Update on Desperation Morale Update

[hongkongwargamer]

Thank you. I was immensely proud of those first two issues of CH magazine. We used most of my contacts from my time at Fire For Effect for a lot of that material.

Unfortunately, those were the only two products I was a part of. Our philosophies were too different. I gave all my FFE contributors t-shirts with the FFE logo to thank them for their work. He wanted (and did) sell the t-shirts instead. I promised subscribers a free updated index. He wanted to charge $5 for it. See where this is going?

He slowly but surely burned all the bridges I had built up with my contributors and many others. Back then he even started using fake names for designers to make it look like we had a diverse group. I am truly surprised Dave Lamb lasted as long as he did, but I’m happy to see he has joined Bounding Fire, so I can now enjoy his work.

Well that IS a great scenario .. and now the newer folks know the others in the first 2 magazines are also playable!

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Spend ... more time concentrating on what you say

Oh, the irony.

 

[Jeffrey D Myers]

Oh, you Commonwealthers....

 

[asloser]

I took a look at Desperation morale to figure if I was missing anything of interest released recently. And my interest for anything put out by CH died 15+ years ago.

But when I used the filter to get a list of releases for 2019 I get three pages of stuff with most of the products being CH. In other words for me the noise is drowning the signal as I could not figure out how to order by publisher or filter out CH.

Would it be possible to have "Show anything but CH" Filter? As it is I find it tedious to read up on the stuff that I am willing to consider.

And - Raging Furnace is a great scenario. Those early CH mags have some nice content.

 

[pensatl1962]

I appreciate the product write ups on DM very much and I applaud Mark for his efforts to inform the community. The reviews of the official ASL releases are always useful. But especially helpful to me have been his reviews of third party products that I might not have been experienced with in the past — for example this is what turned me into a big fan of Friendly Fire (a producer with small output but extremely high quality IMHO). There are newer entrants in the TPP market and I’d be very interested to read reviews on these products. On the other hand, it only takes about a half dozen readings of CH reviews to get the gist of what is for the most part true of all of his CH reviews (and borne out by my one CH purchase).

In over 25 years, I have only been asked to play a CH scenario one time. None of my regular or occasional opponents play any of this. Years ago, I asked another very veteran gamer about a CH historical module that looked interesting to me and he responded “Friends don’t let friends play CH.”. That was instructive.

I suspect that the folks who are buying CH will continue to buy CH, no matter what and for whatever reason they do so. And they’re not likely to be swayed by a DM review. There is apparently a loyal customer base and that is fine. But going through the vast amount of energy to provide reviews of the deluge of CH releases seems to me to not be the best use of limited time or financial resources — particularly when the reviews are likely to be very similar in nature. Maybe providing an annually updated “overall impression” of quality and contents (e.g., alerting readers of a change in map format) from a sampling of products could be helpful, while not necessarily having to provide fully detailed specific CH product reviews. If there is “market” for detailed CH reviews then I’m sure someone could step in to fill the void. There are many platforms by which to do so.

So just from my personal perspective, I encourage Mark to consider focusing his insight and time on the other producers of ASL products - those that seem to be more actively played FtF, over VASL, logged in ROAR, and used in tournaments. Thank you kindly.

 

[mhrabak]

Well said; I agree completely.

 

[xenovin]

Well from practice Mark’s OCD will not allow him to leave no stone unturned so looks like CH products will still get a post. What has changed is more of a placeholder text and Image or two. DM deep dives are now focused on other TPP so energy spent in the right direction.

 

[Pitman]

A lot of people write to express appreciation for my write-ups of CH products, especially because CH provides virtually zero information about their own products (which is so strange). So I would hate to leave those people in the lurch, even as I have to be realistic that I can no longer expend the time or money to analyze every Critical Hit product, and am cutting way back on what I do in that regard. However, I think documenting them, at least, is still important.

I finished going through my spreadsheet of 2017-2019 CH items and adding them. Now I have a handful of 2020 items to do. Then I will be through with CH for some time and can get to some of the interesting items that have come out in recent months, including DASL, Croix de Guerre, Koenigsburg, Fight for Seoul, Onslaught to Orsha 2, the north texas pack, as well as BFP's Corregidor, which I hadn't added yet.

 

[mhrabak]

I look forward to reading your critiques of the more recent items, and I can only imagine the MASSIVE amounts of work to keep up with the recent releases for ASL. Particularly, I look forward to reading more in-depth reviews of the TPPs that hit the market.

Keep up the great work.

 

[Jumbo]

A lot of people write to express appreciation for my write-ups of CH products, especially because CH provides virtually zero information about their own products (which is so strange). So I would hate to leave those people in the lurch, even as I have to be realistic that I can no longer expend the time or money to analyze every Critical Hit product, and am cutting way back on what I do in that regard. However, I think documenting them, at least, is still important.

I finished going through my spreadsheet of 2017-2019 CH items and adding them. Now I have a handful of 2020 items to do. Then I will be through with CH for some time and can get to some of the interesting items that have come out in recent months, including DASL, Croix de Guerre, Koenigsburg, Fight for Seoul, Onslaught to Orsha 2, the north texas pack, as well as BFP's Corregidor, which I hadn't added yet.

Your work is a tremendous asset to the ASL community. The extent to which you give of yourself to inform us is truly impressive.

May I suggest that you limit your efforts to reviewing CH's products with the same regard that CH holds us, the ASL community - that you provide shell reviews, nothing more, without spending your money, and (emphatically?) reference CH's steadfast refusal to provide information and details about their products on CH's own website as a marketing ploy to lure the unwary/suggestible into making ill-advised purchase(s)?

May I add that your work has pulled me back to reality many times, and saved me from making that ill-advised CH purchase - that, as another poster mentioned upstream - "friends don't let friends play CH"; in this regard, you have been a great friend to us, the ASL community.

Thank you very much.

 

[bprobst]

May I suggest that you limit your efforts to reviewing CH's products with the same regard that that CH holds us, the ASL community

Ooh, I don't think we want Mark charging us $80 for each new CH write-up.

 

[Jumbo]

Ooh, I don't think we want Mark charging us $80 for each new CH write-up.

With all sincerity, I must say that this is devastatingly witty!

 

[Pitman]

Your work is a tremendous asset to the ASL community. The extent to which you give of yourself to inform us is truly impressive.

May I suggest that you limit your efforts to reviewing CH's products with the same regard that that CH holds us, the ASL community - that you provide shell reviews, nothing more, without spending your money, and (emphatically?) reference CH's steadfast refusal to provide information and details about their products on CH's own website as a marketing ploy to lure the unwary/suggestible into making ill-advised purchase(s)?

May I add that your work has pulled me back to reality many times, and saved me from making that ill-advised CH purchase - that, as another poster mentioned upstream - "friends don't let friends play CH"; in this regard, you have been a great friend to us, the ASL community.

Thank you very much.

Of course, the thing is, it's better to show that something is bad rather than merely assert it...

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Of course, the thing is, it's better to show that something is bad rather than merely assert it...

Yes, but it's also better to objectively find out something is bad by attempting to use the product as intended, rather than just removing the shrink wrap.

 

[RobZagnut]

Yes, but it's also better to objectively find out something is bad by attempting to use the product as intended, rather than just removing the shrink wrap.

Same paragraph you’ve posted at least 125 times, so I shall spell it out for you so I don’t have to watch you stalk Mark and spew the exact same verbiage 125 more times...

DM is an out of the wrapper opinion and review site. No where does it say that he plays the product. With the amount of ASL material that is released each year, not only is it unfeasible to play everything before reviewing it, it is IMPOSSIBLE! Most of us appreciate the work that he’s doing and I for one don’t care to read your constant attempts to belittle his efforts.

So please get off your stalking high horse for once and quit being so damn jealous of Mark and DM.

 

[Whiskers1123]

Same paragraph you’ve posted at least 125 times, so I shall spell it out for you so I don’t have to watch you stalk Mark and spew the exact same verbiage 125 more times...

DM is an out of the wrapper opinion and review site. No where does it say that he plays the product. With the amount of ASL material that is released each year, not only is it unfeasible to play everything before reviewing it, it is IMPOSSIBLE! Most of us appreciate the work that he’s doing and I for one don’t care to read your constant attempts to belittle his efforts.

So please get off your stalking high horse for once and quit being so damn jealous of Mark and DM.

Mark is like a bad Hollywood Movie Critic and you're one of the sheeple that blindly follow along.

 

[Hutch]

Birds of a feather...

 

[Sparafucil3]

Mark is like a bad Hollywood Movie Critic and you're one of the sheeple that blindly follow along. Plus you're just a nasty person!

I miss your sniping via bad rep. They were a badge of honor. -- jim

 

[Whiskers1123]

Wow! First the Moderator removes the thumbs down to be politically correct now he is editing my posts. Are you really Bernie Sanders?

 

[Michael R]

Different moderator