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Episode 19: Hairy Nick’s!
134 Plays6 months ago
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your host Nick Sperry is joined by X-Wing Content Creator Hairy Nick, to talk about all things relating to navigating the current environment of X-Wing and running a successful channel.
Check out Hairy Nick’s YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/HairyNick
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron podcast. My name is Nick Sperry, and I am pleased to introduce Harry Nick. Hello. How you going?
Star Wars Prequels: Memes and Memories
00:00:11
Speaker
This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them. It's a classic Phantom Menace meme of the many in the Phantom Menace. So many memes from the prequels, Nick. It's just ridiculous. it's Such a good movie. Ooh, 10 out of 10. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know some people who would actually think that's so fair enough. It depends how how you write a movie.
00:00:32
Speaker
Yes, yeah, there is. I mean, I do like Revenge of the Sith. I will say I'm actually a big fan of personally Revenge of the Sith, but um my mom worked for Lucasfilm when I was a kid. So like Revenge of the Sith was like right before she left. So it was just kind of like a even closer attachment to ah to that movie. If you don't mind me asking, how how old were you exactly when that came out?
00:00:51
Speaker
Um, well, I'm not going to try to make you sound old or feel old when I say this, but I was, let's see 2005. That was Jesus. That was 19 years ago. So I was, I'm 27 now. So I was eight or nine. Right. Am I doing the math right? and really ah Yeah. My parents. Great age to get into Star Wars, though. Great age. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I think fundamentally people just think about Star Wars differently based on when they were introduced to them. Oh, man. I was older than that when they got re-released in the cinemas in the late 90s. You look great, though. You can't be a day over 28, my friend. Thank you. um Let's go with that.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah. And we'll continue with our little brief introduction.
YouTube Journey: From Casual to Critical
00:01:37
Speaker
ah Most people know you, Nick, from just YouTube, X-Wing, other tabletop games. But I've always thought of you as and ah you might describe yourself as this as an X-Wing or a YouTuber in some ways. How would you describe your channel and what you you did before you took a break and now you're back? I think the tagline I have on YouTube is ah the world's most talented amateur X-Wing player.
00:01:59
Speaker
which Which I like, I like. I've always felt myself as a sort of a casual player. And i I never went into the YouTube channel specifically wanting to make X-Wing content. That was the catalyst for me making the channel in the first place. But it was always meant to be a side channel for me to just do whatever I wanted to do separately. I actually had ah ah separate a channel where I was doing Let's Plays with a mate of mine, which never took off. but ah Just bit of a bit of a tip for everyone. If you want to make a YouTube channel, focus on doing something that actually engages you, make the content you want to make. Because the second I did that, people started watching. Big time. Sorry. I lost my train of thought. What was the question?
00:02:40
Speaker
No, no, no. I know yeah i mean, you described you said I'd like to describe myself as the world's most talented amateur player. Oh, yeah, and that's right. They probably answered partially at least answered the question. So and yeah, just just just dumb hot takes from a casual that loves to ah think way too much about gaming. That's me.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, now is a really interesting time for the games that you cover and that we kind of both follow. um I'm forced first and foremost, an excellent player. And um but, i you know, I keep my eyes open and, ah you know, with we'll talk about what we've just heard about with Legion and, of course, the recent news with X-Wing. And it's a really interesting time to be like so a content creator for these games as they're
X-Wing Community and Game Development
00:03:19
Speaker
shifting. Development is ending. A lot of question marks um around tabletop gaming, especially for Star Wars and just the future of of things. And so, you know, I think really we'll I'll ask you a bunch of questions. We'll hash it out. But, you know, how do you feel about the current state of things specifically X wing swinging and X wing and beyond? Really? You can start with X wing, though. Better than I have in the last couple of years. Put it that way. um I just haven't felt great about the game in general. Having said that, the last major tournament I played was um the Australian Nationals in twenty twenty two. That was two point five.
00:03:55
Speaker
Uh, I think it was a two or three months into that rule set being implemented and I loved it. Um, even, I think X-wing, even with the worst rule set it's ever had, in my opinion, it's still the the core loop of the game is still amazing. And I think people sort of maybe tend to overblow things and forget that.
00:04:14
Speaker
The fundamentals of X-Wing have stayed, yeah, for sure. And look, I've said my piece on AMG on my own channel. I don't want to get too caught up with the negativity again, um but I have not felt that the game has been handled that well. not Not for a long time, but specifically in the last couple of years, I just haven't felt great about it. Felt great about the X-Wing community as a whole. um Every time I've engaged with them just going out playing tournaments, chatting to people, that's always been a super positive experience. but Um, you know, from top down, it hasn't felt that great. So the fact that that, you know, let's be real, that one major factor that was causing that is stepping away from X-wing and it's going to the community, which as I just said, is what I feel has been the most positive force in X-wing for a while now. Yeah. It's, I feel good. I feel really good.
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's exciting. I feel there's a lot of excitement um and being a part of just on the X-Wing Alliance side, it's it's clear that a lot of people are like, I mean, we're we're we have literal press releases that we are, you know, that I'm releasing for folks. And they're like, oh, my gosh, this is more in two weeks. And I feel like we that I feel like we've gotten from atomic mass games. And I'm right there with you when it comes to to really, drag you know, ragging on AMG. I mean, we'll we'll but we'll talk about atomic mass games a little bit. But it's I'm tired and fatigued from it as well. I think it's just We've both had our rants at this stage. Yeah. Yeah. yeah think you know it's yeah i the The beginning of 2.5, that rule set was tough. I actually opted out of playing at Adepticon and judged instead because I was really concerned with just how much, how little fun I was going to have playing. That's an interesting point. You just said because of a rule set, you chose to judge instead. Wouldn't that be an even worse experience?
00:06:02
Speaker
Well, I wanted to be around everybody. Yeah, I don't know. I wanted to be around. I ah i knew everybody there pretty much. Deon, I've been a part of GSP and GSP was putting that vent on. So I wanted to be there to help Deon. And yeah, but it's a great point. It's like, well, I guess being a judge, you get to interact with more people. That that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. OK, cool. Yeah. Yeah, and and and I get to see people lose their games in turn one, because ah and the in in the old, the original rule set, you could take objectives in the first turn. So it was, ah yeah, it's it's amazing how far we've come from you know that first rule set where I think it was ah a bit of a rough landing to kind of improvement, improvement, and then dipping into a valley again and then staying in that valley just long enough for AMG to be like, this isn't this isn't going to work. We've got to walk away.
00:06:50
Speaker
Well, I think here we are I would argue that was all planned, but anyway, let's not get into that. Sure, sure. Yeah, no no problem. um And I think it's important that. um What's what's nice, I was having this conversation with a good friend of mine, and another X-Wing player about how this world that we're in now, this era, this chapter, whatever you want to call it, there's a little bit less chastising for people being honest and open and, of course, civil about how they feel about things. I feel like.
00:07:18
Speaker
it So having this conversation where, you know, you're just bringing up, like, I think it was planned all along. I feel like eight months ago, people would attack you for that um now. so It's just like probably maybe. And people are like willing to just have that chat. And I think that's nice because ah that whole click thing was it was a bummer. It's just ah I guess people sort of fall into the trap of feeling like when they're inciting anger within the community, it hurts the game overall.
00:07:46
Speaker
or it hurts the the the company's perception of the community or whatever. And I definitely felt like I was doing this at the start of 2.5. Just to reiterate a lot of my thoughts back then, I like a lot of 2.5. I think it's, um I rate it like at a 75% where 2.0, 1.0 was like over 90% in terms of what I think is, in terms of like design quality. And where was I going with this?
00:08:11
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I think we're just talking about um just be opening up about how you feel. Oh, yeah, yeah. yeah um days There definitely was a feeling for me when I was talking about that kind of stuff that I didn't want to I didn't want to say the sky was falling because I don't want to, you know, hurt the thing that I'm I spend my time talking about kind of thing. I felt i still felt like I was honest. um But I felt like there was an incentive for me to be diplomatic.
00:08:37
Speaker
um I still think there is, but because there's not like a ah company, ah ah like a ah big faceless corporation that we don't really have that great communication with. I don't feel that right now because, hey, that literally the people who are going to be taking over, I'm talking to right now.
00:08:54
Speaker
Um, and I felt like it's just this a lot more honesty going on. I just feel a lot less, you know, self-conscious about that kind of critique. And the same is true as well of the transition from 1.0 2.0. This is not just about 2.5. Um, I'm having.
00:09:10
Speaker
a lot of great ah conversations or just saying a lot of great comments on my videos from people who are critical of two point oh and it's it's like you said suddenly everything is a lot more civil there was a ah lot of salt at the start of second edition but the people talking about it now like.
00:09:29
Speaker
um It's not just like, oh, I have to spend this much money to upgrade. It was also um talking about ah not having a group engaged enough to want to stay with that or their country's distribution couldn't handle that. And I'm seeing a lot of these conversations happen and it's just, it's calmer.
00:09:48
Speaker
We're actually learning a lot from each other now, which is fantastic. And just all these people that still play first edition, I'm i'm getting all these comments from, and it's awesome. It's really, really cool.
00:09:59
Speaker
Wow, that's that's wild. I don't I don't see a lot of that on my channel when it comes to people talking about 1.0. I feel like there's just kind of like ah like yeah we leave that in the past kind of vibe just because towards the end of 1.0 with with certain combos and stuff. I didn't personally play one point. I i bought into 1.0 as 2.0 came out and switched over and bought even more. It was awesome. It wasn't wasn't better than two.
00:10:24
Speaker
Are you a magic player by any chance? It's the best. I'm not, I'm not. Okay. But you can still, there's a lot of people listening that are magic players. So it's, um, I actually just a couple of days ago i recorded a video with Justin. I'll be releasing it just before or after this video comes out, but we speak about 1.0. It's like vintage magic because there's a lot of broken design from the early days of, um, X-wing development under FFG where they didn't know what was powerful. They didn't know.
00:10:53
Speaker
what was obviously broken to us now, things like push the limit veteran instinct, like just these these cards that should never have been printed. But that's so easy to say with hindsight. Yeah, just great format. If you ever get a chance to just play it casually, give it a go. I did play a couple of games. Apartment wing is what we called it, like with my roommate. Yeah. But it was what was hard was it would take us like an hour to like get set up because we would be sifting through all these little cards, like not knowing what any of them were. And so I just like the mess of it all. And then 2.0 is like, oh, you use a squad builder. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. Well, we always had squad builders. It's just you if you didn't know, I didn't know. yeah I didn't know exactly. I had no clue. Even with the second edition squad builder, nobody actually used that squad builder.
00:11:37
Speaker
That was that was a clunky app. It was it was I I can respect the fact that they felt like they they kind of felt they needed to make something because They there needed to be a way to be able to easily with the way, you know Math adding everything up with upgrades and everything needed to be able to to provide something um So I at least respect the initiative. But yeah, it never got off the ground. It was always bad. Well It coincided with FFI. I don't know how much you know about this, but ah basically FFG, and this was early days when they were sort of joined up with Asmodee. You know how like Asmodee, like trying to separate companies out into their specialized ah way of making product, like AMG is the mini thing. um FFG is the board game company, that kind of thing. We know how that's turned out, but let's not go into that. But FFG, I don't know if this was decided before the merger with Asmodee, but they made a separate sort of in-house studio called FFI, Fantasy Flight Interactive. And they made a digitized version of the ah Lord of the Rings LCG. um I don't know if that's still free on Steam, but basically, you know, the whole venture ah collapsed. It just wasn't successful enough. And, you know, the first game they bought out just didn't sell that well.
00:12:46
Speaker
I actually did buy it. It's good fun, um the Lord of the Rings game. But I think um the app coincided with that. So they had that in-house development team. And because that fell apart, I don't think they had good long-term support for it. And yeah it never got much better, unfortunately. you know Yeah. And then we ended up in this position where, you know, AMG was kind of quietly just shepherding people to use the unofficial community squad builders, which are always optimized and a lot better. And yeah so if you were someone in my shoes, like when I first started playing X-Wing and I had no idea what to do, it can be challenging, like not knowing exactly where to go for resources. The internet is the internet. So you'll find find out fast enough. but
00:13:23
Speaker
Yeah, especially now with like a thousand discord servers and stuff. Yeah. Just a few. Just a few. I am in a lot. I am just. ah We each have one. being the We do. We do. The Knicks both have their own discords and you grew so graciously joined mine, which was very nice of you. And our discord server has exploded the last 90 days.
00:13:45
Speaker
it's It's been great and yours is open to everyone now as well and it seems like yours is really lifting off as well with people joining. Yeah, well, I close my Patreon um because I just had these massive gaps in content. I'm like, I can't. This isn't working. And more of the point, um I'm not going to, I'm not going to dump on Patreon too much. I realize that you rely on that for a um revenue stream. So I don't want to hurt you your efforts in that. um But it just hasn't worked out for me in the way I want to do content. And I'm looking at different ways to potentially get another income ah from my content creation in the future.
00:14:23
Speaker
And I've got some plans coming soon, so watch out for that. Cool. Yeah, yeah of course. Now you're good. I don't think anyone's going to be offended or or I'll be almost impressed if they leave Patreon because they're like, well, Nick mentioned, don't don't go on Patreon. Specifically join 312 Squadron Patreon, no other Patreon.
00:14:43
Speaker
Uh, man, I want to, you know, let's, we, as we said, we're not going to talk about AMG too much, but I have one more question related to AMG. The Legion changes recently. I don't know. I I've watched some coverage on it. I know that they've essentially a ratted a lot of cards and will reprint them later. Um, they're changing the way player order is, is determined for games, all that stuff.
00:15:04
Speaker
in a nutshell, basically, and in a but you know very vague description of a concise description of what I've understood. Do you feel like this is kind of a trend, the AMG, people saying AMG is trying to adapt the games that they have ownership over to make it easier for them to understand? Is that like, is that kind of like a little too tinfoil cap to suggest that? Or how do you feel about that? Yeah, like sort of bring it into their branding in a sort of like um a more cynical way of looking at that. I don't know. There definitely does feel like um with the way they changed X-Wing and if they actually did any real development on Marta, I imagine this would have happened to that as well. But you look at like the new branding, the graphic design they're putting on Legion, it's like, oh yeah, this just this looks like an AMG game now, which it's fine.
00:15:51
Speaker
You know, if they want to create brand cohesion, I have no problem with that. I actually just, I'm sorry, the reason I was looking at this monitor over here and typing away, uh, shout out to the winnest. I hope that's how we pronounce that. Um, yeah, I kind of create a, who actually recently made a really great summary of what's happened to X wing and Armada on his own channel and talking about like how he's actually getting into the game now, which is really, really cool. But he's a kind of creator that, um, sort of covers Legion.
00:16:15
Speaker
And he spoke about this more way more eloquently than I could, not only because he's, you know, really good at sort of making good coherent videos, which I seem to struggle with. People seem to love the rambling, so I'm not going to stop. Um, but also he's, he's a Legion player who's engaged with the game a lot more than I have. So I sort of, I'm viewing Legion very much as an outsider. So I will say for my part.
00:16:38
Speaker
I actually really like a lot of what's been announced. Some of the graphic design elements are a little bit weird to me. um I don't like how key wording's been taken off the unit cards, but I really like the the overall look of the unit cards now. When I was watching the announcement, I was watching a crab box stream of it and you know reading all the comments there while I was um viewing how it was being announced. ah People were making the comment, oh, it looks like a trading card game now.
00:17:05
Speaker
And I'm like, that's not a bad thing because you know what trading cards are great at? ah Easy cohesion. You can read them from across the table very easily. and And I agree, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I do wish there was keywording on the cards. Maybe they'll have separate cards with keywords. I think that's... potentially what they're thinking of doing, um although they've not said that. That's just a random thought of mine. People are complaining that there's points and upgrades on the back because they want to be able to say that during gamma. But my response to that is, why do you need to say it during a game? you You've got the squad building on the back and the in-game mechanics on the front. That's actually brilliant. I actually really like that.
00:17:45
Speaker
ah Plus, um they may change points and upgrades in the future. So when that's on the back, you're not constantly looking at something that's wrong if anything gets routed in the future. And in in terms of like the in-game mechanics, there's not really a lot I can comment on. I'm seeing a lot of people comment on the fact that ah seems to be a renewed focus on ah like capturing and holding tokens similar to Marvel Crisis Protocol, which was a big criticism of X-Wing 2.5.
00:18:12
Speaker
And people are obviously on the lookout for that kind of stuff. That was a huge misstep by AMG, and they don't want to say it happened to other games. And Legion is that other game they got from the old company that people are like, no, don't ruin this one. And it makes them a lot of money. So yeah, I can't say that. Yeah, Legion makes them a decent amount of money, is my understanding. I don't know.
00:18:33
Speaker
It's possibly, and look, we don't have firsthand information on this, but by the sounds of it, it might be Asmodee's best revenue in terms of a Star Wars game right now. It might, okay. This is pure speculation. Just Harry Nick did not say this. he He did not say this as an, as an absolute fact. It might be keeping AMG afloat right now. That is a possibility. And when you sort of look at the amount of work they've put into it yeah and they're they're talking, Will Schick kept repeating the phrase.
00:19:02
Speaker
support for the next five, 10 years. Like they, they want to ride this all the way as far as they can. And I don't mean that in a cynical way, um, because I don't think all these changes are bad or whatever. I don't think they're going to AMG a fight and ruin everything. But yeah, looking at some of those early concerns, I think some of it is overblown. I think people, <unk>s there's some knee-jerk reaction going on. I will say as someone who has no interest in giving AMG the benefit of the doubt right now, given what's happened over the past month.
00:19:32
Speaker
I actually think it looks okay. And I actually think some of these changes look fantastic. Oh, and the new hard plastic models, what they've revealed looks incredible. I mean, it's AMG. That's what they're good at. But, um, like those rebel, that rebel heroes box, I'm sure. Yeah.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, Legion, Legion, X-Wing, Armada are three examples of they all have their own competitive communities. And I've always I think atomic mass games has always kind of appealed to this more, more casual skirmish vibe. um Yeah, big time.
00:20:02
Speaker
And so they're ah you know and so i think I definitely don't think it's fair for to say flat out that they don't like competitive gaming, but I don't think it's their it's their favorite thing, if if that makes sense. like I don't think it appeals to staff members at IMG. That's the impression I get. And I just want to say, like I don't think that beer and pretzel gaming is a bad thing.
00:20:23
Speaker
In actual fact, I love beer and pretzel games. I play that those way more than competitive games. um It's just when the games already have a foundation of competitive players and shifting it in that direction, you know, causes the game to become disengaged with those players. That's when there's problems. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. I mean, I definitely have seen yeah a lot of people say they love the changes for Legion and um plenty of folks who are I think just so accustomed to like, like some players were accustomed to being able to have perfect information with your aces if you bid and all that stuff like you get used to that and how you win with things and you feel like that's being robbed from you. And I can understand having ah more of an emotional reaction.
00:21:08
Speaker
Yeah. um Time will tell. A lot of this um is the same kind of conversations we had going into 2.0. And I just, you know, obviously everyone has their own opinions, but I think overall for the health of the game, the transition in the second edition was fantastic in terms of competitive health for the game. That's what I'm talking about specifically. I know it obviously hurt in terms of like their player base and You know, we're learning more about that now. Oh, actually on that note, um, AMG refusing to call Legion 2.0, Legion 2.0. Look, don't insult us like that. This is second edition Legion. If anyone from AMG is watching, if you think the problem is calling it second edition, you've learned all the wrong lessons. A second edition is not a bad thing. Uh, the issues with X-Wing was the way it was implemented, the way it was rolled out.
00:21:55
Speaker
And ultimately, yes, every time you do a major rules update, it's going to have a ah backlash of some kind, even the good rules updates and whether or not you call it second edition doesn't really make a difference at that point. Just it's legend 2.0. It's fine. Just call it second edition. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I honestly, I almost find it hilarious that, um and you know, if I would make that trade at a heartbeat, if it's like, hey, if you want to keep this game going with opp support, buy some more product for a new edition, I'd be like, yep. And it's just, you know, how people were were upset with the fact that a business was trying to be a business when it comes to at least that's the way I look at it when it comes to transition to two point. Oh, like by conversion kits, by it's like, yes, it's they're trying to make money. It's absolutely expensive IP.
00:22:37
Speaker
Look, it could have been done better, but it definitely was done better than a lot of other companies doing additional updates. I don't want to rag on GW. No, actually I do want to rag on GW because I youre gun i don't, I don't talk about their games for a reason, but their adherence to doing an additional update for Warhammer 40K every three years is a joke. Do additional updates when the game requires it, not because you're on a three year cycle and require everyone to buy multiple $50 books.
00:23:03
Speaker
And the only way to know what you it's happening in the competitive scene is essentially to buy every single book, because if you don't know the mechanics your opponents has, it's, I really hate that approach. My biggest criticism of FFG, um, in second edition was just the raw amount of cardboard we had to get. The fact that every pilot has this unique ship token and, you know, and the the bulk of the the conversion kits. It's not a big criticism because ultimately I felt like it was a pretty low buy-in, but it wasn't.
00:23:31
Speaker
Perfect. Like I would have loved to have seen continued product support for the packs that already existed, but just, hey, tell the factories to put a different pack of cards in. let Let's, you know, it it had to be smoother than it was. And to AMG's credit, it looks like this transition. If we do think of this as a second edition, it's actually going to be potentially better than what happened with X-Wing. AMG is sort of.
00:23:57
Speaker
you know open to print and play. They're basically saying everything is still compatible. These are really good early signs of um transitioning into a second edition. um The fact that you can just go and print off the new cards, the fact that you know you can just print off PDFs of what you need. um yeah I mean, to be fair, when you don't have the product to sell and to replace it, I don't know what your the alternative is right now, right? that's yeah That's a good point. I mean, they could just print off everything and put it in a pack. but um Yeah, which I think they said they're doing later on. Yeah, we'll see what that looks like. I would imagine it's just going to be a pack with the new objective deck and like the board that you set the digits on. I don't think it's going to be a pack with all the unit cards and that kind of stuff. I think that would be a mistake. Yeah, I just think trying to get the resources for every individual unit is what FFJ tried to do and granted
00:24:48
Speaker
X-Wing has a lot more physical stuff you needed to you needed to put in that pack, but um it was a lot. Yeah, I mean, I have tons of stuff. I get it. And it means that they can print the new version of these units and still sell the old ones at the same time. So it's not like FFG where they they cut the entire range and then slowly drip fed out new products. They're just swapping them out one by one and keeping the new stuff in print.
00:25:13
Speaker
At least I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. If that's the case, that's fantastic. It's going to look messy because you'll have old style cards and new style cards next to each other. Totally respect that that's not ideal, but I think it's more ideal than other situations where you just suddenly invalidate a whole bunch of product that people have bought. That's a, that's a feel bad moment that I think they've, it looks like they've avoided quite well. So yeah, I'm a fan of that.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, and and also there if if if the idea, I think it's it's fair for me to at least to assume I'm not going to say everyone should, but that they're not doing very well right now. um the science There's too many signs to suggest that they're not doing very well right now for for me. And so um they probably can't even really justify or afford to be churning out physical product the same way, like with cards and just like adding more to the assembly line than what's already but being planned for them. It seems like an investment that is even worth taking, even if it is you know it ends up being practical and logical, like you're saying, and that's a win-win for them. Which is rare for a business. I mean, they are it looks like they are churning out you know hard plastic models, but that's what they always do. They've obviously got a good streamline assembly line for that. and Not painted, not assembled either, which is the way that they... No, let's not get into that. yeah um
00:26:24
Speaker
No, but I'm just throwing out that it's easier to manufacture when that's the case. Oh, yes. Yeah, big time. That's what I was saying. You're designing the molds, you're sending them to the factory. There's obviously a good cycle with that. And I'm not usually that critical of companies' profit margins because I just don't know the inner workings of the companies.
00:26:43
Speaker
But if you have a look at the per cost cost of, um, the hard plastic minis, like I play marble, for example, awesome game. Love it. But the per cost price of buying in is it's a bit high. I feel like again, speculation. Nick doesn't know this for sure. He's speculating. Okay. Okay. I know. I know. I see your comments is for the people listening. He is pointing to to you.
00:27:08
Speaker
I worry that AMG relies on a profit margin that's unrealistic or unsustainable with their hard plastic stuff. I don't know that for sure, but it certainly looks like it from the outset. If you guys want to get an idea of how expensive it is to have the Star Wars license and sell product with the Star Wars IP, look at LEGO for as an example. There are LEGO City sets with the same amount of pieces in this LEGO Star Wars set.
00:27:32
Speaker
And why is this very good example dollars more than the other one? Yeah, it's it's they set high goals because they have a lot of pressure and that their um their floor is very high ceiling is low. But you know what, Nick, let's talk about you a little bit. I'm putting you on the spot. You're in the spotlight now.
00:27:50
Speaker
um Yeah, exactly. How did you get into X-Wing? And then what led you to deciding to be like a content creator? Okay, so X-Wing, getting into X-Wing. So it's the first tabletop game I've gotten into if you don't count trading card games. Actually, that's not true. So when I was a teenager, I played Lord of the Rings, both the card game by Decipher and the mini game by ah Games Workshop. Both great games, by the way, R.I.P. Decipher.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, I sort of got into that with a mate and it's really about the community I find. Um, and I think a lot of people agree with this. Once you find that community that you gel with, it just makes getting into this kind of stuff so much easier. It's super easy with computer games, just low on the steam, just play some multiplayer games online. you You find people without even trying. Um, what got me into X-wing specifically, um, the first tabletop game I got into seriously and actually got into competitively.
00:28:45
Speaker
Um, was a mate of mine who we just go and hang out with once a week, play computer games, play card games, whatever. And I rock up there one day, um, and he has all these little Star Wars ships on his kitchen table. And there was like five or six of us there. And he ah also shared to FFG that original how to play X-Wing video, one of the best videos on YouTube.
00:29:09
Speaker
So me and this other guy sat on his couch, watched this seven minute video. We're like, that game is obviously awesome. We walked over to the kitchen table. We played it. We got all the rules wrong, but my God, but what not what an experience. One of the strengths of X-Wing I've always said is how fun it is on both ends of the spectrum and how fun it is, whether you're winning or losing. There's not a lot of games I can say that about.
00:29:34
Speaker
certainly none to the extent of X-Wing. I think it's the best from that point of view. And that's how I got into it. I sort of, you know, looked at playing at local stores. I wasn't really into that scene. So I'm like, oh, you know, this shy ADHD guy, ah complete introvert walking like, oh, hi, do you have X-Wing tournaments? And like, just the response was super friendly. I ended up going to a store tournament with a janky dual fire spray list and just having so much fun and sort of the rest is history.
00:30:01
Speaker
the Just the community positivity kind of kind of kept pushing me forward. I remember early on, I'd only been playing for a couple of months and um one of like the pro players was like, hey, Nick, you're coming to the Nationals in a few months time. but I've just started playing. It's like, no, don't worry. Just come. It's awesome. And I did. And it was. it's yeah it's just It was so easy getting into X-Wing. Very, very, very positive.
00:30:25
Speaker
Oh, that video, you bring up memories like that. I'm a video producer by trade. Like, that's my job. And I went to animation school and I just everything about that video is awesome. Like, those are the kinds of videos that would have been like a dream to be able to be involved in making. You know, we'd be so lucky to get something like that nowadays.
00:30:45
Speaker
I tried doing something similar, similar when second edition came out. I made a short series of videos. I actually, due to some life events, didn't end up finishing that series. But I remember like ah my, my basics video, just like the rough basics of how to play 2.0 is a half hour long video. And I look at it. I've actually rewatched it recently just to see how relevant it is. If you want to play legacy, by the way, it's basically still relevant. ah Pretty cool. But I look at it now and I don't even know how I can cut this down. I don't know how they did it.
00:31:14
Speaker
So good. Yeah, I remember that series of videos. um You did those. And I know like Hexile GSP also for the tabletop simulator side made videos to help players. And I really appreciate that you and and those guys, they you put those to together. Those are valuable resources. And it's it's nice that you can still go back and revisit them if they haven't, you know, aged out in the being obsolete. Right. They still have some relevancy, which alludes to what you're saying with switching over. I don't want to come across as pompous, but it's, it's the kind of videos that I would want to see. That's why I made them. I'm probably going to look at doing something similar if they're, you know, if the XWA does have, okay, this is the rule set we're moving forward with. We're borrowing this from here, this from here. I might start doing that again because it's just an amazing resource. And now more than ever, it's about the community. It's a, this is where we get our information from now. So let's embrace that. No, absolutely. Uh, let's see, how did, how did a lesser Justin get involved? You guys are very close. I'm just curious about the background, background of your relationship. Uh, so we're mates from high school. Yeah. We went to a different parcel. No, no, no, sorry. He went to the high school down the road. Um,
00:32:24
Speaker
I became mates with ah him and other people from that sort of local area in University of all places. So I drove half an hour in the opposite direction and met all these people who sort of went to the schools around my very weird. um But yeah, just a group of us got involved. We were all involved, um this group of three of us with recording on that original channel, um doing Let's Plays. Justin was involved with that.
00:32:49
Speaker
And when I started making my side channel, um, and talking about stuff, he sort of just was really enthusiastic about being involved. I never even thought of that. Not that I, but you know, specifically wanted to push him out. I didn't want to go, no, no, no, this is my, this is my special thing. But when he showed enthusiasm and, um, early on in that channel, we were recording magic videos and, um, he, he actually got me into magic originally. So that's, that was a no brainer bringing him on for that. those didn't work out and now that I have a much better understanding of magic I can see why but you know we were we were young and naive but basically through the content I was making he's like I have to play x-wing this looks incredible and um and I said to him hey you should play x-wing it's incredible and he he just he looked
00:33:36
Speaker
I think he like opened up like a product listing for our local game shop and he just saw the decimate. I'm like, I have to own that ship. ah Yeah, it's pretty good. And he did. And then we did an unboxing on the channel for the decimator. And then he just sort of got more and more involved and more enthusiastic and.
00:33:53
Speaker
yeah it's just a very it was very natural even though we haven't had him on the channel for quite a while by the way the the video that's either just coming out before or after this video we'll have Justin on it by the way ah where we we still hang out all the time we play Dungeons and the Dragons um love D and&D awesome game if you've ever thought about getting giving it a go seriously give it a go or tabletop RPGs in general um i'm not just going to say Dungeons and Dragons that's a That's a that's a branded thing. They're all great. Sorry ADHD off the train of thought right Justin. Yeah, that's okay. um Yes indeed. Yeah, so yeah, we've just been friends and it was just if such a natural fit having him on the channel and um Yeah, he'll he'll continue to be on the channel. We're chatting about because we don't just have like
00:34:40
Speaker
company released information on product, Nick and Justin, let's sit down and talk about it. We don't have that anymore. So now we're actually talking and critically thinking about how to move forward and stuff. And we've got some good ideas. So he'll he'll keep appearing on the channel for the time being. and i how it works I recently went down the hairy Nick rabbit hall and was watching your video most most recently talking about um the just the recent news and then I kind of just kept like, you know, YouTube as the next play button, like just plays the next video, plays the next video. but What it recommends to you or whatever. And I got to when you and Justin were talking about. um
00:35:17
Speaker
2.5 and like when I first just come out and it's just like you guys have a really good casual the dynamic that you guys have. It's it's cool because you I feel like it's you know, with sports, you have someone who's the play by play and you have the color commentator, you know, have you have you heard of that reference before? You're you're more the play by play. You kind of lead with the information. And I feel like we are the sports capital of Australia. Yeah. Yeah. That's a man explaining over here. But yeah, I just felt like you guys had that dynamic and Justin would chime in with things that he noticed and you would lead with a lot of the information and just kind of leading the video. And he's I feel like he's definitely kind of became a part of your quote unquote like brand and just in terms of making appearances and.
00:36:03
Speaker
It always felt very, very, very friendly and casual. And, and I think that's important, especially if you guys are actually, you know, you're actually friends outside of the videos that you make and maintaining that friendship is so important. You know, I couldn't do it if we weren't friends. Um, yeah, it's like, um, and recently learning that Adam Savage and Jamie Heinemann from, um, myth buses were never friends. It's like, Oh, wow. You got, you guys are really professional. I could never do that. Um, it's quit no like hearing about stuff like that.
00:36:33
Speaker
Oh, it's it's not a bad thing. I mean, Adam is a ah big YouTuber. This is a completely separate topic, but it's it was just always a professional relationship. they they They don't see it as a bad thing. It's just, you know, just how they engage with it. And yeah, talking about Justin again. um he engages with the game in a very different way than I do. and i've always i've always ah hate This sounds like a ah dirty corporate thing to say, but I've always seen the value in that um from a content creation point of view. um
00:37:05
Speaker
but The way I've always tried to um engage with the game, I've always tried to be diplomatic about the way I discuss things. I don't poo-poo certain people's um opinions and views on the game. And I try to see things from different perspectives. So having Justin there has always been great for that reason. For sure.
00:37:23
Speaker
um In terms of how did you feel like you kind of found your niche with the types of videos that you you guys make or that you make? um did it Was it a lot of experimenting or did you just kind of have a goal from the get-go, I want to make videos like this? Well, I mean, obviously when I started out, I was making Let's Play videos. And I think I was just trying to make videos like the Let's Players that I watched and just doing a worse job. um And when I was sort of like interested in making videos for myself,
00:37:54
Speaker
Um, I didn't make the site. I didn't. So when I say site, you know, I mean this channel, uh, sorry, this is your channel. I mean, Harry, Nick, the the channel we're talking about. Yes. Um, yes. the other i am mean I made that just to have that outlet for chair for videos I wanted to make. And then that ended up exploding. Uh, basically there were people doing discussion pieces on X wing.
00:38:19
Speaker
um Back then, I remember probably the big one was Sling Paint, Berto and Nim, um if you didn't play X-Wing during first edition, you won't know who that is, but um but just a couple of guys chatting about X-Wing, it was great. I remember watching some of their stuff and it was all, I don't want to say like fairly on the surface, but they didn't I remember thinking one day this isn't as analytical as I want it to be. So I made that that's just how I um sort of looked at it um because there were certain talking points and I'm just trying to remember like specific examples.
00:38:56
Speaker
um Yeah, so first video I made was on the the scum ace pack, the the the patch for scum in first edition ah with the star viper and the curax. And there were certain sort of comparisons being made to other ships within the game.
00:39:16
Speaker
and um And people were talking about that sort of like, oh yeah, this sort of like lands in this kind of points. I'm like, no, i want and I want numbers on the screen. I want like texts coming up with explanations and stuff. So I did that and I kept doing that and people seem to like that.
00:39:31
Speaker
It's more work, right? It's more tedious, but it does look good. You feel good oh yeah when you put a little bit more effort. and Again, it's just the content I wanted to see. And I'm going to keep harping on this. If you want to get into YouTube, make the comment the content that you want to see. And it's it's a certain way my brain works, but I like learning. I like improving a process whenever I'm learning how to do something.
00:39:53
Speaker
So learning video editing, having information on the screen. Um, it was daunting that first time cause I didn't know what I was doing, but I just like, well, okay. Uh, look up on YouTube. How do I, how do I do this? How do I edit this kind of thing? How do I put this kind of thing into my edit? And I learned a bit by bit. And every time you do something like that, you know how to do it. You move forward. Never stop learning. It's, it's such a ah great philosophy to approach anything in life.
00:40:18
Speaker
Yeah, you got to be willing to learn. be ask Ask questions, be willing to learn. And I mean, it's just great advice when it comes to. making, for you know, putting together YouTube videos, ever everything, though. Right. But I mean, I always thought of it as like, I think most people fall into the trap of what do people want to see? And then you start to fall into this routine that it feels like a chore and you're not enjoying it and it leads to burnout and mental health issues and yeah everything. Right. Yeah. It's a lot of pressure to put on yourself when you feel like you're needing to cater to an ever evolving and ambiguous market. It's not the way to go. It's the X-wings odd guys.
00:40:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. here you You guys. can you I mean, here we are. We're providing just life advice. and it Just kidding. But it's helpful. Very helpful. And and you know, it's very wise in in a way for sure. Thank you.
00:41:08
Speaker
yeah Yeah, of course. More about you. you're ah You are, of course, in Australia. You said the Melbourne area, right? So what has X-Wing traditionally that been like in your area or in Australia if you kind of have ah a good gauge on the the greater country as a whole? And what has it have been like now in the last year or so?
00:41:29
Speaker
Okay. And then the last year or so, basically there has been no Melbourne official play scene. It, uh, I think sort of mid to late last year, people just sort of dropped off entirely. The, the transition to 2.5 basically killed it for us, which sucks. Oh, you know, I tell you what, I'm going to announce something on your channel right now. I am looking to sort of.
00:41:48
Speaker
build a community effort within Melbourne. So if anyone here from Melbourne is watching, um jump on my Discord or just say hi or whatever, we want to try and actually sort of build ah something here, whatever that ends up looking like.
00:42:02
Speaker
you know whatever But I'm just keen to play in person next week. I've already sort of chatted to a few people who are doing some local legacy stuff and you know, we we want to try and establish something ah in terms of the rest of the country. There's still a solid scene going on in New South Wales, which is the state just above us um and also a little bit in Queensland as well. so New South Wales has always been like the biggest heart of the X-Wing community. um It's because of the efforts in people in New South Wales, particularly Onyx Squadron, that group, um that we originally got a system open from FFG.
00:42:40
Speaker
They've been the big ones to advocate with the ah with and on behalf of the local supplier to get good organized play. And I know there are probably people outside Onyx Squadron as well. I'm not going to try and remember names. I'm terrible at that and I will forget people.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yeah. Like, I think the gut, like the gun darks, right? Fearless gun darks. Uh, yes. Oh yes. I was going to say, Nobby, Nobby is the other one. Um, he's a, he's actually based in Queensland. So he's not in New South Wales either, but yeah, but a big shout out to all of those people involved with that kind of stuff. I've, I've never been involved with any kind of big push for official play that might change in the future. I'll see how I go with that. But, um, uh, it's just never been my jam kind of thing.
00:43:20
Speaker
So with that said, then, like, well, I guess I have two questions. One is when you alluded to it already a little bit, but when the game did transition to two point five was just the overall vibe was not very good, which you say in Australia.
00:43:35
Speaker
especially Melbourne, it sounds like, but like, what about like New South Wales? is how i so they They had enough people to keep going. ah um Yes. start up yeah There was a, there certainly is a group of um individuals I can think of that transitioned away. And also a lot of those people ended up sort of moving into other AMG games anyway, ah like started getting more heavily into Legion, Shadowpoint, MCP.
00:44:01
Speaker
um Unfortunately, I have no problem with AMG making you know ah ah a good portfolio of great games, but unfortunately they do have a habit of cannibalizing each other, especially in smaller communities. Basically, if I go down to my local shop, I have to play Shadowpoint. That's the only option I have in terms of like getting consistent games with people, and that's kind of annoying to me. That's interesting. I can't even find a store here where anyone played Shadowpoint.
00:44:27
Speaker
Well, that's the thing, ah but if I lived half an hour in that direction, it'd be MCP. This is the fundamental problem ah we have. Yeah, it's just in in a community where there's only like a group of 10 or less players that go to a store regularly. We're just going to have those fundamental issues and we're just keep jumping between games. And I have sort of been thinking about looking at Shadowpoint, but I'm also aware of the fact that I could get into it and, you know, take the million years I take to paint models. And by the time I do that, they might jump into another game and I'm just like, okay, that doesn't sound very appealing.
00:45:03
Speaker
At our point, it seems there's been a bit of a struggle for them, just kind of getting it to where they want it to be. Oh yeah. And look, if I were to ever engage with the game, I would basically look at it, um, the price point and the models and go, okay, I know I'm getting really cool minis, but that's my only guarantee I have. And I'm going to buy a product based on that knowledge.
00:45:24
Speaker
Like the price of the core box is actually really good. If you just want that set of minis, you go ahead. Cause that is a great experience getting to paint and you know, learning how to paint that group of minis for that price is fantastic. Hey, there's a game attached. Awesome. Um, but beyond that, yeah, I'm cautious actually due to the, um, recent announcement with Legion, especially with some of the new stuff they're bringing out. I'm like, I'm just going to play that.
00:45:50
Speaker
I've already got a bunch of Legion stuff. ah If they're going to make hard plastic as nice as their Shadowpoint stuff, I'd rather just buy the Legion stuff instead. Just keep it all in one game. Absolutely. um Were there any store champs? like How was the store champ scene for Worlds invites and stuff? like Were there enough store champs for people to be able to really compete for getting a Worlds invite? or I'll be talking in the last couple of years or over the entire time. Oh yeah. Sorry. Let me be specific. AMG season, the AMG season from last, last season. Uh, within the last year, I think there was 2023 store champs. Uh, nothing, nothing 2024. Yeah. Basically when a game gets small enough.
00:46:32
Speaker
ah For example, this store that I'm talking about where most of the crowd's playing Shadow Point, they do Legion Store Champs um because it's a big enough event that the people playing it as a side game still come along and people from around the state still come to play Store Champs. So they can justify doing that, just not the regular events.
00:46:52
Speaker
sure okay Yeah. So that's kind of the path. If 2024 store champs haven't, we we had a ah store champ who's extended and just for fun. And we had 14 people show up and that was more than I thought we would get. So, you know, there aren't store champs right now. I remember when like regular tournaments, 14 would it be like the average number?
00:47:14
Speaker
I'm depressing myself now. I shouldn't think about that. Oh, no. Well, I'll join you. I'll join you in that. yeah Let's talk about just the X-Wing community, because now the X-Wing community is basically put on notice and taking up ownership, or really, when I say ownership, I mean responsibility for what whatever we get moving forward with legacy and with, of course, the X-Wing Alliance that I'm associated with.
00:47:35
Speaker
So how do you feel about, yeah, what game, um, system or rule sets, uh, are you most attracted to and how do you feel about community support moving forward? Nick, I'll be honest. I have like five videos in mind. I want to make just to try and explain this. and So I want to say that I have played and enjoyed the three major rule sets, one, two, and 2.5. I, if.
00:48:01
Speaker
So first of all, let's just rule out one. I don't think we're ever looking at a serious return to one in any kind of official capacity. That's not a slight on one first edition. I it's an amazing rule set and I encourage people to engage with it casually if you can fire up local tournaments because you have enough interest. Great. But that's yeah.
00:48:21
Speaker
awesome game, but two is just the refined version of one. So let's just rule that out for the time being. So really the discussion is the rules of two versus 2.5. If it were If we were, if Nick was just going to get his way, we'd just roll back to two. And I think I said as much right after the announcement. I think that statement was a little bit flippant because now that I've actually spoken about it and engaged with the community, I think it's, it's way more nuanced than that. There is one very specific thing with two that I would love to say return. And that is the two 200 point system points and ships on the same spectrum of points, like less that.
00:49:01
Speaker
Yeah, i I miss it. I miss it so much in competitive X-wing. It was, that was the big thing. But beyond that, I, I'm actually pretty cool with either rule set. I guess the other thing is missions as well, but the, the point structure and the missions and scoring kind of go hand in hand anyway. So I, I don't think we're going to have 200 points in missions. I don't, I mean, I mean, XWA, you guys might, um,
00:49:29
Speaker
think of some kind of way to make that work, but I can't see that happening, for example. ah If you look at um why the 20-point system exists and, you know, how it relates to MCP specifically, um you know, the elephant in the room is, of course, they sort of pushed in that kind of design direction. It makes a lot of sense. I just think that point system and that scoring system works way better in MCP. And I think it was kind of tacked on to X-Wing.
00:49:55
Speaker
It's very limiting and excellent. Big time. Um, so yeah, 200 points in dog fights is that that's my preferred way of playing. Look beyond that, the way, uh, bumping and asteroids work. I prefer the older rules with bumping.
00:50:10
Speaker
from a flavor perspective, but at the same time, the way, um, AMG changed it. So if you bump a friendly ship, you can take damage. I actually really liked that. I was really critical of road when they first announced it, and then I played it and I actually really liked road.
00:50:26
Speaker
Yeah. Road is the least of my concerns these days when I play X-Wing. Yeah. Exactly. And I thought it would be the biggest concern when I first looked at 2.5 and I read through those. well I'm like, Oh, this, this right here adds way too much complexity. No, it's just really intuitive and easy to do. I'm just shocked by that.
00:50:44
Speaker
Um, I think maybe the rule might need some refining. People are talking about random order, uh, uh, was it random order before dials? I think in terms of too much information, I think is tough with that one. Right. yeah That's why they like road as it is.
00:51:00
Speaker
I know, but at the same time, you're not just invalidating the first player thing for an entire game, which is the big problem with the bid system. Um, we could have a nuanced discussion on this. friday after I do like, uh, choosing my maneuvers with more information. It's sort of, it makes the game feel a little bit more like chess in terms of like, um, working and and strategizing and try to predict the way your opponent works.
00:51:27
Speaker
I like that side of things and I will say I loved the bid system because it was really crunchy. um It was really sort of relay. It was a great thing for us competitive players to get into and sort of engage with and go, oh, how much of a bid do we need? That kind of thing.
00:51:43
Speaker
But I totally get the negative play aspect of that. And the way and people have been talking about this ad nauseam at this point, and I get it. So you know what? If it appeals to more people, I'm happy to throw away something that I don't love. But again, if it were up to Nick, this is the Pay 2.0.
00:52:01
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. ah Do you have any concerns with like like the legacy project and X-Wing Alliance projects like moving forward with keeping the game going? Is there anything that naturally stands out to you like oh this? You know, what are maybe some things that you I think would be obstacles?
00:52:17
Speaker
the key thing with the XWA, and look, you guys are already doing this, so um you've allayed a lot of concerns simply by the fact that you're communicating with the um ah community. I think long term, what we want to say from you guys is ah making sure that the community is being listened to.
00:52:35
Speaker
And there are a lot of voices within the community. ah I see them in my comment section all the time. The game has to be done this way or I'm out. um Really honest yeah unhelpful, completely unhelpful. If you are thinking that way, you are priming yourself for disappointment.
00:52:52
Speaker
be let's let's try and be a bit more open-minded and nuanced about this because as much as we might not like 2.5 guess what all the new players that joined the game in the last two years only know 2.5 and that's okay that's completely okay if there's going to be any kind of rollback in terms of like the rules. and we and Obviously, there's already going to be rollback in terms of the philosophy and approach to the game, because the X-Wing Alliance doesn't want to make it like Marvel Crisis Protocol. but the I'm not even going to ask you that. There's no point me asking you that. There's there's not a separate game that the X-Wing Alliance is working on that they're trying to sort of make it work like. They're also not going to make it 2.0
00:53:35
Speaker
verbatim because the 2.0 Legacy project exists already. So I don't know why people are thinking XWA would do that as well. Well, that's that's the whole, well, we didn't know early on. um And the cool thing is we've had these announcements from the XWA and also the guys at Legacy have also announced, hey, look, we've been changed to the XWA. You know, we we want to keep them a separate project.
00:53:57
Speaker
And that kind of thing, I think the only concern that I personally have from that is like, Oh, does that mean that you're definitely not using old rule sets? Like again, talking about those very specific things that we like, but sure. I don't want to make that assumption. I'd i'd rather wait until you guys actually announced something before. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're yeah. the I you know I can confidently tell you this. I've already kind of mentioned it on some other channels that have been been on recently. um We've been talking at nauseam about um a 40 point structure, a 200 point list building structure. We all kind of agree that 20 point list building as it stands right now is.
00:54:32
Speaker
very problematic. The variety, the depth of list building and choices that you have or the lack of are are bad. And um so the with a hot fix we're making, you know, we're going to do some and an initial rollout of a 20 point meta change that changes points and upgrades and slots. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then look to the future. um That's another thing where I think people are getting a little tossed up is like, well, why aren't you you know, why are you even bothering with 20 points right now? It's like, well, because we have to roll this out, we got to change that first.
00:55:02
Speaker
Don't, don't change the rules before you rebalance the game, rebalance the game first. Like I am a huge advocate of doing it the way, because apart from anything else, we've needed a rules, ah sorry, a points update for 2.5 that AMG have sort of just refused to engage with. Yeah.
00:55:18
Speaker
Do you remember how weird it was that, like, right before Worlds, they, like, gave us, like, a really strange points update that was, like, four or five things that they changed, like, Han, like, just very random, and it's like, hey, we're gonna, like, do this, like, little soft update. And everyone's like, oh, there'll be a bigger update in May or June. And then just, like, nothing ever happened. It was really bizarre. oh I don't know why that happened, but they did it. I'll be honest, man, I was a bit tapped out at that point, and I didn't know that it happened. But now that now that you're telling me that, it's like, yeah, that that tracks.
00:55:48
Speaker
Yeah, and they didn't, you know, that everybody, because based on which it was a fool, I was foolish to think this way, but based on how they were releasing the previous scenario packs, they would just update points for what those the cost were for the items in the scenario packs.
00:56:03
Speaker
And so when Battle Over Endor came out, people were like, there's going to be a point, I think there might be a points change. And I'm over here like, that's foolish. There's no chance that they would give us a points update for anything but the Battle Over Endor stuff. Look at ah Yavin, look at Siege of Coruscant. And then they kind of half proved me wrong because they're like, we'll change like five things and Battle Over Endor stuff.
00:56:26
Speaker
And it was right before Worlds. It was a few weeks out. And um the whole community was like, well, that's cool. But also, why did they do this? It was right before Worlds. And is there going to be another points update? There has to be because they only changed a few things and then here we are. They never did it. It was just bizarre say to say the least. We won't be doing that as the XWA. We will have a ah rotation of points that makes sense.
00:56:48
Speaker
I wasn't even gonna ask you that, don't worry about that man. But um all I can say is it tracks. And okay again, I wanna try and avoid the negativity and everything. But I was just chained to this um off camera with Justin the other day. And every time we get confused by something, we just fall back on, they just didn't allocate the resources. they just I hate the phrase they didn't care because it's they're a company, they make business decisions. It's not about whether they care or not.
00:57:15
Speaker
But it's like they just they just didn't put the effort in. that that's I just keep coming back to that point over and over again. And it just, when you appreciate everything together, don't waste brain power trying to understand the processes. It's not worth it for, you know, it's it's not an interesting discussion. It's not worth it for your mental health. Let's just move forward.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. um I've been in a position where I've been so we've we've all been in positions where we've been set up to fail. And I we ah we extensively in our podcast have talked about how AMG has they have been set up to fail in a lot of ways. And as many literally by Embrace her as well. So you know we don't need ah to obviously go through that. But it's it's obvious that there's a lot of nuance as to how we've gotten here and.
00:57:58
Speaker
on the front end, it's just the communication was always in the QA wasn't there. I have ah in my hands a bunch of these soon tier cards. I got some extras from Worlds to and to give away before I realized they were misprinted on the back. So it's just like you can't win.
00:58:15
Speaker
It's really funny because um I keep seeing all these YouTube videos of people who obviously don't play X-Wing or vicariously play it, ah talking about things like, oh, it was always going to fail because it was an IP-based game. I'm like, dude, that is like the 20th thing down the list that we that we have to worry about.
00:58:34
Speaker
Now, the fact that X-Wing is an IP-based game exacerbates some issues, certainly, but it is not what killed it. like Not even close. Not even close. Absolutely. i We could squash that one. yeah Now, um this is an important kind of segment here that I want to get into. um As it's affected you, it's affected me, it affects a lot of content creators and people who are just very passionate about what they do and devote a lot of time and resources into doing what they do.
00:59:02
Speaker
um And as two fellow content creators named Nick, who share the same first name, why do you feel it's important to be aware of your mental health when making content? You just alluded to it. um It's really interesting, specifically surrounding the awareness of ADHD. It's funny because it came about largely due to TikTok. It's sort of what everyone theorizes is was the main thing that brought awareness to it because TikTok is, it's this bizarre platform. I'm not part of this, by the way. I just, I know about it because someone else that uses that. And it just, it punches out little bits of information at such rapid pace.
00:59:40
Speaker
And it just, it appeals to a certain kind of person. And because of that, because that sort of message and people sort of like saying, Oh, yeah do you think like this, this, and this, or maybe you should look into an ADHD diagnosis. And that just cut through looking at it now, the renewed awareness in this that's happened. It's crazy that it didn't happen sooner, but I also kind of understand how the message had to go out there in a certain unique way. And it just resonates with content creators.
01:00:09
Speaker
I don't like to be the kind of person that um diagnosis people. i don't I think that's a little bit rude. At the same time, holy hell, I can see how like the vast majority of content creators are either ADHD or ADHD adjacent. it's just It just goes hand in hand with the way they think and engage with their stuff.
01:00:28
Speaker
Not just because of hyperfixation, but obviously that's a big part of it. And, uh, yeah, sort of being open about that and the fact that I got my own diagnosis has been just this very positive thing. And I, yeah, I just, we should talk about it because this stuff was not, ah we weren't aware of this stuff for so long because of the stigma, because people weren't just talking about it openly. And I think it's it's really cool, like seeing, especially like younger and younger generations. Sorry. I felt really old saying that. Um.
01:00:57
Speaker
But just seeing like every, it seems like every generation, there's like all these barriers that just go down. And one of the big things, especially with like Gen Z and to a lesser extent millennials and going up the chain, uh, just this acceptance of talking about neurodivergence. It's great. Like it's only a positive thing talking about it. And I think we should continue to do so. and Yeah, very well said. um I remember watching a video you talked about, hey, you know, I'm back. A lot of things have happened. I know I've been away for a bit and you mentioned your diagnosis. How do you feel? How was having dealing with ADHD affecting you and how like how has receiving that diagnosis kind of pushed you into this new kind of part of your life and the way you feel about yourself?
01:01:38
Speaker
um in terms of the way it it affects everything in your life it's it's the the fundamental thing uh which sort of encapsulates that kind of personality is having a big enthusiasm to start a project but not end it okay if anyone just heard that and they thought oh that's me and you haven't looked into any neurodivergent um diagnosis please do yourself a favor and talk to your doctor about this kind of stuff it's not always cheap i I don't know how it works in America, but even in Australia, like we're still not caught up with that kind of stuff, but ah it's it's always worth pursuing. um Actually, on the financial side of things, um yes, it costs money to get diagnosed, but it also costs you a lot of money not to get diagnosed because of your everyday habits. Just be aware of that as well. I keep doing this. What was the question?
01:02:24
Speaker
No. We're literally talking about it right now. Here we are. um just ah how how did you So you said it affects every part of your life. um With you and your channel, like how is that how did that have a wedge in your plans and and and and in your life leading up to your diagnosis and how you feel now after receiving it?
01:02:44
Speaker
The way I think about it in terms of the way I've made content, like trying to make like weekly content and like a recurring shows, I realized now is a very neurotypical way of making content. Because if you lose interest in something as someone with ADHD, particularly like the um inattentive internal ADHD, that's an oversimplification, but that that's, that's kind of the way we categorize these things.
01:03:07
Speaker
It's very difficult to engage with something once your mind has latched off of it. And it's actually it's it's like it's four times as much work trying to re-engage with it. And there were moments um specifically like around ah the lead up to 2.5 where I felt like that.
01:03:25
Speaker
Like I'm not hyperfixating on this. So it's really hard to gather my thoughts and make stuff on this now. So with my approach to making content now is like, I'm only interested in, you know, the three videos that are in front of me right now. I'm not ashamed of that. I think, um, that's actually quite a good way of making content in hindsight because you can be dynamic and there's a word I'm thinking of what's it agile, agile is the word you can agilely change your content and like adapt to what you want to do.
01:03:52
Speaker
The fact that we don't have this set in stone, you know, set of articles paired by a company like this is the news site coming out next wing. The fact that the future is unknown actually makes me more excited because of my neurodivergence and, you know, because of the positivity coming out. It's.
01:04:09
Speaker
It's great, to be honest. The diagnosis has been fantastic because I'm so aware of the way my mind works now, and I can see like the latching on and latching off in terms of hyperfixation and losing interest. I can view it in real time, and medication helps with that as well. Again, talk to your doctor. I'm not telling anyone to you just um go out and pursue that kind of thing ah without medical advice first. But it's like it's given my brain the mental tools to slow down and see what's happening.
01:04:37
Speaker
It's, you know, the negative of that is, oh, my God, I didn't have I wasn't doing this for 30 years of my life. And that sucks. But, you know, glass half full. I'm dealing with it now. And that's awesome. Did you feel like a type of when you when you were struggling to to stay latched on or focused on a project? Did you feel like you were were you beating yourself up? Like, oh, man, am I like what's wrong with me? Am I am I being lazy? Why am I not?
01:05:02
Speaker
Staying on this, like how are you were did you have an unhealthy relationship with yourself? I've i've always had a pretty positive relationship with myself um yeah for a while now. I don't think that's the way I thought about it. like It got to a point where I knew I just couldn't force myself to. I didn't understand why it was.
01:05:18
Speaker
So the break that you chose to take was kind of something that was proactive. I didn't choose to take a break. that That was going day to day and then going, ah what am I going to do? it And then just realize, oh, I've just suddenly gone several months and I've been focusing on this part of my life, and not this part of my life. It just sort of happened. and Which is why in the video where I was talking about the diagnosis, I said, hey, look, it might happen again. Please don't take it personally.
01:05:41
Speaker
It doesn't mean I suddenly hate doing this or hate the game. um I've always really the game is in X-Wing, not the game is in life. I wasn't being metaphorical. Yeah. um yeah ah do you Yeah. YouTubers, if you don't mind me to start quickly chiming in on that topic, like YouTubers, there is this the the grind and the schedule of having content coming out, promising people, which I could never do because I'll never take YouTube that seriously to be like, Hey, every Monday, Tuesday, Friday, we're having a new video. you know like Did you ever hold yourself to that? Or was you did you always kind of know better than to be like, you know it's not over-promised and put myself in a position where I'm going to burn out really hard? We definitely were trying to get... but oh We did um a video series called The Hangar Bay where we just like read and discussed ah people's X-Wing lists.
01:06:31
Speaker
Um, which was great fun, by the way, sort of like it gets your own theory crafting brain going. And again, that was easy cause I was hyperfixating on that kind of stuff anyway. um And it was a relatively, I hate saying the word easy because no video is easy to make, but relatively speaking, it was a less time consuming and ah less labor intensive way of making videos. So we had to schedule me and Justin will record that once a week. And that was fantastic. But it got to a point where like, if I wasn't able to stay focused on stuff, it's like, it felt like, Oh, what another week's roll around again.
Challenges and Strategies in Content Creation
01:07:06
Speaker
I didn't even think about doing any other other kind of content.
01:07:08
Speaker
And I felt like I was getting into a loop at stages where I was like, um I didn't have time to think about any other kind of content and that sucked. So there are certain YouTubers I watch now that do have a very strict schedule. Okay, great example. um Jay from Eons of Battle. He's a mini painter. Talks about GW staff, ah Legion, all this kind of stuff. And just like all these mini painting projects. Jay's output is i I can't understand how one person can do as much stuff as he does. But I looked at what he does, um you know, I see his discussion pieces. um I recently watched him on a podcast outside of that. And he's clearly a very positive dude.
01:07:49
Speaker
I really hope he's not hiding anything, but at the same time, it's like, okay, that person is able to engage with that content, you know, and he's actually said openly like, this is pretty much all I do and I love doing it. Great. Don't set yourself to those standards. If you try and do that and you hate every minute of it, be aware of that and don't force yourself down that path. To keep things sustainable, you have to really be aware of how ah your mental health is being affected by what you do. So.
01:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, on the question of regular content, um it's up to every individual. Yeah, I was having this kind of conversation last night about um Patreon and just how. It's the person I was talking to, she was struggling to to maintain and sustain a hobby. She would she'd she'd get really into something, research it a lot, and then it would like that it would come time to like do the thing, do the hobby, and she would lose interest. And we were talking about Patreon. I said, well, Patreon is interesting because you have this special type of supporters and you know who are financially supporting you, and so there's a bit more of an incentive to stay motivated to to get things done because i'm you know you
01:08:57
Speaker
Here they are, um you know pledging financial support because if they like what you do. And so it's an extra way of you know type of motivation to just like keep myself honest. And she's like, Oh, that's interesting. And I said, Yeah, I mean, obviously, sometimes that can be double edged.
01:09:13
Speaker
where you have a lot of put there ends up being a lot of pressure on yourself. you know You're not in the best state of mind. You just aren't feeling the best version of yourself and you have that looming and that can be really hard. But ah at least right now with how I'm feeling, it's a nice little nudge. It can be seen as both ways. and I understand that it can be hard. um There's the risk with that is if you want to do other kinds of content,
01:09:37
Speaker
you might feel pigeonholed into only doing what your patrons want you want to do. So yeah, again, be aware of how this affects you and just move forward with that. For me, Patreon just wasn't working. And I actually feel, again, I'm not trying to undercut what you do. No, that's what I do. What do you mean by not working? I'm just curious. You said that a couple of times, just like it just wasn't working. Because the people on that were supporting me to make X-Wing content. And I see.
01:10:04
Speaker
It was interesting branching out to other things and I felt like pressured to keep making X-Wing content. And sort of stepping away from that and doing my own thing was really positive. Actually, just on this note before AMG made this announcement about X-Wing, I was already going to come back and do stuff, but I wasn't going to make X-Wing content. I'm still probably going to do that, but um it just, the the interest just shifts like that. And yeah that's okay.
01:10:29
Speaker
Uh, yeah, yeah, more, more than that lighter. We'll see how that goes. I'm not going to maybe. problem Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. um You're in this. I was going to say you're kind of in this period where you have a bigger sandbox and you can kind of experiment and and play with what you think is going to work is because it's an unprecedented time and in some ways. Right. A lot of ways yeah for for content and the games that we're covering. Do you have any other like just any more general advice for?
01:10:54
Speaker
people to try to avoid burnout and when in their respective you know gaming communities. like um I feel like we don't talk enough about TOs, content creators, of course, like us, people who just do a little bit more for what they love. how would you say What do you think are a couple of helpful tips if you had any? Again, not matter not not like take it as as concrete advice that you should do this and have to do this, but just curious No, no, no, no. When it and when it comes to anything ah related to neurodivergence and dealing with that, talk to a psychiatrist or a doctor. um But I'm going to extrapolate on something because I was talking about like just be aware of how things are affecting you. One more thought I'll add to that is ah be aware of the bad actors in that space as well. One of the big reasons why I don't cover companies like GW is I find
01:11:43
Speaker
a lot of their ah consumer practices to be quite apparent. The big thing is like the way they limit ah product, create FOMO and that kind of stuff. It's obviously, you know we could talk about so many different factors about why that's bad for consumers overall, but that preys on people who are neurodivergent and I just want to encourage people, you know, if you find yourself in that kind of situation where you're, you're buying things because you feel like the company involved has created a sense of FOMO or like you're engaging with things for any reason relating to like the way a company makes a game or any actor within that space. Again, don't be afraid to take a step back. Don't buy that $300 box if you
01:12:27
Speaker
if you know that this experience, if you know in your heart of hearts that you've been through this before and it sucked last time, don't do it again. Just think about this stuff critically. um And one thing I'm always happy to say about FFG and AMG and and the Star Wars games I talk about in general, we've never really badly gone down those kinds of paths. There are companies that I i don't cover their games for this exact reason, actually for a lot of reasons, but let's not go back to that right now.
01:12:56
Speaker
be Be aware about the way you engage with the game and the actors within space within that space affects you mentally and do what's right for you, not not what you think you have to do. yeah and and Generally speaking, that having dealing with and a mental mental health issues or things that come up with your mental health is perfectly not only is it perfectly reasonable, but it is OK. That's not an excuse to to have to to take care of yourself. So I've definitely felt very burnt out with ah just being in the middle of like, I find that like tournaments can can really if I'm doing a lot with X-wing and then I put together a big event or something, it can the fatigue is it's more fatigue than burnout, but just it's OK to take a break.
01:13:40
Speaker
You know,
Future Plans and Community Engagement
01:13:41
Speaker
um people are you're not beholden to people. Yeah, I do a little bit of everything. so I was going to say with tournament organizing, you make that commitment and then you have to keep working at it for a long period of time. So you've got to try and be cautious of that. um Don't commit yourself into something that you can't walk away from for X amount of weeks or months or whatever. Yeah. Be mindful.
01:14:05
Speaker
And you're you're responsible for people, people's enjoyment and for the community staying at a certain level. and Yeah, absolutely. That's a big responsibility for sure. indeed Now, Nick, before we wrap up here, is there anything else you wanted to talk about with maybe like the plans for the channel or goals or just kind of what people might be able to quote? I'm going to use no air quotes here. Expect or hope to see maybe in the future of the Harry Nick YouTube channel.
01:14:29
Speaker
In terms of video content, I'm not making any promises moving forward. One of the big things which I've already started doing, this is relating to the video I just recorded with Justin. We will sort of be going through the various rule sets that Xwing has been through and talk about the pros and cons of that. The first video we're doing is on 1.0 and that's not meant to be like, Hey, this is why 1.0 should be what we're doing. We're not going back to 1.0.
01:14:54
Speaker
But it's a celebration of all this kind of stuff. It's trying to stay positive and that kind of stuff. Like, yes, obviously I'm not a big fan of 2.5, but I still want to talk about all those rules and the positive aspects that they've brought to the game and, you know, how they may still be implemented. Like there's everything in 2.5 actually could have a place.
01:15:13
Speaker
um I'm going to say that equivocally now. It doesn't mean it has to be in the core competitive thing. That's all I say on that. I could just i could keep unraveling thoughts on that, but I'm not going to. Another thing I've been working on, I'll give it people a bit of a spoiler here. um I haven't made a video for the last ah three weeks, but I have been working on some stuff. so One thing I really want to um encourage the XWA to look at moving forward,
01:15:39
Speaker
is being a bit more relaxed about game pieces because holy hell has our collections gotten complicated. So on the shelf behind me, ah see if I can get my finger in the right spot. Yep. Those three shelves and there and there is all X-wing ships. ah ah Those three tubs there are all game components. are On the shelves here are like stacks of cards and all this kind of stuff. I'm still organizing. You need all system of shelving for it. Oh, the good old Ikea calyx. And ah one thing I'm moving forward, I think we have to be a bit more lenient with the way we can use our game components moving forward. So I've actually been working on a few things and I'm just going to show this quickly on the camera there. This is a generic ship template.
01:16:25
Speaker
And that's all you get to say for the time being. More on that in the future. la Subscribe to my channel and come to my Discord. Yes, yes, yes. Both of those things. I am a part of the I am of I am in the Harry Nick Discord and I have been a subscriber for several years and it's definitely a good time. The Discord channel is is growing and.
01:16:42
Speaker
um it's a You have a very positive and engaged community, which is really, as ah as someone who owns a Discord server myself, is really all you could ever hope for. People are being nice to each other and are excited to talk about their favorite games and what they're doing with them. And that's what you want to see. And it's a bit unfocused at the moment because I don't really know what I'm doing with the Discord. But the one thing, the one sort of core thread with the Discord is I talk about like the content I want to make and that kind of stuff. and actually had try to have an open discussion about everything. By the way, if you just come and hang out in the Discord, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Because I just,
Cultural Differences and Episode Conclusion
01:17:18
Speaker
I just blurted all out. I just like hyper fixate. It's just like, that's what I'm thinking. A bullet. Yeah. Bullet points. It's like, cool. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Absolutely. It's great. I get to see how the sauce is made in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Big dollars. The sausage is made, I guess. Yeah. No one says the sauce. The sauce and the sausage. That's right. the ah But at all. Exactly. um Is there anything else before you?
01:17:38
Speaker
yes but Sorry. You guys, big sauce fans over there. What's the what's the go to sauce in Australia? ah Tomato sauce. Yeah. ah Do you guys call it ketchup or is that something different? I don't know. Oh, gosh. Yeah, that's oh the whole thing. OK. Well, well, no. Well, just in Chicago here, ah you were chastised for putting ketchup on your hot dog. Oh, it's a state to state thing. OK. Actually, you know, that's similar here in Australia, not with sauces, but with other food products.
01:18:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's amazing how protective we are of our food cultures and how a lot of absolutely pointless, ah you know, just so pointless. It's great. It's it's it's just great. Exactly. All right. I'm going to roll through our intro real quick here or outro rather. Thank you to Harry Nick for joining us and for being an awesome content creator for the game of X-wing and beyond. It is great to have you back, Nick. Thank you. Please consider joining Nick's Discord. And of course, if you haven't already, you should be subscribing to his YouTube channel, as I have been for several years. We will include links to all of that pertinent information in our description. On this episode is once again brought to you by Strata Strike. You can go to their Etsy page and buy some incredible gaming components and use coupon code 312Squadron. It's capital S, I'll lowercase QA DRON for 15% off the entire store, your purchase.
01:18:58
Speaker
Make sure you follow us on Twitch. You can catch our edited content on YouTube, like our Facebook page, yada, yada, yada, and join our Discord to get in on the conversation. And thank you to our patrons. Ultimately, you are the biggest supporters that we have, and we really do appreciate all of the support you have given us. That's going to the conclude this episode. My name is a less hairy Nick. And I'm hairy Nick. Thanks for joining us. And thank you for listening and watching.
01:19:31
Speaker
it sounded weird saying the hairy nick of rabbit hole as soon as i said it i was like i was uh oh the second you said that was like you you made a face i was like phrasing yeah well i said rabbit hole at least i mean hey phrasing