Poll brainstorming thread

[lord_denton]

Its estential we find out what the masses want, and do a compromise of the most wanted ideas and reality.

So, what are some ideas on the polls to make?

1) Historical or not, which narrows down to 2
2) The theme of the set, which helps determine 4
3) New abilities, keywords or not
4) Which nations to include
5) Design now or wait for production

[ding73ding]

How about none of the above!?

I think you need a more radical idea. Start a new! But how does that satisfy your original goal? Try this:

Keep most of the rules but retire all WK units. Start an entire new set, that plays like the original game, but ban players from mixing previously released ships. So I think you need to make a whole set from scratch: 120+ units.

And I might suggest spinning the theme a little, not to change the game play, just some excuse to have new artwork and/or "nerd out". I suggested before: Space Pirates, Fantasy Pirates (with elves and orcs), steampunk or the lost world. Think of it like the various themed versions of Monopoly. It's still the same game, but change the skin.

[marhawkman]

1: I'd go for semi-historical

2: I like the "Lineage and legends" idea that we're currently working with.

3: Keywords RULE! Actually I can think of a lot of old abilities that would make nice keywords.

4: 13! Just kidding, but I'd like to see at least a few things for each of the 10 existing factions.

5: design now, when we figure out production we'll have something all ready to go.

[Riz]

Sept 4, 2009 9:55:53 GMT -5 ding73ding said:

ban players from mixing previously released ships.

After spending this much money on ships, I am not going to stop using them. No way.

[ding73ding]

Sept 4, 2009 12:21:10 GMT -5 Riz said:

After spending this much money on ships, I am not going to stop using them. No way.

Ok understandable. But then imagine going down to the comic shop for the regular Thursday game and you whip out some player-made ships or crew while the other players only has WK units? Would they be happy?

Do you give them this website and tell them to come buy some packs or sets? Not saying it can't work, but the challenge is high. If someone would finance some demo packs (like WK did), let people (fans) try it out for free...

[marhawkman]

Not using previously made ships defeats the purpose of expanding the game. If we weren't trying to expand the game, then we wouldn't be doing this.

[ding73ding]

Ok I see the resistance is high. This is in danger of killing the thread again. I will stop it.

[Riz]

Sept 4, 2009 12:50:49 GMT -5 ding73ding said:

But then imagine going down to the comic shop for the regular Thursday game and you whip out some player-made ships or crew while the other players only has WK units? Would they be happy?

Actually I would bow to the big rule that I have seen in use since I first started playing this game, the Privateer decides what is legal.

[admiralb]

well, up to this point everything is legl except Whitebeard and his Sleigh which are "at the Privateer's discretion."

...although that is what we do too...but since I'm privateer I usually just allow everything except Whitebeard and Sleigh and any of the special crew cards I myself gave out (and we can all tell they aren't real because they're on cardstock and not regular styrene, so its easy to spot...maybe I'll have another day where the custom crew are legal...winner gets to design a new version of an existing crew).

yes, if you're going to be using an all fan-made fleet you should probably ask the privateer first and have a regular fleet on stand-by just in case.

[marhawkman]

Well, I can understand if it's an actual sanctioned tournament, but now those are extinct. Now all that's left is unofficial tournaments and those are played by the rules of whoever organizes them.

[cannonfury]

we need to be sure this looks as official as possible so someone sitting at home cant just deecide to make his own and pass them off as something from us, so we need to take that into consideration

[marhawkman]

I can't disagree there. Good art would go a long ways towards that goal.

[lord_denton]

We could do a scan of the cards, and just use paint/photoshop over the stats. We could also do a "effecent printing" cards, that are conservative for better homemade printing, and more fancy cards...

As for artwork, I think we should just do some designing soon rather than think about production.

Also, Wiki spoils things badly... I could read wiki that has a two-sentences about the fate of the ship and all her exploits or I could read a detailed and gripping book on it. Hmm...

Although some wiki's are quite good (the incomplete German carrier "Graf Zepplein", "Blackbeard" was quite good to,), obviously more work was put into them.

[woelf]

Sept 4, 2009 13:58:28 GMT -5 Riz said:

Sept 4, 2009 12:50:49 GMT -5 ding73ding said:

But then imagine going down to the comic shop for the regular Thursday game and you whip out some player-made ships or crew while the other players only has WK units? Would they be happy?

Actually I would bow to the big rule that I have seen in use since I first started playing this game, the Privateer decides what is legal.

Riz is correct.

If WK was still around, any player-made ships, no matter how well-balanced they might be, would be considered illegal for official games unless specifically allowed in the event description by the Privateer.

Of course, the event would also have to list the specific player-made ships that were allowed and where to get them, because otherwise players could start showing up with any massively game-breaking monstrosities they could slap together and they're have a good argument to use them: if player A can use a custom ship, why can't Player B use one too?

With WK being gone there is a lot more leeway when it comes to running games, but even then I'd recommend against using any custom ships unless everyone playing was well aware of them ahead of time and knew where to get them. If you took them along to a game where one or more players knew absolutely nothing about this or any other custom set, you should probably have a backup fleet because chances are you're going to get a lot of resistance if you try to use anything that wasn't officially released by WK.

[cannonfury]

we should have a posted list somewhere either here or on some other site thhat has a list of all the ships, crew, stats, etc. and is supported by well known supporters of the game (such as woelf, who i've seen be he leading authority on rules on at least three differnent websites, so he should be well known)