What's wrong with this game?

To us it does seem silly. For CCP it was a business decision. Who knows, they may change their mind.

stikyard wrote:

These are fairly new sets and they are in high demand, it seems silly that they would ignore the game when it has a large enough following to sell out cards in a relitively short time.

I agree. It'd be TRIVIAL to sell >1000 boxes of KoT and HTTB boosters and >500 boxes of HTTB starters, and likely double that over a year or two.

It's tragic that CCP decided to stop selling VTES at the *exact* *worst* *time* that they possibly could have done so. It'd be like if you bought a stock at a reasonable price and waited to sell it when it went down but the data showed that it'd soon go way way up.

stikyard wrote:

That is exactly my point. These are fairly new sets and they are in high demand, it seems silly that they would ignore the game when it has a large enough following to sell out cards in a relitively short time.

I think everyone here agrees with you.

I got back into VTES in 2008 because I had the impression that it was relatively cheap to acquire cards to play with. Prices have gone up a lot, and the secondary market is starting to go crazy.

Everyone will tell you that you can play the game without all the power cards from Keepers of Tradition or Heirs to the Blood. That is true, but it is also true that having access to those power cards is a big advantage. When your predator has 10 Deep Songs in his Tzimisce deck, you'll see what I mean.

The Samedi/Nosferatu antitribu starter deck from HttB, which has two Deep Songs and two Villeins just went for $51 on a recent Ebay auction (plus postage of course). That's five times what the retail price was, and many people got them for cheaper than retail price.

On the other hand, many power cards are easy or relatively easy to acquire: Govern the Unaligned, Deflection, Majesty, Immortal Grapple, Conditioning, Telepathic Misdirection, Voter Captivation, Ivory Bow, Sudden Reversal...

There are also staple rares and uncommons that everyone invests in, but which have been reprinted enough that they are within reach: Freak Drive, Direct Intervention, Magic of the Smith...

You have to decide if you want to be a latecomer to a game where you will have to pay far too much to get full access, or if you are willing to accept that others will have great cards that can't or won't buy.

while deep song, eyes of argus, enkil cog, rego motus, ashur tablets, villein, and a few other cards are very powerful, its very possible to build competent decks without them, and with the exception of cog, deep song, and the tablets, they aren't too painfully priced (as of yet) to acquire somehow. minion tap is playable again, so deep song is the only real issue with this. new players are still acquirable, and they can still potentially build a variety of strong decks out of jyhad if they buy a box (law firm, 2nd trad celerity wall, malk '94, sheldon& friends, many weenie decks, etc) all depending on the luck of what they get in a box, which is a big part of starting into a ccg anyway, isn't it?
the heirs precons selling as fast as they did and KoT selling out completely in a still impressive timeframe proves they game was still making money, as long as they didn't print on illogical scales, such as with BH. CCP, i feel, treated VTES incredibly illogically. they didn't seem enamored with us @ any point, but we made them money. as soon as it cam etime to renew the deckmaster licensing, wotc decides (more likely just because they are money grubbing @%$&* than because of our sales, but who can say...) they want more than originally believed by CCP. they didn't feel like paying up, even though if they would have focused slightly harder on making it all work they would have made the money back then profited within a set or so. and they were more concerned with GIGANTIC FINANCIAL LIABILITIES like an MMORPG than they were with what they thought was probably a big hassle and headache for less money than they thought they'd make from their games. well, we'll see if the ridiculous time and effort they've poured into this will end up being worth it, but the bottom line is they turned down potential money to put their efforts into a less sound investment. and we're still here, and will be even if CCP goes belly up.

ReverendRevolver, you may say interesting thing, but the carriage return is not your ennemy. It's very hard to read such a big post without any respirations.

sorry, i need to work on that. i never inted to type so much....