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Episode 16: Hurry Up and Wait!
122 Plays9 months ago
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your hosts Nick Sperry, Andrew Kouba and Emmanuel Picazo travel to a podcast studio to shed light on all things X-Wing and the uncertain future of the game we love. They reflect on the evolution of the game, the business side of things, and more!
We continue to honor the passing of community legend and dear friend, Zack Mathews, Support Zack and his family here: https://gofund.me/55670112
Check out Yash at Icon Studios, who graciously hosted us: https://www.official-icon.com/visuals
Want to see the crew in a studio more often? Become the ultimate supporter of 312 Squadron and get awesome perks! Including quarterly rewards like tokens and cards, unedited recording sessions of the podcast with early access, and MORE! Check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/312Squadron
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Transcript
Introduction & Studio Setup
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron podcast. My name is Nick Sperry. I am Emil Picasso. And I'm Andrew Cuba. And we are, as you can see, as you can hear, in a professional studio setup for this episode, episode 16. We haven't recorded or posted in a little while. We've been very busy and a lot has happened in the past several weeks.
Recording Location & Gratitude
00:00:24
Speaker
I thought we'd celebrate, do something special, and head over here to Rockford. My buddy, Yash Musabji, shout out to Yash, the icon, plug his info. Great upcoming artist here in Rockford who has this beautiful studio space that he gave us today for a couple hours. Plus, it was just good to get everybody in the same room again. It's been a while since we've all been together outside of it. I know. That was true. That's true. That was one of the main reasons why I wanted to do this was just like, obviously, this is a great setup, but being able to have
00:00:53
Speaker
like a chat, like at a table and like a lot of people you see, you know, in real podcasts and we have a real podcast, but it feels different when you're doing a virtually versus doing something like this and this is like next level stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I just one last thing before we dive in everything. The reason why we were able to do this is because of all the love and support that we get through Patreon, especially to shout out to all of our patrons. We
00:01:18
Speaker
had a tremendous support on Patreon for 3.02 Squadron and where we have a lot more planned. I feel like this is a great kind of first step to show you guys like we have a lot of big fun ideas planned for the channel and for the podcast. And we'll definitely be doing this again in the future. And just thank you everybody for being with us since day one, since before COVID to now. It's been a long, awesome journey. Yeah, absolutely.
Remembering Zach Matthews
00:01:43
Speaker
Well, I want to start off the podcast episode, episode 16, talking about something that is very close to my heart in a lot of the X-Men community's hearts, who's been a big pillar of the X-Men community. A good friend of mine, Zach Matthews, unfortunately passed away the weekend of May the 4th.
00:02:02
Speaker
He suffered a stroke and his family, of course, is asking for privacy. But I wanted to spend a moment talking about Zach. I had a great impression of him when I first met him. And, you know, five years ago in twenty nineteen, Andrew, you and I have played in tournaments. Zach has been at. You've met him. I think you played him before next to him. Absolutely. No, I played him, got talk with him. He's, you know, a wonderful, was a wonderful man. And I'm so happy that I was able to spend the time that I was with him.
00:02:31
Speaker
Manny, I don't think you had the chance to meet Zach. Yeah, no, but from what I hear, he was a great guy, said that I never had to meet him. Yeah. So I just want to reminisce really quickly. Zach and I met at Worlds 2019. I just got into X-Wing late 2018, and I decided for some reason to be a judge at the highest level event for X-Wing, a game that I was just so fascinated and in love with, but really didn't know too much about, which is ironic.
00:02:54
Speaker
It's like you were judging. I was like, yes, I knew a lot about the rules and I learned a lot. But Zach, Zach was a play tester with me and he introduced himself as his username from play testing for X-wing. And then we proceeded to hang out the entirety of worlds and just big bear hugs and hilarious jokes is just so welcoming. And it really he left a long lasting impression for me for this game. I mean, when I think of the X-wing community, Zach Matthews is absolutely one of the people that I think of. And
00:03:24
Speaker
You will never be forgotten, Zach. We all love you so much. The amount of support that has been shown, rightfully so, for him and his family and the respect that everyone has given him and just all the thoughts and well wishes that he's received is beyond deserved.
00:03:42
Speaker
Uh, you know, we love you, Zach. Yeah. I mean, he, he's been in so many community X-Men communities just across the US too. And like every community that's been a part of is, is going to miss him dearly. He's made the game so much better and has been just such a positive influence for everyone around him. And yeah, we're going to miss you for sure. Absolutely. So I just want to do a quick moment of silence to honor Zach. So we'll do that real quick.
00:04:18
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you guys.
May the 4th Tribute
00:04:20
Speaker
Appreciate that. Yeah. We love you, Zach. We had our May the 4th celebration stream in honor of Zach as well. And we had some very fun games. Yes, we did. We jousted. We did everything that Zach would always say. Joust me you cowards. And so we did it in honor of Zach. Of course. Yeah. So we've got a lot to talk about.
00:04:40
Speaker
There's been a lot of news, a lot of, I think, some questions have been answered and some questions have been born out of the news that has come as of late. Yeah, AMG, the paragons of PR, if anything.
AMG's Communication Challenges
00:04:57
Speaker
Do they even have a PR department? No. They have the opposite, I think, of a PR department, whatever. We are the PR department.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, their PR department's actively negatively harming their reputation. Honestly, it's a case study. When I was back in college and actually taking my PR classes, I was like, I could have done so many awesome projects on what not to do.
00:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's so we had the announcement of the grand tournaments, which replaced in a lot of people's eyes. And what I was led to believe was kind of a shift away from worlds as we've known it to a different structure. People in the AMG discord and some posts online from atomic mass games kind of suggested that when they were moving away from worlds, even their main transmission
00:05:47
Speaker
in a way was kind of complaining about worlds and how it cost them a lot of money and it seemed like they wanted to do something different. And so a lot of people were really upset about that. A lot of people that I know and love from overseas was like, am I never going to see them again? X-wing was so successful. A huge turnout during worlds. Andrew, you and I were there.
00:06:05
Speaker
It was a lot of fun and I thought there was kind of a reaffirming moment where it's like the game is in good standing I think you know, we're gonna have an even bigger worlds next year and then they announced the GTs and I have no problem with having bigger level events But I was worried when there was no indicate there's no worlds invite attached to it. I was wondering okay Well, you know, is that gonna be enough?
00:06:28
Speaker
for for people, because for since the inception of the game under FFG, we've had worlds invites attached to events to get to worlds. And now even we'll dive in everything. But more recently, they announced that world is back after suggesting that it wasn't going to be back. Now, I'm not saying for sure that's what happened. I'm sure there was some stuff that happened in behind the scenes. I'm glad that Adepticon 2025 will have a world for X-wing.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, but it seemed like a kind of a quick 180 180. Well, I didn't read it as a 180. I didn't get the impression that the initial announcement said that there wouldn't be them being at Adepticon, that it would be it just wouldn't be called world. So I still thought that there would be an Adepticon tournament that would just get folded. But now they're going to just call it world. So that's fine.
00:07:17
Speaker
And so I didn't really take it to 180. I just took it more as that they were done with the traditional world's tournament structure, but that world itself is going to be preserved. What do you think, Manny? What was your kind of impression from where it didn't look like there might not be a world, you know, and how do you interpret? So at first I was willing to give them I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until I saw a screenshot from the AMG test court where it stated or that an employee
00:07:47
Speaker
approved of a comment stating that GTs would be the highest level of organized play. And then that's why I started having a change of opinion because having a world structure I feel is extremely important in terms of just getting people into these tournaments. It's a massive incentive. So yeah, when I saw this screenshot I was pretty disappointed that they were willing to... In my humble opinion, you have these GTs and you don't need a sacrifice to competitive aspect.
00:08:15
Speaker
But but it definitely didn't sound that they were choosing that route. Yeah, no, the discord thing. So it was kind of an internal argument amongst ourselves or our group chat about that, because there was the the post that there was a Twitter post or a transmission that said to clarify grand tournaments are replacing the roads to worlds event, you know, structure pathway, which is like, well, it says roads to worlds, the world still exists.
00:08:44
Speaker
But then there is the Discord image where an AMG Atomic Mask Games employee says yes to, it sounds like this is replacing worlds. So Discord is Discord. AMG started their Discord because they wanted people to be able to have an easier way to get answers and communicate about their favorite games and have officials speak on behalf of Atomic Mask Games and say yes.
00:09:07
Speaker
It's a good move if you're a company that has a clear, open communication with the people who interact and purchase your games for sure. Honestly, at first it was very overwhelmingly angry and against the idea of a grand tournament because it came at the cost of store champs, which we still don't know
00:09:30
Speaker
are going to happen if we're getting if we're getting and and what seemed at the cost of worlds now that GTs and worlds exists. I'm a little bit more ambivalent. I I still like the idea of store champs having a world's invite. They suggested that worlds was an exclusionary event, but I don't know if I can under I feel like by that logic, you can say that the Las Vegas Open is an exclusionary. Our store champs are exclusionary because it's difficult for people to get to and they have to pay to get to it.
00:09:57
Speaker
and get into it. And the number of store kits that were distributed as well. Apparently too many. But at the same time not enough. I was talking to a couple players from the Netherlands and their complaint was they got two store kits for the entire country.
Global Distribution Issues
00:10:16
Speaker
And there's all these other places like in Europe that probably had the same issues.
00:10:23
Speaker
And it was taking longer for like European product to even like get out and distributed there too. So like they just didn't have I guess even the distribution infrastructure as strong in Europe or other places in the world like South America even too than they did in the US.
00:10:39
Speaker
So that was I think the other aspect where the store championship path was maybe a little more of a swing of a like swing and a miss this last year. Is store champs or anything new? I'm not. That's not an argument to say it was perfect. It's that there's data to see how they've they've worked and run since before the pandemic.
00:11:00
Speaker
And they were just kind of anticipated as always being a thing the store chimp season was always a part of x-wing Now we're in this world where you know ever since atomic mass games took over not only is the game fundamentally changed a lot of key ways But the way things are run and op is constantly changing you know in this time with we'll get into the whole Embracer group thing and the financial side of things which is a lot but
00:11:23
Speaker
All I could ask is just for like for me to just anticipate what what to expect for more than one year for me to be like in twenty twenty seven we're going to have grand tournaments and a world at this place. And instead right now we're kind of just like yo like any new like it's like the Chappelle like got any more of that news of X-wing you know and people are getting banned from discords because they're aggressively asking about X-wing and it's just yeah I just
00:11:50
Speaker
I want some consistency and I want it to last sustainable more than a year. Yeah, I mean that's the issue is that we're not getting communication and they're not good at communicating and then the lack of communication is just leading to speculation.
AMG's Tournament Planning
00:12:05
Speaker
I my personal opinion is I don't think they know themselves. You know, I feel that they're also kind of flying by the seat of their pants and it might not even be their fault as we get into the budget stuff, too. Like they might not know what money they even have next year to even start planning a tournament structure around.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, Manny, what do you what do you think? Oh, yeah. I mean, I personally believe that AMG doesn't know what's gonna happen in the next couple of years. Yeah, actually, we've had at a communication not really addressing any of the speculation. But I will say when you
00:12:39
Speaker
come out and say that you have like what a 10 year plan for x-wing i believe they're on record for saying that they have x amount of years plan for x-wing am i wrong i think maybe for all their games they have a a plan but i don't i don't know exactly all right then and also
00:12:54
Speaker
that may have been true a couple of years, you know, a couple of years ago. Well, I remember Disney announced all those, all the 10 year plan for Star Wars. And I want to say 50 percent of those movies or shows got canned. Yeah, that's true. Or pushed back. Yeah. So go ahead. Yeah. That. Yeah, I personally believe that AMG is in as critical as I am of AMG. And I do heavily question most of their choices. I will give to them that they're in a pretty hard spot right now.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think they're set up to fail in a lot of ways. I was having this abrasive thing. Yeah, they're definitely set up to fail. Yeah, I I think that some things that they could be better at is I think there's a little bit of animosity that go cuts both ways. I think atomic mass games will say, well, the certain parts of the player base are being toxic. I think the way that they've
00:13:45
Speaker
talked about certain things, announced certain things, and reacted to certain things, it was a little disappointing. Oh, for sure. Do you fault one of your largest player bases for coming into your stream after eight months of radio silence and asking about that game? Do you not expect that? Should you be toxic about it? No. I think some people rightfully so got muted or banned or whatever for it.
00:14:09
Speaker
But I had some people, somebody reacted with, you know, Discord lets you react with multiple things if you wanted to. They reacted to something like X, W, I, N, G, and they got banned. You know, it definitely comes off. The vibe that I got to get from AMG is shut up, just play with the game that we told you to play, or just play the game how we like you to play it.
00:14:38
Speaker
Don't complain just shut up and play with the rules. Do you guys actually believe I'm gonna ask you both you do you actually believe that the main people who are involved directly with this game the most? Actively hate or dislike this game in any capacity. Do you believe that because people say that I don't think they actively dislike the game I just think it's a game they might not even care for just because again I've I've said this x-wing is a very different game compared to the games
00:15:02
Speaker
that they're usually associated with. But so is Legion and so is Armada. Yeah, that's true. So Legion actually makes a bunch of money. Yeah. What were you going to say? I don't believe that at all. I mean, even with your interview every time that we've talked to the people who are creators for X-Wing, you can tell that they're passionate about it. They care very much about it. I think that they actively love the player base too.
00:15:29
Speaker
They're also excited to see what we're doing with the game and how we're keeping it alive. I believe that we're living in a world where they know as much as we do. It's wild. But I think that's why there's the radio silence too is because they also just don't know.
00:15:47
Speaker
And then also, you know, they're going to be beholden to what the upper management of AMG like they're at those whims, they're going to be at the whims of, of, you know, any entity that is like taking over now too. So I think that there might also just be handcuffed with lack of preparation and planning.
00:16:05
Speaker
I do agree that they're set up to fail. I think this is the worst time for them. Don't be surprised if any any of your favorite atomic mass games titles get deprioritized for the time being because there's a lot of things hanging over their head right now. They have to wait out.
00:16:19
Speaker
like being sold. When your parent company is being sold, you don't necessarily have a lot of answers and you can't plan or spend a lot of money. But yeah, I will say the one thing that is like, I don't believe that care and lack of passion is what's hurting them.
00:16:36
Speaker
I always feel like they have like a different type of language when they talk about Xween and Armada compared to the other games that I just cannot really rectify. There's something, there's a pet peeve that I have. Here's an example. Let's say your boss at work, you report to them, but in terms of what you do on a day-to-day basis, that is you, you own it, you have those skills, you get it done.
00:17:00
Speaker
imagine your boss at work deciding how your job operates without having any knowledge on what you do on a day to day basis or how you go about your work or the process. So I think that is happening to me right now. It's very frustrating. It is crazy. It's like you're speaking.
00:17:18
Speaker
on my behalf to me and for me about what I do that you don't know anything about. And at the time when the topic mass games took over X-wing, they were kind of speaking these full totality truths about the way the game is to people that have been playing it longer than they've even known about it because they weren't focusing on X-wing. So when they said again, I think a lot of it was semantics, but they're like the game
00:17:39
Speaker
It was it was no clear, you know, the it was an obfuscated approach to how you'd win the game. You know, it was it wasn't clear on what you needed to do to win. And what they're trying to say was that people had the best skill were winning all the time and taking advantage of the system of the game. But instead, it made it sound like I don't. It's a dog fighting game like it. So AMG has spoken in certain totalities about things like this is the way things
X-wing 2.5 Transition Impact
00:18:04
Speaker
are.
00:18:04
Speaker
And a lot of people are like, well, that's not most people just don't even agree with that. There are some things that they they I know you have a lot of disagreements. Yeah.
00:18:14
Speaker
But there were some things that they said that I agreed with. And then there were some things that the way that they said it, they kind of decided, well, this is a problem that we need to fix. And, you know, sometimes just because it isn't something that you are used to or that you maybe don't like doesn't mean it's actually a problem that needs to be fixed. And so a lot of people who quit X-wing during the transition
00:18:35
Speaker
had a lot of problems with the way that the lens that they were using to correct things that some things needed to be changed and some things didn't need to be changed. I think adding scenarios to the game was a really good addition to the game. After having so much data and experience, I can 100% say that I would like more at some point. I think that's been good. I think other areas, they start to, you know, they start to kind of monkey around or finesse a lot of things that people just aren't even really looking at.
00:19:02
Speaker
And it does create some ripple effects that create negative play experiences because there's so many things that change when you make changes to fundamental aspects of the game. Sure. The red focus thing, for example, bumping was abusable by very specific situations. They open the door for that to be a thing. This is the way game design works. It's always been, you know, whenever you open the door for something, something else can pop up.
00:19:25
Speaker
Exciting. They're trying something new, though. Yeah, I just I just felt like the way they would talk about it. I just sometimes I was like, man, I feel like they're telling me what I should believe, like what I should think. Yeah. I mean, I like. Oh, I was going to say I never I never got like that impression that they were telling us, like, like how we should think or feel or play. I do think that they had their own vision that they had for the game. And I thought a lot of their
00:19:52
Speaker
the changes that they had made to certain structures like the way that like shipbuilding and points were done were in my opinion that was it was a vast departure from what we had seen before but it made the game more enjoyable for me personally i thought some of their what they were saying was valid being like you know having like luke skywalker invader and like these big the somatic aspects of the game like adding more more a little more theme to it
00:20:15
Speaker
And we're like decimators now are really big scary things. And before, you know, the whole thing was like you'd put a decimator and you'd strip it for parts. So I think that I think that they had that they they had a vision for the game that they brought their own perspective into. And it definitely went in that direction. But whether I think that they were doing it as some sort of dictatorial decree or that they had sort of stuff or any sort of like as far as any sort of like
00:20:45
Speaker
like malice or telling people how they should feel about the game. I didn't really get that impression from the transition. I know. I definitely got the impression that this was like changing for the sake of change. The AMG is like, all right, I guess we own next. We now time to change just because we own it.
00:21:02
Speaker
It's like when you get like a new manager and they for some reason they decide to change how like how stuff is done just like a change because they're and that's where it doesn't seem like they're actually learning and then making the decisions are just kind of like this is the way I want things to be I know everything
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I think the whole like, Elizabeth aspect cut everyone by surprise. Yeah, that was the only thing they didn't tease. They teased everything road. Yeah. Yeah. Bump bump red focus range zero shots. New obstacle rules, but they didn't tease the biggest. Exactly. That was like the one thing that really angered most people blew me away. Yeah.
00:21:43
Speaker
I was yeah and also like like that was I mean Nick and I we've had this talk like since the 2.5 even started I thought that was the coolest thing I built like 20 lists that night and I was just like oh my god well one you could put freaking seven X ones and I was like I don't even have the ships or dials to do this like oh you could do seven bombers it's crazy and
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah. Now, that was like the worst iteration of the 2.5 meta, too. But there was that brief hint of discovery, and the whole game was new and open again to kind of build around.
00:22:21
Speaker
Yeah, but no, I mean, it definitely, you know, split the community, too. And there's a lot of people who also they just felt the trends like they felt like they just transitioned to 2.0 from 1.0, too. So I think that, you know, just, you know, having major changes to a game like that in quick succession was a lot for a lot of people. And for the people that really did love like like 2.0, like it's it's nice that they still have those communities and that list building and everything else like that is like still preserved.
00:22:45
Speaker
Yeah, which is a testament to the community which is you know, I think that's one of the reasons why We're getting the the feeling that they are maybe over banning or they're being very careful around like x-wing players is because
00:23:01
Speaker
of all of their products, we do have one of the more passionate bases. We're extremely loud. And same thing with our body. We're not. We're an irate bunch. But yeah, even at the Adepticon this year, there was still a massive turnout for X-Wing. It was one of the biggest turnouts they had. Yeah, absolutely. Next to even Shadowpoint, like Marvel Crisis Protocol, X-Wing was huge. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:30
Speaker
The last lesson bone I have to pick with AMG is about the grand tournaments and the timing of the announcement about it. The main issue is they gave us two weeks to fill out a for a form. Oh, it's really committing to having a space without really having any idea on if it would be possible to secure that. That's not a lot of time. Two weeks is it should have been time to my grand tournament. Yeah, I have a reason to believe that that that time frame was so small that they're going to need to extend it. I haven't heard anything about that, but that's unacceptable.
00:23:58
Speaker
Oh, to me it's attentional. I know. You did. Tinfoil cap. Surprise. I'm a skeptic here. But you don't set the deadline for two weeks if you want a massive amount of entries in there, right? They're going to be making all this prizes and stuff for it. So they are just wasting money if they do that. Yeah. That's true. The other thing, speaking of, though, is there was also no if you're going to have that little time, then tease the prizes. At least tease something.
00:24:28
Speaker
There are going to be prizes, right? Like that's like for sure thing. Yeah. And apparently it'll be more geared towards participation, which I have no problem with. I think if you play the best or, you know, better than most, you get something extra. I mean, I would say, you know, if there's one thing about X-Wing, door prizes are the best of any competitive scene I've ever been a part of. Like.
00:24:48
Speaker
Fame created one. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say community based ones are really good. Yeah. Not the official ones. Not the official ones. Like I got I worked my tail off to get an invite. I was lucky enough to play well enough to get one. And then they gave me a misprinted suit or felt hard. And I was insulted by that. And I and I'm going to blame that for the reason I went oh and three and lost my games. But you still got the card. No. But yeah, I mean, well, yeah, the misprinted participation cards are also they're very funny.
00:25:18
Speaker
Well, you say cards like there was more than one prize they gave. Oh, no, no, I was talking about I was talking about last year when we got the the ion cannon that had the ion turret art. Yeah, stuff like that. At least the people who played in worlds that year in Swiss got cardboard stuff for like dials and, you know, rebels. Yeah, nothing.
00:25:34
Speaker
The GenCon stuff was cool. The Jedi cards. Yeah, I got all the GenCon. I mean, the templates, the fact that new dice are back. I think that's great. Yeah. But no, I mean, I will say totally great that they're going to do more participation. Yeah, enterprises. My feeling, too, is that they might also just be on a time crunch, figure out what the heck structure plays even going to look like.
00:26:02
Speaker
Um, it's also possible. Like I have no, but that collateral damage for that is, is too bad. No, it's, I mean, I mean, it's a, it's a series of bad decisions for sure. Yeah. Um, and it's going to compound is like the year goes on. It's just like what I'm worried about is that they are like, Hey, we're going to do this GTs.
00:26:20
Speaker
It's set up that not a lot of people have a chance to like put an application like talk to a store or find a location. And then they're like, well, guys, the GTs weren't a big success. So we're going to have to stop doing the GTs because nobody wanted to go. And it's like they'll conveniently ignore the you know how hard it was to set them up.
00:26:38
Speaker
As they're putting a lot of work on us, on community organizers, to find judges, to find 32 plus people minimum, when, I mean, how many times did people tell you, oh, I want an invite, but I only had 12 people, so I didn't get it. For sure. You know, that problem doesn't go away. And if you remove invites from smaller events, it could make it even harder to secure players. Probably will. I think that's why they're transitioning to worlds being like, just show up.
00:27:07
Speaker
and play in and get in. I don't hate that to be honest. I don't either because that does solve the issue that like the players in Norway and you know other players were having and in smaller locations where they just like physically couldn't get store kits and
Inclusivity in Tournaments
00:27:22
Speaker
if you're in a you know less populated area like that was one of the big issues with star kits too is like if you're playing out in Wyoming
00:27:29
Speaker
you might only be able to get like six players to your store. Now everyone's got a fair shot at Worlds and it will be the best of the best there. So it still makes a reason that you have to play test, you still have to go to store championships and things like that. I think that we're going to have a much more abridged official grand tour season for sure.
00:27:52
Speaker
I was also surprised that maybe they didn't go a different direction like they do with other games where you have like even like Pokemon trading cards or even like match of gathering or where you have store championships that will give you points that will qualify for a regional event and then the regional event feeds into a major tournament circuit.
00:28:12
Speaker
You could you could plan around and do something like that that still gets local stores involved and you can have a tournament structure Yeah, it's like somewhat similar. Yeah, so there's some stuff I like I just I just I for at first was like there's no way you can spin This is being better than the system we had before which was everything
00:28:30
Speaker
It was to the smallest level, you had store champs, you had regional events and you had worlds. Now, it looks like I don't know this, but there has been no word on store champs. I feel like at this point we would have at least heard that there will be one because.
00:28:47
Speaker
middle of May or end of May was when people started hosting store champs. So that season has to kind of line up. Now we've lost some stuff, right? You know, and at first it seemed like we lost the top, the top and bottom and just had this middle ground, which is kind of just floating there. Now we haven't attached like at least the GTs don't directly feed into worlds. But, you know, there's a little bit more opportunity. But as a local organizer, I don't have the space or the money or the the connections to get a warehouse in the city of Chicago to host
00:29:16
Speaker
Oh, God. 32 people. And then I would be nuts. I would be heartbroken to realize that only 12 people could make it, you know, and or I couldn't get 32. And I mean, in AMG, it's not I'm not saying that, you know, they're trying to get us to spend all our money, but it is putting so much on.
00:29:35
Speaker
Somebody or a couple of people to put all this together and hope and pray that it works out and that people show up and it is able to be an official GT like yeah, I I think that the the the x-wing community is so great at organizing our own tournaments and putting our our our own events and stuff together that
00:29:57
Speaker
They're they're okay with leaving that up to us and and taking a step back from having like the organized You know play circuit be more on the forefront So they're gonna be leaning on like a lot of fans more because the one the biggest thing that the biggest thing that we're missing is
00:30:11
Speaker
is the local store involvement. And to me, that's the biggest kicker. And that's going to be the biggest loss. Yeah. Because that's where we're all meeting up. That's where we're playing. That's going to be your number one supporter. And that's where the local community is going to survive. Most stores stop selling X-wing product because they're like,
00:30:30
Speaker
Nobody knows how to get into this game unless they find online resources and seek it out, which your average Joe isn't going to know to do that. Not everyone's on Discord. Not everyone's completely in tuned with online communities for games they haven't started playing yet or are about to start playing.
00:30:46
Speaker
But that's a good point about the store ecosystem because the, you know, the store champ kits were purchased by the stores. They weren't just given out, you know, you know, obviously there's manufacturing costs on asthma side, but they are store good games. Shout out to good games. Shout out to Spellbound in Chicago or two main stores. Good games, I think they ended up kind of stumbling into buying like four or five kits.
00:31:09
Speaker
like way too many for us. I'm like, we ran two events and then we borrowed a kit for Dragonfall and all this stuff. But I felt like that was a waste. Like someone else needs this. I was going to say we sold out. Yeah, we are Norwegian listeners. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It was good games. You know, and the story was just looking out for us. They're like, you know, it's so sweet of them because, you know, we only have four to six people every week. And then like, hey, we bought some kits for you without me asking.
00:31:37
Speaker
And they're like, whatever you need. And our local, our local support is really great. Yeah. To be fair, like for our tournaments, people show up like, you know, for those. Yeah, we sell out. We're very fortunate. And most of the reason is it's not it's because there's a lot of passion put into it. We do extra prizes on top of the store chimp kits because, you know, you can't expect too much from those kits, but the prizes weren't mind blowing. They were there. We're also setting up streaming there and.
00:32:02
Speaker
We're streaming. Yeah. And good games gives us the whole floor and for the whole day. And it's it's great. Yeah. So, you know, we'll we'll post a link to our store champ happening on July 13th. We can have July 13th. We'd love to see you. Yeah. So that will be extended because why the hell not with community prizes? So this is this is kind of the silver lining of the GT. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say this is the silver lining of
00:32:28
Speaker
AMG, if they take a step back, I mean, if it's proven anything to me over these past couple of years is that we don't need AMG around to like keep this game like fun and interesting. You know, I'm going to say that AMG being around selling new product, new ship, stuff like that is going to help. Yeah. And having organized play is going to like keep new players getting into the space. It's going to it's going to foster a much better like newer environment. However,
00:32:55
Speaker
The fans of X-Wing have been able to put together far more interesting tournaments and more interesting content than they have. In their absence, I think everyone's really risen to the occasion and that's like the people and the player base is what makes X-Wing fun and like where it's at.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Manny, I know how much with extended how much you want to desperately play a Star Fortress or, you know, Han. Oh, yeah. So excited. How does homework and extended actually? So Han lets you you can place him like in the middle of the board. Basically, long story short, you can play some if you're not in your in your setup area if you want to. OK, cool. No, I'll be sticking with my five to seven days. Thank you. Yeah.
00:33:34
Speaker
But, I mean, extended, is this a silver lining? Does that mean that more extended support through community means is going to be a thing? I would expect so, because the meta is stale. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Absolutely. We have Battle over Endor. And that is, it is a slight disruptor, but only for two factions. Yep. I don't really buy into the argument that, oh, well, Battle over Endor shakes up the meta entirely for every faction. It's like, no, it doesn't.
00:33:57
Speaker
The things that were viable are probably going to stay by. I was I was going to say Battle over Endor supercharges like Empire and Rebel, which were already really good factions. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't need help. I didn't argue. You wouldn't argue that they needed the help. They don't need. That's the thing. They're like the one, the two actions that didn't. Yeah. The wings jump, you know, the gem gemmer also. They're like the two polar factions. They're so good. It just makes most money.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I don't even think it was is that, too, it's that they also have the most content in the Star Wars universe and to like make a fun, interesting game around, too. Yeah. There's nothing like X-Wing. I mean, there's nothing there's nothing like. Oh, but there's nothing like like like Rebel versus Empire. Like there's just two little like F.O. resistance content for them to even pull from. That's like an epic battle.
00:34:47
Speaker
They're because if you do that, because because if you do like the Bell's regular base, that's all two seventies. I mean, dream of mine. But, yeah, now I do what I think would be kind of cool is if they did like a moving map theme where if you did like the the F O chasing the resistance fighters and then you go across the map, but you're both you position yourselves facing the same direction and then you as you like go off the map, like you have like so many turns that you have to like survive.
00:35:17
Speaker
That might be interesting. Yeah, I mean, the scenario packs is I think a testament to atomic mass games trying to be trying to move X-Wing into a more casual approach with like just like blowing up the Death Star, you know, having your battle over Endor, maybe, maybe battle over Starkiller base. Like scenarios, I think they wanted people, even though it co-exists in a competitive space pretty well,
00:35:41
Speaker
You know, they were they wanted to be able to try to capitalize more on the less competitive market for the game. And I don't know if that's really I don't think it's really panned out to the lengths, the great lengths they were hoping. But the scenario packs like in a vacuum with all the utility that the pilots and stuff give you, they work really well. They're very well designed. Yeah. And then once you leave that space and put it into a tournament list or go to a tournament with it, I think it's more challenging and frustrating with the power level issues that we've seen in some cases.
00:36:11
Speaker
Oh, yes, because these ships are balanced for that scenario, not for the not for the play for the most. I do. I think that they are created with competitive play first in mind, and then they have to because that's what sell that more people are going to buy it for competitive purposes. That's not true for sure.
Embracer Group's Financial Impact
00:36:31
Speaker
And you can feel that when when you're playing with the ships, there's there are a couple of like pilots like
00:36:37
Speaker
the new Soontier, the Jedon wedge that are like pushed, that they're like, we want these in the competitive game. But the other ships in there too are very fun. Even if they don't make as much sense in competitive. Yeah. Let's talk about a Bracer group really quick.
00:36:52
Speaker
Yeah, the parent company going back to the parent company of the parent company. So for those of you that don't know how this works, I'm not going to try to mansplain it too much. But atomic mass games, fantasy flight games, the two kind of shepherds has been shepherd and current shepherd of X-wing are run by parent company Asmodee, who does, you know, all these different board games, tabletop games galore. And then their parent company is the Embracer Group, which is like a it's a private equity firm. Is that I believe so. Yeah.
00:37:23
Speaker
And the Embracer Group has a few different entities that they've decided to sell off and split off. Fun fact, the Embracer Group also is the, was the owner of the Lord of the Rings, like the rights to the Lord of the Rings. That's why you're seeing a lot of licensed Lord of the Rings stuff out right now. A really bad game in the Lord of the Rings. A golem came out a year ago. So there's some good and some bad with that. Neither here nor there.
00:37:49
Speaker
It's a difficult time for Asthma D. Mainly, we're looking at Asthma D in the scope of X-wing because Asthma D is going to be the one that ultimately will kibosh one of their games based on their...
00:38:02
Speaker
business status and how they're doing as a business. Unfortunately, Embracer Group is losing so much money that Asmodee is strapped with a lot of the debt. I don't know if it's all of it. So Embracer essentially gave Asmodee near a billion dollars of debt.
00:38:21
Speaker
that they are solely responsible for. Who wants this? Who wants this? Slap, slap, slap the hood of this. This bad boy's got a billion dollars of debt in it. Yeah, so as for these, is that becoming its own entity, but has a billion, has close to a billion dollars of debt. That's essentially what's happening.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's better for us, maybe it's on its own, but that's a very bad situation. True. Yeah. No, you don't want to start out with a billion dollar low. So, Manny, how do you how do you feel that this this kind of situation leading up to it and now has affected atomic mass games and has affected X-wing?
00:38:55
Speaker
I mean, it's gonna affect everything under as many. So essentially, I believe they have a debt to profit ratio of like, no, their profit. No, their debt is four times their yearly. Don't quote us on this. I believe yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
This is not. I believe. Yeah. Yeah. You should invest in that. Cost cutting. This could be everywhere under an estimate, even unless they get bought out. Are they able to refinance? Yeah. They're which they've already done before. Cost cutting like when FFG lost X-wing is because as many as like we're reshuffling FFG, you're getting smaller. You're taking over all card games, which unlimited is doing really very well for a few right now. So there was good for them.
00:39:42
Speaker
and other board games are like you are board games and you are card games and anything, you know, tabletop games goes. All of this goes to atomic mass games. A very small like if you think FFG is small, AMG is like like a fraction of the size of our fantasy flight games, and both of them got serious cuts. And I mean, when that spinoff happened, I mean, if you remember, there was tons of FFG layoffs. Yeah, people I know got laid off. Yeah.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah, and like, AMG is a very tiny studio, so any layoffs will just be super impactful. So, cost-cutting, trying to increase profit, that's gonna be another big one. Do you think that means less product, Manny, for X-wing? Personally, I personally believe that that's gonna be the case. Why would you take that risk? We've already seen it. That might not pay off. I mean, if you're cost-cutting, you're not taking risk. I don't think the incentive is
00:40:37
Speaker
is there to take a chance on a product that might not be valuable when you have so many other games that are proven to bring in lots of money, which I would argue we don't need. And we don't need more. I don't think we need more ships. I think pilot packs are even like the time of just like trying to accommodate for points or just or just creating cards is enough of an expense. We got to talk about points. Yeah, that's going to be the biggest thing is that we're probably just going to see like less points updates. We're going to be seeing less.
00:41:07
Speaker
I thought once a year was not enough, but maybe not getting one at all, at least for the next several months. You would think that if they really want to incentivize grand tournaments, they would change up points in order to get people in order to get people to be excited to go and like the new meta. It's not good. It's just there's I just I just know they're going to say the grand, you know, the next transmission, well, the grand tournaments didn't really, you know, we were really excited, but we didn't see it.
00:41:34
Speaker
You're not putting your best foot forward. I mean, they have to have a grand tournament first, I think. So are they? Do you believe when I if I ask you guys is atomic mass games? What's the rate? What's the ratio of setting this being set up to fail and setting themselves up to fail? Where where would you what is it? 60 40 being set up to fail versus setting themselves up to fail because the GT thing is just bad.
00:41:54
Speaker
I think in all ways. Say themselves up to fail or say X we have to fail? No, how much of it do you think is beyond them? How much do you think they're being set up to fail? 80%? That's pretty reasonable. You think there's more agency on AMG's part? No, yeah. I mean, I was going to say, I think that they're in the dark. I feel like they're in the dark like we are. They would tell us more if they knew. Yeah, they would be telling us more if they knew. If they knew more.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah. And what you know, it's like it's a kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's like we want to sell new product, but it costs money. But the only way to make money is to sell new product. But we can't sell new product because it costs money. But we need to make money to be able to sell product. Like that. You just don't do anything with the product and you pay attention to the other stuff to the stuff that's actually making money. I am happy that we're living in a world where they're not just shooting out card packs like every month.
00:42:49
Speaker
That would be deaf. I mean, because I mean, the game would be ruined as as imagine the gathering players here. I feel like I'm being served cards through a fire hose. But but like that is for them because cards cost nothing for them to make or print. So like that is the inverse is that they're like, oh, to make a quick buck, they're going to be showering us with new card packs and new points like a shifting meta every like month or two.
00:43:13
Speaker
If I had one wish, if I knew that they were going to mark the game as completed or just not do points change for the foreseeable future, I'd say, OK, make one more change and graduate everything from extended into standard. And then walk away. To me, the fact they're not doing that is an indicator to me that they're not willing to call the game solved. Because once they put everything extended back in, that's the only time where they can say the game is done.
00:43:42
Speaker
At least would be, I mean, it would be exciting. That would be a way to make things exciting again is like, oh, I can bring a star viper in my list. I think you need to just that that's the natural progression for the game, for sure.
AMG's Relationship with Community
00:43:53
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's this situation is it's tough. I'm not not ever. I don't think anybody thinks of me as an atomic mass games apologist, but I do walk the line on both sides and criticizing them a lot and also kind of trying to understand the business side and how they are just not set up for really any success.
00:44:09
Speaker
The grand tournaments, I don't think I can't predict are going to be successful based on kind of how little they've given people in terms of opportunity and time to set up for one. But yeah, I mean, it's it's fingers crossed, I guess. Yeah, really early to tell the season. So I mean, we have to see a grand tournament first, even. Yeah, we're going to try to stream some, you know, I'm trying to work with pastimes to set up one over there and we'll be there to stream that. But, you know, who knows? It's it's complicated.
00:44:35
Speaker
The incentive is just not really there to show up. Like on Facebook, you see Atomic Mask Games, Avatar, and you see X-Wing, and it's marked as in its complicated relationship. You can care react that all you want. I mean, it has a very few relationships start with two people being forcibly married together. Thanks.
00:44:54
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, some cultures, they like to do the arranged marriage, but it wasn't arranged marriage. I would say, no, no, even in arranged marriages, there's like the parents vet the couple. That's true. That's true. Yeah, no, it's almost like your neighbor is held at gunpoint and told to move in with you. Right. Is basically what happens. It's like the police show up at your house and being like, these people will live with you. Yeah, it's like, OK, it's like, you can do anything about what I do. Yeah, you're responsible for them as well. Yeah. And they're also going to start doing your job. Yeah.
00:45:25
Speaker
No, they're going to help you with it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's just something I think the community should keep in mind. Special shout out to the people who comment on our X-Wing games on YouTube and who say stuff like, why do you even bother? This game's dead. It died a long time ago. I mean, I don't know why people.
00:45:47
Speaker
I don't know why people feel the need to comment that on our videos They know like I think they're annoyed with us that we're continuing to show support and coverage for the game in a way And so they want to just constantly churn out the this game died long ago to me. I appreciate the effort You took the time out of your date
00:46:07
Speaker
I'll write this rather than just ignore it. Let me chose to give me some push of your day. Let's do something. I appreciate that. I will say this. The game will only be dead to me when it stops being fun and it has not stopped being fun. It's still I always admire the optimist in you, Andrew. I feel like I'm a little bit more like Manny than I'm like you in terms of optimism. You're the optimist of the trio. I'm more of the moderate but skewing pessimist. Manny Manny has lived in the pessimist doghouse.
00:46:36
Speaker
for a very long time. I also, though, have seen how awesome our community is. Like, I know that if X-Wing were, if AMG came out tomorrow and they said, hey, we actually have some news for you. We're just, it is closed game. We're not going to be making any new product. We're not selling anything. It's going into licensing hell, so no one else can even pick it up, buy or publish it.
00:46:59
Speaker
I know that our community would get together. We would have our own way of creating point values for ourselves. We create our own meta. There would also be ways for us to even like we have such deep connections with Etsy to like we'd make our own card packs, cardboard, things like that. You can't even go in squad builder. Even their squad builds community run. That's true. Yeah. But you can't in a star set can't tell people where to go to builder squads.
00:47:24
Speaker
Yeah, like who has the table? No, I know people. We want it. So here's one. I mean, props to the 2.0 community for going strong. I mean, I actually joined the head. They had their issues as well. Extremely active. I'll have to check. I'll have to look at how these are now. Like the old ASBI is still being updated. Yeah.
00:47:42
Speaker
There was a hotfix a couple days ago, so props to them, honestly. I mean, that's proof enough that you can keep us alive. I don't think there's going to be a community like that for 2.5 if the end does come for it. Oh, I for sure think there will be. Nick would keep streaming. We'd keep this going up. I think it's just like the infrastructure to support 2.5. I don't think it's going to be there when compared to 2.0.
00:48:09
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think it would definitely be there. I think there's a lot of people who, I mean, here's the thing, it would be the same split too, because there's a lot of people who really like 2.5 and believe that like a lot of stuff that they didn't like about 2.0 was fixed here. Like I know me personally, I would prefer to play 2.5 and I know that I'm not alone in that.
00:48:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I'm just going through our comments from when we interviewed AMG and one of the comments is Xwing is already dead and they keep kicking it. I appreciated that one. These are just funny to read through again. There were Lloyd commented on it. Rip Xwing. I came here to see what the what the comments might reveal. Yours says all I need to know. Thanks. I mean, I played with Lloyd a couple of months ago.
00:48:56
Speaker
My goodness, nothing makes the 1.0 or 2.0 diehards more upset than seeing good news and 2.5 continuing on. So this is a pro 2.5. So there's a lot of some people saying, this is great. Other people are like, ah, this game sucks. And we still get those comments. Yeah, I mean, it is what it is. It's the internet. It still feels that way, yeah. It is the internet.
00:49:16
Speaker
Alright, I do want to ask a question. Has 2.5 paid off in where the effects were worth the massive split of community? Yeah, in my opinion, yeah. I like 2.5.
00:49:28
Speaker
Yeah, but that's a bias. Like he's I think from a business perspective, it's not payoff at all. No, that is just like, no, anytime you can make the community anytime you lose, let's say 25 percent of active players. And I mean, you talked talked about it in last the last like last episode, going from one point to two point two point oh was a massive loss.
00:49:51
Speaker
Yeah, interesting about 2.0 is that like, I'm not to say it's necessarily worse with AMG, but the conversion kits are pretty consumer friendly. They were great. They were super consumer friendly. It was bad for FMG. But it also, that's what they needed to keep the game alive. Because if they didn't do that, everybody would have just checked out.
00:50:11
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, looking back from an FFG X-Wing was FFG's baby. I mean, FFG absolutely loved this game. Yeah. I mean, you could tell there's so much attention, care and attention to detail in the product. Like all the time we had. Attention in general. And this is not attention, which will feel like we're lacking. We are in a lot of ways. It just feels like we're not getting a lot of attention on the game.
00:50:35
Speaker
or for any of the titles right now. You know, we're lucky not to be Armada players, but even, you know, I would say even MCP and Shatterpoint have struggled. Legion seems to be doing pretty well. I think Legion is far and away. They're most successful in that's FFG's game as well, which is interesting. Legion is, you know, definitely at the core of a PvP game and and atomic mass games is more of a cooperative. They like the co-op side of the more casual side of game, a tabletop gaming.
00:51:05
Speaker
and Armada X-Wing and Legion are all player versus player based. Right. More competitive in nature because you're adversarial, an adversarial position with your the other player. You know, and looking back, I'm just thinking about just reflecting on fantasy fight games and, you know, through 2019 or through really, you know, the last world championship for 2.0 was in 2019, having them and then transitioning
00:51:33
Speaker
during covid over atomic mass games and kind of the same the duality of that where i think one one thrived and succeeded and and where one has failed i think both have had a lot of issues when it comes to x-wing i have to be honest i'm going on record in saying this i do miss fantasy flight games
00:51:52
Speaker
just because they loved X-wing so much that I could tell. Their communication style still wasn't very good, but they did put in a little bit more effort specifically for X-wing when it came to communication. It was just a very different game. For better or worse, however, you feel about 2.0 and 1.0, they obviously prioritized X-wing all the way through from day one to the last day that they had it. I felt like they were always, even during the online community, they were paying attention to things.
00:52:22
Speaker
i just don't get that same feeling that not that amg doesn't care per se you know you can make that argument but i just don't feel that that's it's similar in that way how do you guys feel about the afterthought that we're like the right-handed stepchild that they can't admit that they're not a fan of but they can't like you can't say that
00:52:43
Speaker
No, I think they just don't have anybody that's working in their marketing department.
Communication & Marketing Deficits
00:52:47
Speaker
It's not the people. I would not be surprised if they just had their secretary who was doing the social media updates. Yeah, I mean, I think. And they're like, when you have time. FFG was downsized so much because they were too, I think it was too fat, like they were taking on way too much expense.
00:52:59
Speaker
And so I think we felt that heyday of X-wing and like there was all this prizes because there was a lot of money, a big big OP team from all over coming together for it. I do miss those days, though, for sure. The other thing is that FFG liked featuring extended chips at times. There was hyperspace, which is like standard now, but they would kind of have like a rotation of things come in and out.
00:53:22
Speaker
And I would love something like that again, too. It was cool two years ago when at Worlds they had an actual announcement that was exciting and interesting. When they were showing Battle of Endor that they had something on the horizon, and that the YT-1300 was coming back. Yeah. Or the 2400, I mean. I guess that was a year ago, Battle of Endor, too, right? Battle of Endor was too leaked. Yeah. Teased a year ago. Yeah, a year ago. Whenever it was teased. But it's just a big difference than going into this year where
00:53:50
Speaker
There is no announcement. There's nothing and you know, it's been more radio silence towards the end. Yeah, basically, you know, just talk to us. Just say something, right? Yeah. Well, it feels like you're ghosting us. It does. I have no experience with that. I do. We all do. Yeah. Well, thank you guys. Thank you for saying.
00:54:09
Speaker
Yeah, Manny, you didn't really, you kind of, when I first met you, you were just getting into the game. So FFG is kind of foreign to you a little bit, right? A tad bit. I was only playing 2.4 maybe a month until 2.5 came out. But from what I hear, FFG was definitely more communicative and just more passionate about the game than from where it's seen from AMG. Yeah.
00:54:31
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. FFG didn't like scenarios. I think they tried in 1.0. There used to be packs that had these cool scenario ideas that I played. Yeah, I mean, they were all casual because they weren't as balanced. They were balanced where the ship that you bought, whatever faction that was, was the hero of the challenge.
00:54:51
Speaker
So like they definitely didn't fit in competitive play. But it was really cool that like along with play design, they're like every ship that you got had its own mini game that it came with. Yeah. No, I love that. I look forward to that. That was crazy. Yeah. I played some of those with my roommates. Oh, I kept all of them. Yeah. They're from the one point. Custom cardboard tokens. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:12
Speaker
But at the height of competitive play, FFG was excuse me, FFG was always the truest form of X-Wing at the highest level is dog fighting and dog fighting alone. And AMG is like, doesn't have to just be dog fighting. What if there are other ways that you could win? I do for the people that get diced or go up against the worst possible matchup when it comes to just pure one, you know,
00:55:33
Speaker
power level versus power level. I think scenarios have helped people have an alternative win condition. Head's still heavily influenced by a random order after dial rolls though as well, which sometimes like when you play scramble and you move first the entire game, you can never scramble points. I'll say it's better than bids.
00:55:49
Speaker
Yeah, no bidding knowing the entire time If you're moving first or second, I mean at least you knew but it still made it in certain matchups Just literally impossible if the other player knew what they were doing Well, it would just I mean it also just feel bad trying to build a list that would happen at an 18-point bid
00:56:07
Speaker
Yeah, I totally didn't do that. I haven't done that before. That's everything. I mean, I totally didn't do that. Yeah. And then what's even more feel bad is if you built an 18 point bid and then you would go up against somebody with a 20, you know, you're like, well, all right. So, no, I mean, I think that
00:56:26
Speaker
I don't have rose tinted glasses for the old days. And, you know, I also feel like. But you wouldn't say it was bad, right? Would you say that like 2.0 was did you ever like just like really dislike playing the game? I will say I felt the metas got staler way faster.
00:56:45
Speaker
And there was, in 2.0, the one thing I didn't like, because I like playing a lot of different chips and lists and stuff like that, in that each faction would have a very solved list.
00:56:58
Speaker
And that, without scenarios, would not change, would not factor into your list building. And I did not care for that. I found that playstyle very boring. It's interesting you say that because I kind of disagree.
Game Balance & Meta Discussion
00:57:11
Speaker
I thought that every table had very different archetypes based on them. Even if it was same factions, everybody was playing very different pieces. A lot more generics.
00:57:20
Speaker
A lot more generics. You could see a hundred point suit here. Or you could see a 55 point suit here. You could see, you know, you could see a rack with 30 upgrade points on them. Or you could see an icon with two upgrades. I don't think the rack ever has more than like one or two upgrades.
00:57:40
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, in terms of balancing, I don't want to go super deep into this, but I think we can all agree when you have a 200 point scale, you can make softer or more aggressive adjustments to points based on balance. I think we're in a little bit of a tricky place with balancing certain things that at one at three points, for example.
00:57:55
Speaker
are like ultimate staples that every single list has, and that four is never getting played again. Like, that's difficult. So 200 point list building was better for balancing in that regard at least. I just think there's a lot more variety now, though, too. Yeah, except like top eight had like five for public lists with three arcs. That's true. Yeah, no, we got to talk about the fact that arcs are still here to rule the entire day. It was a scumption. There was. I think top 16, there was. But yeah, but that's the exception, right?
00:58:23
Speaker
When it's six arc one seventies on final table, it's like, oh, there's seven factions in this game. I want to see a little bit more diversity in that. I mean, you know, I mean, but even it like the end of two point oh, like region Jedi was everywhere. Yeah. When the my favorite part of two point oh was when was a friends we made along the way. No, it was when we were using like the rule set of two point five before two point five officially came out. So it was two hundred point list. Yeah. And you do road
00:58:47
Speaker
Yeah, that was I was awesome. I really like that and there was no more bidding so you could you know people were just bring 200 pointless Yeah with the bumping and stuff too. And I think that was the only thing that you do know the bump red focus thing wasn't a part of it I don't yeah that I think that was I don't I remember playing LVO right with a new rule Yeah, and that was one of the last things that we knew about was like the bumper at focus.
00:59:06
Speaker
and what they changed objective or obstacles. Yeah. Yeah. I got some questions from our actually. No, I'm skipping apart. Let me backtrack really quick.
Commitment to X-wing Community
00:59:16
Speaker
So just just for you guys all that I feel like I've said this a couple of times on our streams, but just kind of echo echo the same sentiment. What our role is like three one two squadron moving forward is, you know, we just started a Patreon. We you know, last year we had an incredibly successful and very busy circuit of going to a ton of tournaments and streaming our own and other people's events and going to Indianapolis.
00:59:16
Speaker
I
00:59:35
Speaker
doing interviews with people at different events and everything. We don't plan on stopping any of that. No matter what happens with the game, we'll continue to run our own events in person and online. We'll have our own leagues. We'll cover games at my place like we did casually or we'll go to grand tournaments or whatever. Duty calls will be there as much as possible.
00:59:54
Speaker
X-Wing is still fun. We still learn about X-Wing. We're mostly an X-Wing channel. You know, we'll we'll we'll try to branch out and do, you know, other video game stuff just casually. Like, you know, Friday night games where you get the group together and play and have fun. But maybe watch a building of Beredur brick by brick by brick. Yeah. There's the four camera set up every single angle. You could see the brick and, you know, four K four different times. Yeah. And so, yeah, we don't have any plans on easing off on that. It might have seemed like more recently that we haven't really been doing as much the last like six weeks. And it's really just because
01:00:24
Speaker
we haven't been around. We've literally been incapacitated for a while. I was out of the country for two weeks and I've been moving for the past two months too. And on top of the most aggressive wedding season I've had in a while. So, yeah, no, it's not we're back to like actually making content now. So.
01:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, you'll be a little bit more consistency again. Ultimately, ultimately, we do this for fun. Like this is like volunteer stuff for all of us. Sorry, man. You're not getting paid today. Damn. You got chipotle at least. You know what's worth it. But like we so we're not going to you know, we're not going to stream five times a week, seven times a week or have a set schedule where every single week it will always be the exact same.
01:01:07
Speaker
We we you know, we prioritize this and we do a lot more in some days and sometimes you have to ease off Sometimes we just have stuff that comes up. So and it was nice is that I think everyone's on the same page about that But it would be hard to it would be burnout central. Yeah committed to something crazy Yeah, but we're gonna try but we're gonna try hard. Do you or do not? There is no try but we're gonna try. Yeah, we'll always try to keep you updated which is a lot better than AMG. I Never
01:01:36
Speaker
I never agreed with that saying from Yoda. There's definitely trying, trying. You sometimes gotta try. It's a very like Elon Musk philosophy that Yoda had, right? Like, oh, I just do make more money. Just do it. I know. I kind of understood it as... I mean, the idea is that doing is trying.
01:01:53
Speaker
Yeah. I would say that's the same thing. Yeah. Because if you do and then fail, that's called the try. Yeah. And Palpatine never said, try it. He said, do it. Try it.
01:02:07
Speaker
Did you know he is the Senate? Anakin went for a try and it worked. So when you try and work it becomes a do. Tried so hard but yet so far. If you do and then don't, to me that's a try. Well said. I believe that was Aristotle that said that.
01:02:24
Speaker
Hamlet. Yeah, Socrates. Socrates, Nietzsche. So great. So we've got some good questions from the audience here from our Discord. If you guys want to ask us questions for our next episode, we do have a through and to Squadron podcast kind of channel section in our Discord. I would love to talk to you about the podcast. Thank you all for listening as always. Yeah, we'd love to hear your ideas and input on everything we talked about today, too. Where you think X-wing is going. Is it going to be resilient?
01:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, plenty of people will be like, it's already even dead. Just wait for those. It's like a Discord poll saying is actually dead. Manny's 25 birder accounts. It's like, dude, at the IP bandit at this point, you assume I care that much. You don't. That's the funny thing. It's like you do. You don't look to steal from Parks and Rec. You know, when I when I hear, you know, the Internet, I just hear a lot of people caring loudly.
01:03:14
Speaker
I love to go parks and rec. That's so good. So JJ asked a few questions. One, he says, are there any changes coming to Patreon? So what's interesting, I saw Patreon for the first time, they like allow you to like change your tier pricing. We're not doing that.
01:03:30
Speaker
I like having the 5, 10, $20 tiers. I think it's very approachable and very digestible and it's easy for me on my end and running it. Maybe in the future we add a larger tier. The thing is right now everybody, every tier gets something. You at least get cards and stickers in the mail every three months. We're going to continue to do that and create cool awesome swag that people have loved what we've sent out so far. It includes like
01:03:53
Speaker
The Chicago, the Deep Dish and Capone tiers get metal objective tokens. They get one every three months. You build up a full set of five. And we get, you know, currently working on some exclusive cards for Battle over Endor from one of my favorite artists that I'm commissioning. So we got a lot of plans. So the plans for Patreon right now is just continue to keep ramping it up.
01:04:16
Speaker
If you enjoy what we do and would like to see us do something like this again, you can definitely consider joining our Patreon. It does really help us. Whereas, for example, I like to be transparent about this. Twitch takes 50% of every dollar you give us. You're basically donating half of the money you give us that you think is going all to us to Amazon. Patreon is very kind in giving us most of the money that you send us so that we can actually use it.
01:04:39
Speaker
So, you know, if you if you want to choose one or the over the other, if you're thinking about or considering it, you can do Patreon. But I just thank you to we have over 30 people already. We started Patreon in January of only posted about it a few times, and it's been great so far. So those are that's the Patreon stuff. You also ask, have the recent changes made us look at other games? I think by us, like in terms of 312 Squadron, yes and no, like we're not going to become a Star Wars Unlimited stream. I mean, I'm not a really big gamer.
01:05:08
Speaker
X-wing is my game. Like I don't I play other board games very casually and seldomly. Like I don't I'm not into other games. So I'm not getting into another card. Yeah. I'm sorry. I played you once. Not going to go back there again. It'll probably be mostly Star Wars or Lord of the Rings related because it's just kind of my bias. Like I like to stream that stuff. So.
01:05:25
Speaker
maybe more building streams in the future painting would be cool we could do like a a night where we get together and paint some ships and take over our own mini extravaganza stream yeah i only have enough room in my life for one competitive game and next wing is going to be it so
01:05:41
Speaker
Yeah. And you like to you have a lot of your amount of hobbies and I pick up a few. I have a new hobby every three months. But you don't ditch everything like a lot of people do. Like you have a ditched X-wing in wake of like other hobbies. Right. Right. Well, games and walk away like X-wing has always been there for years. So that's one that is not it's not going anywhere for me. Like that's I need I need a competitive gaming outlet. Next wing is, you know, perfect for that for me.
01:06:07
Speaker
Yeah. So we'll we'll do more casual streams like Battlefront 2 Classic Collection or just like screwing around and being goofy and having fun. I feel like we're kind of funny. So like like sometimes we capitalize on being silly and dumb and like, you know, just having a good time. And that's what we want to ultimately want to do is be known for being laid back. But also, you know,
01:06:27
Speaker
professional in technical ways and not so much in other ways, at least speaking for myself. Then he asks, assuming we get them, how will store champs look in relation to GTs? What do you think, Manny? I'll start with you on that one.
01:06:43
Speaker
I'm sorry, how would store champs look? What would you think a store champ would be like? Do you think we'd get a kit? Do you think the prize support would stay the same? Do you think there will be store champs if you had to guess? I'm on the assumption that there won't be any store champs, but if there is probably something similar to last year... Yeah.
01:07:01
Speaker
Yeah. What about you, Andrew? What do you think in relation to a grand tournament? Yeah. I mean, I feel like we might not be getting like store champ kits where, you know, and if we do, it might have like just participation, alternate art card, participation prizes, basically be very simple. Whereas if they're going to do something called a grand tournament, I would expect the prize support there to be
01:07:27
Speaker
Much more substantial like like they did with Gen Con last year where we're having like faction cardboard for like top ten Dice kits letter B at this point, right? And then and then you would have like participation prizes for for everybody else at like the grand tournament as well
01:07:43
Speaker
with like exclusive arts for, you know, the top top 16 or top, you know, 32 up. And I would be expecting like a grand tournament to feel more like a grand tournament where you would have, you know, twice as many people as like a store at a store championship. Like it'd be like 40 people, like plus. So I'm looking at like the Lone Star Open to me would be like a grand tournament. The LVO would be a grand tournament like
01:08:11
Speaker
That is the tier that I'm looking for for a grand tournament style structure where you're having like, you know, 40 to 100 players showing up.
01:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, I I think just it would just be scale. I think store champs will be community led, so they won't even be going to go store. Yeah, I think they'll look like they did, you know, before, but with a lot more extended. Yeah, hopefully. JJ, thank you for asking
Studio vs. Home Setup
01:08:39
Speaker
this question. I love you, buddy. I was going to say brother said buddy, buddy. Love you, buddy. That's a new word. Ready. Charlie Sherman asks, what's different about a pro studio? Well, this is nicer than like also of a sitting at home.
01:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, no, this looks like an actual film studio. Yeah, no, it's, we peaked. It's all downhill from here. Can you imagine if it was 20 minutes away instead of an hour before we left? Oh, yeah, exactly.
New Player Onboarding
01:09:04
Speaker
I don't know what to do with my hands. I've had throughout this entire episode. I've been like, I don't know where to place my hands, don't know how to have my legs. It's ruined the episode. At this point, we probably won't even post it, honestly. Your hands have ruined the episode.
01:09:15
Speaker
Handed it. I don't know where it looks. It's very paladega nights. Just like what do I do with my hands? Yeah, I Charlie also said three one two should start a formal onboarding channel for new players to make it easier to get into the game What do you guys think about that? So he was suggesting like having ambassadors of people that are like specialized in one thing like somebody you can talk to for list building somebody you can talk to you about like Set up and turn zero like
01:09:39
Speaker
It would take multiple people and a lot of effort, but that would be great. It would be helpful to get people into the game if they wanted to play online. I think some some refreshed like I would like to make some like refresh video content around like turn zero and the philosophies there. I think that's probably one of the most up to one of the more obtuse things for new players to get into and to understand because it is, I think, now one of the most important aspects of the game.
01:10:02
Speaker
but I feel like a discord already is a great resource for new players where I mean I remember like even when I first started out the the discord groups where I would just go and just being like
01:10:18
Speaker
Hey, I'm thinking about like this list. And then I would shoot it out and a bunch of people would just tell me why I'm wrong or like how I'd want to fly. And then I would be like, well, they don't know what they're talking about. And I'd bring it to Thursday and then get wrecked and be like, oh, OK, maybe they know what they're talking about. The wisdom of the crowd. But yeah, that was that was more me. But no, I think I think like the Discord community that we have built up is so approachable that like.
01:10:41
Speaker
If anybody has any questions, people are really quick to answer them and stuff. I know you'll see me in there every once in a while when I don't understand like a rules interaction, yelling judge and then waiting for the first person to answer. And you like ignored me the last time I answered. Well, you answered right when I hit send is the problem.
01:10:59
Speaker
Like, like when I hit send, like I hit send and then your answer pop. It's like it was like not good enough. Nick's answer is not good enough. Well, I forgot what there was like a side topic that was happening at the same time. So I felt other. I was like, I know you're all online. You're not answering my question. Yeah. But the problem was I was also like in the middle of a game. So I was like, I figured time is is kind of prescient.
01:11:20
Speaker
Yeah, I know Manny's a big big supporter of everything 2.5 so he could be your go-to resource for anything. We'll give you a cell phone number. So if you're looking for advice from me, you're looking on the wrong place. Yeah, he plays the Wonder Bread list. If you have a question about resistance, I don't either.
01:11:43
Speaker
You have a question about the quantity of X-Wings, the T-70 X-Wings you should have on your list. He will give you an answer. I mean, I was flying a T-70 list that for last year for Gen Con, I flew it for most of like last season. Manny helped me build that list. And you were an excellent resource for me. So no, absolutely. He has his uses. He does. I have some uses. Yeah, you have a couple. Not much, but some. I'm like a specialized tool. If you ever need somebody to go to Chipotle with.
01:12:10
Speaker
Oh yeah, I'm your guy. He's your guy. Yeah. For any Mexican restaurant, you've helped me out. Yeah. I mean, everywhere you've taken me, it's been amazing. I love it. Just any Mexican restaurant. You guys like to, you know, if anybody noticed. I mean, this is a podcast, so, you know, you've only just added a video.
01:12:40
Speaker
I can't speak Spanish but I do have an affinity. He speaks English. He speaks very well. Even then, still comfortable.
01:12:50
Speaker
Rosetta Stone, baby. Rosetta Stone. I feel like the average American could speak like 80% of English English is just yeah. Indubitably. It's a word. España. Flipping the script on us, Andrew. The rest of this is going to be in Spanish now.
Community Frustration & Care
01:13:11
Speaker
Copper Blue asks.
01:13:13
Speaker
Lovey John, one of the many Johns who've had our stream. Lovey John. I feel an overall sense of apathy from the community towards the game right now. Hack when we reignite that, if possible. Man, you're not getting it from me, I'll tell you that. You're also not getting it from me because I'm right there with you. Oh. I'm right there with the community. Andrew is, let me mansplain this. Andrew is not apathetic. Manny has always been apathetic. And I'm just pathetic.
01:13:41
Speaker
No. Okay. Well, no, it's a good question. It's a really good question. Very topical. I mean, what? I don't know. I feel like this has been the level of divisiveness and outrage that's been kind of ongoing since the creation of 2.5. I feel like the community is kind of in the same spot that it's always been in. Yeah. We're in the trenches always. Yeah.
01:14:06
Speaker
We're a community that definitely cares. I think the fact that people are willing to jump online and get so upset that their favorite thing is not at the forefront of AMG or that they're not getting the feedback that they want is a good sign that the community is not apathetic. I would say apathy is the one thing that is not present right now. It's frustration, but that's coming from a community that just really cares.
01:14:33
Speaker
I think it just, I think John plays a lot online. I think there may be a feeling of apathy in terms of people looking for games online. I've been playing the same stuff and I'm always playing against the same stuff. Yeah. I mean, honestly, this is, this is where like, you know, I just, I'm mostly hoping for a points update more than am about like organized play, just cause I think that, yeah, the current meta is just, is very stale.
01:14:55
Speaker
I myself have also gone back to like play. I played battle over Endor the last time I played just because I wanted something that wasn't unique. Yeah, I just need a palate cleanser. And like, honestly, even for, you know, for our tournament, if we make that extended like that would be that'd be awesome. I'm excited to go for some extended tournaments now. It will be something different. Yeah. In our team league, I'm letting people vote and it looks like it will be some manner of extended in our team league online as well.
01:15:24
Speaker
So Wardy asks, will the game ever be marked complete by Atomic Mask games and handed over to the community? I think it's a matter of time. I don't know if it's imminent, but I think that that's that's going to happen eventually. I mean, every game gets completed at some point. I think I feel like a more likely scenario is someone might lose the license X wing and then they'll turn it over to the community like I think like more than it being even marked complete.
01:15:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It probably is probably something to not also also not any to know because then that would be announcing a bank has no money like that would that would cause a mass panic. They still have some inventory to sell and a push. I'm sorry. Let's take to the mic. But you would open up our take. I think it's gonna be marked completed by the end of this year. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I think there's the year. I think there's I don't know what the other ones want.
01:16:13
Speaker
The hopeful one? Alright. I think this year we'll see it. Well I guess... No. Well here, I guess like, what do you prefer? Do you prefer AMG saying that the game is complete? Or have the game be quiet for like, let's say two or three years, then AMG has some idea on what they could do and then announce products? Because by then, who's gonna be there? Like actively paying attention to the game? Which one is better?
01:16:42
Speaker
I actually think I'm of the belief that we'll get at least one more points of before the end of the year. But it is a huge missed opportunity and a shame that it's not like right now that we're at it by now. We like what ideally.
01:16:56
Speaker
We'd have a longer cast talking about the big changes and what pilots have changed in cost and upgrades, but we didn't get that. So I mean, you would you'd expect after Worlds would always be a points change just to shake up the new seat. Oh, great. There was five Republic lists in the top eight and we're not changing. I can't wait to go up against those again. And the baby. I love the arc one 70s.
New Player Attraction Strategies
01:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's very concerning that none of the sandbar cards have been touched on points. Yep, it is. I know it's.
01:17:26
Speaker
Uh, but no, I, I mean, yeah, I don't think it's going to be marked with the, like anytime soon. Oh, that's right. But that's, uh, yeah. Okay. Well, we'll, we'll bookmark this. I, I don't think it'll be marked complete for at least another year is my thought, but yeah. I don't know if marked complete or as much as it like, maybe it's like a mutual ghost thing where they just never say anything about it again. Are we assuming that it's like the same complete as like Armada where they said that no new products are going to be worked on, but we're still reprinting stuff.
01:17:52
Speaker
If they announce that they're not going to make any more product, that is completely correct. That is like the definition is that nothing new will be made for the game, even though it will be like old stuff will be available for purchase and print. Because Armada still gets like some print and play where like.
01:18:08
Speaker
They release cards, but not like actual cards. They're just like in to release these prints. Mm hmm. They can just. I don't like that stuff. Is that stuff out and cutting it out? All right. Is that like against the idea of a game? Yeah, it's not a product. It's not a product. Right. Like you can't buy it. It's not tangible. It's not a card in your hand. It's you print it out at home and cut it out.
01:18:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I mean, that that is more like if they're not creating any new like official product, like, yeah, no offense. But like, that's something you do if you're like running like a back, like a like a backyard, like in your garage, like game. I mean, I mean, no, what that is is something that you care about this game, but you're like, but even card stock is too much. No, your boss is like you don't work on this, but you do it and you're for fun in your spare time. And then you come into work and you say, hey,
01:18:57
Speaker
I got this cool idea anyway, and they'll go, okay, fine, put it on the website as a print and play. That's what it is, is that it's the people who really care about the game, but they are told that they can't make it during the day, or doing this in their spare time. Andre asked Andre over in New Zealand, what can we do to pull in new players as a community?
01:19:18
Speaker
I have an answer for this. Yeah, I mean, I'll real quick keep doing what we're doing now. I think we're doing a lot of good things. I think more people who haven't had been more passive and helping should step up. You should be you should be more willing to help people online. I think people are intimidating playing X-ray online because they feel like they always have to play. They have to know the game. I mean.
01:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, well, I definitely like spend a day going with a new player through Tabletop Simulator for sure. But to get people to find out about X-Wing, I say go play in public spaces. Go play at your local coffee shop, like bar or Chipotle. Anywhere that they have a three foot by three foot table. I'll be putting only two or three Chipolas through every game.
01:20:00
Speaker
anywhere that they have like a three foot by three foot table that like that is not a game store and you will have tons of people who like walking up to you being like oh my god this is so cool what is this at every time that I've gone out and done this like people just want to sit and talk about Star Wars they're super interested because like a lot of people don't even know that there's board games outside of like Monopoly and so they're like
01:20:26
Speaker
They shock, they think it's so cool that the ships are awesome. And you can kind of make some friends and some new players like that way as well. Well, I'm completely for that. I feel it's also important to let them know what the status of the game is when they actively choose to spend money.
01:20:48
Speaker
I feel that's pretty important. We had a new player, not even a new player. Somebody interested in X-Wing asked us about the game. And I said, hey, you can join our Discord. You can talk to us. We could set you up for a demo game. Manny's like, you don't have to buy anything. We can bring everything. He's like, oh, that'd be great. And then.
01:21:05
Speaker
Like clockwork, like as soon as this guy walked away, he walked away and man, he's like, I'm going to have to tell him, I'm going to have to tell him that the game is, the game is tight. If he chooses to buy product, I feel an obligation to tell him because if I don't, I feel that's anti consumer. I know. I feel that's like, wait, but you're going to wait for him to put money in and then try to make him feel bad. No, no, no, no, no, no. What do you like? No, he said before, before he buys. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, before he chooses to spend any money, it's why. All right. Let's roll play really quick. Let's roll play. I'm going to be him. I'm going to, I love this game.
01:21:35
Speaker
I can't wait to play this. Oh, what do you think? Should I play this game, Andy? What do you think? As long as I can with no future product being available. Yeah, sure. Oh. I mean, it's like, if I don't tell you, I feel like it's a very anti-consumer. I'm sorry. Also, he did not sound like this. That voice is very much fantasized. No, no, no, it's not. I don't think that's anti-consumer. I think that's doomerism. It's very doomer. You're a freaking boomer, doomer, bro. You're trying to like, rope in a person.
01:22:05
Speaker
into a game that they might realize, oh, we're not that sinister. If they play and they're having fun with it, that's true. Then you can tell them that. Yeah, I got I got this guy, Andrew. He's always going to be there. But when they choose to spend their money, right, is when I believe they are entitled to know the full picture.
01:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, I also believe that they're talking about your opinion of the full picture too. Yeah, I mean like At least that no products being worked on right now from which we know that at least It's to me it reminds me also when I if you're a new player everything's a new product to you True, but like at least it's the equivalent of starting your new job being excited about your new job and the veteran that's been at the job for a while is like Yeah, but this is gotta get out of here. This place sucks. It's like I
01:22:55
Speaker
Like you tell me to buy it like a game from steam That's a multiplayer game only for me to buy it and then realize there's like 10 people playing online. Yeah You can still you can still buy whatever you want play whatever you want and get games in with us or online Yeah, I mean, I don't think you should scare like
01:23:15
Speaker
I understand with your wanting to be honest. Your face is already scary enough. No. It's a fact of just telling them that no product's being worked on right now. That we know of. Does that count? Yeah, but you don't know. What I would say is there's frustrations in the community. Yeah, people are frustrated because they don't know if or when there's going to be more product, but there's a lot that exists already.
01:23:39
Speaker
Yes. I mean, yeah. And also you got to figure out are they casual? Like what to what degree do they want to be? Because we want more players like, hey, don't play. No, I'm just letting them know. Hey, as of right now, no future product. But you also. Well, here's the deal. You also want to show up for a game night and play two games for three straight weeks instead of skipping out and climbing or taking care of your home or whatever your family. Then you can do that. But until then. Swimming.
01:24:10
Speaker
You should also tell them that we have like an awesome local community Community blah blah blah, but also you'll be like that communities fine, I guess But what you should know is that everything guy who runs through into complete asshole. Yeah, well, yeah But no, I guess Yeah
01:24:35
Speaker
As much as like as as we are also all like competitive players here There is also like the cluster there's Yeah, that's for sure this guy I mean you couldn't win a game. I have like the better He's beaten me. What are you talking about?
01:24:53
Speaker
No, but what I'm saying is is a lot of people who listen to this podcast and a lot of the, you know, like the stuff that we care about is the is the competitive meta is what we're talking about. But there's also the casual side of it, too, that is really enriching and is very cool. And in like Battle of Yavin and Dore and Child of Mandalore, like those kids did in this last year give a ton of support for the right soccer, right. So they were trying new stuff.
01:25:20
Speaker
Before that's still gonna be there, you know, even after the competitive aspects gone So just because they're buying into a kit now doesn't mean it's wasted money. But as far as the he's convinced Ladies and gentlemen, we got them. We got them don't scare off your new players, but then to finding new players go outside of your lake and
01:25:40
Speaker
Game Store, your play group.
Closing Remarks & Support
01:25:42
Speaker
And if you play any other games, like introducing your friends who are who might be interested in a war game, like if they're into like skirmish type games, you know, X-Wing is of all the skirmish war games, one of the most approachable and cheapest compared to like getting Kill Team going to even, you know, like Shadow Point.
01:26:07
Speaker
So I think it's a it's a great building block to get people interested in that in that arena. He's convinced. He doesn't. Yeah, he's not. He's not. Yeah, if if if let's let's just say if I catch, you know, just doom in and gloom in a player, it's just going to be a you might you might you might you might go missing for a little while.
01:26:28
Speaker
I'll always tell a new player that we have a, a, a anime community who is extremely nice except for this one asshole neck. Right. Yeah, exactly. That if you... He's just so handsome that it's ridiculous. Like, I can't be that handsome. Always have a community to play with, but just know then there's no future product to be announced. That's it. That's it. And by the way, Game Time. Wait, what did you say? Say it again. Say it again. It's like, yes, I want to support this game, but not at the cost of like... Yeah.
01:26:58
Speaker
I don't have false advertising, but like Mr. Percent the current realities of the game. Yeah. All right, guys, before we wrap up, any last words in here in our awesome studio that we were using today? Totally ours for sure. Just saying we're I'm happy to be back and get the band together, making content again. And this has been so much fun.
01:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's gonna be fun. I'm looking forward to the year. Yeah. Long live triple arcs. Yeah, exactly. That'll be Manny's new list is gonna be five arcs. All right.
01:27:35
Speaker
Well, everybody, thank you so much for watching and listening to this episode of the 312 Squadron podcast. There are a lot of ways you can catch up with us and watch our content. You can follow us on Twitch. You can watch our live broadcasts there. You can catch edited replays and extra content on YouTube, like our Facebook page for updates. You can also check out our Patreon. If you'd like to be our biggest supporter, you can head on
01:27:57
Speaker
over there and join our Discord to join the conversation directly. We appreciate you all being here supporting us far away across the pond and locally and in all the states and all the areas and all the places. We know you have a lot of choices when you fly. We thank you for flying with 312 Squadron.
01:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, what a great, what a great episode. Thank you all so much again. My name is Nick. I am Emmanuel. And I'm Andrew. And we will catch you all very soon. Game is done! Bye-bye. Game is done.