Toqtamish said:

Wjhat is there to buy? Why, a bunch of extra crap nobody but you apparently think is a good idea.

I am not fond of buying product to just not use it. If YOU want to pay extra money for cards that you can sprinkle through other decks, knock yourself out.

Myself, I would rather pay money for cards that do not sit in a box because absolutely nobody wants or needs the duplicates.

As for your second paragraph, well if the discussion serves little purpose, then way are you making yourself a part of it? Nobody is stopping you from not posting here anymore.

Seriously why are you being such an ass about it.

 And by buy I was referring to your "I don't buy it" comment.

 If YOU don't want to buy extra cards, then just buy one core set and live with the fact you do not have a playset of all of the cards.

You also make way to many assumptions and constantly say everyone when in fact you mean YOU. Do not assume you speak for everyone or even a vast majority.

Hellfury said:

Wow thats a sweeping statement there lad. What about the people who share games and build multiple decks out of the same pool? What about the people who give the dupes away to friends or sell them as singles ( a small market though it may be) what about the people who just Like having large collections? Besides, youre acting as if every card is made equal. In every pack/box/whatever you will get some cards that are duds, that only work for decks youre interested in or ones you just dont thematically like. Are you saying buying that pack was a waste too? If there are some cards in a pack that you want and some you don't you don't start complaining that they should release a "my personal greatest hits" expansion just for you. That's the same with the box, it just hapens to be more expensive. There are cards youll want, cards you wont want, deal with it

@Penfold. This is probably sidetracking a little but I actually think the attatchment control ended up doing the meta some good, I think the only way to do control in a game is to either make everything fragile equally or make everything hard to control equally. Now characters and Events are pretty easy to control, attatchments are (maybe a bit too easy) easy to control too. All we need is some location hate and were at the sweet spot where nothing is safe. This design theory comes with its own problems too but hey, I guess its just turning into that kind of game? That said you're perfectally right, short of the Serious lack of updates sometimes FFG do a much better job at being a game company that 99% of us would

Yes, there are things you can do with extra cards.  You can loan them to other players, maybe use them in spare decks, build card houses, frame them on your wall, pick things out of your teeth, etc…

But I think his main point that a card you can put in your deck is worth more than a card which only has "spare" uses due to already having the maximum number of that card is clear enough.  You may value extra non-playable cards more than Hellfury does, but it seems a little silly to act as if they don't exist or you don't understand what he means.

Personally, I don't think there will be much market for singles of cards that so many people have extras of.  They'll be worth little enough that nobody's going to bother setting up site for trading them - I don't think there is any such thing for the existing LCGs, is there?

dboeren said:

You are wrong, there is such a thing for an existing LCG. There is  a website to buy AGoT LCG cards in faction lots. There is demand for this type of thing. Especially for competitive players who have multiple decks.

And people trade cards on the AGoT boards. There is a section of its forums specifically devoted to trading  http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_temas.asp?efid=17&efcid=4

CoC has one too: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_temas.asp

Also I would argue that using those extra "non-playable" cards to give to friends is a VERY good use for them. That is how I got my friends in to AGoT LCG. I gave them cards for houses I had no interest in playing so they could have decks too to get started with.

Toqtamish said:

That AGoT trade forum showed one other potential problem with LCG model. Some 15$ retail price Chapter Packs for AGoT sell for over 100$ in ebay because those has been out of print. FFG has to constantly reprint Chapter Pack cycles so every card is easily available for retail price. There is a problem when one specific pack from one cycle is very good and it includes many tournament staples. This situation gets harder and harder when more expansions are printed. I think this kind of situation shouldn't happen in LCG model and getting whatever card you like just buying a specific expansion pack is one of the biggest selling points of LCG model.

absolutely, the main problem with the LCG model is that if you do not buy the packs as they come out you can nvr really get started. It is a huge problem for new players.

Personally I like the way FFG dose core sets and hope they nvr change it.

There is a trade forum for Call of Cthulhu, but I haven't seen it used for trading singles.  Generally it's people trying to get rid of old CCG-era cards, looking for CCG-era cards, or occasionally to split a Secrets of Arkham set (which came with 2x copies of cards).

If things go out of print in A Game of Thrones, then I could see an aftermarket for that.  None of the Call of Cthulhu packs are out of print, so I wasn't aware this was an issue - I would say this is FFG dropping the ball as there should be no such thing as an out of print pack (other than very temporarily) while the game is still alive.  That's unfortunate, but I'm pretty sure a brand new game like Netrunner won't have a problem with old packs being out of print - there ARE no old packs.  Cthulhu is waiting for reprints of one older cycle, but only to convert them from the old 40 card format to the newer 60 card format, not because you can't get them at all.

You're also talking about faction lots and unwanted factions.  That seems to be rather different from what I've seen in Call of Cthulhu too, people there typically do not think of any faction as being "their faction", they play all of them and you can mix factions freely in a deck.  I expect that Netrunner players will want to keep all factions as well as there is no storyline attachment to a particular faction as there seems to be in AGoT and you're required to play both sides on a regular basis.

Anyway, I guess the total of what I'm saying is that those reasons may exist for AGoT, and I can see how coming from the perspective of different games makes us each view this issue somewhat differently, but I'm not sure that these reasons will apply much to Netrunner.

No one can say anything about Netrunner potential for trading or singles demand, at least until it is closer to being out and we can at least see the rules. For all any of us know, it might totally suck.

FFG has been reprinting packs for AGoT and CoC as they go out of stock, and the nice thing about that is they are being reprinted as 60 card packs with 3 of every card rather than the older model of 40 cards, 3 copies of 10 and 1 copy of the other 10 cards. So hopefully not much longer and the first two cycles will get the same treatment.

booored said:

This is bit offtopic but this is my main problem with FFG LCG. What is FFG long term plan with their LCG products? I think AGoT is starting to come in a situation where it is just way too hard for newbies to start playing. There are so many expansions and you have to spend hundreds of dollars if you want to play in tournaments also. This situation is getting worse and worse. I own 2x AGoT Core and it works ok as a board game but I will not buy more products because it is too hard to really get into game now. I can see 2 different plans with AGoT by FFG:

1. Long term plan: Start reprints of the one whole expansion cycle in a cheaper deluxe expansion or start some tournament format where only some part of cards are allowed. There could be many different solutions, these are just examples. Basics is making a real plan how to attract new players for AGoT and keeping the game alive and growing for many years. Anyway something has to done, just releasing new expansions and reprinting old ones will not last in the long run. 

2. Short term plan: Just accept that AGoT won't attract new players any more and player base will decrease slowly. Still release expansions because there still are lot of players even when player base decreasing. Don't change the business model and let the players decide how long they will buy AGoT products. To get more paying customers start releasing new interesting LCGs to attract new players. Many not hardcore fans of the old LCGs will jump to the newer LCG anyway.

Then there are players who just buy one core set but those players are not included in this.

I hope FFG will choose option 1. and I find option 2. bit cheap. There hasn't really been any indicators which they will choose but not hurrying to reprint or even making announcement of out of print AGoT Chapter Packs is bit worrying. I am very interested to see how FFG handles the AGoT situation. Until then it is hard for me to spend lot of cash to any LCG.

Hellfury said:

Hahahaha. You might want to actually talk to some of the people from FFG. I have talked to two different LCG designers and they both said (independently) that they had always hoped they would be able to do x3. That was what they had originally planned, but the numbers didn't make sense. Of course they could have been lying, but they certainly have a better idea what the motivation and influence was, knowing all sides of it, where what you know is solely what you hope and dream their motivations and influences are. You have no facts on your side. Correlation does not equal causation. What I can do is see a proven track record of good stuff coming from FFG. What I see from players is a bunch of people with no business background and no knowledge of the industry outside of their own desires and experiences disagreeing repeatedly on what the best way to do something is. So yeah, smart money says go with FFG if I have to choose.

 But there are new players starting AGoT on a daily basis (yes, daily, it is pretty damn amazing that way). You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars to play in a tournament, but you do need hundreds of dollars to be truly competitive in a tournament. Those are two different things. However if anyone thinks any form of rotation or limited format would effectively change this without killing the game they are deluded. Two core sets, a deluxe expansion box, and two cycles of cards is the minimum to own to be able to put together a serious competitive deck that stands a chance at winning a tournament. Sure you could almost certainly win at your local store if you have simply one deck from a core set, one deluxe expansion and one cycle of cards, but your ability to fine tune your deck to exploit the wholes in other decks, close up the holes in your own, and generally exploit the metagame is dependent on having a diverse cardpool as well as being able to focus your deck. That can only happen with a certain number of cards to draw from.

If you want to be a competitive player from day 1 you need to spend about $250. If you want to really be able to kick ass and take names you need to spend about $400. After that investment, you will probably at best not need to spend more than $45 a year. Now compare that to having to spend over $500 for a single tier 1 deck in a game like Magic and then another $150-$250 dollars every rotation assuming your deck can be updated rather than having to be completely torn apart and replaced.

As to Chapter packs for AGoT being out of print, that is a new issue. There are two chapter packs in the last month that seem to have finally been sold out everywhere. Prior to that they were hard to find, but they could be found in stores. three months ago the local store I played at had at least 4 of each of them. One guy came in and bought them all. I'd be surprised if FFG didn't announce a reprint of those in the next month or two. That packs go out of print and there is some lag in the reprint, that is just the nature of supply and demand. Capitalism is far from perfect, but you don't really expect FFG to reprint a product and then sit on it taking up space in their warehouse until the stores sell out do you? That is just bad business. Sure it is inconvenient for those players who want those packs, but they are not a requirement to play in a tournament and several tournament decks placing in the top 8 and top 4 have few if any cards from those packs. Some of the decks of course have cards from them that play a central role. the point is you don't need them to be competitive, you just need them to build a specific kind of deck.

But seriously at this point we have wandered far afield about discussing card distribution in A:N and are discussing the merits of the LCG model… which I have to say, if you don't like it no one is forcing you to play a game that uses it. There are a number of amazing games in the traditional CCG model and stand alone card game model. There is a certain amount of discussion and emailing to FFG that expresses your view in an informative way that they can balance against their own market research, and then there is just complaining because you want the attention and you feel that your emotions are somehow more important than FFG's bottom line and everyone else's emotions on the subject.

 Hellfury, I'd like to apologize with my tone in my last post that quoted you. I'm excited about the game being redone, and about the LCG model in general. I really have had a number of interactions with FFG employees at Gencon and other events and try to engage them in talk about the inner workings (as much as they can actually tell me) of the company and model because I am such a fan. That however is no excuse for me being a douche about any of it. I apologize. I would delete the post, but I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to cover up my actions. I made them, I'll deal with the opinions and dismissals that come from them. I do hope you accept my apology though.

Penfold said:

I think this is a fairly good estimate.  There's also some ability to trade off one for another - you could perhaps swap a Core set for a few more packs, etc.. but generally this feels about right to me.

If you just want to make a good enough deck to play at the local game night and hold your own, I think you can get by with less than this, maybe one cycle instead of two?  It's all in how many choices and how competitive you want to be.  You don't HAVE to buy anything you don't want to.

Penfold said:

Before responding I want to acknowledge Penfold's later post and will respond with that post in mind.

I would love to analyze your post sentence by sentence, but forumware shittiness and lack of time prohibit this.

I will say that I do talk to FFG employees quite frequently, since whenever I go to a game shop, it has been the FFG EC. I know many of their former and current employees from outside of that environment as well, some even before they even worked for FFG. Nothing discussed with me is ever outside of their NDA I want to emphasis. So you may very well be privvy to other info that I am not.

Second of all, I have all the evidence I need to prove this. Its called a forum post. Many in fact. They predate your membership to this site by quite a bit.

I also have heard from a couple designers that the decision to go with the 3x method was brought about because of the feedback garnered from consumers. To the point where the not only instituted it for future packs but to retcon those that came before so that the product would be consistent and less confusing.

I dont see how FFG employees can say "We were going to do that, yet the numbers dont make sense and didnt do that until lots of people told us too, so therefore we get credit for the idea because somehow the numbers magically made sense." and not sound disingenuous.

Believe what you will, as clearly your evidence contradicts my own.

I will say that the assumption you make that players are constantly disagreeing with the best way to do something is a statement based in the deepest egotism. We all feel our own positions are likely the best way to do something, yet who is able to judge what really is best?

The people who make the product, or the people who decide its merit and patronize it? In a capitalist society, I am siding with the consumer six times out of ten.

I consider the hatchet buried. The bottomline is we are fans of their products and it is good to keep that in mind no matter how heated the discussion becomes. Not only for forum users but for FFG themselves.

Because no matter how sugar-coated or nasty the criticisms or suggestions may be given, they are offered to allow FFG to succeed whether they heed such feedback as constructive or not. That is why these forums exist at all.

I think FFG (specifically those at FFG such as Peterson) lose sight of that fundamental fact and tend to write off any but the most damaging criticism as trolling. I wont be so brusque as to go into why as that would go even further off the topic than we already are. But it still has to be said.