In terms of more area to explore, there is one huge part of the story totally untouched, except for a few fan made scenarios. That is the part after Gandalf leaves Bilbo and the Dwarves, assembles with the White Council, and assaults Dol Guldur, driving Sauron out. They have to explore that entire episode, if not for the fact that they can have a good version of Saruman.

I personally would not be buying a reboot if it happened (Sorry FFG if you are reading)

Having just bought the entire back catalogue of this game in two months, thats a huge investment and a LOT of gaming for me to go at, so I wouldnt want to be starting over. If a reboot happens, I will treat my collection as a complete set and play it for a long time to come.

I would much rather have new cards and scenarios etc to build on the awesome product.

I think scenarios can be thought up forever as its all with creativity and even within the 17 year gap, a lot happens in 17 years.

If they decide that they have run out of heroes, then a solution would be to have future packs just encounter decks, yet for new players who dont have all the older packs there could be a "Heros Collection" pack that reprints a few of the older heroes. Obviously people wanting all the player cards of older decks would still have the older packs to buy, which could even go POD if needed.

FFG said a big reason to reboot GoT was because it was older and they learnt a lot and some mistakes simply couldnt be easilly errata'd and I dont think thats the case with LOTR, so dont see a reason to reboot.

There have been great posts above about some cards being made to suit the expansion cycle and such, which are really good valid points.

Lets keep this game running, no reboot and lets just make this game a massive collection with an unrivalled variety of adventures to go on within the game. Heck, if it happens that we get power creep, then they could even introduce pod's above NM mode, lets call it "Ultimate Deck" or "Mordor Mode" or something.

The machanics and setout of this game should mean it can continue as long as the licence/ffg/players want to. I certainly want to.

Thank yuo FFG for a truly excellent game.

I don't understand how some people live. I can't determinate if i am a player of lotr, or not. It can't never go into my mind: 'i play lotr', or in other day to say: 'since now i am not player lotr'.

Simply, i play lotr when i have time, and i don't play it when i don't have enough free time. If there is a long period of time without time, so i don't play it; if i don't have enough wishes to play it, i don't then. But i never will determinate: 'i will play forever' or 'i won't play it more never'

Well i could unterstand this game has a point of adiction. In that case, you can try to determinate not to play it.

@ PsychoRocka

Hey, well I'm still lurking here, and checking the forum once a day. Old habits are hard to kick. Even ordered Treason, so yes it's hard for me to completely give up on the game, even if my enthusiasm is lacking.

No offense taken from your post, I certainly understand that not all card will be tailored to a solo one hand player, and I'm fine with that, but I'll try to elaborate a bit more on why the solo game has waned for me.

1. There are a ton of player cards that are not being used. When making a 50 card deck, staple cards still remain the best option, and other lesser cards that try to replace them are tried, but then shelved. So, the same cards continue to find themselves in decks. I'm probably using less than 5% of the player card pool.

2. I feel somewhat forced to play with certain heroes together, and feel pretty limited in the hero combinations that the game allows. There are some pretty obvious choices, and other combinations are obviously poorer. I really started to dislike how threat on heroes works in relationship to stats. Many heroes just can't be used together well. Picking heroes often became more about this type of number crunching assessment than the actual theme of the card. But on the flip side.

3. Theme based around trait also starts to pigeon-hole many cards. Many cards are built for the trait or race of the card. The first group we really saw get the full treatment of this was Dwarves with the more than 5 in play trigger. I actually never was a fan of this dwarf strategy. It was boring. We saw outlands get the next version of this, also boring. Now each trait is getting a similar obvious mechanic to work with, boring? I find it all leads to a limited strategy for a trait with many cards designed to work within the context of that strategy. It may be cool for multiplayer, but I find it boring in solo play.

4. As a follow up to trait. I'm super dissatisfied with Dunedain trait mechanics for solo play. Probably because they are my favorite archetype being rangers and all. I've mentioned this in the past, but thematically the rangers/dunedain just don't fit my picture of them. With just about every one of them at 10+ threat, attracting enemies to them really does not fit my image of how they would operate. For solo strategy it is not so good, and really needs another deck. So, my favorite archetype is somewhat unplayable for me. Big diasapointment.

5. I also strongly disliked time mechanic. Now it was built into lost realm quests with side quests, so was not happy about that. Not really to happy about side quest in general. Basically, all this extra stuff in the quests, is making it more work and less fun.

6. I realize the designers have to come up with new scenario mechanics, and i certainly respect the skill at how they do this. But, for me basically the game started to come down to how they would find way to destroy any advantage I have. I've built up my allies, and a treachery destroys all of them, or discard an ally after every round. Your character losses all attachments, questing characters are removed from the quest, or they are all dealt damage etc. So, the same basic stuff come up every scenario in different ways. Try avoid location lock, make sure i quest enough etc. It just started to feel the same. The story did not matter, just finding ways to get around these loop holes was the objective of playing.

I could go on with more minutia, and I'm not looking to convince anyone of my view point, and many of you most certainly will not agree with my points at all. That's fine, and I'm happy you still enjoy the game and see a bright future. This is all from my personal perspective of course, and may have little relevance to what the actual state of the game is for the whole.

He's alive!

I'm starting to agree with you about the trait development and deck building. I remember back in the day I really wanted lots of trait synergy so I could make an Elf deck, Hobbit deck, or whatever. But now that we have it, the deckbuilding can feel really limited. No doubt it feels more thematic, but there is much less room for creativity. I was fire up about the Silvan decks, but I'm already kind of tired of them. There is some room to pick your heroes, but you need Celeborn and you need lore. Then by the time you add all the Lore and Leadership Silvan cards that deck is pretty much built. The only tough decisions are whether or not you want to allow yourself to use Steward of Gondor and Quickbeam.

Not all traits pigeon-hole as badly as Silvan, Dwarves, and Outlands though. I think Hobbits are my favorite because they open up so many different deck ideas with secrecy and don't have too many Hobbit-specific cards. I also think Dunedain could become pretty interesting for multiplayer games.

I might be the only person on these forums that liked the time mechanic. It was maybe a little overused on some quests, but it adds so much more pace to the game.

I understand your points.. And you right 100% but the same things can say about any other game. You just boring now about lotr lcg. Is happen time of to time. Its ok dont worry. There is many other games so try it! Good luck man! You are cool player and you will be always in my heart (joking)

I completely see where Tracker is coming from. To add a bit more:

1. The game has four spheres and seven plus tribes. The framework of the game has fundamentally "gimped" one of the spheres and boosted another. I've complained about Spirit's silver spoon before and I know it won't change because it is built into the game. Plus, they were given too much of the color pie at the start. The way a character's threat is calculated is one of the reasons that tactics is pushed down. The lack of tactics Heroes with willpower is another.

2. In trying to grow the game wide and give each race an identity the designers are somewhat telling us how to play. That won't bother some people so much, but I can see how it could frustrate an innovator like Tracker. Continuing that, the power cards from the first two cycles are still in the game and unless you are deliberately handicapping yourself you are going to be playing those cards, and playing them all the time. It can get boring.

3. The Dunedain were the race I wanted to play most of all too, but at this time they aren't really solo playable. Which brings us back to:

4. Playing two handed DOES open up the game, and I'm doing it more and more, but it is a LOT more work, takes longer, and leads to more mistakes. I really hate winning a game and then realizing I made a mistake early on that might have changed everything. And remember the game is sold as being solo playable, which it is of course, but that experience hasn't grown much since Gondor.

For me it's still the best Tolkien experience around and that's why I still play it, but it does have some built in flaws that can't be cured without a reboot or piles of errata. Nobody wants the latter, but I wouldn't mind seeing the former in a year or two.

I understand your points.. And you right 100% but the same things can say about any other game. You just boring now about lotr lcg. Is happen time of to time. Its ok dont worry. There is many other games so try it! Good luck man! You are cool player and you will be always in my heart (joking)

Ha!

One of the things I've enjoyed most about this game is the community. Even though I've never meet any of you, at least we have something to talk about, even if we all don't agree. So, it's been very cool to get know these various personalities through the forums. It makes it much harder to walk away from the game.

Like I said Treason of Saruman is on the way, so I have not lost all hope. It might just be a lull for me, although i must say when I saw Erestor hero the old gears started to move again. Old habits are hard to kick.

Tracker or Bullroarer Took, if you're ever interested in some multiplayer I'd be happy to play OCTGN with you guys. I almost never play solo anymore because multiplayer is so much better. It's still a great solo game, but multiplayer opens up a whole new dimension. It also lets you make crazier decks because you don't need to be as balanced with questing, attacking, and defending.

@Bullroarer

Yeah, i saw you were starting to dabble more with 2-handed play, and I knew it was confirming some of my feelings for how things were going for the one hand player.

I think you are correct about the power cards in the first 2 cycles, which in my mind was the golden age of the game through TBR and HoN. Many new cards try to offer other solutions to provide basically the same effect, but for the most part they fall short of providing an alternative to the power card, unless you want to deliberately handicap yourself, or deck build with a particular theme in mind, which there's nothing wrong in doing that, but it's a conscious choice in avoiding said power card.

Also, in terms of trait mechanics and "being told how to play". There may also be some truth to that for me as well. There is still some versatility within a traits mechanic, but if it's so obvious it takes the fun out of making subtle discoveries in deck building, which is the part I very much enjoyed.

Anyway, maybe I'll shut up and try and make a new deck to see if any of my observations continue to hold true for me.

Tracker or Bullroarer Took, if you're ever interested in some multiplayer I'd be happy to play OCTGN with you guys. I almost never play solo anymore because multiplayer is so much better. It's still a great solo game, but multiplayer opens up a whole new dimension. It also lets you make crazier decks because you don't need to be as balanced with questing, attacking, and defending.

At the moment I have an old mac. It's a hand me down from my daughter. I prefer PC, but I'm not allowed to install software on my work windows laptop. So for the moment I can't use OCTGN. I'm going to resolve this by the end of the summer though as I think I'll be diving into aGoT2 for the VS experience.

Nice daughter!

Teamjimby, what timezone are you in? I play on OCTGN sometime and the more players the merrier.

Teamjimby, what timezone are you in? I play on OCTGN sometime and the more players the merrier.

I'm in Seattle, so pacific time. I'll send you a message so we can chat about it without derailing the thread too much.

At the moment I have an old mac. It's a hand me down from my daughter.

If you got it from your daughter surely it's a hand-me-up rather than a hand-me-down?

At the moment I have an old mac. It's a hand me down from my daughter.

If you got it from your daughter surely it's a hand-me-up rather than a hand-me-down?

I gotta respond to Tracker1. My numbers do not necessarily correspond to his.

1. I personally do not understand the idea that the game can "force" you to play cards. No, I want to play the best cards. If a deck is 50 cards, then that is a tiny fraction of the card pool. How exactly is this a flaw of the game? I will hear from people that the Gandalf hero is bad because now you can't play ally. Then people complain that the game "forces" you to play ally Gandalf because he is so good. Huh? Tracker said that new cards come along and people try them, but then give them up after a while. Well, the only solution to that is power creep and then people complain that old cards are no good anymore. If you can build a larger quantity of viable decks then people complain that quests are too easy. The game simply is what it is. It doesn't force you to do anything.

2. I also dislike the time mechanic. Actually, I hate it. I still play the quests, don't get me wrong, but the busy work is so annoying, and I hate beating a quest and then having my triumph spoiled by realizing I forgot to remove time counters for last 3 rounds. Aaaarg. It gets almost farcical when the time consequence is "after last time counter is removed, remove 1 time counter from each location". Really? The reason they introduced the time mechanic is related to the spirit imbalance because they made threat reduction too easy and too powerful so they are trying to find a workable fix. I applaud the effort, but time counters are lame.

3. I love playing solo, but I can recognize that long term financial success of the game requires more of a coop focus. In the early days it was brutal trying to get friends to play because the game took too long, it was too hard, blue was too dominant, and many card effects didn't favor team format. The dwarf "5 dwarf" threshold mechanic, for instance, rewarded individuals who had a dwarf deck, but teams were encouraged to cram all the dwarfs into just one deck. Outland is so lame in multiplayer. Casual players hate it when their decks suck and your turns take like an hour because you are drawing and playing half your deck. The new Silva tribes are way better. Celeborn rewards an entire team instead of one player. It comes across as self contradiction when you complain that the good old days are passing away and then say the game is getting stale. It's either one or the other. Personally I am happy about the multiplayer shift because I now feel actual motivation to seek out other players.

4. At first, I hated the side quest mechanic, like time, but the more I play with it the more I think it improves a lot of aspects of the game. Actually, I now kinda wish the side quest concept was in the game from the beginning. It just opens up a ton of design space for creating truly innovative questing and story telling options, especially the player side quests. The mechanic still needs to be executed well, but I am optimistic.

5. The game has shifted so that it has a more literary and role playing feel, with long elaborate narration replacing distinct quest events as the most memorable aspect of the newer quests. The early days were filled with quests like carrock and Rhosgabel that created unforgettable game situations. In contrast, Lost Realm doesn't really do that, but I look forward to experiencing the plot and characters. HON and the following cycle, especially Morgul Vale, found a good balance between the mechanics and story. I loved the story. This last cycle wasn't as good, except for trouble in Tharbad, which was unique and memorable (maybe 3 trials too). So, I can understand how Tracker feels like the game is just doing the same things over and over. How many bOSS battles do we need? How many captured friends do we need to rescue? I can understand this part, but I think Caleb and the other designers do too, which I'd why they continue to innovate. Overall, I enjoy the new storytelling style and I am optimistic that play mechanics will continue to evolve and improve.

I have played this game since day one and I find myself feeling the opposite of Tracker1. This game is better than ever and I feel more motivated than ever to experiment and create new decks. For instance, I just built my first really good mono purple deck with Gloin, Erkenbrand, and Sam and crushed a bunch of quests with it. Pretty fun

Points well taken Duke. Happy to hear your enjoying the game.

I just tried to make a Dunedain solo deck. And played the 1st lost realm quest.

I tried a few hero variations and deck builds.

Sam, Aragorn (le), Halabrad

Sam, Aragorn (ta), Halabrad

Idrean, Aragorn (le), Halabrad

Idrean, Aragorn (ta), Halabrad

And lost every time not even close, probably played 8 games. The new player cards and heroes that came with lost realm did not help me a bit. For solo it seems like the Dunedain have not been such good protectors of the region. To me it's sad that the trait that's supposed to be hilighted in the box can't even form a viable strategy to deal with the quest. In the end it just makes me turn back to the old strategies and power cards that work. However i like the challenge of making a Dunedain deck that works, maybe I'll squeak out a few wins, but from what I've experienced so far Dunedain mechanic is pretty weak fro solo play. For instance, i was able to beat 1st scenario with mono tactics deck regularly.

Yes game is solo prespective is more boring now. But same time coop is much better then befote. Really cool combinations of players deck and encounter deck is much more interesting playstyle in coop games. Big aspect of this game is coop!!! I love all modes like solo, 2 players, 3 players! All very different and require different strategy and deck building.

What I dont like?

I dont like I must to wait for Nightmare cards to long . and I must to buy it again(pay twice) .

I dont play standard. So boring.

So is sound stupid now a bit. I buy Deluxe box and use straights away only player cards. Quest and encounter cards waiting for Nightmare. So why we cannot get nightmare straight away??? I dont like a idea pay 2 times and wait a awhile…

To be honest if no nightmare I also stop to play this game… is only nightmare mode keep me here….

The Road Darkens Nightmare can't come out soon enough!

The Road Darkens Nightmare can't come out soon enough!

True… I still keep Road darkens on the shelf… never play it… wait for Nightmare

I understand your points.. And you right 100% but the same things can say about any other game. You just boring now about lotr lcg. Is happen time of to time. Its ok dont worry. There is many other games so try it! Good luck man! You are cool player and you will be always in my heart (joking)

Ha!

One of the things I've enjoyed most about this game is the community. Even though I've never meet any of you, at least we have something to talk about, even if we all don't agree. So, it's been very cool to get know these various personalities through the forums. It makes it much harder to walk away from the game.

Like I said Treason of Saruman is on the way, so I have not lost all hope. It might just be a lull for me, although i must say when I saw Erestor hero the old gears started to move again. Old habits are hard to kick.

Yes Erestor is cool! Maybe you ahould try play more coop . believe me is open really cool new opportunities.. Deck building is so cool with more players.

Yes, building for multiplayer can be really fun. You really need to play many roles when playing solo. Multiplayer decks allow you to explore a bit more. Imagine building a deck, but knowing that you don't need any healing or willpower, and just need to focus on killing things...that and that alone. It is really fun to just be able to focus in on a particular aspect of the game and do it the best that you can, and let the other players play the other roles.

I understand your points.. And you right 100% but the same things can say about any other game. You just boring now about lotr lcg. Is happen time of to time. Its ok dont worry. There is many other games so try it! Good luck man! You are cool player and you will be always in my heart (joking)

Ha!

One of the things I've enjoyed most about this game is the community. Even though I've never meet any of you, at least we have something to talk about, even if we all don't agree. So, it's been very cool to get know these various personalities through the forums. It makes it much harder to walk away from the game.

Like I said Treason of Saruman is on the way, so I have not lost all hope. It might just be a lull for me, although i must say when I saw Erestor hero the old gears started to move again. Old habits are hard to kick.

Yes Erestor is cool! Maybe you ahould try play more coop . believe me is open really cool new opportunities.. Deck building is so cool with more players.

I actually faintly remember you saying you might try two handed tracker. I highly recommend at least giving it a go dude!

Points well taken Duke. Happy to hear your enjoying the game.

I just tried to make a Dunedain solo deck. And played the 1st lost realm quest.

I tried a few hero variations and deck builds.

Sam, Aragorn (le), Halabrad

Sam, Aragorn (ta), Halabrad

Idrean, Aragorn (le), Halabrad

Idrean, Aragorn (ta), Halabrad

And lost every time not even close, probably played 8 games. The new player cards and heroes that came with lost realm did not help me a bit. For solo it seems like the Dunedain have not been such good protectors of the region. To me it's sad that the trait that's supposed to be hilighted in the box can't even form a viable strategy to deal with the quest. In the end it just makes me turn back to the old strategies and power cards that work. However i like the challenge of making a Dunedain deck that works, maybe I'll squeak out a few wins, but from what I've experienced so far Dunedain mechanic is pretty weak fro solo play. For instance, i was able to beat 1st scenario with mono tactics deck regularly.

I've tried a Dunedain deck with Halbarad, Tactagorn and Beravor and it worked fine in solo. Getting Lore in there for Forest Snare really helps a solo Dunedain deck for the necesarry 'engaged with an enemy' shenanigans. With Forest Snare, Halbarad will always quest, you will always be lowering the cost of the next Dunedain ally with 1 and the Sarn Ford Sentry will always draw you 1 card. Add up to that any extra enemies..

I've tried a Dunedain deck with Halbarad, Tactagorn and Beravor and it worked fine in solo. Getting Lore in there for Forest Snare really helps a solo Dunedain deck for the necesarry 'engaged with an enemy' shenanigans. With Forest Snare, Halbarad will always quest, you will always be lowering the cost of the next Dunedain ally with 1 and the Sarn Ford Sentry will always draw you 1 card. Add up to that any extra enemies..

That sounds right up my alley....did you use any other traps and rangers? If you have any interest in posting the deck I'd really like to check it out. If not, no worries. thanks!