Decipher wasn't run poorly or lame. Rick Eddleman embezzled them into the ground. http://www.embezzlementfromdecipher.com

Reading all this Decipher talk has made me nostalgic, so I pulled out my old cards...and immediately got some deck ideas! I gotta send out a few emails to see if any of the old group of players still makes decks and wants to play.

On a side note, if anyone here has any of the tournament foils from the Decipher game available, please let me know since I never finished collecting them all.

 You hearing this, FFG? Time for some updates.

I still have a complete set of the Decipher game. Loved it! Best CCG ever. Wish I knew someone who would play it with me.

I hoped FFG would buy the game mechanics and re-release it. sigh...

I look forward to this game and I'm sure I'll enjoy it, but nothing will ever replace the love I had for the Star Wars CCG.

HisstKa said:

I would love to see a streamlined, updated version of the game under FFG. Decipher sort of did this with WARS TCG, in an attempt to satisfy fans of the game mechanics (and they would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling Rick Eddleman* and his dog). But to take the original game whole-cloth would be a bad idea, as the rules had become insanely convoluted by the end of the game's printed run.

At the same time, I would assume Decipher still owns the rights to the so-called "WARS Engine" (the ruleset employed by both WARS and SWCCG) and would not even think about selling them, especially to a company that currently owns the rights to produce a Star Wars card game. It would be a poor business decision, plain and simple.

But boy would it be awesome.

*Note: Meddling rhymes with "Eddling," as in Rick Eddleman. I know there was an awesome pun that could have been made out of this, but I couldn't find it. It's up for grabs if anybody wants to take a shot at it.

There was talk when WotC got the license for the card game from Decipher, that they had the option to license the game engine.

We all felt the game needed a revamp because of all the rules additions and were excited about the possibility of WotC running with that. They chose not to license the engine and did their own...sigh

WOTC using their own engine doomed it from the start. The Decipher game players felt burnt and had no desire to go from a complex strategy game to an overglorified form of Yahzee and WOTC fans don't really support their games outside of Magic as well as you'd expect from that large of a fanbase. Thusly it died within about 2 years.

Wampa Dan said:

Your math is a little off: the first set they printed was Attack of the Clones, and the last was Revenge of the Sith, with each coming out a few weeks prior to the release of their respective films, which establishes the game as having a roughly three-year lifespan, give or take with respect to fans expecting the unreleased Rise of the Empire expansion. I agree with your general points, but still felt I might as well clarify. 

Just to be clear, I am wholly in favor of the idea of FFG licensing the WARS engine, if it's something Decipher is willing to give them. And it's been said that there will be "other card games" printed while they own this property, so hopefully this is an option they will consider. I just wish there were an official channel in which fans could state their advance support of such a decision (I don't think they read these boards very much).

Has anyone else ever stepped back and taken a look at just how immersed in the past Star Wars fans tend to be? Everything was always so much better way back when, and whatever is out now, or upcoming, is always never going to be as good as what was once, way back when. I suppose the ultimate expression of all this is how the Classic Trilogy is much, much better than the Prequel Trilogy, and as such the Prequels should all be burned in the fires of hell, or whatever it is... (I was almost going to say "Mustafar" then, but that would just be too ironic).

I myself never played the Decipher game, and I may have mentioned here somewhere that the TCG I only ever collected as a collectible item, each card kept in folders without the intention of playing. Similarly, the only RPG I've actually used is Saga Edition, with all the WEG books and d20/RCR versions of the WotC game merely kept in boxes elsewhere. So I can't really comment on them. But why don't we ever seem to want a new game? Why, when FFG announced they'd be producing minis/card games and RPGs did people almost immediately start clamouring for them to buy the rights to the d6 system for the RPG, without waiting to see what they would bring that could be new to the universe?

I myself am guilty of harking back to the good old days, vastly preferring the Bantam era to almost anything Del Rey have published (though it doesn't stop me from buying everything that Del Rey have ever published!) and treating anything since the KotOR and Legacy runs of Dark Horse Comics with something like disdain, instead favouring anything up to about the Republic series. And don't start me on Invasion...

FFG have produced some really good games that I've seen, so why can't we trust them to continue to do this with Star Wars? There seems to be a trend of pre-judging, almost, which is so much a pointless exercise. Looking at the current stable of LCGs, if the Star Wars game was anything like Lord of the Rings, I'd be at risk of having a heart attack in delight. If they produced a separate, stand-alone card game in the manner of the revised edition of Arcana for one of the other eras of Star Wars, I'd be rubbing my hands with glee. That the company has managed, in each of the LCGs I am invested in (LotR, Warhammer, and AGoT) to produce a game with the distinct feel of each "universe" the game inhabits gives me immense confidence that they are competent enough to do so for Star Wars, and not need to buy the rights to someone else's engine.

Why do we do it? Why do we resist change and innovation so?

spalanzani said:

You have some great points in there. I guess I would only respond by saying that if something was perfect to start with, then sometimes the new is far inferior to what came before. In reference to the films themselves, the reason that IV-VI are superior is because with Star Wars (1977), Lucas was a hungry young filmmaker who cared about the story because he didn't have the effects to do what he envisioned, and the screenplays for V and VI were written by Lawrence Kasdan and neither was directed by George Lucas. Also, the producer, Gary Kurtz, was known to disagree with George Lucas and point out when things weren't quite great, yet. He quite halfway through the production of Return of the Jedi, and was replaced by, THE-BIGGEST-YES-MAN-TO-EVER-HAVE-LIVED, Rick McCallum. Just look at the behind the scenes documentaries to the prequels. You can see it on people's faces that they think George's ideas are ridiculous, but they don't say anything.

In regards to the Card Game, Decipher's version of Star Wars was so brilliantly conceived that when WotC came out with theirs it was a big "Seriously? This is the Card Game?" It was abysmal. Now, I am looking forward to FFGs LCG version very much (as I'm sure everyone else here is). It looks like it will be a lot of fun. I think that people are talking about the Decipher one simply because we're bored and nostalgic because we have no NEW news on the upcoming game.

 I hate to continue the praise for Deciphers Star Wars CCG here on FFG's Star Wars LCG forum. However, I have to agree with the consensus. Star Wars CCG was the best CCG I have ever played. It wasn't perfect. Toward the end, it started to creep a little toward overly complex side. Up through Death Star II, they were pretty solid. After Hoth, it started to get a little overwhelming for new players. Still, nothing beats deploying DLOS Vader (and some Storm Trooper fodder) to a (//) battlefield where your opponent doesn't have any presence and force draining the heck out of them while they struggle to build up a enough troops to take you out.

What a great game. While I don't think we can compare it to SW:LCG, Decipher set the bar pretty high for a Star Wars card game.

Definitely. I only ever collected the Decipher CCG through Death Star II. I avoided everything that they added after that. The EU cards just looked bad, and the Defensive Shields made the game almost unplayable for people who were purists like me. Also, the SWCCG Player's Committee has released several Virtual Sets. I tried to play someone on Holotable (the online player) and they used defensive shields and virtual cards and I was basically done by the end of the second turn. So, yeah. If they had stopped with Death Star II or just kept it OT only, it would have continued to be a great game.

I have to admit, all this talk of the CCG has me thinking a trip to ebay may be in order shortly!!!

I think mostly it has to due with the fact that in the case of Star Wars the old stuff is FAR superior. Its not the same in many franchises the new Star Trek blew away pretty much all their recent efforts for example. As, for why people are getting nostalgic about Decipher's SWCCG here its probably due to the fact it was one of the best selling/most respected CCGs ever made so it would be hard not to bring it up. Especially when FFG hasn't given us much to talk about. Would love to see some demo cards, or anything really. Hint Hint...

But on a side point comparing an LCG to A CCG is apples to oranges. They are a different beast entirely. I would love to see someone use the WARS engine for a card game someday, but I doubt it would work for what FFG has in mind. Maybe as a seperate project if this sells well. Additional hint hint...

@herozeromes: My group that still plays SWCCG only allows Premier through DS2. The last time I played in an open tourney I got absolutely destroyed by podracing. PODRACING!

To the best of my understanding Decipher rushed out the Episode 1 sets tin an attempt to sway Lucas from pulling the license. He did it anyways when he bought a percantage of Hasbro (I believe it was) which owned WOTC. So we tend to consider those sets as a horrible mistake and we do not allow them. I also have never supported the player council and thier virtual sets. So if you are looking at that stretch of productio run from Premier through DS2 it was the greatest run of CCG play in my life. Hopefully this one will do a bit to replace some of the bitter ending it had...

It's not so much looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. As has been stated above, the Star Wars CCG was just brilliantly conceived. The gameplay was great, the cards were well-designed. It allowed for growth, and the addition of new mechanics.

Even the episode I stuff was usable. Sure the game suffered from power creep and it became overly complex near the end of it's run (which is why I am a fan of closed tournaments). I would trust FFG to make a great game, but I would like them to re-do the game using the WARS engine.

Such a great system deserves to have another chance. It's a shame that a beautifully designed game system is left to die.