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To summarise for those who don't want to click through.
While they don't regret making the decision to mothball the game, there are regrets around some of the messaging (ie "blaming the community") and admission to mistakes in regard to that.
However, the company is now in the position to return and right some of those wrongs.
The models and terrain from the starter will be available for free as stls to print at home/via 3d printer services.
All other models will be available as physical print on demand. Sculpts have been revisited to make them technically easier to print, plus no skinny ankles etc.
There'll be a ruleset with some newer balance changes, implications being they some of what the community has done in the interim will be incorporated.
Pricing will be "for love and not for profit."
Q+A tomorrow (Thursday 25th Jan) live on YouTube.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Kid_Kyoto wrote: never played it but the models looked amazing. Glad to see they'll live on in some form.
I'll be fair and say the models were good but not amazing, one or two were pretty bad. The system itself/rules set were amazing though. There's mixed feelings on this announcement, some people think it's an apology four years too late, others that it's a last minute cash grab, (I guess prices will prove/disprove this) personally I'm still unhappy at what went on but glad it's getting a sort of new lease of life.
Our annual Guildball league starts in a couple of weeks, hopefully this means next years league will have some new players.
I've been playing a while, my first model was a lead marine and my first White Dwarf was bound with staples
I mean it’s definitely an apology 4 years too late, and it doesn’t take much of a cynic to think the only reason it’s come now is because they want to make a few quid using the model assets they just have sitting there.
From a business point of view I think it’s a fine idea: low risk, low resource requirements, low investment. I’m sure they’re hoping this will help mend their gakky reputation and it possibly will. And if it is buoyant for a couple of years it gives good evidence for them to green light a proper new edition with an actual release. Worst case it just doesn’t get any traction, but that’s hardly worse than it’s current situation anyway.
Then again, it’s more likely if the STLs don’t immediately sell like hotcakes they’ll just announce that it’s community’s fault and so screw you.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/01/25 11:08:56
The game was great. How it was managed by SFG, not so much. How it was cancelled should be on MBA courses as an example of how not to interact with your customers.
Loxom's hubris has always been the worst thing about the game. Even this announcement couldn't avoid a Xanatos gambit of "killing the game has allowed us to sell you your efforts to keep it alive" that I get, but have to roll my eyes as hard as when the game was "too perfect for the community" or even when it launched promising it wouldn't "make any of the mistakes the OTHER games are making".
Ultimately, its.... fine. I made my piece with the game long before it was killed and my teams are always ready to play. This doesn't greatly affect me regardless, but if people want to play, I'm happy to oblige. Great game, if you haven't checked it out its probably worth adding a few teams to your collection when this comes around.
I'm not sure how much I would trust SFG after the initial debacle over the ending of Guild Ball.
Which is a shame, because Guild Ball was probably one of the best games I every played. The rules were fun with plenty of tactical depth, and the teams gave you a variety of playstyles (even if they were occasionally "fixed". Goodbye, Chissile).
I wonder if the pivot to IP-themed board games is burning them, and I have no idea what's going on with Godtear. I guess this is a lot like the release of The Old World; SFG, like GW, realized "Oh, this property we abandoned is actually still pretty popular and we're losing out on money by ignoring it."
If this is something the diehard community that kept the game going after SFG's abandonment approves off, I could see myself grabbing a couple teams.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/01/25 15:10:24
I never played guildball, but one of my good buddies loved it, and I painted a few teams for him. It sounded like they really ran out of design space, and instead of realizing/communicating that, they pointed out that the players fairly quickly separated the strong from the weak.
So they've realised dunking on the community and canning a (Fairly successful, as far as I can tell) game for somewhat dubious reasons, might have been a bad idea?
While I doubt SFG have any real, long-term plans for this, I'm not averse to throwing them a few quid to complete my collection.
Guild Ball was one of my favourite games ever. I don't think the 'apology' for the attack on fans was very good, just amounted to a "we're sorry if you took it the wrong way" kind of thing. Might have been interested a couple of years ago but unfortunately I've moved on, and doubt I have time for another skirmish game now.
My friend was unbearably excited about the announcement yesterday. I'm decidely less so. I'm not anti-Steamforged, but their statement on the original cancellation blaming the players never sat right with me. I kept my painted Masons Guild, but I'm now annoyed that I deliberately skipped all the clearance sales since that same friend said he was completely done with the game.
If the rules and cards are available for free again then I'll probably play a few games to appease my buddy, but there's SO many other games I'd rather play than GB. And I'd buy new PVC figs if they ever come out, but I'm cartainly not giving Steamforged any money for print-on-demand 3D resin, beefy ankles or not.
I've never gotten to play this game myself despite owning multiple teams, so I'm hoping it does in fact come back so maybe there'll be a community for it.
My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/1/23, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~15000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Adeptus Custodes: ~1900 | Imperial Knights: ~2000 | Sisters of Battle: ~3500 | Leagues of Votann: ~1200 | Tyranids: ~2600 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2023: 40 | Total models painted in 2024: 13 | Current main painting project: Dark Angels
Mr_Rose wrote: Who doesn’t love crazy mutant squawk-puppies? Eh? Nobody, that’s who.
I never felt particularly attacked by SFG because I wasn't the sort of player that would cry about Tiers (ha ha). I'm glad it's back in some fashion but I'm the only one out of my nerd group that seems pleased. I'm looking forward to seeing some re-sculpts and if the price is right I'll get my mate to print me a bunch of stuff.
*edit* - oh never mind, it's Print on Demand from SFG direct. Ah well.
Godtear is an odd one. I had an intro with SFG dev/mate of mine and it was very good. They had a steady release stream then roped in a few YouTubers for an event. One of those was a well known clickbait-rage-tuber and I think that put a few people, myself included, off pursuing it any further.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/01/26 08:40:39
Does anyone have a link to where they blamed the fans? I'm not doubting that it happened but rather just curious to read it myself as someone with no dog in the fight who never played the game (or bought any of the minis for RPGs even).
We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
the full statement put out by Steamforged is no longer on their website (and wasn't captured by the wayback machine) from the links i could find, but you can find parts of it quoted in various forums, this chunk came from https://lormahordes.freeforums.net/thread/9652/guild-ball-dead
Be careful what you wish for. We set out to make the cleanest, most balanced miniatures game you could play at that time. And we achieved this hands down, flat out, nailed it!
Guild Ball truly was a competitive player’s dream. It rewarded player skill and experience, with a very flat probability curve to minimize variance. The competitive scene grew and grew.
But this ended up hurting the lifespan of the game.
Guild Ball became the type of game where you win your first game (demo) and then lose the next 100 games. When matched against a lesser skilled or inexperienced opponent, a better player would simply win the vast majority of games.
As the competitive scene began to dominate, the design space for wilder, more ‘fun’ elements began to shrink. New minis were either ‘OP’ or ‘trash-tier’ the second they were announced. Why take a new model when model XYZ already filled the role?
The style of gameplay changed to low-risk, ultra-conservative play where the ball was often deliberately side-lined.
aka we made a great competitive game but the players learned it too well so we ran out of design space to the point we no longer find it fun to work with
all too easy to see it as blaming the players especially if you were one and were upset that your favourite game was being dropped with the inevitable end of organised play, and new blood and new content
(you could also read it as them blaming themselves for writing a game where the most effective strategies turned out to be the ones least likely to end up in a fun ball game, high risk, winner takes all ball game)
Ah, thanks. I wonder if the CMON ASOIAF game suffers from that and that's in part why they keep rebalancing it (read: completely changing your collection's uses drastically) every 6 months to a year. I didn't get into that game because of the uncertainty. While I have zero interest in playing competitively, my experience in 40k in editions prior (I stopped with 7th edition) has indicated that the "competitve" FAQ/errata is generally considered the default when playing against strangers in neutral settings like FLGS that I would be using.
We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
Guild Ball became the type of game where you win your first game (demo) and then lose the next 100 games. When matched against a lesser skilled or inexperienced opponent, a better player would simply win the vast majority of games.
As the competitive scene began to dominate, the design space for wilder, more ‘fun’ elements began to shrink. New minis were either ‘OP’ or ‘trash-tier’ the second they were announced. Why take a new model when model XYZ already filled the role?
Sounds a lot like WM/H which is probably why so many of that community also played GB as their other game.
Guild Ball became the type of game where you win your first game (demo) and then lose the next 100 games. When matched against a lesser skilled or inexperienced opponent, a better player would simply win the vast majority of games.
As the competitive scene began to dominate, the design space for wilder, more ‘fun’ elements began to shrink. New minis were either ‘OP’ or ‘trash-tier’ the second they were announced. Why take a new model when model XYZ already filled the role?
Sounds a lot like WM/H which is probably why so many of that community also played GB as their other game.
That and it was very specifically designed after a core WM/H mechanic and marketed directly towards its players.
warboss wrote: Does anyone have a link to where they blamed the fans? I'm not doubting that it happened but rather just curious to read it myself as someone with no dog in the fight who never played the game (or bought any of the minis for RPGs even).
Reading the thread on his forum from then is quite informative also:
As an aside, while I do love the game, for all the talk of perfection one thing they never really solved was the ability to effectively remove the ball and turn the game into a slugfest. It's a very enjoyable slugfest mind you, but as the ball is the only scenario victory element, there's unfortunately too many ways to intentionally and sometimes unintentionally remove it as the focus of the game. A lot of games run into issues the first time a player realizes they can just back up instead of engage and GB in many ways plays better before players realize they don't have to keep the ball live.
~15000 Astra Militarum: 
~1200 | Adeptus Custodes: 
~1900 | Imperial Knights: 
~2000 | Sisters of Battle: 
~3500 | Leagues of Votann: 
~1200 | Tyranids: 
~2600 | Stormcast Eternals: 
