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I’m all about Wizkids unpainted miniatures. For me, they’re the best rpg product to come along in years. Maybe decades. I don’t care for prepainted minis and I dislike the blind box model. I’m relatively confident once the mess with ND is cleared up WK will release unpainted miniatures for Starfinder.
I'm a minis guy through and through. I love little plastic (metal, if I have to)3D representations of characters and creatures and whatnot and won't play without them. And, yet, the Beginner Box taught me the value of the stand up pawns, and I find myself very excited by the announcement of the Bestiary Box. These won't replace miniatures for me, but they will be a fantastic supplement! Yet again, thank you Paizo!
The only problem with that theory is that Wizkids can handle miniatures on that scale, and have in the past with Heroclix. They've done Fin Fang Foom, Galactus and the Spectre which would all be in the Colossal scale.
Honestly, i don't care for randomized minis either...HOWEVER, the problem I see is that many people look at it as Pre-painted random miniatures vs Pre-painted NON-random miniatures when the reality is our choice is Pre-painted random miniatures or NO pre-painted Pathfinder line AT ALL. Given those options I wil happily choose random miniatures over no miniatures.
Any news on backorders for this item?It looks like our main distributor is out, and we're looking into getting a hold of it from another supplier, but right now, it's not looking promising. :( I believe the 25th Anniversary edition is sold out on the manufacturer & distribution levels, but Catalyst has replaced this with the Introductory Box Set.
I don't wish to cast dispersions, and I'm sure the final product will look great...BUT...I.ve never seen a situation where the mass produced final product is actually better than the paint master. Production pieces generally show some form of degradation from the prototype. I'm a long-time fan and customer of Wizkids, but I've never encountered a production piece that looked better than the promotional images. The only reason I even mention this is to, perhaps, manage expectations. Will the final product be good? I'm sure it will, and I'm super excited for the Pathfinder Battles line. It's actually a pretty big factor in my decision to get into Pathfinder. But unless Wizkids has come up with a new process for these minis than that which they use on their other lines, I expect some paint slop, or mis-aligned paint masks or any other the myriad of mishaps that can occur in production.. That being said, the minis in their recent Star Trek Expeditions board game are some of the best I've seen from Wizkids. Really tight. Bottom line, I can't wait for these minis...just don't be surprised if they're not markedly better than the paint masters.
I was listening to a podcast recorded at one of the Paizocon seminars where they were discussing the upcoming Skull & Skackles AP, and that there'd be rules for naval combat. I was thinking, given the new relationship Paizo has with Wizkids, if WK was to produce a Skull & Shackles-based set of their old Pirates Constructible Miniatures Game to make some relatively inexpensive pirate ships to use along with that AP. I think it'd be a fantastic idea (especially if WK made them backwards compatible with the old Pirates game which was pretty fun). Of course, I also want to see lots and lots of pirate minis in the Pathfinder Battles line, too!
Not necessarily. Paizo doesn't really have the experience in a straight-up miniatures game, so they'd likely have to bring in a developer to exclusively oversee that line and therefore no development time is taken away from the RPG. That's one possible scenario. And, as someone else pointed out, if the RPG release schedule had to ease up some to accomodate the development of tabletop miniatures game that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. As for your last question above, it's not a matter of a minis game OR an RPG book. It would most likely be a minis game AND an RPG...just not as soon...
Yeah, not really a strong argument. I don't really see that happening, at least not in any capacity to adversely affect Paizo's revenue stream from the RPG. I'm coming TO the RPG from being almost exclusively a minis games player. I haven't played D&D since around '95. It's been minis and boardgames since then. I just recently have started getting into Pathfinder. While I'm loving the RPG...I'd sure dig a minis game set in the Pathfinder world as well. A miniatures ruleset, separate from the RPG, would provide a new revenue stream from Paizo. While, either earlier in this thread or another thread entirely, someone from Paizo said IF there was to be a minis game they'd be the one to produce it...it's also a viable option to outsource the game entirely to Wizkids. The licensing fee and whatever percentage of sales Paizo would receive would still be a new revenue stream AND it wouldn't take any development time from the RPG.
Please, please, please do not water down Pathfinder RPG with a minis game. Just because a minis game is not something you want doesn't mean that it is a bad thing. As others have pointed out, there are a lot of positives for such a product (extra sales revenue, gateway for new RPG players, etc). I would love to see a minis game for Pathfinder Battles, and I don't think it would water down the RPG in the least. Why do you feel it would?
Since Paizo is thankfully insistent on quality, my guess would be there will be more than adequate packaging to insure us receiving the miniatures intact whether we are in the US, Canada, Europe or anywhere. Wizkids has also significantly changed the way it packs the minis within a booster to better protect them.
If Wizkids runs it the way they have with similar Heroclix promotions, no, there isn't an MSRP. With Heroclix they've had a "Buy it by the Brick" program wherein if you bought a brick (generally 10 boosters, shrink wrapped together) you would receive the promotional figure for free. The Black Dragon seems to be a similar promotion, only with a case and not a brick. Sadly (as I don't see being able to afford a case). I'm not trying to argue, just pointing out how Wizkids has done this in the past. Remember, this is a Wizkids product, not Paizo.
Not sure if this is new news or not...but, just in case some haven't heard..here's the details on the Black Dragon promotion: Retailers can order (1) dragon for every case (four "bricks") of minis they pre-order before October 12, 2011. http://www.gametrademagazine.com/public/defaultalliancealert.asp?ai=111982 Time to talk to my FLGS and let him know I want one!
I didn't mean to imply anything negative, really. Just a personal choice that I make on what to listen to while my daughter is in the car with me. I'm very much looking forward to listening while I am out and about on my own.
Another gaming podcast that I've been listening to for a couple of years now is the D6 Generation, and it averages between 3-1/2 to 4 hrs per episodes (which come out about every two weeks). I love it. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with shorter podcasts, per se, but I personally would rather read a nice long novel than a short story any day. Gimme a podcast with some meat, I say! ;-)
I just downloaded this today. Not had the opportunity yet to give it a listen (especially with that "explicit" tag on iTunes. Means no listening in the car while my 6 yr old is with me - which is most of the time)...but looking forward to it. Especially the Greg Vaughan interview. I'm brand spanking new to Pathfinder, and Greg GM'd the PFS game I played in last Saturday morning at Gen Con.
This is, I think, my 5th Gen Con, and I couldn't be more excited. This is also my first as a newbie to Pathfinder. In fact, I'll be playing in my first ever game of Pathfinder on Sunday at the con. So, I'll certainly be coming by the Paizo booth. Well, I'd be coming by anyways since I'm press and need to take pictures of the booth and so on. Just a few more days!
No, these are new all-new editions, not clearance or remainder product. Go to Fall River Press for shots of the covers, page count, etc. Tarzan of the Apes and Princess of Mars were just release this month. Gods of Mars is due next month. The link above has more releases listed...
I went to Gen Con as press. I write for an action figure collecting site, so I thought it was a good opportunity to share my love for gaming with the collecting audience. One of my Gen Con reports touched on Paizo and Planet Stories. http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/blog/jeff-cope/gen-con-2010-report-3/
I visited one of our local Half Price Books locations today and they had a spinrack of old sci fi (mostly) novels for $1. Another location had a similar rack, but their's were $3 (which is where I picked up the entire Asimov Lucky Starr series)... ...anyway, I found some books today from the Laser Books imprint, which it turns out was an imprint of Harlequin back in the 70s. I picked up 5 of them. One was by Jerry Pournelle, and I'm not familiar with the authors of the others - Christopher Lampton (Cross of Empire), The Meddlers (J.F. Bone), and Robert Hoskins (Master of the Stars). There were apparently some 58 titles in the series. All stand alone. And, all the books featured covers by Kelly Freas, which is worth the price of the books to me! Anyone familiar with these? Is there fodder for Planet Stories in these stories? I don't know how many have been reprinted. According to Wiki, some manuscripts were butchered by Laser Books The series was edited by Roger Elwood. I need to look it up, but there was an author of Christian fiction in the late 80s/early 90s by that name who seemed to come out with a book every other month or so... Curious to hear others thoughts on this series of novels? Any stand outs?
I'm anxiously awaiting Before They Were Giants. I love anthologies (an opinion sadly contrary to the general public, so I hear). I'll also pick up the Pathfinder novel. I don't RPG, but the overall quality of the setting (from products I've seen and perused) make it intriguing to me. But, yeah, Before They Were Giants is high on my Must Read list!
I just do not see the appeal of ebooks. I mean, I realize that it saves space but I love my book shelf and I love watching it grow all the time. And I love old school cover art. Agreed. There's nothing like the feel of paper beneath my fingertips as I read a book. I think ebooks are fantastic for textbooks, so students don't need to haul around 200lbs of textbooks or for readers who aren't concerned with the 'collecting' aspect of books.
I just got my first two Planet Stories volumes (Secret of Sinharat and Worlds of Their Own), and I'm dying to dive into them as soon as I finish "Voyage of the Space Beagle" that I'm currently reading! I came to the Planet Stories line in sort of a round about manner. I'm a toy collector, and it was recently announced that The Outer Space Men (a 'bendy' line of alien action figures by Colorforms produced in the late 60s) was coming back. These wild alien designs stirred a desire in me to read some old, pulp-style science fiction. But, this sort of material is difficult to find these days...until I remembered Planet Stories. I'll slowly be picking up the books already out, and am strongly considering a subscription. Thanks for putting these books out there. I'm a fan already. Talk about new worlds to discover. I write for an action figure collecting site, and recently blogged about this and gave a shout out to Planet Stories: http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/blog/jeff-cope/planet-stories/ To check out the Outer Space Men check out the creator's site: http://melbirnkrant.com/outerspacemen/ And, if upon seeing them anyone could suggest any books/stories that evoke this look/style please let me know! |
