New set in 2012

Thank you Johannes!

As the NC of Sweden I stalk these forums alot and link all neccesriy information to the princes and players in Sweden. I then trust my players and princes to bring this knowledge along. We all try to do our best with the channels we got. At least in here in Sweden the players are happy with what the vekn does. Ofcourse everybody doesn't agree to every all the time 100%. But an internal discussion is very healthy, I think.

Me and the princes are in the middle of make on big list of the e-mail to every player in Sweden and use the for spreading information. Im also about to start a vtes website for Sweden. All this I can recommend to other princes and NC's. And if your not a prince and/or NC try to make them do it. Or offer them to make it for them. It's great! And it brings the players togather.

Just some though. Enough rambling from me!

Haze wrote:

geez you people are complaining like the new PDF set is going to be all Imbued cards

... oh whoops, I spoiled the secret surprise

Oh, please. Everyone who's anyone in VTES knows that the new set is the long-awaited, hotly anticipated Blood-Dimm'd Tides.

Izaak wrote:

I personally hate the thing with PDF crap, but have just accepted it to happen, with the likely result of two of the three Dutch VTES communities disappearing. I can imagine the same thing happening in other countries.

I cannot understand why people should react that way. If somebody thinks PDF is bad I can live with that point of view. But when I like the game I don't give it up because of that. Wha they just don't play with the new cards in that "communities"? And they will bear it if they encounter those cards at a tournament, aren't they?

Seriously Kevin, what are you trying to accomplish with these pedantic one-liners? I'm probably wasting my time even trying to discuss things with you, but I'll bite anyway;

How would they know if VEKN is "up for the job"???

They wouldn't. And that precisely the problem. They are like "ok, who on earth are VEKN and what the hell gives them the power to dilute the game with dumbass photocopies"?

Why would the players' current decks in the Dutch community -- or ANY community -- suddenly become unplayable after a PDF set was printed? If they hate the idea of the PDF set so much then they don't have to play with it.

I don't know how things are over in Vegas but here in Holland we basically have three active playergroups of about 7-12 people strong and then there's a few randoms spread over the country just playing some tournaments. Our tournaments are usually 20-25 strong, with 18-20 of the attendents from aforementioned playgroups and the last 2-7 from Germany or Belgium. Of those ~30 active Dutch players I know 10 that absolutely hate the PDF cards and have zero intention to play with them and do not wish to play agaisnt them *solely* because they are fan-created PDF's. You will probably call this crazy or irrational or whatever other childish stamp you will put on it but this is the reality. That means that these players will simply stop attending tournaments and as a result stop playing.

Why are you unconvinced?

Because, ya know, I talk to people that play the game. Apparently everything is flowers and candy over in Nevada, but it's not in Europe. As you may be aware I was in Warsaw a month ago playing proper VTES at the EC and the *majority* of the people I spoke to about the PDF set were skeptical at best.

What is your definition of success and/or "to succeed"?

My personal definition of "success" is irrelevant.

I cannot understand why people should react that way. If somebody thinks PDF is bad I can live with that point of view. But when I like the game I don't give it up because of that. Wha they just don't play with the new cards in that "communities"? And they will bear it if they encounter those cards at a tournament, aren't they?

No, they will not, as I elaborated above.

On the new set, I suggest just wait for the previews and then take a fair stance to judge the quality. I have the high hopes that this will be as good as everything that was ever printed. While we are lacking manpower in the rating programming department we have a good team assembled there for the design. I think you will learn more about them in the designers diary section, new on the website. Which they have agreed to fill on a regular basis.

As I posted, I accepted the new PDF crap as reality. Until proven otherwise, I have good fate in the actual game-effect of the cards because I think Ira (whom I actually never spoke to) has an insanely good grasp on the game as a whole and Ben is, ya know, Ben. I'm still extremely against bullshit 80 gram-paper-glued on proxy shit I'll be forced to play against.

Sure. Please point someone out to take over. I'd be more than happy to let ANYONE take care of the rating who is capable of doing it. And I have asked many times for it. We do have new guys on it since a couple of days, but they are just getting started.

You should be well aware of an alternative, as I offered you -personally- right after the NC meeting at the EC 2010 in Paris to:

a) Take a very good look at the Archon and make better tableseatings for the obvious problematic tournament sizes (them being anything smaller than 15, 21 and 29-37 from top of my head)
b) Help out in designing a new -and better- ranking system. Making a ranking system that's working is hard. Programming it in php with an upload script is trivial.

You told me my help was not needed at that point in time and you'd get in touch if it was. You never did, which is fine, but ya know, we're 13 months into the future and nothing happened.

Kushiel wrote:

I see that you really like the corporate authority backing previous sets, but from a purely pragmatic perspective, that legitimacy doesn't mean shit when it comes to card design. I thought that LSJ designed a lot of good cards, and a lot of funny bad cards, but insinuating that this new set is going to be bad because it's not designed by him is nonsensical. At least wait until you see it before you start bitching about the quality of its design.

Several issues here;

-who apointed these designers
-what did they do to get this position (legitimacy as you point out, doesnt come from player background either...I hope there was an actual process of 'design a new card, explain why this new card is needed, what it addresses, what problems it creates and how it can be countered' etc. Without which, these designers have been given carte blanche purely on their player experience.

I did not insinuate the new set will be bad. I did insinuate that the whole process is not transparent enough, with no apparent quality control, no legitimate support, and will not be accepted by the general playerbase due it being a 'fanbased' and in cruddy pdf format.

Izaak expanded on this greatly, but my fear is that what playerbase I have may in part disapear once these print cards hit the tables. And tournament attendance will suffer as a result.

In short, it may have the very opposite effect to what we desire.