Descent definitely totally not 3.0

Space Ghost wrote: Read online about people giving the designers grief because they are new.

psst thats not why.

Well, now I assume that is something more unsavory -- I guess humanity never will fail to disappoint me.

Yep. The white boy club is on the scene.

Rob Oren’s review is an absolute joke, he should be ashamed of himself. Here’s a big miniatures dude thinking he’s clever for demonstrating how you don’t need the map tile or miniatures by drawing it on a battle mat grid...yet you could also do the exact same thing with either previous version of Descent or in fact any dungeon crawl ever made. He goes on about how having to look at the screen, you never know where to focus...comes off sounding like a confused old man trying to navigate a cable TV on screen guide. Then he rhapsodizes about digital comic books and how reading Spider-Man on an ipad just isn’t the same.

People are just making shit up about this game, it’s nuts.

Yeah, I think I'll go with my original thought. I'll pick it up next summer when school lets out. I'll have time to paint, play with the boys, and the terrain and mini's will be a good addition to RPGing. A year is enough time to see if they will do extended support.

LOL my favorite thing so far is “Efka what about the complaints that there is too much reading and that is just a video game?”

“We didn’t find those things to be true.”

Michael Barnes wrote: Yep. The white boy club is on the scene.

Rob Oren’s review is an absolute joke, he should be ashamed of himself. Here’s a big miniatures dude thinking he’s clever for demonstrating how you don’t need the map tile or miniatures by drawing it on a battle mat grid...yet you could also do the exact same thing with either previous version of Descent or in fact any dungeon crawl ever made. He goes on about how having to look at the screen, you never know where to focus...comes off sounding like a confused old man trying to navigate a cable TV on screen guide. Then he rhapsodizes about digital comic books and how reading Spider-Man on an ipad just isn’t the same.

People are just making shit up about this game, it’s nuts.

Yeah I found that drawing on paper argument the height of stupid arguments. You could do that with ANY BOARDGAME period. They are called prototypes. But what does him being white have anything to do with this?

El Cuajinais wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Yep. The white boy club is on the scene.
.

. But what does him being white have anything to do with this?

That's just Barnes' shtick. I find ignoring that one aspect makes his rants much more enjoyable.

FFG has a history of trying new things, including apps for other games, with varying levels of success and they don't even ask for money up-front so the risk is entirely on them to produce something good. Trying new things and pushing the boundaries of where board games can go is also good. There is no part of this games release that is anything but a positive for the hobby whether you want to play it or not, imo. If nothing else the app makes it a fairly unique game among a lot of other dungeon-crawler releases. I'm not interested in buying it because I also have too many unplayed fantasy adventure and dungeon-crawler games. I would play someone else's copy though. I thought an A.I. DM was always the dream and this is one step closer.

Had a chance to play through the first two scenarios, and Barnes has it right.

I loved Descent 2, but this is better. It's far less interested in dice alchemy and way more interested in decisions and managing combat options. I love the card-flipping and the fact that this game requires you to think ahead in ways that Descent 2 never did. I love the artwork, and how it's not the usual painterly heroic orcs n' elves. I love the fact that these might be the first actual characters in any Terrinoth game ever to actually feel like characters.

The terrain is fun, easy to assemble, and way sturdier than I'd expected. They've cleverly cut down on the number of tiles in the box by adding underlays to indicate special terrain like water and lava, and there's fewer similarly-shaped tiles too, to make digging the right ones out of the box easier.

And it does so much to feel like an RPG, not just a combat simulator. I, too, fell out of a tree! Exploration feels like exploration, with surprises and interactivity with the terrain that I wasn't expecting. I like the story bits, the "virtue" decisions, and the voiced lines and dynamic, cinematic music in the app. It's exactly what I want an app-assist to do. No more piles of heart tokens littering the map, no more line of sight fights (yep, the app has a "line of sight" feature that shows you what you can see from your square).

There's a couple goofy bits - I'm still not sure how crafting works (but it's early, and the app handles it all anyway), and the whole "you get three actions but one of them has to be to move" seems like it could have been streamlined to "you get movement points and two actions", but whatever. It's a small price to pay for what's easily, as Navarro promised, "the most ambitious thing we've ever done with Descent".

What's not a small price is, uh, the actual price. I sold off a good chunk of shelf toads to pay for it, but not everyone is going to be able to do that.

I bought it to play with the kids (5, 9 and 12) and I think it will be a perfect fit. But isn't available in Denmark until the 20th. [sadface]

El Cuajinais wrote: But what does him being white have anything to do with this?

jason10mm wrote: That's just Barnes' shtick. I find ignoring that one aspect makes his rants much more enjoyable.

It's shorthand for that particular vocal group of gamers who get riled up by diverse and non-sexist representation in games. Y'know, the crowd that shouts "censorship!" because you've got flat-chested Brynn in place of Red Scorpion thrusting out her pointless armoured bikini. A crowd that happens to be overwhelmingly - if not entirely - white and male.

You can ignore it being called out, but that doesn't mean it's not a real thing nor a major barrier to inclusivity and wider enjoyment of the hobby.

Matt Thrower wrote:

El Cuajinais wrote: But what does him being white have anything to do with this?

jason10mm wrote: That's just Barnes' shtick. I find ignoring that one aspect makes his rants much more enjoyable.

It's shorthand for that particular vocal group of gamers who get riled up by diverse and non-sexist representation in games. Y'know, the crowd that shouts "censorship!" because you've got flat-chested Brynn in place of Red Scorpion thrusting out her pointless armoured bikini. A crowd that happens to be overwhelmingly - if not entirely - white and male.

You can ignore it being called out, but that doesn't mean it's not a real thing nor a major barrier to inclusivity and wider enjoyment of the hobby.

I've found the whining and review bombing of Descent silly and juvenile but I haven't seen anyone complaining about the diversity or non-sexist representation - it all seems to be about the app, about the art style, about the fact that it's a massive departure from the previous Descent games. Trying to make out that it's really all about representation seems to be making a big leap of logic. I dunno, maybe I've missed stuff, it's not like I've been avidly following the shit storm.

There have been some comments by fussy, tender white boys that don’t like that the dwarf is a dark-skinned female or that there are pronouns and non-binary characters. I have seen complaints about the “woke” direction. There is an undercurrent about one of the design leads being female. Any time there are angry “fans” upset about a change there are inevitably fussy, tender white boys around.

Made a new haft for the dragonborn’s bell last night and had a choice between two scenarios. The one I chose was amazing. I guess this is really spoiler territory-

Is there anything in this that is just "let's roll through a randomized dungeon and bash some monsters", or is the campaign the only mode currently?

Michael Barnes wrote: Yep. The white boy club is on the scene.

Rob Oren’s review is an absolute joke, he should be ashamed of himself. Here’s a big miniatures dude thinking he’s clever for demonstrating how you don’t need the map tile or miniatures by drawing it on a battle mat grid...yet you could also do the exact same thing with either previous version of Descent or in fact any dungeon crawl ever made. He goes on about how having to look at the screen, you never know where to focus...comes off sounding like a confused old man trying to navigate a cable TV on screen guide. Then he rhapsodizes about digital comic books and how reading Spider-Man on an ipad just isn’t the same.

People are just making shit up about this game, it’s nuts.

The thing that immediately stuck out to me was his positioning himself as not really understanding the anticipatory backlash against the game when he himself helped stoke that at least twice.