Very quick post from me.
I'm not a fan of the name; Malifaux Classic. A re-branding exercise a seemingly to make Malfiaux 1.5 sound less inferior next to Malifaux 2nd Edition. What's becoming clear over on malifauxclassic.com is that attempts to use Wyrd's IP to further develop 1.5 may well be legally blocked.
Which IMO is absolutely the right approach.
I absolutely respect the right of people to want to continue to play M1.5, and to prefer it to M2e. They however have to accept that M1.5 is what it is now and they cannot use Wyrd's IP to further develop the game in other directions.
Whatever they do they're never going to be a global community on the same scale as the the mainstream M2e community will be once the game is released.
My local club has a small group of gamers who play Flames of War in 10mm (as opposed to the 15mm it is designed for). They have a great time with this, but accept that they're not going to convert others to play it, or expand it's influence. They accept that the only place they can really play 10mm FoW is at the club amongst themselves. Which they are absolutely fine with, and more power to them.
Whatever they do they're never going to be a global community on the same scale as the the mainstream M2e community will be once the game is released.
My local club has a small group of gamers who play Flames of War in 10mm (as opposed to the 15mm it is designed for). They have a great time with this, but accept that they're not going to convert others to play it, or expand it's influence. They accept that the only place they can really play 10mm FoW is at the club amongst themselves. Which they are absolutely fine with, and more power to them.
Where M1.5 continues it will be in small pockets in this way. It's never going to be a global community of 1.5 players developing the rules going forward, as without ownership no one can make decisions. When decisions are made this will likely lead to schism, attrition and the demise of a cohesive group.
I wish anyone who wants to keep playing 1.5 all the best, but be honest with yourselves about what you can reasonably hope to achieve.
I wish anyone who wants to keep playing 1.5 all the best, but be honest with yourselves about what you can reasonably hope to achieve.
5 comments:
Good post, and a nice sentiment.
I hope the classic site remains, if only to act as a hub for fans of v1.5 to hang out and maybe include their own home brew rules.
Creating your own stat cards or story encounters from scratch, I can't see Wyrd having a problem with that - maybe?
Can't speak for what Wyrd will let them do. I certainly don't wish anyone who wants to keep playing 1.5 ill.
One hiccup in your "They however have to accept that M1.5 is what it is now and they cannot use Wyrd's IP to further develop the game in other directions." are things like Netepic and Blood Bowl Online. Anyone who takes the time to actually look at the actual effort and discussion on the Malifaux Classic site should be able to see that's where that community was trying to go. The goal was not to provide a "global community" or to "infringe on Wyrd", but to create a place for fans of the current system to continue to play the game they wanted to play, updates and all.
@ Nix,
I see Malifaux 1.5 is a fixed point. To develop it any further it becomes 1.6 or whatever.
At that point there's nothing to say the people that don't like Classic-faux 1.6 won’t split off and form Dave-faux 1.6. Something I found when we did the rankings in the UK was just because a population of people agree they don’t like something doesn’t mean they will agree about what they do like.
I know you won’t be selling 1.5 but you will be, at least potentially, using Wyrd’s own IP to draw players away from sales of M2e product, even if it’s only the rules thereof. So in that sense at least you will offer some small level of competition to Wyrd.
It’s slightly different (morally) to create fan maintained living rules for IP that isn’t in real use by its owner, as in the case of the Blood Bowl board game. I think you’re on murkier moral ground when you’re using someone’s own IP to compete with them, even indirectly. Even though the industry is rife with such activity.
As always I have great respect for you as a person.
What I find hilarious about this whole Malifaux Classic vs M2E is that you think homebrewed are really considered competition. I didn't know that M2E was such a rocky game that a homebrewed fix of 1.5 could threaten it. I've read M2E and its solid. The extra cards for upgrades will take some time to get used to but otherwise its fine. For someone new getting into Malifaux its amazing! As new player have no preconception to what the models are supposed to do. Now to veteran players it can come as a shock, there was a lot of overhaul of characters, models renamed, restrictions removed, base sizes changed, amongs other things. I can see why Malifaux Classic had a novelty appeal to players. It represented a chance to fix Malifaux without the massive changes in M2E. I kinda wish I could take a pill to forget Malifaux 1.5 cause I still have ideas of how my masters, models, and soulstones should be and I'm sure this is where my resistance to 2.0 is stemming from. When I first read the rules I was like oooh shiny new rules, as they sank in I started to notice all the changes a lot more to where it started to bother me a little. I think M2E is a great game, but my memories of 1.5 prevent me from fully embracing and enjoying it.
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