Dear fellow Methuselahs,

It has been awfully quiet around the V:EKN so here comes a much awaited and needed update. And there is good news, the project of bringing V:TES back into print through a print-on-demand program with Onebookshelf, Inc. is advancing well. There are and have been a couple of difficulties to tackle: the printing process and quality, as well as dealing with two licensing parties (CCP and WotC).

CCP has agreed in principle to the license. Wizards first required us to demonstrate that the card quality can be achieved. We have now passed this milestone. We now continue to work with Wizards business team to agree in principle to license terms. If Wizards agree, then we will proceed to work through the legal departments at both CCP and Wizards, which can take some time. We are making progress, but it is a slow process.

A lot of the ideas gathered from the marketing teams survey and personal conversations have been gathered from the player base and they have been the foundation of the customer commercial side of the program. As soon as the deal is coming together and financials are more clear we will start leaking details, such as pricing and ordering options to you. I might also add that our rules team is working on many detailed card text updates so all of the POD cards will have the latest text versions on them, many of them incorporating clarifications and errata given by LSJ or Pascal. It seems currently that not all of the 3500 something cards will be available from the get-go, especially since all of the cards will have the same (latest) layout. So it will be a gradual process of adding cards, new to old, as the old cards get re-layouted (a very time consuming and tedious task).

In the meantime we have put the PDF release of Danse Macabre on ice and will wait for the POD program to release the set, which seems to be the preferred option with the majority of players. Nevertheless there will be some previews of cards over the next months and of course you are free to play them yourself at your own discretion, unless playing in a sanctioned tournament of course.

In other news the preparation of the European Championship is going on very well and a venue has been found, more details to come from the organisation team.

Qualifier shirts have been produced in cooperation between the marketing team and vtes.de and can be ordered in qualifier packs.

North American Championship has found its permanent home in Origins so of course this will be the same fantastic and worthwhile experience as in previous years. Kevin Mergen is working on a plan to provide people with the 2013 qualifier shirts on preorder, check out the poll on Facebook

The team working on the new rating integration with Archon upload functionality has now fixed a date for public release, which will be Sunday May 5th. This will not only include the website functionality, but also a (required) new version of The Archon and some detailed use guidelines.

Last but not least there is a new rules update coming, Pascal is currently finalizing it and it should be up by the weekend.

So, again, apologies for the long silence, I promise more frequent updates.

Johannes Walch
V:EKN Chairman

ec2013

The date of the European Championship 2013 is set (4th, 5th and 6th of October).

The web registration will be avaible as soon as possible. You can book your flights though. In the mean time join us on www.facebook.com/EuropeanChampionship2013 .

Hey, everyone!

We figured we'd give you all an update and explain the lack of sneak previews and lack of release information for Danse Macabre. As you've probably expected, it's related to the ongoing negotiations amongst OneBookShelf, Hasbro, and CCP. Because the respective licenses have not yet been signed, we are under advisement to not publicly post the Danse Macabre material. This means no sneak previews and no .pdf release until we're given the green light by the parties involved.

In order to get us to the point where we can get the green light, we are working with Hasbro and CCP to ensure that the work we're doing meets their standards with respect to how their intellectual property is portrayed and represented. By our own standards, we could have released the set back in December, but we respect the wishes and standards of Hasbro, CCP, and OneBookShelf and we're happy to work with them to iron everything out. It's a slow process, but we're encouraged to know that all parties involved are engaged in the process and are willing to work with us.

Outside of representation of intellectual property, there are the ongoing business negotiations. We in the Design Team have no involvement in them, but we've been told to expect an update around the end of March. Our preference is to be able to do sneak previews and to release the set as a .pdf prior to the cards physically being in print, but for now those things are on hold.

We in the Design Team have no information at this time on the status of Print On Demand reprints, as that's outside of our duties.

Given all of that, we have some extra time so we're putting a dozen or so of the Danse Macabre cards through another playtest round, as well as a few storyline cards. We also started work on a second expansion about a month ago. Based on the player feedback in the survey that our Marketing Team conducted, we're going with Group 6 Independents for the next set. The plan is to have it be about the same size as Danse Macabre, with about the same number of crypt and library cards (15 library, 20 crypt, give or take). Playtesting will begin in March, and we're looking to get artwork started in April.

We'll post an update on the progress of the Independent set in a few weeks!

- the V:EKN Design Team

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