Hello everyone, welcome to the August 2009 SOTG. It is one of the most important ones I have ever written, if not he most important. So please read it carefully take five minutes then read it again before you start posting.

OK lets get started. By now it looks like everyone has heard the news talked to people there or seen the video, etc. Now let me go into more detail and answer lingering questions I see on the boards.

Before I get into the big announcement I want to congratulate house UFS for winning team worlds and capping an amazing year with team member Paul Bittner breaking his finals curse and walking away the new world Champion, also big props go to Ryan Riley for taking the Legacy championship crown this year, well done guys.

First of all this was not a decision made on a whim or taken lightly as some people suggest. I have said for while now that the meta was a in a bad place and drastic measures needed to be taken to fix it. That is why james and I banned and errata so many cards the past couple of months, hoping that would make the environment healthy enough to get by until the next rotation. Rotating was a nuclear option only considered when everything else failed to work. Just think about it for a minute, making hasty decisions is not in our best interests, we have too much at stake.

Now before I go any further I want to point out that if your play group really liked block 3 you can still run all of your events that way every month ( I will explain how OP is changing to make that work below) the only tournaments that we saying need to be block 4 are the store championships, which I had already announced months ago so nothing has changed there. Let me say this one more time. If you want to keep running block 3 events (or any other format you want, legacy, 4 point only, etc.) in your store you can, all you need to do is make it clear beforehand so players are not surprised when they show up to play.

So as I was saying early rotation was only done after every other effort, including creating a mini block format to help stores and new players get into the game easily did not work. I understand why some people are upset and I’m truly sorry for that, if there was some way to make everyone happy of course I would do it but sales, tournament attendance, number of stores carrying the game, etc. showed why this had to be done for the overall health of the game. I’m making sure that you have a good, strong, healthy game to play 1, 2, 5, years from now. Already I’ve had stores, and even a distributor contact me to say they are seeing a renewed interest in the game. More excitement than I’ve seen in well over a year.

Now back to OP. We are making it easier to run whatever type of event, league, format you want. This is how it will work. Your scout or store signs up for tournament support and we will send out a support packet that you run run whatever type of event you want as long as you announce it before so that everyone knows what to expect when they show up to play. Your group only wants to play legacy go ahead, you want to run 4 star only events, alright, you want to stay with block 3, great here is your support, and of course you can run the new standard block 4 events, which many people have told me that is all they are running after Gen Con. I will announce full details in a few days but you can see it is a much easier, more comprehensive system.

I also want to say a few words about legacy. You can see from the above legacy will have more in store support than it has ever had and yes we will run championship events for it at US Nats and Worlds with trophies and other prizes.

Now just to make sure everyone is on the same page I am going to go over the announcement I made at Gen Con again. AS of September 1st, 2009 block 3 (4 point shuriken) will rotate out and the new block 4 format will become the new standard format. On top of that rotation is being reset to happen right after Gen Con every year going forward and with the reset of rotation 5 point shuriken cards will not rotate until after Gen Con 2011, just like the first few sets lasted when the game first came out.

One of the questions has been if I’m concerned about not having enough characters in the new format. No, for a couple of different reasons. First the block 4 characters are on a much more even playing field than has been the case for most the games existence, meaning that they are all much more playable. We have had times in this game where we had literally hundreds of characters to choose from but only a hand full that ever saw play because the others were just not good enough.

Also we just printed 13 new promo characters with the latest round of promos, only one of which (Astrid, who will most likely only be used to stack with the current one) is brand new. this gives us a total of 21 characters for the format Sept 1st (8 each from the base sets, 5 more from Tekken) The 12 new promo characters mentioned above that we will release as a priority, and 5 more SC4 characters coming in October which brings the total to 33 very quickly.

Other have asked about concern about the size of the block 4 card pool. Again we do not believe this is an issue as the 2 base sets are close to almost 300 cards plus promos, Tekken brings another 99 plus promos, add to that another 99 from the upcoming SoulCalibur 4 set, and the fact that future sets will get a bit bigger, which also means more characters. We strongly believe the game will recapture the same great feeling it had in the beginning and might even be more fun than even then.

Finally, people have asked why this announcement was done at Gen Con, well it is the biggest single gathering of players I had access to and it is a complicated issue that I believe was better to talk about face to face with as many players as possible.

That’s all for now, if you have questions post them to this thread and I will get to as many as possible in a couple of weeks during Septembers STOG.

Until then.

See you in the arena,

Steve

First.

Edit:

I am sad that I missed the ending of Wandering Master due to Hata telling me the wrong time... when we were all out at dinner... dangit!

Oh wells, I had 31 to Jeremey Ray's 26.... in my mind I am the WANDERING MASTER!

also, no more doubts for people about what happened at gencon now...

Sounds good to me. Glad to hear we're getting more promo characters. Any chance of a block 4 Talim soon?

great news overall Steve we have been getting new players and this will help things a lot. One thing I do want to know is since Soul Calibur is coming out in October does that mean all future releases will be every 2 months as well?

I think you can probably hear me cheering in the video that went around... Needless to say, the steps that FFG, yourself and James in particular, are taking to better the game of UFS do not go unnoticed.

Thank you for another wonderful Gencon, the bannings post US Nats did wonders to make the meta less stale, and worst case scenario - when it threatened to stale out on me (not saying Paul's deck was stale, rather - it was a work of art) I'd simply side into my Collecting Data and Begin Anew... i.e. as efficient as decks with good checks and few attacks can be, even they have glaring weaknesses in some circumstances.

Looking forward to the new block, love all of the sets so far, and that just makes me bleed anticipation for the next Street Figher set ^^ (everyone has to have a favorite).

- dut (Garett)

I only said "seemed", not "did".

What...no bannings? =P
(sorry, couldn't help it)

AAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDD Done.

Selling my cards, and now am 100% out of this game.

Itachi Uchiha said:

I don't see any need for that because if your store wants to keep things the same there is no penality whatsoever.

Itachi Uchiha said:

Don't let the door hit ya, man.

When will we have another Street Fighter set?

It's the property that brought me to the game and I don't really have the interest in UFS to keep throwing money at it past a playset of my character's support until Street Fighter makes a return. 'Letting' scouts run legacy and B3 events in the OP is like putting a band-aid on a compound fracture. The game is based around a strongly competitive atmosphere and competing on a playgroup level or in casual games isn't enough to satisfy most of the people who are big fans of UFS. I want versions of the characters I like that are legal in ANY tournament, and not just sandbox games.

DrUnK3n_PaNdA said:

I'm thinkin' probably sometimes next year, perhaps, though it's just a guess.

Perhaps if you Emailed and asked, I'm sure you'd get an answer...as long as you're not as rude as you have been in previous posts.

DrUnK3n_PaNdA said:

Thing is if another venue is playing miniblock you can't play just any character. How hard is it to look up the venue posting on the OP site and see what the nights/days game is. Or you can call ahead and find out what play groups are doing what. Because you are just as stuck if the play groups around you choose to do miniblock.

DrUnK3n_PaNdA said:

I'm a huge fan of UFS but I don't like the strongly competitive atomsphere because I have to build decks a certain way to even be at their level. I like to have fun with this game, no matter the format. =/

Fun decks can compete =/

Rumor I've heard is SF comes out like in January...again just a rumor I've heard.

I don't care when they bring in another street fighter set. I just want a Gouken. Or so help me I'm gonna cut someone..... Just sayin'.

Darklogos... you keep saying there's no penalty for stores playing non-miniblock. Do you not understand that there are? The card recognition and deck-learning experience in non-B4 tournaments is completely non-applicable to other tournaments. Moreover the city tournaments and regionals will not be played with the same rule-set. You won't gain any experience with decks you can use elsewhere, or learn anything about the state of the game and the present meta not playing B4. Playing UFS-that-was is handicapping every player who takes part in those tournaments.

In response to KawaiiMistress... I empathize with you completely. But that's not a byproduct of the competitive atmosphere. It's a byproduct of game imbalance. I was extremely frustrated the entire time that the character I wanted to play was not designed to play the way I wanted to play her. It was very frustrating. But I think that non-forgiving card effects and game elements make the game far more interesting as it becomes a mental chess-game regardless of who is playing. One of the things I've always admired about UFS is the ability to make budget decks that can out-perform extremely expensive decks. In the closing days of B2, I ran a deck that cost at most $40 that would thrash $300 decks, and didn't start losing until people in my playgroup started packing cards that were answers just for it.

For the record I don't think that B4 has any problems from a gameplay perspective. I really don't. The card pool is a little too thin for my taste, but that's it. The only reason that I'm so outraged is because I only bought into the game because there was an option to play my favorite characters... most of whom (and my favorite that I bought the game to play) are from Street Fighter, with some from Samurai Shodown and Darkstalkers as well and now none are legal in any games beyond a sandbox level. I don't think I've been so much rude as attempting to express my utter outrage with the decision to leave behind everything that made UFS worth playing for me.

i still think warriors dream and flames of fame should be block 4 just cause those are the remaining strret fighter and snk sets. plus the cards in that set give more options for other symbols order and all and water. honestly would make alot of sense.

I am terribly sad to see all of Darkstalkers go and..who knows when the next set for them will be. I should be justified for this..I freaking dressed up as Morrigan! While Realm of Midnight was my favorite set out of all of UFS..for the art, the characters and the cards..it did break the game slightly. Ira Spinta..anyone?

I don't plan on competiting at huge events again..maybe who knows. I'd like to think of Worlds 2009 as my first and my last time going to a big event. I did well..(in my eyes) and I had fun. I teased the crap out of Paul Bittner for not killing me correctly..haha. At our store, we make a new deck almost once a week just to play random gimmicky characters. We had a Demetri burn deck not too long ago and St. Nicholas trying to pull off his present giving.

To all the players who think their Blood Runs True is useless now...please send them over here. I don't own a single copy...

**As a side note..did anyone else notice the title should be August SOTG instead of STOG?

DrUnK3n_PaNdA said:

So...in a nutshell, you're mad about you're inability to gain experience in a new format because you don't wanna play it?

DrUnK3n_PaNdA said:

Building a wall of gray and winning is not a mental chess game. It's mental sodomy.

DrUnK3n_PaNdA said:

No, you've been rude. And you're 'expressing outrage' is more or less whiny bitching about how you lose your favorite characters. Here's a news flash; you're not the only one. Many who agree with the move also lose the characters that they love, like my Terry or Rock Howard. Bottom line? get in or get out. It's really that simple.

DrUnK3n_PaNdA said:

When Steve/James can announce a new license or a license renewal you'll find out. Until then everything is just speculation.

Beautiful post. I love how you are fixing the character problem and I love how you plan to make everyone playable. I have been around since the dawn of the game and I havent been this excited for a while. After reading this post I feel like I want to go tinker with a few decks and have a good ol throwdown.

Get online Dave...

DrUnK3n_PaNdA said:

My questions to you then are the following. Are you getting new players? Are you willing to spend time and teach new players? I've done the Scout's role in other games and I can tell that is how new players balance both worlds. Unrestricted in Heroclix is like legacy but worse. They only banned 2 pieces in heroclix. I almost lost half a play group because of 1 format. But you know what I did it taught players how to prepare for restricted and unrestricted formats. I spent my time after tournaments teaching everything I know into new players. That is the key the lack of selfishness of scouts and local players. Is there a difference between b3 and b4 yes. Its up to you to teach and give learning experinces. If you don't want to then deal with the consequences. Who said this was going to be easy. If you don't have new people coming in then nothing really changes. Do your thing and it makes your point moot. If you have new people coming in its sad that you don't want develop an envoirment for them to have a chance in and get more players into the game at a low cost to them. Making new players play b3 is just wrong because your just telling them that they never will have a chance and that this is purely a money game. Thing is people talk about cheap decks beating big decks but only big decks show up to big tournaments. Only big decks win tournaments. I doubt UFS House was packing a deck that was worth less then 150 dollars. I really really doubt they were packing 40 dollar decks. Defiently not in a b3 format.

Card recognition is an issue of one putting in time and work. If you don't know how a card plays then playtest like the rest of us. Get new players in on your play testing. If folks don't recognize the characters get them to play the games because of the mechanics. If they don't like the mechanics a street fighter,kof, or darkstalker candy shell won't fix it.

If you want to be a city champ then man up and get training for b4. The playing field is level. No one has edges. You don't like the character card issue that is very clear. Feel free to walk away from those tournaments. If you feel that your are entitled as a customer that those city and store championships should be played in b3 then do what you will to make that happen.

Panda you pretty much made it clear that you don't want to be in the game any more. Why don't you take a break and come back in a year. Instead of complaining about an issue that is not going to change walk with your money. If you want to come back later that's fine. At this stage you have 2 choices. Stay, deal with some crap you don't like and grow your playgroup. Or walk away and hope your playgroup is there when you get back. Either way I hope the best for you.