great damage, to a company's PR. That affects the bottom line, and the effect sticks arround a lot longer than most marketing moves. Just look at GW and how the negative PR sends money from their game to this one.

That's got more to do with garbage game design and rule writing more than anything else. I heard about all that from the regular dudes I played wit and learned alot of the busted stuff through my own playing...all I learned from "pro" gw gamers was to not play with them if you wanted to have a good time.

I still can't see why a company would allow such a small subset of players to dictate when something so anticipated is released. As I have stated earlier this place puts WAY too much emphasis on the tourney circuit. Yes they can be early adopters and ambassadors and all that...but frankly, so can my best buddy Steve and he doesn't play in tournies...ever.

Most of any games players (this one and magic included) have little to no exposure to the "pro" circuit...and I would wager a large portion really don't care much. They want their new ship with as little delay as possible...and they would be none too pleased if they found out it was purposely delayed cause might throw some uncertainty into a series of games most of the will never see or play in. These forums place undue importance to the "pro" circuit...while I have no doubt there is a reason for the raiders delay...I really hope it's better than "This might screw with nationals."

I highly doubt it's sitting in a warehouse waiting for tournament season to be over. If the ships disrupting the meta was a worry, all they would have to do is make some sort of statement like "You can't use the components found in the raider in regional level or higher tournaments until after worlds 2015 have concluded." Way better option then withholding a product from loyal customers.

Agreed. I, too, feel it's something else holding it up, QC is where I would place my bet. But we will probably never know.

FFG care about their tournament scene but they aren't going to delay things for their overwhelming majority of non-tournament players to make a slight improvement (and even that's subjective) for the minority.

Why bother catering to competitive player base if you would not care about them enough to provide them proper, stabilized tournament season? Also don't look at it like it's delaying - think it's just scheduled to release after those just for that reason. That's extremely logical and perfectly understandable in my opinion, especially when, again, you look at every single other game that matters on the market and see that they would never do such stupid things as releasing expansions in the middle of tournament season.

Because the competitive scene consists of a small part of their overall market. Also, not sure what you mean by "catering." If you mean balancing the game properly, that's not solely for the tournament scene's benefit. It just means they care about their product.

Their rules are that stuff is legal once it comes out and everyone has access to it. FFG operates their tournaments on an annual cycle, to not release stuff "in season" they'd have have to have a single annual release which would harm them much more than it'd help them. Plus their release schedules so rarely go to plan that they're glad to get things on the shelves when they can.

The Raider was meant to come out in Q1. It's delayed for reasons beyond FFG's control. They're not going to hold off on a late product until November to stop the TIE advanced making things interesting.

Finally, and this I think is my most important point, if FFG did see a problem with releasing things in the middle of a tournament season, they would not hold the Raider and the income it represents back in a warehouse somewhere. That's economically stupid. They'd just rule that it wasn't tournament legal until the next season.

I am a rare tourney player, but if memory serves, didn't they either hold up a release once for the tourney cycle or issue a notice that the contents were not yet legal for tourney play?

I am a rare tourney player, but if memory serves, didn't they either hold up a release once for the tourney cycle or issue a notice that the contents were not yet legal for tourney play?

Ruling it as not tourney legal till the end of the circuit makes a helluva lot more sense than holding their shipment (and paying the associated warehouse costs) till tourney season is over.

pretty **** skippy FFG isn't holding anything back for the competitive circuit's sake

given the size and the amount of hope riding on the back of the raider (tie advance are viable! imps have an epic ship!), it's almost incalculably more likely that it's being withheld for the sake of quality rather than letting fat turrets take more top spots.

Wave five wasn't legal because only a lucky few went to gencon and its unfair to allow a ship not everyone has access to.

I am a rare tourney player, but if memory serves, didn't they either hold up a release once for the tourney cycle or issue a notice that the contents were not yet legal for tourney play?

No. They've never held up the release. The only time they've done anything remotely like this is ruled that things they prerelease at GenCon aren't legal until the main release when everyone has them.