A few days ago there was discussions on discord about what’s happening with Guild Ball now that Steamforge Games bought Warmachine and calls for adding more formal structure to community feedback.
While these talks contained nothing strictly new, the answers we got were reassuring that everything is all right. It feels good to be reminded that a lot of people who care about this game are still doing their thing. Below is informal response by mr Inspiring Hat, and further below also from mr Mike who is also among the lead of GBCP.
At this moment, Guild Ball is governed by both Steamforged and the GBCP. Both parties need each other’s confirmation when they want to do something.
The rules, art and creative design is a full collaboration from this point on, and both parties have semi-regular meetings where things get discussed. Current topics are i.e. Lumberjacks design, Lumberjacks creative design (art and possible sculpts), Game Plan Deck v3, a possible hotfix to Soma, and possibly even “What would Season 5 look like?”.
The idea is to have one errata per year (and the next one is planned for March 2025), and obviously have some other releases in between, like new Minor Guilds, hotfixes whenever needed, and possible other parts of the game.
We would love to hold real life tournaments, hosted by either SFG or GBCP (or both). Steamforged has already taken steps to provide TO’s with printable trophies, and there is talk about a new SteamCon coming along. (unconfirmed, it’s just talk, nothing has been set in motion yet)
Digital Worlds might be on the table for Q3-Q4 of ’24, but that has not been discussed in current proceedings yet.
SFGxGBCP is still in the process of figuring out what the ideal process of collaboration is, and this might require a new influx of committee members (i.e. Rules, Playtesting, Creative, Organised Play). Whenever we have the protocol down and know what is needed, GBCP will hold open applications for committee positions.
I always pride myself for the transparency towards the community, albeit obviously within certain limits. This hasn’t changed – it’s mainly just been “I am still just a volunteer and life something throws a spanner in the works causing delays and radio silences”. And on that, I can speak for all members of GBCP Steering.
For now, we’re trying to get the actual game development on the road. Any fun sideprojects will have to come later.
PS: when I’m answering these questions, it’s me talking. Things might obviously change in discussing with Steering or SFG. If I’m giving actual information, you’ll know.
~ The Inspiring Hat
Mike, also from GBCP
I echo everything Hat said. A smart guy.
As for the errata/balance specific stuff. It’s pretty simple. Guiding principles are promoting balance and also keeping stability to the game. Especially given how recently it has been re-supported. Large changes to the game are not always conducive to bringing in new or back previous players. This means limiting in scope the quantity and frequency of changes to the game, while also being responsive to players /the community’s experiences. It’s why the erratas (during GBCP only time ) were limited to around 10 models.
Community feedback (via discord, Facebook, or the SFG page) is absolutely considered. Longshanks data is utilized as relevant (not in a robust data science way, but at the least observing win rate percentage over time and games).
Just as an aside, I was at a regionally large infinity tournament this weekend, and when talking to people about GB generally it was 50/50 if they were even aware that SFG had re-supported Guild Ball.
Or they had maybe vaguely heard of something about it. But most had heard of or remembered the game positively.
Relevant sidenote below, a bit about guiding principles in GBCP, as posted here when the 4.5 errata released in july 2022.
A bit about the process: the rules committee all vote for the models they’d most like to see changed. So selection for the errata is a democratic process.
As previously, we’ve tried to use simple fixes with existing rules as much as possible. One point of note with models in this errata that we spotted after drawing up the list is that they’re almost all fairly rules heavy or complex. So we’ve tried, as much as possible, not to add to that. Instead looking to adapt or replace rules.
From the start, it was decided – mostly by yourselves through the huge questionnaire we ran in 2020 – that GBCP errata would be small (no more than 10 models) and that the longer term aim in terms of power balance is for guilds to be roughly at the level of Fish and Masons – the Guilds the survey respondents said were the most balanced.
We are not professional game designers. We like to think that we’re getting better at this rules business as we go along, but this isn’t our day-job.
