Like so many others of my community, I'm reasonably concerned about the medium-term and long-term feasibility of Vtes maintaining as a prominent and more importantly, sustainable game, especially in my immediate community. Although this is not the first time that Vtes had gone into torpor, is it going to just leave torpor again? And if so, how long will that take, and in what form? I wasn't around when Vtes had the previous resurrection, so I can't really comment on what had happened, and whether or not the same will happen again. I can but speculate.
Meanwhile, here's my thoughts on what will happen to Vtes cards in general.
We have a community pool of cards, numbering way into the thousands. Granted, most of these cards are either very commonly seen, very cheap, or plainly worthless. There are some gems in the pool, thrown in occasionally either by charitable Methuselahs, or by careless, or simply uninformed players. (I've found a Spirit Claws there before, and I heard that there was a Carlton Van Wyk) These cards usually have a spike in number whenever a new expansion is released, mostly from the Methuselahs who have bought too many cards, or see many of the commons unused and unnecessary to keep. In my case, I sometimes displace older, more numerous cards to make space for newer, fresher cards to go into my own collection.
The effect of this is a pool of usually very useful cards for beginning players, reducing their need to buy too many booster packs or singles that, during my time, was a painful process to get started. For example, I had to buy a whole lot of Blood Dolls and Eagle Sights when I started making decks, they're now a dime a dozen in the pool. There are also some pretty useful cards that many decks crave - say, Deflections, Telepathic Misdirection, Taste of Vitae and so on. These cards provide a haven for Methuselahs willing to dig through the (usually quite well organized) pool of cards to find them. And more importantly, the pool also claims a good selection of vampires of all clans, giving new players the option to use vampires from older expansion without needing to hunt down, say, Bloodlines booster packs. For the older players, I mean, seriously, how many Ian Forestals does one need to keep at home? I have 10, and that's after throwing another 10 in the pool. (Ya, all those !Tremere Black Hand starters helped)
But the main source of card supply is in danger. Without new expansions, chances of older players buying a good number of cards is rather small. Which means the influx of unused cards from players is severely limited. Of course, tournaments here will see players opening the promo packs for participating players and winners, but those are rare occasions. Without this consistent influx of new cards, the pool will eventually dry up into a puddle of mud - both in quantity, and quality. This will make attracting new players significantly more difficult, as well as making creation of newer decks challenging without spending unnecessary money.
So will the overall trading pool in the community. Less and less cards will be in the market for trading as players either lose, or wanted to keep those precious cards that are necessary in their decks. Take for example, Villein. There are only so many Villein in play, being a relatively new card, and being such a great card to have in almost every deck that can use it. Unlike Vessels, Villein has yet to have the quantity to make it that available, and therefore, will be getting harder and harder to get as time goes by. This applies to pretty much every card, as we now see supply dwindling.
This is create a dangerous situation whereby newer decks start to degrade in quality. It might take a while for this to happen, but it will eventually happen - less Dreams, less Villeins, less everything for newer decks unless one disband older decks. As players retire (but not disband) decks, and older players going into torpor, the supply of cards will further be reduced, until a point whereby any significantly competitive decks with those "power" cards, which is at the moment absolutely common, will be viable only if older players disband old decks to make them. The side effect is deterring newer players from coming in the game, I mean, how intimidating it is if you know that a Dreams of the Sphinx will cost you US$20 each, and a single Villein US$10. A lot of deck ideas will become simply too expensive for the common people.
That said, let's speculate on the chances of Vtes revived by CCP ort WW in the near, or not-so-near future. We all know CCP has a VtM online games planned for sometime next year or maybe 2012. When the online game is released, there can only be 2 outcomes - fail or succeed.
It the game fails, the WW department from CCP will probably be released, or expunge - given the way that CCP is dealing with the WW Intellectual Properties, I'll not be surprised to see CCP boot WW out the moment WoD is proven non-so-profitable. This might take a while, since WW has many other interesting world background for CCP to ponder, but if it fails, it fails.
When that happens, Vtes might be revived as WW renegotiate (or whoever interested to co-invest) to restart Vtes, since apparently Vtes has a great community, and it has been proven that Vtes players do come back to support the game when it leaves torpor.
If the game succeeds, it only makes sense for CCP to capitalize on its success. Look at Eve - you have CCG, RPG and the lot, and you'll see that there is no reason for CCP to "recreate" a new CCG if their game is a success.
Of course, these are my thoughts only, too many business considerations are involved when a business unit needs to be re-booted. It is possible for Vtes to remain in torpor, and eventually suffers a final death. It might take 2-3 years for our community, hopefully longer, but I think it will happen, especially when the current younger groups of Vtes players eventually marry their counterparts and start their Creation Rites. Embracing new Methuselahs is more challenging, and it will get more and more difficult to get stores to support the game.
As for now, I'll just continue to tune decks and play Vtes. Afterall, I plan to go to heaven, and play Vtes like hell.
(o.o)
4 comments:
One partial fix to the problem of fewer cards added to the pool, may be to hold more Limited (Draft) tournaments. Of course this depends on your playgroup, but a fair number of experienced players actually prefer draft over constructed. (Similarly, I've found many players in retirement who will occasionally show up to play in a draft, but not in a constructed). After the draft, the players with large collections can quickly sort through their stuff, keep the cards they want, and donate the rest (if they want) to your card pool. Of course this is only a stop-gap measure but it could help a bit.
Agreed. But the problem remains the eventual unwillingness (and somewhat contributed by the relative lack of selection of boosters) of players to spend money on boosters~
One Meth here about to relocate to Singapore! Don't dwindle just yet! (And I'll divest some cards into the pool in good faith. :) )
Yay~
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