The intro…
Hello and welcome to this week’s rather late blog!
Life has been fairly busy/hectic/unpredictable this past week and on top of that, I didn’t get to play any X-Wing due to a work trip.
Not having a game to talk about coupled with some family events and impending house guests has meant that the limited free time weve had has been filled with furniture relocation, completion of previously non-urgent jobs and panic cleaning.
I occasionally (ok, more than occasionally) get time to write the blog in lunch breaks or quieter moments in work but both have been few and far between of late and as a result, this has been the first week in over 5 years where I’d got to 2 days after the normal publishing day and not had any clue what to talk about.
On one hand that makes me sad. On the other, that’s actually quite impressive given that when I started the blog I didn’t think I’d last past 8 posts.
Anyway, I’ve said all of that to say this – despite being repeatedly told on previous occasions that it isn’t necessary, I apologise for the lateness. And for the content, or lack thereof.
Alright, let’s cover some things shall we?
Patreon Update…?
Ok, given that I’ve already talked about how crazy things are at the moment it may not surprise you that this update is that there’s no update yet.
I need to do the giveaway draw and then start packing things up and print labels and so on. I will get to it soon, I promise.
While I’m at it I will give all my patrons (current and those who no longer actively support) a HUGE thank you. Honestly it regularly blows my mind that you chose to send money to an internet stranger (well, some of you know me in person!) to support something like this blog. I know there’s swag in exchange but still, it continually humbles me and I am grateful.
The main bit…
So without anything specific to talk about it perhaps feels appropriate to talk about recent news and my feelings about it.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’re likely to know that the X-Wing Alliance is a community led group of people whose goal is to maintain and develop the game now that AMG have decided end their own involvement.
Clearly one of the biggest issues in the game at the moment is that the points haven’t had a major update in a VERY long time. Given that in 1st edition points were fixed it maybe feels a little funny to suggest that 15 months with (broadly) the same points has led to claims of the game becoming stale and the meta ‘solved’ (I’ve got my own thoughts on that but now isn’t the time).
The thing is, when you’ve had a taste of something and then its taken away it can be difficult to deal with.
A very personal example of this is my CGM – continuous glucose monitor. I have type 1 diabetes and have done since I was 21. I lived with this disease for 17 years with regular (like 6-8 times a day) finger prick blood tests. Then I was given a CGM, a patch on my arm that I could scan with a device that would instantly tell me what my blood glucose is. No more finger prick tests.
Almost 7 years on from that, if I have issues getting my prescription or if the CGM falls off early or fails and I’m a few days without it then it feels awful. Such a massive pain and it’s hard to remember how it was in the before times.
Changing X-Wing points feels similar. We experienced 1st edition with no changes and then FFG treated us to changing points and tweaked them regularly without ever being clear about whether they would be changing them almost for the sake of it.
Then AMG came along and it became clear they believed that the game could be perfectly balanced and changes would only be made to fix broken things.
And so, with AMG having had enough and dumping us like a bad prom date we have been left with these points.
For now.
The big announcement from the XWA this week has been about a (very) long awaited points change.
Come join @oli_186th to talk about the X-Wing Alliance’s BETA POINTS RELEASE on September 1st!
https://discord.gg/WZxSjDgY?event=1270417892357439638
So here we are, just 3(ish) weeks from a points change that will hopefully breathe some new life into the game, allowing players to dust off ships and pilots that have been left by the wayside for the last year or so.
Personally I can’t wait for this. Of course it’s possible to build lists with whatever ships you like but there’s always a tendency to lean towards ships that are good and/or efficient and so in each faction (except Scum maybe) this generally leads you to picking the same things.
Republic? ARCS
Rebels? B-Wings
Empire? Vader, probably Jendon in the Defender. The new Tomax Bren.
The list goes on. If you turn up to a tournament you can check your opponent’s faction and you’re likely to be able to guess at least 50% of their list.
New points will give a massive shake up. Even smaller changes will shift the balance and if obviously string ships take a smack with nerf bat then it’ll take some time and experimentation to find the new hotness.
But.
There is a potential drawback.
There are still official AMG events happening over the next 6 or 7 months which will be using the existing official points. What effect will community points have?
Even before a date for community points for announced this week, last weekend saw two GT events taking place in the USA and the attendance numbers were…. Interesting.
The Salt Lake Open saw just 22 players take part, somewhat proving that the 32 player minimum requirement is maybe less a requirement and more of a guideline.
Perhaps more shockingly, Gencon, a historically very large (like, 3 figures) event, attracted just 37 players.
And I mean no slight on the organisers of these events here, far from it. I know how difficult it can be getting players to commit to attending an event at the best of times. Unfortunately, with so much in flux at the moment it’s very hard to do in down exactly why this is.
Is it down to the current points and stale meta? Is it because it’s the same prizing as Worlds 2024 and people already have the swag? Maybe it’s because the prizes are 90% participation and this makes attending more than 1 GT less appealing? Perhaps it’s because AMG’s announcement of the end of development has caused some people to give up and sell off their ships?
I guess there’s no straightforward answer and all of those things are a factor. The question is, does adding alternative points that will NOT be valid for official events exacerbate the issue?
Personally I feel that it probably will and while a part of me doesn’t care (in a true ‘let the past die’ kind of way), there’s another part of me that feels like AMG could use decreasing attendance of official events as justification for killing off this wonderful game. ‘See Asmodee, X-Wing was dying anway’. Uh, no, it wasn’t. Just check Worlds attendance this year.
The initial announcement of official events running through to Worlds at Adepticon in 2025 filled me with hope for the future just for our legs to be pulled from under us just a matter of weeks later. I mean, why plan organised play for a WHOLE YEAR and make changes to the format moving away from the invite system when all along you’re intending to wrap it up? Where is the sense in it?
With Asmodee spinning the situation into a ‘farewell tour’ (aka dump the prize inventory we already paid for) I again have two conflicting opinions on how this affects the burgeoning community efforts.
On one hand it’s restrictive. People attending official events HAVE to use official points and therefore will be practicing with them. A run of events through until March 2025 means that AMG points will still be in use in some way for what will be approaching 2 years at that point. It’ll.meam that communities may have to pick a points scheme or prepare to use both in this transitional period.
On the other hand? It’s freeing. There’s no need to rush into any big decisions or make huge sweeping changes which may be jarring. AMG have unintentionally given the XWA a built in time buffer which allows plans to be made carefully and with purpose.
Is it ideal? No, not really, but then none of this has been. The game was in healthy spot with FFG and gets moved to AMG. AMG make significant changes and alienate large portion of the player base. AMG finally decides to dump and run.
And the trickle down effect all of these corporate board room level decisions is that communities have been fractured and individuals affected in some way or another.
I still remember the sentiment of what Oli Pocknell posted in some chat or discord channel the day after then announcement. We’re free now. We can decide our own fate.
I hadn’t looked at it that way until that point. And here we are just a few short months later with a community organisation in place, people elected to positions with plans and a vision for the future.
There will be challenges of course but actually I believe that the future of the game is brighter and more exciting under the XWA. People who are invested in and passionate about the game as opposed to a small studio who, lets face it, had it dumped on their laps.
The conclusion…
It might still occasionally feel like we’re in stormy waters but there are blue skies on the horizon. I can feel it in my bones.
Am I looking at it all through rose tinted glasses? Perhaps, but I’d rather be optimistic in this situation than full on doom and gloom.
That’s it for this week, sorry it’s been a little departure from the njrm but it’s what’s poured out of my head!
Pop back next week when I’ll try it be on time!
The outro…
Thank you so much for visiting my blog, I hope you’ve enjoyed it! If you’d like to support me in continuing my X-Wing blogging adventure there are a few ways you can do that.
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