Rymdkejsaren

I may not play S1 for other reasons, but if the timer is anything other than competitive, I definitely won't. I don't have the time nor patience for matches that last several hours. I do wish they let you customise the length of the competitive timer. It seems like an obvious option to add. But Cyanide.

Well, here we are. The first match of the seeder played and done with! We were up against @Gobas's black orks. It was quite a brutal and unlikely match, with several last-ditch attempts paying off and lots of snots and rats taking a fall from being boxed and fouled. No permanent injuries, so it was all in good fun! I had a shot at stealing in the first half but ruined it myself by following up when I should have stayed put, thereby blocking my own chance at dodging out with the ball carrier. I want to say it was Cyanide's poor UI that caused it, but it was my own damn fault this time. I still managed to defend, so that was a good effort. I pushed for a quick score in the second half, hoping to get my KO'd rat ogre back (beer didn't revive him) and thinking I would be able to defend again. Scoring was easy enough as the orks are slow and the goblins are stupid, but a series of unfortunate events lead to most of my team being depitched. For their drive, I almost ran out of players. Even though I managed to grab the ball, the orks took it back twice despite their lack of rerolls, and finally managed to score an equaliser in the final turn, leaving the match at a boring draw. Boo! Still, it is good to be back!

Oh, a question: I recall someone linking the official rules somewhere. I really need to read up on some of this stuff before I start playing league games. Or, hope against hope, is there an in-game resource? (I can't log in right now.) When I started playing the first game I spent so much time learning the mechanics by trial and error. I figure I don't have time to repeat that mistake.

I finally caved and bought it in the sale. I figured I'd play a few single player matches to learn the UI and get familiar with the new mechanics, but it was so fucking painful watching the AI play I had to switch to league matches. Like, what the actual hell? It doesn't seem to weight the risk of a turnover at all into its decision-making. It might actually be worse than the BB2 AI, and that's an accomplishment in incompetence of legendary proportions. I then played two matches in the official league. The first one was orcs, they conceded in turn 3 after realising that I was about to score and they couldn't do anything about it. The second was dark elves, who stopped playing in turn 14 when they realised I was going to turn the game around from being one up to a loss. So that's all as it used to be. But for a game that's the third in a series by an experienced and established studio that's been in development for so long, BB3 is an unforgivable mess. Most of the sound effects are reused from BB2, only to add to the confusion they switched some of them around, like the troll now makes the sound it used to make when failing Really Stupid on every activation... The UI is a cluttered mess with overlapping elements and bad colour choices that make it difficult to get the correct information. There isn't enough customisation of the controls. It's as if they learned nothing from BB2 or the many other turn-based games out there that manage to solve these problems better. Ok, I'm done clunking on it (for now). I guess we're stuck with Cyanide and their utter incompetence, and we still love playing Blood Bowl. So here we are. I've signed up for the BB3 seeder. I'll be playing Underworld. Yep, Up Yours, Nuffle! are back.

*sneaks in* Coach name: Rymdkejsaren Team name: Up Yours, Nuffle! Faction: Underworld

I just don't get it that they make it so frustrating for people. I'm fine with in-game systems to earn stuff that costs money, if it's done well. In Gwent I was very happy to buy various "Journeys" (passes, essentially) because they meant I was getting constant rewards that made a big difference in my progress. If you make it a grind, you're alienating your customers... BB3 is just making me go meh, meh, and meh atm. My interest in purchasing it is near zero atm. I have Cyanide fatigue. Which is so sad because it could have been so awesome...

I like how they're pretending they had already planned it while also copying the list of implementations from the letter.

It's an unmitigated disaster. Again. Whenever Cyanide gives me a glimmer of hope that they are learning and improving, they end up sinking their own battlecruiser. And whatever the underlying reasons may be (poor funding, unforeseen problems, etc.), to my mind, the problems with BB3 development and launch can have no other explanation than sheer incompetence coupled with a staggering overconfidence. Three games and they keep making the same mistakes as well as failing at fundamental tasks a dev studio with their experience should be able to handle. I'd like to add that the above is no reason to roast/harass Cyanide representatives on their Discord or in any way personally attack them online. I say that because that's clearly the way a lot of people vent their frustrations, and I do not condone it. With that said, I've half a mind to start a petition to GW to hand the license over to a competent dev studio. Only I doubt it would do much good?

Any changes you would be able to make between matches in the OCC league are fine, yes.

Just the one, though. We don't overdo things here.

Thanks. I didn't read the others yet, but I know there were a lot of entries, so I'm guessing that was the case. I also think they went for more straight-forward storytelling, something I was worried about as I was writing. Having recently listened to Christopher Paolini's latest book (he was the final judge), I get the feeling he's more of an action guy who likes things a bit more up front. I might give it another overhaul in a while, and see if I can find somewhere else to submit it.

No luck this time, unfortunately. Didn't even make it to the 25 runner-up prizes, which felt a bit like a kick in the middle bits... But writing is like Blood Bowl: the only thing you can do is keep rolling the dice! I'm confident my writing is good, so I will keep throwing it at people until it sticks.

Yeah, true, forgot about that. You have to send a ticket once the round has started.

Kick the team, then have the replacement join. They will take their spot.

The story is now submitted and approved, so it's available to read here, if you so wish! I will know how it fares in the competition on november 24th.