Hello All,

As someone who believes in open, honest communication, here are some details that I know:

1) Ben Peal is the lead designer of an upcoming fan-based expansion set that will be available as soon as it's ready. Ben has experience with VTES design, and is working with a small team of other game designers to build this set. He's been extremely busy and traveling, and I'm guessing that's why he hasn't already posted here.

1a) It's very hard to predict when a set will be ready, but I know that we're all committed to releasing a good set, instead of rushing to release - that is one benefit of not having any revenue riding on the release of the next set. At the same time, we also don't want to wait 1+ year lest the game go stale. If I had to guess, and please don't hold me to this, it'll be between 2 months - 8 months before it goes live.

2) I am also on the design team. I got on it, as far as I can tell, by e-mailing Damnas and saying I wanted to join, after I saw his post on the r.g.t-c.j group looking for artists for an upcoming set. I assume that my background in collaborative game design, professional game design, and long experience with VTES helped get me on the team, but I'm not aware of the actual process that was used.

3) We are definitely watching this forum for card ideas! Please, please keep it up. It's extremely valuable to the community, and every card gets reviewed.

4) We have many, many more card ideas that we can use for the next set. That is awesome, but that also means the hardest work will be pruning the ideas into something cohesive, balanced, interesting, new, and fun.

5) As anyone who has tried to cook a meal with 5 people in a small kitchen, it definitely can get overwhelming to have too many cooks. That's why it's important that we have Ben as the lead designer, and then only a few other people. I feel lucky to be involved, but I also know I don't have a monopoly on good ideas. If you would like to be involved, I think the most, most helpful thing you could do at this point is to volunteer to playtest. I will start another thread in this forum for people interested in playtesting.

I hope this message is helpful. I'm happy to share any additional information I can. Please feel free to post questions here, and I'll respond as I'm able.

It's a pleasure and an honor to get to work on such an exciting game with so many dedicated fans - you all rock!

I once already wrote a longer reply, but it got lost in the cyberwhatever. Here's the main idea:

Thank you so, so, so much.

It's good to see things happen if they're asked for. Eventually.

Rock on.

I have been aware of this for quite some time now, but i was hoping that Ben himself would do the honor of presenting this news to the community .

However, as it is now, i just want to say that i have utmost trust in Ben and others in design team, and their ability to give us interesting and playable mini-expansion, which will add variety and interest in our Vtes lives.

You guys have my full support! Rock on!

good news indeed, cheers

I can definitely offer my skills as a published card artist for no charge.

We can only hope you produce something as awesome as your avatar image!

Ossian: GRR!

brilliant to hear. I feel like we are in great hands with world champion Ben Peal at the helm. we seem to know three of the team from this post. Damnans was designing cards before designing cards was cool. I've also played Ira *a lot* on JOL back when I used to play. he seemed like a strong thinking player which can be only good

I like the idea of keeping the team to 5 and just reading the forums posts etc and soaking up the info.

simcof wrote:


Hear hear, Ben is world champion.
Do we have now world-championship events, too? Nobody informed me!

well he has won more tournaments than god!

simcof wrote:


B) Yes indeed, Ben is an accomplished player.