@DouchemanMacgee:
As I said before, I can understand not wanting to buy AAZ or future A&A titles from WOTC over this, but don’t tie AAZ to the games that Larry made. Larry has demonstrated his respect for the veterans of WW2 countless times over the years and it’s absurd to blame him (or his creations) for a game that he likely had nothing to do with.
Good point. Whatever criticisms can be aimed at AAZ, it should be kept in mind that they pertain to AAZ; they don’t retroactively disgrace all the previous A&A games that came before it (including the still-in-print ones that continue to be published and purchased and played and appreciated). Even the Klingons, who have a cultural tradition along those lines, operate by the principle that a person’s dishonour affects his descendants – for seven generations, as I recall – but not his ancestors.
To me, the worry isn’t the idea that AAZ somehow spoils the previous A&A games; the real worry is what this new game might potentially mean for the future of the A&A franchise. If AAZ turns out to be a one-off anomaly, I can live with that. Even better: if AAZ turns out to be the starting point of a new cycle of A&A games being published, and those games are more conventional in nature, then I’d even be prepared to give AAZ qualified credit for being that starting point, regardless of what I might think of the game itself. But if AAZ turns out to be the first of a whole string of wacky reconceptualizations of A&A, then that would be another story entirely.