Bill, thanks for your thoughtful feedback. Some quick responses interjected below. My apologies for any brevity -- I'm going to Canada in less than 24 hours, and a little rushed.
Bill Hupp wrote:Maybe you could post something on the Meshwesh page itself to tell readers the list changes that are in process.
The process we use doesn't make this idea very feasible. We are resistant to change, resistant, resistant... up until the instant we are convinced that a change is warranted. This resistance may take the shape of a discussion with players, researchers, etc., on the forum or email or elsewhere, and often goes nowhere at all. But when it does happen, the change has already been discussed enough that it has pretty-much jelled, and implementing the change in the underlying database happens quickly. Then there is an unpredictable length of time before the modified version of the underlying data gets uploaded.
Just to choose one example, a discussion with a player at Historicon revealed that there was a population of German (called "Saxon" but not really from there) settlers in Transylvania in the Middle Ages that had self-government and was large enough to have fought military actions against Vlad the Impaler and against the Ottomans and others; they existed through the last century. This "Sieben Burgen" region is best represented as a Medieval German Citystate enemy link for a variety of armies who ruled over the Transylvanian region, including Wallachians, Hungarians, Cumans (probably -- research ongoing), and Ottomans. We were unaware of the existence of this population, but once we became aware of it, implementing the change (adding the enemies links) will be easy and fast.
But my point is this -- there isn't sufficient of a time gap between "no change is contemplated" and "change is complete" to have a list of "in process" changes published anywhere. It would just be extra work for us without much benefit.
Bill Hupp wrote:Update this intro paragraph? "Meshwesh is a work-in-progress. We'll be adding many new features as we move forward."
Good idea.
Bill Hupp wrote:
I would just have a note on each army with last date changed and a footnote on the last change. (Could it replace the current review note designation? e.g. "As of 6-30-18")
Maybe. The idea is reasonable, but a bit more complex than it might seem. DS is our records/archives expert; we'll have to have him talk to Jack (who is the nuts-and-bolts of the database guy) and decide what is the best way to implement something like this. Adding new fields is always more work than it seems like on the outside to non-database people.
Bill Hupp wrote:
If the changes are few and not likely to happen often, I would just put a summary change page or note at the bottom of the landing/front page.
Not sure that's a good PR move. A change every six months might terrify readers, who would get the impression that their favorite list was in constant danger of revision -- people are very poor at math, and might not realize that a uniform change rate of one every six months across 650 lists means that any individual list would be modified approximately once every 325 years.
Bill Hupp wrote:Not being critical, but the current Meshwesh landing page could be designed to have info needed to use the list and help sell the rules with more information that introduces people to the joy of building armies. I used army lists from rules I have never played or never even intended to play to help me organize the buying and painting of armies.
We'd be happy to accept donations to hire a full-time webpage design employee.
I'll put up a gofundme page immediately.
More seriously, yes, we've got lots of plans for Meshwesh. We've had plans for several years. We have the plans, we have the skills, but we also have jobs and wives and (in many cases) kids and so we have to prioritize what happens when, and implementing all our cool ideas for Meshwesh hasn't happened yet, and won't even get started until after we have our hardcopy rulebook all complete (that's our main focus right now, with us also working on Battle Cards and Fantasy Triumph).
Bill Hupp wrote:
Some other questions I have gotten on Meshwesh. (Many deal with the information that new users get from looking at army list and army list books.)
1- Why don't the Thematic Categories have years on them? (It does seem like this is a feature of the rules/Meshwesh that could be better used. It is a great planning tool.)
That will probably eventually be added, but it isn't a perfect thing. Some themes don't really have chronological limits (Monsoon Region, for example).
Bill Hupp wrote:
2- Will battle card information be added to the lists soon? e.g. dismounting knights for Free Companies
In process. We can't add battle card info to Meshwesh until we have the battle cards finalized; we are working on the battle cards now. As well as working on the Hardcopy Rules.
Bill Hupp wrote:
3- Where will battle card information be located? (Between the rules and Meshwesh)
We are discussing that. Certainly Meshwesh will have lots of hyperlinks, so you can see the line-item battle card name, click on it to get the battle card text; there will be a battle card page with all the battle cards listed and you can click on them to get their rules/text (same page as you reach from clicking on a line-item battle card name in an army list). It's going to be beautiful; it's going to make you weep with its glory. But it is still being developed. Save your glory-weeping for now. Soon!