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Originally Posted by unipus
If you hang on every word of the published setting then yeah, I can see some major disappointments with the alpha, particularly (and most of this giant thread about "rules and mechanics" has actually been bitching about the setting).
I'm personally amazed to find that people do that, though. The setting is the easiest thing in the world to tweak. You could have changed it to anything you wanted, from day one, and I don't think I know any GMs that run games in 100% the setting the book tells them. Tweaking that to suit your own tastes is a big part of the fun!
In fact, with lack of OOBs and so on until now, my own campaign has moved forward almost entirely using 1st edition maps, timelines, and so on. I had issues with a number of aspects in the alpha setting, so I changed them, and had a crisis in Poland itself be the flashpoint for the war at large. Maybe they liked this idea from me personally, I don't know -- but I'll note that it is actually now the official background in the revised setting. The French background has been revised based on feedback from French players. The UK background has been revised... blah blah blah. It is all much, much better now and aside from a few small details, I wouldn't hesitate to put right in front of players as written. Those objectionable details that remain truly do not matter. My players don't need to know whether there's an aircraft carrier in the Baltic! It's a non-issue. Bugs on the windshield.
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Actually those details do matter a lot if you are either writing for the game or if you want to campaign somewhere other than just Poland. The Twilight War is a global event - that was one thing that the V2.2. had right - it gave enough details you could set a campaign almost anywhere.
FYI not doing simple OOB and details on units by doing saying they are all basically destroyed with a "the entire NATO armies are overrun and run for the hills" (from the alpha release) is basically abrogating your responsibility as a game designer.
There is a ton of information out there on OOB's, equipment, etc. - hell why didnt they take a stroll thru Paul's site?? And between the various V1 and V2 books and the information we have posted here you could do an OOB's section in probably about one day. Its the same time period as the old timeline and Marc Miller is on board - have a feeling he would have said sure just take the old books, update them a little and call them V4 - all you need to do is add the Swedish units.
Thats why seeing those OOB's and other things that were in the Beta is encouraging - because the lack of it in the Alpha (or even something as simple as "we will get to all of that in the Beta" was definitely a major "oh crap" moment for many of us)