wallydubbs wrote:Kurgan wrote:Regarding the cards, looking more closely at the Elf Spells and thinking about how it says "the Elf.." over and over again on some of those Artifacts (whether it says "only the Elf" or doesn't) it is interesting that all of the Elf Spells choose to say generically the spellcaster instead of "the Elf" even though these can only be used by the Elf as a whole.
It doesn't look like they changed
anything on the cards. No specifications, even the wording is the same. The erroneous placing of Elven Cloak of Passage as a treasure card instead of an Artifact is still in play. Nor did they add a card for the Elven Chainmail.
It's confusing that they would try to fix the quest booklet in MotM but not even attempt it in Frozen Horror. I was actually hopeful on the cards but that was a mistake.
I don't think they put any effort into fixing the cards. Oddly enough they tried to fix the maps but that's it.
My theory is that they finish these Box sets a year (maybe more) in advance, and so there wasn't an opportunity to reprint everything with regard to the Frozen Horror. Reprinting cards and/or books is a major expense (they had to unseal boxes for the Italian sets to remove references to Chaos Warriors that were erroneously left in, they sent out replacement cards for the Spanish editions that were poorly translated) which I assume they would not do except in dire need (potential breach of contract or legal action in one case is a pretty dire need!). Frustrating as it may be, it's not the same as a video game where they can release "day one patches" and be working on a product up to the very time of release. They are sending products probably to many different places to get the miniatures done, the stuff printed on the fancy paper with the fancy stitching (I personally don't think that was a necessary expense, but whatever, it's hand stitched on glossy paper... it certainly looks nice, though I would have been fine with coated staples and only the cover needed to be glossy, and the pages didn't have to be full color either, the pages of "notes" won't take writing and erasing with pencil as well as regular paper... but again, they look pretty).
The original EQP and BQP were made with a rather small team on what appeared to be a small budget and time crunch. In the drafts they talked about space in the box. They were limited in how many cards they could print (which explains why there was no card for Elven Mail or Sinestra) and how many figures could be put on the "runners" (plastic sprues). They re-used assets from EU packs to save cost as well. Reading the drafts you really see why they made the choices they did, and also helps explain (though not fully excuse) the lack of playtesting and errors present in the finished product.
Now then, is Hasbro via their subsidiary Avalon Hill under the same budget, manpower, and time constraints as that original team? I would think not. However at the same time think about where HeroQuest was even one year ago. They were still proving themselves as a franchise. They felt free to change several things, but also they were probably still operating under the idea that "the fans want their stuff changed as little as possible." So the message we were sending with these packs were the OPPOSITE of what they were hearing for the Pledge drive, where the nostalgia of fans was hoping for few changes, only improved build quality of materials and extras (not changes). Notice how they have focused on extras, not changes, in each of these packs, with the errata stuff coming in digital form.
Again, I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this path they have taken, but based on what Encarmine has said on discord and based on the trajectory, it seems that they are getting the message now and making more changes to the packs to correct past issues, feeling a little bolder to do that because there is NOT the same nostalgia for these latter packs (more so a wistful and curious desire to see what most people missed owning in 1992... vs. the earlier packs that had three decades of nostalgia surrounding them and are still accessible in vintage form for those with the will to look for a copy in decent shape). I don't work in the board games industry, so I am taking a lot of what has been told to me at face value. Could there be some fudging going on? I have no reason to doubt but no way to disprove it either. Probably one of the biggest expenses is the distribution and the molds they create for the figures I would imagine. They seem to save a lot of money with the promotion by limiting themselves to social media type videos and comments, and then appearances at GenCon and PulseCon once a year. Then again I don't really know what they pay for those things either. Back in the day it was about tv and magazine ads, in-store displays and so forth but things have changed since the late 80's/early 90's. Still, you would think that the questbook would be the thing they could wait the longest to edit into its final form prior to release, right? Not sure if it was easier or harder for the cards. It seems for the non-English versions they just ran it through a translation program probably in many cases as a cost/time saver, but I don't have absolute proof of that.
So yes, a few more tweaks for this would make a lot of sense and be good. Yes, Zargon always has the ability to fix it himself. Yes, the community has proposed fixes over the years already that a person could find online if they looked, but I agree that having the product as "ready" for the general public as possible is best.
We will start our own games in March or April. I think the main concerns I had were the extreme difficulty of the Solo Quests, the unmarked treasure chests giving it an unfinished feel, and the unused Artifact (Elven Bracers). I was intrigued by the draft notes rules that were missed (alternate potion shop, blind jumps and double jumping squares, the alternate storyline of Quest 2) but think of those more as enhancements and not something that makes or breaks the quests (the jumping does make things a bit easier but still presents risk and danger)! The Ogre Body Point thing I think really is only a bad thing in one or two areas (that were specifically meant to be very challenging boss battle type situations), otherwise it is fine, the Heroes are strong enough at this point that they can make it, though shaving off half the health does make the quests go much faster.
An additional free digital quest ("online") for MOTM (as have been done for other releases) could do even more to help things along, but for now this is what we are getting, at least a few weeks out from release (and a whole month earlier than we thought it would be coming for most of us!).
As with other HQ things, we make the changes we think are best at our own tables, and community discussion on how to improve them is great. It's not as if Avalon Hill are the only ones allowed to have an opinion on this! But still, the way they see it will be how it plays on the Companion App when it is eventually added (with the added relief that under the honor system it uses, the players can still homebrew a lot of things even within that limited framework).
