Comments on: The RPS Cup: Blood Bowl Campaign Diary Intro

By: Serondal

Serondal — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:26:52 +0000

The fact is they probably do use rand()

By: BookieGnu

BookieGnu — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:38:47 +0000

@Sunjammer re: dice rolls. I haven’t played this yet, but based on many a late night real life game of Risk, at the most crucial point of a game, when you need a 2 with any of 3 dice to hold a crucial continent, 3 dice showing 1 is amazingly common, so what you describe doesn’t sound out of place to me :p

By: EyeMessiah

EyeMessiah — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:29:29 +0000

I win at getting banned.

By: Sunjammer

Sunjammer — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:36:50 +0000

Also, this is 99% probably me just whining, but i don’t trust their random number generator haha. I’ve had series of games where long strings of absolute successes or absolute fails were the norm, like situatios where three rerolls all result in ones, only to be followed by another situation resulting in another two ones.

I hope to dear god almighty in space that i’m wrong and they haven’t just run the dice rolls off of rand() or some other such shite. In this game a fair dice roll is literally the foundation of things.

By: Sunjammer

Sunjammer — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:28:33 +0000

So, slightly adjusted opinion after playing it for a good few hours with various teams and in various modes:

Cyanide has done utterly unforgivable shit to this game.

The underlying boardgame is a lot of fun, but honestly, there’s menu and interface stuff going on that honestly blows my mind. My favorite so far is the pre-match dialog where you, for some reason, have to move money from your coffers to a “petty cash” box that you can spend on one-time bonuses. The money field is a blank box that turns out to be a text field you *type numbers into*, and the dialog options are “yes” and “no”. Which does what? Sometimes, hitting “no” with no value in the text field results in all my money being moved. Sometimes. Why this dialog is there in the first place? No idea.

The game offers a parody of a tutorial. Every team has its own special units, and neither the game nor the manual bothers explaining which units are important for what role. The goblin team in particular is utterly confounding without putting in time for a few games of experimenting.

In fact, “experimenting” is the name of the game here. After several hours of play there are still buttons i have absolutely no idea what are, due to lacking tooltips and poor iconography.

The commentators have about 20 spoken lines that repeat about a million times too often every single match, load times are abysmal.

Let’s not talk about the hilarity of trying to scroll the dice roll log window. It’s just batshit crazy that this shit gets through QA.

Yet in spite of this, i keep coming back to it. Argh.

What i’m trying to say is that i feel pissed off that i have to put up with this infantile bullshit design to get at a fundamentally brilliant game. It almost feels like extortion to a certain extent; i really don’t think Cyanide deserves the full price i paid for this product, but with no alternative in sight, what can i do? Not play Blood Bowl? Unfathomable!

Guhh. I think people should be warned that while the underlying game is sound, the wrapping is an amateurish mess.

By: Gabanski83

Gabanski83 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:10:39 +0000

Also on Play.com for £24.99, release date says 18th September.

By: Gabanski83

Gabanski83 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:07:37 +0000

Get it on Steam or Gamersgate even, Cyanide, at a decent price too (none of the £40 for a digital download bollocks) and you shall have my money. Simple as that. Right now though, no way.

By: Gothnak

Gothnak — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:22:53 +0000

Awesome, awesome game… My Chaos team is one tourney away from taking on the Blood Bowl cup with a team rating of 2800. A Minotaur with Tentacles and 6 strength is not a nice creature to start next to. I also have a 1700 rated Lizardmen team, still not getting the whole running or passing teams, i just want to kill people!

By: Tzarkahn

Tzarkahn — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:08:38 +0000

Excellent, it seems I was quick to ask and slow to research.
I think I shall buy it in a shop or e-shop environment.

If only it was on steam and I could just click away and be one with it in an instant.

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:05:25 +0000

Tzarkahn: It’s worth waiting for a retail relase. The full-price digital download is really a bit on the pricey side.

By: Theoban

Theoban — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:02:34 +0000

@Tzarkahn seems to be the 18th in Europe and UK. You terrible human being, you.

By: Tzarkahn

Tzarkahn — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:59:19 +0000

I a little confused, hope someone can clarify this for me.

Is the Game out, as in retail/live?
If yes is this US only currently?
Or are people using a Beta version or something similar?

I really want to play it, get a few people together and have a go but I am a little, nay a lot confused. Sorry for my seemingly bovine ignorance but the official sites FAQ is coming soon and I’m taking a look at what I can but you lot seem more knowledgeable.