Nerd Ragin'.

I'm a nerd. I have been for as long as I can remember. I read books on facts out of sheer interest rather than being required to as part of study or work. My favourite TV show is QI. I can remember dialogue from movies or TV shows after having watched them only once. And I love wargaming. Pushing my little mandollies around the table and rolling dice in anger is just so much fun for me (well, usually). So I don't get the level of nerd rage that is being spewed at my current favourite games company: Privateer Press.

About a year ago their flagship game Warmachine(TM) (and its partner Hordes(TM)) is floundering under too many rules. So many new figures with new and funky rules have been released over the years that the game is drowning in errata and clarifications. The errata document was over 70 pages long! So the company announces they are re-releasing the game as Mark 2 in an attempt to streamline the game and make it play better than before (and it was pretty good the first time around). They have been developing it for the last year and are nearly ready to send it to the printers but they want the input of their gaming community. They want their customers to try out the new game and provide them with feedback on what works and what doesn't. And they provide this to us for free thanks to this wonderous digital age we live in. I've been gaming for nearly 25 years now and I have never encountered a miniature games company that has ever done this. Usually the first time you hear about a new rules set is about 6 months before it is to be released and by then its been at the printers for at least half that time again. This is a pretty big thing.

So we test their game and they make changes based on our feedback. And then we wait. We know the game will be released in all its glory come January 2010. But as a new version is coming, the gaming dies down as everyone waits for the new version. PP knows this is a problem from both a PR perspective and a marketing one so in September they give us the new rules for free to download. These will be the final rules and there will be no changes. Yay! We all start playing again. Some models still aren't as 100% awesome as we'd like but they are locked in now.

So now its January 2010. All we PP nerds buy our shiny new book and look at the models that are available in there. Shock horror! Some of the stats have changed! Now all the changes are, IMO, for the better. Yet some gamers are crying foul that PP have lied to us and that this is ruining the game. I mean, they are really, really upset like the sky is falling or that armageddon has arrived. What the..? I just don't get it. So PP made an error and told us that the free rules they gave us were set in stone but just before printing, they made some minor changes to models that weren't as awesome as they could be. I'm passionate about my gaming but in the end: its just gaming. I'm just pushing my mandollies around a table and going "pew, pew!" at my opponent with them.

Some people need to take a pill and have a good lie down. Why, oh why does the internet generate so much rage in people. Is it a side effect of the 'net itself or is a reflection of the way our society is heading? It makes me wonder...