Monte Cook has left the building
For those who may not have caught the recent news (not sure how you missed it), Monte Cook has left Wizards of the Coast. I caught wind of this via EN World where the reaction has been pretty substantial. Obviously there is a lot of conjecture as to why but I don’t think that the reasoning is important at the moment.
Let’s be all honest here, WOTC is pretty much a revolving door over the past few years not only with their staff but their material as well. It has not been any real big secret that something is just for a lack of a better word…wrong.. over there.
Monte leaving is big news. Many were happy to see him come back into the fold. Old time players waxed nostalgia and him leaving is a punch in the gut. 5th Edition in it’s unifying goal alone is trying to do the impossible and an amazing designer just left. While one man doesn’t make the game it does leave some to worry about not only the edition as a whole but the company behind it.
On a side note however, I will be very interested to see what he does next. I would really like to see more done with Arcana Unearthed universe or Ptolus for that matter. Best of luck to you Monte, go kick some ass!
Dear Bioware, about Mass Effect 3
So a month ago I had some loose cash. I don’t run into much of this these days but Mass Effect 3 came out and I on impulse decided to head to my local store near my home. I was not totally convinced to buy the game outright but the inkling was there and when you have OCD you have an even bigger inkling. When I got to the store I perused the games as usual noting a bunch I wanted but saw the collectors edition of Mass Effect 3. It was for the PS3 however but for me that was no biggy as I have all the systems at home. When it comes to the differences between systems, things like graphics, frames per second or even shadows does not really bother me as they tend to be rather minute. I went ahead and bought it thinking I was treating myself to a great game as I have LOVED the series thus far. Also when it comes to Bioware I have associated to them excellence in crafting amazing games. Everyone knows I was a Dragon Age fanatic. That said I started my ME3 game up and activated my online pass and went right to it. I noticed the cinematic scenes were choppy but was totally digging the vibe. But this lasted ten whole minutes till the system crashed. Yeah the system crashed. For the PS3 it is not totally unheard of so I chalked it up to a random glitch, restarted and got right back into things. This lead me to replay the first 10 minutes of the game 10 times with each time crashing in the same spot. I was a bit miffed and wondered if it was a problem on my end. After doing some research on the official forums I noticed I was not the only one having this problem. There seemed to be no immediate resolution so I gave it some time. I figured a patch would come out soon and one did, however it did not fix any problems with stability. Rather it tried o fix this face importing app for the game. I kept some tabs on the forums but to my surprise is that there is barely any feedback going on developer wise aside from the typical ‘we are looking into it’. Now while I understand that issues come up I can say I have never ever ever ever had a problem so significant with a game that I could not play it. I think that is what makes me nerd rage the most about this.
In this day and age despite the popularity in gaming I am increasingly seeing companies being more risk takers with releasing games which are more bug prone then ever. But it seem’s to me especially on a console of all things that a game should be playable. If your game cannot be completed due to a prgramming point of view then the game should not be released. With the feedback going on it should also have been caught in QA which is very surprising.
Now I could have traded the game in and got the Xbox version however this situation has generated some bad vibes so I decided to make myself happy and play Xenoblade Chronicles. I figure once I can get the Xbox version for dirt cheap and with some time easing sore wounds then maybe I will go fight the war with Commander Shephard. I hear the game is great, I just wished I could have played it. And to me as a paying customer that is sad. Shame Bioware…shame
I’ve endeavored to try out a few MMORPG’s with the aim of finding something I ccould somewhat commit to. My criteria has been to find something somewhat casual since my time is quite limited with work, family, etc. My other criteria is that it’s fun and has potential to grow. Often due to the popularity of WoW the player base is a bit on the jaded side when trying out other games in this genre. Often we hear that the game upon release does not has as much content or class x, skill y and whatnot. But I like to break the mold, venture out into the unknow and just give a games a chance. So that being said, here are some of my experiences as I journey through the plethora of games out there.
Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online went free 2 play following the model of many games these days. So being the cheapo that I am, I decided to jump into it. Being a big Star Trek fan I was eager to see what it was all about. I heard mixed reviews but being that it has been out for quite a long time that maybe it grew into it’s own place and was hitting it’s stride. What I encountered though was…not so good.
I downloaded and installed the game and eagerly fired it up. Making your character is rather standard however I found it buggy as when I selected a Vulcan as a character I ended up with another race as the template. Finally after some back and forth I managed to make my character. You also get to pick a ship to start out and name it as this will be the ship you cruise around the galaxy. With all the basics down it was right to business.
The story in it’s very basic form is that the federation is at war seemingly with anything thye could have war with. Klingons, The Dominion, The Borg, etc. Now being a Trek fan, I followed the TV series quite well and it seem’s to me Klingon relations were on the up and up. I know that in the Star Trek reboot we discover that the Romulan home planet was destroyed so their is some angst there but it was never determined it was the federations fault. At any rate it just seem’s like a lot of war for the sake of saying there is action going on. I thought right away that the game was spreading itself out to thin right from the get go rather then having one enemy and building from there. So this threw me off from the get go but ok, let’s get down to things.
The opening tutorial mission get’s you accustomed tohow to combat, interact with objects and get a feel. Obviously they decided a Borg attack would be a great way to get you started. You have to help people, man a station to beam borg into space, etc. The controls to be honest felt kind of off. The responsiveness was not what I liked and the scenes seemed also out of whack. Usually from a tutorial mission I expect it to be very engaging a really get a feel for the universe I am in. I got nothing of this from the tutorial. It certainly did not seem like it was from a game long since released.
Eventually you have command of your own ship and can get to cruising the universe. One of the more annoying aspects of ST: Online was that I kept getting hit with missions from starfleet. And by hit is that I kept getting a pop up window with what was available. Sometimes I would finish a quest and a window would pop up right away. I would feel occasionally smothered by the attention and never truly free. And speaking of ships you don’t start out as a captain so why the fuck do you command a ship…just saying.
Now having your own ship in the game really means that your not really with your friends in the game unless you make a posse of ships. This is kind of disappointing. I would have loved if they could have made an option for a guild to share a starship. While the leader could be designated the captain, players could have varying positions and participate in the day to day activities. Star Trek at it’s essence is not about running around and shooting your phasers at the nearest alien. Much of it is also exploration and the social interaction of various races. If you cannot interact with your friends and the community aside from a star base or posse of ships then what is the point.
The missions themselves vary from being diplomatic to investigating a base. Much of the interiors are very generic. You feel like once you visit one then you visited them all. In fact I had two separate missions where Klingons were attacking and holding a base hostage. Ok I got in to save my peeps. But the map was literally the same. I was shocked and insulted. You even have basic crafting which is replicating an object when you find the appropriate ingrediants. Finding these ingredients can be during a mission of by scanning an anomaly. When you scan an item you have to match a wavelength signal in a few seconds and with that you get a better item. However I find that even between botched scans as well as successful scans you end up with the same items in general. Also when your in space I scanned a gaseous anomaly and ended up with alien parts. Like wtf? I would have preferred some lore about this specific sector of space or some raw material or crazy idea, some sort of gaseous component for upgrading my ship. Suffice it to say between the missing and this, we had a deal breaker.
Combat involved you pressing a key to enter targeting mode. This brings up a target and you shoot at whatever it is you aim at and click. It works for what it is however I never felt challenged by the in game enemies. Much of the AI seemed to think it fun to stand around and get phased or alternatively to just up to my away team and get phased again. After a few excursions like this I had a panic alarm going off that this game despite it’s age was really not good.
An interesting dynamic if you will (as not all ideas are bad) for your ship is that you can recruit officers to your ship. These officers can be assigned posts and can then be further invested in by upgrading their skills, weapons, etc. You can even go a trade them later on. It’s got potential as you get focus on some NPC’s that you may even care about as you coach them in their careers. I think this is maybe a somewhat fleeting attempt to bypass the loneliness of having less social interaction with the community.
You see, Star Trek has a lot of potential. I mean it’s freaking Star Trek but to me, the ball was dropped with this game. I couldn’t have been bothered to continue on as there was nothing exciting propelling me to go forward. I wish I had a lot to say about crafting, the intricacies of the social dynamic of the game or a tight storyline but I just cannot find any justification even as an avid fan of all the series to say beam me up.
Where will my journey take me to next I don’t know. I’m between some ideas right now. I may tackle Lord of the Rings Online but I have been tickled to go into EVE and even revisit World of Warcraft. And while these may seem like heavy hitter games, they are all not perfect. No game is perfect. It’s all in the journey of finding something fun.
Video Game Review: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Final Fantasy XIII-2 came out at the beginning of this year and was to be honest quite successful. For those who played XIII you may know (as in you should) that the game was one linear corridor with no real avenue of exploration. Square Enix was hit hard with the dissapointment. Other aspects like the combat system and how character levelled were well received but the one way direction your character took was enough to give a negative vibe.So when the sequal was announced people were skeptical. Sequals are for lack of a better term are typically inferior to their earlier counterpart.But I while this rule of thumb is correct I am ever so glad to be proven wrong.
FF XIII-2 continues on shortly after the events in FF XIII. Serah who is the main character in this itteration wakes up to discover that what she perceives as reality may not be reality. She believes Lightning is alive but everyone around her says otherwise. Snow has been missing and to have never returned. But we all know what happened in FF XIII so immediately we are asking ourselves what is going on. Suffice it to say things don’t take long for things to shake up.
FF XIII-2 at it’s core is centered around time travelling through the ages. The premise is very Chrono Trigger and it’s execution is quite well done. You travel from location to location via the Historia Crux which is a fancy term to the hallway of time. Each location has a gate or maybe more where you can hop to the flow of time and head to your nyou have side quests to collect fragments of artifacts. If you get a whole artifact which is wild then you can open a locked gateway to another time period. Each period is vaguely similar however the environment changes as well as certain accessible areas. This provides a unique challenge as players have to sometimes hope between the various time periods so they can complete their quests.
One aspect that people did not like about FF XIII was the one stop shop area where you could purchase your goods. So to fix this they replaced the computerized one stop area with a mutant half chocobo / half human woman named Chocobocolina. I shit you not, they thought this was a better idea. I get they want to streamline the experience but what kills them from having various shops in towns. She even manages to follow you through time to areas she shouldn’t be able to be in logically. While she does add some humor to your grim tasks at hand, it’s still off putting. This brings me to equipment. Equipment in FF XIII-2 is horrible. Our mutant lady bird offers us weapons and accessories while also providing opportunities to craft certain accessories. Crafting is useless. I never had to craft one item as all the base items where more powerful then what could be crafted. Same goes for weapons. I am near the end of the game, find a weapon yet the weapon I have is more powerful. Gnerally as you move higher in locations your item find should be more powerful progressively however they just never bothered to do this.
An interesting addition to the party group dynamic is that you are able to tame monsters. These monsters can be levelled by purchasing monster ingrediants / components as well as feeding one monster to another. It’s interesting because they are trying to fill the roll of the third party member since it is just Serah and Noel but I still would have simply preferred another character. The only real thing the monster party member added was a cool factor of having X monster on your team but otherwise it added a needless grind to your experience.
Combat is as easy as ever with more refined combat system. I still find it all to be a bit on the easy mode side of things as typically what the computer selects as optimal attacks are exactly what is needed for the job. Only in certain boss fights I had to step back and manually select what attack would be best. It leaves combat a bit hollow but at the same time it is quick and simple.
Levelling up is much the same as before for your characters however right from the get go you can place Crystarium points in a few jobs. Once a jobs levels enough you get a skill and as your Crystarium expands to another level you get an extra special bonus or a new job all depending. It works very well and you still feel like your have some customization to your character.
The music is very interesting as it shifts from all genre’s of music. If you got the collectors edition then you would have gotten a four cd soundtrack to the game. While some some are great, I can say I only really enjoyed a handful while the rest was forgettable. It’s not to say the music is aweful by any means but like any game your either going to enjoy a lot of the music or not. Some will strike a chord in you and some won’t. But I do recommend checking out the soundtrack though as it’s very creative. Think heavy metal chocobo theme.
Finally what it all boils down to is the story. The story of FF XIII-2 is short while the grind and gameplay stretch things along. The story is enthralling though and I want more. How everything was all placed out was superb. Caius who is the main protagonist is an amazing character who was simply corrupt by the experiences he endured. While at first you havea definitive bad guy, by the time you reach the end you cannot help but feel sorry for him. Serah as a character has grown from a younger sister who needed protecting to a strong woman who is ready to put it on the line. She still comes off as hopeful which you can think is naive but she has also had to make hard choices in her search for Lightning. Noel who is her partner is brash about how he handles things but the journey with Serah and dealings with Caius teach him a lot along the way.
In all FF XIII-2 can be considered even superior to the original. It was ambitious but it pulled it off. While there are some aspects I do believe still need attending, this is a universe that I want to see more of. Like FF VII they opened us up to a world of possibilities and enough interesting aspects for us to crave more. Depending on how the next game is I can even imagine them doing an Advent Children type of movie with this property. The characters are likeable, the setting has a great history and we could all use a bit more of that in our movies.
Finally for those who purchased the collectors edition, you have a beautiful white case which holds yours game, soundtracks and an art book. If your a collector of anything Final Fantasy then I highly recommend it as it’s nice to see on the shelf. While I would have maybe like other nifty items for what the price is for the collectors edition ($80) it’s very good for what you get. Typically the soundtracks along can set you back $40.
Here is hoping the next game delivers more then this game. They have big shoes to fill right now.
Iron Kingdoms RPG Preview
The video is light on specifics, but it still sounds interesting! And it’s coming this year!
Star Trek Online now Free to Play
For all those Trekkies out there, Star Trek Online is now Free to Play and available at the Star Trek Online Website. I’ve currently signed up and downloaded the client and logged a very brief amount of time. I will write some of my experience up as I go along and see if this is really fun to play or a definite skip. Stay tuned as I explore the universe, have my way with alien chicks and force my federation belief systems on all non complient planets.
5th Edition D&D is on the way
So the 5th Edition of D&D was announced this week to not much of a surprise to most folks. Well I would think not anyways. It seem’s to me we all knew it was coming sooner or later. It seem’s overall that the editions keep coming out with greater frequency and in doing so causing it’s own controversy. WotC is proclaiming that this new 5th edition will right wrongs previously done and unify the player base who have been divided via the other editions. Those are some heavy promises which I don’t think should be promised at this point. I just don’t think that WotC get to make these types of claims anymore.
EN World has plenty of tidbits which seem to be rolling in slowly but surely. The information is quite vague though with often just a random quip from a writer. It is an exciting time mind you as like many others love the possibility of something new and shiny. I know I will be following all the news even though I have reservations and I think that is something that a lot of D&D players should be doing.
I said before that D&D if anything has taught us that it is not the set of rules that make the game, it’s the players. Even with a horribly constructed game engine, something great can be produced and D&D despite it’s various editions and occasional flaws has never even been remotely a frustration to play.
I am happy with the idea of WotC wanting the community to playtest as it gets developed. I think that is a great idea to get a good feedback from everyone involved. It’s a different way to go about things for WotC and it might be that method in making an edition that bridges the gap for everyone.
Once all is said and done and 5th edition is released people will still have their preference but I hope that something really amazing is created and I get that wow feeling back that I feel has been somewhat missing. Either way it will be a wild ride till then so stay tuned and we’ll post what we can.
Comic Book Review: Batwoman #1
With DC Comics rebooting of it’s universe, we have “The New 52″ which of course is 52 new titles all starting at number 1. One of the issues I was looking forward to was Batwoman. If you never have had a chance to check out her previous adventures in Detective Comics when Bruce Wayne was MIA in the past then I highly suggest you do so. Suffice it to say I was more then happy to jump on board and purchase her first issue and I was not disappointed.
Batwoman starts out with her on an investigation of disappearing children by some sort of phantasmal being / creature. It has a nice little supernatural flare to it which was highly enjoyable as I don’t remember seeing too many of them. We also get a little brief recap of some events from her past outings as they try to sum up her current relationship to her father. Now for those who are wondering about the past events, nothing was really changed story wise in the new universe and all her past adventures can be considered carried over. But don’t let that fact fool you into thinking you need to check out older issues. If your new to comics or wanting to get back in slowly then this is a great introduction to the character and is easily a standalone no previous reading required. Now we are also introduced in an off hand way to a new villain who will be working behind the scenes in digging up info on Batwoman since Batman is too hard to deal with it seems. In all the whole issue really had a lot of crunch throughout the book. Lot’s of new elements yet still staying cohesive. But then again this is the standard for Batwoman comics. They seem to all be written with a lot of care and it really does this character justice. I am happy though that we have new villains and also an investigation that is ongoing.
Art wise I cannot get over how amazing everything looks. I have to say I have not seem many comics this good looking. And that is to say all of Batwoman comics tend to be this way. It is simply a visual treat. The story is always well represented and you never get lost within the panels. Backgrounds and characters are always well done. However there is one things that irks me a bit and I am not sure if it is creative direction or artistic direction however they seem to play off Batwoman’s sexuality by having her changing / being nude by another female but concealed as to be suggestive. Now while I find it a positive thing to have a character like this but I do find they try to exploit it for horny young teenagers. That is just my impression. It’s like they are trying for the cool factor for being ‘risqué’ which is a cheap ploy.
In all if Batwoman is any indication of what other New 52 comics may be like then I am quite happy. I really look forward to seeing where this story is going to go and also how the relationship between Batwoman and her father will evolve. If you have any inkling into trying something new in the new DC Universe then I highly suggest you jump on board this title. You will not be disappointed.
Heroica, like Heroquest with LEGO.
On my recent trip to Orlando, I visited the LEGO store in Downtown Disney and found a product that for some reason had completely missed my notice, most likely because it hadn’t been released in my area back home in Montreal. That product is one of the newer additions to LEGO line of board game sets, aptly named: Heroica. Needless to say, I quickly purchased all one of each set available in the series.
For those who are not aware, Heroica is a LEGO game, you build the set yourself and thus can customize ad infinitum. In Heroica you play one of several possible heroes tasked with defeating a great evil. Your character is reperesented by what I have come to call a microfig, it is essentially a LEGO minifig with no movable parts that is only one square in width and depth and stands two blocks tall, but still filled with all the lovably adorable charm of your standard LEGO characters. If you own all four of the sets, you and each other player can choose from six different characters to play as: Barbarian, Wizard, Druid, Knight, Thief, and Ranger. Each character has a single special ability, all special abilities in the game are classified as either melee or ranged.
The rules are simple, you and your fellow adventurers must make your way across the playing field and try to be the first to reach the boss area. To move around the board and combat monster you roll a single LEGO die which has 4 different designs on it’s 6 sides: a shield, a sword and 3 dots, a skull and 2 dots, and lastly a sword, skull and one dot. There are two each of the sword (3 dots) and skull (2 dots) sides, and only one each of the other two. There are two types of rolls you will be called to make, a move roll, or a combat roll. You roll the die on your turn and move a number of spaces up to the number of dots on the side you rolled. If you roll a shield, you may move up to 4 spaces or use a ranged special ability. If your character ends up in a space next to a monster, you must end your movement for the turn and combat the creature by rolling the die again. The results fo combat are based on the side you roll, a sword means you have defeated the enemy. A skull means that you take damage equal to the creature’s strength (you only start with 4 health) and move back one space. A roll of the side with a skull AND sword means that you have defeated the creature but are wounded too and take damage equal to its strength and move back one space. A roll of a shield means that you defeat the monster OR you may used a melee special ability.
The winner of the game is the one who reaches and defeats the boss of the map and moves to occupy the boss’s space. If however, your hero loses all their health, you must spend turns healing yourself by rolling the die and healing an amount of health equal to the number of spaces you would have moved with the roll. Once you have reached your max health, you can then move as normal on your next turn.
The four sets in the series can be combined, allowing you to play what is called Epic Heroica. In the 3 larger sets, the players may spend gold they find to purchase weapons from the shop, each weapon gives the character an extra special ability that they may use, which allows the player to perform an ability similar to one of the other classes only slightly weaker, this adds a nice dash of customization to the game is can allow you to have a wizard with a good melee special ability or a barbarian with a good ranged ability, or simply give the ability to heal to a hero other than the druid. These extra special abilities can really make a difference when playing a longer game such as by combining all the sets. The four sets are:
Draida Bay, the smallest set of the four and one that only contains two characters to play as and a handful of minor creatures. Draida Bay starts the heroes on the docks after disembarking from a ship and exploring a small grove to find and defeat the goblin general and his goblin warriors This is really more of an expansion to the other 3 sets.
Waldurk, a forest and wilderness area is one of the two medium-sized sets and has the heroes facing spiders and werewolves under the command of the evil Dark Druid.
Nathuz, the second mid-sized set, is a dungeon-styled area that has the heroes facing golems and bats led by the golem lord.
Fortaan, the largest set is a castle set filled almost to bursting with goblin warriors and goblin champions all led by the deadly goblin king.
Each set also has some special items and potiosn scattered throughout that give extra abilities to a hero or can simply be sold back to the shop for extra gold.
I played an Epic game last night with Deb and we had a blast. She was a druid who bought a bow and arrow when she had the requisite 3 gold (the price for any weapon in the shop) and I was a wizard who eventually ran around swinging a battle axe. Deb won by a mile because, as expected her rolling was a lot better than mine, but I didn’t mind, I was having too much fun.
The game plays quickly and smoothly and is simple enough for younger children, but has enough of an RPG feel to grab adult players as well. I can’t wait to play a full game with both Deb and Bry and see how that goes. And while the game plays great with the rules as-is, I’m going to give a little though into possibly working out some sort of co-op mode and maybe making my own additional tiles using other lego games or simply pieces from Bry’s LEGO bin, I think some city-themed tiles could make for a neat add-on and add to the role-playing feel. All in all, I highly recommend the Heroicasets to anyone who enjoys LEGO or used to love Heroquest.
Rebooting a Comic Universe
As some of you may have heard down the grapevine, DC Comics is set to remodel it’s entire universe this coming September with 52 series issues all starting with numerically at number 1. This one caught me by surprise when I first noticed the news and have had a lot of time to kind of go over the decision and get my thoughts in order. All I can really come up with though is DC….you suck balls. Now I have collected comics since I was a wee little child and ventured into both the DC and the Marvel universes. I quite enjoy both really however I tenended to gravitate more towards DC as it was more traditional superheroes. It was more colorful and never really tried to get out of it’s way to seem like the cool kid on the block with matching costumes and attitudes. Everything at DC while at times very serious could also been seen lightheartedly.
But that just brings me back to why the decision was made. Typically in the comic universe you have events which aim to shake up the status quo of a title or the universe in general. It introduces either new villains, hereoes, locations, items, etc that will inevitably change how we see things. In fact this is what the companies typically do as well to get people buying again. Everyone loves a major plot point. Take DC Comics Blackest Night story arc which spawned other arcs and seemed to steamrole through tons of sales. Green Lantern had suddenly become even more relevant then he had been and the status quo was changed. However not very long after we have Flashpoint which stars Barry Allen in another timeline. We can only assume this will lead into what will be the new status quo but here is where the rub comes in.
We are even told that some of the iconic events like Blackest Night, Death of Superman, Zero Hour and many others have still happened yet certain teams or characters within these stories never existed or existed in this new re-imagining. This is my biggest beef I think concerning the changes. It tears apart the legitimacy of those past events because certain characters were involved, they had a certain relationship which had an impact onto the story and what might have made a scene poignant is now gone yet still there somehow. I am sure some of this will be addressed via upcoming issues and attempts at explaining these events via flashbacks but it seem’s very sloppy at best and horrible PR to those who have invested for many years more then even myself.
I agree that yes, maybe the universe has to change a bit to make it fresh however I don’t think it needs to be done as drastically as it’s being done. I’m very torn about this but I will be honest with you that some of my apprenhension is someone who is used to the status quo. Some already I am slightly jaded.
With this new remodelling of the universe, literally all your iconic characters are changing permanently in some fashion. Now this can be both good and bad. It’s good that it changes what we know and add’s new elements to a character. Things will seem fresh and new however what you knew about your favorite character will be gone and all that was previously established with him. DC has been saying that they are doing this to make things accessible to new readers and providing interesting concepts for the older readers. This is where I have to kind of take a stand. This seem’s to be a recurring theme society wise today that things of old cannot possibly be accessible to new readers so let’s make them younger and more hip. This is especially evident when you look at the new DC universe. All the characters look like their are either in college or filled with teenage angst. Attitude for the new era so to speak.
I think this has to be a message to all companies that yes, there is a younger generation but just because they are younger does not mean they cannot understand nor recognize things from the past. I jumped into comics when I was young and I learned (by reading) about the histories of these characters. Movie companies do the same mistake sometimes. They remake movies but try to add a hip new element, make the character more modern for the kids because that will hopefully equate to dollars. And yes, I get that money does factor in their decision. If sales are not good in an already dwindling paper medium then things have to change.
If I look at DC Comics online strategy they are lightyears behind. They attempt to charge for one thing the same amount for a PDF of a comic as an actual issue. This negates any collectability associated with their comics. Your paper medium should be more expensive because it’s physical. It’s a premium and not a digital file with no real value. The kicker to all this is generally you have to read these titles online via their respective viewer thereby making you not really the owner. Maybe this will change by September and hopefully it does but it’s a symptom of another publisher who does not know how to handle the modern era yet aims to market in on it.
But like it or hate it we know what is coming. I obviously have my reservations about it however I do have some hope that their advertised new concepts concerning the characters will indeed pay off and revive the industry. But if it doesn’t though and thing stagnate, then I have to ask was it really worth trampling over years of history to be the cool kid on the block again or wouldn’t have it been better to be creative with what has existed already and do something fresh there. That would mean writers had run out of ideas for an existing world which to me is scary in itself.