by Reid666
realnewton wrote:
Reid666 wrote:
Excellent reply, I agree that small issues mentioned by the reviewer are small and easy to resolve.
hehehe... The point is that paying 40€ for a card game I would expect not to have the need of solving anything. :p
You really don't have to solve anythink. They are vary small thing's that most people can live with. At least I can, my friends too! I agree that price point is a bit to high, but only a bit. I would call it expensive rather than overpriced.
Reid666 wrote:
1.Price point - it's a bit high, but I think it's offset by amount of plays you can get from this. This is a game that you can play with many different people, casula nad non-gamers. I bet it will hit table much more often than a big and more expensive heavy-weight game, like Descent or Mage Knight. If you play a lot with casual gamers the price per game will be very low. If you wan't top play it only few times a year, then it's bad investment.
Good point but replayability is not excuse for overpricing. The price of a game should be set by the cost of printing, components, delivery and general idea. The point is that there are games around that you pay for marketing and general idea (and more for the first one). Something moves in my guts when I think that two 7W almost allows me to buy a Twilight Imperium. Many games scale brutally well in number of players and game difficulty at a less price. So, why is 7W so pricy? In my opinion, marketing + hype.
As you said, general idea is part of the price. But this general idea is usually followed by months of design and playtesting. The replayability is consequence of good design and development, so I think it's worth a few bucks.
And it also disturbs me a bit that I paid for 7 Wonders, both expansion and Catan promo almost the same I would have to pay for Runewars with tons of figs, boards, tokens and cards. But after that I realize that I've already played 150+ games of 7W. If I bought Runewars it would propably be played only few times, if ever :(
Reid666 wrote:
2.Box size - that's just marketing. And many people will apreciate that you can repack game into into small compact box if you wish.
That's exactly what I was saying. After overpaying a game I still have to work in order to make it fit in my shelves...? No way! :arrrh:
Different point of view:
After 2 expansions released, 2 promo wonders and 2 more expansions announced, I appreciate that I can store everything in base box (1st ed with paper insert, in case of new box you have to throw insert away to fit everything)
Reid666 wrote:
3.Table space - many other games take a lot of table space, especially ones with a lot of elements. I take it as characteristic of some games. With some effort you can manage to squeize most cards under the wonder board. We often play 4p on a 60x60cm coffe table.
Cool man! I know many industries that will pay for such optimization abilities. :p In any case, I don't care about table consuming games. That's something I like, but if it is not at a cost of disorder increasing. Somehow that's the feeling I always had when playing: F**k! This is a mess! :D
Yes, it can be messy, but after I give my friend some tips how to organize their cards, they get better and better at this, but for some it's still a challenge. It depends on people, but generally: the more you play the game, the better you know the game, then it's easier to keep everything in order.
Reid666 wrote:
4.2-player variant - well, it works well. Thats all I can say, it's harder, more complicated, more confusing, more cuthroat and yea it's a bit awkward. It just makes game more heavy, some people don't like it, some love it.
Robot players work better for some games, and worse for others. In 7W I didn't like it a lot. For me it is a game for 3+ players, range in which it works really well. Somehow, the feeling I had is that it was a patch for putting a 2 in the number of players and sell more.
Propably it was a patch, as it isn't mentioned on my box (1st). But it doesn't change that after you get used to it, it works pretty well. At the beginning it gave made some headache because I was overwhelmed with options and decisions. After few plays it shows it's advantages: more options, more control and a bit more strategy. You pull of some very nasty tricks on your opponent if you manipulate Free City very well.
Reid666 wrote:
And think that review that focused only on negatives points (and especially very minor ones) is a bad review. That's all.
Of course it is focused only in the negative points. That was the main purpose! To expose them! That's the thing that non-Spanish speakers cannot get from the review. It is explained at the very beginning that there are many reviews about 7W explaining mainly the good points. My idea was doing exactly the opposite. So the focus IS the negative points. Of course! So I think it is a "wonder"ful review! :D
I trust that this was your intention, but I think that reception is quite different. For me your review boils down to:
7 Wonders is overated, overhyped and overpriced card game with complete lack of content, sold in oversized box. It's not a terrible game but there are many better and cheaper games that have more to offer. At it's current prize point it's jus a big moneygrab.
and you added some side rant about some extremely minor downsides of the game to fill in the space.
I know you said this wasn't your intention, but that's how it reads.
Maybe few more sentences describing positive aspects of game and omission of some really forced negatives ( like being only a card game makes it
a worse game overall), would make it a better and less biased review.
Reid666 wrote:
And about all this praise and awards and great reviews and fanboys and stuff like that. You have to realize that every game has it's target audience. And rewards should reflect how good the game is for its audience. You can't easily compare Ticket to Ride, Chess, Magic the Gathering, Mage Knight and Panzer General using the same criteria, they are games for different people/groups. So, 7 Wonders is light game, party game, casual game with some strategic/tactical depth. It's a game for people that want something more complicated than TtR, Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan, yet still quite easy to learn and accessible. It's not the best game of all times, but it may one of the best for its target audience...
I never said the opposite. I just say that there is no need to blindly believe (talking about possible buyers) that a game is good just because all that you said. There are negative sides of these games, and it seems that nobody stress them openly. That's what I did, and it does not make it a bad review for that. I think that it is even more valuable than all those "ooh! yes Kennerspiel des Jahres yes a lot of prizes yes it is wonderful" etc...
Maybe the reason why nobody or very few people stress them is that most of the negative sides you mentioned are very minor or nonexistant for majority of target audience?
Some of them aren't aven negetive sides, they are characteristics:
1. Being a card game only? Magic:The Gathering is only a card game and is enjoyed by thousands (if not milions) of people all over the world.
2. Not so original? It combines some elements know from other games in a novel way. It's an interesting combination of mechanisms. I would say that as a whole it is quite original when compared to other popular card games. You may think different ... But many great and most popular games are just a recombination and refinement of past ideas.
Some have upsides and downsides:
3. Box size - it's bad when you have only base game, with expansion it starts to be an upside
Some connected with learning curved and knowledge of game:
5&6. Messy and unclear - before you get to know the game it's like that. You have to know game for everything to be clear. I think it's valid for many board and card games in general. Maybe exept the simplest.
And you have 2 more or less valid points:
4. 2 player variant - it has many downsides and can be confusing for new players. It also has some upsides. It wasn't called expert in the rules without a reason...
7. Expensiveness - yes, a bit. But it depends on people, what they value: amount of content, amount of fun, quality of gameplay. At the same price you can buy a game with a lot of content and almost unplayable or very mediocre at best.
Last thing:
Ciertamente. Pero creo que hay muchos otros juegos también accesibles, (muchos de ellos de cartas), con diversas formas de ganar, muy escalables tanto en jugadores como en profundidad estratégica, que son más baratos, ocupan menos y se les ha prestado menos atención que a 7W.
Could you point me to some examples?