We all know that Vtes is gone for now, and probably will take a while for the game to reemerge. Now the problem I have is in what form will the game exit torpor - as it was, or in another form. Whether CCP, or anybody else who eventually pick up the game, will just continue the current way of gaming is for all to speculate, and probably only the Trujah has any way of knowing now.
There are talks about Vtes turning LCG. For the uninitiated, a LCG is a Living Card Game, defined by the fact that they are not in a collectible format - namely, their "boosters" are not random, but instead released with a fixed set of cards, giving their buyer prefect knowledge of what they're getting, not unlike buying miniatures for all those war games.
What this gives is a great value for those who wants to play the game. After a painful period of evolution, FFG (the key player in the LCG arena) has learnt to release their packs to contain a playset of 3 cards - meaning, a single pack will give you 3 of every new card that is released. (3, being the maximum that you can put in a deck). This makes buying multiple packs quite unnecessary unless you need to build multiple decks, and even so it's still easy to calculate exactly how many packs you need to buy.
Economically it makes excellent sense, and it is a great selling point to interest players otherwise reluctant to go into CCGs due to their random (and therefore often expensive) nature.
For Vtes, in the LCG format will be a brand new sight for me, if it leaves torpor because of it.
The LCG format will limit the no-card limit format of the current deck building limitations. Even if there are no card limit set in the new LCG, the very cost of getting all those cards will make that kind of deck building pretty prohabitive. There will be a lot less of Thrown Gate decks, TupDogs etc etc. Maybe there are ways to make it easier (and cheaper), but I think it would be challenging at best.
On the other hand, if card limit is imposed, then many previously under-used cards will see reemergence - like Blood Dolls. A whole new way of building decks will appear, so who knows?
FFG has proven that they do listen to fans about how to fine tune the format of LCG, and they have been doing ok with some of their games. Will they ever pick up Vtes in this format? I don't know. But I do welcome any potential in reviving this great game.
I'll cross my fingers and await the Antideluvian Awakening.
(o.o)
3 comments:
I honestly can't quite see VTES becoming an LCG, I just don't think they'd feel they'd get the business they want from the playerbase (and I perfectly understand that).
I don't mind the variability of randomised boosters, because with VTES's non-card limit it is an advantage to have 8+ copies of a common out of a box. The only problem is when it comes to "rare" cards.
So if you make it LCG, what will they do? Release a box that contains 4 to 6 copies of the 'commons', 2 or 3 copies of the 'uncommons' and 1 of each 'rare'?
I am just unsure if they would head down the LCG road. They can adjust the 'random' balance so that the playerbase doesn't feel ripped off buying 2 boxes of boosters for a set and maybe 1 box of starters every 9 months.
I guess that LCG works best with card limits in a deck, and at the moment, all the LCGs in the market impose a card limit to deck building.
If Vtes was to leave torpor, there are possibilities that the basic rules of the game might be altered. I hope not, but who knows?
(o.o)
There is another issue with turning VTES into a LCG besides the lack of card limits.
VTES has 35+ "clans" and 30 "disciplines" ignoring Imbued. When trying to balance out a LCG booster pack it would be a nightmare.
Now by "balance out", I mean trying to make it so that each print run sold in a correct ratio to how much was printed.
I'm sure we all have found, with say starter decks, that one starter will be left unwanted. This has created an issue for stores as to whether or not to open a new starter box when they still have multiple copies of the unwanted starter from previous boxes unsold.
Now VTES has run this risk before - in that it has made specialized sets. But, iirc, even those specialized sets (except for the Imbued) had 1? card for each discipline to prompt sales of sets that didn't interest the overall playerbase.
I guess, from a retailer point of view, I would hate to see another "Rolling Blunder".
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