With the new rules updates now going online, I hate that I was right.

I was nervous day 1. Vocally, angrily nervous. When AMG got their hands on this product, I expressed concern. The staff didn't make directional choices in the past that aligned with the game xwing was. They did pretty well with crisis protocol, but had no real track record with semi to seriously competitive style mini games. Crisis protocol had no tournament scene, and much of what pirate press did (where a lot of the staff came from) wasn't competitive in nature.

I had friends in gaming try to reassure me. I was told to give them a chance.

I was worried the changes they would make would alienate the player base. I was worried they weren't equipped to handle xwing. I was worried the changes they would make wouldn't be conducive to competitive or a fun x wing/star wars expierence. I have said it on reddit a lot, I never really trusted these guys to do the right thing with x wing.

And here we are. ROAD makes the game less approachable to new players. New documents that will be a nightmare for new players to download and learn. Rules that reward named pilots over generics, increasing the keyword learning phase. Punishments for bumping. This iteration of the game is NOT new player friendly, the skill floor required plus the price doesn't make me think new players should buy in right now. I won't recommend it to my friends, most of my gaming friends have stopped playing altogether.

My stuff will sit in my garage for 3 more months. Hopefully Asmodee parts out their subsidiaries in their sell off, and the rights end up with someone with half of an idea of how to run this game. I'm sure the people at AMG are all decent well meaning people, and I wish them the best. 200 yards away from anything star wars related.

Tl;dr: AMG has effectively killed growth in x wing, I hate being right.