Hear the rumor about the WoD Living Card Game?

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Comparing vtes and netrunner is something that looses zteam quickly. We have died and resurfaced. We have the owod as our fluff. We are a genre in and of ourselves, twofold.(horror, and the best multiplayer ccg there is)
Netrunner was decidedly the weakest of the garfeild games.

You can call VTES unique as I do. But, I'm saying my comparison is strictly done for simple reasons. An old player base whom there were still die hards playing and some who felt quite negative about a new game that did not allow use of old cards. Sound familiar? And secondly, for a strategic business decision. Being that FFG and/or CCP may well feel it could make quite a bit of money.

If Netrunner was the weakest and smallest, then imagine the potential of such a collaboration with CCP.There are more people who were into the RPG and books side of the World of Darkness than those who played VTES. Make the game easy enough to get into and you can get people not only who were into WoD, but outsiders as well. So if they are looking at it that way, then maybe to them it makes business sense. Obviously it comes down to money.

Netrunner may have been the weakest of the three Garfield card games (Magic, Jyhad, Netrunner). But, all garnered critical success and were profitable. Netrunner met an untimely end and still had a devout base of players. To think that they didn't even get the opportunity to come back until how many years later? VTES came back because of White Wolf. Netrunner had no one else. And when the new Netrunner launched it was sold out in minutes at GenCon in it's first appearance and consistently sells through it's new releases. Netrunner has one of the highest ratings on BoardGameGeek. I would venture to say the new player base vastly outstripped those who continued to play from the old version. Netrunner most likely has a much larger audience than VTES currently does as well.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Rodd, you seem too sold on the lcg buisness model to see the big picture here.

I am sold on a system that allows players to get in and join without having to worry about rarity and price fluctuations. In the case of this rumor that would be an LCG. I am also for the potential of print on demand. And I am sure there are other systems that do away with rarity and accessibility issues. So it's more about having an accessible system both in terms of price and availability.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

White wolf went to shit because they replaced thier cash cow that was the owod with the too-little-too-late nwod. Having a card game based in the owod screams bad idea, due to imbalance. Horror card games with no established fanbase is bad investing. But there is in this case wod fans. Owod, camarilla fan club types to be exact. Who would hate a crossover game that sucked. So, the nwod is much more attractive in that light. But the 3 core games, vtr, wtf,andmta all sucked, and only the ctl,ptc,and htv were awesome. Now, lets assume we get a living carx game starting with the 3 core races. It takes a shit.

I am going at this from a strictly objective point of view. And I am not going to assume FFG screws something up and it's initial release is crap. Could it be fairly limited as with some LCG games? Sure, but the expansion help flesh things out or add to it. Why would I presume the initial release for a game that is strictly rumored to be in early stages of testing, to be utter crap? For sake of argument it is still a rumor and just an idea that is being thought over.

As far as a fan base goes, that is not my concern for a game based in World of Darkness. For all I know they could be making their own niche WoD for a game. Or maybe they use old or maybe new. Hell if I know and no one does. They are doing well enough for Star Wars and other high class IP's. I don't think they are going to make some colossal failure unless it's for some people who have an idea in mind in how they would have done the game.

You are always going to disappoint at least some people. Within WoD and it's various related context and games there is enough fractures and deviations that you are bound to not please at least a segment.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Now, we have these expansions that the entire project is riding on. Can you imagine settlers of catan being gerrible and useless without expansions? Magic the gathering if only mercadian masques and 6th edition were the extent of the cardpool? Zombies without cards or the helipad in the box?

I assume you meant "terrible" in the context of Catan. Well, it wasn't terrible. Again, we are talking what is probably just a thought or in conceptual stages. I am not going to go with hypotheticals of how the game could fail if it's first outing is mediocre or not well received. It could equally be a well designed game that chooses it's own WoD Universe. I am sure whatever they do, they can make it work. If it all comes to pass then time will tell. And besides, who says they may not do an entirely different game that is not an LCG? For all we know the World of Darkness stamp may just be a branding to the game to get people interested and perhaps they only use basics from the Universe.

No reason in speculating further on that. It's trivial at this point.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

We are talking about a game that cant support itself. So, make a 6 splat nwod lcg, and MAYBE it will be a-OK. god knows id love a ctl cardgame. But the bottomline is i doubt they care about us, as the vtes community. The lcg isnt vtes, we have our own agenda, and a very different game. Pod doesnt mean anything to ffg, steve weick will make money in barrels regardless of some lcg that some vtes players drop$30 on between pod orders. Wotc makes nothing from ffg. They dont care. The vtes community wants a new set, not a new game.

I would think that FFG cares in a broad sense about the WoD fan base and it's ancillary games. That is if it were to make some kind of game based on WoD. It's a pool to draw on potential interests and sales on. Obviously people that fall into that category are going to be more liable to buy a new WoD product than someone outside that niche.

In a much more specified sense I think they would care about making a new game, borrowing unique mechanics from VTES, and drawing inspiration from WoD. Again, that is making an assumption that a card game is being tested.

Hasbro/Wizards might in their viewpoint have a little cause for concern in licensing their deck mechanics if they feel a competitor may be making a card game of their own based on a Universe they would be selling a license too. It might essentially mean they have money to lose if potential customers would rather buy something completely new. We all know Hasbro/Wizards has done crazy things and CCP has also given VTES the bird in the past in search of other endeavors. All I am getting at is no one can presume to know the business motivations. So saying Hasbro/Wizards doesn't care isn't some obvious truth.

In my opinion Hasbro/Wizards would not care that CCP is licensing their own IP to FFG for a different card game. And CCP would obviously prefer to have both customer bases. FFG is concerned about just their potential game and only with CCP. I see little trouble, but you never know.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

And again, you are too sold on the lcg format. Its hot for some games, where all should be even, but im not convincex the decidedly uneven worlds of darkness are right for it.

And again, I am not hard up on LCG. It's more the concepts I listed earlier. I don't think the format means a lick for however they decide to approach the split Universe of WoD. It would be interesting simply to see how they approach the divide of Old, New, or something altogether different.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

If it sucks, whatever, if not, sweet, im stealing players from it. But im not that intimidated. They arent killing our game or even remaking it. Its to us what EPIC was to magic, although i wish them more luck than that.

And whining? Not about the game, but about our game, and little nuances therein mostly.

Who knows what will really come of all this? Maybe nothing, maybe an excellent new and different game. Maybe something mediocre.

It depends on where the format of this new game goes (if it happens at all) and how much it parallels to VTES as to whether the community should ponder what ramifications that might have to it's own community. Should Print on Demand go through for VTES, then I think even if the FFG game parallels VTES in some ways, it will have much less of an impact than if Print on Demand does not work out. Should Print on Demand not come to pass then I think with another new game or even the lack their of, means some rough waters in the long run.

As a gamer I hope both a new game comes out (be it board, LCG, etc.), AND Print on Demand goes official for VTES.

On a side tangent, i think ccp is waiting to see how best to have a tie in ccg or lcg for thiermmorpg. Since the big thing to base this on is wow, they may see a succesful ccg in the form of the wow ccg. Hard to argue that it is popular, and not just a flavor of the week popular, its sold less than mtg, pokemon and possibly yugioh, but i cant name anything else thats been as solid thats as new as the wow ccg.
Im sure wotc hates this, since they own the arguably stronger but nearly identical IP that is dnd. The only better stablished fantasy ip is arguably lotr, which has less creative flex than dnd or wow.
Now, we have wotc owning stake in vtes ip, ccp holding all the chips for a future game based on the ip as long as itdesnt mime vtes or jyhad, and thus involve wotc.
We have ffg, having supposedly at garfeilds assistance relaunched netrunner, also trying to make money.
Ccp is going to go with wherever they can get money, and we are easy retention, but rough acquisition. And they arent interested in us all that much, since we are an unwanted item they picked uo when they bougbt all of white wolf.
What im getting at is outside of previous concerns, there are alot of eyes on this once(if ever, really) the wod mmorpg launches, but very few ppl care yet, outside of the vtes and wod niche.
So all of it is either going to be really small and stay that way, or get really big or shut down hinging on the mmorpg.
If worse case senario happens, they become vtes junior, shelved until who knows what happens.
I think ffg bit off a big piece of mystery meat with the whole ordeal. Not even joss whedon likes. Coming into a preestablished fantasy genre where half the fans know everything and half know nothing, so why should ffg be more idealistic about tbe same flaws.
We will see how it all pans out. Just based on possibilities, i remain skeptical of success in a normal small chunk lcg format and it seems unlikely tbat ffg will do a 400-600 card lcg, and more unlikely theyd hazard a ccg, when competition is stiff and mercilessly bloodthirsty in the case of wotc brands.

***** ANNOUNCEMENT *****

Thank you all for the 19 Years of playtesting Vampire: the Eternal Struggle. We appreciate the effort you have done to make the game better, by testing Liliths blessing, return to innocence, Kindred restructure and Ascendance.

We like to announce that FFE will indeed release Vampire LCG. Vampire LCG will no longer be in the fictional World of Darkness® setting, but we will try to access a larger audience by use the setting described by Stephenie Meyer in her book saga Twilight.
Therefor the demografic has changed from stinky, black-shirt-wearing thirtiers to glitterwearing gothicwannabe fifteen year old girls.
This is what we hope are target audience will look like:
www.monroenews.com/photos/2012/jul/03/772/

The core game will be released medio 2014. It will contain 5 decks. As this is now a living cardgame, you no longer have to buy boosterpacks. When you buy the game you have it all complete. From a marketing standpoint we have decided to have all cards printed 9 times, exept for a few cards. In the core game you only get 3 copies of Wake with Evenings Freshness, Blooddoll and Minion Tap.

The amount of clans have been reduced to make it less complex to new players. The new clans are: Team edward, team Jacob, the clefairies, the smurfs and The Hunters.

We can't imagine how thrilled you are all right now. So just hang on and wait till the first pre-order is availible.

Sign out,
Oortje
Fantasy Flight games reprecentative

PS. the new netrunnergame is awesome, and you should buy that too.

*checks the date*

Wow! That announcement must be true!

Like americain delivered Europa from communists nazis, this new LCG will deliver VtES from thoses infernalists setites ?

Well as long as I get to buy booster packs of glitter to throw in my opponents' faces, I'm OK with our new Vampiric pre-teen overlords!

*glitter poof TO THE FACE* "Now you're Edward, and I get to look bored!" /squee-swoon