You also have to remember that they are answering questions about a game that is 12 to 18 months behind what they are currently working.

That should mean that these rules were worked out 12-18 months ago.

They were very clearly not.

Or they were, but there was some other impetus to alter the deal, and we must pray they don't alter it any further.

As far as I concerned E-mail rullings are junk anyways. If it's not published then it's useless. You can't have rules secretly handed out and not documented for everyone to see.

Not only are E-mail rulings unverified they are not general knowledge to have something sprung on me that was not published anywhere during a GE would be insanely agrevating.

Long story short they should not do E-mail rullings, if they need to then there should be a website they post them to or a section of these forums.

What about people playing casually that have questions? There's more than just the tournament scene. E-mails can be collected and presented prior to a tournament.

The FAQ update may be limited to certain timing windows - so many issues that crop up shortly after a release - and no matter how many testers there are, or how many questions are answered there - the general public will always find something.

If TO's make it up as they go, you'll get inconsistency over multiple tournaments at different places, having an e-mail is a nice way to get some consistency, and As a TO, i'll gladly look over e-mails for a tournament, but only before the tournament - and I'll make announcements based on that - during a tournament i'm unlikely to get a response to a question

This thread needs to stop now. Complaining is fine but aiming at one guy (who doesn't have to talk you) is out of order. Personal thread like this is uncalled for.

Guys,

It's hard to memorize all the minutia of possible rules interactions for this game. It's easy to come up with a solution for something that accidentally contradicts another solution. I'm sure once Frank realizes the contradiction he'll retract either his message or the FAQ to reconcile them.

Yes, designers have much better things to do than to try to think up a way to handle every single situation that could ever come up in the game. You know that the special rules aren't even finalized until it hits the presses, right? Why spend days trying to work out Rudor's ability in complete detail when you swap it for another more fun ability halfway through?

This is just a game. Relax. It'll be fun regardless of how tactician and Rudor interact. If it's really that important to you, just flip a coin at the start of the game to decide how you'll play it that time. If you're at a tournament get the organizer to tell you the ruling for that event, if it's so important to you.

This really doesn't matter.

Dear Mr. Brooks,

Your newer submission are vastly inferior to your original work. Dracula: Dead and Loving It was not only terrible, it had nowhere near the cultural self awareness as masterpieces such as Blazing Saddles and History of the World Part I. It's about time someone brought this to your attention I suggest you...

wait, Frank not Mel?

Oh, well then, never mind.

So here is another question, suppose you tractor beam a guy who was at range two but moved out of arc, to get him on an asteroid, do you still get to tactician him?

(the answer, I suspect is, no becasue tactician happens after the attack an the move is part of the attack)

As far as Mr Brooks goes, he has always answered my questions in a professional and curtsies manor (through the FFG rules question process) and I consider him the bees knees!!

#Frank4President

Frank and Alex deserve raises! And bacon!

Please stop...

Thank You

Well, two random guys throwing a fit on the internet told the designers to pack it in, so I guess they have to.

Imperial Veterans is the last expansion guys. Twas fun while it lasted.

I'm lost. Links to these latest rulings, please?

As far as I concerned E-mail rullings are junk anyways. If it's not published then it's useless. You can't have rules secretly handed out and not documented for everyone to see.

Not only are E-mail rulings unverified they are not general knowledge to have something sprung on me that was not published anywhere during a GE would be insanely agrevating.

Long story short they should not do E-mail rullings, if they need to then there should be a website they post them to or a section of these forums.

As opposed to when a judge makes a ruling against the FAQ or a ruling not how you expected when something not covered in the FAQ comes up?

Guys,

It's hard to memorize all the minutia of possible rules interactions for this game. It's easy to come up with a solution for something that accidentally contradicts another solution. I'm sure once Frank realizes the contradiction he'll retract either his message or the FAQ to reconcile them.

Yes, designers have much better things to do than to try to think up a way to handle every single situation that could ever come up in the game. You know that the special rules aren't even finalized until it hits the presses, right? Why spend days trying to work out Rudor's ability in complete detail when you swap it for another more fun ability halfway through?

This is just a game. Relax. It'll be fun regardless of how tactician and Rudor interact. If it's really that important to you, just flip a coin at the start of the game to decide how you'll play it that time. If you're at a tournament get the organizer to tell you the ruling for that event, if it's so important to you.

This really doesn't matter.

It's almost as if, once they think of these rules, they should write them down. Oh! Maybe compile them all in one place and show everyone at the same time.

OH WAIT

I've had these conversations recently with people and besides there being literally thousands more eyes on the rules released, one thing I don't see in this thread is that it can be very hard to see a language problem in a rule when you are aware of the intent of the rule.

Frank right now.

Guys, I don't know what the problem is all about. As I understand it you all send in questions thru emails to the lead designer. He takes time off his schedule and tries to answer them directly (to the original sender, not the community as a whole). His answers were never meant to be "Word from God" commandments. They are just his explanation/interpetation of the answer to the direct question posed to him.

The FAQ is the only official source of rules errata/update that the players and TOs should be going by in tournament play. If the lead designer comes up with an answer that reverses/contradicts a ruling in the FAQ, then it is up to FFG rules adjusters to decide if and when said FAQ needs to be updated/changed. Until that happens, the current FAQ would stay in place in regards to fair play by all tournament players.

At least that would appear to be the logical thing to do.

(I'm new to all this I have only been playing X-Wing for 5 months now... So maybe I'm completely wrong.

Omg so many white knights on here protecting Frank's honor. It's all tongue on cheek. Frank does make terrible calls lol. When I'm at gencon or world's I always go for Alex or one of the other judges when I need a ruling lol.

Dealing with issues surrounding complex rules and their interactions is difficult. It's a multi-faceted problem, and a lot of pressure from a lot of sources that have conflicting goals and priorities. That Mr. Brooks is passionate enough to take time out of his day to answer individual questions is commendable (lord knows I don't field questions from the users of the products I create; I pawn it off on customer support and don't look back).

However, I think that the community has legitimate complaints about the content that they receive. The rulings are often puzzling in that it's not clear how the rules as written imply this specific ruling, nor how to generalize the ruling out to apply to other, similar situations. The rulings are often contradictory, in that future (or in this case, already published) FAQs state the opposite. And finally, the rulings are distributed so informally that it's impossible to verify their veracity until the next FAQ revision (which may or may not agree). It adds up to a situation that I have a hard time making a compelling case for, versus periodic FAQ updates with silence in between.

To be clear, this is an organizational problem on the part of FFG. X-Wing is making them enough money that they should be able to shell out to hire a suitably pedantic project manager to handle these sorts of things in a regularized, consistent, dependable way. Obviously, the status quo isn't killing the game, so perhaps the ROI for that hire isn't good enough, but if they cared enough to fix it, that would be the approach I'd recommend.

There are a lot more players than there are playtesters. The testers have maybe 2 months to work through all the iterations of a release and you expect them to catch all the snags? Get real!

I can guarantee that no playtester conceived Dracon Pyrathon's "Nope" button or how the original Phantom was going to be so OP. So they miss a call on occasion or rule counter to our expectations! Give them a break. If the loudest critics think they can do better apply for a job at FFG. Or better yet, Games Workshop. They really need straightened out.

We have a great game that's easy to play, complex enough to hold our attention for YEARS, relatively inexpensive and all brought to us by TWO designers. I think they deserve a rounx of applause.

Omg so many white knights on here protecting Frank's honor. It's all tongue on cheek. Frank does make terrible calls lol. When I'm at gencon or world's I always go for Alex or one of the other judges when I need a ruling lol.

When you get called out, all of a sudden your complaints are "all tongue on cheek" [sic].

Frank doesn't make terrible calls. I think he does a fine job of trying to balance a ever growing set of rules, abilities, upgrades and weapons. You may not agree with a call he makes, but discuss the decision, not the guy.

Dear Frank Brooks... just because a couple of guys don't like your rulings, please feel free to ignore them. Mostly there is jealousy because you are able to help shape a game that we all care about way too much. We thank you for the hands on time you apply to this game! May X-Wing live on in the annals of time till we are old and grayheaded... err.. too old to know better!

Thanks for everything you and Alex do and keep rocking the X-Wing World Galaxy!

So when does Valen rudor get to use his ability? Because right now there are 2 very different answers. One of which is negated by the fact the tournament rules says you can't reference outside sources during the round. Frank's rulings are literally unusable during the game.

I'm a bit surprised that it was *RUDOR* that set off this thread. I entered half expecting it to about the 'Gonk' ruling.

I mean, for real, if they had MEANT for it to be one new action only, they would have written:

"Action: Do X or do Y"

...instead of what they DID write, which is:

"Action: Do X

Action: Do Y"

The former is clearly a single new action that can do one of two things. The latter is clearly *two* new actions that can each do one thing.

But email trumps obvious intent, apparently?

I think you over represent on how clear it was. To me, it could've gone either way.

This thread is a new low...can it please get locked and booted off the boards.

Omg so many white knights on here protecting Frank's honor. It's all tongue on cheek. Frank does make terrible calls lol. When I'm at gencon or world's I always go for Alex or one of the other judges when I need a ruling lol.

It's kind of sh*tty to attack people on a forum where they are not permitted to respond and defend themselves.

I think we must discuss a Bacon issue, so that the thread gets derailed and locked for good.

On reddit they collected some of the e-mail rulings into an unofficial faq. That was helpful (it looks like it was taken down after the FAQ was released) because it covered grey areas that were not dealt with the FAQ at the time but which eventually made it in. I also dislike secret rules, but having something like a compilation of them until they are officially published into an FAQ is still useful to have when you have no idea how the rule should work.

Dear Mr. Brooks,

Your newer submission are vastly inferior to your original work. Dracula: Dead and Loving It was not only terrible, it had nowhere near the cultural self awareness as masterpieces such as Blazing Saddles and History of the World Part I. It's about time someone brought this to your attention I suggest you...

wait, Frank not Mel?

Oh, well then, never mind.

What? Dracula: Dead and Loving It was a great movie. I don't get the criticism against it. You, and the reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes, just lack taste.