Dear All,

We have taken very seriously the feedback and issues voiced by the AGOT play-base regarding the content assortment of the "Kings of the Sea" expansion set for the AGOT LCG. Obviously, we were somewhat surprised, but certainly understand the valid points raised by many players. We therefore intend to ensure that future products such as "Princes of the Sun" (the premium expansion set that provides additional cards for House Martell) adds value to all aspects of the AGOT play community -- casual and competitive player alike.

FFG has been working on this issue in the past few days, and we'll be announcing a change in the "Princes of the Sun" contents sometime next week – so please stay tuned to the website. We're confident this change will address most of the player concerns voiced about "Kings of the Sun", as well provide FFG with the return needed to maintain a sustainable business.

Thanks for all of your comments on this issue, they're appreciated.

See you at GEN CON!

Christian T. Petersen
CEO
Fantasy Flight Games

I wish the Greyjoy expansion cost less, or had MUCH more cards (plots etc; not only for Greyjoy).

I wish the new Kings/Queens cards had new art! Use card's old art if you make a reprint only please. That will make things easier for those who play other game formats besides LCG.

I do not mind the expansion having a single copy of each card, just do no call it a deck.

I would like it to be in a smaller box, not as big as the Core Set. That would save paper and make the box easier to travel with.

Sell AGOT accessories (for instance resin house cards) the same as you sell Call of Cthulhu accessories (the bag of Cthulhu for instance) - separately.

Just my few cents to the discussion. Thank you.

I'm just pleasantly surprised that FFG is attentive to the voices raised on this particular issue and have made appropriate amends (whatever that may be).

It's not easy being an industry giant...especially a giant that takes care to look after his/her customer base.

Personally I think there should be a resin cards in the Princes of the sun expansion. I mean, you guys nearly "forced" us to get three Kots, it would be wrong now not to have other houses have the same treatment...

Maybe selling them apart would be the key here as someone pointed out.

Wow, always nice to know that the guys at the top are listening.

For what it's worth, here's what I personally would like to see in Kings/Princes of the Sun (note: I'm a guy who hasn't bought KOTS yet, because I can't really justify it at the price):

So firstly, I'd like to see the price go down for the next expansion. For what we get in the box, KOTS really isn't worth it. It essentially trades off of the goodwill that other products in the range have built up, which leaves a slightly sour taste in the mouth. I mean, I'm not saying that I wouldn't pay KOTS price for an AGOT-LCG expansion in the future, but if I do it'll have to provide me with significantly more bang for my buck... either it'll have to have more cards for the same price-tag, or a lower price-tag for that quantity of cards.

So then, here's what I'd hope for in the future:

If the price-point remains the same: More Cards in the box. The value-for-money of KOTS was really weak, even considered in a vacuum and not against the prices of other FFG products. The only reason that it's selling is because consumers are already invested in the franchise, there's no way that they'd pay that much for a stand-alone game with those contents.

If the price-point drops: I'd hope to see the same number of cards, but with the same distribution of staple-resources as the Core-Set decks. It just makes sense, lots of people want to be able to use it like a pre-fab deck that they can battle agaisnt the four they got in the original box. Why make casual players buy multiples just to have a semi-functioning deck? Having single-copy staples just looks a little greedy, casual players like me feel burned because we know that our arms are, essentially, being twisted to buy multiples of over-priced products. Sure, we could just play without GJ... but why wouldn't a company that wants to keep us engaged with its product provide us with a fairly priced entry-point for the house? Trying to nudge us towards buying multiple boxes of a (highly) pricy expansion just annoys us and erodes our goodwill.

Anyway that's thoughts on pricing, but aside from that I have a couple of comments to make on a few other things:

Next time, can we have:

A smaller box, one that vaguely correlates to the size of the product inside. I don't know why, but KOTS was massively overpackaged, at least the CSet could claim it would be our 'card coffin' for all the stuff we'd buy in the future.

And please, no resin house-cards bundled with cards. That thing was cute and all, but I (and casual players like me, who just want a fistful of cards) have literally no use for it. It's a bauble that only serious enthusiasts care about and which really ought to be getting sold seperately. Most people I've spoken to just resent having to pay for it... for those buying multiple packs, it's completely infuriating.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the extra baubles in the CSet. But that's because the chits, board and pieces all have a practical use in a game-type that I play. I don't mind having a few visual aids and tokens to help me conduct a game. But an artfully carved bit of plastic that doesn't do anything more (indeed, does less) than a piece of card that I already got in the CSet... that's totally useless to me. I resent its presence, because it meanst that I can't buy cards without having to pay for an item that is of no practical use.

On the other hand, I personally couldn't care less about what art FFG uses on cards. If recycling old artwork keeps prices of the product down, then I say go for it. I'm not too concerned with five-year-old artworks cropping up on new cards... it really makes no difference to me.

So there we go, that's my little rant on the KOTS fiasco.

Thanks for making a great game and for embracing what could be an incredible distribution model. Sorry that this latest release didn't get quite the warm reception that your other products have. I hope that you'll listen to our combined yellings and hammer out something that'll go over a little better next time.

Its awesome to see you guys respond to feedback. I've never read the books, so the only flavour I have to go on is what I get from the game itself. From the flavour I've seen so far, house Greyjoy may be one of my favourites. I've been looking forward to the expansion, and I'm planning on buying two copies. I would have been happier if I didn't have to pay for the plastic thing, but you can't have everything I guess. I think alot of people would have been happier just getting the cards if it made the set cheaper.

While the expansion looks good to me, there are plenty of casual gamers fickle enough to abandon ship (ba-dum-dum-tsh!) if another product looks like a better deal. For instance, I want to save money for your new Warhammer LCG, so I won't be buying the new Planechase set for Magic. Planechase looks really good, but Warhammer has more cards that I want, and I think I would get more out of buying it. Too bad for Wizards, but good news for you. The affordability of the LCG was a big reason that I chose to get involved in AGoT in the first place.

I have to say that I'm really impressed by how responsive FFG is to consumer feedback.

Thanks, Christian. As always, it's great to know that our concerns were heard, though I must admit that the very quick response does have me worried that some of us might have been overly strong in our argumentativeness (myself certainly included). Or perhaps we are just an exceptionally gifted playerbase at articulating our viewpoint and altering opinions (ha, unlikely in my own case).

Regardless, I do want it known that I found there to be an awful lot of good content in the set in context of the cards. I'd hate for it to come across as a general disapproval of the entire product. I think the dedicated expansion box is a great plan, and I think that the cards that were included were some very fine examples in the case of reprints, and solid design in the case of the new. We haven't talked much about the positives yet. If I wasn't about to crash from a very long day, I would do so. Sadly, it will have to wait till the morrow.

Also, we already have a bit of good news. Thanks so much for correcting the name on the Martell expansion!!

I think the most important part of any house expansion is 3x of any house specific resources, or a similar ratio to that of the corresponding cards in the Core set decks.

After that, yes, I agree that there should be something for every house - the easiest way to accomplish that is probably through dual-house cards (ideally unique characters or locations). That should help keep the non-Martell (or other new house) cards to minimum, but still make the set desirable for players of other houses.

I personally could not care less for resin house cards. I'd rather have Martell card sleeves (or something representative of the expansion) if FFG feels the need to include something 'special'.

So the Core Set had 8 location resources for each of the four Houses. Do we view that number as sacrosanct or is there some wiggle room? Would 7 location resources be okay for one of the Expansions or would people get mad if there was an ninth? Why would 6 cause an uproar, and would 10 get the same kind? If it has to be 8, do they need the zero cost Gold producer x3 or would people accept another resource, say the 2 cost 2 gold reducer x2 or the fiefdom x3? What if it was something else entirely?

I get wanting to have enough resources to be able to run it straight from the box, or so buying it x2 gives you all the resource flexibility you could need to build the deck of your dream, but I'm still figuring out where the line goes from unacceptable to acceptable to happy and all the way back to unacceptable depending on the too-few/too-many spectrum.

I ask because the Greyjoy expansion has 6 resources (not including the Bay of Ice influence provider). So maybe I'm really just different than everyone else... but do we really need every House to have the exact same number and type of reducer? Is there no room for variation? What about Baratheon's Summer Ports? Why is no one upset that they have one more additional resource out of that Chapter Pack than the other Houses? What about Lannister getting 2 additional resources inthe form of characters?

We just want playable decks out of the box, as the Core Set ones were (even if they didn't have enough cards to be legal). We don't care if it's 6, 7, 8 or more locations, as long as the deck is playable with them.

dormouse said:

Yes, there is room for variation. Core set locations are for example: some fiefdoms x3, some x2. But they are so important for specific house! (If you kneel fiefdom, next fiefdom is -1, you can't do this with Crossroads).

In CS you get 7 copies of important locations + 1 copy of onetime use (sea) + 1 copy of neutral (Crossroads) + 1 copy of neutral special (streets) = 10

In KotS you get 4 copies of important locations + 1 copy of onetime use (sea) + 1 copy of neutral, onetime, poor Shivering Sea = 6

So, no wonder people are disappointed.

dormouse said:

Summer only. Hello?

dormouse said:

Lannister house specific. What about Littlefinger?

What about Men With No King? Fiefdoms are better than Crossroads. Don't blame other players that they want same quality/price as with core set. You prefer new cards instead doubles (and you got hundreds of Greyjoy locations), ok I understand, but don't torpedo arguments of other players.

One more thing. Factory press sheet for cards are 11 x 11 if I'm not mistaken. So that's why chapter packs are 40 cards, and KotS 60 cards. So, FFG could not include 3 more locations duplicates. They prefered to give us more new cards. And this is good thing as well as bad thing. My opinion is, that price (ridiculous overprice!) is far more important than locations problem. If the price is ok, you can buy product x2 or x3.

Rogue... the problem here is you are stating opinion as fact. You are making assumptions about the cards available that actually run counter to common wisdom in this game. Crossroads, while neutral, in some houses or builds, are definitely better than a fiefdom.Giving you gold AND influence, rather than a reducer OR influence. Also both you and Fabest seem to conveniently forget at times that the box and advertisements for the KotS specifically state you need the Core Set to be able to play, that it is not a stand alone product, playable out of the box. This is how pretty much every expansion for a board game works, you need other pieces or cards, etc. out of the main set for the expansion to work. IOW you are intended to use some of those cards with this deck to round it out, essentially replacing one of the Core decks with the Greyjoy one, or requiring a second Core Set to be able to add Greyjoy as a 5th House.

If your real complaint reallys boil down to this and this alone, that it isn't a stand alone deck, then I understand your point, but I do not support your critique/issue what-so-ever. You were told in advance what the situation was going to be as well as it being a major departure from how expansions are handled in the board game and CCG world both (which of course is not relaly here no there since this is an LCG and not either of the other two, but if neither of them use this as a standard operating format why would you expect the LCG to?).

If it is really just the price, why include all the other dross. Your arguments will be much stronger and much more convincing to pick the root problem and attack that. I say the set isn't too expensive, but is more expensive than I want it to be. The difference to me is too expensive means I can't afford it, while more expensive than I want it to be means I have to decide to buy this instead of other things I want to buy. From a business perspective it is very different. You want your products affordable for the most part... if they are expensive then you want them expensive enough that your customers have to choose to buy your product over other similar products... when it is a choice of your product versus taking my girl out to a nice dinner... well you put me in a position where it is hard to justify buying as many sets as I want. After all she can point out the 2nd or 3rd box of cards when I say I can't afford to her to go to see the Half-Blood Prince in IMax.

If it is a choice between my AGoT habit or my sex life... well. Arianne isn't going to be coming out of her Tower any time soon. Find a way to decrease the price by $5-$10 and it is easy to justify buying the set x3. As to the Resin Card... seriously you can get similar stuff at about $10... a DOZEN. You bump that up into the thousands range and you are looking at a house card that probably cost about $0.35 max. You can get a custom 3D mold made for $1,480 with each unit costing tens of cents. The House card was not where the cost of the product came from. I understand that people would rather go without and have the price of the product drop, but it is negligable. Most of us could find tht much change just emptying out our pockets on laundry day, or raiding our couch cushions.

I AM curious about how the price point for the product was arrived at, but this would fall into the category of things you don't share with your customers, and I don't resent it all. I'm just thinking they set themselves up with such a low expense for the Core Set and moderate price for the Chapter Pack. Without properly managing the epxectations of the player base I knew people were going to find it out of step. If the Core Set was truly underpriced, I would have made sure that was understood as a lead in to what this product would cost. I also would have stated that each card would only appear once in the product, so people were already thinking of buying these in multiple if they want the best GJ deck that can be had (I say that was implied strongly but it was never implicitly stated).

So what to take away from this for Princes of the Sun (Great Job on the Naming)?

1. Manage expectations better.
The guest articles spoiling certain cards and mechanics is an excellent way to get free labor out of your player base. I'm assuming these are play testers... I'd say by the time the product hits the shelves every major card and most of the minor cards from the set should be spoiled in some fashion. It gets people excited, nearly as much as the mystery of unknown cards, but vastly heads off disappointment. Also costs you very little in man-power (someone to review the Articles, someone to post them and "linkify" them).

2. Lower the price.
Honestly I don't think the price is far off the worth of the cards given their "intrinsic" value compared to your other card board, when added to the "FINALLY!" factor, a $10 price drop is huge mentally and I think enough that even non-GJ players would consider buying multiples just for the convenience of not having to shift neutrals and plots from deck to deck, let alone multiple copies of key uniques for their House. Even $5 would lessen the bite of buying two sets.

3. Be more mindful of Swag.
No one else may believe it, but I'm convinced that the Resin card was seen as a way of adding value to the product rather than a way to bump up the price point. I could be wrong, but as a businessmen myself, I understand the worth of the core product you sell needs to determine the price. Adding anything that substantially marks-up the price of the core product is a mistake. Alternative items to include with Martell, Power counters, alternate Art House Cards (obviously I'm hoping it is too late in the cycle for this particular idea), Martell House Sleeves (or Doran, Viper, Darkstar, Arianne, etc.), etc. These are things that having multiples of would not be seen as useless and should be in step with a minor increase in production cost, esily absorbed into the rounding of the per unit price.

There ya go, epic post. Sorry bored at work.

"Kings of the Sea fully introduces House Greyjoy - the reavers and raiders of the Northwestern coasts of Westeros - to the A Game of Thrones metagame with a fully-playable Greyjoy deck ."

I try to stick to short posts ^^

Which conveniently excludes the statement right on the box that says you need the core-set to play. I mean my force unleashed is fully playabl;e out of the box as is my Complete Thief's Handbook... except that I still need my Wii and the Player's Handbook to actually make use of them, as each states directly on the cover.

But let me ask you this... have you attempted to play the Greyjoy deck as is against an unmodified Core Deck yet? What was it like? How did it play? What tactical and strategic holes could you exploit and where were your weaknesses?

dormouse said:

~Things get complicated here.... we started with a CCG ... that should be/ is a LCG nowadays and feel .... ummmh...like a board game.... and be utilized like a..... video console. ;-)

To get a little bit more serious here. Probably the contradiction you mentioned is the point were the communication about the product epicly failed. You´ll find some marketing texts that at least pretend that the product is on the one hand playable out of the box and on the other hand not a stand alone product. The product could have been easily both, playable out of the box, because it´s a full deck just like one from the Core set, but not stand alone because well.... solitair is boring. If i look around the message board there are a lot of players that seem to have expected just that. Well and at least the players from Spain already wrote that it´s not playable out of the box without some additions, at least wouldn´t reach the quality of a CS deck.

The other thing here is a product design issue, FFG could have had a so much better time if they designed the CS resources as neutral or multi house affiliated resources. I would have been so easy to reprint Kingsroad keep, Kingsroad inn, design a multi house fiefdom (lower the cost of a card that matches your house affiliation") and keep the seas the way they are now. But they choose a backstep to old Westeros edition locations, i still think that´s okay because it´s a little more flavourful to have in house locations. Unfortunately the kings of the sea product fails exactly at the chosen in house location concept by providing not enough "basic resource cards" in one pack.

Honestly, it looks quite playable out of the box, though the plots would be odd. The resource might be lacking, but it would be the only "Core Set" deck with location hate to even that out a bit.

I've been reading a lot of complain here and there, very little thanks, but I guess this is the internet: it is made to complain and watch... well, you know. (you can insert the correct quote here, taken from Kevin Smith).

Anyhow, here's my opinion.

First thing: thanks FFG. Despite all of the bad stuff I've heard online, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on Kings of the Sea. I think the selection of cards looks absolutely great, and I can't wait to personnaly try, or have somebody in play group try Greyjoy as a faction. So far I've been really satisfied with the chapter packs and I really believe agot is truly a great game. Once again, thanks.

My complain? Well, I could have some, but most of my complains I can rationalize myself. Yes, it's a big box, it's big, as the core set, and it's quite empty, and it takes space, it's not eco-friendly and so-on... but nevertheless, when I enter a game store, ta-dam! it's there, quite visible, and it stands out. No more behind the counter-gotta-hide-those-ccg kind of thing. So, big box, both good and bad, and the worst that will happen is I throw the box away...

One card of each? Well, I was expecting it, and I didn't mind it very much. I was planning to buy 2 copies anyway. I buy 2 of every chapter packs, find it reasonnable, and I'm happy with it. As for ressources, it seems to be a major point of complain... which brings me to this question: have any of you guys tried playing Greyjoy in lcg before kings of the sea? Wasn't great, but it was still playable. So even a single copy of some ressources seems to me like a major upgrade.

Just my two cents

thanks

armored_butterfly said:

Hey FFG staff! Don't pay attention to our complaints. The price is great! The distribution is fine. Everything is just PERFECT! We are just silly players with boring, not constructive complaints. We don't want to give you proper feedback to improve things in the future, we just like to complain, really. Thank you.

I think the issue is not whether you can play a four player game with just the Kings of the Sea product, but whether you can add a fifth player to a Core Set melee game. Personally, to me it looks like that is likely viable (and FFG seems to think so from the "fully playable" line), but it seems like the guys in Spain disagree and the fraction of resources is a bit low.

I agree with Dormouse though that the main flaw with the set is the price point which is so much more per card than previous LCG releases that it discourages multiple purchases, while at the same time the set is entirely composed of singletons so that you'll need multiple copies to realize most of the possibilities since real LCG decks are 60 cards rather than 42 (KotS minus plots, mutliplayer titles and out of house Kings/Queens) and need multiples of the basic location resources.

Regarding what Old Ben said, I have to say that the in house resources (like the fiefdoms) were one of the strangest things to me when I first started with the LCG. They are plenty flavorful, but they provide little other benefit to the game while greatly restricting deck building options. Out of house characters are already so strongly discouraged by the gold penalty that there is little difference between the current fiefdoms and one generic fiefdom that just reduced the cost of cards with your house card's affiliation. If the core set were full of generic location resources, it would be a lot easier to build Greyjoy and Martell decks and the only complaint about the Kings of the Sea that would seem reasonable would be the price. As it is though, I think the presence of only one copy of each of the in house resources provides an extra push to purchase multiple copies of the set and thus draws further attention to the somewhat high price tag. (And I know older players have offered to send people extra copies of the locations, but that's not what you see when you first look at the product).

Once everyone is worn out complaining I think the expansion will end up being good for the game -- making Greyjoy really viable in the LCG and adding a bunch of good cards too. And hopefully all the complaining ends up making the Martell set a bit less expensive or at least a bit better value for the price,

Well, really...the only legitimate complaint I can see is the price point of the product compared with the amount of cards you get. Otherwise it just seems to me like it is silly complaints. They stated that it would make Greyjoy a playable house and the product does exactly that. They said there'd be a king/queen for every house, there is. Promised traited plots, they're there. People are saying it's not playable out of the box, but it certainly is "playable." Might not be GOOD, but it's playable. I don't think it'd get throttled in a melee with the other core set decks. Personally, I'd rather have the new Kingdom locations than an extra two gatehouses and one fiefdom (which is really all that is missing). On the whole, it's an excellent product on first flush and it does what it was intended to do.

Rogue 30, I think you quite misunderstood what I was saying.

There's no harm in complaining when the complaint is accurate and in the end, it will improve the product. FFG responded to the complaints, and it's great, they're listening, they want our feedback.

But seriously, calling Kings of the sea a fiasco? I think it's pushing it a little too far.

Anyhow, I'm just a player also. I don't design the cards, I don't publish the game, I don't market it, and so on. As a player I feel I have the right to like and dislike decisions made by FFG, but I also feel that I shouldn't be nitpicking every single decision they make.

I'm happy with Kings of the sea. True, it could have been a little cheaper, but lcg turned out costing more than expected anyway.

Is there a chance FFG will release the cards from the Core set, KotS and PotS without the extra bits ( rulebook, board, coins, title pieces) in a single packet for a moderate price?

I certainly don't come close to speaking for FFG, but I think it would be easy to say no. There is absolutely nothing in their best interest in repackaging all that stuff into one box in the near future. Maybe some sort of delux special edition box set a couple of years down the line... but even that is unlikely to be these cards.

armored_butterfly said: