A Hasbro Level Scandal

[@adamglenen734]

Man Heroscape fans cannot catch a break

[@Garenex]

Right?

[@gandalflotr2898]

That's what happens when you have fascist in the higher up

[@Rodfather_Prime]

Man, I hope my designs didn’t get destroyed 😑. I’ve worked on everything Scape since wave 3, this is the first time I’ve been on the outside looking in. I’m cool with that and I suppose I could have applied to be a play tester, but I was looking forward to AOA being my last hurrah and being able to contribute one last time to the community. Fingers crossed it’s not as bad as it seems. Skyknight

[@tabletopbro]

Your designs went to a farm upstate.

[@Rodfather_Prime]

@@tabletopbro thanks for making it all ok 🤣

[@RA10H56]

Just found your channel today! The other day me and my 4 brothers and one nephew played a massive free for all battle! Love heroscape, great family fun!

[@tabletopbro]

Wholesome af

[@markpandelidis2079]

I dunno, take the customs makers a bit with a grain of salt, I personally don't like the way most customs have been made because they don't follow the same format or the wording is unnecessarily convoluted and complicated. I prefer remaking the original cards to balance them properly and then adding new additions and actually if I was Renegade, that's what I'd be doing. I'd be rebranding all the original stuff to resell to the community because alot of the later waves are so rare that they're stupid expensive. So you can get your classic late gen figures for easy sales and then rework alot of the originals to balance them and plug in your new stuff. I don't need the customs or the people who made them's input. If they're real fans of the game, they'll put their ego aside and drop their customs to go back to a fully licensed game.

[@grottoguru6473]

Honestly same. I've never been interested in the custom stuff.

[@grottoguru6473]

I'm not defending Renegade or assuming what they are making is good; however, the customs people have been playing with a forgotten toy for over a decade and now the (new) owner has come back to play with it. It really seems like a case of the customs people needing to learn to share what isn't even theirs. From what I've seen, the customs people have quite the ego so I could easily see them freaking out during playtesting and acting like they have a legitimate say in development outside of consumer feedback.

[@YourBroTekk]

thank you so much for making this video, and every other video you've made in the past about Heroscape. this game has made me and a lot of other people much joy and happiness. i just ordered myself a bunch of HS stuff on ebay and cant wait to jump back into this amazing game. so many memories and good times will be relived. and its all because of your videos that helped me finally decide to take the time to get back into it. you are a HERO in my eyes good sir. keep on keeping on and happy new year !

[@tabletopbro]

I’m printing this and framing it

[@lefton4ya]

I’m the Heroscape Reddit mod (LeftOn4ya) that took the thread down. I was asked by a Renegade playtester (note not an official representative) to remove it. I probably should have left it up but thought maybe eventually Renegade legal might take action.

[@TalesofValhalla]

That is interesting.

[@chuganoga1908]

I mean… the games been dead for a long while. Sure there are those who genuinely enjoy the game and keep it going in our little circles (myself included) but let’s not act like we don’t need them to bring it back again in some way. The game totally needs that. Just sucks from the looks of these allegations.

[@heroesofthescape]

Not taking a side, but I feel like "customs council" may be a little full of themselves. I feel like they're upset they won't be able to control the game anymore. They themselves have said that their customs are not fully compatible with the classic game. Why do they get upset when the new creators do the same thing? That is pure elitist attitude that they have been showing for years. It's always their way or nothing. Why do you think there are so many customs groups. They all want control over the direction of the game. When you look at AH's version of AoA there was little compatibility with the existing units also. Why is it surprising that the new rights holders want to go their own direction? Look at any game that changes hands and you will see the do their own thing.

[@CookJonathanD]

Thanks for the breakdown! I saw the initial post but was hard to keep up.

[@tabletopbro]

I’mdoingmypart.jpg

[@anarchistbunny3339]

i want this game to be officially alive again for everyone else to enjoy. but not like this.... HeroScape is my childhood game. ive been playing since i was 6 and now hearing all of this really makes me sad for the future of the game... always enjoy the videos man, keep em coming!

[@tabletopbro]

Let’s hope they listen to the consumer🤷🏻‍♂️

[@andrewofaiur]

You are like my two childhood loves combined into a youtuber: heroscape and maplestory. Would've definitely been good friends if we knew each other in real life

[@bobvecna1012]

I was really looking at getting back in to HS and have all my original series stuff. But, I've had enough of giving money to people who just don't care. If half that stuff is true, I'll just keep the memories.

[@tabletopbro]

The community is still thriving! Get involved in your local scene it’s fun!

[@chuganoga1908]

Yeah I mean if the games fun I’ll get it I mean it is HS but yeah that sounds bad.

[@1teamski]

Wow, I had no clue that Heroscape was supposed to make a come back! I still have my huge Heroscape collection and will never let it go.......

[@FlutesLoot]

What an unsavory kerfuffle!

[@tabletopbro]

The worst kinda of kerfuffles

[@johnhartsock5352]

It makes no sense to me that they scrapped the work by the war council. They were handed units that were near final and balanced with the old units by basically the world’s top experts on designing balanced Heroscape units. All I can imagine is that they are doing redesigns specifically to avoid synergy with old units so that new players have a clean entry point, but that is still very disappointing. At least we might get some new figures that are pre-painted and correctly scaled, even if we have to print our own cards with the original stats. Hopefully they will shift course or the rumors have been exaggerated.

[@tabletopbro]

So dumb from a business decision. I guess they think they’re future proofing it and they plan to invest hard in acquiring new players rather than catering to the old community?

[@JOECRAZY3193]

Once again reporting well done 💪🏻. Enjoyed the watch! Looking forward to March 1st. 🤞🏻that what we do get as of models stay the same and if anything the powers and stats are at bare minimum decent.

[@tabletopbro]

I think the models are too expensive to change tbh. Let’s hope the stats and such are balanced

[@Genesis19-26]

Welcome back! Hopefully everything gets resolved, there's still time for them to change before march

[@tabletopbro]

Thanks! And March is just the announcement + preorders. There’s still time

[@waynekautzer913]

Bottom line: we're getting a bunch of great, pre-painted miniatures for which we can print out the original (version 1.0) cards + we're getting terrain! Sparkly water and maybe some lava field tiles? Hoping for 21-space lava and snow tiles!

[@tabletopbro]

I like the optimism!

[@crowchant9917]

I'm just concerned they don't seem interested in respecting the old units when balancing. I guess we'll see when they actually release, but I worry they won't reward long time players :'( But I appreciate you bringing this to light. I saw the original reddit post, and I agree we should discuss this as a community. If the allegations aren't true then Renegade should say as much. Hiding it just makes everything sus like you said

[@tabletopbro]

That seems to be the vibe -- they don't give a hoot about what was done before and have zero desire to balance anything.

[@KevinBeckman]

You shall not pass!!!!

[@tabletopbro]

TJE BEACONS ARE LIT

[@KevinBeckman]

@@tabletopbro the eagles are coming!

[@KevinBeckman]

You smoke too much, Pippin.

[@KevinBeckman]

Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!

[@mt.libertybell9250]

My thoughts: Even if this new master set isn't up to OUR standards, we certainly shouldn't want this to be dead on arrival. There are people who have never heard of/played Heroscape, and this can be the gate for them to have the fun exciting experience that we had years ago playing this game. I want more people to have that feeling.

[@ckclau3422]

Yes, my friend is part of the play testers and he swore me to silence but I can confirm this is accurate 😢

[@salpygidis]

Let's go Source! XD

[@Jovanny_pcpp]

As a not heroscape fan for 1000 years because I ain't old lol I bought into the og age of annihilation campaign and I did that because I saw them play it on KZbin and show off what the different units did and they seemed very fun And if Renegade is just throwing all that away, then im just not getting their heroscape set, I have zero investment in the heroscape name, and they are already ruining it

[@TH3SHUR1F]

And here I am just buying up OG parts off eBay when I see a good deal… 👀 Look how they’re massacring our boi

[@tabletopbro]

God I love buying up OG parts off eBay when I see a good deal

[@bishopscatacomb9217]

Companies lately from comics to RPG’s have taken this tactic of screw the fan they will buy it or else never works long term. Companies view fans like entry level jobs. They rely on turnover, in fact encourage it because the fan who has everything buys less and less. They are banking not on you but Joe new guy coming in and buying everything oblivious to the past. I see it with WotC and GW all the time. Even franchises like Star Wars do this. Sadly, it seems to partially work. Until it doesn’t.

[@tabletopbro]

There’s no long term vitality in that. But who cares about long term vitality when next quarter’s numbers need to be up

[@BenDeHart]

You are on the bleeding edge of heroscape journalism

[@tabletopbro]

The lead designer of the previous relaunch attempt called me a journalist🤓

[@VikingVern7]

I don't want to wait years for them to playtest new heroscape, with tons of old, hard to find, expensive, used stuff on ebay. I didn't catch where exactly its implied they are gutting avalon hills designs? So, some prolly overworked, heart and soul employees got their feelings hurt, by a bunch of invited individuals all with different opinions, big whup. Point values can be fine-tuned pretty well in HS but there's enough dice randomness for casual players have kind of a range for things to not be perfect but seem to balance well enough. We should all sit down, eat our veggies then go help the release of new heroscape be the best that it can be, for a long and productive future. Maybe they could have updated card print offs as things get fine-tuned over time if it really comes down to it. OR I'm sure work will begin by the diehard community to incorporate the new stuff into delta point values for tournaments as soon as they can anyway. I just realized this was a month ago. Were there any developments from this?

[@kingerikthegreatest.ofall.7860]

I hope it doesn’t suck.

[@Foudzing]

Sick Einar cap!

[@tabletopbro]

Best Christmas present ever

[@Colorcrayons]

Counterpoint: What is the point of being a playtester if you think that the feedback you give is the end all be all of how a design should be? While if you have a lot of respected designers helping playtest, their feedback should be given due consideration, but they claim it wasn't, and how can they tell, besides the next iteration not reflecting their demands exactly? Claiming that group was abusive frankly tracks with my experience in dealing with many egos I see on Heroscapers, and the faster any game company that wants to seriously make profit should run from that collective toxicity as fast as their NDA's will take them. Sorry, but I have been on all sides of this from other projects, and this debacle is all based on a fracture of trust because of NDA's being broken, since, again quite believably, a bunch of petulant boomers whined that they didn't get their way, exactly the way they wanted it, exactly when they wanted it. I take NDA's seriously, and those who don't respect it don't deserve any themselves. They aren't leaking out of good faith, and it is obvious. Renegade may very well be producing a garbage product. Thats on them as publishers/ But we all saw how the community reacted to D&D and later Arena of the Planeswalkers, and the diapers from those temper tantrums still stink.

[@tabletopbro]

This is a super fair assessment of the situation!

[@kryz9648]

Boomers? 60+ year olds are playing this game?

[@grottoguru6473]

Very fair points here.

[@LeMayJoseph]

Keep spreading the word.

[@MisterFizzer]

This smacks of misalignment of expectations around playtesting, and a lot of emotions driving things to typical, less-nuanced, ends. It sounds like this situation was handled poorly, but all we have to go on is an anonymous reddit post, taken down on behalf of the mods who wanted to not spread potentially NDA-breaking information, and Lee Houff NOT saying things that confirm or deny accusations, while they escalate things internally. It just sounds like a small design team inside a company experiencing communication issues, dude. I've seen it before in other playtesting I've done, and it's never malicious. Reposting things to Facebook or KZbin to drive engagement with a "scandal" isnt going to help communication. The spin of "the company needs the community" isnt journalism, it's punditry.

[@tabletopbro]

An anonymous Reddit post that multiple people who’ve been in contact with playtesters say is true. I’m sure the questionable design decisions are because they want to make what they feel is the best game possible, and while I don’t agree with the decisions, there’s nothing objectively terrible there. Firing an entire playtesting team because they criticized your designs is poor form. Renegade has a firm “we don’t allow anything remotely negative to be discussed in our discussion spaces” so I could totally see this (it’s also been confirmed by multiple people who’ve spoken with playtesters). Even though it takes a while to get to it, Scott did a solid job responding to the community’s concern a month ago (which I covered :p) and so I foresee them saying something in the following weeks. I am a pundit.

[@MisterFizzer]

@@tabletopbro I didn't mean to say you claimed to be a journalist, I just see many other comments here applying the title to you, and I felt the need to push back a bit. I look forward to when Renegade are back from their holiday break so this can all get sorted out. 💜

[@ryguyplaysgames]

Lots of confusion around the situation. I can clear up some of it. The mods were not contacted by Renegade to take down the posts. The reason the posts were taken down by mods was because they understood that this information didn’t change anything for Renegade and only made things worse for the playtesters. Most people agreed that the post was a huge mistake, and that’s why the mods tried to “suppress the information.” It’s a headache for Renegade but a potential legal pitfall for all the playtesters now implicated for a breach of NDA by this post. Whether the information is true or not won’t matter to Renegade when they are investigating. Unfortunately, the Reddit mods were too slow and some short sighted individuals were determined to drag it out into the public without thinking about the consequences for those playtesters. And, of course, without even considering the most likely possibility, which is that this is a 15yo troll absolutely owning us. Sorry for the book in a KZbin comment section lol, but I figured for anyone watching that this might help give some perspective and hopefully unite the community a little better. Remember, the community kept this game strong, and this problem is all Renegade’s now. Well done on getting the video out so fast, looking forward to Renegade’s response, if any. P.S. Nice hat! It’s always so cool to see my merch out in public!

[@tabletopbro]

Nah the post wasn’t a mistake. Whistleblowing this shady shit was the right move. They need to feel public pressure and be reminded that they need the community, the community doesn’t need them. Whoever’s responsible needs to know this isn’t okay and keeping quiet doesn’t fix that

[@ryguyplaysgames]

Way to stay positive! I personally am looking forward to 2032 which may be the next time a company is able to competently and ethically make more Heroscape. The game will live on just fine in the meantime ❤

[@robkino6137]

I can smell the boot leather on your breath through this comment.

[@LeMayJoseph]

Told you ages ago Renegade was wack. Ever since they sent a C&D to the owners of a Kickstarter for an RPG called “Renegade City” just for using the word “Renegade” in the title of their game.

[@DiscoBarbarian]

if you produce garbage and people tell you this, it's not abuse.

[@tabletopbro]

💯

[@Leotheanimal87]

If KZbin takes this video down it will be extremely sus 👀

[@tabletopbro]

THEY HAVE NO POWER HERE

[@brentm9848]

This take didnt age well

[@tabletopbro]

I’m glad they went back on it

[@JeffWittyArt]

this isnt surprising at all. Renegade is straight trash. I pre-ordered the transformers game with all the perks and only got parts of the exclusive books i paid for.

[@tabletopbro]

The lawsuit of theirs wasn’t great either

[@skywhale8214]

I'm going to buy VC stuff anyways, so I would love if those members had a say in official stuff too 😅 But if it came down to buying other hexes, I'd rather print

[@tabletopbro]

Fair!

[@nicksnyder6370]

Delta points will balance them

[@waynekautzer913]

That's what I've been saying! 👍

[@AndrewGarrett_LordTubtub]

Dang! If you can't take feed back from the people who have been keeping this alive for 13 years without you then clearly you don't understand your target audience. People are weird yo. Thanks for making content for us.

[@nicksnyder6370]

"Karen"scape lol

[@gridlock6464]

First ✌️

[@chadparris8892]

Second!