Octopus Overlords

hepcat wrote:For those interested in Robinson Crusoe, z-man I saying it will be back in stock Friday at their site. Stores should have them soon after. I'm guessing they'll run out again quick though. Z-man likes to amp up demand through short runs...which is annoying.

Crap. Right before the holidays? No way I can bite.

I really wish CSI would allow preorders on reprints. With RC and Letters from Whitechapel both being expected this month I would like to bundle them in one order but RC isn't going to last a day in stock much less the couple weeks I need. There isn't really anything else I want except Tash Kalar and I think that is January.

CSI billed me for the Ogre preorder the day I ordered it. I didn't think they were supposed to do that.

Isgrimnur wrote:CSI billed me for the Ogre preorder the day I ordered it. I didn't think they were supposed to do that.

Likely because it will ship tomorrow. The release date is December 6.

I ordered it in September.

LordMortis wrote:We used to play Jutland in multiple rooms to accommodate the space needed, which was a huge pain. However, it wasn't a pain to set up. It just needed a lot of space.

To my memory, FASA's The Succession Wars was the biggest PitA to set up of any game I've ever played and we never finished a game so I can't even judge it it was worth it or not. I remember it seemed pretty cool.

Oh, Succession Wars was awesome! Fortunately that was back in Jr. High and high school when it was realistic to do sleep over parties to play crazy long games...

I'm pretty sure they charged me for some pre-order games back in September that didn't ship until late October.

I recently found out that they had bought up quite a few copies of the last run of Robinson Crusoe...then proceeded to sell them for triple the MSRP through their ebay store. While legal, I found that to be a rather dick move. That makes me think twice about using them in the future.

The guy that posted it at BGG deleted his post, and a lot of people seem to have pilloried him over it.

coopasonic wrote:I really wish CSI would allow preorders on reprints. With RC and Letters from Whitechapel both being expected this month I would like to bundle them in one order but RC isn't going to last a day in stock much less the couple weeks I need. There isn't really anything else I want except Tash Kalar and I think that is January.

I suspect CSI wasn't taking pre-orders because it'd look mighty weird to have outstanding orders while they had copies they were selling on Amazon for double MSRP (which they were until today. Earlier this week, they listed it at $200 on Amazon.)

CSI has always charged you when you order the game, whether it's out or not. If you order in-stock games and pre-orders, they also sit on the whole order until everything's in. I don't preorder from them for a few reasons.

I'm just hoping Amazon is able to get a few copies in. I'll be checking them regularly starting tomorrow in hopes I'll be able to grab one with the credit I have.

Isgrimnur wrote:The guy that posted it at BGG deleted his post, and a lot of people seem to have pilloried him over it.

I hadn't seen that post. This is the one I came across.

As I said, it's all legal I'm sure. But I reserve the right as a consumer to find that practice distasteful.

True enough. I'm not going to fault you for it.

Yes...yes you will. You'll blog it to the entire world. That's the start. Then you'll bully me like you've done so many other times. Eventually, you'll start ordering pizzas and having them sent to my apartment...PIZZAS WITH MUSHROOMS, which you KNOW I hate. It all ends when I open my door one day to find a mail order bride from the Ukraine standing there with my picture and a suitcase. A mail order bride who seems to think my name is "Chubbsy Wubbsy Willingham" or something.

If the ham isn't willing, what hope does the sausage have?

Isgrimnur wrote:If the ham isn't willing, what hope does the sausage have?

That is rather profound...and tasty at the same time.

Isgrimnur wrote:I ordered it in September.

Oh... I misunderstood. AFAIK, CSI charges me the moment I put in the pre-order. What gave you the impression is was supposed to not do that? Amazon.com doesn't, but Steam and other online retailers do.

hepcat wrote:I'm pretty sure they charged me for some pre-order games back in September that didn't ship until late October.

I recently found out that they had bought up quite a few copies of the last run of Robinson Crusoe...then proceeded to sell them for triple the MSRP through their ebay store. While legal, I found that to be a rather dick move. That makes me think twice about using them in the future.

That being said, they are doing what a lot of consumers do. While the post-release resale market is a bit extreme, to say the least, I myself have been guilty of marking up a promo or boxed game that I bought to make money. Hell, if I had the extra capital, I would have doubled up on some of the recent KS breakaway hits to "invest" in future gains.

Although one would think that CSI should just consider this "inventory," rather than squirreling away copies for high demand sales.

I'm used to the Amazon model on preodering vidya games, so that's likely the reason for my disconnect. I guess I just assumed there was some sort of rule about it.

baelthazar wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:I ordered it in September.

Oh... I misunderstood. AFAIK, CSI charges me the moment I put in the pre-order. What gave you the impression is was supposed to not do that? Amazon.com doesn't, but Steam and other online retailers do.

CSI has also always charged me the moment I put in a pre order and the hold shipping on the rest of the order until the pre order arrives. Lesson learned. Don't preorder from CSI

...

To hepcat, that was a dickhead move. It won't stop me from ordering there, but it sure will keep my from buying stuff that isn't on deep discount. I figure when I'm ordering from online price is all I really care about anyway. If I expect more than just looking for the best price, then I expect to fund a brick and mortar store whom I'll likely end up paying full retail.

hepcat wrote:For those interested in Robinson Crusoe, z-man I saying it will be back in stock Friday at their site. Stores should have them soon after. I'm guessing they'll run out again quick though. Z-man likes to amp up demand through short runs...which is annoying.

I think it's more that when Zev got $$ out of Agricola, he produced way too many games, so they cut back a ton. Now they are beginning to ramp up production again. I think the printing of Crusoe is under their control, so shortages shouldn't be so frequent.

Lorini wrote:

hepcat wrote:For those interested in Robinson Crusoe, z-man I saying it will be back in stock Friday at their site. Stores should have them soon after. I'm guessing they'll run out again quick though. Z-man likes to amp up demand through short runs...which is annoying.

I think it's more that when Zev got $$ out of Agricola, he produced way too many games, so they cut back a ton. Now they are beginning to ramp up production again. I think the printing of Crusoe is under their control, so shortages shouldn't be so frequent.

Saw a note on BGG that the games are stuck in customs, so it will be a while before they are available.

Ogre shipped on Tuesday, and is in town. However, I believe Fed Ex might not have sleighs to get it to me today.

Lorini wrote: I think the printing of Crusoe is under their control, so shortages shouldn't be so frequent.

Somehow I doubt it, considering that there's been a shortage for this game since they picked up the rights to publish it earlier this year.

I've not been impressed with them for about a year now due to problems with customer service and some decidedly rude encounters with their folks at conventions. They used to be very good. Hopefully it's just a "we grew too fast" situation and they'll acclimate.

If I were a small game designer/publisher, I'd probably do smallish runs too, unless I got commitments from distributors. I can't imagine the profit margin is huge, whereas the downside of having a ton of inventory that's not moving is.

At the same time the passion for most small games seems to be about a year. Except under rare Catanlike circumstances, if you don't maximize your Eurostyle game sales between GenCons or Essens, you're probably not doing yourself many favors by making your print runs too small with months between printings.

My BGG.con games played. I believe it's complete.

Yesterday I got up, tidied up a bit, then put on winter clothes to go outside and run some errands. Walked out the door, saw the snow piling up, immediately turned around and took off the winter clothes and replaced them with sweat pants and a sweatshirt, grabbed a beer and played Cuba Libre and Darkest Night all day.

SpaceLord wrote:My BGG.con games played. I believe it's complete.

So, have you won a game of Tash-Kalar yet?

Also, if I haven't mentioned it thanks for playing all of those games with me. I think I played a grand total of about 3 games that didn't include either yourself or Isgrimnur. Debilitating social anxiety and a board game convention of >2000 people is probably a bad combination.

Lords of Waterdeep on the iPad might as well be a crack dispenser. Just a warning/recommendation.

Had a busy gaming weekend with the group this weekend.

Started out with a seven player game of Shadows Over Camelot. The possibility of two traitors existed, and I drew one of the cards. I ended up moving around from the Picts, to the Saxons, dropping a card here and there. I then moved over to Excalibur, which always seems to be a spot to do nothing. The majority of the knights had sacrificed health down to two hit points when the card came out to lose a life or sacrifice a grail card. As the grail had just been recovered only one person had a grail so all but one knight went down to a single hp. Two cards later a seven witches card came out, and cost everyone a second life, killing five knights; leaving only King Arthur and I left. I had a a fate card in hand, revealed as the traitor, and Arther quietly submitted as there were already 11 catapults on the table.

We then moved on to Flash Point, and played the flip side of the original board with six players. We played the experienced route, with two of the first three explosions happening in the large bedroom. We do not play with the ability to change roles, so what you draw is your role. I was the fire truck driver, and my first two roles on the bedroom were no bueno, resulting in only being able to put out two fires. the bedroom was rocked by explosions and we lost a good 14 damage cubes in this area. We finally got things settled down, and had most fires under control. I believe we drew four false alarms in a row, and lost two victims to fire, but had rescued five victims. The imaging tech was escorting the 6th victim out, and the paramedic heading to the furthest victim, a final explosion lit up the hallway, resulting in 3 damage cubes being placed, and the building fall on our heads.

We then finished off with a three player game of Eldritch Horror. We had the Musician, The Soldier, and I was the old guy with the long beard. We were able to plow through two mysteries, before pulling up the reference manual and discover we were playing incorrectly. Instead of rounding up for Eldritch tokens, we were rounding down. Azathoth appeared the next turn, so we lost on easy mode, though the three of us did enjoy the game. I can see where the game may get repetitious if a group keeps attempting to beat the same ancient one over and over.

Looks like FedEx dropped my copy of Ogre at the front office last night, so if I can get home from my dentist appointment before they close, I might attempt to start figuring out what the hell I've done.

Ertic wrote:. I can see where the game may get repetitious if a group keeps attempting to beat the same ancient one over and over.

They took a page out of Robinson Crusoe and made the bosses into scenarios of a sort. Each one can change up the game quite a bit due to specific rules for that god. As long as they release expansions to play off this, I foresee this one being in my go to list for a while to come.

Expansions are FFG's bread and butter so I'm betting one will be announced shortly after the holidays even.

Isgrimnur wrote:Looks like FedEx dropped my copy of Ogre at the front office last night, so if I can get home from my dentist appointment before they close, I might attempt to start figuring out what the hell I've done.

You might start. I finished half, and I haven't had another 3 hours to finish punching everything out.

I didn't even crack the shipping box last night.

Getting the game out of the box alone takes an hour!

I took a day (literally) to punch and assemble mine.

Just a heads up for any Small World fans out there... if you missed out or didn't participate in the Small World 2 app Kickstarter project (which included rewards for the physical copy of the board game as well) it looks like they have some extras of the Royal Bonus, Leaders of Small World, and Necromancer Island they've put up for sale on their website:

http://blog.daysofwonder.com/2013/12/12 ... er-island/" target="_blank

Had a good crowd at my gaming group - with 4 games going simultaneously. Infamy, Power Grid, Agricola, Belfort and I played Pandemic and Alien Frontiers.

redrun, LordMortis, and myself played "Trains" last night. It is almost like Dominion with cards.

Great game though. It really is almost exactly like Dominion but the subtle little changes of adding the board and waste made it a much better game, imo.

Finished a 4-player game of Eldritch Horror earlier...we came pretty close to winning vs. Cthulu...but the Mythos Deck ran out right before we were able to finishe the 3rd mystery. So close, yet so far away!!

I've got a 5 player or more game of Eldrich Horror set to start in about 4 hours. Really looking forward to it!

Had great games of Caverna (Agricola II), Russian Railroads and Wildcatters! Playing Kohl & Kolonie today.

Lorini wrote:Had great games of Caverna (Agricola II), Russian Railroads and Wildcatters! Playing Kohl & Kolonie today.

Hey! Where did you get Caverna already?!