DOW: Skeletons??

Ryan B. wrote:

But I seem to no longer be the only one on the boat of criticism for DOW, lately.

We've been riding their asses on F:AT for about a year now, maybe longer.


I was sort of interested in this...IF it came with plastic figurines. Otherwise, I already own Vinci, thanks

A: For all of the posing that DoW wasn't going to do anything that wasn't a next big game...a new Vinci is spectacularly unambitious.

B: I adore Vinci. When played with hidden VP's so that the bean counters are chased away. Clearly a Euro game, but entirely interactive, fast, and quite enjoyable. I'm also fond of Evo and Space Blast as well. (Same Designer.)

Oh yeah, EVO...yeah, EVO is really good actually. I wouldn't mind playing that Thursday, Branham. SPACE BLAST is good too...a billion years ago I did a review of that for Games International. Totally obscure title...practically no one has heard of it. Not as a good as BATTLE BEYOND SPACE.

Don't hold your breath for plastic...it ain't gonna happen.

Ken B. wrote:

Ryan B. wrote:

But I seem to no longer be the only one on the boat of criticism for DOW, lately.

We've been riding their asses on F:AT for about a year now, maybe longer.


I was sort of interested in this...IF it came with plastic figurines. Otherwise, I already own Vinci, thanks

Riding their asses isn't the exact metaphor I would have chosen, but many of us have been harsh on DoW, and they deserve it.

Retheming Vinci does seem like a really weak offering by DoW. It seems like an established publisher like them (with a reputation for components) should be getting tons of solid prototypes in the door.

I'm thinking that rather than riding their ass, we ought to start a new gambling feature called the "Days of Wonder Deathwatch". You can bet on if they're going to go completely belly up, sell their properties to another publisher, release another TTR or M44 game, or simply trundle on making terrible business decisions.

I'm betting on "MEMOIR '44: THE CARD GAME" next.

I guran-fucking-tee you they thought they were making a smart move by taking an established Euro design (rather than a proprietary, newly developed one) and retooling it with an Ameritrash theme. I mean, after all, those Ameritrash games sure are selling these days- look at Fantasy Flight! And they probably felt like they needed a fantasy IP after ditching BATTLELORE. Furthermore, since it's a race-based game (cue Clearclaw joke), the door is WIDE open for expansions so they probably think they're tooling up a franchise.

But what the fuck, they make this big fuss over the game with those ads and it's just VINCI- and a _third_ edition of that game, no less. Frank's dead on the money, it's unambitious. They need a new IP on par with their top sellers, not a fucking marginal reprint.

The biggest joke about the whole thing is that the retheme makes no sense whatsoever- VINCI was already fairly thematic and a good theme at that.

Look at their last big box games- CLEOPATRA and COLESSEUM. Junk and trash. And that doesn't include the BATTLELORE disaster. Who the hell plays any of those any more? Yet T2R, M44, SoC, PIRATE'S COVE, and MYSTERY OF THE ABBEY continue to be in demand and well-liked by a lot of people. I don't like their games, but I definitely respect the value of those properties and completely understand their appeal. VINCI isn't in that same class of game at all- it's one of those fringe Euros that a couple of people really like, a couple of people despise, and most people haven't bothered with because it's unremarkable.

This is a desperation move...they're trying to stay relevant and current but they've totally missed the mark. They'd probably be better served just doing the expansion/dice game thing.

Michael Barnes wrote:

... since it's a race-based game (cue Clearclaw joke) ...

**snort**

Nice one.

Small world might be a good game. It might be a good seller. If it was done by FFG they would't be copping half the shit it copped.

The problem is its been 2 years since their last new game - and that's if you count battlelore as a new game, really its a remake of C&C, so you could argue their last new game is colusseum. People have been waiting so long to see what they would do next and it just ended up being that?

What a fizzer. Wasn't this the company that a few years ago was one of the big players leading the field? Bigger than FFG?

They should not have hyped this game up with the preview releases. Should have just released all of the details from day one. If you are going to hype something you need to have something exciting at the end of it.

I still wouldn't be interested if FFG did it, but the difference like you say is that DoW hasn't had a successful release in 2 years. FFG, at least in my estimation, wouldn't have done the cutesy thing and tried to make it silly and cartoony. That wuld have made a difference too.

At least the end of the ANDROID hype there was at least something original.

Michael Barnes wrote:

I still wouldn't be interested if FFG did it, but the difference like you say is that DoW hasn't had a successful release in 2 years. FFG, at least in my estimation, wouldn't have done the cutesy thing and tried to make it silly and cartoony. That wuld have made a difference too.

At least the end of the ANDROID hype there was at least something original.

Even as a FFG release I would have passed on it, but my point was it would have just come like Beowulf or Kingsburg or whatever their last Euro game is. Another game in FFGs very big lineup.
DOW try and hype everything like it's the next big thing, made worse by the fact its been so long for them to do something new. Thus the "That's it???" feeling.

The odd thing is, for all of the "That's it?", Small World could actually end up being really good.

Vinci was just a touch too dry. A reworked version with a little more flavor in the theme--adding lasting terrain and monuments could actually be a really good game.

moofrank wrote:

The odd thing is, for all of the "That's it?", Small World could actually end up being really good.

Vinci was just a touch too dry. A reworked version with a little more flavor in the theme--adding lasting terrain and monuments could actually be a really good game.

Vinci was a game that sounded halfway decent and I always sort of wanted to try it at some point or other... (You know what I mean by "sort of wanted to try"?) But I've never gotten around to it because it looked too dry and so it never became a high priority to seek out a game of that. So this might actually be more likely for me to try when it shows up at my game group, which it probably will at some point.

Expectations are often unmet, one way or the other. A lot of times when I watch a movie that a lot of people panned, I end up thinking, well it wasn't that bad, because my expectations were low. Hopefully, this is a similar case...

Regardless, it is disappointing that they aren't doing a new original title. I like Cleopatra okay and don't mind playing that once in a while, and though I don't really care for Colosseum at all, at least that was a new game, but that's going back two years now.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Look at their last big box games- CLEOPATRA and COLESSEUM. Junk and trash. And that doesn't include the BATTLELORE disaster. Who the hell plays any of those any more? Yet T2R, M44, SoC, PIRATE'S COVE, and MYSTERY OF THE ABBEY continue to be in demand and well-liked by a lot of people. I don't like their games, but I definitely respect the value of those properties and completely understand their appeal.

See? At least Michael gets it. And if he can get it, I really can't see how DOW is missing the mark??? I realize Pirate's Cove, MoTA, and TTR may not be the hardcore gamer's cup of tea. But it were these games that defined DoW and put them on the front lines with the mainstream consumers and got the general public involved in something more than Monopoly.

The base TTR game sold 800,000+ copies at last count! That's a lot of games. Days of Wonder were bringing people into the hobby of boardgames. Guaranteed. In fact, I was one of those people! 5 years ago I had two games on my shelf. (Monopoly and Balderdash) But MoTA along with "A Dogs Life" were the two games I discovered, bought and introduced to my friends... who ALL thought they were really cool. And hence our "game nights" were born.

But this fantasy stuff just conjures up a bunch of.... well, its probably just not wise or fair to say it. Let's just say, its going to be hard sell to my friends on playing a game with wizards, elves, ORCS (man , I hate those things.) etc.

Quite frankly, it's hard to sell ME on that. So I ain't even gonna try.

I don't care if the VINCI game is any good or not. I am NOT buying this. I can think of several different theme directions they could have gone with.

Orcs.

Good Grief.

Ryan, will the wounds ever heal?

Just looked at Age of Gods and Small World. Wouldn't touch either in a million years. Artwork is just too cliched and makes me cringe.

moofrank wrote:

The odd thing is, for all of the "That's it?", Small World could actually end up being really good.

Vinci was just a touch too dry. A reworked version with a little more flavor in the theme--adding lasting terrain and monuments could actually be a really good game.

That's an interesting point. Vinci is definitely a great core of a game. If they juiced it up - flesh out the game and add more flavor than just retheme-ing Barbarians as Orcs or what have you...then it would be an interesting offering. Lasting monuments that impact the rest of the game is a cool idea.

Another might be allowing prior racial powers to carry over into future generations. If Orcs give a plus to attack, then your next generation civ gets a smaller plus to attack due to orc ancestry. A race of Half-Dwarf Half-Orc Skeletons battling a race of Elf-cyborgs that are descended from dragons.

They could just offer it up as an advanced variant and still allow the original Vinci to be played with the components.