Anthololgy Set, or, FU Non EU players

If the game was still in print and if the set was only offered for the EC with nothing comparable to the NAC and if possession of the cards put an undue competitive advantage over those who didn't have them, I could buy into the unfairness of it all.

But, the game is currently out of print. It's not impossible to do something special for this year's NAC or next year's NAC to provide some balance. It's not clear to me that not having these cards prevents having fun playing the game.

And, as much as I hate distribution of chase cards that seems to unduly advantage certain play groups, I make some sort of exception for major events. What draws people to create larger events is having something special offered. In some cases, that may be money. In some cases, that may be swag, such as promos not widely available. In some cases, like how so many players got put on to V:TES cards, you will have something like an artist taking photos of players to use as models only at a particular event. (Note how how many players at the NAC in California ended up on cards, including some who don't travel much to major events.)

At 20 euros, let's say you can get them from speculators or allies or whomever later at 40 euros. Somewhat less than spending $2500 to get new cards. No, it's not "let's create a web site and sell off LARP crypt cards and chase cards for whatever plus shipping", but the game is in a precarious place and no one is trying to screw over most of the world's players.

It may not be an ideal situation, but it's one I can understand. Contrast with card game publishers who seemed to have no respect for their casual players, like the publishers of the original DBZ CCG who banned a common that did the same thing as an ultrarare or who created championship promo cards that allowed you to name a card type that couldn't be played in games (though, to be fair, I don't recall how legal this card was in events after it was rewarded).

Fred, following this forum more often and closely would've kept you at least somewhat knowledgeable on where VEKN and the game were at. But, according to your own comment, you "have NOT been following discussions on the VEKN forum over the years very closely at all".

EC is only the biggest gathering f2f of the players of the game, hence it makes sense to take care of most anything requiring f2f presence there.

I already said it elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here that for decades on end us non-Americans have had to endure the fact that the players in the Colonies were heaped upon all kinds of nifty convention-only components for various games (luckily not VTES) in GenCon etc where they were playing "World" Championships basically among themselves that the reminder of the world just had to have wet dreams about. I always thought how much whining would ensue if the roles were reversed. It seems that I'm beginning to find out right now. I'm not saying the past justifies anything, but I'm tempted to ask how do you like them apples now...


As far as I understand the idea to distribute the set to attendees of the event only came from White Wolf. Or they at least wanted us to hold EC at the event and pay for triple our usual entrance fee. To give us incentive to attend the event even with the high cost VEKN requested that Anthology Set should be made available a the event.

I seriously doubt that WW would've been interested in printing any kind of cards without us having EC at the Berlin event. Now they are getting us under their umbrella and can, with the optional extra copies people can order, gauge the demand for the game, so they'll be able to see if it is worth while to print more cards in the future. Hopefully people will order extras heavily and make them realize that there still is big demand for the game we love!

Of course WW wants as many of us to arrive to the Berlin event as possible. How many would you think would attend if the Anthology Set was made publicly available via other sources? I've stressed that we should try to run as many demos there as possible as I can't imagine more suited audience for the demos than the event's participants! Being at the Berlin event means that we'll get more exposure among people that are very deeply into the background material our game is using. No better place to try to recruit new blood, eh?

Let me stress here that I'm not sure if I as an European will be able to attend, but I still think that this is STUPENDUOUSLY good for the game! How many years have we hoped that the game would have new printed cards again? And once the first set is printed, it is more likely to have following cards printed, and distributed hopefully via normal channels, than if the Anthology Set hadn't been done.

I doubt that the current WW has much experience in distributing printed material via the usual, or any other, channels either, so any other option probably wouldn't have been a viable for a trial run to gauge the game's demand.


Please elaborate how you would have handled the printing and distribution the set. Especially as WW hadn't previously committed to it in any way and we were highly unsure who had the right and to what. Oh, and VEKN not having any money (or any kind of business/corporate entity) at all since we are merely a player organization.

You know, people have been trying their darnest to get the game back into print since it was killed the second time...

Well, let's aside the question of, "What could POSSIBLY go wrong with the idea of polling people who attend the ECC about whether it's a good idea to distribute special neato keeno promo cards at the next ECC?" for a moment and take up a different question.

I would also love to know why it is that getting VTES back into print hinges on printing special promo sets at all? If someone wants to print VTES cards, why can't they just print what they print and offer it for sale to everybody who wants one?

It appears to me that getting an Anthology set isn't directly connected to attending the ECC as you can also get one by engaging someone else who attend the ECC to preorder one for you, pick it up there, and get it to you by whatever means. Why not just go one step further and provide a means for anyone to order one who wants one? If you're concerned that you might undercut the promotional aspects of inducing attendance at the ECC, you can jack the price up higher and, perhaps, include an artificial delay in delivering the cards to non-attendees. The price increase would help fund the cost of providing the service. And the end result is that you move more cards to more places in the world, which would only be a good thing.

Not ideal, as you say - but certainly an acceptable to alternative to forcing everyone to hop around and find their own solution.

Fred

Lönkka wrote:

I already said it elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here that for decades on end us non-Americans have had to endure the fact that the players in the Colonies were heaped upon all kinds of nifty convention-only components for various games (luckily not VTES) in GenCon etc where they were playing "World" Championships basically among themselves that the reminder of the world just had to have wet dreams about. I always thought how much whining would ensue if the roles were reversed. It seems that I'm beginning to find out right now. I'm not saying the past justifies anything, but I'm tempted to ask how do you like them apples now...

I do not believe you are relating the facts quite accurately. Granted, Wizards of the Coast engaged in some fast-and-loose distribution methods of their first two promos (Mariana Gilbert and Dan Murdock) and the impact may have been VAGUELY similar to this situation - but not quite. Gilbert and Murdock were distributed at different events over the years, not just at one single place and one single event. And, if I recall correctly, for a time there were ways of obtaining them directly from WotC or White Wolf.

Anyway, be that as it may, I was not any more in favor of the practice when it benefited U.S. players than I am now that it benefits European players. Two wrongs don't make a right. The vast majority of promo cards distributed by White Wolf have been distributed in a perfectly fair manner: they were just as available to organizers of European tournaments as they were to organizers of American tournaments, as far as I know.

Lönkka wrote:

As far as I understand the idea to distribute the set to attendees of the event only came from White Wolf. Or they at least wanted us to hold EC at the event and pay for triple our usual entrance fee. To give us incentive to attend the event even with the high cost VEKN requested that Anthology Set should be made available a the event.

(remainder of the explanation connecting reprinting of VTES cards with promotional nature of anthology set elided for brevity)

OK, thank you for clearing that up for me. It seems our posts "crossed", and I asked the question again in response to Ian's post.

Still, that point seems rather tenuous to me. White Wolf is only willing to reprint the cards in order to use to hold a gun to players' heads and demand attendance to World of Darkness. That doesn't strike me as much of a guarantee that they'll ever print any more cards in the future for any purpose except this sort of thing again. And this is a bad thing. If sets become effectively available on the secondary market at a reasonably inflated price, that will mitigate the bad considerably. But I think you may prove wildly optimistic to to suggest that this amounts to breathing life into the printing of the game again.

Lönkka wrote:

Please elaborate how you would have handled the printing and distribution the set.

Please see my response to Ian. Basically, offer the sets for general sale at an inflated price and on delayed basis.

Lönkka wrote:

You know, people have been trying their darnest to get the game back into print since it was killed the second time...

Yes, of course I know that. And I'd love to see that, too. But I'm frankly skeptical that this is the path accomplish this result. Or worse, if there are more reprints, that they'll just be more privilege special-release promos intended to blackmail players into showing up at more special events. That would be a very bad outcome.

Fred

EC attendees haven't been polled, but VEKN has made at least a couple of polls to the whole playerbase via online polls.

At ECs NCs have given their opinions on various subjects (whether IC has used this in their decision making is beyond me). Want to see what has been talked in the NC meetings? Dig up the transcripts here in this forum. They are commonly available posts.

When I brought up the previously available nifty stuff, I specifically said "luckily not VTES" so no need to bring up the couple old promo cards that i wasn't talking about. ICL presented the same idea referring the DGB CCG in his post.


Jacking up the initial price means that the 2nd hand purchasers would have to cough up even more inflated prices. So I think that is definitely the wrong way to go. With the Berlin Anthology the price for the "free" set included in the attendance is high but the more you purchase extra copies, the cheaper they become.


You do not believe that this Anthology gives us a chance to get more cards printed. At least in regular ones.

I think it gives us way more chances than we've had since the game went out of print for the second time. Hence, we needed to take this chance and see where it leads.

Lönkka wrote:

EC attendees haven't been polled, but VEKN has made at least a couple of polls to the whole playerbase via online polls.
.

Then I would say I'm confused why I saw no poll about this. Ben has always been very diligent about mirroring any important VEKN polls to the Facebook VEKN groups and I recall no polls covering a possibility like distributing promo sets at single specific events. Or anything close to it. I don't follow the VEKN forums very closely but I miss very little on the FB groups.

Lönkka wrote:

When I brought up the previously available nifty stuff, I specifically said "luckily not VTES" so no need to bring up the couple old promo cards that i wasn't talking about.

OK, my apologies for misunderstanding. Like I said, I got out of Dragon Dice for exactly this kind of behavior. Granted, Dragon Dice was never a particularly interesting game in the first place so getting out of it wasn't exactly a huge sacrifice. But point is, VTES has never engaged in these kinds of practices and that's exactly one of the reasons I've wholeheartedly played and collected the cards over the years.

Lönkka wrote:

Jacking up the initial price means that the 2nd hand purchasers would have to cough up even more inflated prices. So I think that is definitely the wrong way to go.

Sorry, I don't see the problem - as long as the increase isn't too unreasonable. (As Ian said, paying 40 euros instead of 20 would be fine.) People who don't want them, don't need to buy them. But at least it frees you from either traveling (some people simply can not attend no matter what the price if they have a conflict, for instance) or from finding an angel to buy for you. How does this hurt anything?

Lönkka wrote:

You do not believe that this Anthology gives us a chance to get more cards printed. At least in regular ones.

I think it gives us way more chances than we've had since the game went out of print for the second time. Hence, we needed to take this chance and see where it leads.

More chances? More chances than what? The chances have always existed. They just didn't come to fruition. It's unreasonable to make some strange comparison between the known failures of the past and an uncertain result in the future. Of course the uncertain always looks better than known failure - but that doesn't mean the price paid to take the gamble was worthwhile. It all depends on the price paid and the chances of success.

Fred