Since the other post has started to trend in an acrimonious direction, I hereby declare Alternate Timelines! All posts opposed to the Definitive Edition go here. All posts in favor, go to the other one. Begin!
Right now I am leaning on the Booooo side of things. I have already spent over $400 on the game and am feeling bamboozled. If they release some sort of update pack I might come around, but then we will most likely have very unmatched art.
"Final Expansion," "Multiverse ends here," "Final Sentinels of the Multiverse Card Game Kickstarter" were all things said in the Oblivaeon campaign.
Please give us a way to update our games.
[quote=“”poypoyking“”]
Please give us a way to update our games.
[/quote]
Paul has said there will be a conversion document.
There will be a compatibility document, which will allow you to mix-and-match Enhanced Edition and Definitive Edition content. There will not be a document or product that will allow you to transform your Enhanced Edition products into their Definitive Edition counterparts. The number of changes is far too great for that to be possible.
I guess that puts me firmly in the Booooo category then.
Yeah, having come somewhat late to the "having my own physical copy" camp, and spending the last couple of years amazing, well, just about everything (don't have a few of the singles), I'm of mixed feelings about this. I get it, I like the concept (the Rook City heroes needed an update, if nothing else, but somehow I doubt they will be), and I got really excited when they brainstormed scenarios on the Letters Page.
But I'm a bit put off by the cost, right now.
Booooo is too strong a term for my feelings, but the downsides do seem to out number the upsides right now. First edition just has so much more content, plus the Cauldron stuff coming to the digital version soon, that even if the decks in the big box are 50% more fun to play with then the pre-exsisting it will take a few expansions before they are even in the same weight class, and the kind of tepid respounce does have me slightly worried this product line might not have the legs to go the distance. Which might make investing in it kind of risky.
And I do like the more colorful and bright art style of the old game more. The differing art styles are cool and its always cool when we see the sentinels characters reimagined as how they might appear in different comic periods, but for the core game I personally would value consistency of aesthetic more. Particarly as a jumping in point.
All signs right now point to Handleabra making a digital version of DE if it goes well and if so thats likely where I will try it out first. Maybe a few kickstarters down the line jump in, espically if they have some catch up bundles. The ongoing death of in person game nights makes it a low pirority.
My concerns:
-Timing. It's not that long since the previous ultimate version was done, AND its coming out more or less at the same time as Freedom Five game, not long after the RPG, so people heavily invested in the IP will have reasons to think they're being asked for more money. I'm not saying that is the intent, I'm just pointing out why people will have that impression
-Inconsistent art. The original artwork is much more TV animated cartoon level than comic book, and for largely the same reasons in trying to get a lot of it done at high speed, but at least when you put decks down alongside each other they seem to be part of the same universe. The mixed eras in the new art are jarring and that's even within a single deck from what I've seen. It's a cute idea, but I feel like the practicalities means that it should have been used in a different way
-Lack of support for existing users. The fact that a rules update is going to let you play with decks from the previous version does suggest that for the bulk of the decks the tweaks are fairly minor, so why not have versions of the heavily changed decks available in the old art style which the company still owns? If only a few cards in a deck are actually changed, those cards can be redone in small enhancement packs, or offered as a pdf for people to print and drop in a sleeve over the original card. On top of the timing, this just feels frustrating - "Hey, we've heard your complaints, and now at the costs of completely replacing everythig you already have, we can sell you something new". I get that you don't want to undermine the new edition by supporting the old one, but this is something that is aggravating in the video game market with companies like EA or the Football Manager franchise, and it's disappointing that people treat something not right as something normal. At least it's not as bad as EA still selling Sims 3 which still has bugs like people spontaneously getting children and/or spouses if they travel, or friends turning in to strangers because they're invited to your graduation... I'd say that Fantasy Flight maybe get a bit too close to that business model...
After listening to the latest Letters Page, I officially have something for the Booooo category: Tarot-sized hero cards. I understand the desire to have more room for art/powers text, but dang it, it makes it impossible to keep the hero cards with the decks in the collectors box.
Considering what was said about the collector's box in the same episode it's not surprising they didn't take it into account.
I'll admit I prefer to keep the deck and character cards together. :-\ I get the impression those of us who do are not in the majority, though. :-( Seems like a lot of folks keep the character cards separate from the decks.
I'll agree it's disappointing, but given all the other things I am excited about, I'm willing to deal with it. ;-) But that's just me -- no judgement if it's an issue for others! :-)
I prefer to keep them together with the decks, especially since if you leave the variants behind, it's easy to tell which side of the dividers the decks are supposed to be on. But other people use the character cards as randomizers, so for them it would make sense to split them.
Hm... so I can understand the motivation behind the update. Like most folks here who own all the previous sets and the Big Box (and heck, even a dozen custom printed homebrew decks), I don't feel terribly motivated to start again. I might have been more tempted with just a clean-up of card wording, artwork, and some of the older heroes getting streamlined do-overs (looking at you Rook City heroes) and still have it all be compatible with everything I own. *But* it sounds like we're getting changes to the core rulesets that at-best will require a conversion document with the older cards.
Also, while I admire the artist's ability to mimic the various styles from the past, I'm really not digging the mixed-artwork concept, and I'm really not into the 4-color newsprint look.
So, best of luck, I harbor no ill-wishes to the creators and hope this brings in some new players, but I probably won't be buying any of the new materials, especially since the pandemic radically altered the social lives of me and my friends.
So, I have to say, after listening to the latest Letters Page, and the scope of changes, box contents, and kickstarter price points, I feel less "boo." Not sure where I've ended up, on balance, but it's not as bad as I thought. Just seems like bad timing due to the FF board game also launching, but from the sounds of it, they can't afford NOT to do the KS this year.
All the updates and the new scenario style story mode sound really cool.
That being said, I cannot possibly see how the old version will be compatible with the DE. Listening to all the changes, the entire game is very different. I am assuming the conversion doc will offer some translations such as "bury means this" or "equipment is now item" but there are complete rework of decks (Bunker has ordinance cards, loading mechanics, etc). Also, environments are completely redesigned and environment destruction is mostly removed from the game as most environment cards now act as ongoing/one shot/health based.
Honestly, this is basically a new game and you will need to assess if another $300-400 is worth it over the next 6 years.
What does "from the sounds of it, they can't afford NOT to do the KS this year" mean (I didn't listen to the podcast)? Are they running out of money or something?
No. This is from the WT notes of the episode
>
> As such, they will be launching a Kickstarter for this new set at the end of March. Why a return to Kickstarter? They don't know what the interest in this as a product will be. How big of an audience will want it? They're sure that there is an audience, but whether that audience is in the hundreds or tens of thousands, they don't know.
It's more that they can't do this without doing a KS for it because thanks to the pandemic and resulting lack of flow from distributors they just wouldn't have the extra cash to do it and would have to wait. They literally need the money to make it with.
I'm hoping that it isn't a literal in-general "if this KS doesn't succeed we're screwed" thing versus just holding off on this specific project.
Might be worth bringing up during this month's Bullpen, either by letter or as an LP chat question though, just for clarification.
It won’t be a conversion doc, it will be a compatibility doc. You won’t be able to play new Bunker or Tempest or Omnitron using your old deck and the new rules. But you will be able to play new Bunker alongside Benchmark.
There’s still some environment destruction. I imagine that old cards that say “destroy an Environment card” will be untouched but old cards that say “destroy an Ongoing or Environment card” will work on only Ongoing cards now.
The new game is 6 boxes at $60 MSRP each, $50 on Kickstarter, so they’ll be $300 total (assuming costs don’t go up). Of course, you’ll be able to get them for even less from discount retailers like Miniature Market or Game Nerdz.
Well.
I understand why this is happening, and bear GtG no ill will for it. I have had enough conversations with Christopher and Paul to see their passion for this (Adam doesn’t come to the UK expo), and I can certainly buy that this is not a money grab. But…
Goddamn does this look like a money grab. “None of our other Sentinel Comics games sell as well as SotM. Hmm… I know, let’s make SotM again to bleed more money out of our fans!” Like, sure, you’ve redone the mechanics a bit, but the $300-plus-shipping that this is going to end up costing is a kick in the teeth to those of us who’ve already spent hundreds of £/$ on a version of this game that they’re doing their best to make obsolete. Even the mostly-morally-bankrupt FFG have the decency to make their new editions substantially different, rather than just advertising them as 'our old game, but better™.
Also this. I get that they didn’t know about the DE at the time, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t selling under false pretenses.
I want this game. I do. I’m not buying it, though - the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
If you get a bad taste in your mouth from a board game company doing what every other board game company does literally all the time except in a far better way in that it is both a passion project and addresses a multitude of common fan criticisms in a way that gives us pretty much all what we asked for all this time, well. You must walk around this hobby with your mouth tasting like sewage all the time, then.
Sorry to be snippy, but, I can get where other complaints are coming from even if I don’t share them, but complaining about GTG doing an extremely common industry practice is just straight up unfair.
You’re also a playtester and can try out the DE without buying into the KS yet.
If you want to be snippy, the Booooo Post is probably the best place for it!
And hey, while I think “what every other board game company does literally all the time except in a far better way” is far, far overselling what this is, I do acknowledge that other, worse companies do do this kind of thing - but those are companies I know to be wary of, in general. Seeing my favourite publisher, a company whose games I will buy largely on faith, doing the same thing just makes me sad. And hey, I’ll probably still be jumping onto whatever train is along next without much thought. Just, this one isn’t for me.
So essentially you’re a board gamer who is made sad by every single major board game company in existence. Seems strange to me to torment oneself like this; have you considered a different hobby that doesn’t have 100% of it make you sad?
Again: “every single major board game company in existence” is some major hyperbole. And, yes: I like board games. I don’t like capitalist greed (which I grant that this likely isn’t, but I don’t extend the same trust to, say, Asmodee). I don’t feel like this is a controversial position.
Agree to disagree?
It’s really not. Board games and other tabletop games get new editions all the time on a regular basis across the board (…heh). And they generally do it in much shorter timeframes than ten years, and by making changes that are much less about addressing common fan criticisms and requests.
And while I’ve certainly seen other companies get complaints for what’s in the new editions, I generally do not see them get flak solely just for making one.
Especially since, like I said, this edition is doing it better than most companies I’ve seen.
And so on and so on. A lot of the stuff being changed is things people have long wanted to be changed and I’ve sometimes even seen fan ideas for addressing them.
I’ll let matters of taste and so on slide, but this particular complaint just makes people come off as applying double standards. And kind of unpleasable to boot. “Here have a new version of this game which addresses things you folks have over and over said you wanted to see in it.” “Wow you’re so horribly greedy and exploitative how dare you do this”.
At the point where you’re just ignoring the things I say in order to continue being indignant, I really don’t have much else to say to you.
I admit I had been considering these statements:
I apologize I didn’t realize I was supposed to treat you as not saying them; I admit I do regularly have difficulty telling what things people say I’m allowed to respond to or which ones I’m expected to gloss over. As Aeon Girl notes in her bio, social rules are confusing.
I admit I don’t have much else to say at this point either, particularly if this is the sort of response I’ll receive.
I’ll also mention again @BlueHairedMeerkat as a playtester you have access to try out the DE and can make a better assessment on it.
Adding that @BlueHairedMeerkat has some valid points.
It isn’t that it is 10 years after the original game came out that is bothering me personally, it is that it is only 2.5 years after fulfillment of “the end” of Sentinels.
It also isn’t the base game alone that is bothering me. They are going to re-make every single expansion (or near enough) as well.
And what does this mean for Prime? I know it is a separate company but when the campaign was running they said this would be the continuation of the Sentinels multiverse. Christopher was still the designer of all the decks so the delays on Oblivaeon compounded into this project. We are going to finally get the game (with the original game design) maybe months before this one releases. So different game, different company, but the same designer, and the decks won’t work as released with the version that is coming out mere months after.
Sentinels of Earth Prime isn’t invalidated by this. It just means you need if you mix it with DE content then you need to consider items from this conversion guide https://greaterthangames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/conversion_guide.pdf
If you are playing it with the current SotM then you don’t. Green Ronin also put out this post on it Sentinels of Earth-Prime by Chris Pramas: Green Ronin Publishing » Sentinels of Earth-Prime and the "Definitive Edition" — Kickstarter
True, but by the time it’s all finished, we’ll be in 2027. OA was fully shipped at the end of 2018. This means existing OblivAeon will be about 8 years old itself by the time we reach its equivalent update. I just honestly can’t see a reason that’s an issue when a lot of tabletop companies put out new editions and they do it in far shorter timeframes.
Complain that what’s in the update doesn’t suit your tastes, sure, I will certainly agree to disagree over matters of pure taste. But complaining about it existing at all? I’m truly sorry, but I just can’t understand it.
This is… not the most encouraging read. It sounds like Green Ronin were basically blindsided by this just as their game was going to print. Obviously I have no idea about what goes on behind closed doors, but if that’s a vaguely accurate read then that’s pretty crappy of GTG.
This is true - I had looked over some of the stuff and been underwhelmed, but granted I’ve not played it. Any suggestions as to what I should try out to best showcase the new mechanics/streamlining?
I’d say look at Bunker and AZ’s decks.
The conversion pdf lets you use the streamlined rules with the Prime version. However, the hero/villain/environment decks are not balanced with the Definitive edition and cannot be used in the definitive edition.
Honestly the SoEP environments should have less issues than the current SotM environments using that conversion doc so you can play it with DE content.
Hi, BlueHairedMeerkat! Great to see you here again!
I think what GtG are doing with their communications about Definitive Edition is a touch disingenuous. I would have preferred a clearer acknowledgement that they’d promised no new stuff, but now there is new stuff. Then they could go on to make the case (quite reasonable, IMO) for coming out with a new edition.
My impression is that this is a passion project, not a pure money grab. Yes, they will be happy to make lots of money, but Adam and Christopher love this IP and this game and couldn’t let it rest when they could see SO MUCH that they wanted to improve.
I was initially extremely skeptical for a variety of reasons, but have recently tipped over into cautious optimism. I now think it’s likely that I will at least enjoy the new version and quite possibly prefer it, and I’m comforted by the fact that I sense that my primary play group seems likely to be interested in continuing to play both versions.
While I have access to the playtest materials, I decided not to participate in the playtesting (I just can’t do everything, man), so I’ve only played a couple of playtest games with very early material. Frankly, most of what I saw at that time was problematic. I’ve heard from reliable sources, though, that things have gotten very good.
Not a playtester, obvs, but certainly looking at everything that’s been previewed this is seriously one of the very few times I’ve ever come across a new version of a tabletop game and thought that it was actually addressing everything I’d want to see added or improved versus just being new.
Hence why this particular point stuck a little for me, since it feels kinda, “Why are people upset about a game company being one of the few doing this sort of thing the way you should do this? I want to encourage companies to do things right, not discourage them…”
Oh hey arenson 
I kinda dropped off the forums - life happened - but I’ve been around, quietly making Sentinels RPG characters.
I definitely see that this is a passion project, and I think I’ve mellowed a little in the last day - having the BOO post around to rant in definitely helped - but I’ve had enough people with good intentions majorly screw with me anyway that I’m less willing to overlook behaviour for the sake of motive. And I think a major part of why Jeysie and I can’t see eye-to-eye is that I’ve found all the material I’ve seen rather underwhelming for a project advertised as ‘Sentinels, but WAY BETTER’. But I’m gonna take a look at the stuff Powerhound suggested, and maybe that’ll win me over a lil bit more.
FWIW, my honest feelings on the matter:
So I haven’t been able to see eye-to-eye with the “this leaves a bad taste in my mouth” feeling because I admit I consider companies making new editions a neutral extremely common thing I’m used to them doing (so it would be a double standard on my part to suddenly be mad at GTG for it) and then I feel like GTG is doing it in the best way possible which takes it from “neutral” to “hype” for me.
The only way this would leave a bad taste in my mouth is if all the changes being made were terrible (basically, anything that would make it worse than the average company’s new edition of a game) and I haven’t seen anything to make me feel that way; just the opposite.
Working on this since 2019? I guess we know now what y’all were working on instead of Prime War. Defintively booooo.
In this case, that is an unfounded Booooo. Another company was responsible for the bulk of the development of Prime Wars, not GtG. That other company was unable to get the game mechanically where they wanted it to be. GtG would have loved for Prime Wars to make it, but the game just didn’t make the grade it needed to be at. Maybe in the future it will be looked at again.
EDITED TO ADD: My glib response here is not an accurate summary of events that led to the cancellation of Prime War. Please see replies further down for a more detailed summary. Apologies.
Founded booooo IMO. GTG chose to drop in-house development and outsource instead. They chose to not follow up on production or take it over when it wasn’t working out (like they did with Sleepy Hollow). They chose their priorities. A remake of SotM was one of them. I don’t approve of their choices. That’s why I’m in the Booooo column. YMMV.
Hey, I just wanted to defend our work for a sec. (which you can check out on our website, as we put up the core box materials with the serial numbers filed off.)
I by no means want to put words into >G’s mouth, but we were told repeatedly, and at every step (meeting every other month or so), that they loved the game. Prime War was just, at the time, not the right product for them to publish.
We would love to see Prime War be published, however we understand the state of the market just may not be right for the near future.
Yeah, I got the impression from the information shared that GTG just didn’t see the market at that point being good for a game like Prime War – unfortunately. 
I know you read the explanations why as you posted in the thread those explanations were given in. If you weren’t happy with them, then post in that thread why.
And honestly, I don’t really understand why you came back. All I’ve ever seen of you the entire time I’ve been in this fandom is complaining about Prime War, much of it increasingly unconstructive. I’ve never seen a single positive comment from you, no indication you like or care about any other Greater Than Games product, it’s just been complaining about Prime War. You even started a pattern of increasingly posting your complaints even in threads completely unrelated to Prime War, a pattern you came back from a 10 month hiatus to continue.
It would be healthier for everyone if you find some other company or product you actually do like and spend your time and energy there, since Prime War is cancelled permanently so complaining won’t change that and it’s unconstructive to state that GTG isn’t allowed to release a Sentinels product ever again. At the very least, it’s not appropriate to derail threads with complaining about completely unrelated topics. If you must continue venting, there’s Prime War threads that would have been more appropriate.
You are correct, I misspoke in my reply. Thank you for clarifying for everyone else! I edited my reply further up to point that out.
You mischaracterize my comments and queries on Sentinel Tactics and Prime War as hateful. That is incorrect and I let my posts prior to the cancellation of Prime War reflect it. You are correct in that for years that has been my only commentary here on the forums. That is because for years this forum was the only venue to request information from GTG regarding the status of the product I had paid them for. I tried to respectfully ask for information about it, being polite but clear in my feelings and opinion, and providing supporting information for my positions.
With the cancellation of Prime War I had indeed left these forums after concluding my comments in the thread regarding that issue. GTG was the one who pushed a sales pitch for this new SotM edition on their long-concluded OblivAeon KS which brought the company to my attention again and informed me what Chris Badell was doing instead of Prime War. Coming here to the forums I found a booooo thread and added my own boo cents. See ya.
There is no “instead of”. Prime War would not be happening if this wasn’t happening. It was being done by people other than Christopher to begin with, and it was cancelled for reasons that have nothing to do with this or any GTG product.
Are you going to start showing up every single time GTG puts out a product to complain it’s not Prime War? That’s going to get old. At least now I can block you, I guess, but I still would prefer you let up on the spamming.
I haven’t been here in months and prior to that only posted every few months pushng for a Prime War status update or creating posts to try and promote enthusiasm. But I’m the spammiest spammer whoever spammed. OK, bro. See ya.
Your last post before these was in the Freedom Five thread complaining that a different company making a product for their own reasons completely separate from GTG was still GTG going “ha ha” to Prime War fans. 
Pros:
Cons:
I definitely won’t buy the DE anytime soon, just because I’m already invested and won’t have spare money to throw around. And what I’ve seen so far of the mechanical changes I didn’t really approve of; I mostly think the old versions were better, and these adjustments don’t seem to be moving in the direction of what few changes I do think ought to be made.
Well, the Enhanced Edition is done. It ended with the OblivAeon expansion. GTG never had any plans for anything beyond that, and them making the Definitive Edition does not delay or cancel any Enhanced Edition content, because there never was going to be any more.
They had alluded to possibly doing a couple more mini expansions. Given what weird numbers of everything we have (37 heroes and 27 environments, plus however you count the villains), I was rather hoping they’d follow through on that thought.
Source? Because everything I’ve ever seen said they were done with Oblivæon.
The changing art (even within the same deck) is a stylistic choice to represent eight decades of Sentinel Comics publishing. You wouldn’t expect 1940s Legacy to look the same as late 2010s OblivAeon era when you have new artists.
At least that’s how I justify it. 
I don’t remember where I read things, I just know I read it at one point.
And yes, I know what the justification is for the new art, I just don’t agree.
I never heard anything of the sort, and would be quite surprised if they ever said that. They were very clear that there would be no more expansions after OblivAeon.