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FFG Rants ArchiveWhen the FFG Rants page gets too full the excess is dumped here to rot. After fermenting for a while the updates will be rendered down to their component letters and recycled. Files will be transferred to the Archives at random intervals, whenever we remember to do it. 6/26/07 - The Build Out
Once upon a time some men came with hammers and things and knocked a hole in a wall. The wall that this hole found itself in used to divide a bathroom from a warehouse in the offices of Fantasy Flight Games, but now it didn't divide much of anything, since it had a big hole right through it.
Well, since the warehouse and the bathroom had to be divided by something, new walls began to appear - many and more of them. In fact, a new hallway and two large new rooms sprang up - one for offices, and one a new, improved, break-and-conference room for all the boys and girls of Fantasy Flight Games.
The bare metal skeletons of the walls fleshed out, and grew wood and plaster and all the things that make walls walls ... they even opened wide and yawned and stretched and made windows, so that the warehouse could look in on the space that it used to have, so it wouldn't be so sad for losing it.
The new offices were large, and well-lit with windows to the outside world - which meant new and different holes put in different walls, and there was ever so much noise! But it was worth it, because the new bullpen could fit all the developers at once in comfort.
Finally, the build-out was done, and all the good little boys and girls of Fantasy Flight Games descended upon the break room like a plague of locusts at lunchtime to play games, because that's what they do. Front table, clockwise from bottom left: Ryann, Bryan B, Thaadd, Dan, Kevin Wilson (aka Kevin the Elder), Eric Knight. Back row, from left: Jaffer, Rob K, Zoe, Evan, Kevin Childress (aka Kevin the Younger), Corey. -ed.
6/14/07 - Zoe Illustrations, like all art, start with ideas. Those usually live in Developers' heads, and can be a bit nebulous. Hence, the first step: descriptions. Descriptions are usually a paragraph or two of typed ... description, along with dimension instructions that I send the artist after he or she has accepted the assignment. I usually just send along what the developers give me, but sometimes things need to be edited so that compositions can be actually accomplished in the space we ask for. For example, if the description I get from the developer is:
An unnatural storm shakes through the city on a summer night ... electricity eerily whips around the focal building, and we can see in one of the upper windows that the resident Art Coordinator is embroiled in a battle for her life. The Computer Wraiths (entropy spirits originating from the office technology in the room ... they should be ghostly half-corporeal beings made out of green and blue electricity) have obviously caught her by surprise. Even alone and badly outnumbered, she grimly brandishes her futuristic laser gun and long knife, dashing through the rubble in a grim counter-offensive. Knowing that this is supposed to be a 5 inch by 3.5 inch piece, I get this and realize: "Wait a minute ... how can we have the focus be on the Doomed Art Coordinator, and still get an entire building and storm in there?" At which point I double check with the developer to make sure I won't be interfering with the game layout, and change the description, making it just set inside the office in the first place. So, as you can see, changes can be made at any point during this process. Here's the process after descriptions:
"Revisions until approval" can mean a lot of revisions some times. For some projects, I'm the one with the final say ... more often, I have the FIRST say, and the final approval goes through one or more other people. If I do my job right, all the back-and-forth happens in the first 3 phases, and the Color Final gets the thumbs up in the first pass. Back and forth means communication, which means being articulate about describing what I want, which ... well, isn't always that reliable. A lot of times, I rope in the graphics department to help me out with some visual references. Sometimes words work, sometimes drawings work ... and sometimes, you just need to make a picture.
And this, I'll tell you, is honestly a visual reference we made for a future miniature pose just yesterday. Working here can be so very strange...
6/06/07 - Kevin C. For starters, nothing is ever really finished - as any artist will tell you. There's always one more thing you could change, but eventually the game has to go to the printer. It's hard to put a graphic designer's structured day into words, as we're more inclined to pick up projects ranging all over the board at any given time based on current requirements. Some have tried to create working schedules but reports indicate madness sets in on the 11th hour. Sudden jobs attack you out of nowhere.... you may think you are seemingly safe working on the latest project but generally you can expect a variety of other tasks to ninja in at any given moment. ("Ninja" is totally a verb now - ed.) So it's safe to assume we're decent at multi-tasking. Project A lands in your lap one day. "OK," you say, "let's get started!" You're just finishing up project B and you assume it's off your plate. Project A is well under way, you've got logos... textures... themes all worked out. Then a designer comes into your office. Something went wrong... your perfect plans didn't work! The machine has stopped, the wrench thrown in. Project A is now on the back-burner, project B's corrections are in the works. Ok done with that, back to project A. All is good right? What is this... Project Z? Needs to be done tomorrow? You don't say! Now project A and B are back-burned and project Z is put together. Now you are juggling three projects, some time constraints, finding out who's done what, when, and where (specifically file locations) and that's not counting the miscellaneous stuff like mock box print outs, play-testing, checking the production samples and such. Currently FFG is handling a rather large chain of products, and priorities change on a regular basis as games are shoved down the list and others come to the top. However the job is still fun. Everyone here puts 100% genuine effort into getting games out and onto the shelves all the while finding time to play in A Game of Thrones company league, find out the latest scoops on shows, talk geek, play games and eat cake (it happens rather often...). If you're looking to be a graphic designer, make sure you can chew gum and walk at the same time! (Also, it helps if you know something about graphic design -ed.)
5/25/07 - Thaadd I know everyone wants a nice Developer Rant – sorry guys, not them today. Just think of it as time saved that they're spending on the upcoming games that everyone is all impatient to get out on shelves! I will persevere and get them to do one soon however. That's the danger of having me in the office next to theirs! I'll try to spice things up with a few pictures though.
So – I first heard about Tide of Iron last fall – maybe a bit later than some of you all did, but I was neck deep in the learning curve that is trying to support 50 or more games that I was unfamiliar with – as I just started here the week after GenCon. I heard the rumblings – right around the time we were slammed by the holiday rush of games, and I was still handling the online store. War game? Hundreds of plastic bits? Uh-oh. I've been chastened for thinking of games in the narrow view of what it takes to keep them happy – aka replacement parts, what can go wrong, when I will get my boxes of factory bits. I am the biggest fan of engraved dice on the planet, I swear.
I got nervous, and started pestering the Developer boys for details. How many people? Squad based? What does that mean? Wait – there are PEGS? How the heck does that work? I have absolutely NO history of wargaming – the closest I have come is Diplomacy. My favorite types of games are social ones, not mathy ones. I am the sort of game player who'd rather throw a game and take someone down with me than achieve victory.
Then came the video – or rather, first came the production of the Tide of Iron video. The extra super precious single copy of the game they were using for setup dominated the most coveted lunch game spot for a couple weeks. We were cautioned not to knock anything, not allowed to move it. Many lunch time games were played out in the winter-cold warehouse while the video guys worked on the filming.
Next ... the wait. I try to stay in the loop because I have (as the Customer Service person) a lot of contact with our players. I'm not able to answer questions a lot of the time – my goal is to get people to the correct parties when I don't know about some topic. When is Tide coming out? Will we do Preorders? What will be included? When will Tide be coming out? Will we have X type of truck? When will Tide be coming out?
When the warehouse manager Tony told us that the truck was docking, a flood of staff ran out and did something that I can best describe as frolicking as it backed in. The truck driver looked a little confused. ... and now Tide is shipping to Distributors. The Aussies have their early copies – I have in fact already sent out the first little infantry guy who got switched with an elite. This morning I received a busted up box that somehow met a horrible fate in our warehouse to sort and add to my drawers of bits. From someone who knows very little about war history (to the sadness of my manager John) I have gotten pretty adept at sorting tanks. With so much plastic, it's inevitable that I will be in close contact with the game, but having seen the new boards, I expect they will be rare requests. Memorial day, myself and a handful of other FFG staff will be over at the webmasters house playing Tide on his super-gigantic table, grilling, and enjoying the day off. I think it might be my first real wargame experience.
5/22/07 - Tod Here is what the remaining staff members are currently reading:
Jeremy: Scooter by Mick Foley
There you have it! A glimpse into what inspires the minds behind Fantasy Flight Games.
5/08/07 - Jeremy According to everyone I know that has been in action, the old military axiom holds true: War is months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines end up having a lot of downtime between patrols, and anything to take their minds off their curent situation is appreciated. That's where Specialist David Amberson comes in. Currently serving with the US Army in Iraq, he has found that many of his fellow fighting men and women are gamer geeks, and therefore has taken the time to found Ziggurat Con, the first game convention to take place within an active war zone. Ziggurat Con, being held June 9 from 1200 to 2100 hours at Camp Adder/Tallil Airbase, is open to all allied military personnel and civilian contractors in Iraq. Along with many other game companies, FFG is donating games for the event. I just packed up a big box of stuff to head out today. However, they can certainly use more help. You can donate games, dice, DVDs, and any other gaming items to Ziggurat Con by mailing them to David at the following address:
SPC David Amberson
Hopefully, we'll see all the attendees at Ziggurat Con at a game convention outside of a war zone soon.
4/30/07 - Peter Last weekend a non-profit I work for had their annual Trivia Challenge. There were seven FFG folks in the competition split amongst three teams.
Eric and John on their Cinema Rex team (As well as Pat, the man who used to edit these very same Rants! - ed.).
Jeremy on his Team Surly.
And Dan, Thaadd, Bryan, and Tod on the Fantasy Flight team While none of them made it into the finals they seemed to be enjoying themselves. I even got to stump Dan with a WoW question. ("How many possible race and class combinations are available in World of Warcraft?" The answer I gave was 40, which was correct BEFORE the expansion, but the new total is 52 - now you know! -ed.)
Here is FFG working on the elimination quiz. I'll see if the ed. can put up a copy of the quiz for you folks to work on. (Oh, okay, fine - ed.) In the contest, teams are given 30 minutes to answer as many questions as possible. The best team this year missed 13 and the worst missed 33. See how many you can get with 3 friends and no cheating. I will warn you that it is harder than usual, mostly because I wrote it. 4/27/07 - Dan This might shock you (well, probably not), but a lot of us come into our hobby game-geek-dom by way of books. How many full-fledged geeks got their start with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? (Anyone? Just me? Okay.) My favorite games are the ones that tell stories (insert snarky response from my arch-nemesis Bryan here), and the reason for this is that I love stories. I love reading them, seeing them, experiencing them, telling them, writing them, dreaming them ... and I don't think I'm alone. That's all by way of saying: I know that I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction whenever I get the chance, and I (further) am always looking for a good book reccomendation, so I thought I'd go around the office and see how many of my fellow game-geeks had something interesting to say!
Rob Vaughn (Back in town for the week! Yay Rob!): Hiking Mount Rainier - wait a minute. That's a National Geographic travel guide. That's ... that's not helpful at all! Next!
Glad you could join me in this paragraph. Okay, well, about two weeks ago I loaned Zoe the first six books of the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher - Storm Front being the first one. The next Monday, bleary-eyed, Zoe vented her rage and anger at me for playing such a cruel trick on her. Apparently she'd started the books at some late hour on Saturday night, and at 11:30 or so on Sunday morning was finishing book four (Summer Knight, one of my favorites) when she got a phone call from a friend to meet up for brunch. Since then, Zoe has had the shakes and shivers whenever she didn't have the next book in the series immediately accessible to her. Since I didn't have book seven, but did have book eight, there was some despair followed by a trip to the bookstore for her ... and then when I found book nine at our local game store (yeah, I bought it at a game store - geeks, remember?), and it took my girlfriend a COMPLETELY unacceptable four or five days to read it ... well, Zoe suffered. Oh, how she suffered. But all is well, and Kat (aforementioned girlfriend) finished it finally, and now Zoe is tearing her way through White Night, by Jim Butcher. Which is a book about a professional wizard-slash-private-investigator in modern Chicago. How can you go wrong? As for me, I was halfway through Gregory Maguire's Mirror, Mirror when White Night interrupted me, and I'm back on that now. It's a strange retelling of the story of Snow White, in the same way that Wicked was a strange retelling of The Wizard of Oz. So, there you have it. The fertile minds of your favorite game company (we're your favorite, right?) are fueled by a steady diet of stories, and cultivated in the pasture of literature. And we read arguably too much George R. R. Martin. (Psst! Mr. Martin! Finish book five please thanks?) 4/24/07 - Jeff - "Behind the Scenes in Editor-ville," or, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Chicago Manual of Style" Word on the street is that this is where I rant. So...As you Also, as you For your amusement, a few of the things
As a final note, and as a service to society at large, please turn off the feature in your word processor that turns the URLs you type in into active hyperlinks. All of you, you people who are doing this, just cut it out. Seriously. (And thank you.) 4/17/07 - Dan"So, Dan, do you want to stay after work today and play some games that don't exist yet oh yeah and there will be pizza?" How do you say "no" to something like that? Sorry, Raging Warlords - you'll have to find someone else to tank Karazhan tonight. (That's a World of Warcraft reference for those of you who don't have addictive personalities.) Yeah, I realize that I'm passing up electronic dorkery for meatspace dorkery. But damnit, this is job-related meatspace dorkery! Sometimes I love my life.
4/16/07 - Thaadd A number of us have college degrees, however. Some even are using them, as evident from the number of people with 'Graphic' in the degree name. Others use more of the liberal education aspect of their degrees. Some have no college background, but instead spent time working on their hobby, until their hobby became their dayjob… It goes without saying that there are a lot more people who would like to be in this industry than available jobs. I heard someone over in the 'artsy' side of FFG the other day going 'I still can't believe I'm getting paid to paint minis!' So, without association to job, dept, or name! Here is a list of the sort of college that FFG staff ended up receiving.
Communication Design
A mixed bunch, we are. I'm still waiting for the designer boys to make me a swamp game. The Runebound die swamp symbol is as close as they can come up with so far.
4/10/07 - Eric Knight First, the appalling: they had the unmitigated gall to give us an average that was based, in some cases, on guesses of coworkers' ages. Come on, if you're going to give a statistic with decimal points, you can do a little bit of research and actually find out the real ages. Cripes! (Eric is actualy bristling over his poor reading comprehension skills, since he genuinely believed that the numbers we presented were accurate in the face of common sense and mountains of evidence. I mean, c'mon, JEREMY came up with these numbers. - ed.) Here's the creepy part: as has been mentioned before, John Grams and I have been friends a long time. (See the rant and picture posted on January 4th for further reference.) As a matter of fact, we've been friends since the fall of 1977, about 29.5 years ago. The number the guys came up with for the average age here at FFG? 29.481 years. Freaky! Now I want to find out everyone's actual ages, to see just how disturbingly close these numbers really are.
4/09/07 - Jeremy, Bryan, Dan Using the extremely scientific method of guessing the ages of all our co-workers, our crack team of mathemeticians calculated the Mean average to a high degree of precision. Our calculations reveal the average age of an FFG employee to be ... 29.481 (repeating) years! There you have it. We are either a bunch of young kids or old men, depending on your frame of reference. Now the question is: what is the average age of the FFG customer?
4/5/07 - Kevin C. While working on games is great fun, let me remind you it is still hard work! The current project that is eating up most of the graphic design departments is the behemoth that is Starcraft: the Board Game. Maybe one of the most complex games FFG has tackled to date, Starcraft is one amazingly detailed game with more pieces and plastic than you can wrap your head around! The blood, sweat and tears (you forgot disgusting alien ichor - ed.) are still being plucked from our machines as we force them to grind along with monster files in a sea of virtual layers. We do this because we are always going to push ourselves to the limit as we get more and more dedicated to creating top-notch graphics of stunning quality. Our computers here at FFG have started feeling the strain as larger and more demanding projects are ushered into the next wave of games, and let me be the first to say the promise of new Macs is going to be well received! Starcraft has been an incredible challenge, from the sheer complexity of the project, the components, the styles (for THREE races mind you!), and to making it all fit. For those who have played Starcraft (the PC game) as religiously as I have, I am confident you will love this board game. You will never again see a more true-to-self depiction of Starcraft on cardboard and plastic! I assure you we will celebrate with much joy and laughter as the game is kicked out the door. Until then…. back to the project, back to working on the pixel level, and back to ensuring the graphics look great. Here is a small sample of what is being done.
4/4/07 - Dan I want to take a moment to talk about Finding Nemo fruit snacks. First of all, they're delicious. But let me back up, and explain to you why sometimes working in marketing makes me cry. Or rather, makes me feel like I ought to be crying, even though I haven't the slightest inclination to do so. You're confused. I understand. As you might be aware, we here at FFG occasionally make some licensed products, and in many cases this requires a degree of oversight of our marketing and promotional material on the part of the licensor. It's pretty basic stuff - they want to make sure that their intellectual property is being presented in a way consistent with the image they are trying to project. For example, if we had wanted to put Gandalf in a tutu on the cover of the Lord of the Rings, the Tolkien estate might have had something to say about that. But there's also something of a laundry list of details that I know SHOULD be obvious but I often overlook when I'm thinking about these things. Company logos. Legal text and copyright notices. The sort of things that should be second nature to anyone in marketing - it's all about branding, after all. And that's what went through my head as I ate my Finding Nemo fruit snacks this morning. The packaging has it all - the Kellogg's logo, the Disney logo, the Pixar logo, the Finding Nemo logo, website addresses, copyright information - and this is the individual not-for-resale pouch! Suddenly, for the first time, I saw it as a marketing professional, looking at just another (delicious) branded product. (This is the part that makes me feel like I should cry - the loss of the innocence of the fruit snack! - but it turns out that they're still delicious even when you penetrate the veil.) The Finding Nemo fruit snack pouch now lives on my desk, taped back up (but divested of its yummy cargo) to serve as an eternal reminder. I have seen the light - and, like Dora, I wanted to touch it. (No, we're not doing a Finding Nemo board game.)
3/28/07 - Thaadd We're also a fairly social workplace – 6pm rolls around, and there is often a cluster of people chatting near the front door. A few times a week, this is simply 'where should we grab food' (nothing like group food decisions!) before games either here, or at people's homes. Fridays it might be longer games and dinner at the webmaster's house (thanks for hosting!), Mondays or Tuesdays it might be ping pong. Thursdays have been the traditional pen and paper RPG group night, of which I just have managed to weasel my way into. (Threats and wheedling aside, it took someone dropping out for Pilots wings' classes to get in…) Soon I'm going to start playing Dragonstar, an in-house game that looks to be a lot of fun! I'm still waiting for a certain busy Wolfboy to start his Midnight campaign but I think learning to run it myself might be faster… If you work with a laidback group of people, you might try doing something like putting up a sign for a board game night up. You might be surprised at the response! Whenever I go to Conventions (gaming or otherwise) I'm always spotting 'closet geeks'. You might find some likeminded people, or introduce someone to your favorite board games! It's a good, structured way to get to know coworkers better.
With that random thought, I leave you with a couple pictures of this week's PingPong. Sharp eyes might spot that in some pictures there is more than one ball in play. A new game in playtesting?
Don't worry, gentle readers. None of the people pictured here are on the game development staff, so you're not likely to see an FFG-produced Ping Pong game on your shelves any time soon. -ed.
3/27/07 - Bryan
3/26/07 - Dan But if I hadn't gone to Games Expo, I wouldn't have had a chance to hang out with Dana Lombardy and Bill Jaffe from ArcLight USA, wouldn't have amicably grumbled with Phil from Paizo, played Stonehenge with Joshua Frost of Dragon magazine, met up with Tom Jolly again, played Portobello Market with Phi from Playroom Entertainment, and so on and so on. I also wouldn't have met Jonathan from Quarterstaff Games in person. Now, this probably isn't significant to you, since Quarterstaff Games is not some big industry mover and shaker the way that Paizo, Playroom, and even Fantasy Flight Games are ... but, in a way, it is. See, Quarterstaff Games was the game store I went to as a kid. I remember gathering $100 worth of receipts (with the help of my brother, thanks Ethan!) to qualify for a member's discount card. I remember whining until my Mom agreed to bring me into Burlington, Vermont and then never, ever having spent enough time in that store, that weird and quirky ex-bar with the rack of Warhammer miniatures taller than I was and shelves and shelves of roleplaying books. Quarterstaff Games was one of the factors that brought me into the hobby. Because of this store, I am who I am today. I wouldn't be working at Fantasy Flight if it weren't for those early experiences - I am literally writing these very words because of Quarterstaff Games. Now consider that I work for one of the larger game companies in the world, and consider that the very words I am writing (written due to the influence of Quarterstaff Games) could in some small way influence the gamer-development of some other person, multiply that by the readership of our website and Game Trade Magazine, add the square of the root of A Game oF Thrones and watch the ripple effect spread. Retailers like Quarterstaff are the core of the industry. We gamers would not be as numerous, confident, articulate, or happy as we are without the influence of the brick-and-mortars. They provide us a place to play our games, a place to congregate, a place to learn, to speak, to shoot the dozens, to grow as people and as a community. So, thanks, Jonathan, for what you've done for Quarterstaff Games. And thanks, Quarterstaff, for what you've done for me. Oh! And we also went to Quark's Bar. That was fun, too.
3/23/07 - Zoe How do I select freelance artists for illustration projects? It really varies from project to project. Here's the sentence that is in my mind at the beginning of every project: "Okay...I need X amount of Y art pieces for a game in Z genre by such and such a date...who do I know that can give me what I need?" There are only a few projects that I use artists who are new to working with FFG, and all of them are CCGs. A lot of artists send me "I would like to work for you" emails with links to an on-line portfolio, which is very useful. I usually look through them, and then contact artists with an "are you available?" email when I would like to give them work :). However, I spend a lot of time surfing the net to find artists, as well. If you are just starting out your freelancing career, I definitely have a few suggestions! -Make yourself find-able! Post a good selection of your best art on places like deviantArt.com, CG portfolio/society, and your own site. And MAKE SURE you put contact information (at least an email—one that works!) on your profile. Heck. Stick a working email next to art WHEREVER you post it on-line. There is nothing so frustrating for an art scout as finding an artist you want and then not being able to contact them! -Have your email make sense! For your professional email, choose something that has your professional name in it. This also makes you easier to find and remember. If you send submissions to companies, here are a few things to keep in mind: -A solid few is better than a mediocre flood. That being said, just one piece of art doesn't give companies a good idea of what your art is like. -Be aware of the company you are sending to and what they are most likely looking for. Not only is the STYLE of art that at least FFG looks for quite specific, but I can't tell you the number of artists who send me portfolios of NOTHING but naked ladies ... and no matter how good their technique, I just can't give them work! -Don't stalk. Follow up is good, but keep it within reason...most companies have a 'we'll-let-you-know-when-we-can-use-you' policy. Sometimes it's months and months before a project crops up that I can use someone in. If you call a company and ask point blank "can you give me work, yes or no", it forces them to make the decision right there, which is not a good position to put them in. Rather than calling, I recommend re-sending your portfolio link. You want to make yourself recognizable, not make people groan and get a headache whenever your name comes up. If you do get work from a company, understand that at first they might not give you as many assignments as you'd like. I usually give artists I haven't worked with before just a few, so I can feel out how we work together, how their style meshes with FFG's expectations, and how reliable they are. Which brings me to two really big points that a lot of new freelancers miscalculate on: -Don't bite off more than you can chew! The art director will most likely ask you how many illustrations you can do in a given time, and the temptation is to say "... hmmm ... they're paying me this much per illustration ... and I like the sound of (insert sizable sum of money) ... so I will ask for lots and lots of cards!" No no no no no. Bad. Because what happens when they GIVE you that many cards and you realize two weeks later that you can't handle that many? Freelancing is a lot about building your reputation; don't bite off more than you can chew. Know thyself, and if you don't know thyself yet, be conservative on how much work you can take on. -And the number one rule of any freelance work anywhere: Never miss a deadline. Three page emails about how your grandma died again and your right hand got cut off and it's taken this long to get it reattached can not be exchanged for lost reputation. Never miss a deadline. -Remember, it's the reliable artists that get repeat work! Get your stuff in early and consistently to make an impression! And that is where I shall stop writing ... if you've gotten this far, I heartily commend you! Warm wishes, gentle reader. (And thank you to the artist who sent me that email!)
3/22/07 - Jaffer If any of you have ever read Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen, you would easily get a sense of why it's so hard to motivate at that level of education. So much of the material was pre-packaged, meant to indoctrinate, more than educate, and dull, dull, dull. I was lucky enough to go onto college, despite my previous performance, and - get this - I went into the major that in high school is considered to be the most boring. I majored in History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies and the reason why I was excited to sit down to my homework and write those essays and participate in those class discussions was because the material in college was entirely different. Gone, the brick-like textbooks! Hello, my new friends, my Penguin Classics! Greetings, my archives of primary sources that shame the final shot of Raiders of the Lost Ark! Sit ye down and yarn, my tapes and tapes of oral histories! To the ancient Greeks, History was considered one of the arts (its muse, Clio) and Philosophy was the Love of Knowledge, and for the first time, in college, I understood how they could feel that way. But why am I going on about my education? I suppose because learning stuff is heavily on my mind right now. I'm finishing up my third week here at Fantasy Flight and there's still so much to learn. While Bryan's away at Games Expo (in Vegas, no less), I've had to learn some of what goes on at the other desk. I've stood behind Eric's chair as he deals with the Byzantine intricacies of international orders. And that's all cool – it's cool to work for so cozy a company that we're not so compartmentalized that we can't all learn from each other and work together, literally (as opposed to just in the Mission Statements, like in some companies). But what's really excellent is the fact that, as a Sales person, I have to learn our line of games. It's more, too, than just learning their dimensions and prices. Oh yes, I must, I simply must, play them. I came into this job knowing (and loving) a few FFG games like Blue Moon City and Citadels, but on my first day Bryan tells me that I have to learn the widescreen games: Tide of Iron, World of Warcraft, Twilight Imperium, Descent. It's a tragedy that we're temporarily out of stock on two of them and haven't gotten TOI in yet, but I am no less excited to play Descent: Journeys in the Dark. I've got both expansions now and I'm hot to work my way through some of the fan-created scenarios right here on the FFG website. This is not homework that I shrink from, that I'll make excuses about, that my dog will eat. No, Teacher, bring it on, pile it higher, and can I have a few more extra-credit assignments for the weekend?
3/13/07 - Dan I've seen at least one thread on our message boards wondering who or what was up there, so let's break it down for you. Starting from the left ... Sunulael is called the Priest of Shadow. He is one of the Night Kings from our Midnight setting, a faithful (and undead) servant of the dark god Izrador. This version of his art is from Runebound: Midnight. As well as representing Midnight, which is an important setting for all of us here at FFG, Sunulael is also doing some more basic double-duty as representing the Horror genre. The Descent Dragon is fresh off the cover of Descent: Journeys in the Dark. What kind of fantasy game company would we be if we didn't have a dragon somewhere on our front page? I mean, really. The name "Fantasy Flight" more or less dictates this choice. The dragon is as iconic a figure as you can get, and makes it clear - we do fantasy and we do giant monsters. Kilik represents The Mentak Coalition from Twilight Imperium Third Edition. We don't know much about Kilik, but we can assume, since she is a Leader in TI3, that she is part of the Table of Captains and therefore one of the highest ranking (and most dangerous) individuals in the entire Coalition. Of course, Kilik represents both the Twilight Imperium universe and science-fiction in general. She also looks very, very cool. Last, but not least, is Brandon Lightstone of Northshire Abbey in Azeroth. He hails from World of Warcraft: the Board Game and represents heroes and heroism everywhere. The heroic knight (or paladin, or barbarian, or other warrior) is as much a staple of the fantasy genre as the dragon, so of course it had to represented here. (As an aside, I'm pretty happy with the brief introductory blurb on Brandon's website.) Oh! And our logo's kinda blue now. I don't know about you, but I like it.
3/12/07 -Bryan
Strategy games are at their best when everybody is taking the game seriously. If even one player is not taking a game seriously, it can make it easy for a serious player to take advantage of them. If I say "it's just a game" and recklessly charge out with my entire fleet in Twilight Imperium, it will be easy for my neighbor to take most of my systems with little to no resistance giving them an easy victory. On the other hand, if you take the game too seriously, that won't make the game better either. If the Stark player you thought was going to support you instead raids you at a critical time in A Game of Thrones, you shouldn't take it personally - they were just focusing on the goal of winning. There is a balance that must be struck between these two extremes. Always trying to win also means that even when you're sure you're going to lose, you still try to win. When you give up, several negative things can happen. Games are less fun when somebody is having a bad time. Also, if you don't try to win when you're behind, you'll never be able to get the glorious come-from-behind victory that will be talked about every time you play the game again. Knizia's quote helps shed some light on why two-player games are often thought to be the pinnacle of strategy games. It is much easier to find one committed opponent for Chess, Go, or a CCG, than it is to find four other committed players for a game of Warrior Knights. But I think it's worth it to find the extra players. Remember to focus on the goal, but remember what the goal is.
3/09/07 - Bexley
I got into a car accident. No, seriously. That's it. Okay, well, there's a little more to it than that. I did get into a car accident, and that did result in my employment here at Fantasy Flight. The "more to it" component was that I had been employed next door at Landroval Studios last summer as a carpenter (and, by the end of filming, the lead carpenter) on Midnight Chronicles. After the shoot, I built a few things for FFG's GenCon booth before returning to my job as a medical courier, so my construction skills were already known by the staff here. As far as how the accident led to my employment, it happened when Thaadd and Jeremy (already long time friends of mine, going back well before the film shoot) were discussing my recent accident with some of my former Landroval coworkers here in the office. Since my vehicle was my livelihood, I was effectively unemployed after the accident. Chris happened by, and upon hearing I was looking for work, told Jeremy there might be a place for me here. Jeremy had already previously contacted me about some odds-and-ends work on various upcoming projects, and FFG was going to be hiring a development assistant to help the game designers with prototyping and playtesting. Since I was already well suited to that position, and the odds-and-ends projects would easily fit into the development assistant's duties, I was offered a job, which I eagerly accepted. So, while a car accident was in fact responsible for my employment here, I wouldn't recommend that course of action as a means of seeking employment at Fantasy Flight Games. I don't want to be held accountable for a string of gamer-related vehicle wrecks in the Roseville area, or the sudden appearance of driving records as resumé filler.
3/08/07 - Eric Knight
1) I love the fact that because of the setting and the common interest, there tends to be a lot of game playing. Some might think that this would not be the case - you work with games, why would you play them in your spare time? Of course, the opposite is true because most of us don't spend all day playing games as our job, so there's no issue of getting tired of it because of the job. Also, there's a reason most of us got jobs here in the first place... we like games. There is almost always a good game or two running at lunch time. I've been a gamer since I was a kid, but being here has really rekindled and reinforced that interest of late. 2) The common geeky interests spill over to other areas, so people chat about TV, movies, comics, music, and it's always fun to trade ideas and suggestions or just dig into a conversation about a shared interest. For instance: many here in the office watch the new BSG. The only negative here is that if you haven't seen an episode yet, you can only do so much to avoid spoilers and I am ultra-paranoid when it comes to avoiding spoilers. This is pertinent right now, as I have heard that something really big happened in this week's BSG and I haven't seen it yet. I could also point out that the fact that "something really big happens" is still a spoiler, which some people don't seem to get. (Sheesh, thanks, Eric. I haven't seen it yet! -ed.) On a side note: you may also be wondering why I haven't seen this week's episode yet: since the beginning, I've watched the series regularly with a few friends and we liked doing it on Friday nights, but they recently moved the show to Sundays. After a couple of (sub-optimal) Sunday viewings, it was suggested that we could download it from iTunes for a couple of bucks, hitch the computer up to the TV and watch it whenever we wanted, like Friday night. I know that there is an element of spoiler risk in this delay and I consider it to be an accepatable level, provided people aren't intentionally being jerks by divulging spoilers on purpose. 3) General geekiness, in a good way. Geeks are all about quotes and obscure references, which is absolutely relevant here. They don't have to be obscure, sometimes it's merely a question of setting and/or timing. A couple of weeks ago, our water was turned off for a little over half the day. To put it bluntly, this meant the rest rooms were not usable, so people had to leave the office and go to nearby places with facilities. At least once or twice I heard someone refer to this as, "Going on an away mission." Sure, this could happen at other workplaces, but I would argue I was much more likely to hear something like that here. (More to the point, I think: here, people laugh WITH you for saying it, not AT you - ed.)
03/07/07 – Jaffer
I gotta tell you, I'd been working in retail for nearly a decade and just before I started here I was selling games. Among those I sold, Fantasy Flight games tended to top out on my list. I'm a huge fan of Blue Moon City and Citadels and I can't wait to get into a game of Tide of Iron. This right here, this is a gamer's paradise. I still get to sell games without the agony of mall muzak, and - this is the good part - I get to get into great games right as they're coming up from development to your doorstep. I love games, so I guess what can I say but do what you love and you'll find there's a home for you. Thanks, FFG!
3/06/07 - Jeremy
2) Whoa, this place is getting crowded! "Hi" to all the new folks (Jeff, Bexley, and Jaffer). Of those, only one is in the office they're going to stay in for a while. We're doing a bit of an office expansion here at FFG (it's allowed us to put pencil to graph paper and design our new addition, but as of yet, no plans have an "
3/01/07 - Dan, Peter, et al.
From left to right: Zoë, Eric, Tod (crouching), Jeremy, John Grams, Thaadd (with snowball), Tony.
Thaad is a strange girl. She likes the snow and the cold.
When I look at this photograph of Michelle, I can't help thinking of Fred Gallagher and his infamous predilection for "sad girls in snow." The story gets better. Apparently our regular UPS pick-up driver made a special early stop at our warehouse today. He needed to grab some boxes of games (Descent: Journeys in the Dark, anyone?) to weigh his truck down so it would slide around less. Never let it be said that our "widescreen" games aren't good for something! We'd give you more tales of our adventures in this winter wonderland, but apparently the entire Midwest is shutting down due to snow emergency now and it's time to lock up and flee home to our wives, husbands, children, and cats, as appropriate.
2/26/07 - Gabe I also didn't expect to find the most enjoyable job right out of college. I love coming in at ten. I love having my own desk. I love working with graphics (without the help of Freehand 9). I like the people here. This place is awesome! And I'll have you know: "All FFG employees are nice people and will eventually save the world from our own destruction." (I have NO idea who Gabe is quoting here. Did he lift that out of our business plan? - ed.)
2/23/07 - Jeremy Anyway, we're taking Luke's car, so on Wednesday, he asked me how much stuff I had to bring along. "Well," I said, "I have a suitcase, a backpack, and a bunch of games to give away." "Okay," Luke replied. "I guess I'll have to take the subwoofer out of the trunk." "You have a subwoofer?!?" I was incredulous. "You're far too nerdy to have a subwoofer in your car!" "It came with the car!" was his defense. I continued to make fun of him until he stormed out. Uh-oh, now he's mad... I sat back down at my desk, and glanced up about 30 seconds later to see Luke's car back up right outside my window. Oh, man, what kind of bass-laden gangsta rap or techno music am I about to be subjected to? I thought. Duuuun...duuuuuuun...duuuuuuuun...DUN_DUUUN!!! Thus Spoke Zarathustra blared. The drums rumbled. Maybe he's just nerdy enough.
*Iowa, of course, is a mystical land far across the sea.
2/21/07 - Dan Here at the office we have had since shortly after I was hired a Thursday night roleplaying group. We play primarily good old-fashioned (as in version 3.5) D&D in a homebrew (office-brew?) world with a rotating GM. Tomorrow, we're beginning our Dragonstar game, while on a break from our "main" campaign. So, first of all, we're all really excited. Andrew will be the captain of the ship (and we have one of those Battletech dropships to serve as the ship herself on the battle-mat), I believe Ryann is excited to be the pilot, Rich the Navigator, Tony is looking at making a soulmech mechanic (probably to abuse the Jury-Rig rules on himself), and things are shaping up great. As the game master I have been sketching out some setting details, NPCs, and getting an idea of where the plot might go. In the process, I sketched this:
Morning-after edit: as you can clearly see, FFG does not pay me to draw things, so please don't construe this sketch as meaning anything at all about FFG's art or graphic design! This is the Worldship Haven, population ten million souls, destination unknown, moving through space at sub-light speeds. No starcaster ever made could move that much mass, but since Haven is technically a ship and not a space station and it is not within the borders of any solar system (although it is currently pretty close to a pretty big one), it is in a grey area of Imperial law. Naturally, smugglers and free traders love grey areas, so it's a perfect staging ground for our campaign (because, come on, in the wake of Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, and other awesome source material, of COURSE we're going to be playing smugglers and free traders!). The question is: does this count as official Dragonstar content?
2/16/07 - Thaadd Just a quick little Friday rant. Today starts the local 'Twin Cities' gaming convention Con of the North, which Fantasy Flight runs a Demo room at. I actually woke up early today, with that sort of panicked 'Oh, I hope I did not oversleep so much to do today!' sort of feeling. (I did not, it was actually 45minutes before the alarm!) I've been working at (prior to working at Fantasy Flight) local conventions for about 10 years now, but I always get an excited Christmas Morning sort of feeling at the start of them. I'll be dead tired by Sunday, and heartily sick of junk food and soda, but looking forward is always fun. I'm heading over with some others early in the afternoon to set up our room, and I get to go dig out the Demo copies of a bunch of our games today. We're running some new games (Hint – 1 involves little army trucks!) and older favorites. I hope to actually sit in on a few demos for games that I have not played – with so many titles, I'm actually supporting games as Customer Service I have not had a chance to play. A fair portion of FFG staff spend our lunches playing games, but no matter how diligent on getting the next person to take their turn, you can't squeeze the 'A Game of Thrones' boardgame into a lunch break. On the off chance you diligent FFG Rant reader types have not gone to a gaming convention (or a generally geeky convention with games!) before, you should really give it a try. Even if you have a regular group of people you play with, there is a lot of fun to be had gaming with strangers. Are you the type that tends to wipe the board with your friends? The strangers will not know your strategies. Are you sick of playing with the tank who always wins, no matter what the game? You might find a better match for playing style. And of course, there is the appeal of trying new games without having to gamble the cash on them – although this does not really work for me, as I'm a big sucker for dealers' rooms. In any case, hope you have as much fun this weekend as I intend to!
2/15/07 - Kevin C. I just started work here at Fantasy Flight, occupying the vacant desk of a successful graphic designer. I took a stab in the dark to get here; honestly. Fortunately for me it worked out, and two mere days into the job process I have already had the privilege of working on a few A Game of Thrones graphical art projects; of which I am a huge fan. I was able to hear George R.R. Martin's voice over the phone for a blip in the office across the hall, and I was allowed a sneak peek into the Midnight Chronicles movie production. This truly is a gamer's paradise, both from the games we create and the people who work here. I am honored to have earned a position here, and I must say I would have never made it without my adoring wife and her confidence in me or that of my family and friends. I hope to grow with the company and do my best to create the best work possible so that when you pick up a game developed by FFG, you'll be overcome with that "this is a great looking game!" feeling. Here's to dreams, possibilities and adventure.
2/14/07 - Dan
Will you be our Valentine?
2/9/07 - Jeremy It's like that around FFG when John Grams gets back from his trips. John was in Germany last week for the Nuremberg Toy Fair. Before he got back, a giant package addressed to him arrived in our warehouse, all the way from Germany. It took all of our willpower to not open the box before John got back on Wednesday. There were a great many cool things in the box, some of which I can't tell you about yet (they'll be worth the wait, I promise). However, there were three small blue boxes that I was more excited about than all the rest: That's right, I finally got to check out the new Wings of War miniatures!
There are four different planes, and each plane has three different paint schemes. Each comes with a base (with the firing arc and all the damage & maneuverability information normally found on the plane cards), four clear plastic pegs (to show differing altitudes), and a maneuver deck for that plane! We're starting with these, but there are more on the way this fall. They'll be available at your friendly local game shop in April!
1/30/07 - Dan
Oh, and one more thing: I'm about ready to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!
1/18/07 - Tod Here's a list of a few things I'm looking forward to in 2007: New Games –
New Movies –
New TV –
New Music –
All this and more including my 10 year anniversary working for Fantasy Flight! –crazy, huh?
1/17/07 - Bryan Just remember that these things are called rants for a reason. Lately, while either talking to people about games, or reading reviews of games, I have noticed a few things that just don't sit right with me. I hope that the next time you're talking about games or writing a review you will keep my frustrations in mind: "Not Bad" Often when someone is describing a game that they don't really like, but they don't want to sound negative, they will describe the game as "not bad". There are a lot of things in life that are "not bad". Stubbing your toe, hitting a red light, waiting in line are all usually not bad. That doesn't mean I want any of those things to happen to me, and it also means I probably don't want to play a game about as much fun as stubbing your toe. If you don't like a game, say so and maybe even try to have a reason why. "Depends on the players" Another thing I seem to hear a lot when people describe games is "This is a really fun game, with the right group of people". There's only one game I know of that doesn't really depend on the players and that's Solitaire. Saying a game is fun with the right group of people doesn't really tell me anything about the game, it just tells me you've played this with a group of people that turned a game you may not have liked into a pretty good time. "It's not like Settlers" Just because a game has resource cards or hexagon tiles doesn't mean it's just like Settlers of Catan. Just because a movie has Elijah Wood in it, that doesn't mean it's just like The Lord of the Rings. Usually, people who describe games like this either haven't play enough Euro-games, or the game is actually about gathering and trading resources. "Fun for Kids" When you're done with a game and someone remarks that the game would "probably be fun for kids", they usually mean that the game was too simple for them, or that their four year old would really like that "Bob the Builder" theme. Again, if you don't like the game, just say so. Don't pawn if off on your unsuspecting children.
Thank you for indulging me, and allowing me to vent my frustration. As a reward for getting through all my pretentious ranting I present my review for the classic card game Go Fish. In "Go Fish" players are trying to complete sets of cards by trading, much like the popular game "Settlers of Catan" but with the added twist of drawing from the deck when one of the other players does not have the desired card. Players may only lay down a full set of four matching cards and the game ends when one player has emptied their hand. Go Fish is not a bad game, and can actually be fun with the right group of people or with children.
1/15/07- Scott I must say that it has been a great ride and I will miss the rock and roll life style of the game industry; there is no industry with such great fans like you. Thanks for buying our games and all the great praise you have given; it makes it a joy to work here. Well I suppose this is where is should say something profound and poetic. Yeah . . . um . . . Ok . . . well here it goes. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Scott Nicely
1/04/07 - Eric John and I have been friends since elementary school, almost thirty years. Crazy, huh? A few weeks back when I went out to lunch with a few coworkers, this topic of how long we've known each other came up. I believe it was Thaadd who asked, "Are there any pictures of the two of you as kids?" I thought there probably would be a picture or two with both of us, but I'd have to wait until visiting my parents over the holidays to try and find them, since my parents no longer live here in Minnesota. Last week I spent hours digging through a couple large boxes of pictures. I was pretty sure my best bet was to try and find pictures from one of my birthday parties that John might have attended. Before that, however, for context... this is me a few weeks ago at the FFG Holiday party:
John at the White Wolf party during Gencon, back in August:
And here is a picture of John and I at my 12th birthday party in November of 1979, in the middle of playing some sort of party game: |
