Hello everybody, the Tabletop Fix just reached another major milestone - this is post 60000 of the official count!
So I'll do a little Ask me Anything in the comments if any of you actually have any questions :)
Unofficial - Independent - Non-Commercial
No question, but big thanks. I really like this site.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteAlso not a question, just a big "Thank you!" :)
ReplyDeleteYour site is a frequent source of new information and cool things to investigate.
Cheers, it's good to hear that I still help people to find new interesting things!
DeleteWhy?
ReplyDeleteWhy not?
DeleteIf the question is why I am doing this blog, it's basically because nobody else did, and it is something I would enjoy if somebody else would do it.
If you could pick one game to make a return, which one would you pick? Thank you for the site - it is just a great resource.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that Spartan Games crazy "WW2 didn't end in 1945" game would have been great.
DeleteBut in terms of games that actually got released, I would love to see a return of GorkaMorka.
Same as many previous comments; thank you. Never post, but check for updates every day. You've led me to find many Cool Things over the years. My mini's collection salutes you. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks, I hope I didn't cost you too much money ;)
DeleteFirst game you want to play with a bunch of people when Covid is over?
ReplyDeleteMulti-player Frostgrave or Mortheim.
DeleteDo you ever get frustrated that 75% of news is either STL products or Kickstarters or both?
ReplyDeleteWhat was that last mini or tabletop product you bought?
Have you ever considered becoming a vampire?
Yes. But that's the market these days... Actually Patreon is morw frustrating because it didn't even feel like a proper product.
DeleteLast thing I bought was Rubicon's King Tiger with interior, which I will tackle this weekend. Awesome kit!
No, but today I learned what to do if I get herpes. Sometimes spam is weirdly beautiful. I wish the rhyming bots would make a comeback, that was quite amusing ;)
Thank you for all you do, I have followed you for the last decade it feels like, I love seeing a non-GW promotion of the entire market. I am a beast for GW but they promote their stuff good enough.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that was one of the reasons I stopped featuring GW - it's everywhere anyway, so if you are not the first to post it, nobody cares.
DeleteWhat trend do you like least in the current gaming market? (you see a lot of games, genuinely curious)
ReplyDeleteYour site rocks, keep up the awesomeness.
Good question... As said somewhere else, I don't think Patreon is a great way forward. There must be a better way to support talent in a less restrictive way.
DeleteSomething that is not a current trend, but quite irritating, are Cool Mini or Not-style Kickstarters that offer you half a game at the start and then you unlock the other half through stretchgoals. I also think the Zombicide-franchise has overstayed its welcome.
Otherwise, I don't mind the trends too much. I mean, I love the cyberpunk genre, and without the hype around Cyberpunk 2077 (which I luckily did not pre-order), we wouldn't have a lot of the recent releases in that style.
Patreon and kickstarter have made people an immense amount of money while making the industry so much worse. Now you buy something you don't get for a year with no assurance of quality, so it's easy to ship out cheap Chinese crap for huge profits. Reaper bones lowered the bar further but with real sculptures involved. Patreon then took people who have no idea how to pose a model but with 3D modeling skills and let them hold back models for 12 months all but loot boxes because you don't know what you're getting.
DeleteNot the place to discuss it but 3D printing and kickstarter have turned the hobby from a modeling hobby to a consuming hobby. Printers print just to print and very few I've seen paint anything (myself included I admit) because there's always a better model to print tomorrow. Like wise Kickstarter you pay your money, twiddle your thumbs for months and in that time order more stuff to fill the gap and it never ends.
In 1980 we had people scratch building a lot of things. In 2000 we had more people relying on consumer products for everything. In 2020 we shifted away from craftsman leading the industry to becoming relics of it. In 2040 we're going to have right clicking on a world of warcraft avatar, selecting one of 3 poses and having that drop onto your desk..
I miss the creativity and I wish I could find it again. I wish I could find a hobby about passion and not patreon tiers. Both in production and after. What would a wargaming blog be without an old man rant?
I know what you mean. I miss a lot of the creativity, and the weirdness of the old days. I mean, it's great that everybody can paint on what would have been Golden Demon level in the 90s, but that makes it harder for me to get excited about stuff.
DeleteI love my Patreon. My supporters help me to create better games and, in return, I give them early access to new and experimental material, as well as a behind the scenes look at my business development. You should consider running one for this, Falk. Or at least setting up a Ko-fi, so people can show appreciation for your effort.
DeleteI'm still on the fence about Kickstarter, though. I'll be trying to address that in a future episode of my Podcast.
I check this site every single day for many a year now. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWhat motivated you to start doing this?
Where do you get all this news? Do you have to comb the web every day?
Do companies send news of their products directly to you?
Thanks!
DeleteSome 10 years ago, the tabletop news scene was much different. The big sites would mostly give you your opinion on things, and many others were in it for some kind of kickback. Also, a lot of smaller companies struggled to get coverage, because sites would limit themselves to a certain numbers of post a day, and/or they would only feature things of broad interest.
Anyway, I wanted a place that just showed me cool new stuff everyday, I couldn't find one, so I made one.
I decided that I would post as much as possible, with just the bare minimum of information the reader needs to follow up, and then they can decide for themselves what they like. Because I hope for every single post I make there is at least one reader who thinos that this is interesting and who then visits the manufacturer's site.
I have about 75 websites I check every day (mostly facebook), plus another 100 which I check once a week. I also check Kickstarter twice a week. It sounds like a lot, but you get quite good at spotting if there is something new or not. A lot also comes in as newsletters or press annoucements.
Yes, a lot of companies send out news announcements to outlets. And I often get emails starting with "I make miniatures and my buddy told me to contact you". Those are awesome, because it shows that I have some broader influence on the scene.
Congratulations and thanks a lot for the hard work
DeleteWhat would be awsome would be an index of all your links with what the seller mainly propose .
I'm thinking of a tool to make precise searches rather than using the keywords that are not always accurate.
For exemple, if I look for buying a castle in MFD, I could find it easily with a proper index.
Yeah, that would be really great - sadly, the blogger software can't do that, and I don't have the time or skill to build something like that.
DeleteWhat is your favorite game category amd/or genre setting?
ReplyDeleteI love Ultra-Modern / Near Future and Cyberpunk.
DeleteThree Infinity armies deep, so I agree! When it comes to that genre, I really would like to see actual Ghost in the Shell games on the table.
DeleteCongratulations! I get my fix every day since years.. thank you!
ReplyDeleteAre you still with the Kiwis? You sometimes miss the old home?
Poom! I had no idea you are still around :)
DeleteYeah, still in NZ. Would be great if we can get international travel and conventions back at some point... But I wouldn't want to move back to Europe if I can avoid it.
Like others, I visit here everyday, and even post the occasional comment. I don't post often, as saying, "Whoa! That's awesome." every time doesn't add much to the site :D But, whoa, this site is awesome.
ReplyDeleteAre you going to continue posting on BoLS?
That is another good question. Outside the Box takes quite some effort, but the resonance is getting less and less. I think it is a great way to give more exposure to the "smaller" companies and to advertise TTF, but maybe we need to change up the format in some way.
DeleteBut to answer your question, I will keep working with BoLS as long as it makes sense, and so far it makes sense.
Thanks so much for all the news and all the support over the years! Andrew/Meridian Miniatures.
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome!
DeleteThanks for doing what you do, I really enjoy it, and it is always on my "first to check" websites in the morning :)
ReplyDeleteGood to hear, I guess it goes down well with a coffee :)
DeleteHey thanks from another everyday visitor!
ReplyDeleteMy questions: i
Is there any chance to put the right sidebar into another order? The one with the list of the manufacturers. Right now it's pretty annoying when you're looking for "that one company, what was its name, started with an R ..." Also it doesn't really help to put a spotlight on the truly small manufacturers.
Second question: How many Dice-Kickstarters have you featured? An educated guess will be enough ;-D
Thanks again, Grimscull from TTW
Your suggestion makes sense, I'll have a look at the sidebar options.
DeleteDice Kickstarter... Hmm, at least 500, I would guess. There are 2700 posts labelled "hobby material" and a good chunk of those must be dice Kickstarter :D
I changed the order - now I have to weed out all of the typos and misspelled labels!
DeleteWow, thank you - I didn't actually expect a result to my question, and what a quick one. Now I just hope everyone else is fine with this order :-D
ReplyDelete