Tainted Grail Kings of Ruin - The HUGE Unboxing

[@twixcz604]

Yes, I loved your rule sheets about a decade ago and you are still active. WOW

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

@@twixcz604 I hope you still love my rules sheets now because I'm still making them! 🤣 Check out the website for them all.

[@KevinoftheCosmos]

The way boardgames are progressing is simply jawdropping. I would have never imagined this wealth and quality 10 years ago.

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

It's certainly come a long way since I started gaming in 1978!

[@KevinoftheCosmos]

@@EsotericOrderGamers whoa, talk about being a veteran!

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

🤣

[@jorisweyen7934]

Just backed their Lands of Evershade crowdfunding and went a bit wild with the deluxe options. Never before have I spend so much money on a boardgame so I became unsure of the quality. This presentation of their previous work does convince me I shall greatly enjoy my purchase (which most likely will arrive in late 2026 :p)

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

Their quality level is always pretty exceptional.

[@marcinolczak9603]

This is amazing, so epic

[@MacScelaro]

Anyway you could do a comparison of the journals? I am so curious how the deluxe journal compares to the base journal

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

I'll keep that in mind for my next video on the game.

[@Eric-f4b]

Do you have massive hands? Your hands is way bigger than the squares on that playmat. And those squares are for the location cards, which are tarot cards. They looked tiny compared to your hand. I hope they have not misprinted the mat. Maybe it's your camera playing tricks 🤔

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

Actually, I've been told I have quite artistic, slender hands! 😆 But I checked, and discovered the spaces are just a tiny bit too small - by about a millimetre on the long side and a millimetre and a half on the short side. Not a dealbreaker, but a bit annoying. Publishers always seem to forget that you don't get exact distances when printing on neoprene, and to allow for that.

[@endlessphantasy14]

Manbearpig bonanza.

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

Not sure what you mean there, but that's OK. 🤣

[@Nazgull2k1]

All that for a game you'll play once.. maybe twice.. and then it rots on the shelf till your wife makes you stick it on ebay. :D

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

Well I'm very sorry that happens in your house - 'cause it doesn't in mine. 🤣

[@MacScelaro]

Games like this get played about once a year if I find them truly amazing. I just wait long enough to forget half the story and then play with new characters or in a new way depending on the game. It is just like reading a good book but way more fun and interactive.

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

@@MacScelaro Cool. Everyone likes different things from their gaming, and there's a game for every mood! That's one of the things I love about the hobby.

[@05insomnium]

Big fan of AW’s games but I got really bummed out by their use of Midjourney and other AI-art software, which has been trained on copyrighted material. Do you have any opinions on AI art? Genuinely curious and not trying to kick up a storm. For myself, I understand AI tools are already integrated in tonnes of software and have been for a long time. However, software trained in copyrighted material and then used in these expensive board game productions leaves me with a really bad taste. I feel like all of their art has suffered for it and regressed to this “painterly” style which is really easy for AI to emulate and produce. You can even see where they simply touch up the art over the top. Bit disappointing in my eyes.

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

There's a statement from Awaken here which is interesting: www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1c3by3t/awaken_realms_statement_on_the_usage_of_ai_art/ I do have relatively strong opinions on AI art. I think that it's unacceptable to use AI art in a finished game product, and it will be until there's some way to ensure that artists are fairly compensated for the creativity that AI steals from. How that will happen, I don't know, it's early days yet for this new tech, which like it or not is here to stay. I've been through several tech revolutions myself (I was traditionally trained as a graphic designer before computers completely changed the industry) and there are always seismic growing pains associated with them. Awaken's statement is understandably a bit ambiguous, but it appears they employ a decent stable of artists. I (very rarely) use AI myself occasionally for personal things like scene-setting pictures when I play RPGs, or even more rarely for rough prototype images for games I'm working on (in other words, things I would never employ an artist for). I probably shouldn't even support the engines even in that regard, but let's face it, they are here to stay. In short, I agree, it's very disappointing when publishers use AI for a commercial project to replace an artist, and I wouldn't be involved in a professional graphic design project with a company that did.

[@05insomnium]

@@EsotericOrderGamers these programs totally have their uses and are indeed not going anywhere. I think the ambiguity bugged me a lot with AW’s statement, they didn’t really admit to using stable diffusion programs for final art, which is what they have been doing for the past several games. I think it’s important to continue to have conversations around these topics in the tabletop space! Appreciate your insights from the position of a long-time graphic designer. Rarely are these things black and white. I’m really hoping we can develop ethical ways of using such technology, that doesn’t infringe upon copyrighted material, but only time will tell. Its use is certainly very widespread in the tabletop space now. Hopefully we can empower these tools to do good!

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

@@05insomnium I agree with you 100%. When the complaints about AI first started I must admit my first reaction was "where were you all when MY industry was being completely devalued by technology?!" but then I did some research and thinking about the topic and of course this is a very different thing. And apart from the copyright concerns - which are vitally important as many people will rip off creatives at every opportunity if left to their own devices - I agree that there's a real risk of artwork getting more and more generic and lifeless as the beast begins to feed on itself. I really don't know how it's all going to pan out - if I was good at predicting technology trends, I'd be a very rich man by now! 🤣 I do know that change is inevitable, but we have to be educated and aware in our choices and thus keep the bastards (speaking in the general sense) honest!

[@OneDadManyKids]

Looks like it was already unboxed before you "unboxed" it.

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

You're absolutely right, my entire purpose is to deceive.

[@OneDadManyKids]

@@EsotericOrderGamers It is deceiving to pretend you are naturally reacting to unboxing these for the first time when in reality they have already been unboxed by you. A more accurate description for the video would be a box content summary.

[@EsotericOrderGamers]

@@OneDadManyKids Seriously, don't you have more important things to worry about? 🤣 I'm not pretending a thing, I had a brief glance at it before filming and I assure you I'm not that good an actor. Happy festive season to you!