ORIGINAL: NeverMan
Ray, I agree with you that Matrix games really deceived people when they called this game Empires in Arms. I think they knew that there product was not EiA but feared that if they called it EiH not as many people would get conned into buying it. Unfortunately, it's a underhanded marketing trick that many companies use these days (claiming a product something that it is not in order to gain more business). Also, many companies get the license to make a great product but then feel the need to put their "stamp" on it and usually (like in this case) just end up f'ing it up.
In the future I honestly hope that Matrix calls a skunk a skunk and doesn't try to make it sound pretty by giving it a prettier name. From reading these forums, don't worry, you are not alone by feeling like you wasting $70 there are plenty of others out there who are still probably waiting from someone to make Emipres in Arms.
I think you may be putting too much emphasis on something that may not be malicious. "Big" games from AH tended to evolve over time. The General was "official" stuff. People who played the "big" games were used to having a morphing set of rules (errata, expansions, etc.)
I think Matrix simply thought that EIH was the logical extension of EIA that most players were then playing. In fact, they may be correct in this assessment. I know I gave up playing EIA many years ago, not because I didn't like it, but because I had run out of players to play with. But, since EIA was "newer", I would imagine that those who played it thought of it as a "new" game (something gamers sometimes tend to like).
I don't see any malicious intent on the part of Matrix or ADG in all this. I think, though, they DID overestimate the level of commitment EIH players would have to "their game". As with all players who like newer games over old, it should have been clear that that contingent of people wouldn't last long with EIANW. Staying power could only be had through EIA, but nobody could see that at the time (because many of the active players were the vocal ones).
This is why I didn't want this thread to appear as if the opposition had won us over. Just because the vocal minority finishes a debate or gets the last word in does means neither that they won the debate nor that they were correct.
At LAST! The greatest campaign board game of all time is finally available for the PC. Can my old heart stand the strain?
