SeaFall is receiving very mellow reactions

Gary Sax wrote: You guys think those reviews are that bad? All I got from it is you need a dedicated crew and it starts slowly? I have enough disagreements with eurogamer types about game length and repeated plays to be a tiny bit skeptical about any negative hub bub. Kind of makes me more intrigued if it's a heavier, slower game... depends just how big a dud those first few games are, I suppose.

But then there's an unplayed copy of Archipelago on my shelf, so...

I think all of the reviewers I've seen are holding back. They are clearly frustrated and would be panning the game were it not Rob Daviau and the success of Pandemic Legacy. They're giving it much more leeway because it's Legacy and clearly holding back negativity.

Then they're pieces of shit and shills.

I don't care if it's your best friend, if the game is bad, say so.

Varys wrote: The first SeaFall review I saw was from this guy and that pretty much convinced me not to get this game. Btw, I've been liking this guy's reviews quite a bit:

I have a new favorite person. Holy shit. Eloquent, funny, and compelling.

Varys wrote: The first SeaFall review I saw was from this guy and that pretty much convinced me not to get this game.

That was a well-done video, but the reviewer and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things.

He compared the SeaFall dice pool adjustments to Power Grid calculations. He doesn't like PG, though, and I really enjoy it.

He didn't care for the SeaFall narrative paragraphs, but he found the Above and Below paragraphs interesting and wondrous. I thought the Above and Below "stories" were pedestrian and pretty lame. (The ones I heard in my game, anyway.)

He didn't care for Pandemic Legacy. I loved it.

None of that means anything, I guess. It just means that I'll need to try SeaFall for myself to see if I like it. But that's precisely the problem. Without knowing whether I like it, it's tough to commit to 15 (?) games.

Someone in my group owns a copy of SeaFall, and if it gets played it'll probably get played only one time through. That's exactly what happened to Pandemic Legacy, at least. We played my copy, enjoyed the heck out of it, and then everyone decided to unload their own copies. Because they'd already played it and didn't want to play again.

No matter. I've got tons of games on my shelf that need playing.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Then they're pieces of shit and shills.

I don't care if it's your best friend, if the game is bad, say so.

I don't think it's a conscious choice. I view it as being in the same vein as giving a Knizia game more chances to win you over or giving a publisher the benefit of the doubt on something you don't understand because their reputation and quality prior is impeccable.

Specifically I'm referring to the fact that the Dice Tower is giving thoughts mid-play. They haven't issued a final review. So you can see they haven't totally written the game off yet because they're hoping something big comes about and it wins them over.

I sent an email to cancel my preorder because it looks like the Seafall core isn't that interesting. I was on board for the longer length. I was on board with the heavier rule set. What I had been reading before preordering had me believing that those things supported a deeper Legacy game with strong narrative.

What I've been reading and seeing this past week indicates that the Seafall core is a cube race game with a little bit of raiding and exploration. I'm not spending ~$90 and 30 hours on that.

I'll only have $20 invested in Seafall, so if we decide after 3 or 4 games that we're done, I'm okay with that. I would be happy that I at least got to try it out.

My main concern at this point is that one player in our group is has an AP problem, and this game seems like it'll exacerbate it.

wkover wrote: That's exactly what happened to Pandemic Legacy, at least. We played my copy, enjoyed the heck out of it, and then everyone decided to unload their own copies. Because they'd already played it and didn't want to play again.

We enjoyed the hell out of P:L and I've been considering getting a second copy to re-play.

Varys wrote: The first SeaFall review I saw was from this guy and that pretty much convinced me not to get this game. Btw, I've been liking this guy's reviews quite a bit:

How can I take this man's review seriously? He's not standing in front of a wall full of games!? What are those? Are those.... BOOKS? Pffft!

Just sent my pre-order cancellation. I'll move the money over to some FFG GW property games before those go away.

Gregarius wrote: How can I take this man's review seriously? He's not standing in front of a wall full of games!? What are those? Are those.... BOOKS? Pffft!

To be fair, most of them are Stephen King.

The feel I'm getting is that the game is stretched out to fit a "number of plays = X hours of gameplay = $Y/hour", like a videogame. That kind of crap is precisely why I don't play big-release videogames. I'm not going to spend 80 hours slogging through your game. I have life goals. Turn that into a boardgame where I have to wrangle the same 3 other people together for 5 sessions of 4 hours each, and I just give up. If it's not compelling until the last game, it's not going to get there. I can't even pull off the "it's for your own good!" thing.

I was super-excited about Seafall, but endless sailing to roll dicepools looks grim.

Not Sure wrote: Turn that into a boardgame where I have to wrangle the same 3 other people together for 5 sessions of 4 hours each, and I just give up.

Yeah, no kidding. For Pandemic Legacy, we always played with the same four people. (People dropping in and out would have been a huge drag.) The only reason that we were able to finish the campaign is that individual games were short and interesting enough that we invariably played two games in a row. Even then, it took us six months to bang it out, including a marathon 3-4 game session at this year's WBC. Admittedly, we sucked and it took us 21 games (out of a possible 24) to finish.

SeaFall doesn't seem like a twice-in-a-row game. Timewise, if nothing else. God only knows how long it would take to finish the whole shebang under the "same four player" requirement, which is what I'd insist upon before starting. Eight months? More?

Gregarius wrote: How can I take this man's review seriously? He's not standing in front of a wall full of games!? What are those? Are those.... BOOKS? Pffft!

Clearly not a connoisseur of boarding games like myself. Why, I haven't even PLAYED most of my shelf of games, my time is just too precious! Just yesterday I soloed some Munchkin and then took a little me time and pre-ordered Feld's latest opus.

One thing that comes through in the Dice Tower videos on this game, and is touched on in the All the Games You Like Are Bad video (which is great, incidentally), is the idea that the early sessions of Seafall are like escalating tutorials. Essentially the game gets more and more complex as it goes on, to the point where the game eventually becomes almost unteachable to new players. What I wonder is, did Daviau design Seafall so that the "real" game is what you end up with after all of the legacy stuff is over?

It sounds like with Seafall Daviau made a complete game and then pared it back for the early sessions, simplifying it in order to make it teachable and to add content as the campaign progresses. I have never played Pandemic Legacy or Risk Legacy, but from what I've read about them they are complete games right from the get-go. The legacy aspect does add rules and mechanics, but mostly it just changes them rather than makes them significantly more complex.

I would not be especially tempted to play a game group's matured versions of Risk Legacy and Pandemic Legacy unless I had participated in the campaigns all along. Is Seafall trying to be different in this aspect? Is the legacy campaign meant to be just the build-up to the real game? If so, then I think that Daviau and Plaid Hat have miscalculated. Most people endure "learning sessions," they don't particularly enjoy them. Making players slug their way through 15-20 hours' worth of learning sessions is likely to piss off a lot of them.

Feelitmon wrote: I have never played Pandemic Legacy or Risk Legacy, but from what I've read about them they are complete games right from the get-go. The legacy aspect does add rules and mechanics, but mostly it just changes them rather than makes them significantly more complex.

Pandemic Legacy is weird in that for the first 6-9 months it feels like it is escalating in complexity, like a series of tutorials, but then the later months twist it around and it feels more like playing variant scenarios. Rob did state somewhere that he viewed Legacy as a way of having something like computer game tutorials.