So, let’s start things off - in February, there won't be any further releases. This is because currently the teams are busy preparing for March! And in March...
Early March - Rules Freeze Update
First of all, in the early days of March, the project will release its final update prior to the rules being frozen for (at least) six months. What is a rules freeze? A period of time, during which the main books of the game will not be changing (Rules, Arcane Compendium, Season Pack and army books). Thus, a longer break to allow for the game to stabilize and settle, and for everyone to truly see how the changes of the 3rd Edition affect the landscape.
This update will still feature a few important changes based on feedback gained during the previous months. Alongside a few price adjustments to aspects of the game that are over-performing or creating frustrating patterns of play and some final fixes to the army books.
And speaking of pricing, even as I write this, the PRT (Pricing Team) is taking stock of the lessons learned during this chaotic year we've gone through, and evolving our methods and processes to deliver better results in the future!
Q2-3 Supplement Books, Army Book Design Principles, and Community Feedback Surveys
After March, things will slow down significantly! This will, at long last, give the teams enough breathing room to get the Supplement Books updated to 3rd Edition. Work will begin in March, with the releases staggered over the rest of the year as they are finished.
Alongside them, work will begin on the Army book Design Principles. A comprehensive document featuring guidelines for the armies in the game, that better showcase their themes, and where their specialties lie, to help guide designers in the future as different designers and task teams take the reins of a given army book.
The Supplement Book process continues well into Q3 (and potentially even into Q4), where the first steps towards the next version of the 3rd Edition will be taken, with the Community Feedback Surveys on the state of the game.
This gauging of the players opinions on where the 3rd Edition stands is planned to the latter half of Q3. Because this is quite a long way off, there's not much I can say about it yet. All the same, it is assured that the future of the edition will still rest on the shoulders of the players, as we are here to provide a game for our community after all!
And with the help of these feedback surveys, we'll move on to the development:
Q4 - Rules and Armybooks, Year-End Price Update
This past half a year has had many changes but next year would NOT be so filled with rapid change, with the changes to rules being intended to evolve the current version towards a stable one that could be frozen for a longer period of time. Any changes to army books will happen AFTER the rules are set. So first, we'll see all of the important rules changed in one go - Core rules, Magic and the introduction of a new Season!
This will mean a new set of maps, scenarios, objectives and something unique to the season, with its own theme and twists. What will those twists be? Well, that remains to be seen, and more news will come of that later! The intention of the Season Packs is to keep the game fresh year to year, even as the rules and armies are frozen, by ensuring that the matches we play have something new added to them every now and then!
In the final few months of the year, we would see the army books updated, or at least begin to be updated. It will be very unlikely that this will be such a large undertaking as the previous year, but there will still be some changes, as there will very likely be shortcomings found in the armies over the year that the designers will be eager to fix, and the changes to rules may also necessitate some adjustments to them!
Following this, the PRT will be taking stock of how significant the changes overall are, and performing the first truly data-driven update of the 3.0 process, with the numbers of an entire year available to analyze and inform pricing decisions.
If nothing else changes the year will come to an end with hopefully a long freeze to happen afterwards! However, it's going to be an entire year to get to that point! As the saying goes, the best laid schemes o' mice an' men...
But at least for the next few months, the course is clear! I hope you'll enjoy the adventure as well. Until the next time! |
