Thursday, May 19, 2005

Hold onto your hats...

I asked Kiddoc (Brian Mackey) about whether the Wizards designers were excited about Angelfire. His response follows...

Considering this set was over and finished back in early October, they've been absurdly busy with some really fascinating new concepts in sets way ahead, including some fundamental changes to the way the game is played.

It's going to be a great set, mostly because it's a glimpse of things to come. The addition of guys like Steven Schubert as an "out of the box" kind of resource that's very in-touch with the competitive and RPG environment has significantly improved the development process (not that it wasn't pretty damned impressive to begin with).

I think their current excitement about it will be directly proportional to player excitement about it. They've made a quality product, and gone a LONG way toward giving the players exactly what they want (You want mounted minis, okay; uncommon troll, okay; more tiny miniatures, okay; fey, okay; better LG pieces, okay; fewer evil pieces, okay; tons of large RPG-centered uncommons, okay, etc., etc., etc.). If I were a game designer, giving the players almost exactly what they've wanted would make me pretty damned excited.

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about Angelfire, because I have a feeling it will shake things up competitively, and because it has some great RPG minis I want. Also, it's the last set before Underdark, which I'm REALLY looking forward to.