Posted on

Future Editions of X-Wing…. Someday?

Have you ever thought about what happens if FFG makes an X-Wing 2nd Edition?   I’ve thought about it alot!  I’ve even made an  April Fools Joke earlier this year!  And while I don’t expect they’ll do a full blown 2nd edition of the game any time soon… I do think it’s certainly a possibility in the future.

So what would happen if they actually did announce a 2nd edition? I got to thinking about this and I came up with a list of 10 things I would have changed if I could re-design X-Wing.   Naturally I’d incorporate these changes into a new version of the game.

But what about leaving the 1st edition in the dust?  Should 2nd edition be compatible with the 1st edition?  It’s a difficult question to answer, because in order for a game to thrive, it has to be selling product.   But how can a game sell product if everyone is simply using their old “version 1” ships?

I think for a 2nd Edition to sell well, and to be accepted by the people, it would need to do several things.

Remember the Love

First, it would need to be a return to what made people fall in love with X-Wing in the first place, at least in some regards.  Thematic dog-fighting, flying amazing looking miniatures in space, and everyone near you “Oogling” your game with awe and wonder.

Fix the Flaws

Second, it would need to fix the design flaws in the original first edition.  I covered much of this in the “Top 10 Fixes” video above.  FFG tends to learn very well from past mistakes and I have no doubt they would be able to pull this off without much difficulty.   Each new game that comes out tends to improve on what worked, while discarding aspects that didn’t work.

Slightly New Feel

I also believe that a 2nd edition would have to “Feel” different.  Whether it’s ship bases, movement, larger ship models, or something all together new, like focusing on the 3D aspect of space flight.  This need to have a new twist that the original doesn’t have.

Minimize the Tokens

One problem with X-Wing and several miniatures games, are the number of tokens involved.  The less tiny cardboard chits you need to put on the play surface, the better it’s going to be for everyone.

Change in Scale

A change in scale may also be helpful in creating a positive play experience.  Maybe scale, as it applies to ship size, but also maybe scale in a sense of the number of ships you can have on the board.  Typical X-Wing games tend to have 2, 3, or 4 ships, but can have a maximum of 8, (though 8 ships is an extremely rare occurrence).  Suppose a new version of X-Wing has only 1, 2, or 3 ships on the board at any given time?

Reduce the Playtime

One draw that games like Magic the Gathering, and Destiny have, are that they can be played in a short amount of time.  By reducing the scale, reducing the tokens, and adjusting the game, FFG might consider reducing the average playtime from an hour, to somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes.  Shorter games don’t necessarily mean less fun either, because you can get more games played and even change up your list.  This would also reduce the setup and teardown time.

 

I’m not even convinced that X-Wing is going to have a 2nd edition any time soon…. but if they do I hope they check this article out first!

Posted on

Are Smaller Expansion Waves a Good Thing?

Since the latest waves of X-Wing and Armada have recently been revealed, I took notice that there seems to be a newer trend with FFG’s waves, in that they are getting smaller.   X-Wing’s Wave 11 now has only 3 ships, and I don’t expect that this time it will get augmented by two “Mystery” ships, because there is no Summer Movie coming out for Star Wars, and it’s FAR too early for any Episode 8 ships to magically show up and be an addition to the wave.

No folks, it looks like this wave is only 3 ships.   Now sure, there are supplemental releases for X-Wing – there always have been.  We have a new Epic ship for Scum on the boat, and I’m sure there will eventually be an X-Wing fix or E-Wing fix… or even a Starviper fix… but that likely won’t show up until closer to the end of the year.   For now it’s just 3 ships.

And Armada has a small wave as well  While it may be technically a 3-ship release as well, because onf of the expansions has two copies of the same ship, it’s still just a 2-expansion wave.

This happened a year ago, with Armada’s Wave 3, which was just the two flotillas.   I remember being really upset, as was a good portion of the community.   It ended up working out though, because Wave 4 was also a 2 ship release and they ended up coming out on the same day, which made Waves 3 and 4 virtually the same, 4-ship wave.  But this time I seriously suspect that Wave 6 for Armada will be the only thing we get for awhile.   And I’m actually fine with it.

There is a long-term problem with making too many ships in each wave.  That problem is starting to show itself in X-Wing.  Look at the recent “Heroes of the Resistance” Pack for example:

Here is a pack chock full of re-released ships.  And before you say it… Yes I know that this is actually a new sculpt for the falcon.   The Dish is new, the engines are better… it is actually a superior model to the old one.  However to the layman, it’s still just another falcon.   And the T-70 X-Wing, while having a fresh paint job, was seriously not needed at all.  Well, it WAS needed, but should have come out in the Force Awakens Core Set IMO.  This marks the third separate release of a T-70 X-Wing.  And the worst part is – we’ve only had ONE movie with T-70s!   God forbid there are new T-70 pilots in Episode 8!

My point is – if FFG gives us every canon ship all at once, it uses up all the design space and we end up having nothing left for next year – and as a result we end up getting reprints.   Now I realize that might be fine with some people and maybe this is just a matter of opinion, but I would rather a smaller wave with more time put into it, to maximize the product’s impact the FIRST time around.

Look at the Force Awakens Core Set for example:

If there was more time allotted to this release, a lot of design goofs could have been prevented.   First off, there was no reason to make Poe a pilot skill 8, since after the movie came out he was known to be the BEST pilot in the Resistance and it’s borderline offensive to make him anything less than a 9.   Additionally, none of the other pilots in here have names.   I think it cheapens the game a bit to have cards like “Red Ace” in place of what should have been Snap Wexley, Jess Pava, and Ello Asty.  These pilots ended up being added to the game much later, over other T-70 releases, but wouldn’t it have been more proper to have them released sooner?

The problem is even worse for capital ships, in that there just aren’t very many available, and if Armada wants to survive and have longevity, it is taking the right steps with only 2 ships per wave.  I had expected the Quasar to come out, and rightly so, but right now they are already almost out of canon ships to release.   You can make arguments for a few Imperials Ships – like the Venator, which supposedly is still in limited service around the time on Episode 4, but that begins to cross that line of Original Triloigy towards the Clone Wars era – and for some legal reasons, FFG can’t do a Clone Wars era timeline, so if they want something from that era they have to find ways of pulling it into the Galactic Civil War timeline.   I don’t know the full details but it’s messy.

Either way, X-Wing has a TON of content right now, and even Armada has grown enough to be diverse and have a strong amount of ships.   Neither of these games NEEDS a huge wave in order to maintain interest.   Just a steady stream of updates, perhaps twice a year is all I need.   Smaller waves will ensure the games stay healthy for years to come.