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Mechs vs. Minions
Honestly I don't know how they intend to make money on this. The direct-sale-only helps, but I doubt if that's enough. Maybe it's a loss leader; getting even a tiny fraction of LoL players into board gaming would tilt the hobby financially. Maybe it's just passion. A buddy of mine works at Riot in SoCal and has told me that they're pretty nutball for board games, CCGs, and minis.
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And they're rolling in money, so...
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- SuperflyPete
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Cost is definitely in line, or even inexpensive, for what you get in the box.
Really intrigued that they very deliberately are NOT making LoL the board game. This is a clear attempt for them to expand their universe. They have a lot of fluff for their characters, and this may presage an attempt to expand that into different products.
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SuperflyTNT wrote: I can see this being the future of games - publishers going direct instead of KS, when they have capital.
And there will be a definite Early Bird scenario for this one. Limited print run, sold through one outlet, beginning at a publicized time. I'll consider myself lucky if I manage to get a copy.
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- Michael Barnes
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Co-op programmed actions might be good, but not with a timer. I have zero interest upon hearing that.
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Grudunza wrote: Co-op programmed actions might be good, but not with a timer. I have zero interest upon hearing that.
Only the card drafting portion is timed, this is to prevent the alpha player from telling everyone what to pick. The actual programming is not timed.
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- Michael Barnes
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FOMO had no effect on me here. If it were a game going into normal distribution and not some kind of idiotic, hyped-up exclusive I'd check it out. But this has now moved into the DGAS bracket.
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I'd try it if it were around, but not a preorder. And, for better or worse, the LoL setting has zero impact with me so no additional desire to preorder. But LoL is the biggest game in the world so I can see that being a bigger draw than, say, Star Wars on a game, esp. among younger folks. So this is going to be a Big Deal. The art/model style doesn't do anything for me either.
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Michael Barnes wrote: Oh yeah, it won't last ten minutes and it'll probably cause a server crash as aspiring buyers storm the gates as soon as they flip the switch. The vast majority of people buying it will be LOL players, not tabletop gamers. Regardless of how "into" board games the folks at Riot are, I have a feeling this will be more of a collector's item than a notable design.
FOMO had no effect on me here. If it were a game going into normal distribution and not some kind of idiotic, hyped-up exclusive I'd check it out. But this has now moved into the DGAS bracket.
According to a Riot team member on reddit (yeah, I know), they plan on printing additional runs if demand is high enough. Not intended as a one and done thing.
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engelstein wrote: Really intrigued that they very deliberately are NOT making LoL the board game. This is a clear attempt for them to expand their universe. They have a lot of fluff for their characters, and this may presage an attempt to expand that into different products.
I agree, and I also think that this is sort of gateway game aimed at their LoL playerbase. The mechanics are simple enough to teach but they allow players to "git gud" as well, and they definitely will show a bunch of people that there's more to board gaming than roll-and-move.
Personally my first impression was that the game was hugely overproduced. Do we really need that many minions, and do they need to be figures instead of chits or cubes? Then I snapped out of it and realized that that way lies madness: by that way of thinking, why do we need minis in any game? Why have anything at all but abstracts?
Incidentally, the timed aspect is kind of overblown, I think. I haven't met a group yet that uses the hourglasses in games that feature them. I do like that Riot put it in there though for those AP-suffering groups so they can keep the game rolling along.
I think I'll let my friends know about this one, and see if it grabs anyone's interest. I would like to give it a try, and I love the idea that Riot might be coming into the hobby with a well designed and well produced game, but I've already bought too many games this year. I know, I know, as if there is such a thing as too many games!
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Apparently, it was a game the designer (Stone) showed to Riot during his job interview. The team fell in love with it and the designer made making it as a condition to his hiring. (He leads the team up in San Francisco)
The game is indeed a passion project and after it's first and second printing the company said "that's it for now." which seems like a huge mistake give a) Riot really only makes one other game (League of Legends) and b) has more money than God (just shy of $1 billion in profits last year) to make more of these "little projects".
They definitely shook things up with the production quality of the game - if you haven't seen/played it, it has the nicest plastic trays ever seen in a board game - it scared the hell out of several board game publisher friends of mine who immediately had to "up their game" in quality.
Both printings of the game has sold out (45,000 copies is nothing to sneeze at in the board game world) and will they ever make more? Who knows? It would be a shame if they didn't do something else.
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