Decided to post a seperate thread for those, including me, who want to discuss this.

Some may be sick of hearing complaints about this, others may want to vent, but really- what benefit does the new plastic packaging bring? I only see bad things in that choice, could it really warrant FFG to make this choice to save money and is it really any cheaper? There will still be the cardboard parts within the plastic so that seems like way more waste not to mention the beautiful collection this game once was but we now just get a bunch of ugly plastic

So for me the two most dissappinting things are: the collection now will look lame with this plastic and plastic is just a waste of resources compared to a renewable resource (trees).

I'd much rather stick with the cardboard. Not a fan of plastic packaging.

Cardboard!

Plastic packaging is less expensive to manufacture and ship. Also, all of the ink used in printing the outside of the cardboard AP boxes costs money. I doubt anyone prefers the plastic to the cardboard (I certainly don't) but I completely understand why they would make the change. Being able to lower the cost of production for your products is just good business sense. FFG is, after all, a business.

Ahh.. printing all the ink on the cardboard would be the biggest expense which I haven't thought of, but how much printed cardboard is still under the new plastic moulding? Even if it's only a little I guess it would still save money which is one of FFG's main goals as a business.

The plastic boxes are also universal, they can make them for all their LCGs. Box art costs money to design and print and is only useful for that one AP. I'm bummed about the change too.

Box art costs money to design, yes, and that means someone is getting paid. I'm not too worried in this case but I'd personally rather see someone get paid (and I'd pay a little extra) to make something cool than have some middle manager step in and save the company money by removing someone from some job that they feel passionate about.

I think it's not the case, because art on the box is art from one of the cards inside that box.

Guess from now on I'll have to read carefully so I don't go home with a nightmare pack instead of regular scenario. I too prefer the cardboard boxes, but what are you gonna do. When I get time off this summer I might cut out the front of all APs and expansions so far and make some kind of collage.

I think a safe summary of opinion is that we all prefer the cardboard but aren't prepared to storm FFG headquarters with an army of Ents at our back over the issue.

I'd prefer boxes instead plastic, but i don't mind finally. However the players who order their cards inside wood boxes, and they use dividers from pieces of the carton boxes... they sure will complain the change.

If Treebeard were to take part in this discussion (as a resource, omg I see a connection ) “Side? I am on nobody's side, because nobody is on my side, little orc. "

The cards that come directly from the FFG printer have been in the plastic packaging. My guess is that the contract ran out and now FFG will be producing LOTR instead of getting it from a foreign printer. I couldn't care less what packaging it comes in as long as I can get my cards.

/vote cardboard

There is enough plastic trash in the world.

Recycled paper/cardboard is the way to go.

I thought Canadians were more aware aboot the enviroment.

I thought wrong. This sux FFG. Bad choice.

....I will buy your product anyway tho.

The cards that come directly from the FFG printer have been in the plastic packaging. My guess is that the contract ran out and now FFG will be producing LOTR instead of getting it from a foreign printer. I couldn't care less what packaging it comes in as long as I can get my cards.

I don't think this is true. FFG's printers have fairly small capacity and it would be too easy to tell the difference in cards. I have to imagine it's much cheaper for them to print overseas.

Due to the decline in sales, the Polish distributor of LOTR LCG issue, the whole cycle of the Ring-maker in Print On Demand. Just from today, shops began shipping the first two AP - The Dunland Trap and The Three Trials. As this is a Print On Demand, we get them in the plastics box , and rules will be available in PDF format on the Polish publisher webside.

I am a huge fan of the cardboard, and I'll agree that the change to move to plastic is a bit of a bummer. However, with my collection growing I've taken most of the cards out of the boxes and into the core set via a custom insert. With the several empty boxes lying around I planned on cutting out the images and turning them into a collage of sorts, maybe something I could even hang up. Depending on how decent the remaining little bit of cardboard is in these plastic packages, FFG may have just made my whole "art" process a lot simpler. A bit of silver lining to it all.

It they are anything like the PoD stuff I've bought in the past, there is a least one 'title' card in the pack that doesn't do much. Perhaps those can become dividers.

I've thought about that too Ryodu, for the collection sake and saving space I too will now put these new packs into a core set insert which will acually work out quite well

And yes the 'title' card could be a divider or just fashion the bit of cardboard we will get into a cool divider.

Overall the change seems bad at first but there are definitely good things from it too since we can now just put the cards into a core set divider and actually save a lot of space and not worry about throwing away a cool cardboard package since we won't even get one! lol