it seems...neat? it's also the usual experience with Stonemaier where when you start playing it basically looks like hieroglyphics, and then you are slowly given the Rosetta stone to decode them
I don't know if I quite get the huge hype for it, but it's certainly a neat thing and incredibly high quality, you definitely get your money's worth for the hundred bucks
Mr. G on
0
Options
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
That's the first praise I've seen for the component quality versus the cost.
The running comment seems to be "play-doh buildings"
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
On the component cost side.
Has anyone looked at beyond humanity: colonies on bgg?
It's a hybrid app/ boardgame with a modular miniatures colony that you build while playing. Complete with blinking lights etc.
You try to build a colony on one of the 700.000 exoplanets that they scraped from a NASA database.
It looks really neat and hype is building. It will be on Kickstarter later this month but it will be ballpark 200 dollars.
I don't know if I can justify it but it looks cool on the table and comes with two years warranty. But sometimes boardgames stay in shrink for two years...
I really like you Blackstone Fortress but if you keep charging 100$ for content that is priced 30-40$ in any other game line I will absolutely stamp my tiny foot and frown horrendously.
I have just the cultists from the latest expansion to go and that will be the whole game + expansions painted.
luckily my gaming group is having a lot of fun with it because the price is way up there (though in line with Games Workshop other stuff)
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Trying to find a source post, but Team Covenant just reported that Stonemaier games announced the first Wingspan expansion -- the European expansion! Yay! Sounds like it'll be $25, beyond the birds I don't know what else it adds right now.
Trying to find a source post, but Team Covenant just reported that Stonemaier games announced the first Wingspan expansion -- the European expansion! Yay! Sounds like it'll be $25, beyond the birds I don't know what else it adds right now.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Here's from the Facebook group, Jamey Stegmaier:
You've seen the Wingspan European Expansion box--what's inside of it? Everything shown in this photo!
It might be hard to see exactly what's here, so I'll list everything below with some brief explanations:
81 bird cards (all unique, all new): Yes, these are marked with "EE" so you can sort them from the cards in the base game...though you'll never need to, as they're intended to all be shuffled together. You *could* play a 1-3 player game with only the European birds if you'd like. All of the new mechanisms in the expansion are integrated into the birds themselves--I'll showcase them later this week.
15 egg miniatures (purple): You probably won't need these unless you play Wingspan with 5 players; mainly we just thought it would be fun to include a new egg color in the game. The egg colors don't mean anything (out of respect for those with colorblindness issues, we don't plan for the egg colors to ever have mechanical meaning in the game).
5 bonus cards: These just get shuffled in with the original bonus cards. Elizabeth designed the expansion so the percentages on the original bonus cards are still applicable.
4 Automa cards (2 of which are bonus cards): The expansion fully integrates with the solo mode of the base game.
1 custom tray with lid: You need a place to store all of these new birds, right? And birds from future expansions. For this reason, the expansion will not fit into the original game box.
1 scorepad: This new version of the scorepad has a splash of color on it and includes double-sided sheets (multi-player on one side, solo on the other). Other than the solo side, it's functionally the same as the original scorepad.
1 rulebook: The rules themselves are very short--most of the rulebook is an appendix. Oh, and the paper is the same fancy material we used in the base game.
5 goal tiles: These tiles are to be shuffled into the original goal tiles.
38 food tokens: I haven't heard of many people running out of food tokens, but since we needed a punchboard in the expansion, we figured we'd maximize the utility of it.
1 reference tile: This is included to remind players of the end-of-round steps...which now include a new step that I'll discuss tomorrow!
1 box (296x144x80mm; 0.7 kg)
While I don't mention it on the official components list because they're not a component we "officially" include (because they're not necessary, and if they arrive broken, it's extremely inefficient to ship replacements) are the 2 plastic resource containers shown in the photo.
I look forward to sharing the new mechanisms with you over the next few days!
In other news, today FFG announced officially their plans for The Game of Thrones card game, going forward.
I am not part of that community, but I have to imagine this is bittersweet. I know the cardpool was getting unweildy (again) and rotation wasn't gonna help. And I like that all the LCGs have different release models now. But I'm surprised that they are dropping official support. I know OP is expensive, but it also is a wonderful way to attract new users if they do it right.
It... really makes me pessimistic about L5R. More than I already am, given that it pretty much died up around here (and I blame myself for that).
It’s bizarre to me that it seems like nobody can make money off an LCG. Is it truly impossible to sustain that kind of product or what?
I think sustaining is fine. The issue is growth. Card games have this nasty tendency of bogging down under their own weight, becoming unmanagable and unable to get new people in. co-op games may be able to dodge this, but much like RPGs... you can only sell the product to someone once.
Of course, the way around that is rotation, loot boxes, and blind bags. In other words, prey on baser instincts. And if the game is good enough, great! Go for it! Not my cup of tea though. I'm fine having complete games... but I think such products should be designed with an eye on being complete first.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Well, consider that the two biggest and most successful LCGs FFG produced both shot themselves in the foot and have proven problems with the core format.
Game of Thrones had a massive dropoff with the 2.0 release, because - shockingly - it turns out that invalidating a collection of cards years in the making and asking people to start from zero again isn't popular. I'm not sure the revised game was even worth it in the end, so that didn't help with potential adoption. People just kept their 1st edition stuff and kept playing that.
Netrunner ran into the problem of proving the games pretty much HAVE to have cycling of some sort, and they took way too long to accept it (plus it was against the core of LCGs being "every card will always be playable" [which is a bad idea, but hey ...]).
On the flip side, there's the problem that if you don't adopt the game early, the back catalogue is overwhelming, and you can get awful situations where you need to buy a $20 pack just to get a single card because it's a keystone to the game or something. For all the faults Magic has, they've absolutely nailed down a solid release cycle and formats that allow people to enjoy collections of assorted sizes in different ways. LCGs haven't (hadn't? I stopped paying attention early L5R) approached that whatsoever.
It’s bizarre to me that it seems like nobody can make money off an LCG. Is it truly impossible to sustain that kind of product or what?
I think sustaining is fine. The issue is growth. Card games have this nasty tendency of bogging down under their own weight, becoming unmanagable and unable to get new people in. co-op games may be able to dodge this, but much like RPGs... you can only sell the product to someone once.
Of course, the way around that is rotation, loot boxes, and blind bags. In other words, prey on baser instincts. And if the game is good enough, great! Go for it! Not my cup of tea though. I'm fine having complete games... but I think such products should be designed with an eye on being complete first.
(EDIT: Looks like this has a lot of "what he said" with Artic's post)
Just wanted to jump in and say that, out of all the things you mention, "rotation" is way less predatory, and even perhaps has a positive effect on the game overall. I mean, maybe some would say that long-running CCGs are intrinsically unethical, but in that context, rotation is what makes it even viable, and allows those new players entry into the game. It deals with the "bogging down" directly and effectively.
Again, I'm kind of ambivalent towards CCGs, but if you want it to work, rotation is probably a necessary part?
jergarmar on
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
I have a few thoughts on how to properly implement rotation into LCGs, but not enough time to write them out right now.
Also very frustrated with FFGs supply issues, when they could have easily avoided it and should have supported the communities they have with a pre-order guarantee system for knowing how much to print.
They mentioned it in the AMA a couple of weeks ago, but AGOT has the problem of them only being allowed to use material from the books. And they want to keep putting out cards and supporting it... but they are waiting for the next book to come out since they’ve basically mined the current ones to the limit. And they can’t exactly make up OCs or new stories or Any Random Bullshit to pump out for new sets like Magic does.
So it basically falls into the “external factors” reason of stopping, except their licenser isn’t a dickhead like GW or WOTC.
Basically running for almost 20 years is still a hell of a run.
It still annoys me a little (and the devs) that the Star Wars LCG was going to be a co-op game, but the focus testers whined that they wanted a PvP game instead.
PMAvers on
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
0
Options
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
They mentioned it in the AMA a couple of weeks ago, but AGOT has the problem of them only being allowed to use material from the books. And they want to keep putting out cards and supporting it... but they are waiting for the next book to come out since they’ve basically mined the current ones to the limit. And they can’t exactly make up OCs or new stories or Any Random Bullshit to pump out for new sets like Magic does.
So it basically falls into the “external factors” reason of stopping, except their licenser isn’t a dickhead like GW or WOTC.
Basically running for almost 20 years is still a hell of a run.
It still annoys me a little (and the devs) that the Star Wars LCG was going to be a co-op game, but the focus testers whined that they wanted a PvP game instead.
And then we got Marvel Champions.
Yeah, I would've liked to see the co-op game.
The supply issues have just been.. SO bad. I Don't know if that is due to Asmodee or Alliance... but it pisses me off to no end. I still buy their stuff, but I feel so burned by them promoting their store in competition to my LGS.
And... yeah, Netrunner needed a revised core and rotation after SanSan. They tried.. the devs tried for 2 years to convince the higher ups to do a revised core....
I've only ever gotten into Arkham LCG and honestly just being coop means I'll still be able to play this game until I'm the one who gets tired of it if they stop supporting it.
I dunno, LCGs can't just continue indefinitely, and while you can always point at this decision or that as a bad move that curtailed popularity they've all probably got a limited lifespan. Four to six years of selling people $14.95 expansions for a game every month doesn't seem like a terrible failure.
I dunno, LCGs can't just continue indefinitely, and while you can always point at this decision or that as a bad move that curtailed popularity they've all probably got a limited lifespan. Four to six years of selling people $14.95 expansions for a game every month doesn't seem like a terrible failure.
Mmm, yes, not exactly a failure, but that way of thinking means the game's player-base will only ever dwindle after the first 1 or 2 years. You want these games to grow and for more people to buy in, not 40% of the original buyers at year 3. There's also the off-shot where if you're designing them to have a 5-year shelf-life people will wise up to the idea and ignore the format. Like, I and so many people I used to play Netrunner with have talked about how the cards we currently have and what that was like buying and storing make it really, really hard to ever consider playing another LCG. I'm sure they make a killing off the core sets, but everything after that ...
I could be wrong, but I think the player base tailing off after a year or two is the standard for most LCGs. I suspect the first year of release sees the most sales and then after it becomes a consistent but falling seller.
I think putting out new cards monthly is an issue. Quarterly could be a sweet spot.
I've been hesitant to jump into any LCGs since Netrunner (which I entered into late), because of the cost. I never caught up on Netrunner, because I resigned myself to just picking up the deluxe expansions as they were easier to find and a better value of cards for the cost. So many data packs were out of print or overpriced, and the cost of getting even the suggested ones easily put the buy-in cost over $100 on top of the core(s) you could buy. Never did get the last one, either.
My friend keeps buying into them though, at least the cores and a few packs of L5R, GoT, and Arkham. They're fun games, but just keeping up with them is more than either of us can do, and we don't play them often enough that it's worth it. We have no local scene, no meta, so it's just whatever we create.
I dunno, LCGs can't just continue indefinitely, and while you can always point at this decision or that as a bad move that curtailed popularity they've all probably got a limited lifespan. Four to six years of selling people $14.95 expansions for a game every month doesn't seem like a terrible failure.
Why? Like, if this is somehow intrinsically true then you can go on about how LCGs are more consumer friendly than CCGs but none of that means a damn if it's going to be dead in a couple years but I know Magic will be around until the heat death of the universe.
Are people just not willing to pay the real price of a game like this without it being obfuscated by lootboxes?
Edit: I personally think lack of support is the big issue. WotC put a lot of effort into making FNM an institution and I think that drives engagement in a very real way.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
0
Options
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
The 6 packs in 6 weeks model for L5R was a huge mistake, IMO. The first set, okay, sure... but that second one, oof.
Just comparing the active LCGs (including upcoming/announced product)
MC: 1 core, 2 hero packs (one of which not officially announced), 1 scenario pack, 1 campaign box of some kind.
I personally feel the sweet spot with Netrunner was definitely the end of Spin Cycle (2nd cycle) through Lunar (3rd) and SanSan (4th). I think Mumbad was still popular, but a lot of support was lost around that time. This really makes me think that 3-4 cycles in rotation at a given time is ideal, which makes sense considering that represents theoretically 2 years of product.
But again, it's not a perfect thing. LCGs don't have a secondary market -- until things go out of print.
I still maintain that I won't sell my games, because their "complete" nature means I can always play them and not chase them. But at the same time, there are a lot of cards to sift through.
I like arkham horror because you don't need to keep up with stuff, being coop. I can buy another campaign whenever I feel the urge, and that will give me new stuff to play with.
Edit: I'm probably not the guy to weigh in though, as I would just literally never buy into a game that requires constant money to be playable. I have less than zero interest.
I dunno, LCGs can't just continue indefinitely, and while you can always point at this decision or that as a bad move that curtailed popularity they've all probably got a limited lifespan. Four to six years of selling people $14.95 expansions for a game every month doesn't seem like a terrible failure.
Why? Like, if this is somehow intrinsically true then you can go on about how LCGs are more consumer friendly than CCGs but none of that means a damn if it's going to be dead in a couple years but I know Magic will be around until the heat death of the universe.
Are people just not willing to pay the real price of a game like this without it being obfuscated by lootboxes?
Edit: I personally think lack of support is the big issue. WotC put a lot of effort into making FNM an institution and I think that drives engagement in a very real way.
I missed this while I was sourcing my previous post and a work emergency came up.
I 100% agree with the bolded. I personally feel it is a failing of my part to keep the local L5R community going, but on the other hand there were absolutely no tools available for me. Sure, we got promo boxes with some physical swag. But we were not given websites, links, posters, promotions, player registries... anything to help us find local players or encourage people to join the larger community. FFG easily could've seen what WotC did and replicated it. It wouldn't have taken that much money. But their digital resources have always been poor to middling, and promotion just... never.. happened. And that's before you get to unclear tournament rules, inconsistent tournaments, a lack of a formal judging program, and so on.
I could be wrong, but I think the player base tailing off after a year or two is the standard for most LCGs. I suspect the first year of release sees the most sales and then after it becomes a consistent but falling seller.
Well that's what I'm saying. Your format being simultaneously "everything works forever!" with *game designed with a 5 year shelf-life isn't a compelling case for success. The vast majority of people in year 3 are going to look at that and bounce because the startup costs will be high and their time with the game more limited than people who have already been playing it. The model can make them money, but it's also not good as it currently exists.
I don't know that assorted formats come as easily to LCGs as they do to a more standard CCG/TCG, but there's been zero effort outside of a pretty dismal draft release (as a separate product! HA!), so it's fair to say they had a lot of room for improvement. I think the format is completely stifled and will never be great until they address the limited shelf life of the games' support.
[Edit]
Agree that the co-op games make a TON more sense for numerous reasons, being that keeping up-to-date isn't as important and it allows you to pick up content you're interested in more piecemeal. It's just also unlikely that these games will ever be as successful as the competitive ones because they have a harder time building community and presence as "that thing you and two friends do occasionally."
I don’t think it’s true that FFG can “easily” replicate the support WotC provides for magic, or that it would be cheap.
True, I am likely over-exaggerating things. Especially when you consider worldwide support and not just NA. But man, the regionals I went to were staffed by volunteers and you were lucky to get a couple promo cards for a $20-40 investment and 6-8 hours of your time.
I feel like I'm whining at this point, though. My friends who are into the scene are REALLY into the scene, including one guy who travels internationally to compete in L5R. I don't have that kind of dedication.
Arkham Horror: Dead of Night expansion is now in stores!
Finally, the more scenarios and spells the game needed. Location encounter decks doubled in size. Looks like they took the Foresaken Lore approach. So, just adding to what's there. No excessive expansion bloat...yet.
Will probably play this a ton next weekend and report.
I personally feel the sweet spot with Netrunner was definitely the end of Spin Cycle (2nd cycle) through Lunar (3rd) and SanSan (4th). I think Mumbad was still popular, but a lot of support was lost around that time. This really makes me think that 3-4 cycles in rotation at a given time is ideal, which makes sense considering that represents theoretically 2 years of product.
I mean, I think FFG agrees with you, which is why L5R has the "fast" rotation cycle where the first two cycles drop out once the fifth one starts. And hopefully the Revised Core they mentioned during the AMA will drop then as well, cleaning that up. Hopefully Marvel will do well and they'll look at how positively people look at only having to buy one core set (even if it costs a bit more than others) and they'll try to trickle that out to the other lines.
At the minimum, I think L5R and Arkham are basically the safest from external factors leading them to stop and I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon. Arkham, as I understand it, sells extremely well since people want to get the entire cycle so they can play the entire campaign story-line instead of being forced to for OP purposes. And since L5R is completely owned by them, they aren't restrained by licenses and can tell whatever stories they want in that universe for however long they want to.
I'm also curious to how the partnership with Judge Academy (aka "the new organization that handles the Magic judge's scene") will pan out with Keyforge, and if that'll work it's way over to the other games as well.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Grave Consequences is the PoD Small card expansion for Elder Sign. I believe it adds some more difficult options, and the ability for dead players to do... something (like gravestones). There also might be ally/relationship bits.
I still feel Unseen Forces, the first expansion for the game, is the most vital. It includes the blessed/cursed dice and a better museum entrance line.
But as long as Grave Consequences is available, it doesn't hurt?
Huh. A new expansion for Fireball Island. Where did this come from?
Deckscape was really meh. You didn’t like Unlock, so you are SO not going to like Deckscape.
Hahnsoo1 on
0
Options
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Alright.. despite making my carrying crate/organizer for Fireball ISland kind of useless, I really like this new expansion.
It is a peninsula, that replaces one of the scrims (so now the island looks like a T).
To get to the island, you need to use the cave system, just like the other board expansion.
But the big thing.. is the spiders. Spiders are worth -1 point at the end of the game, and you collect them automatically as you pass them. They can either launch out of a spider launcher (that has a really weak spring, I need to see if that's common), or they can be put into Vul-Kar as part of an Arachnoclysm! They also introduce spider egg treasure, and whoever has the most gets 12 extra points (which is like a snapshot)..
It also offers a new escape path at the end of the game -- again, high risk and reward because you can collect eggs that have fallen, but spiders also accumulate down there too.
Played Monikers; that is a surprisingly good party game.
I just picked up a copy last week. Our big group all played the write-stuff-down version while camping this summer. Really happy having cards now so nobody has to think up stuff on the spot (some people don't like that) and it gives us a lot of variety of words.
And don't think I mentioned here, but I recently traded for Flamme Rouge and got to play it last week with friends. Very happy with how it plays and I can't wait to play it again (probably Sunday). So glad SUSD brought more attention to it and there coverage of it is pretty great. Now I need to start budgeting for expansions...
Posts
it seems...neat? it's also the usual experience with Stonemaier where when you start playing it basically looks like hieroglyphics, and then you are slowly given the Rosetta stone to decode them
I don't know if I quite get the huge hype for it, but it's certainly a neat thing and incredibly high quality, you definitely get your money's worth for the hundred bucks
The running comment seems to be "play-doh buildings"
Has anyone looked at beyond humanity: colonies on bgg?
It's a hybrid app/ boardgame with a modular miniatures colony that you build while playing. Complete with blinking lights etc.
You try to build a colony on one of the 700.000 exoplanets that they scraped from a NASA database.
It looks really neat and hype is building. It will be on Kickstarter later this month but it will be ballpark 200 dollars.
I don't know if I can justify it but it looks cool on the table and comes with two years warranty. But sometimes boardgames stay in shrink for two years...
luckily my gaming group is having a lot of fun with it because the price is way up there (though in line with Games Workshop other stuff)
Bravely Default / 3DS Friend Code = 3394-3571-1609
It's up on BGG with details
Edit: ...and on Stonemaier's website
In other news, today FFG announced officially their plans for The Game of Thrones card game, going forward.
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2019/10/3/the-things-we-do-for-love-1/
I am not part of that community, but I have to imagine this is bittersweet. I know the cardpool was getting unweildy (again) and rotation wasn't gonna help. And I like that all the LCGs have different release models now. But I'm surprised that they are dropping official support. I know OP is expensive, but it also is a wonderful way to attract new users if they do it right.
It... really makes me pessimistic about L5R. More than I already am, given that it pretty much died up around here (and I blame myself for that).
I think sustaining is fine. The issue is growth. Card games have this nasty tendency of bogging down under their own weight, becoming unmanagable and unable to get new people in. co-op games may be able to dodge this, but much like RPGs... you can only sell the product to someone once.
Of course, the way around that is rotation, loot boxes, and blind bags. In other words, prey on baser instincts. And if the game is good enough, great! Go for it! Not my cup of tea though. I'm fine having complete games... but I think such products should be designed with an eye on being complete first.
Game of Thrones had a massive dropoff with the 2.0 release, because - shockingly - it turns out that invalidating a collection of cards years in the making and asking people to start from zero again isn't popular. I'm not sure the revised game was even worth it in the end, so that didn't help with potential adoption. People just kept their 1st edition stuff and kept playing that.
Netrunner ran into the problem of proving the games pretty much HAVE to have cycling of some sort, and they took way too long to accept it (plus it was against the core of LCGs being "every card will always be playable" [which is a bad idea, but hey ...]).
On the flip side, there's the problem that if you don't adopt the game early, the back catalogue is overwhelming, and you can get awful situations where you need to buy a $20 pack just to get a single card because it's a keystone to the game or something. For all the faults Magic has, they've absolutely nailed down a solid release cycle and formats that allow people to enjoy collections of assorted sizes in different ways. LCGs haven't (hadn't? I stopped paying attention early L5R) approached that whatsoever.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
(EDIT: Looks like this has a lot of "what he said" with Artic's post)
Just wanted to jump in and say that, out of all the things you mention, "rotation" is way less predatory, and even perhaps has a positive effect on the game overall. I mean, maybe some would say that long-running CCGs are intrinsically unethical, but in that context, rotation is what makes it even viable, and allows those new players entry into the game. It deals with the "bogging down" directly and effectively.
Again, I'm kind of ambivalent towards CCGs, but if you want it to work, rotation is probably a necessary part?
My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
Also very frustrated with FFGs supply issues, when they could have easily avoided it and should have supported the communities they have with a pre-order guarantee system for knowing how much to print.
So it basically falls into the “external factors” reason of stopping, except their licenser isn’t a dickhead like GW or WOTC.
Basically running for almost 20 years is still a hell of a run.
It still annoys me a little (and the devs) that the Star Wars LCG was going to be a co-op game, but the focus testers whined that they wanted a PvP game instead.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
And then we got Marvel Champions.
Yeah, I would've liked to see the co-op game.
The supply issues have just been.. SO bad. I Don't know if that is due to Asmodee or Alliance... but it pisses me off to no end. I still buy their stuff, but I feel so burned by them promoting their store in competition to my LGS.
And... yeah, Netrunner needed a revised core and rotation after SanSan. They tried.. the devs tried for 2 years to convince the higher ups to do a revised core....
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I've been hesitant to jump into any LCGs since Netrunner (which I entered into late), because of the cost. I never caught up on Netrunner, because I resigned myself to just picking up the deluxe expansions as they were easier to find and a better value of cards for the cost. So many data packs were out of print or overpriced, and the cost of getting even the suggested ones easily put the buy-in cost over $100 on top of the core(s) you could buy. Never did get the last one, either.
My friend keeps buying into them though, at least the cores and a few packs of L5R, GoT, and Arkham. They're fun games, but just keeping up with them is more than either of us can do, and we don't play them often enough that it's worth it. We have no local scene, no meta, so it's just whatever we create.
Why? Like, if this is somehow intrinsically true then you can go on about how LCGs are more consumer friendly than CCGs but none of that means a damn if it's going to be dead in a couple years but I know Magic will be around until the heat death of the universe.
Are people just not willing to pay the real price of a game like this without it being obfuscated by lootboxes?
Edit: I personally think lack of support is the big issue. WotC put a lot of effort into making FNM an institution and I think that drives engagement in a very real way.
Just comparing the active LCGs (including upcoming/announced product)
GoT 2nd: 1 core, 8 deluxes, 6 cycles of 6 packs each.
LOTR: 2 cores, 16 deluxes, 11 standalone scenarios, 50 nightmare decks ( $7-$20), 9 cycles of 6 packs each.
AHLCG: 1 core, 5 campaigns (made of a deluxe and 6 packs each), 3 "Return to" boxes
L5R: 1 core, 7 clan packs, 1 premium expansion, 3 cycles of 6 packs each.
MC: 1 core, 2 hero packs (one of which not officially announced), 1 scenario pack, 1 campaign box of some kind.
I personally feel the sweet spot with Netrunner was definitely the end of Spin Cycle (2nd cycle) through Lunar (3rd) and SanSan (4th). I think Mumbad was still popular, but a lot of support was lost around that time. This really makes me think that 3-4 cycles in rotation at a given time is ideal, which makes sense considering that represents theoretically 2 years of product.
But again, it's not a perfect thing. LCGs don't have a secondary market -- until things go out of print.
I still maintain that I won't sell my games, because their "complete" nature means I can always play them and not chase them. But at the same time, there are a lot of cards to sift through.
Edit: I'm probably not the guy to weigh in though, as I would just literally never buy into a game that requires constant money to be playable. I have less than zero interest.
I missed this while I was sourcing my previous post and a work emergency came up.
I 100% agree with the bolded. I personally feel it is a failing of my part to keep the local L5R community going, but on the other hand there were absolutely no tools available for me. Sure, we got promo boxes with some physical swag. But we were not given websites, links, posters, promotions, player registries... anything to help us find local players or encourage people to join the larger community. FFG easily could've seen what WotC did and replicated it. It wouldn't have taken that much money. But their digital resources have always been poor to middling, and promotion just... never.. happened. And that's before you get to unclear tournament rules, inconsistent tournaments, a lack of a formal judging program, and so on.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I don't know that assorted formats come as easily to LCGs as they do to a more standard CCG/TCG, but there's been zero effort outside of a pretty dismal draft release (as a separate product! HA!), so it's fair to say they had a lot of room for improvement. I think the format is completely stifled and will never be great until they address the limited shelf life of the games' support.
[Edit]
Agree that the co-op games make a TON more sense for numerous reasons, being that keeping up-to-date isn't as important and it allows you to pick up content you're interested in more piecemeal. It's just also unlikely that these games will ever be as successful as the competitive ones because they have a harder time building community and presence as "that thing you and two friends do occasionally."
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
True, I am likely over-exaggerating things. Especially when you consider worldwide support and not just NA. But man, the regionals I went to were staffed by volunteers and you were lucky to get a couple promo cards for a $20-40 investment and 6-8 hours of your time.
I feel like I'm whining at this point, though. My friends who are into the scene are REALLY into the scene, including one guy who travels internationally to compete in L5R. I don't have that kind of dedication.
Finally, the more scenarios and spells the game needed. Location encounter decks doubled in size. Looks like they took the Foresaken Lore approach. So, just adding to what's there. No excessive expansion bloat...yet.
Will probably play this a ton next weekend and report.
I mean, I think FFG agrees with you, which is why L5R has the "fast" rotation cycle where the first two cycles drop out once the fifth one starts. And hopefully the Revised Core they mentioned during the AMA will drop then as well, cleaning that up. Hopefully Marvel will do well and they'll look at how positively people look at only having to buy one core set (even if it costs a bit more than others) and they'll try to trickle that out to the other lines.
At the minimum, I think L5R and Arkham are basically the safest from external factors leading them to stop and I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon. Arkham, as I understand it, sells extremely well since people want to get the entire cycle so they can play the entire campaign story-line instead of being forced to for OP purposes. And since L5R is completely owned by them, they aren't restrained by licenses and can tell whatever stories they want in that universe for however long they want to.
I'm also curious to how the partnership with Judge Academy (aka "the new organization that handles the Magic judge's scene") will pan out with Keyforge, and if that'll work it's way over to the other games as well.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Deckscape (another card based escape room)
Finger Guns High Noon (propless Cash n Guns?)
Grave Consequences expansion for Elder Sign
Undo: Weaving Fate Anew series
Grave Consequences is the PoD Small card expansion for Elder Sign. I believe it adds some more difficult options, and the ability for dead players to do... something (like gravestones). There also might be ally/relationship bits.
I still feel Unseen Forces, the first expansion for the game, is the most vital. It includes the blessed/cursed dice and a better museum entrance line.
But as long as Grave Consequences is available, it doesn't hurt?
Huh. A new expansion for Fireball Island. Where did this come from?
It is a peninsula, that replaces one of the scrims (so now the island looks like a T).
To get to the island, you need to use the cave system, just like the other board expansion.
But the big thing.. is the spiders. Spiders are worth -1 point at the end of the game, and you collect them automatically as you pass them. They can either launch out of a spider launcher (that has a really weak spring, I need to see if that's common), or they can be put into Vul-Kar as part of an Arachnoclysm! They also introduce spider egg treasure, and whoever has the most gets 12 extra points (which is like a snapshot)..
It also offers a new escape path at the end of the game -- again, high risk and reward because you can collect eggs that have fallen, but spiders also accumulate down there too.
So yeah! I like!
I just picked up a copy last week. Our big group all played the write-stuff-down version while camping this summer. Really happy having cards now so nobody has to think up stuff on the spot (some people don't like that) and it gives us a lot of variety of words.
And don't think I mentioned here, but I recently traded for Flamme Rouge and got to play it last week with friends. Very happy with how it plays and I can't wait to play it again (probably Sunday). So glad SUSD brought more attention to it and there coverage of it is pretty great. Now I need to start budgeting for expansions...