Just wanted to say: "FFG, drop the bomb already."

It will be a bomb... Heroes or official death of Battlelore.

So good or bad is coming: Or FFG option would be something like: "Hey.. sorry for the long silence but we are working on it "

.... turning away and using RSS feeds to get BL news...

Ha! Ironic you should mention RSS feeds as this is one of the few games where FFG doesn't even offer an RSS feed. The others don't work anyway though, so I guess it's no biggie...

Since everyone likes to repeat themselves....

I will say once again, "FFG did not spend lots of money to acquire the BattleLore title just to shut it down." If they wanted it did, they would just let DOW continue what it was doing and it didn't cost FFG a dime.

ColtsFan76 said:

Right, that's the way I see it also. Good post

Kluuetje said:

But at the same time, you would think they (being someone from FFG) would at least pop in from time to time to say something. At least on the other forums they have that..we don't even have that "nicety"...<shakes head>

Sure we get info from Richard, but what the designer desires and what the company wants, might be two different things. And still we don't even have Heroes on the Upcoming product list.

Cab

Caboose said:

given how vast these forums are and that only a tiny handfull of the people who buy battlelore post to them i would far rather they finish writeing the next e-mail that will get them closer to putting heros on the shelf.

well, I suppose we can not blame FFG for the delay - the promises were first made by Dow , and we waited and waited....

then FFG took BL, and we're still waiting for the heroes - I hoped that the first FFG Expansion was ready when they made announcement of the take over - but alas - obviously I was wrong

and my heart is bleeding - such a great game, so much fun playing, painting, making 3D-terrains and then somebody's goofing it up (still I think DoW's to blame for this)

Is it any help to say: The game's good as it is now with all the expansions that are out already? Of course it is, but when I started, we talked about a system, a new world, endless possibilities, heroes, new races, creatures - there's a lot missing (still I do not blame FFG for this)

So I'm still waiting, sad that so few of the original intentions for the game came true. If FFG brought the heroes a short time after the take over I surely would have bought it (just to welcoming back BL) , but so much time went by, and for now somehow BL is in agony for me. I'm still hoping for that wonder to bring it back to life, but i fear the fire's out ... for good, the more that I can not expect a german version of the expansions in the near future!

Well, they are busy formulating their April Fools Joke, and that takes team effort. I know they will get around to us. . .

Z

It's still ok for me, that FFG does not bring any BL-News on 1st of April

Easy boys,we should wait and then we will see what is going on.FFG says something like that: "3 quarter of 2009 will be great for BL fans".So I think we don't need to worry .

Kloszardzik said:

Agreed. Taking on the new property probably requires time to get everything in place and set up a development plan for the line as a whole. Really don't want FFG to release something out of hand just because DOW thought it was done/almost done. Plus fitting in time with the printers and bringing all the game related material from DOW.

I am just waiting for something in the 2nd half of the year.

I also hope that once everything is in full production, we will see releases 3 or 4 times a year, but that may be hoping for a little much.

I think, 3 or 4 times a year is a bit too much, once or twice will be more realistic (or nothing at all???). My interest in Battellore gets smaller and smaller, other games appear, are supported, ... I'm still active in the German WorldofBattlelore-forum, but I realised that my last BL-Game was in december 2008, and somehow I don't feel motivated to play it in the next days/weeks. I still think, it's a great game, but too much promises which were waiting to be proven...

Sorry for double-post... don't know why I wrote "to" with double-o^^

Yeah, your probably right. Okay, 2 times a year....

Regardless, I realized it has been December since I have last played as well. Good game dying on the vine because there are too many other good games out there to play that have consistent releases.

It could be FFG feels the material they received from DOW needs serious rewriting and/or playtesting.

Doubt they'll give any news or dates until everything is pretty much set in stone though.

cyric036 said:

So I repeat, as more and more players drift away from BattleLore, isn't it time for FFG to update us on the status of the game???

We haven't had an official update since November. That update included the following: "Spring 2009 will be a great time to be a BattleLore fan."

Well, Spring is upon us and rapidly going by. Still we wait....

Geoff

Scayra said:

Depending upon what direction FFG takes with BattleLore (and I think the silence on this front is really what is causing those that are losing interest in the game to do so), 3-4 BattleLore releases per year could easily result:

1 faction complete with Call to Arms deployment cards and specialist (the "big" expansion for that year)

1+ campaign/Heroes rpg-ish release(s)

1+ lore card expansion

Once the BattleLore universe is built up through the release of factions/nations, having periodic fantasy and historical campaign expansion released seems to me a way to give the game system near indefinite life.

EDIT: And then there's the online presence that this game could be tailored to - I'm still holding out hope that FFG continues with the plans that DoW had in that regard.

Played my first game of BL in eons the other day. Felt good, even if the missus did whoop my butt (as per usual).

Whilst I still don't have everything currently released, I do look forward to what FFG have to offer. I definitely think that Army Boxes are a far smarter way of supporting the game and pray that this is the future of the game. They would provide a complete and more balanced race/nation than sporadically releasing troops in dribs and drabs (as per DOW). The downside is that it must take longer between such releases as there would be more in the box. This may explain the traversing of time and the silence of snippets.

I can't wait for the BL Renaissance (not an expansion, the epoch) but understand people's malaise. The game brings out a well deserved vehement support in its players, no?

sirvolkar said:

I'd forfeit any chance of ever seeing an expansion if I could get my wife to play BL.

I don't quite get all this.

The fun of playing BL is not dependend on whether or not FFG publishes more material. Once you got the game and you start playing, and painting, and adapting and designing new scenarios, and new cards, and trying new armies (Undead?) and that can keep you busy for ages and ages.

What is more IMHO a game system that depends on expansions to stay alive is probably a flawed one (Heroscape?)

It would be stupid of FFG not to keep the system alive (extremely so) but they are in no way the decisive factor concerning my enjoying the game.

After all years after Games Workshop abandoned Warhammer Quest I stil play it on a regular basis.

So, what keeps a game alive is the players, not the manufactorer.

Harry

Funny you should mention HeroScape, as I feel that is a "system" that will live on with some die-hard players (I hope to be counted among those ) well after Hasbro/Wizards stops producing materials for it. Very easy to make custom heroes and squads for that game, very fun (if not always easy ) to make new terrain pieces. The premise of the game is even more open-ended than the one for BattleLore, allowing a lot of room for imagination - which isn't always a good thing , but is to me on general principle

I am one of those that says "Even if not a single unit further sees an official release, I'll keep playing this game for ages", so I completely agree with your point that ultimately it is players that keep a game "alive". However, I also feel that FFG is in a wonderful position to attract many more players by enriching and strengthening the foundation of what (already is to some degree, but) could be a very robust gaming system upon which players can build off of a common universe.

While FFG will have little impact on my desire to play the game, they will have a huge impact on my ability to find others who love the game as I do. A year ago I could find Vassal players with ease, now it is a rarity for me to run into someone to play with there. I've had to resort to that bastard child C&C:Ancients ( ) to get my commands and colors fix.

I think it's a bit laughable that anyone's stressed over whether or not FFG will be putting out a BL expansion. FFG is the absolute king of expansions. That's part of their business model (along with media tie-ins). They're not going to miss an opportunity here. It might take a while while they sort out which way to go with BL, but I suspect they'll eventually be cranking out expansions much faster than I want to buy them.

Comparing BL to Heroscape just makes me grate my teeth. Heroscape is an uninteresting dice fest with only one strategy - gain high ground. The game's appeal is purely visual. Granted, there is a LOT of appeal there, but that's just not good enough. And the theme... I love it. Just love genre mixing. But the lack of actual gameplay combined with insane setup time (and you thought setting up an Epic BL game was bad) had me abandoning the sysytem around Wave 2 or 3.

Trump said:

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but as you can see earlier in this thread there are several people that haven't played BattleLore in months. It's dropping off the radar over at BGG and people are playing M'44 and C&C Ancients instead -- because these are "living" games that are evolving and developing. And as people become less interested in BattleLore, there will be less people that buy any new expansions, and thus less eventual development of the game system. Witness BattleCry -- it never had any expansions and is basically a footnote in the C&C family.

For those of us that have been with BattleLore since the beginning -- we remember the promises that were made and see the potential for the game to develop. (Just read the last post by Richard Borg or look at the Memoir'44 Campaign Book to see what can be done with this system.) But as the game takes longer and longer to take shape, more people will look elsewhere and the system will die.

As far as I can tell, the BattleLore system is no better off now than it was a year ago. We still have no new expansions and no communications from the company that owns the game. Noone has any idea where this game is going, and so it slips into disuse and lack of interest...

It wouldn't take much communication from FFG to get everyone excited again -- if there is still anyone listening.

Geoff

It is remarkably quiet from FFG actually. I don't frequent the other forums as often as I used to, but there seldom seemed a single thread that Mike Z or Thaad or Christan Peterson did not chime in on at some point. Are there no FFG champions for this forum?

Z

Geoff,

I do agree with you that, with all the noise in the BattleLore forum, it would be wise and nice of FFG to work on their communication skills.

Strange for a company that is so good in its customer service (thank you Thaadd for sending the banners [and the CtoA cards, without me even asking for them], so quick), to be so loth to respond to remarks in the forums.
I mean it seems there are moderators aren't there?.

On the other hand, I cannot remember when was the last update to Chess. Yet it seems the whole world and Harry Potter is still playing it.
Meaning in the end it is the players who have to do it.

Harry