Normally, I'd be sad, but honestly I don't really care now. Reddit is just better in almost every case. Faster replies, larger community, etc.
One thing that is a bummer though is that these forums are a huge collection for dev rules clarification. It will be a shame to see all those dev Descent rules posts lost.
Board Game Geek (BGG) forums have always had a great Descent community. That's where I'll be going to primarily now for my Descent fix so hopefully I'll see some of you around over there.
Wow, FFG is really doing bad at life huh...
To check around here was part of my daily routine. I don't think I have to add more details about my thoughts regarding this topic.
I'm really surprised, looks like FFG is dying somehow 😭
2 hours ago, rugal said:I'm really surprised, looks like FFG is dying somehow 😭
Changing? For sure. Dying? Not necessarily. The observation that the majority of their games have community activity on other platforms may just be fact. However, in the context of the other shifts which have been going on since the Asmodee merger, it does raise the question of what FFG is changing into.
Here's the thing, if this message had come out saying that the forums were closing 2022, because BGG. Well 🤷♂️ that does seem like reasonable, well planned course of action.
But these sudden 180 degree course changes end up looking like flailing.
Edited by Bucho*** REMOVED ***
Edited by any2cards4 hours ago, Zaltyre said:Changing? For sure. Dying? Not necessarily. The observation that the majority of their games have community activity on other platforms may just be fact. However, in the context of the other shifts which have been going on since the Asmodee merger, it does raise the question of what FFG is changing into.
They are clearly refocussing on only traditional board games (not war games or RPGs), but this leaves them vulnerable. Legends of Dark being a failure could be enough to ruin them without the diversification.
1 hour ago, any2cards said:I am in the process of creating a mirror of this site, so that I have access to everything after it shuts down.
You were and are one of the brightest soul and heart of this community - and to be honest not surprised that you already started to think about it
On 12/22/2020 at 7:10 PM, Zaltyre said:Changing? For sure. Dying? Not necessarily. The observation that the majority of their games have community activity on other platforms may just be fact. However, in the context of the other shifts which have been going on since the Asmodee merger, it does raise the question of what FFG is changing into.
FFG is agonizing since their best games designers quit and they stopped to produce real boardgames to compete with Games Workshop on their field. Couple that with lower sales and expensive licensing vosts and that's it.
Sad that such a great publisher has to die in this way.
Edited by Ico83Cutting cost is sensible in this economical situation. I will miss this Forum but I understand economical forses...
Edited by Hannibal_pjv8 hours ago, Ico83 said:FFG is agonizing since their best games designers quit and they stopped to produce real boardgames to compete with Games Workshop on their field.
What do you mean? Will you explain this further?
9 hours ago, The MechE said:What do you mean? Will you explain this further?
I mean that since FFG got bought by Asmodee things began to go south. Petersen who was the founder quit his position and left. Most of best designers they had left as well (Konieczka on top of them) which marked a loss in talent very difficult to replace. Most of new products/lines are quite lackluster and uninspiring and definitly they are not what made us come here in first place (like last Descent coop thing).
Then they canned basically all their dungeon crawler lines, which were the best on the market (except Gloomhaven which is a bit different) and they launched SW Legion, which is something you would expect from GW but not from FFG. Also 2nd edition of XWing I belive pissed off a lot of playerbase, where I live it actually disappeared from tables.
Now they just gave up their most profitable lines to another company that orbits around Asmodee. Asmodee is gutting out FFG and when they will have done there won't be much left, just an empty shell of what was the leading boardgame company for quite a while.
Closing the forums (without even keeping an archive version for them, which represents an incredible loss of knowledge from a rule wise point of view) is another bad move which will disconnect them furthermore from playerbase. Personally checking the community forums was the last thing that regularly bring me back on FFG website.
3 hours ago, Ico83 said:Then they canned basically all their dungeon crawler lines, which were the best on the market (except Gloomhaven which is a bit different) and they launched SW Legion, which is something you would expect from GW but not from FFG. Also 2nd edition of XWing I belive pissed off a lot of playerbase, where I live it actually disappeared from tables.
Now they just gave up their most profitable lines to another company that orbits around Asmodee.
What dungeon crawl lines did they can?
What was the most profitable lines they gave to Asmodee? What are Asmodee's replacements?
On 12/22/2020 at 4:57 PM, any2cards said:I am in the process of creating a mirror of this site, so that I have access to everything after it shuts down.
Pardon my technological ignorance, but can you explain how this works.
I find the whole FFG state of affairs sad news. I will hate to see this website go. Its a treasure trove of rules clarification and and other information. I don't know what the future holds for FFG. Descent, Imperial Assault, Mansions of Madness, X-Wing...were all games I purchased and enjoyed owning. I wanted to try Tide of Iron before they discontinued it simply because it was FFG (that meant it had to be great). I agree, things changed after they were acquired by Asmodee. I kept taking "the wait and see approach". I have to admit the closing of the forums doesn't indicate a promising future.
I'm a newcomer to these forums. I appreciate everyone's time.
*** REMOVED ***
Edited by any2cardsOn 12/25/2020 at 2:59 PM, The MechE said:What dungeon crawl lines did they can?
What was the most profitable lines they gave to Asmodee? What are Asmodee's replacements?
Descent and imperial assault were the dungeon crawlers that they killed off.
FFG turned from a board game company into a star wars company and an app "enhanced" board game company. Losing the star wars games, digital games and RPG games to different companies was a series of big blows to FFG. Each of these came with job losses.
Everything that FFG was building towards for the last 7 years was taken away from them. They were left with board games and LCGs at a time when they had cancelled games in those departments and lost several key people.
You are continuing to speak of "FFG", but FFG stopped to exist the day Petersen signed the agreement with Asmodee, and this was many many years ago!!!!!
Now there is Asmodee only, maybe with the "FFG" name, but still Asmodee. All decisions are made with the Asmodee approach (cow milking). The service/support concept does not exist in Asmodee approach and that's it!!!
On 12/25/2020 at 3:59 PM, The MechE said:What dungeon crawl lines did they can?
What was the most profitable lines they gave to Asmodee? What are Asmodee's replacements?
Mainly Imperial Assault and Descent, but the developing of Mansion of Madness stopped as well.
All Star Wars miniature games (Legion, XWing, Armada) went to another company owned by Asmodee, Atomic Mass Games.
Asmodee has no replacements. Only the uninspiring and uninteresting new Descent coop thing.
I don't know how it will be done. but I hope someone will do something to procure or archive the existance of these forums.
On 12/29/2020 at 7:51 AM, Ico83 said:Asmodee has no replacements. Only the uninspiring and uninteresting new Descent coop thing.
Hey there was that Marvel thingamajig that I shut the video off on before it got to the Descent reveal.
Plus I remember they were making some new cards for a whatever, they're still making the cards right?
Where does it say so? If true: It is https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/313578-ffg-forum-shutdown/
If they don't keep what's already on as an archive I can see them losing a massive customer base as all the discussions, community interaction and rules clarifications etc will be gone- including I reckon some of their customers/sales, as it's also a big chunk of their word of mouth marketing (I've purchased items as a result of other people's tips on the forums for one and I'm sure I wouldn't have such a big FFG collection were it not for these very forums). But mainly because it kinda says the community that play our games and the time they invest in them matter for nowt.
I usually keep mine in some form so hopefully I've got my own text backups of important stuff.
Would be easy enough to keep a static archive on here, even if only for a limited time period.
Update: nope- no archive then, have they not thought about people searching old stuff for solutions to issues/ research/ whatever, slightly moving from the complainers about FFG-post-Asmodee are too rant-y but now I feel like I want to rant, Asmodee really are ripping the heart out of FFG and now it IS beginning to get bad.
And seriously FFG, "If you have content on our forums that you would like to keep, you must save it elsewhere by January 31, 2021, or it will be lost forever". - there's about 50,000 posts on here so if we ain't got it now we probably ain't gonna have it in the future as if we've missed backing anything up or not done so for other useful/interesting stuff as it's here to search for (you know, kinda the way the internet works and saves us time and stuff) I don't think we'd have time to find anything in order to save anything in a panic just in case.
As more 2e stuff has gone 'not available' and I now have my printed 'The Doom of Fallowhearth' novel I'd pre-ordered- WITH NO FFG NEWS UPDATE to say it was now available (unless I missed it) I really do wonder if they've lost the plot and rolled a triple one on three d20's for their marketing, customer relations and product interest rolls.
Will gradually move my relevant stuff elsewhere, try bgg, if FFG haven't just finally finished off my passion for their product.
Edited by Watercolour Dragon
Thought though- more discussion on bgg etc= more awareness that people might actually find, these have gone quite quiet of late which maybe looks like no interest in the games which is misleading so a bad thing or/and nobody's stumbling upon them much- so may be some upsides
On 12/22/2020 at 1:58 PM, The MechE said:Normally, I'd be sad, but honestly I don't really care now. Reddit is just better in almost every case. Faster replies, larger community, etc.
Reddit is a fire-and-forget communication platform. We need these things:
- Hierarhically organized sub-topics and discussions
- Easy to follow threads and quotes
- Categories
- Attachments
- Search by title/author/content/date
- Persistence
I suggest everyone move to BGG instead.