Thursday, July 06, 2006

Satisfaction guaranteed

Over at WizKids' HeroClix forums, I initiated a thread titled ::sigh:: More mistakes...

This was the initial post in it --

Marvel HeroClix X-Men Danger Room Complete Rules, page 30:

"Example #2: Karl uses Bullseye to make a ranged combat attack targeting Elektra and Daredevil, successfully hitting both targets and dealing 4 damage. Karl could choose to deal 2 damage to each target, 3 damage to one target and 1 damage to the other, or 4 damage to one target and 0 damage to the other."

FOUR DAMAGE? Someone please give me a Bullseye that deals 4 damage. The only way I know of for Bullseye to deal 4 damage is using the RCE mod on a DV of 2, and as far as I know, the Combat Expert mods specify only ONE target.

Am I wrong? Have the rules changed Ranged Combat Expert so you can now deal the modified damage to multiple targets? Or does this just make absolutely no sense whatsoever?


A sample of the responses I received --

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Maybe he had his damage perplexed up 1. Who cares? It's just an example.

* * *

It might just be an example using random numbers with characters names to explain a game mechanic.

* * *

What's with the common-sense replies? C'mon! There has to be a conspiracy here somewhere!

I know! Maybe Bullseye was supposed to have a 4 natural damage! It's a misprint! ::rolls eyes::


* * *

And, perhaps the best summation of the Asskissing Brigade I've seen yet --

* * *

Just because they throw out some names and numbers to have an effective example is no reason to start verbally waling all over wizkids again.

No, It's not confusing, No, It's not another conspiracy. and the fact that THAT is profoundly dissapointing to you really worries me and frankly I'm rather disgusted at how the heroclix community that I've been so impressed with after starting just a few months ago is whining and keeps whining about every single little error thet the company makes.

There was one error in sinister worth getting upset about and that was the flight stand ******. There's been misprints before, I've found just as many bent figures in every other set i've purchaced, and yea, there's even a typo on the hydra technisian's name. It's not that big of a deal, and the fact that bullseye's name was attached to a very good example of how a game mechanic works is no reason to bash the company.

People, quitcher collective b****in.


* * * *

Now, to be fair to WizKids themselves, their HeroClix Brand Manager, Mark Tuttle, posted this:

* * *

I agree completely and am taking steps to correct this immediately.


* * *

Can't ask for fairer that that. But it's the attitude of my fellow customers that troubles me here. The list of mistakes WizKids has made in their recent sets, especially in SINISTER, is pretty hefty. And when the latest official rules book has such egregiously stupid, and easily avoided, errors in it... honestly, it's cause for concern, and more than that, cause for complaint, as well.

I can understand all the people sucking up to WizKids on the forums, sure. They're hoping that master will pat them on the head, or, better, send them some free product or even offer them a job, if they plant their lips at just the right angle with exactly the correct pressure on the collective corporate asscheek.

It's the kind of ignoble behavior I'd like to believe most people are above. But I keep being disappointed.

Even in myself. This morning, for example, the bus dropped me off out front of the building where I work. Now, this building is a vast brobdignagian cyclopean edifice, and my choice was, walk around and come in the back door, which is reasonably close to my cubie, or come in the front. Having come in the front, I then had to choose between walking all the way around through the building itself, which has been undergoing a lot of interior renovations lately, resulting in me never being sure from one trip to the next what may have been walled off since last time I went that way, or, walking straight through the central out door courtyard, which has been 'closed' for the last several months due to construction out there. ('Closed' is in quotes because within a few days of it going up, all the yellow tape supposedly blocking the doors was knocked down again, mostly by management folks who didn't see any reason why THEY shouldn't take a short cut if they wanted to.)

So I cut through the courtyard as I have a thousand times before, and this time, coming in the other side, a management type I didn't know (but recognized as management from the general look -- angry bunny rabbit in a bow tie -- and the fact that he was sitting in a corner office I was walking by) bitched me out for walking through the courtyard, which, he was pleased to advise me, was closed due to construction.

In a better world, I'd have channelled Al Swearingen for a few lovely fuckin' moments of verbal pyrotechnics, using my no doubt superior vocabulary to render this miserable fuckwit down into a smoking, quivering pile of gruel.

In this reality, though, I just stood there, nodded, and said "Yessir".

I have to give myself credit; by main force of will, I kept myself from tugging my forelock.

So I understand the urge to kiss ass, and even the occasional need... but not when you're paying someone for a product that they're fucking up. That's a little ridiculous... and more than a little retarded. Intellectual-wise, emotional-wise, and otherwise, as Sgt. Phil Esterhaus might well put it.

2 comments:

  1. Personally, I wouldn't consider your own example to be "kissing ass". Or at least not anywhere close to the same thing as the slavering toadyism that you shared from WizKids' site. As for cutting through a construction site (something with which I have some intimate experience)...well...we will never speak of it...;)

    More to the point, though, the unbridled ignorance that rampages through some of the sites on the internet always astounds me. Of course, rule clarifications that aren't clarified in a game that is played on a tournament level is a "thing". And to give you so much shit about your reasonable expectation is just a sad example of what happens when the price of technology (and the accompanying broadband connections) comes down. ANYbody can claim to speak intelligently. ::shiver::

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Huh-huh, she said 'slavering toadyism'."

    "Heh-heh, yeah, toadyism RULES!"

    ReplyDelete

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