Episode VII+ ships in same game?

By HauntedByJawas, in X-Wing

I got out of the Army in 2004. Up until that time I was still issued an M16 rifle. Soldiers in Vietnam also carried M16 rifles. Only difference was theirs coudl fire full auto and mine could only fire in burst. (There were other subtle differences of course). But basically, same rifle in service over 40+ years.

Also Z-95's are in the game now and represent an old ship. Maybe new X-Wings will be more expensive than old X-Wings.

Maybe new X-Wings will be more expensive than old X-Wings.

this is basically a given because of their (hypothetical) action bar

just to refresh on the history of perceptions regarded wave 1/2 ships

the X-wing was always mathematically inferior to the Tie Fighter, and it was crutching on its named pilots (esp Biggs) from day one

the Tie Fighter was dominating competitive play until m.o.v (and the pre-errata phantom, though really only in wave 5 because whisper + mini-swarm was a thing) was introduced

Except, that isn't the exact history. 4X was going strong until the B-wing came in. Yes, it ended up being a dice game, for the most part against the other squads. But it was hardly bad enough to not be considered.

And the TIE Swarm wasn't dominated from day one. Yes, it was theoretically the strongest squad. But, until the change in the FW/PW, if you ran into a Swarm vs Swarm, you were pretty much out of the competition, since Partial Wins pretty much knocked you out of the top tables. For the Swarms to win during the summer of double Falcons, you had to hope and pray you didn't face another Swarm. Which was a significant factor of keeping many from bringing them.

I think including the new ships in x-wing is no bad thing. As it does a major thing, which increase variety and deepens the available builds.

Nothing in the current game has a nod to its place of origin. The TIE Bomber doesn't have an Empire Strikes Back logo on it, for instance.

I am confused by this (alleged) turn of events.

Hypothetically, I'd expect it's to leverage Disney's marketing push for the movies. Look at it from FFG's perspective: normally, they have a marketing budget of X. Disney has a marketing budget of Y for the new films, and they're splashing the Force Awakens branding everywhere.

So if FFG were to release content with Force Awakens branding, they're effectively increasing their marketing budget for that content from X to X+Y. That's always a good thing, but it's especially a good thing when X is measured in tens of thousands of dollars and Y is measured in millions.

just to refresh on the history of perceptions regarded wave 1/2 ships

the X-wing was always mathematically inferior to the Tie Fighter, and it was crutching on its named pilots (esp Biggs) from day one

the Tie Fighter was dominating competitive play until m.o.v (and the pre-errata phantom, though really only in wave 5 because whisper + mini-swarm was a thing) was introduced

Except, that isn't the exact history. 4X was going strong until the B-wing came in. Yes, it ended up being a dice game, for the most part against the other squads. But it was hardly bad enough to not be considered.

And the TIE Swarm wasn't dominated from day one. Yes, it was theoretically the strongest squad. But, until the change in the FW/PW, if you ran into a Swarm vs Swarm, you were pretty much out of the competition, since Partial Wins pretty much knocked you out of the top tables. For the Swarms to win during the summer of double Falcons, you had to hope and pray you didn't face another Swarm. Which was a significant factor of keeping many from bringing them.

Swarm vs Swarm was indeed an obnoxious matchup, and it let some 4X squads in because those (like two-ship lists now, although for different reasons) tended to win, when they won, quickly and by a big margin.

But the first Nationals and first Worlds were won by TIE swarms. So were the majority of Kessel Run events, as far as I could tell, although that predated organized efforts to collect and track tournament results. You could beat a TIE swarm with 4X, but nothing else in Wave 1 really came close, and even so you had to play a very careful positioning game with 4X to break up the TIE formation and hit them at the right moment.

Obviously it's all about the marketing. A new starter screams "NEW STAR WARS, GUISE!" much better than a few odd blue X-Wings in a tiny blister on the shelf. Kids going to the stores with their dad will see them and think that those cool ships were in the Star Wars movie they went to watch in the cinema and that they want them and, frankly, the more "STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS" branded products appear all around us (shampoo bottles like the old R2D2 one, backpacks, soaps, inflatable toys, beach balls, costumes, toy blasters and, well, anything you can imagine), the bigger impact the new Star Wars movies will make on the popculture and that's exactly what Disney wants. The more bigger, flashier Star Wars-themed products (starter instead of "just" blisters) there are, the bigger the franchise's impact on people becomes. It's all about marketing and psychology. :)

Blast. I want to discuss the new starter not being particularly obvious about "Force Awakens" logo and such, but I'm not sure how much I can say here yet.

Obviously it's all about the marketing. A new starter screams "NEW STAR WARS, GUISE!" much better than a few odd blue X-Wings in a tiny blister on the shelf. Kids going to the stores with their dad will see them and think that those cool ships were in the Star Wars movie they went to watch in the cinema and that they want them and, frankly, the more "STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS" branded products appear all around us (shampoo bottles like the old R2D2 one, backpacks, soaps, inflatable toys, beach balls, costumes, toy blasters and, well, anything you can imagine), the bigger impact the new Star Wars movies will make on the popculture and that's exactly what Disney wants. The more bigger, flashier Star Wars-themed products (starter instead of "just" blisters) there are, the bigger the franchise's impact on people becomes. It's all about marketing and psychology. :)

Bingo!