DemonEyesJason

Important thing to point out is depending on your store, you may have a guy there that loves painting and does commissions and does it not for an large amount of money. I know some people paint for the fun of it and will paint people's stuff for the stuff you provide them so long as nothing comes out of their pocket. They just want stuff to paint without having to spend money. Otherwise, I'm sure commission painters rates vary. Problem is from what I've seen from prepainted stuff, the quality always lacks and the cost to get it done right probably would cost the customer almost double.

And yet none of the things you're pointing out says how going to the Epic launcher benefits people as a consumer for using their service. These services are also more than friend lists. How they allow for user content to be consolidated and make modding easier for those that aren't Lucian levels into modding. How they match regional pricing (this isn't a thing for US, but means a lot to those that are in other countries). The drive they have to included all sorts of control inputs that make it easier for us to use our favorite control schemes. All things Steam has done to make the consumer experience better. I'm not against competition for Steam, but so far, these companies have not really tried to compete, just made it worse by anti-consumer competition methods. If Epic wanted to really compete, they would have launched with all of the features Steam had and more which Epic, with Tencent backing is all the more capable to. Instead they launched with about the capability I would expect a small upstart company to do, which isn't how you compete this late in the game. From the subsequent posts I've seen you've made since I started typing this response though, it seems a lot of your beef is around the store portion, which for me, I can't think I've really had a problem with. I'm like Xbob in that I like the openness they've done and I don't want people to tell me what I may want to play or not. I've not felt I haven't been able to find the games I've wanted to play and in a lot of cases, Steam helped me discover games I wasn't aware of based on the algorithms they built into that. I've not run into this deluge of crap unless I only look at the new releases list. I can see some developers frustrations as now they actually have to compete and try and stand out instead of just making a game and putting it on a service, but if anyone remembers the complaints about Greenlight, this is what they wanted in a lot of cases, but now they can't get lucky and just expect sales. Really when I hear the complaints about sales, it's always the devs that make some game that does something we've seen thousands of times and they don't try to reach out at all and promote the game. Not only that, but they are so absorbed in their passion, they never once think if they made a good game. I ran into a number of these people at a developer's expo here in Columbus call GDEX where a lot of the people were trying to show off their games, but a lot of them felt sort of meh. But they were unaware of it in a lot of cases. I would recommend you watch this video from Steam Dev Days at least for the first 8 minutes from a few years ago. It talks about some of the issues they had when they tried to curate and how they almost turned down some huge successes. Stardew Valley for one would have been not on Steam and probably never become the success it did if they had curated it.

Looks like the GW booth is as meh as it is when it's at Origins. Everything they bring tends to be Horus Heresy or Forge World garbage that they charge a hell of a lot for. That painted Tau looks great though.

Funny that your point 2 mentioned console games are cheaper to purchase from BB and Amazon than buying from the Steam store, but forget that Steam keys can be bought from a lot of different stores (actual price competition) that Steam doesn't benefit from as they get $0 revenue from keys sold outside of the Steam store. GMG, CDKeys, Humble Store, etc., we've benefited greatly from Steam's function of letting developers create as many keys as they want and sell them to whoever they want as long as they also sell through Steam. I rarely buy AAA games from Steam because there are so many cheaper options from third party stores that I can still use the Steam environment.

See I'd agree with this if it was competition of features that Epic was offering over Steam that made it worth using and benefited the consumer. Instead, this competition is keeping us from having games on a service (or even other services if we are talking outside of Steam) that has a lot more function to it and benefits us as the consumer in no way. Exclusivity is one type of competition where the consumer never wins and only benefits the platform holder.

I find it hilarious that people go to cons to play D&D AL that you can play almost anywhere. Origins usually books up pretty quick too and I usually think "Why?" I usually like the cons to see and try games I can't play any other night of the week. I won't be going since I started a new job a few weeks ago. I'm going to try and shoot for next year maybe especially since it's over in PA and I'm in Ohio so it isn't too far. Just timing wasn't right for this year.

If you're just wanting Void Elf, that's probably the easiest of the few to get as the two factions from Argus were the easiest to get rep for especially after they buffed it. They should also give out rep on the mission table so I would check that out in order to get it done. Now Nightborne, you have to get exalted with them and complete the whole Suramar quest chain for their story. That's the last one I need to finish to have them all out of the way.

http://dnd.wizards.com/playevents/organized-play Check for local stores in your area using Wizard's search function. That's the best way to find a place to start with their Adventurer's League.

Also after watching the video, I highly recommend some of boxes he talks about in there, that if you have any interest of going possibly farther, to check out the Start Collecting box for some of the ones he mentions. Two that comes off the top of my head is Drukhari and Tyranids. Both of the ones he recommends in the video are also a part of a SC box that you will pay more, but get a lot more value if you like that. Though, that's if you want to spend another $40-$50 to get that extra value. It may be better to just stick with what he recommends if you aren't sure as you can always get more later. Like for the two factions I named, you're going to always need some more Wyches and Genestealers for a bigger army. I think I have at least a few Drukhari SC boxes I bought like 2 of the new and 2 of the old to supplement the force I'm building.

I picked up my book on Saturday and flipped through it though I haven't had time to play. At most it looks like you'll playing with anything from 5-10 models based on the different factions I've seen and the weapons they can have. It seemed to be a hit with the people that play 40k at regular size, but I was with family and not able to play myself yet. Hopefully soon.

They also released a digital book on DM's Guild for Eberron adapted to 5e that is available now and will always be updating. Granted it's not really new stuff, but I know some of my group is wanting this.

I haven't watched the anime much as I've been following the manga since the first season so it hasn't been high on my must watch list. If I recall, this is where the series starts to focus more on the political environment of the space inside the walls. Which I enjoyed, but not in a rush to see animated.

I was at my local shop to pick up my Arcadia Quest expansion and they said they are having a lot of interest in Kill Team. Which is good. I'm hoping I can turn that interest around to doing full size games.