It hasn't hindered the other LCGs all that much.

In Netrunner's case, HB were popular when their big box came out, but that actually had very little to do with the big box expansion and more to do with the state of the game and the ice in the first cycle/core set. Jinteki desperately needed their big box in order to finally become a viable faction, instead of something people tended to splash cards from.

Hell, look at NBN, they haven't even had their big box yet and they are still one of the most powerful factions in the game. The cards they got in the cycles (Jackson howard!) kept them alive and very, very tournament ready.

On the runner side, all 3 have had fairly equal representation, but for a while Anarch stopped being tourney viable due to how better the Shaper and Criminal sides were looking.

More cards does not equal 'better in tournaments'. As I said, people rarely use any of HB's big box cards.

People will pick a faction and keep going with them when the game is young and they keep playing more and more games. New strategies will come to light, but I highly expect L5R to be incredibily varied. Sure you will get flavour of the month factions with great new cards, but the next month another faction will get those goodies.

The only exception to the rule I can think of is when Key and the Gate came out. The winning deck that year used cards primarily from that box, the other half of the Yog Sothoth deck came from various other releases. However, that deck only seemed to work once in the tournament scene, a one trick pony if you will.

tl;dr if the first big box is crab, you may see a larger representation of crab players at gencon that year, but mostly it won't affect the game too much or make crab overpowered in any way.

I hope they wont go the call of Cthulhu route with releasing only big expansion centered on one faction (they still contain other faction crads, but the lions share is cards for just one faction) it's been years and I will finally get my Hastur set.

Netrunner would be a good way to do it.

Cthulhu is only that way due to lack of sales. It is the smallest of the LCGs.

And I'm not overly confident in CoC still being around in 2 years, either.

As for how they do the big box, still far, far too early. I suspect how the AGOT 2.0 Deluxes will be a good indication of how they will do Deluxes for the various factions.

There are several names from a year and a half ago that posted here that I see around today still.

I'm excited for the longevity and dedication of many members

I'm pretty excited about what we've seen so far (in contrast to my sometimes poor attempts to put on a happy mask two years ago). I can't wait to share this world with new fans.

I just want some L5R cards in front of me again!

I think there is bound to be some "get off my lawn!" attitude among some old timers of the game. I started playing MTG at Alpha so when I took a break from the game and came back and they had these freaking planeswalkers I darn near had a coronary. Now most of the players never played MTG when there wasn't Planeswalkers.

I've learned not to give the newer players too much of a hard time for not knowing the history of the game...ect. It doesn't do any good , just turns off new players and gives them the idea that you think you are better than they, which doesn't go over well in any environment.

That said, nothing wrong with sharing stories of the golden era (in your opinion, new players may think now is the golden era) just don't talk down to people and be open and friendly.

2 hours ago, SlackerHacker said:

I think there is bound to be some "get off my lawn!" attitude among some old timers of the game. I started playing MTG at Alpha so when I took a break from the game and came back and they had these freaking planeswalkers I darn near had a coronary. Now most of the players never played MTG when there wasn't Planeswalkers.

I've learned not to give the newer players too much of a hard time for not knowing the history of the game...ect. It doesn't do any good , just turns off new players and gives them the idea that you think you are better than they, which doesn't go over well in any environment.

That said, nothing wrong with sharing stories of the golden era (in your opinion, new players may think now is the golden era) just don't talk down to people and be open and friendly.

Yeah, I think that'll be important to remember. While I fully plan to share my stories of "the good old days", I really want people who pick up the game and play with me to not to see it as "my game" versus "their game", but rather "our game". That'll be hard at times on both sides, I'm sure, but I love sharing this world, and want the game to be successful even if it turns out to not be for me.

History is much more fun for all involved when it's "Hey, let me share this awesome thing with you" and not "I can't believe you don't know about this thing you weren't around for."

Just now, Kiseki said:

Yeah, I think that'll be important to remember. While I fully plan to share my stories of "the good old days", I really want people who pick up the game and play with me to not to see it as "my game" versus "their game", but rather "our game". That'll be hard at times on both sides, I'm sure, but I love sharing this world, and want the game to be successful even if it turns out to not be for me.

Exactly. If we want the game to take off and have this big vibrant and awesome community we have push the "shared world" idea in all aspects. That means affecting story lines via playing in tournaments, having clan pride/loyalty and being open to actually "sharing" with new players and understanding they have as much right to it as everyone else. I hope at someone point a new player shows up at my local store to play and we have several members of different clans there, not only greeting them but trying to recruit them to their clan. How much more inviting can you be than people sort of competing for them to join their side?

I really hope that when the organized play starts that it works out that not only is there a competition to see who the best single player is but also which clan takes honors. I just think that my perfect vision is that every match matters due to the clan rankings, even the two 0-4 guys in the last round fighting for one more win for their clan. It would just make tournaments a ton of fun if every match matters be it for you personally or your clan.

Additionally... they're creating new history.

My encyclopedic inventory of the life of Shiba Aikune may have NOTHING to do with where the story of L5R goes under FFG's stewardship.

Old-timers would do well to remember this.

But you better believe that if I get a chance to kill an Emperor, I'm gonna kill an Emperor.

I like the story reset in particular and perhaps we can stay away from old story pit falls like the crown of stupid which seemed to rest on so many emperors heads while also capturing some of the greatest moments for L5R history.

11 hours ago, SlackerHacker said:

I think there is bound to be some "get off my lawn!" attitude among some old timers of the game. I started playing MTG at Alpha so when I took a break from the game and came back and they had these freaking planeswalkers I darn near had a coronary. Now most of the players never played MTG when there wasn't Planeswalkers.

I've learned not to give the newer players too much of a hard time for not knowing the history of the game...ect. It doesn't do any good , just turns off new players and gives them the idea that you think you are better than they, which doesn't go over well in any environment.

That said, nothing wrong with sharing stories of the golden era (in your opinion, new players may think now is the golden era) just don't talk down to people and be open and friendly.

I guess I don't know much about Golden Era, as I wasn't introduced to the game until Diamond Era <rimshot>

Does the "be nice to new players" rule still allow me to go all "cranky, rambling, old man"?

Back in my day, we didn't have any of these mamby-pamby "dynasty packs" for our parents to buy for us. We just had boosters, and we had to buy them ourselves! And of course mom and dad wouldn't drive us all the way to the FLGS just to play some game, so we'd walk fifteen miles, through six feet of snow, uphill to the game store, just to find out it was closed because it was always closed on Tuesdays, but somehow we always forgot and always tried it on a Tuesday anyway. So we'd trudge another fifteen miles back home, through seven feet of snow (a blizzard had been rolling in while we were on our way), still uphill! And then we'd get trapped and have to dig out a shelter to spend the night in, and argue about whose frostbitten feet we were going to eat for sustenance. And then the next day we'd trudge back to the store, only to find out that they didn't have any of the new boosters, but they had plenty of the boosters from two expansions ago. So we'd sigh and just buy those, hoping that the joy of finding a new rare might momentarily take our minds off the pain of having lost a foot, but of course we'd just get a seventeenth copy of the Crane shugenja that no one used, rather than any of the dozens of rares we actually needed for our collections! So we'd limp back home in great pain, having wasted our money with nothing but disappointment and humiliation to show for it.

...and we liked it that way! It built character!

3 hours ago, JJ48 said:

I guess I don't know much about Golden Era, as I wasn't introduced to the game until Diamond Era <rimshot>

Does the "be nice to new players" rule still allow me to go all "cranky, rambling, old man"?

Back in my day, we didn't have any of these mamby-pamby "dynasty packs" for our parents to buy for us. We just had boosters, and we had to buy them ourselves! And of course mom and dad wouldn't drive us all the way to the FLGS just to play some game, so we'd walk fifteen miles, through six feet of snow, uphill to the game store, just to find out it was closed because it was always closed on Tuesdays, but somehow we always forgot and always tried it on a Tuesday anyway. So we'd trudge another fifteen miles back home, through seven feet of snow (a blizzard had been rolling in while we were on our way), still uphill! And then we'd get trapped and have to dig out a shelter to spend the night in, and argue about whose frostbitten feet we were going to eat for sustenance. And then the next day we'd trudge back to the store, only to find out that they didn't have any of the new boosters, but they had plenty of the boosters from two expansions ago. So we'd sigh and just buy those, hoping that the joy of finding a new rare might momentarily take our minds off the pain of having lost a foot, but of course we'd just get a seventeenth copy of the Crane shugenja that no one used, rather than any of the dozens of rares we actually needed for our collections! So we'd limp back home in great pain, having wasted our money with nothing but disappointment and humiliation to show for it.

...and we liked it that way! It built character!

Grumpy old men have their place. I still walk into the store and see MTG using sleeves , playmats and these electronic dry erase looking things (for tracking life) and think "what's this hippie crap?"

Back in my day when we played MTG there were no sleeves or play mats and you used the d20 from your D&D dice to track life. We also played for any with Moxes and Black Lotus because they were only worth 50¢ or if you were lucky someone might buy you a bottle of pop.

32 minutes ago, SlackerHacker said:

Grumpy old men have their place. I still walk into the store and see MTG using sleeves , playmats and these electronic dry erase looking things (for tracking life) and think "what's this hippie crap?"

Back in my day when we played MTG there were no sleeves or play mats and you used the d20 from your D&D dice to track life. We also played for any with Moxes and Black Lotus because they were only worth 50¢ or if you were lucky someone might buy you a bottle of pop.

I have found that if I do find myself complaining too much, turning it into a self-parodying "grumpy old man" routine can help soften the criticism greatly, while also putting me in a less cynical and more fun mindset.

And back in my day, no one sleeved their cards because if you did, it meant you were going home with cold arms! And then when we got home, Dad would start yelling, "What on Earth happened to your new shirt?! Do you have any idea how much that cost?!" and send us to bed without supper. Of course, that was just as well, as we were so poor we could only afford clumps of dirt for food.

As a kinda new player (played 4 games with brother in law back in the day) I hope they ditch 95% of all the history and do their own take on it. It is neat to have a former storyline, but hearing "XYZ will happen next, because it happened 10 years ago and it has to happen this way again or it is wrong" is pretty lame in my books. I have already heard it at the flgs when they released the first wave of information and saw like 3 people kinda lose interest instantly when the "veteran" started rambling about this and that.

1 hour ago, Spawnod said:

As a kinda new player (played 4 games with brother in law back in the day) I hope they ditch 95% of all the history and do their own take on it. It is neat to have a former storyline, but hearing "XYZ will happen next, because it happened 10 years ago and it has to happen this way again or it is wrong" is pretty lame in my books. I have already heard it at the flgs when they realsed the first wave of information and saw like 3 people kinda lose interest instantly when the "veteran" started rambling about this and that.

I want the new storyline to be completely unrecognizable from the old

I hope they skip the Coup and move on. Let Hantei's downfall be due to some external force. Or Never.

I hope they keep it to tips of the hat- like, Tadaka being a hero of the Phoenix Clan, but not necessarily doing all of the same things.

I was introduced to L5R CCG back when the original designer Dave Williams demo the game at Diamond Bar, California, when the game was first released, and my first starter was the Lion clan (with Matsu Gohei) and although I played the game for several years afterward, I eventually quit but still love the lore and storyline of Rokugan. I'm a LCG player of several FFG games, such as AGOT2, Star Wars, and Conquest (RIP), and I'm now eagerly anticipating this game's premiere after many years. I will still continue to support my Lion clan, but I'm also looking forward to constructing and playing Scorpion and Phoenix clans. The recent articles on the game mechanics of L5R LCG gives me hope that FFG will deliver another stellar LCG for us card gaming enthusiasts.

9 hours ago, SlackerHacker said:

Grumpy old men have their place. I still walk into the store and see MTG using sleeves , playmats and these electronic dry erase looking things (for tracking life) and think "what's this hippie crap?"

Back in my day when we played MTG there were no sleeves or play mats and you used the d20 from your D&D dice to track life. We also played for any with Moxes and Black Lotus because they were only worth 50¢ or if you were lucky someone might buy you a bottle of pop.

I used sleeves very early on. Playing in our school's lunchroom made it kinda neccecary. Personally I don't get why you would need sleeves AND a playmat tough. Moxes were just before my time. ('94, Revised)

4 hours ago, BayushiCroy said:

I want the new storyline to be completely unrecognizable from the old

That would be kinda interesting. Might even lead to some new origins for the Mantis/Spider/minor clans.

Maybe in this continuity the Spider could be an exiled clan. Dishonored themselves so bad that they had but two options: Mass sepukku or redeem themselves by conqureing the Shadowlands (and dying in the process). They chose the latter. The entire clan passed beyond the kaiju wall and for many years no trace of them was found. Now they have returned... But are they friend or foe?

12 hours ago, JJ48 said:

We just had boosters, and we had to buy them ourselves!

"Destiny packs", surely.