I am really not happy that FFG is putting out a revisied edtion of an expansion. So how do we know there won't be a revised expansion for every other expansion for every other game you have done? Why should I spend my money on a new expansion when you will just put out a revised edition later?

How many times does FFG expect people to pay for the same stuff?

Ken on Cape said:

I do not know why you aren't happy. Dark Pharaoh has been around the longest and also had the most flaws. This is great news to see that FFG actually cares enough to fix mistakes that everyone points out.

We don't know there won't be revisions of other expansions. Rather, we can expect them now.

You don't need to spend your money on any of these revisions. Some of us will. I am excited to see how DP has been fixed, and some of the stuff I've seen and read already looks highly promising.

Buy what you want. But if you're afraid that something you buy now will be revised later, then are you that disinclined to buy the revision too?

I don't see what the big problem is. They've continued to support Arkham Horror with expansions for a number of years, and the expansions (generally) get better and better.

Dark Pharaoh was the first expansion they released, and boy does it show. I'm not sure what the big deal is with them making revisions on a five year old product that has proven sloppy and inferior to their later products in the time since its release. Dark Pharaoh is an awesome addition thematically, so giving it a fix that it sorely needs is the right call, IMO.

If they start pumping out "revisions" to Lurker and Innsmouth and selling them at full price, then I think you'd have a point.

Hyoushitsu said:

Well, Innsmouth is pretty flawless as an expansion, despite its lackluster heralds. But Lurker? Why not? With it's herald that proved to be the strongest of the guardians.

Avi_dreader said:

Well, Lurker is a brand new product and doesn't need a significant revision. Its mechanics all work pretty well. The herald itself turned out to be a little wonky, but I think it's fun even if it doesn't often provide a significant challenge.

What's wrong with Innsmouth's heralds? Dagon and Hydra are pretty nasty when used together, and provide a semi-customizable challenge boost if you only wish to use one. The way I look at it is that they're one herald that you can play in three different ways depending on the challenge level that you want.

But yeah, preaching to the choir about Innsmouth. By far and away the best-designed, most fun expansion they released, IMO. It's not even close.

Hyoushitsu said:

Compare Dagon/Hydra to the herald from KiY BGotW and Lurker, or any of the heralds from KH and you'll see the difference. Yeah, they add to the game difficulty, but they hardly add to a sense of radically different theme or required playstyle (except requiring one to be a stingy bastard with clues and go after the deep one rising track more). No new game abilities for monsters, no interesting new effects, no sense that they can be played with certain AOs to really change the way the game works, and no decks of new cards to go with them. Meh. I was disappointed with them from day one, but I love everything else in Innsmouth so it doesn't really bother me much.

Heh... If you think Lurker *ever* offers a challenge, you're not understanding how it's "herald" works... I wish that weren't the case, but it turns AH into a bad joke :'/ very disappointing to me (since I expected a difficulty boosting herald). Still, the components are great, so with extensive houserules, it works.

Avi_dreader said:

I thought that might be it. That's the only thing I see that could be criticized about them. They don't change the game in a radical way. I honestly prefer it that way. BGotW was a mechanical nightmare. It doesn't so much make the game hard as it makes it aggravating to play. KiY was the only herald that introduced new mechanics and was very successful at it, IMO. But I can see why you'd be disappointed. I prefer Dagon and Hydra to most heralds that introduce new mechanics.

And I can't fault them too bad on Lurker. They tried something new and came away with something pretty fun, even if it isn't perfect.

I like Dagon and Hydra, but the one downfall is you MUST use the IH board to use either/both of them. The others (other than the internet, and therefore free, based Dunwich Horror) can be used in any board/expansion set-up with little problems, giving an almost universal increase in difficulty.

My only problem with this is that I literally just bought CotDP 3 months ago...and 3 months from now it'll be out on the shelves...Some notice would've been great, so that way I could've said, "Oh, okay, don't get me that for Christmas. Get me that new 'Lurker' expansion, instead..."

I don't have all the expansions yet, so this new one goes to the bottom of my list. Will I get it? Depends on what is actually entailed. I very much enjoy CotDP with a few exceptions (mostly just that blasted Clothing Drive Mythos...). And, unlike most people, I enjoy the Benefits/detriments, and don't think that Barred From the Neighborhood is the worst mechanic ever (I mean, seriously! Why so much hate for this mechanic?). Sure it's hard to get Exhibit items. But that's due to Mythos/encounter dilution-the only ways to get them. I don't think FFG was looking this far ahead, and saw that there would be SO many expansions, each adding SO many Mythos and Encounter cards, with every expansion!

So no, I don't fault FFG for releasing this. I'm just sad I bought it just before they said they're releasing a new one. Now I know how my friends with iPads feel...

Hyoushitsu said:

Oh, I've had a lot of fun with it, after altering it. It's just that calling it a herald in their promotional materials strikes me as false advertising. Not that anyone cares that much. I don't think anyone would have felt disappointed at all by it had they described it as a "New Guardian that can be a double edged sword" or something.

Ken on Cape said:

And how would it be better if they didn't offer a revised edition? Then you'd have no choice at all.

If you already have a copy of the original, then you can keep playing with it. It's not as if it will disappear when the new one is released, and thus literally forcing you to buy it again to enjoy playing with it.

I'd welcome any revised versions if they seem significantly better. No one needs to buy them if they are happy with the older versions. I understand that it's annoying if you have just bought Curse and would have prefered the new one, but for most people it's now time for a change.

It's certainly better to have a choice to buy or not to buy - few people get annoyed when a new model of kettle comes out - buy it if you need one or want to upgrade but there is no need to feel obliged to own them all or be angry about new products being updated after several years.

My two cents about this issue... We all use computers, mobile phones and so on. We pay for them a lot of money, even if we know that after 2-3-4 years we'll have to change them. And this is fine. Instead, it's not fine paying 25 bucks for the revised edition of a very old expansion for the game we all love so much. This is a little non-sense to me. I think we should see how much new content is in the box, before saying it's only a mere commercial operation.

I'm by far more disappointed by other things. There is no idea of how everything will evolve. I'd really appreciate if the news regarding Arkham (and related product) were offered in a way that the everyone could understand what's going on. Something like "hey folks! we have some plans regarding Arkham. We'd love to release a series of satellite boardgames called Mansions of Madness. The idea is to create a game and some expansions doing this and that, and maybe another game related to the Mountains of Madness. Then we'll go on with the Arkham core series. A blender expansion is planned, some extra cards will be released with the Print on Demand option, and we're going to revise some of the small boxes, starting from the Pharoah because... If the market responds in the proper ways, obviously. We cannot produce games without people buying them, but if everything goes well... then this is our line of action" This should have been said during the Arkham Nights, or through an official communique on this site. And then listen to people's feedback and so on.

Last thing: he only Arkham product I believe needs a real revision is the base game. Base game AOs are very easy to defeat, and the Mythos deck needs gate bursts. At least 4 gate bursts on the high frequency locations, and probably rumors adding double doomers. Other expansions are fine. There are some points that should be reworked (cult encounters from the black goat, the way the lurker acts and some minor stuff), but they are not problems big enough to justify a real revision of the whole expansion.

Julia said:

This kind of communication and consultation would be great - I wondered if this might happen at Arkham Nights but apparently it didn't.

EcnoTheNeato said:

I like Dagon and Hydra as well. I think they do increase the Innsmouth theme and I appreciate their powers when Cthulhu is the AO, especially Dagon's! I think the possibility of using them together is interesting, though too challenging for me to attempt.

CotDP is my favorite small box expansion and the only one I sometimes still use, in Visiting Exhibit mode naturally. That solves the dilution problem and avoids the resulting difficulty in gaining Exhibit Items. The Dark Pharaoh Herald works extremely well with the expansion, nicely balancing out the great power of some of the Exhibit Items.

I can't believe you're dissing Clothing Drive! It's one of my favorite Mythos cards of the entire game!

EcnoTheNeato said:

Nah, you really, really don't need to use Innsmouth. Hydra is kind of lame even with Innsmouth, but Dagon's non-Innsmouth ability alone is nasty. In my last game, Y'Golonac literally just sat back and let Dagon do all the work.

Well, true. I guess I read too much into the "you must use innsmouth" thing. It's really only a secondary effect, and Father Dagon can still be quite vicious enough without the Board. Whereas Mother Hydra really only works as a way to complement Dagon, really...

And Solan, Clothing Drive is more of a love/hate thing...They're easy enough to avoid, but if I ever roll a failure, it makes me cry inside...

It would take me all night/morning to list every board game I own that runs smoothly and feels tested. But I won't. Instead, I will list the original FFG games (as in not remakes) that are almost as flawless.

Chaos in the Old World

Starcraft the Board Game

Twilight Imperium

...

yep that is all they have made that feel tested and balanced and have only minor misprints.





YOU GUYS are the reason this game has lasted this long and the reason for expansion after expansion.

YOU GUYS make the fan material and use the programs like Strange Eons to keep it alive and fresh. Don't say crap like "FFG cares that is why they made this revised edition"...and please don't even hint at being willing to have more expansions revised...because they only see you for the wallets in your pockets.

If anything how about giving FFG the support to not release a product until it feels flawless like the 3 games I listed above? Quit with the deadlines. Quality ... not quantity.

Curator said:

Customers have been conditioned to expect and deal with minor problems, mostly because of the software industry. Quality assurance is low priority beyond a certain minimum. Improving quality will not help you as much to sell more products as producing more good products will - at least in the gaming/entertainment market.

jhaelen said:

As a professional quality assurance technician, I have to say that this is sadly true. As much as I strive to ensure every product I'm given is perfect before it gets sent out, there are some issues that just aren't worth spending the time and money to fix. They won't hurt sales enough to make a difference, and missing the deadline with content providers (gaming stores in the case of this thread) WILL hurt more in the long run.

Perhaps more importantly, it needs to be recognized that nothing will ever be completely perfect. There will always be something that could be done better. The higher the company's standards in terms of what they will fix, the more nit-picky and pedantic the issues become, but there will ALWAYS be issues. At some point, you just have to draw a line in the sand or else you'll never release your product.

FFG games have, from a very early point in the company's history, been exceedingly high quality. It's one of the reasons I've bought in to so many FFG games. The rulebooks have historically been somewhat vague and poorly worded, but that has been improving of late and beyond that one thing I've had little reason to complain about any of their products.

That they have decided to release a revised version of the Dark Pharaoh expansion to me says that they have decided the standards they let it go out with before are no longer good enough. They are so poor, in fact, that the company is prepared to spend more money fixing it. That takes balls, my friends. Especially considering the way it will obviously be seen by the customers (as the OP has illustrated.)

It might seem like FFG is trying to squeeze us for extra money, but the fact of the matter is no one is forcing you to buy the new version if you already own the old one. This is a big financial risk FFG is taking, because the potential makert for this new version is decidedly smaller than the potential market for a brand new expansion. Even if some people who bought the old one cave and buy the new one, too, there WILL be people who don't. I for one will not be buying the new version, that's for sure. Not because I hate FFG or because I think they're evil and trying to screw me, but simply because I don't feel compelled to own an errata'd version of the expansion.

In days gone by, FFG has been known to be pretty good about offering cheaper alternatives to "upgrade" the old customers when things like this have happened. Like when they took over Talisman from Black Industries, for example. If the corrections aren't being made available online, or if they are too extensive to be simply published in a pdf, then I would expect some kind of trade-in offer, or a discounted price for previous customers who can provide proof of purchase for the old version of the expansion. I don't know if anything like that has been mentioned yet, but if you're one who has the old version and would want the new version, I'd keep my eyes peeled for such opportunities.

Curator said:

So why is TI on it's 3rd Edition if it was flawless?

Jhealan and Steve-O, I very much agree, both from my own work in several professional fields, and from a business-y perspective

Plus, I feel FFG actually realizes this. Which is why I think their customer service is so superb. But...that's just a theory

Curator said:

How about "don't tell me what to say on these boards"?

I don't have to buy anything just because they make it. As Steve-O pointed out, FFG takes a financial risk in creating these revised editions. They can make as many revised expansions as they feel like - all it does is give me more options. I'll decide whether I think it's worth it for me to spend $ on them, not FFG.

Julia said:

that's actually a really good analogy.... things like this happen all the time though in all lmedias...re-issued cds with bonus tracks...re-releases of movies with more bonus features... even video games re-releasing with DLC included on their discs.... in these cases it may seem like milking but for those who haven't bought the product already its a really good deal...it just kind of feels like a slap to those who were the early adopters of these products.... upon further investigation into the revision it seems like it a nice boost in the arm for the expansion (especially the Whispered token/Exhibit encounters) but i feel they could have just thrown that into Miskatonic Horror...

I wanted to buy the expansions in order, but Dark Pharaoh was unavailable everywhere or too expensive, ...and the cover art looked ugly from my point of view...so i bought some other expansions. Now that i saw the new cover art i find it much better and more dramatic,(love the jumping mummy) like something my players would love to try.

My point is that as a newbie on this game and the table games in general, i can't relate to the discusion about fairness, price, quality or even content....But as a consumer i am sold.