Old Ben said:

Meh. Not convincing to me. How many of those cards you bought at that price did more than collect dust in a box somewhere because of the 1-3-7 breakdown of R-U-C? The base pricing assumptions are different, so the math is not comparable.

But the spirit is well taken. The point is that the value in the expansion, even for relatively "new" players, is the cards themselves. The price seems to be linked to the packaging of the product, which does not add value to most consumers (myself included).

As Dobbler has been saying, the price for the expansion, as is, may be completely valid - or at least understandable - from FFG's point of view and packaging choices. But as others have been saying, the value for the price paid leaves something to be desired (particularly since marketing literature had left some people anticipating a much higher value). That point is completely valid as well. It does indeed seem like we are paying a fair amount for packaging, no matter how comparable the GJ deck is to the other 4 unmodified Core Set decks.

I personally think that the "expansion" packaging should have looked more like the old Premium Starters, allowing for a $14.95-$19.95 price tag. That would have aligned price and value a little more in my head.

Old Ben said:

Since I'm a LCG player I don't want to compare it with CCG. I just don't mind how much money did it cost before, I live in the present. Thanks anyway.

In Spain there's plenty of dissatisfied customers. You may not have heard about it because they don't speak English, but I assure you many people will start buying just 1 copy of each product, and some more people will leave the game at this point.

ktom said:

longclaw said:

Hmm, that is news to me. I thought the major complaint was that the old locations couldn't be used in tournaments. Now I'm not sure what all the fuss is about concerning the locations. (I understand the concerns about the price.)

You're missing a couple of steps in here. What was happening was that, before the expansion came out, people were saying "I want to build a GJ and a Martell deck for LCG. There are no resources in-House for them. So I'm going to pull out my Gate House, Bloody Keep, Iron Islands Fiefdoms, Aeron's Chambers, Water Gardens, Lord Doran's Chambers, and Dornish Fiefdoms to match the in-House resources that the other Houses got in the Core Set. Then, I'll make an LCG-legal deck from that." Unfortunately, this was not legal for playing Martell and GJ in official tournaments because those resource cards are not in the LCG card pool. Now that the expansion has come out, Gate House, Bloody Keep, Iron Island Fiefdoms and Aeron's Chambers are all in the LCG card pool, presumably as direct reprints. So yes, now you can use them - and their black bordered counterpoints. You cannot use the corresponding Martell resources in the LCG format because they haven't been released yet.

So the complaint that the old locations could not be used was based on the fact that they were not in the card pool, not on the fact that "black border cards" of direct reprints cannot be used. You seem to have extended the "not in card pool, so old locations not legal" into simply "old cards not legal."

longclaw said:

So now you're saying I have to buy a third Core Set for 1 card that I want, a third copy of Forever Burning? Ouch. Anybody have a CS Forever Burning they don't need?

Correct. The text on the CS Forever Burning is (slightly) different from the WED version. Therefore, it is not the same card. If you put the "black border" version from WED into an LCG deck, you are (at best) using a proxy. Proxies are not legal in official tournaments. That's always been the case. (Obviously, proxies are as legal as you want them to be on a local level.)

~ BTW: I'm not sure how it is news to you that old versions of direct reprints are legal in an LCG event, but that you need a third copy of the CS-Forever Burning.

ktom said:

longclaw said:

Hmm, that is news to me. I thought the major complaint was that the old locations couldn't be used in tournaments. Now I'm not sure what all the fuss is about concerning the locations. (I understand the concerns about the price.)

You're missing a couple of steps in here. What was happening was that, before the expansion came out, people were saying "I want to build a GJ and a Martell deck for LCG. There are no resources in-House for them. So I'm going to pull out my Gate House, Bloody Keep, Iron Islands Fiefdoms, Aeron's Chambers, Water Gardens, Lord Doran's Chambers, and Dornish Fiefdoms to match the in-House resources that the other Houses got in the Core Set. Then, I'll make an LCG-legal deck from that." Unfortunately, this was not legal for playing Martell and GJ in official tournaments because those resource cards are not in the LCG card pool. Now that the expansion has come out, Gate House, Bloody Keep, Iron Island Fiefdoms and Aeron's Chambers are all in the LCG card pool, presumably as direct reprints. So yes, now you can use them - and their black bordered counterpoints. You cannot use the corresponding Martell resources in the LCG format because they haven't been released yet.

So the complaint that the old locations could not be used was based on the fact that they were not in the card pool, not on the fact that "black border cards" of direct reprints cannot be used. You seem to have extended the "not in card pool, so old locations not legal" into simply "old cards not legal."

longclaw said:

So now you're saying I have to buy a third Core Set for 1 card that I want, a third copy of Forever Burning? Ouch. Anybody have a CS Forever Burning they don't need?

Correct. The text on the CS Forever Burning is (slightly) different from the WED version. Therefore, it is not the same card. If you put the "black border" version from WED into an LCG deck, you are (at best) using a proxy. Proxies are not legal in official tournaments. That's always been the case. (Obviously, proxies are as legal as you want them to be on a local level.)

~ BTW: I'm not sure how it is news to you that old versions of direct reprints are legal in an LCG event, but that you need a third copy of the CS-Forever Burning.

I believe my incorrect assumption stemmed from not reading closely enough a thread Dobbler started a couple of weeks back regarding the use of an old version of a House Tully Recruiter at GenCon. I guess I had forgotten that there actually WAS a difference in the new House Tully Recruiter, and thus inferred that new versions would be necessary. My mistake. But the assumption was reinforced by this thread complaining about locations, as I made a connection between the two subjects when Dobbler so kindly offered to send out older versions. But my reasoning didn't have anything to do with "not in the card pool, so ...not legal." We've always enforced that in our local meta.

As for the Forever Burning remark, I'm finding it hard to justify paying 40 bucks for a single card. Under my previous (misguided, thankfully) assumption, at least I could rationalize the purchase because of needing things like a third GTM or Winter is Coming, among others. I can just try to track down some older copies of those cards, but that doesn't help with FB.

As it pertains to the GJ expansions, I'm thrilled the older versions will be legal. I agree it could be cheaper and that three resin krakens are overkill, but I'm happy that we have 60 different cards coming our way. You take the good with the bad.

One alternative I would like to see implemented (since ideas were asked for earlier) is for FFG to have released individual Resin House Cards boxes, one for each house, and maybe even custom power counters for each house as well, possibly packaged together. That way, we'd have some cool accessories, but not at the cost of driving up the price on the actual cards. I think most players would want these and pay for them if they could buy them on their own terms, but nobody likes the package deal we've got now.

Here's my 2 cents, for what its worth. I'm surprised that the locations have a different distribution scheme, but with other locations in the box, I don't believe this will affect its playability out of the box. Some of my decks run more resources than others, and they are very playable. Yes, the deck will be different, but that is a good thing.

I personally can't wait to get my two copies of this set, and I've been eagerly refreshing the forums looking for spoilers of plots, kings and queens, and greyjoys. I have every confidence that FFG will deliver another fine product, and I have been loving the KLE expansion so far. Go FFG go!

Unlike the core set... the trading factor is diminished.

As far as chapter packs: So far, I've not had problems with the distribution. Occasionaly there is one chapter pack that you must by 3 of due to an event, but ontoh there are chapter packs that you can avoid all together. And in a play group that's casual, one can get just 1x of everything and trade. So yes if a greyjoy player got 1x including core set... they're bound to be able to trade for the other greyjoy stuff with the 4 decks in the core set.

Dobbler said:

ROFLMAO!!!!111oneoneoneone Let's see. If they sell a package of 60 unique (of wich half of them i already have from 5KE) at a reasonable price, like 15$, well, then maybe i'm buying three of them, so its a total of 45$. If they are selling this pack, with a stupid nosensely included resin figurine i don't want, wich doubles the cost of the pack, i'm not even buyint it. It's no business there.

Solution for the Martell set? Just cards or a limited edition with a resin card house for those who likes it.

::shrug:: I'll buy 3.

Dobbler said:

I'm sorry, but FFG is a business. If they start giving Expansion sets away free, they lose money and go out of business. The game dies. The real world doesn't work like that.

I know quite well how the world works, thanks. Sometimes, it doesn't even work...

Dobbler said:

The other day I went to the supermarket to get hamburger meat to make a burger for myself. They had 1lb packages, and 5lb packages. But I only needed 1/2 a pound. So did I choose not to buy it because I got more than I wanted (and thus had to pay more)? Nope. I bought it anyways. There are all sorts of examples in our everyday life where stuff we want isn't packaged, priced, or issued the way we would prefer. Sometimes companies respond to feedback from their customers and make changes. Sometimes they don't. We will see if FFG makes changes.

Your example doesn't work for me. Now listen: Imagine you wanted to make burgers for all your friends and bought a 5lb package. But when you got home and opened your bag you discovered the package really weighed 4lb and some of your friends couldn't eat. What would you feel? That's what I felt when I tried to build my Greyjoy deck.

Anyway, thanks for the information about old version locations. I've purchased some from eaglecard, in my opinion, the best European shop selling single cards on internet.

I personnaly prefer to have 60 different cards because there is always a good card you'll need in 3 so if I have to buy 3 expansions, then I prefer not having some locations in 6/9 units...

So, do the spanish guys have a list of the reprints (or better, like a visual spoiler)? Or at least can they (pleaaaaase) answer to some questions?:

Are the broken High tide or HoT Wendamyr back?

Which Asha, Euron, Aeron make the cut?

Who are the kings and queens for each house?

How many different kingdom locations are in the set?

Even with that disappointment, can't wait to buy 1 (or 3)!

Dobbler said:

Actually, the analogy would be more close if you said that you went to the supermarket and you needed 1/2 a pound of meat which was only sold in 1/4 lb packages, but they came with a free plastic flamingo for my yard, all while being priced at what 1 lb of meat would cost.

Ok, so I'm exaggerating there a bit, but as others have already shown, the price per card has already gone up a baffling amount. We were told that one of the biggest costs in running a CCG has to do with the collation and distribution of the cards, something that the fixed release model was going to help FFG out with immensely by eliminating. So why, therefore does the price per card seem to go up so much for the expansion? You can't tell me for instance that it costs FFG more to develop 11 fixed cards versus 1 rare, 3 uncommons, and 7 commons for instance. So really, that leaves this disproportionate increase in price being due to the alternate Kingsmoot rules or the house card. Since adding new rules like the Kingsmoot, Shadows, joust, influence, etc, etc is part of what is normally paid for within the cost of the cards, I eliminate that as well. So that leaves us with..... a roughly $15.00 piece of plastic that they want me to buy three of, despite my inability to use more than 1 at a time. ~ Perhaps we'll get alternate rules that allow duping of house cards?

Now, I'm all for FFG continuing to make cards, but I really think we need to move past the "Hey, be happy they're at least desperately trying to find a way to keep printing the game" argument. With the LCG format going on for more than a year and sales increasing, we shouldn't be using or be subjucted to that guilt trip any more. What we need, however, is for FFG to produce the game for us at the best possible intersection of cost effectiveness for them and value for us. While a $15 hunk of plastic is extremely cost effecient for them, it is exceptionally poor value for us. The best solution, I would think, would be to seperate the two products. Much like the Jaime Lannister art sleeves, many will purchase and some will not, but having the product seperated allows players the proper choice.

ktom said:

I should have spent more time on explaining the whole thought. ;-) It was said before that FFG didn´t earn a lot of revenues with the Core set product. if you look at the singular card from a production point of view there is no rarity you simply print the cards and that´s it. It could be even cheaper (assumption) to produce a product without random aspects- my guess is that it saves money in the production and packaging processs, however i could be wrong on that. So if you could sell the product "single card" before for 0,19 € in the CCG time it´s worth to ask why the contribution margine was possibly (?- again another assumption) negative in the LCG time with a price of 0,20 €..

That doesn´t seem to be convincing for me at first glance, though there might be a lot of other factors we - i- don´t know and of course it´s all based upon an assumptions. Actually too many to really give a qualified analysis - i´m just curious.

From a players point of view it´s easier. If i buy one kings of the sea box i must treat every card as a rare card, because every card is only included once in the product. It´s nearly impossible to build a half way competive Greyjoy deck with only one copy of a card. It´s the nature of the card game that you need some cards twice or thrice for your deck.

I know that a CCG concept leaves a lot of cards for the shoe box or the garabage can that remain untouched but i would still get enough cards to build two or three decks and trade some cards. Also it´s not like every LCG card is playable.

My idea is that if i had the chance to purchase a booster display "kings of the sea" i would end up with more playable cards for less money. The distribution of a 60 card set would be 20 rares/20 uncommons/ 20 commons. There are 36 rares, 108 uncommons and 252 commons in one display, which means i will receive 1,8 rare cards per singular card, 5,4 uncommons per singular card and 12,6 commmons per singular card for 75 €. I could trade some of my extra rare cards for the rare cards i´m missing or spent up to 15 € (90-75) to purchase them. I´m aware i will probably never have every card thrice, but i also know that i don´t need very card thrice because some of the cards are simply only needed for collectible reasons.

And that´s another failure in the current distribution system, the cards are only rated by quantity and not by quality. Of course it´s okay to buy e.g. three a time of trials cp, you´ll have a playset of every card that´s fine. But let´s assume you are playing two houses (Lanni & Targ), you´ll never have enough copies of condemned by the council to run both houses at the same time, unless you are willing to purchase 2-3 other time of trials cps.

Kennon said:

Nicely said, Kennon. That's about where I'm at on this. I'm excited about the new cards, for sure. But I hate being "forced" to pay an inflated price for a piece of resin that I might not even want one of, much less three if I'm determined to have playsets of all the new cards. The LCG format really seems to take 2 steps forward and 1 step back on a regular basis. I think this might be one of those times, and it leaves a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

Every business makes business decisions to try and make the most money they can. I don't understand why people think FFG is obligated to not try to make as much as possible. If they think they can sell the expansion at $30 with a soap holder in each, then that is what they think. And if they succeed, more power to them. If players think they are overpriced, overvalued, etc, then the players have the right to not buy them. It is simple economics as to price/sales ratios. If they price it too high, then yes, enough people won't buy it.

NOBODY is forced to buy anything. I find it very presumptuous when I hear people say that FFG lied to them, or deceived them, or cheated them, or any number of adjectives that imply deception. Most of us are adults here, we have the information before us, either we buy it or we don't.

And one more thing, my analogy of hamburger meat was not meant as a parallel analogy, just the simple statement that the products we want don't always come packaged as we want, and then we have the choice whether we buy it or not.

RJM said:

RJM said:

agreed, i couldn't have said it better. hopefully this sentiment goes back up the chain; the decision to include a piece of resin was obviously ridiculous and baffling, and it's going to piss all of us off much, much worse if something equally ridiculous were to happen again

Dobbler said:

I understand that. But I don't want to feel like I need to NOT BUY THE PRODUCT, because of FFG's decisions. I understand they're a business, but by alienating an obviously not insignificant amount of players after finally seeming to start getting the LCG thing right... Long term, that isn't going to make them any more money either. And I want them to keep making money and keep making product. But there's always a line where it becomes hard to justify the cost.

So, I think offering the resin house card separately and putting the 'expansion' in smaller packaging (ala Arkham Horror expansions size) for a slightly lower price point, would have overall earned them a similar or greater amount of money from a larger number of satisfied players. It's still business, they're not giving anything away for free.

That's where I think they've erred, and it's nothing to do with some personal feeling of entitlement that I think FFG owes me a steal on cards. It's just not a necessary product model in my eyes, and they could have done better for themselves and the players at the same time.

Seems like a smaller expansion around $20 and the physical size of the Arkham Horror ones would have been ideal. While it's certainly a good idea to offer fluff like resin house cards for purchase, people who aren't interested shouldn't be forced to spend an extra $10 or so for one when they just want the cards to help play a house that ideally would've been playable out of the core box anyway.

I wonder if this decision was influenced by sales channel constraints. Am I correct in assuming that this expansion comes in a big box, the same size as the Core Set?

I ask because I remember reading that part of the LCG marketing strategy was to attract board-game players by packaging the product in the type of box that board games come in, which would lead the product to being displayed on store shelves in the area of the store where the board games go. FFG might feel constrained to package the expansion in a similar sized box, in order to get greater "shelf presence" -- i.e., display the two games side by side on the shelf to attract the eye. But retailers want a certain return on their shelf space allotment, which leads to the pricing of those big-box items in at least the $30+ range instead of the $20-$25 range that we would all prefer.

If that's true (and it's just speculation), the real mystery is why they didn't justify the higher price by throwing in more cards instead of a piece of junk. Maybe the product packaging and pricing decisions were made too late in the development cycle for them to add more cards, or something like that.

I agree with everyone that the product is over-priced and under-valuable. But I prefer to believe that there's something more complicated going on at FFG than the simple argument that "Plastic resin has a high profit margin, so they're sticking it to us!" Business decisions are rarely that simplistic.

There's definitely business decisions behind it, some of which must have been hard to make. That still doesn't make it any less of a dilemma from the consumer.

It also doesn't fit the "full size box" price point as well as it's not a standalone product - it's not playable without the Core Set.

Amante said:

I didn't mean to imply that it's not a dilemma for the consumer. In fact, I'm not sure I would be buying Kings of the Sea at all if I didn't have a gift card to use up....

The "full size box" issue is actually different than the "expansion" issue. "Full size box" merely refers to the size of the packaging, independent of whether it's an expansion or not. I can't recall ever seeing a big-box game (whether expansion or standalone) with an MSRP less than $30.

To put it another way, I imagine the board-game industry as having two pricing "rules": 1) If the product is an expansion, thou shalt charge $10-20 less than the original, standalone game. 2) If the product is sold in a shelf-space-stealing big box, thou shalt charge a minimum of $30.

Those two guidelines together would say that $30 would be the only appropriate price for an expansion to the Core Set if the marketing department determines that it must be packaged in a big box . And once that decision is made, the product manager is left scrambling to justify a $30 price point as best he can (which most of here would say, in this case, was not accomplished very well).

Again, just speculating though. I know we have other forum members with more experience in the retail channel. (JJ, Rings, probably more....)

Hmmm, I agree the price is a bit steep for a 60 card deck (I don't really care about the house card). I'm actually glad that it has no duplicates though -- that means if I do end up getting more than one I won't have any redundant cards. I'll probably hold off on buying this though because of the price point. I'm still new to the game and would rather expand my collection more efficiently by catching up on chapter packs. I'm glad to see the basic resources for Greyjoy are LCG legal though -- maybe I'll be able to bum some of the locations off someone and make an LCG Greyjoy deck with just the chapter pack cards (so far all my Greyjoy and Martell cards have done is sit around gathering dust).

I wonder if they gave any thought to packaging the Martell and Greyjoy decks together. It seems like that would have helped out with allowing for higher price "box" product while still giving decent value (since there'd be twice as many cards). It would also have the bonus of being stand alone playable for two players. I guess FFG thinks they'll make more releasing them individually.

naizen said:

I'm not following this logic. You have a core set, yes? you have all the GJ cards (maybe only at 1x) printed so far yes? if you only building decks out of that why does only having 1 of the GJ expansion stop you from running GJ? you don't have one or 2 crossroads you could pull from other decks if your worried about locations in this deck? no sunset sea to pull out of a lanni deck? Do you run into a problem w/ only one Great hall in your bara deck?

Another way of looking at the i only bought 1 Core Set but i have to buy 2 of this expansion (to seemingly make it playable out of the box) is that you are getting a lot of cards that slot in nicely into other decks. With two GJ expansions you really broaden you plot selection to add to the 1 Core Set plots (heck you can have 1 set of military battle plots for stark and GJ that way, or you can 'trade' the sunset sea to the Lanni player for two of the 1 for +1 gold shadow boosting event in the GJ expansion).

Or finally if you really don't want to pull cards from your exisiting set instead of paying for the admittedly over priced expansion, try buying another core set, that should give you 4 more locations to add right into your GJ deck and really give you some more options to your other decks (and still be the economical purchase).

In short i don't see where FFG lied by saying this expansion lets you play (or expands on the ability to play) house GJ in the LCG format. Its doable at 1x, easier at 2x, and for competative players best at 3x, but the cost to value ration starts to diminish (somehting FFG does not have to ensure.

I'm all for the argument that FFG did a bad job (intially or not) of forseing the cost to value ration plumetning at 3x, but i hope to take steps of my own to mitigate that cost.

It is also a bit of a cost structure. FFG feels a major expansion needs to be packaged a certain way (I tend to agree, to get new customers), especially considering their target market (i.e. look how board game expansions are done, like for aGoT board game).

That size has more materials, way more shipping (to FFG, then on from there), etc.

I don't think comparing it to either the base set, chapter packs, or the old CCG product really works. And trust me, you are still fully paying less in a year than you would to get a playset in the old format if that is even close to be in discussion (like Ktom I found the price per card comparison rather funny when compared to the CCG model).

Of course I am buying 3

My understanding was that the Core Set was priced as an entry point, in the same way video consols are. Which is to say underpriced, using expansions and Chapter Packs as the means to make money. I think my biggest problem is this idea that the Resin House Card is where the cost is being increased. Similar things were said about the non-card pieces in the CS. I have this feeling (and is just a feeling) that the card was added at an incredibly low cost as added value rather than as a way for them to milk more money out of our pockets.

I have not had an opportunity to play KotS out of the box against another CS deck. My impression from looking through the cards though that they would be relatively competitive when combined with a Core Set, and even more so in melee. How many people here have given this a try? How did they play?

I do have to say I definitely agree with ktom about the "lie" and "cheated" statements and implications. No one but you is responsible for your feelings.

All that said I REALLY hope they are listening and do a better job of managing expectations when it comes to the Martell Expansion... if I don't buy three of the KotS it is because I'm moving to a state which apparently has no meta. It may make more sense to find my soon to be local gaming store and buy them there, even by special order in hopes of getting some in store play going.

dormouse said:

wait, does this mean yuou have purchased one?!?!?!? you'd be the first i'm aware of and that means i might have next week.

No I was trying to convey that part of my post was conjecture.