Talk Fantasy Football

@ Milo and J-TY.
Most often the people speaking more are the ones with something to complain about.
So it might be difficult to understand which is the general opinion.

I want to say that I and my league like very much the new off season/redrafting rules and have adopted them (with some adapting to our league size and duration).
We consider having sometimes to pay more to rehire a player or having to make some hard decision, more realistic, more interesting and fun.
We are ok with it as long as the coach has the choice about who to keep and who to let go.

Just to let you know both opinions.

We know Rolex. We do know.
The new edition has attracted literally hundreds of thousands of new and returning players, and there are lots of avenues to feedback to GW other than just this forum. The consensus does seem to be that the redrafting and other changes have been received very well. People like it.
But happy people don't take to the internet to say that in such numbers as unhappy people.

I am always interested to hear ideas to grow the options and cater for everyone, so I would like to hear what tweaks you've made to the redrafting to suit your league. Maybe a subject for another discussion thread, league rules and variations, what works for your league and why.
Every league or group of players is different, and it's important to understand those differences.

Milo wrote:Would you be okay with it if they printed it on the package (so that everyone who bought one would have them), but also made it available as a downloadable, printable PDF online?

I actually prefer my rules to be in PDF format, so I would appreciate things like the special pitch weather tables to be downloadable.

JT-Y wrote:What's the feedback here? Would you like to see a variety of league options printed for players and commissioners to choose from for greater personalisation?, or do you just want it changed back because that's how you like it?

'Official' options are always good, but not they need to be hosted alongside the stuff on the main page, not relegated to some little side page.
(Of course, ideally they should be in the printed rules, but I guess it's to late for that.)

Though CRP doesn't need presenting "as a basic, one season league" - there is no issue with a Table Top league running multiple seasons using CRP rules. Sure, CRP might not work exactly as hoped for big, online formats, but then it is first-and-foremost a TT game* - when there's a TT league that has 1000's of players that might only play each other once over the course of their lifetime then I'll worry about that.

* No disrespect to any online format - I enjoyed PBeM, BB1 and never had an issue with Fumbbl, though I never ended up playing there regularly.

Milo wrote:

faust_33 wrote:One thing I hope the powers that be, will take into account "Please, don't print rules and/or relevant material on the game packages.". The Dwarf/Skaven pitch is the best example of this. The rules for the weather table are printed on the outside of the box. Which leaves you with the choice of cutting out the rules and packing around a piece of cardboard, scanning/printing it, retyping it, etc. I don't tend to keep boxes around due to lack of space, so it would be nice if they just included a sheet of paper with the rules.

Would you be okay with it if they printed it on the package (so that everyone who bought one would have them), but also made it available as a downloadable, printable PDF online?

That's better than just printing on the box. Ideally any and all rules would be consolidated into document(s) and made available online. Even better if they had one "official" rules pdf and a supplemental rules pdf with any extraneous/optional rules.

Just something I'd ask anyone to consider when it comes to pdf's of stuff.
There's a common misconception that a pdf is quite simple, but the truth is that they are as resource heavy as printed books to create. Everything needs to be laid out, proofed, edited, and then sent for translation, which repeats the whole process in as many languages as required, which is where it gets really heavy on time and manpower as you can probably imagine.
Where it differs from books is that it isn't then sent to print.
So yeah, pdf's are always an option, but not really an easy option.

Anyway. Whilst what we have in print now is what we have in print now, there's no reason to think that's it or that things can't be added to in future. We could talk about adding variant league rules into a future DeathZone. Not my call, but it's an idea to kick around, and ideas of what people would like to see in future or think might be useful are worth sharing.

I'm surprised that rules were on the box itself.

The 40k and AoS models I've bought lately have had stats and some rules for the models at the end of the instructions. So I'd assume the same could be done with Blood Bowl models. Of course if something doesn't have instructions like a board or cards then I could see the difficulty.

JT-Y wrote:Just something I'd ask anyone to consider when it comes to pdf's of stuff.
There's a common misconception that a pdf is quite simple, but the truth is that they are as resource heavy as printed books to create. Everything needs to be laid out, proofed, edited, and then sent for translation, which repeats the whole process in as many languages as required, which is where it gets really heavy on time and manpower as you can probably imagine.
Where it differs from books is that it isn't then sent to print.
So yeah, pdf's are always an option, but not really an easy option.

Pretty sure you could find an admin on this site that would do it for free.

garion wrote:

JT-Y wrote:Just something I'd ask anyone to consider when it comes to pdf's of stuff.
There's a common misconception that a pdf is quite simple, but the truth is that they are as resource heavy as printed books to create. Everything needs to be laid out, proofed, edited, and then sent for translation, which repeats the whole process in as many languages as required, which is where it gets really heavy on time and manpower as you can probably imagine.
Where it differs from books is that it isn't then sent to print.
So yeah, pdf's are always an option, but not really an easy option.

Pretty sure you could find an admin on this site that would do it for free.

You know Polish? Blood Bowl sold really well there, so we should translate into that language. Czech, Russian, Spanish, Portugeuse, Italian, German, Australian (has to be mirrored upside-down), British (add a "u" to a bunch of words), Swiss-German (everything ends in "-li"), Finnish, Danish, Swedish. You know an admin that would do all that for free?

No, of course not. Maybe you could find a bunch of people who could do some translations, but what JT-Y is saying is that a large, multi-lingual company like GW does have additional things to think about than a bunch of people on an English-language site. (I know there are BB-related sites in German, French and Italian at least, and maybe users on those sites wouldn't consider only English PDFs to be sufficient.)

His whole point, which perhaps you missed, is that it's not as easy as just going into Word and saving as a PDF.

Milo wrote:British (add a "u" to a bunch of words),

Isn't it the other way round, and removing "u" from words to spell it incorrectly for the US market?

We have reps all over the world who could do the job, I would imagine. Including Poles aplenty.

But I do see your point, obviously.

There's an old adage to remember here; please don't ask because refusal often offends.

JT-Y wrote:Just something I'd ask anyone to consider when it comes to pdf's of stuff.
There's a common misconception that a pdf is quite simple, but the truth is that they are as resource heavy as printed books to create. Everything needs to be laid out, proofed, edited, and then sent for translation, which repeats the whole process in as many languages as required, which is where it gets really heavy on time and manpower as you can probably imagine.
Where it differs from books is that it isn't then sent to print.
So yeah, pdf's are always an option, but not really an easy option.

That's not just PDF's, it's any set of rules. Things published online don't have to be in A4 format and can just as well be published in their printed format - e.g. back of the box. If people want them in A4 they can make those adjustments themselves. The important bit is getting the rules out there.

dode74 wrote:

JT-Y wrote:Just something I'd ask anyone to consider when it comes to pdf's of stuff.
There's a common misconception that a pdf is quite simple, but the truth is that they are as resource heavy as printed books to create. Everything needs to be laid out, proofed, edited, and then sent for translation, which repeats the whole process in as many languages as required, which is where it gets really heavy on time and manpower as you can probably imagine.
Where it differs from books is that it isn't then sent to print.
So yeah, pdf's are always an option, but not really an easy option.

That's not just PDF's, it's any set of rules. Things published online don't have to be in A4 format and can just as well be published in their printed format - e.g. back of the box. If people want them in A4 they can make those adjustments themselves. The important bit is getting the rules out there.

Just for the record, I've posted all the rules for the pitches in a sticky post in this very forum. So the rules are out there for people who look.

That is, of course, appreciated. Is a forum of a backwater Blood Bowl related site (no offence intended!) the place the general public should have to look for these things? Should they not, perhaps, be on the official site?