Monday, 25 November 2013

An Interview With Prodos Games.

While making a visit to my FLGS store I managed to ambush an unsuspecting Rob Alderman and Mark Rapson with a couple of questions about Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection...We made them tea so it wasn't exactly forced imprisonment...

This wasn't actually the person who bought the tea...No, it isn't Rob or Mark either...
Being somewhat new to this interviewing lark I ended up making notes on a bit of paper...apparently my handwriting is terrible and I get distracted easily...still I think this is a fairly accurate recreation of the important bits...though I've missed out the rambling bits where we got sidetracked...

As they'd recently done a long Q+A on Aliens Vs Predator we mainly spoke about Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection. If your interested then a summary of the aforementioned AvP Q+A can be found here.

Q - Any plans to cover the other factions such as Imperial and the other Dark Legion Apostles?
A - The book for the Imperial faction is being written currently and should be ready for April and is awesome* and all being well there should be a book focused on the Dark Apostle Ilian released at the same time. If one has to be prioritised then the Imperial book will get the April release but all being well both should be ready for then. Both will have new units in them.

Editors Note : Some other stuff came up later but I'll mention it here as it fits better

The Imperial book (hopefully) will have rules in it in order to enable you to build your own special forces in the same way that the main rulebook 'Heroes of the Solar System' system enables you to create your own Lords and Warlords. There are also plans to enhance the aforementioned 'Hero' system via the use of upgrade cards. This should enable you to further personalise your own heroes with new abilities and cool and characterful items (though where this latter thing will actually appear we either didn't discuss or I forgot to write down...).

* Their words but I have no reason to doubt them

Q - How quickly are we going to see the unreleased models and which ones will appear first?
A - Mike Sanders will be first and should appear by the weekend, followed by Mishima's 'Tiger Dragons', Dark Legions Valpurgis and a support unit (a really good one was all I could get out of them at this point) and that will be followed by another Mishima release. The remaining units will be released over the next ten months.

There's an update on model progress here.

Q - What about the Black Widow?
A - The Black Widow will be available by X-Mas...**

Yeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
** I may have squealed like a little girl at that point....I must have snubbed my toe at the exact moment that I was told about the Black Widow...honestly...I'm sure that was it...grown men don't get that excited about toy soldiers... 

Q - How long before we see the inevitable FAQ's and erratas that become necessary when your test group becomes thousands of pedantic and/or unnecessarily helpful war-gamers?
A - These will come in the next couple of months

Q - Where should we send the aforementioned issues should we discover some?
A - Report them on the forums.

There's a link to those forums should you have anything you need to report such as typos, rules issues or inconsistencies and here it is.

Q - We all know that resin as a material occasionally has some issues. What should people do if they have any problems?
A - Contact the orders department and let them know what the problem is and if they can't resolve it they'll send you a replacement though they may require a photo depending on the issue***.

*** We've only had two minor issues in store (and considering how much stuff we've bought that's a really low percentage) and both were sorted with replacement parts quickly and without any fuss or bother. I believe the appropriate e-mail is 'orders@warzonegame.com'

Q - When we talked about missing factions earlier I forgot to ask about the 'White Star' who apparently control the Earth now. Any plans to elaborate on them?
A - The person currently working on a new version of the RPG**** will be doing quite a lot with the White Star faction and we've been discussing quite a bit between us which areas we'll each be focusing on and which we'll be leaving to the other people. He'll be using some of our characters and we'll be using some of his but for the most part we'll be focusing on different things. For example the timeline in the Warzone Resurrection rulebook (pages 24 and 25) is an abbreviated version of the RPG one so we're in regular contact to make sure all aspects tie in together without being redundant. The RPG itself is planned to be set before the existence of Cybertronic and therefore earlier than the current time of Warzone Resurrection though there is a Warzone character people are familiar with featured in the RPG...

**** I had no idea that any-one was working on an updated version of the RPG until this point. If people are interested then I'll see if I can get some more details...

Q - Any plans for a Henchman/Pathfinder/Pressganger type system so you have people going around demoing your game systems for you?
A - Yes. They'll be called 'Doomtroopers'.

Q - How much of a difference did Kickstarter make?
A - Without Kickstarter the process would have taken longer to get going (twenty four months was the time frame quoted) and there would have been less factions and probably no heavy vehicles for quite a while. This way we got a good idea of what was going to be popular, how much of each would need to be produced and this information allowed us to focus our efforts towards the things people wanted.

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We then kind of got sidetracked chatting about general miscellaneous bits and pieces as inevitably happens when like minded hobbyists of any description get together. What really came across during our chat was the Prodos guys real passion for the hobby in general and the respect that had for other game companies and what they had bought to the hobby. They seemed to genuinely want to make Warzone Resurrection (and Aliens Vs Predator for that matter) into mainstays of the genre and to accomplish that goal in as positive a manner as possible and I don't know about you guys and gals but that's the kind of thing I like to hear.....

If your interested in more information then try the following links.

The Warzone Resurrection Kickstarter though complete still has periodic updates and it can be found here.
Their website is located here.

A look at the rulebook can be found here.
A basic battle report can be found here
Or a more detailed one is located over here.

Should you be interested in their current Alien Vs Predator Kickstarter it's here.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome with the added benefit that the guys who created the Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection game might actually read them...and if they don't I'll pass them on anyway.

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