RoboRally and Regional Tastes

[gryphon202]

Hoo boy...I promised I wouldn't post another thing in Phill's "erratta" thread, but this whole business about the [highly subjective] flaws in the new version of RoboRally got me to thinking.

Phill never came right out and said so, but I thought that given the NZ in his name, as well as the times he made his posts, he was from New Zealand.

Various parts of the world have given us such genius game designers as Sid Sackson (Chicago), Klaus Teuber (Germany), and Shigeru Miyamoto (Okay, so he's a video game producer, but he's also done design work, and he's from Japan). With the information age fully upon us, and fully realized in the internet, it has become increasingly easy over the last 10-12 years or so for regional tastes to cross the pond.

All this having been said, I kind of wonder if most of Phill's gaming buddies are New Zealanders? Or if he's getting his information from a source other than these bulletin boards off the net, perhaps?

I'm not dissing on New Zealanders by any stretch of the imagination. I'm talking in broad strokes here. It may speak volumes about the lack of sophistication in America, but is it possible that RoboRally's new rules are simply more "Americanized?"

Americans were giving the world games like Monopoly and Scrabble before strategy gaming was chic, and the thought had crossed my mind that RoboRally's new rules, in some obtuse way, reflect that fact.

[puggimer]

Interesting thought. Though, since Richard Garfield is American, I wonder how they can be more 'Americanized'. I think they may have tried to streamline them a bit - again searching for a broader audience.

I wonder if there is anyone at AH/WOTC who is passionate and champions this game. Kind of like Paul Randles used to do for WOTC with the 2nd edition.

[gryphon202]

It's a thought, but I could just be blowing smoke in all this. After all, some of the most popular modern games in America are Spiel De Jahres candidates or winners in Germany.

Perhaps what we are witnessing here is no more or less than some people's natural resistance to change. I've played enough games enough times to know that having a long-established rule yanked out from under your feet can be rather disconcerting. If you like the change, then that change is a positive. If you don't like the change, then the change bites. That's really the only criteria I can think of for judging a change between editions of a game, and it's quite a subjective one.

[iiiHuman]

My one problem still is not that the way the game is changed (in the form of the Docking Bays instead of virtual rules [not a big fan of virtual rules anyhow], nor that they didn't include the old virtual rules as a form of alternate play method), nor that the materials used to make the game have changed, nor even the way the new cards look (since I happen to think they're crisper and more visible even if they do not always sort well in your hand). However, I do have a problem with what seems an unintentional change in how certain specific Option cards work. Specifically, that Superior Archive no longer works if you have to discard it as your last option when your robot is destroyed (unlike the previous version which was worded so it would still work if it was your last option at the time). Now, granted, it's easy enough to play as if it still effects your robot coming back even it is no longer around (just like the previous version). However, it seems this was unintentional and, instead of issuing errata for it, they would rather just say that it doesn't work the same now. I'd be really surprised if that was an intentional change. I can see changes on other Option cards as completely intentional. But, not that one. So, I am really just more upset with the quality of development rather than the "most" of the changes in the game. I actually like a lot about the new version. OH, and how the rulebook is worded now! It's really not clear in a lot of places and has mistakes. I'd have been happier if it was more detailed. They really did try to dumb down the rules too much in my opinion.

On another note, though. You might be interested about this, Gryphon. It seems that Phil has never even set his hands on a new copy of the game to check it out personally himself. He was always asking me about the changes and what I felt about them, and how easy the new cards are (or are not) to use during play, etc. So, he hasn't even given the new version an actual physical try himself before forming his assessments.


iiiHuman