This is a post more so to FFG and the CoC game staff than anyone else. However, I would love to hear comments from anyone who has something to say that is constructive.

I have never designed a game, run a business, or been a part of the maintenance of something as expansive as a world wide distributed game. Nor have any true appreciation of what it takes to do so.

However, I am deeply concerned about the Call of Cthulhu Card game. When it first came out as a CCG I was very excited. I was deeply satisfied when I got to play the game and all of the expansions that came out afterwards. I was of course sad to see that it was stopping, yet again elated to hear of its return in a new format.

In its original CCG format I was a servitor and hosted a number of tournaments and demonstrations at my local game store. As a player I played with friends and in tournaments held in my area. Since its release in an LCG format I’ve not only been doing many demonstrations but I’ve intended to start running tournaments. Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time finding the enthusiasm I once had. What seems to be hitting me the hardest is having to explain away to new and old players what seems to be frequent errors on new cards.

I think everyone who has a good grasp of the game understands what most cards are intended to do and how they are supposed to function. And in terms of friendly play it’s not so bad. But when you’re trying to explain a new game to someone or clarify a mechanic or keyword these types of errors make it exceedingly hard. And even harder to try and make someone invest their money into said game.

I have some questions that I was hoping someone may be able to answer and I apologize if any of them seem offensive to the people whom I sure put in lots of effort and long hours into producing this game that I love.

1. What is occurring in development that we are seeing things like “kneel” and “Any Phase” appearing on cards?

2. Why are cards making it through that use new undefined terms such as “attacker/defender” or “called”?

3. Are the errors with Subtype placement on cards and appropriate rules text such as “Day”, “Attachments” rules truly printing at the press errors or is there something failing in card layout?

4. I know from reading the forums that there are playtesters out there, even outside of FFG (and I’d love to hear from them). I know often their feedback relates to card function/wording, but do they also get information like full card text/faction print/subtypes etc. If so and they catch such an error and report it, is it resolved or what is the process to make a correction like that?

5. Does FFG really care about making a quality product that has what seem to be more and more frequent errors on cards, or does it not matter as long as packs continue to sell?

6. If packs stop selling, would it be a sign that steps need to be taken to correct such errors, or would it just be the death knell for CoC LCG?

I want the Call of Cthulhu card game to be a successful game. But I also want it to be a fun game. Lately I’ve found that I will open an Asylum Pack and at first be excited and then I will be sadder and sadder as I think to myself, “Ok, how do I explain this one.”

I would like to be helpful in making CoC a better game and as only an avid fan and player I don’t know what is in the scope of my ability to help with. But I’d like to know what is going on a little behind the scenes and if there is something I or other players can help to make CoC better and more successful before it gets out of the box.

I was thinking about this recently as well. I really hope that, at the least, they make new print runs to correct some of the . . . "buggy" cards as of late.

The reprint idea is something that already happens in other CCG's like M:tg. I'm sure the next core set will reprint some of this cards with the correct wording. In the very beginning M:tg was full of complicated mechanics an useless explanations. The cards got less complicated to understand with the time. M:tg also got a database called the Gatherer where they show the cards and explain any possible misunderstanding of every card; it is updated every month. I think something like that could be done in CoC, players would report "bugs" and they would be explained in the monthl update. It would help people, casual players, to understand how their cards work.

I'm loving this game more and more and, like you guys, I also want to see this game getting bigger and better.

PS: does "getting" and "bigger" use the double g/t or just one? I got confused :S

The problem isn't cards being worded badly (most are fine), the problem is cards that clearly were passed over in the proofreading process, leaving design bugs that like "Any Phase:" or "kneel" being on released cards (I guess Nate uses the AGOT terms while designing cards, or maybe he just had a really busy couple of weeks).

Amante said:

I might not have understood this correctly but you are saying you'd like to spend good money -again- for corrections for cards which you already paid for in first place but were faulty?

Carioz said:

it almost sounds like a bad marketing gimmick.

'lets have them buy the cards twice"

'how do we do that?'

' let me explain.....'

i let the julia brown stuff slide cause i feel the set was rushed and everything for the coreset. but every new set that comes out i will email ffg about every typo and tell them how ripped off i feel. because at the end of the day i am paying for these cards and if i get any response like 'if you dont like the cards dont buy them' it will completely explain how this company works, sadly i wouldnt be shocked to get a response like that either.

Well, guys, we all love this game and would be proud to have a O mistake" game, but erratas and FAQs are here to help us playing the game despite some minor errors.

I agre that there might be some misunderstanding between "Knelt", Any Phase" and so which might drive you upset, but a nice FAQ should change this soon...

Concerning cards badly worded (Believe me, this game is'nt made only with this, that's untrue !), there are some and FFG might take care of them, including corrected cards in new AP or anything else, with a low quantity of this kinda "re-reprint", in an AP. It should be a great idea, isn't it ?

This way, you would buy your AP + a single corrected card or so .....

Carioz said:

I wouldn't like to, no.

I don't even have most of the recent asylum packs yet, as a newer player, so if they made newer print runs then I would presumably get those instead of the faulty ones.

They could also go the route of replacing people's misprinted cards by mail, although that'd be a bit costly and probably something they wouldn't do.

Either way, it's their gaffe, not ours, and as customers we shouldn't be the ones to pay for it.

Dark Young, I really have to compliment you on such a well written, thoughtful and evidently heartfelt post. Much better than many of us (and I certainly include myself) do when we are expressing our unhappiness with gaming products.

Amante said:

As I supposed I did not understand it right the first time

And guys, what's up with all the FFG bashing of late? You almost make me go "I luv Nate" in order to keep my elitist status (j/k)

Is it not possible to exist in a reasonable balance between the two? I have no vendetta or grudge against FFG (and in fact have been giving them a good amount of money for both CoC and AGOT recently), but I do want to make sure that my money is well spent, and the that the games I've come to love are given the quality assurance they deserve.

There's just no way misprints are reprinted, none. Debate all you want.

The venom between the dark side and FFG is at once spicy and ridiculous. Myself, I love that there are new good cards regularly. To be sure, nowadays the vetting of the cards is sometimes very poor. It's lamentable and deserves derision. I need to see an improvement, Nate and Christian. Also to be sure, it is important to hear aired the opinions of the disillusioned, especially those who know this game better than most. I want to hear from the dark side. I don't think asking the tenor to be toned down makes any sense. The result though? Perhaps, sadly, the dialogue about the use of new AP cards is getting supplanted. To be sure, the boards are not what they once were. But that's a broader concern. Could be it is a reflection of how LCG compares to the good old days - which is mere conjecture. The saddest thing about the boards is the giant gulf between cthulhu enthusiast posters and FFG. As evidence, the FFG tournament results were weak, maybe curtailed by the humorously pointed slap down Donald792 inserted. Or, could be indicative of the attention from FFG we now garner. More so, I believe the animosity has made the boards a place FFG will not enter without trepidation. And face it, that just sucks.

ps. I can't find the "knelt" card.

Amante said:

My sentiments exactly. I have hugely enjoyed this game since discovering it back in the Masks expansion and will pretty much stick with it regardless, but I really hope for an improvement in proof-reading in Dreamlands.

johnny shoes said:

Dunno, I can envision a future where "Core Set 2: the pink border edition" gets in print, all white borders card gets rotated except for those in the CS2. And it could be possible that a few of them are the WB erratas.

Dark Young said:

Ok, being the culprit for an almost derail from the original, more interesting topic, I'll try to make amends laying off the smartass mode and trying to answer seriously.

As a disclaimer, anything that looks like a conjecture, most likely is, as I am not privy to any behind the scene information about the game.

Let's start from my beginning: I begun to play around the time Eldritch Edition came online and became fascinated with the game. The main selling point, at the time, was how really good the story phase was (for the record I still think the struggle resolution is quite the strong part of the game). My meta slowly developed from the first, sluggish, 30-chars-per-side-and-none-wants-to-commit to the point where we were able to understand that there were cards that had enormous impact on the game (as a funny anedocte, the first card we thought that had such an impact was Wild Beasts -yes, we were younger and inexperienced-) and cards which didn't matter at all.

We learned that the resource system and the 2 cards per turn draft cap could be easilly hacked to pieces and built back, and games became usually similar to old style t1 magic: decks had a number of impact cards (as in "threats your opponents should remove fast or lose"), a number of answer to said impact cards and, when possible, low-threat no answer cards which still enabled or empowered the deck's strategy (e.g. you like Ithaqua and play Yog-Shub? Then Lavinia Whateley is a very nice addition). While I do not claim my meta ever reached excellence like other more famous ones like PA or the Polish or the Finnish meta, or even a good shape -I can claim my meta was mediocre at best and I am one of the worst players there-, games were fun, the tension was high (e.g. do I really want to commit at all knowing my opponent could very well spring 3 GK ready for the kill next turn?) and we never felt the game was a game of "the first who draws and drops his atomic char or event wins".

After Forgotten Cities FFG choose to try a new model for the game: due to profitability concerns (at least that was how it was explained in the then Lang Codex) the game moved away from it's collectible beginnings to the Asylum Pack model -which predates the Core Set by about one year-. While the game lost the trading part (small loss) it gained a new, for me huge, selling point: to get all the cards I needed I just had to lazily order 4x of the last AP.

That pretty much sums up what I like of the Cthulhu game: the underlying struggle resolution mechanics, they high stakes nature of decisions and the sales model.

Fast forward to now. Has the CoC LCG still all the three perks which I liked?

The sales model is the same (check one), the struggle resolution wasn't, fortunately, changed (check two), the game has become, sadly, extremely watered down to the point the game feels back to the 30 chars per side phase -which wasn't so funny before, nor it is now-.

Why did this happen? My theory (and thus conjecture) is that the development team in charge of the LCG lacks the experience (after all how many games did Nate French author from the ground up? Very few or zero, I seem to recall) to make new cards that have impact. Sure, the sales model is the same and the story phase wasn't changed (which might be enough to have a decent game for a newbie), but cards created for the LCG falls either on the I don't care or on the powerfull but hamfisted side. I can count the number of good cards (reading the previous description: either credible threats, or good answers or enabling or empowering existing strategies) under ten.

If you believe my theory -which you can easilly say is rubbish, I do not get offended, period.- and believe FFG is manned by smart businessmen (which I do believe), you can easilly see on how FFG concentrated on the two remaining selling point of the game (the base mechanic and the sales model) marketing it to the people who should be most interested and won't faze at the lack of impact cards: casual gamers and newbies (I think the categories have a large overlap). This is corroborated by the amount of articles which emphasized the kitchentable nature of the game (and why should you play it on a kitchen table, with breadcrumbs and jam over it, I cannot fathom).

Which, if you had the patience to read this whole post, brings us to the recent trend of Zanned cards: it might not be overtly obvious, but quality control costs, sometimes a lot. But if you market a game for people, like some non competitive gamers, who do not care for or even resent precise wording, would rather play a card for what it seems to do instead for what it does after having applied all the relevant rulings to it (and believe me, I do not think one way of playing is inherently better than the other, though I do like the second best for it enforces somewhat a stricter quality control on the game product) or who play the game mainly because they like the underlying mechanics, well, you very well should keep quality control at the minimum tolerable in order to optimize costs and maximize profits.

For the record: I think that no representative of FFG should directly answer to this thread with anything more than a one liner (e.g. We are looking into the matter and doing any thing possible to make this better). While I do not know what are FFG management's evaluations on the state of the game, even if they are completely negative, any one company employee should rightly never rail on a fellow employee work: toward the public the company is manned by awesome people with immense ability (even when they cannot spell Cthulhu right). Existing problems, if they are perceived as such, are not resolved in public.

agreeds with Carioz's post 100000% (or more)

Disclaimer: I am one of the dreaded "newer players" drawn to the game by a combination of the LCG model (other games are just too expensive to keep up with, as much as I like Magic, L5R, et al.) and having heard good things about the game over time.

I think the play environment has changed and slowed down as a natural side effect of the transition to LCG - card pool has dropped from around 1300 cards to . . . 300 presently? As time goes on, this should improve and things should open up a bit again.

As regards card design . . . well, from my neophyte perspective, I see a lot to like in the Summons of the Deep cycle (and it seems a lot more immediately rewarding than the first couple of AGOT LCG cycles). I agree with people's assessment that Mountains Of Madness and Ancient Horrors are mostly garbage (although the latter has a few solid or even good cards, with Aspiring Artist being the most obvious). The quality seems to go up after that, and I see a number of cards I can't wait to get my hands on, but again, my opinion and experience is different from that of the veteran players who may be used to a different style or mood.

Quality control is definitely a real issue, and it does seem like AGOT gets a bit more developer attention than COC (AGOT words showing up on COC cards doesn't help matters any).

On one hand, the pessimism and negativity of some players is probably turning FFG off from posting on these boards much, but on the other, there's still a lot of dedicated and constructive players such as myself around who would love to hear at least a bit on some of these pressing issues (namely when a new FAQ is coming, and quality control), not to mention more on more positive, lighter stuff like the staff tournament.

Some people over on the AGOT boards had a very negative reaction to certain things about the Kings of the Sea expansion (namely price and unnecessary fluff like the resin house card possibly raising that price), and after a big discussion thread on it, an official post was made that quelled the concerns of many about about it and the next expansion.

Some explanation and attention is better than none, even if there's some people you just can't please.

Carioz said:

I can agree with what you have to say there. Perhaps my long post was a bit too expansive. Mainly I just want to hear something from FFG stating that they at least ackowledge the issue(s) and are looking into/doing something to fix it. And if not, why?

Hello all!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is James Hata, and I am the newest addition to the Call of Cthulhu design team here at FFG. We at FFG do understand the concerns regarding the quality control of our cards for the CoC LCG, and going forward, hope to resolve these issues. A first step towards this goal is going to be the upcoming FAQ for the LCG, which should be up very soon. This document is designed to clear up any confusion regarding card errata and provide rules clarifications. It is a "living document" which will be updated as necessary.

However, it is important to realize that cards are printed in groups (ie. all of the Summons of the Deep Asylum Packs are printed at the same time) and therefore these changes to quality control will not take effect until after the Dreamlands set has been completed. We hope you understand, and will be patient as we try to improve quality going forward.

I look forward to working with you all to make the CoC LCG an awesome experience for everybody to enjoy.

Thank you for the official response

Are you the James Hata, 2008 UFS World Champion??

Wow! they hired you. Thanks for the response.

Good Games!!

Wow! This is the best thread ever! Carioz, I think your post is brilliant. James Hata is brilliant. Johhny Shoes cheerleading? Never.

FFGHata is a highly respected player if I recall correctly. He's a huge tournament winner, right? First thread is not just an introduction. James provides a thoughtful nice neat FFG response. Thanks! Sure we already heard FAQ 2.1 is coming out. But it's still great news and great to hear it's confirmed to be released soon. I love the FAQ. They're like twice as cool as an AP release. It's obvious to many, I think, that an AP cycle is printed at once. So, the Zanned cards could be viewed as one bygone era (ok, two weeks bygone). Especially true when wrapped in a FAQ 2.1 bow. Great to read specifically that the Dreamlands era will be different. Welcome James Hata - though you've probably been here since before all of us. AE gray hairs unite!

Carioz gives a personal account of the history of the game. His critique is thoughtful, from the breadcrumbs and jam, to reminding us of the distinction between "what a card seems to do - versus - what it does after having applied all the relevant rulings to it." Nicely written post. Way to go.

FFGHata said:

So, if I am not getting it wrong this means: Dreamlands will be Zanned, as it is already at a production stage where corrections are possible no more, the changes to quality control are proclaimed to take effect only for the cycle after Dreamlands. Amiright?

From what I can infer, he means Dreamlands is already in the can and at the printers, so it's a bit too late to change anything with it.

Hopefully when designing Dreamlands, they learned from some of the glitches in Summons of the Deep cycle.

Carioz said:

That's what I understand it to mean. Well at least we know where we stand and that FFG is aware of the situation, two plusses. Also I like the implication that there will actually be new stuff after Dreamlands. OK, it's not a definite promise, but the idea that there will be later sets with improved quality control is good news as far as I'm concerned.