wallydubbs wrote:As much as I want to believe they'd finally publish the Dwarf and Wizard's quest packs, I just don't see Hasbro doing it. They've taken a very lazy approach to "fixing" the bugs of Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror. Part of me thinks, judging by the Barbarian and Elf quest packs, that the Wizard and Dwarf packs were "broken" either by continuity or unregistering spells, artifacts and quest maps.
The fact that they could throw together "Into the Northlands" so quickly, and the fact that they took time to iron out the main issues with Mage of the Mirror IN THE BOX proves to me that they are listening, they do care enough and they have enough talent to do it.
What parts of ATOH and WOM aren't playable out of the box right now? Sure, it might seem a little odd to be checking off boxes with a pencil on the quest book pages to track monster body points (instead of shoving skull tiles underneath the figure) but it's all right there. HeroScribe, a fan made project from years ago, lets you open up the quest in black and white and then translate it instantly into the color coding of the NA edition. No big budget needed for that, just photoshop or whatever they're using in-house (I wouldn't be shocked if they have something like HQuestbuilder already). I haven't played more than a handful of quests out of ATOH, but to my mind there are only a couple of possible tweaks needed apart from what Phoenix has already done with them... there are possibly two places where there is a serious risk of being "Trapped forever" from falling block traps (not such a problem in the EU original since even a toolkit could remove the fallen rocks after the fact just like pits... something you can't do in the NA edition). There are a myriad of different easy ways to bypass those issues (have Zargon force the hero to backtrack to the proper place when the rock falls, or make sure they get a Pass Through Rock Spell Scroll or Elven Cloak of Passage before that, or make the falling rock do damage but the rock "breaks" and doesn't have the permanent trapping effect perhaps. What else? They can mitigate the extreme difficulty by increasing the number of potions (ATOH already has a rule for giving you full BP restoring potions to start the adventure), gold or whatever. Another member pointed out that there are no cool artifacts to find in these adventures, not that the heroes really need such things at this point (if they have completed the GS, never mind KK and ROTWL, MOTM and FH... they should be tanks by now). Allow them to hire mercenaries (already present in WOM, and those could be beefed up to Frozen Horror stats, though that also means raising the prices a bit, though WOM gives plenty of opportunities to get cash or a discount on mercs)... maybe throw in some spell scroll random draws to fill those empty chests and stash a few inside the box with a new alchemist shop. A bit more work? Sure, but they've already set the precedent that you can visit alchemist shops from other expansions in the various packs you own so there would be very little work to do.
The quests (in AOTH and WOM) will be harder, because the EU edition had 1 BP Fimirs/Chaos Warriors/Gargoyles and Mummies. So what? Again, fans converted them over like twenty years ago for free and their work is easily seen, and a multi-billion dollar company can't do the same? I would find that hard to believe.
You might argue there are a few issues with the quest themselves (similar to EQP/BQP). A few unmarked chests in WOM and the "pit of darkness" icons are re-used in that latter pack but not explained (somebody forgot to copy and paste that text!).
It's one thing to say that Avalon Hill was being "lazy" by copying the old quests, errors and all into the new format. But I think they did this purposely because they thought that the nostalgia was so strong that nobody would WANT any changes, forgetting that EQP/BQP were very rare back in the day, and so while the idea of owning them still excited many players, most had no idea how broken they really were. Now that they're aware of the issue (and here they could turn to European fans who actually played them) they can deal with it.
We discussed this in our discord and the idea that somehow the Dread spells that we'd get in these new quests would be "confusing" because they have the same names as some of the Game System Dread Spells doesn't really phase me. We already have two "potions of speed" that are totally different. Yes, they renamed the "Potion of Restoration" to "Superior Restoration" but anyway, the evil Wizard spells are each specifically coded to a certain boss bad guy in their own "suit" so all you have to do is look at the card to know what it is. Some people over think things, like those who wonder if the Warlock should be able to use the Wizard's spells (when the card only says they can use the same equipment and artifacts).
This isn't to say that whatever the ideas were couldn't be fixed, but judging by the laziness put into these restored versions, I don't see Hasbro trying.
In conjunction with that, the terms "Barbarian Quest Pack" and "Quest Pack for the Elf" were removed from the new releases, thus by extension removing the implication of character based expansion packs.
They could have reasoned that the person buying it (remember, the general public of potential customers who are adults nostalgic about the original HeroQuest who might see this have not actually played them, by and large--- ask anyone who even owned these back in the day, did they actually play through all the quests? I have yet to hear about any who actually did in those days) might assume these adventures were ONLY for that hero (like a series of 10 solo quests for the barbarian or something). They might have thought calling them "Quest Pack for the [Hero]" also sounded even more like that rather than the HeroQuest everybody loved.
Even so, each of the four themed packs had its own subtitle, so it's not like they'd even have to try to come up with new names for them. Incidentally, Frozen Horror was originally known as "Barbarian Blades."
If they could bother to finish and release Dwarf and Wizard Packs... why would they be "too lazy" to make some small tweaks to Against the Ogre Horde and Wizards of Morcar (or Dark Company or any of the others) to make them playable? That I don't understand. HeroQuest has proven itself now. These aren't crowd funded campaigns where we might or might not get certain features if only enough people pledge in a month or two. I think they held off changing things not just because it was "easier" but because they were afraid of a backlash if they trode on someone's nostalgia. Since the vast majority of fans had NOT played EQP/BQP and gotten so entrenched, any backlash from changes would be minimal. Other than Amalgamash (and I love the guy's work, he's cool), who was upset that Mage of the Mirror contained changes from the 1992 version? I got almost everything I wanted changed in that one! (and it wasn't my doing, those issues have been known for decades in the community). No again I just think they didn't understand and so there wasn't time to fix Frozen Horror until after the fact.
I could be wrong and I hope I am; perhaps I'm just pessimistic about Hasbro since they've already crushed my original expectations. But even if they were to release another Broken expansion, I feel I'm a creative enough Zargon to fix it for my own groups. But I'm not gonna build up my hopes. But it wouldn't surprise me if they remake Against the Ogre Hoard or Wizard's of Morcar/Zargon.
The pessimists should let their thoughts be known. I recall during the Pledge Pulse campaign being told that I should just accept the fact that HeroQuest was NEVER coming back to retail, because "that's not how Hasbro does it." That pulse exclusives REMAIN exclusive. Boy were they wrong, and I'm so glad. But if nobody had said anything, might it not have happened? There was enough awareness on the part of Avalon Hill that they were able to feed that info to whichever higher ups needed to know and they saw there was enough demand to do the retail version and thank goodness. We might not be talking about the remake still today without that, as it would just be some rare thing that scalpers were selling on the internet for absurd amounts like that Card game or something (or the *cough* Guardian Knights... still).
Scalpers were be very upset very soon, we were told, and now we know why. So while we should make sure to watch them closely and tell them the instant they step out of line, I think there is a bright future ahead for HQ, so long as they get their crap straightened out with their other fantasy franchises (and don't dare try to pull that stuff with us!).
Bottom line, yes, I agree that Zargon at his table can fix anything with his imagination and experience, and there's nobody better equipped to do that than communities of fans like we have here and at our discord servers and facebook and reddit groups. Those fan ideas will filter out into the internet. But yes, for the sake of the much greater number of kids who won't necessarily become part of our community for awhile, the games SHOULD be as complete in the box at retail upon release as possible. So I'm not saying "release it broken." I think if they could handle EQP/BQP they can handle ATOH/WOM, as compared to the latter two, these new ones should be a cakewalk. Who knows, maybe we'll get them both in the same box (or else as smaller boxes, assuming they don't add any new features... that's another thing, if people are willing to buy two minis and 12 cards, surely they'd be willing to buy what came in those sets!).
by wallydubbs » January 20th, 2023, 2:52 pm 
= white skull, one "hit"
= black skull, one "hit"
= shield, cancels out one "hit"
