OMFG it's Happening (expansions)

By Norgrath, in Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game

Interacting with the forums, especially a multi game company like FFG? That is an extremely thankless job, and to be honest, not one that is necessarily needed. I have looked at various forums, Warhammer Diskwars, Star Wars Armada and X Wing, various 40k RPGs, even this one with all of the doom and gloom, and they are toxic at best. I volunteer moderate in a chat room, I have for about three years at this point, and I can tell you now I absolutely would not want to moderate on the FFG forums, even if I was being paid to do so.

From a business stand point, it is a complete wash as well. You have to have people who are knowledgeable about the rules and ins and outs of a very large catalog. There are 9 categories just under products, and one of those is an "Other" category. You are asking for FFG to have staff who are capable of rules discussions for: Star Wars X-Wing, Armada, Rebellion, the three or four different iterations of the RPG, Warhammer 40k Conquest, Forbidden Stars (Maybe) Relic, the five different 40k RPGs, Elder Sign, Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror, Descent, Android, the LotR LCG, the Runebound material, and then the other games, such as this one, or Talisman, or any of their many smaller games that aren't necessarily part of a franchise, or are small parts of that franchise. The game devs can't do it realistically because they need to be working on the next thing. This isn't like Blizzard, which only has five products, and different teams for each, so they can devote people to interact on the forums now and then. FFG has -a lot- of different games with varying degrees of popularity, and if only the most popular ones had FFG staff interacting, then you would be screaming even louder that this means that this game was doomed because it might not see that same level of company interaction.

The only way FFG can guarantee equality when it comes to interaction and announcements due to sheer quantity of their products and the fact that various lines have something new coming out every month, is to not go on the forums at all, and any moderators they hire would have to be knowledgeable on more than one or two games simply because to be worth that paycheck they have to moderate and interact on more than one forum. No message board for FFG products is all that active, most people using BGG or some other message board.

TL;DR: FFG as a company is far too large, product wise to have its developers and most employees just checking the forums to interact with people and attempt to keep that interaction equal. Even if they had the people to do so, these people would have to know more than just one game or system, due to the aforementioned number of products, which is unrealistic. Moderating any forum is a thankless job, and any volunteers would have to meet the aforementioned criteria for FFG to maintain any claim of equality and lack of bias, and finally FFG forums are just not active enough to truly warrant that level of investment of time or money to make it worth while.

and they are toxic at best.

Actually, outside of this one (which is really bad, potentially the worst forum I've ever been on outside BGG and the Agot 2.0 on Cardgamedb), Talisman (also quite bad), and maybe Lotr, I don't see much toxicity. And I doubt divinityofnumber meant moderate, he just meant that the game development teams should occasionally interact with the community, which is one of FFGs shortcomings. They are very much behind closed doors, and don't really even look at the forums at all. That is how Netrunner reached where it is.

Again, FFG is simply too big, and has too many games, for this to be a realistic goal or expectation. How do you determine what games get any form of FFG interaction? What does it say about games that go weeks or longer without? Warhammer Quest launched in November, not even six months later people are convinced the game is abandoned because it isn't immediately getting support, where Relic has gotten two expansions in the years since its launch. Elder Sign has gotten roughly one expansion a year. FFG has so many games that they can't actually have people interacting on the forums, they have too many products that are active for that.

People have gotten spoiled by computer games, or companies that have one product and make just that one product, IE Sentinels of the Multiverse, and are applying those standards of interaction to a company that has far more going on at any given time. The only way for FFG to realistically produce the number of games it does, is to have the stance it does. Which is no interaction with customers outside of their announcements. When you have four or five, or more, products of any particular line that is receiving active development, and you have three lines like that, on top of other solo products, you simply can't devote any amount of time to forum interaction, or that is most, if not all, of a day gone.

Edit: Just looking at the Upcoming, and being rather generous and just looking at games they have announcements for, and not reprints, they have 14 different things in various stages of development. That is 14 games whoever you elect to go speak on the forums needs to be knowledgeable about. Because if that person just spoke to people about...X Wing/Armada, and no other forums, everything else would explode in either outrage that those two games got FFG interaction and their game didn't, or the fact that their game got no interaction, it means their game is doomed.

Edited by Westonard

I'm fine with the stuff being PoD at least for stuff like characters. In my experience with Death Angel, the PoD stuff is only really an issue when you mix PoD and "original" printed material in a single deck (that's when the texture and coloring differences matter).

If we get new quests and (more importantly) monsters and gear/dungeon cards, that's what I really hope end up being in more "official" boxed expansions.

That being said, we got expansions, I am so happy, and I will take PoD over nothing any day of the week. Even if we only get a few more expansions, and even if we only get them as PoD, I keep looking at how much variety the few expansions brought to Death Angel.

Again, FFG is simply too big, and has too many games, for this to be a realistic goal or expectation. How do you determine what games get any form of FFG interaction? What does it say about games that go weeks or longer without? Warhammer Quest launched in November, not even six months later people are convinced the game is abandoned because it isn't immediately getting support, where Relic has gotten two expansions in the years since its launch. Elder Sign has gotten roughly one expansion a year. FFG has so many games that they can't actually have people interacting on the forums, they have too many products that are active for that.

People have gotten spoiled by computer games, or companies that have one product and make just that one product, IE Sentinels of the Multiverse, and are applying those standards of interaction to a company that has far more going on at any given time. The only way for FFG to realistically produce the number of games it does, is to have the stance it does. Which is no interaction with customers outside of their announcements. When you have four or five, or more, products of any particular line that is receiving active development, and you have three lines like that, on top of other solo products, you simply can't devote any amount of time to forum interaction, or that is most, if not all, of a day gone.

Edit: Just looking at the Upcoming, and being rather generous and just looking at games they have announcements for, and not reprints, they have 14 different things in various stages of development. That is 14 games whoever you elect to go speak on the forums needs to be knowledgeable about. Because if that person just spoke to people about...X Wing/Armada, and no other forums, everything else would explode in either outrage that those two games got FFG interaction and their game didn't, or the fact that their game got no interaction, it means their game is doomed.

Okay, seriously. I am Damon Stone. I can look at Netrunner forums. I am Lukas Litszinger. I look at Runebound. I am Caleb Grace, Lotr. I am Brad Andres, Conquest. Not that hard. Just occasional stuff.

If FFG would actually tell us when games were done, or had some scale (1 improbable, 2 unlikely, 3 possible, 4 likely, 5 in development) to show how much support things would receive, that would make the forums a better place, and stop the "moaning" that people complains about.

Hello !

Sorry for my english Im french.

Maybe it was answered before but Im about to buy the game (finally in french) and Im wondering why FFG created new heroes but no new quest ? What for ?

People here who played the game many times and finished it do you think that these new heroes with no new quest improve the experience ?

And did FFG communicated about new quests in the future ?

Merci :)

Ordered one of each to the UK. Came to £20 and a few pence including postage, not too bad. Couldn't wait for them to reach our shores.

I ordered them for Belgium. Shipping is three times the cost of the product, I still ordered them.

Well I hope I will receive them one day. The tracking information seems crazy to me: http://imgur.com/RBRLq33

Edited by wirbowsky

Ok, I am following this topic, so please don't hesitate to tell me what you found in this "deck" and if it help replayability

FFG monitors their forum regularly, it's no mystery. It's enough that you go on the Community page, check who's online, and you'll see often an FFG-something-user reading this or that thread. Point is that the company decided not to open a dialogue with the fans. Why? I don't know the official reason, but good thinking suggests me that if they start answering, then everyone will be wanting an answer, and the thing will escalate to proportions unknown.

Plus, if you look at the names in the rulebooks, you'll notice that they don't have a legion of game designers and game developers: each of these guys is working on a lot more than a single line of products. And they have to design new content, follow all the phases of testing, answer the rules questions, prepare FAQs and other things and so on. How can we expect them to answer also in-forum? A not so long time ago, they stated "as long as we have a game in the catalogue, that game for us is not dead". So, basically, they already answered all these questions with a pretty simple statement. Sure thing, as a fan, I'd love to know a few things more (like: what happened to DiskWars?), but in the end, I do what I can to keep the interest for a game alive by helping the community growing. And if expansions come, all the better.

As for WH: the game appeared in November. Let's say they wanted to see how it goes before deciding whether to start working on an expansion. This means they could (beware, could, I have no idea of things in WHQ) have decided "hey the game sells, let's make one exp" or they could have decided "hey, not selling so much, let's see what happens in the next X months and then decide". IIRC, one of the two designers of the game posted on this very board "if the game sells, we may do an expansion", so, there's a door open. But how long does it take designing a good expansion for a game? Minimum 6 months, probably something more considering how long and complex the production chain is. So, this means we could have an announcement tomorrow, or at GenCon, or in 10 months from now, and by no means before that the game can be seen as dead.

Patience :)

I have just received the cards and, honestly, I am bit disappointed by the printing quality. The images seem too dark and the quality not good like in Descent POD quest. :(

I hope for the next heroes FFG will make a "serious" expansion (including new quests, monsters and locations) and take reponsability for the printing. ;)

After waiting for more than a decade Warhammer Quest my patience is depleted. Come on FFG, make WQACG expansions and take my money. : :lol:

Indeed- the quality is bad. Also the cutting is not done as it should be.

I'm just waiting on my copies in the male. These will be a great addition and will be used often in my group, but I agree with previous comments. I feel this game should have a proper campaign expansion. For one thing that is what this game is geared for. However, FFG does have many eggs in many baskets, and I'm not mad when more expansions for things like Elder Sign come out, but one campaign and one quest simply isn't enough for this game.