The future of V:TES

Poci wrote:

I think, we forgot something....The new product(s) have to be available and sellable in general shops!! It's great to support the community, have the thing POD, but the general distributors also have to be pleased imho. There's have to be a way, where both the existing, restarting, newcoming players are pleased and the general distributors also rediscover the game, and starts selling again. You all know that they are still the top marketers and if they're not selling the game again it'd be a lot harder to find newbies, because they can't buy it everywhere.

If this is print-on-demand, the internet is everywhere. Brick-and-mortar game store shelves aren't necessary to sell the product, nor will they be part of the sales process at any level.

Go play VTES at your game store and buy some sodas and candy bars from them while you play. Maybe buy a board game once a year. They'll be happy that you play there.

Poci wrote:

Anyway, this is still a CCG and a reckless PoD would kill the secondary market, the shops and the ebay stores both. That's not exactly what the game needs.

No company that manufactures a game cares about the secondary market. They care about selling their product and making a profit. The person that is selling their product on the secondary market doesn't make the manufacturer a profit.

Just to reiterate, like many here I'd be happy for v:tes to return in whatever form it can


Let's try another idea...

How about reprint the original V:tES as boosters (as before) or as sets of 11 random booster cards (POD) and always make this available. This is good for:

-draft
-new players to get needed cards
-attracting new players
-experienced players
-shops to stock

Then explore other PoD options for specific rares, other sets etc.

Personally I think it has been a MASSIVE mistake that base cards weren't always available. I've seen friends buy a starter or two, then buy a few boosters from sets available at the time... none of the cards really helped them create a 'basic' collection or improve what they had. They saw this as a waste of money. Vtes player lost


Additionally... I used to play Mt$ and asthetically hated that some cards had white borders, some black. eugh.

Please don't change the appearance of the cards again. Just make the edition symbol different please. Making older cards available in the newer format would be ace.

Joscha wrote:

Thank you for the rant, Lucas. I fine it most important to know, where the problems are to acquire new players.

I, as a "Mr Suitcase", am proud of the quantities of good cards I collected through the 18 years of playing. It took big efforts to get that many Deranges, Nephandi, Succubi, Disarms, ... I traded with half the world back in the old times, sending letters to Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, the USA, heck, even to the Philippines to trade cards.

I enjoyed that times very much. But times are changing. Many players don't want to invest that huge amounts of money in CCGs anymore. And many players don't play "real" games anymore and are lost to Onlinegames. So I think it's time for a change.

Clearly new players can't lay their hands on many cards they would like to get. So the print on demand-thing is a good idea IMHO. Think about a deck, make a list and buy it online to get excactly what you want. Sounds great for new players if you ask me. I'd find it much easier that way to recruit new players as I can always tell them: "If you like my deck just buy it online and you can play it too" or something similar. I think I like that even if that means my card stocks lose its value. That fact doesn't hurt much because I never thought about selling it anyway .

Actually, thank you. I thought that rant would be pretty badly received; after all, long time players obviously are okay with the business model of the game. I'm preaching to deaf ears, in a way. Knowing there is someone out there who can see why I think the way I do about collectability is actually refreshing. I feel that maintaining a level playing field - or as close as possible - is indispensable in keeping the integrity of a game.

alek wrote:

First of all, I would like to express that if vtes would ever be printed again (which I doubt) I'll be very happy independently of the form of it.
Secondly, I feel one aspect of the discussion is missing.
Followers of "dial-a-card" vision are telling that this is better for attracting new players. I'm not so sure about it. First, don't forget that big prices for cards like ashur tablets or enkil cog we can observe now are the result of KoT not being in print anymore. If we could still buy boosters of it, the prices would be much, much smaller, so the barrier you are mentioning would be non existing. Second, it depends on kind of hobby the person is looking for. If it's just "I want to play a best multiplayer game" than this version is fine. But vtes gives you much more than just a game. Part of the fun is deckbuilding and TRADING. And that's the part you would kill with such distibution. Making some people unhappy, because some their treasures will lose a value is not a big problem, but making vtes less atrractive by removing part of a fun it could give is, IMO, much bigger problem.
Still, as I mentioned at the begging, I would be crazy happy, if vtes could come back to live again, in any form

I see your point. As a prospective new player myself, and after talking to other people interested in the game, I thought that the opinion of a genuine new player was lacking in the discussion. I'm sure you get overwhelming feedback from new players demanding a fun, intrinsically deceptive model that only gives you random access to the game. They respect this proud tradition, one that puts powerful cards behind a speculative barrier. If so, carry on; only good can come from giving people what they genuinely want. Moreover, tricking people into dropping obscene amounts of money to acquire desirable pieces of paper may be good to the future of the game, even though some may observe that the very existence of the secondary market is a consequence of this model.

After all, what would be M:tG, for instance, without the reserved list and non-transparent pricing? Only a game, not a business enjoyed by countless collectors and speculators who buy in bulk only to earn profits through the secondary market. Which is ironic, because, even though the secondary market doesn't give WotC a penny, feeding it is integral to the viability of the game. Again, nothing wrong on giving people what they want; even better if trading is indeed what they want.

Izaak wrote:

I think, regardless of how you handle any new printing, it's an illusion that a lot of new players will suddenly enter the game.

VTES is complex, takes a lot of time to learn as well as play and has a very low playerbase to start with. To top it off, the game will have to compete with Magic when it comes to attracting new players and that game has an amazing business-model for getting new players involved.

So any new set or offer should be geared towards maintaining the current playerbase more than anything else.

So you can't cite games which are "complex, take a lot of time to learn as well as play", but large playerbases? Starcraft, DotA, other CCGs (take, for example, L5R), many fighting games (let's say, Guilty Gear or Virtua Fighter), many board games and/or wargames (have you ever heard of "Twilight Imperium"?) etc. If you think being complex and so on are the sole reasons Jyhad doesn't have more market penetration, I can't really convince you otherwise.

I don't want to sound naïve, but I hardly think that maintaining the current playerbase is taking you anywhere. But that's the perspective of an outsider; what do I know of this matter?

johannes wrote:

Keep the ideas coming guys, this is all very helpful. The more insight I get into what the players want the better will the eventual outcome fit them.

At the moment I have to agree with Izaak, keeping the current player base and re-activating lost players is probably the priority in the first step. Keep in mind that there will be technical difficulties and the more custom the whole order process will be the longer it will take to get it online. So most likely I will try to aim for some pre con decks that can be pushed immediately to the market once a potential deal can be reached, along with a longer term program for true POD.

I will also look into the technical feasibility of changing the border color, it should remain dark I think, but probably some marbling or similar can be done. It depends if the border is embedded in the source image (don't think so) or was simply reached by black background plus the cutting stencil.

Well, you're the boss. You obviously know the players and what they want. I'm sure you're doing the best in your powers to keep the game as alive as it can be considering the circumstances. Due to my repugnance towards collectability in games, specially if tied to non-transparent (or "deceptive", in my opinion) business models, I think my judgment is partial and impaired. Nevertheless, I wish you all the luck in the world with this project.

jhattara wrote:

If the game gets back to print, I don't care how it is printed. Anything is better than nothing.

Seconded!!!

All this discussion actually is for naught, as long as we dont have any new details.

I disagree. It is much better to discuss the options beforehand. Yes, any form of revamping the game is better than nothing, but it hardly means, that this kind of brainstorming is useless.