Important facts about the first V:EKN set in development

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Let's try it very simply.

Someone posts a well-written, calm, rational critique of the V:EKN.
You label it mud-slinging. <--- This is an insult.


If you do not understand that this is an insult, you need to stop posting. You have already dug an enormous hole for yourself. Please stop. Let someone on the Inner Circle save you from yourself, because you clearly don't have the skills to do it.

(This, as it goes, is also an insult. But I don't represent the V:EKN. You do. Man up.)

You're inflaming a bad situation with your totally unrelated discussion. You're the douche in this scenario. Johannes might be the VEKN chairman, but he's also a person. It's unfair and juvenile to not allow him a temporary lapse in judgment.

As a community we need support for the VEKN to keep the VEKN. If it loses its support, we might as well kiss a centralized player organization good-bye. I don't want that. I assume most reading this forum doesn't want this either. Try to take some responsibility for this organization instead of trying your utmost to raze it.

I have to back up Johannes here.

Jeff signed a NDA that stated that he would not talk about the design process.
Jeff worked on the material
Jeff broke trust by violating a NDA that he signed.

Johannes is reacting to a very well thought out criticism of the design process of the new set.

Unfortunately, Jeff broke trust and threw the delicacies of the design process of the new set to the rough handling of the court of public opinion.

Johnannes has done nothing wrong except try to protect the next phase of VTES so that new life can be breathed into something that we all treasure.

While I am not involved in the design process any more than submitting some artwork for review, I have to say that while Jeff's reasons may have been well-intentioned he abused the trust of those who he was cooperating with by making this a much bigger problem by distracting everyone from solving his perceived design problems and instead having to do public relations damage control.

Interesting.

When you said, that Jeff tried to blackmail the VEKN with this, just admitted that what he said has foundation, at least some.

If the IC knew that the design team is not in proper understanding, or that the leader tries to "rape" the whole process, than they should have intervened either one way or another. One thing should be clear: NO PERSON IS BIGGER THAN THE GAME. If someone is not capable in his position then he should be substituted.

Every player anticipates this set, and everybody wants it to be very well-designed, proper, usable, etc. This secrecy what is held is just alienating the players. Let the community have it's say about the cards, the theme, etc. The create-a-card contest seems like a very good idea.

I don't care what you said, or how you said it. I only care about the set and the date when I can see it, or know anything about it. If the accusations are true, admit it and make the the appropriate decisions, appoint whoever you want, solve the animosity. If they're false, then prove it with something (not just with some good-for-nothing public statement).

The community support the VEKN, that should be clear. We are just afraid that our beloved game will suffer because of some internal affairs.

I for one am happy to wait until a response is put together. I would have preferred that Jeff go to the playtest team first to help mitigate this issue of NDAs. Now that we are airing the dirty laundry, I'm anxious to hear what the person(s) in question have to say before passing my own judgement or jumping into some flame war.

To be honest with those above who are calling for 'greater transparency'...

1) We do not need 'greater transparency' in the design process. How the cards are designed should not by default be a populist decision; populist politics tends to be terrible, so why do we think that populist VTES would be much better?

It has been said plenty of times: Look at the "New Card Ideas Forum" and the Moderators of that forum. Those people are involved in the design of new cards or high enough in the VEKN that they might as well be involved. These ideas, created by the players, are on open view. Which ideas are accepted, modified, adapted, copied and/or ignored by the Design Team is up to them.

2) The Playtesters are there to help give the Design Team a manageable public response to the feedback. We, while a chosen group, are by no means homogenous or even people with similar experience, tournament ratings, preferred deck types or even personality. I suspect that we were partly chosen because we can articulate a point, appear to come from different views of the game, are active members of the VTES community and are willing to be constructive with others ideas.

I'm sure that some of the Design Team can find me antagonistic, even maybe belligerant, about ideas at times (I apologise to anyone who finds me that way at times). I would hope not to offend them with any rants I may have given, but the reason I may do so as a Playtester is purely because I want the next VTES set (and the set after that and so on) to make everyone's eyes spin with posibilities. I want to see all of the players in my playgroup look at the new set of cards and be excited. I want them to look at vampires and barely be able to stop themselves from trying to build decks around them. I want them to look at crypt cards and have those same feelings. I want these cards to make players want to build new types of decks (while they may fit into existing archetypes).

3) While I understand there are many keen, active volunteers in the forums and community... not all of them should be included because larger teams tend to have more troubles. They have troubles with deadlines, trouble with 'getting along', trouble with 'shared vision', troubles with 'factionlising' and so on. Like I've heard said many times "In a group of 10 people you can usually get at least 11 opinions".

For logistical reasons, it helps to have a smaller design team and potentially a moderate-sized Playtesting Team. It's not that you aren't a valued VTES Player, VEKN Community Member or your opinions don't count; in my view they do count. But the logistics of large groups can be hard, and for that reason it is easier to have a small team which means leaving people out.

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While I am upset that there is such a deep rift forming within the VEKN-Teams that Jeff felt his only option was to take this course of action (and I understand both Johannes' side and Jeff's side of this), I am hoping that this will lead to three things: a) A stronger design team, b) a better system for developing new sets & testing the sets, and c) VTES stays alive with new exciting sets.