Hey if you're leaving UFS, let me know. I'll be more than happy to take cards off of you.

Homme Chapeau said:

What was not clear and concise about the three points i brought up?

Also no one has been able to explain why those three points have happened.

Antigoth and others explained his conversations with James but I can't take it seriously since i only have what he is saying with no way to verify that it is true.

Most people that have posted have posted hate in one way or another and completely avoided the three points brought up.

rulemonkey said:

If you're going to disregard answers that are provided, and are simply doing this to troll, could you please say as much ahead of time so I don't waste my time responding to your posts.

I am a rules arbiter, the closest thing to FFG that regularly posts on the boards. If you need verification of that, please look at the Q&A section where it indicates that my answers are official.

The only way you'll get "more offiical" answers then mine are to go directly to FFG. Which aparently you refuse to do.

DoubleD said:

Shane could you please be specific in how you think the game is being mishandled? I understand your complaint about crappy prize support, but what else? Or have I just missed it

The lack of communication that staff has with their players is alarming. We haven't heard from Steve or James since worlds. They haven't posted on these boards or anything. James has like... 3 posts on these forums and two of them are in the UK forum. Steve hasn't done a SOTG in what is it... 3 months? However, it is the UFS off-season and James is working on other FFG games. It's understandable, but it leaves the boards standing weak. When a company loses communication with it's players, players get disoriented. That's the way it is with anybody tho.

Another thing is that the State of the Game, whenever it's posted, is usually more false than true. They constantly delay sets and push them back like... 2 months. There are two sides to look at. Either they delay it for more playtesting time or they delay it because they lack the committed time for the set. Also, breaking sets into 1 set per release instead of 2 like it has always been has been questionable for some time. People like it because it gives them more time to focus and catch up on a single set. It also delays rotation. But when you think outside the box, it could and probably went like, "Well, we're gonna put less focus into this game to focus on other things, and in the meantime, only release on set at a time."

You ready for the truth? Tekken was going to be released in July, and this time, it WAS coming out in July. No delays this time, baby. However, at Nationals 09, a couple people (who will remain anonymous) brought up Tekken being released 4 weeks before Worlds and being legal. They claimed was a good idea because the Tekken set would be good for the meta. However, when it was brought to attention that playtesters would have a distinct advantage over everybody else, Tekken got delayed until after worlds. The SOTG claimed to have heard a delay from the printers, which was believable, but not the truth. Well I dunno, I guess it could be a really wacky coincidence, but I will not buy that for a second.

Penny Arcade was supposed to make a comeback in UFS. Word leaked and got around that Penny Arcade was going to be reprinted, and we could use our old PA stuff again. Also, they were going to water down some of the broken effects to make it a balanced set. A lot of players jumped on this, saying "Yay alright! This is a really good thing!" but got totally crushed when they heard that Penny Arcade was going to be it's own separate game, having no affiliation with UFS.

Eliminating foils is REALLY questionable. Personally, I don't care. I hate foils. They claim to cut back on foils because of production costs. Easy to believe, but how is it that other games can put 15 or 19 cards in their packs and still have foils while this game can only put 10 cards in a pack without foils? And I'm not so sure that money to print/cut/package is a big deal. Retail price is still $4 whether the pack has 8 cards, 10 cards, 15 cards, or 19 cards per pack. Back on track, eliminating foils limits what you can do. Your game won't look as flashy and most importantly, you limit prize support. Many people will join a league just to get foils of their played un/commons to pimp their decks.

Look at the Kingdom Hearts TCG boards. They share one thing in common with the UFS boards: They both have doomsday threads. So why is it that both CCGs from the same company have doomsday threads?

When you look at FFG, they are primarily a board game company, right? So in reality, they make all their money off of board games, and it's true because people say that FFGs board games are totally boss. When a board game company decides to branch out to CCGs, those CCGs really just become extra green in their pocket.

And I actually typed this up first, and didn't want to it.

Prize Support

I first attended Nationals 2007 with my boys Chubbs and Sontag. At that event, STG pretty much paid for everybody and ALL of the events were $0, even the National Championship. For the National Championship, all of us didn't place in top because we were mad scrubs back then. Just for participating, we got 3 booster packs of Extreme Rivals, 3 booster packs of Soul Arena, and around 8 playsets of foil un/commons. All that for $0. For traveling expenses and not even placing in the top 8, those prizes were compensational, or whatever the correct term for fufilling is.

Then came Worlds 2007. I managed to top in both the Team and Singles events. For getting 3rd place in the World Champiosnhips, I walked home with a binder, a plaque, around 4+ sleeves of promo cards (I forget the actual number), a copy of Penny Arcade, and the best prize ever, a Nintendo Wii. So basically, I paid $4.50 to enter and with my skill, I was able to obtain a Nintendo Wii. Those prizes were VERY WELL worth the trip.

Nationals 2008, none of my team topped and we got dogshit. We got like like... a total of 4 promo packs and three artwork sheets.

Worlds 2008, my team made top 4 in Team Worlds. We were each promised a "badass playmat" which ended up to be the Morrigan playmat that everybody else got from the Darkstalkers pre-release. Not only that, but the mats came MAD LATE. Their excuse was because of the Olympics in China, so I guess I'll buy that. Also, we got the most pathetic top cuts prize ever: a 4-pack of Monster Energy Drinks. My boy Chubbs made top 16 and only got the Darkstalkers playmat like the rest of us, and late, like the rest of us. That's pretty much all we got for spending $1000+ to go to that event.

Nationals 2009, my team didn't cut top 4, and we got dogshit. Just promo packs. I top 4'd in singles and made 4th place overall, ended up getting a binder with a complete collection of set 11 I believe it was. This was great at first, and then after they rotated everything after Worlds 2009, it turned into a pile of dogshit. I ended up getting a plaque, which pretty much ended up being the best thing I came out with. Overall, not worth the money spent traveling at all.

Worlds 2009, my team made top 4 and we got 3x Set 12 binders, which was probably the best thing we came out with in the past two years. We were able to skyrocket our playgroup because of it. However, none of my team topped and thus, again, got dogshit.

Apparently, Canadian Nationals' prize support has been dogshit for the past two years. Then again, from what I constantly hear, Canada gets mad shafted all the time. It is a shame tho.

So there is a recurring theme ever since Worlds 2007: Whoever doesn't top gets dogshit. You pretty much have to top if you don't want dogshit. If 100 ppl come to an event and there is only a top 16, that means 84 ppl get dogshit, so 84% of the people participating at that event obtain dogshit for spending loads of hard-earned money to travel to that event. The people who don't top get miniscule rewards, like a penny sleeve or two of promo cards. The comfort food isn't prime steak like it was in Nationals 2007; it's turned into burnt grains of rice and rotten noodles.

Y'know how UFS has given out electronics for worlds? Here's something I want to know. At the Path of the Master event, Jon Herr won and Jeremy Ray came in 2nd, correct? Jon Herr got a PSP-3000 and Jeremy got a DSi. That is two electronic consoles at this POTM event. Now when you look at Worlds 2009, there were NO electronics handed out in top cuts. So why is it that the World Championships, a higher caliber event than POTM, gave out ZERO electronic prizes unlike the past three years?

Worlds 2006 - top 8 got PSP-1000s.
Worlds 2007 - top 4 got Wii's, 5-8 got iPod shuffles.
Worlds 2008 - iPod tutch to top 2 or 4, can't remember
Worlds 2009 - nothing

So it decreases from 2008 and so forth.

You may ask why I keep traveling to these events. In all honesty, the UFS community is the best community on Earth. It's mad tight and everybody knows each other. At events, I tend to get along with pretty much everybody. When playing against people in UFS, I give respect and get respect back. I don't want to play a game like MTG where a good percentage of the players are dickheads. I don't want to play bandai games where a majority of the players' heads are completely out of this world, more than the average gamer. I don't want to play YGO where the environment is always stale and everybody plays the same decks.

I want to play UFS because it's tight. I love it.
However, for the past two years UFS hasn't been the game where it gives back what you put into it. A lot of people recognize[d] this.

So how is this mishandling UFS? Well, if you're gonna give out dogshit for prizes at major events, then nobody is going to want to come back. Seriously, the only thing they have going for them is the "Coolest Prize in Gaming." Right now, that is really the only good prize to go for. You can't get electronics anymore, or free swag like mad booster packs and more than 1 sleeve of promos.

I still love UFS, baby.

Can we just stop talking about this. Its depressing and redundant.

Shane -

"They haven't posted on these boards or anything."

It's company policy. >_>; They aren't SUPPOSED to be posting on here. This isn't STG.

Antigoth said:

You have explained nothing that i brought up. I have not asked any rules questions and as a result you being a rules arbiter is completely irrelevant. If asking a question that you dodge and use your personal conversations as answers is concidered trolling then sign me up. You have not given any answers that can be verified by anyone else.

rulemonkey said:

When this was originally posted, it had been 6 weeks. This can be verified by looking at the October State of the Game which is stickied at the top of this thread.
I further stated that Steve Horvath has said he is working on the state of the game. You can verify this by calling fantasy flight games at 651-639-1905. Ask to speak to Steve Horavth, and confirm this yourself.

rulemonkey said:

YOUR LOCAL STORE CAN CALL FFG, AND ASK HOW THEY CAN PARTICPATE IN THIS PROGRAM. FFG CAN BE CALLED AT 651-639-1905.
This is a restate of what I stated earlier. Your store can verify this by talking to FFG directly.

rulemonkey said:

You can't have pulled a PotE out of a Tekken Box. PotE was printed by a different printer then Tekken 6. PotE was foiled, and the new printer used for Tekken 6 did not print any foil cards for FFG. You can verify this yourself by calling Fantasy Flight Games at 651-639-1905 and asking to speak to James Hata or Steve Horvath. Please note that none of this is a question. All sentences in the quote directly above this paragraph are statements.

rulemonkey said:

This follows Fantasy Flights Games stated policy on the forums. You can find this WRITTEN policy by clicking HERE . That is how you obtain contact from FFG.

rulemonkey said:

You're a Troll, and you are deliberately wasting my time.

rulemonkey said:

That is your opinion, this is not a question for me to respond to.

rulemonkey said:

From other responses in this thread, it has obviously crossed JDUB's and Shaneth's. So you have a written verifyable answer of yes.

Antigoth said:

See its impossible for me to waste your time. I have no control over what you do.

Also do you actually think any company that was going out of business and was trying to liquidate its product would tell you if you asked?

Anitgoth you are the troll. You saw something that you didnt like and was contradictive to what your friend told you and felt the need to defend him by screaming shouting and name calling. I wasnt asking James or Steves take on this because i know they could not answer truthfully if the worst was happening. So the phone number to Fantasy Flight Games is a worthless when i am asking players what they thought of this. Its people like you on boards that go overboard on instead of letting it go that makes the boards a negative place to be. I never bumped this thread once and wouldnt of if no one had a comment. People expressing concern isnt bad, and my post was what people thought about the changes on how this game was being treated.

I did not come out and say well because

there havent been regular state of the games

cheap product

nothings been printed in months

THE GAME WILL DIE OMG BURN YOUR CARDS QUIT WASTING YOUR MONEY.

Oh, so since you can't ask James or Steve about the game's status (since they can't answer truthfully)...

...you instead ask a forum full of people that have no goddamn clue about it instead?

Brilliant! BRILLIANT!

Just once, I would like to see a topic on the forums where people don't rush in saying someone's opinion is stupid. Rulemonkey was giving his opinion on the current situation in the game. Then people started trolling in and arguing this opinion. Just once I would like to see someone start their response with "I disagree" instead of people being sarcastic and insulting to one's opinions. Even though you disagree with something, it doesn't mean it is a stupid opinion.

At the same time, I'm glad to see the trolling back and forth isn't just one liners for the most part.

At any rate, here is my take on the situation:

The game is in a precarious (sp) state right now. We are post early rotation. You can agree or disagree with it if you like. Personally I wasn't a fan of it, but that is a topic for another time. We have a relativly (sp) small card base, which has made the meta kind of stale up until the release of the new SCIV set.

People are losing faith since there has never been an on time FFG release. (Correct me if I'm wrong please. I don't want to be misinformed.) But if you did research on FFG you know they have a lot of delays for some reason or another. People continued to lose faith with the loss of foil cards, which FFG says was needed to avoid price increases. People lost more faith when we switched to one set releases. This turned into a major issue when Tekken VI came out without its sister set.

Prize support is kind of a mess right now. I never went to a major event when the game was ran by STG. So I never expirienced (sp) the super amazing prize support. But, I do remember the days when we got prize kits, all of the prizes were palyable in the current format, unless it was a legacy event. This is definatlly a place where FFG needs to step it up.

I do wish FFG wasn't so silent about what is happening all the time. I understand that they are a business and can't expose what they are doing. But I wouldn't mind some sort of liason (sp) for FFG where we can take our questions to without bugging Steve and James since they are busy people. Or even if they had a person who could post on here two or tree times a month just to say we're still here, we care, and everything is going to be alright.

As we move forward we need to try to stay positive, and continue buying cards, even if you scale back. Buy a pack or two a week from your brick and mortar store. It's only $8 for two packs here in Rochester. If we don't want the game to go under, we need to be a little more proactive about it.

thank you postman for posting on this matter objectively

In all of this what changes? I think the only thing that has been put to work has been the posters nerves because viewpoints and perspectives are not shared. We are facing great darkness and the response for many is to blow out the light. For anyone not to recognize the bad that is going on in the game is delusional. Community interaction grows a game and only kills it if that communication constantly over promises and depends on forgiveness over production. In my church we call that "greasy grace." The communication model of FFG is bad "FOR THIS INDUSTRY" because hobby gaming is dying and has been in decay since 2001. The resession isn't the only disease that is killing card games in general. People have shifted to digital mediums to play because there is always someone to play. You can play as long as you want. You don't have to physically keep track of decks. Video games as a whole medium has gotten better. The imagination element involved in board games and card games are replaced by real digital manifestations. The hobby shop as an industry is on life support. The hobby shop clossings are just because of the economy its because classical gaming is becoming classic and more of a nitche of post 25 somethings. Yes you get your Yugioh, pokemon, and naurto games and they will always exist due to the "Mommy I want that" effect. Not to mentioned that many of those shows are pimped to sell product. Hell Yu Yu Hakasho got a card game and it wasn't even as popular as Cowboy Bebop. I digress. If you see the sky falling because it is but your seeing to small. The hobby gaming universe is going into a black hole. The swirls in the sky are just in your planet of UFS. Culture has to change for this to go away. At the same time game makers will have to change their format and will be forced to go into digital distrubution either by having online rewards, regestering physical packs to get your same card online, or going pure online.

The chicken little effect, while stating the obvious, does little to no good and adds nothing to fixing the situation or curing the disease. The only gain is given to the poster who is releaved due to the airing of their frustrations or vindicated because their doom prophecy came true ignoring how much they had a factor in such foretelling. Only a spirits of vicimization and vengence are feed in such writings. I will admit to have done my fair share of that in the past.

The thing is if the doom prophet has no medicine for the great wound then please don't be physician. If the physician can't get the patient the medicine it is just as bad as not prescribing. In other words if you can't practically help the situation air your grievence and then walk away because your purpose beyond that is not helping the situation. There are many different pratical things that can not be healed over message boards. One such is peoples viewpoints. Another is peoples social situations and pressures. Trying to fix these over a message board will only leave people will with poor diagnosis of a problem and even worse prescribing a toxic medicine to the situation.

Is there a way to fix the game? Yes. Those who are unwilling to take part in fixing need to make their exit from this play and join another. Its not that they are poor actors but their characters ruin the play. The first thing that has to be addressed is leadership. The direction of the ship is guided by the captain even though the helmsman may have the stearing wheel. Many of shouts are to the helmsman and not the captain. The problem we have is who is the captain? Is it Steve? Is it Hata? Is it the head of FFG? Is it the stock holders of the company? Is it the bottom line? Any of these things could be the captain but we are stuck with little casual information. It is not that the information could not be found but finding the truth requires work. I think many of us neither care nor have the balls to find the truth. Because if we did we would be forced to forfeit our position and be forced to say the words "I was wrong" and the even harder to say and say honestly " I am sorry." If people care about facts second hand information and off the record evidence can not be submitted. These things are not accepted in debate and are not accepted in court so why should they be accepted here? This applies to both sides. A person's views on the community can be just as off as a person's presentation of second hand information. Both can be flawed. Both can be true. Many times the former is more frequent then the latter. Steve will have to speak for Steve. The same with Hata. Last I checked neither are devine beings requiring prophets, oracles, or avatars. If they want to speak and explain themselves then so be it. If not we must accept their silence on the mater and realize for the moment they have no right in the conversation until they decide to take part.

Materialism will not fix the game. The clamouring for more and more will only corrupt the game and not make it better. We are told in our culture the more you recieve the higher you are valued and more is always better. Those who act based on goods are no different then a ***** it just that your currency is different. This is not to say gifts are bad or prize support is bad. But playing primarly to recieve or the focus of playing is getting more then one is no different then prostitute on the corner who is aged and wonders why she isn't getting customers anymore. Card games are no different then toys. No one as a child was told that they must play with toys to get more toys. If a child is taught that you only do things for a reward then what does playtime turn into? The child forced to recognize there is no reward for playing with what he has earned and will do something to gain more. We are not ever content the comments are continually " we want more." So the biggest thing that would save UFS in its shaky state is for people to be content. But that is something people will have to do for themselves.

The next thing that needs to be done to fix the game is for people to play another game. Mos tof the bitterness comes from people who either have envy of other games or don't play other games. I would say go play those games for a bit. No one is married to UFS. UFS is not your wife or husband. Go play l5r or Naruto, or Pokemon if you want. Go play another game. Get involved in that community. If you find that it is so much more healthier for you stay there. It is better to find another game to have fun in then to be bitter in this one. If you communication from the staff is key go find a game with high dev interaction. You will find that product will come out a lot slower due to the dev's taking in feedback and talioring the game to the community more so then the general public. If you want crazy resale value on your cards go play a popular card game for a bit. God dump about 200 bucks into a solid deck and play. You will find that you will get pumped with product left and right and that you will need midus touch to keep up with all the product. Be prepared for no direct interaction with the designers of the game. Whatever game you choose go play that game some weekends and take a break from UFS and come back when its more to your liking or there is more information out there. Most people are having a hard time because they just can't move on.

Last thing that needs to be done is tournament format change ups. If you ever look at a lot of the tournaments that are listed in the venue search you will see the people who play the most games have various formats. I'm not talking legacy or mini-block I'm talking about true formats. You will see theme rules. You will read about temp banning of cards. Tired of fire decks ban fire for two weeks. Tired of Hata, Astrid, and Hilde showing up every week do a deck exchange tourney or a underdog tournie where people play c class and lower teir characters. Heck invent some good multiplayer rules. The one thing I loved about COH card game was the multiplayer. YOu could team match or free for all and all the powers worked so they could be used that way. Most of the cards in UFS are designed for a one on one basis. Even team events are a glorifed one on one event. If someone could make a good 2 on2 ruleset that would be awesome. People are bored and frustrated because they face the same thing week in and week out and there is nothing forcing them to build new decks. I haven't played the same deck for more then a month then it gets shelved or taken apart. Its not that all of a sudden I hate the game or I found something better to play. I realize that I will never get better as a player and will stop having fun if all I do is play the same deck.

Fun and a solid player base reflects the quality of the game. When heroclix went out of business three stores that carried the game stopped playing all together. Many of them played because they liked the game but it turned into a prize support grab. For over a year one store in town kept playing heroclix even though it was dead. They loved the game. They loved the play. More importantly they loved hanging out with each other talking about comics and life. If they didn't play on sunday during church I would be with them. The point is the game kept going on because they played for the enjoyment of the game. Prize support was cosequential more so then anything else. Every week they would play some new scenero or there would be a new restriction. Everyone put in work so that they all could have fun. Build friendships and you will have a healthy playgroup. Collect players and you just have a club.

So lets not focus on what we can not control about the game (Steve, Hata, FFG) and focus on what we can. That doesn't mean being blind to facts. But it also doesn't mean we have a tissy fit if we are in way bit offended or not pleased with how things are handled. In the end we can only speak for and held accountable for ourselves.

Postman197865 said:

Scouts have a particular e-mail they can reach concerning prize support - the guys are super busy so it may take one or two days before you get an answer though.

IIRC if FFG has a catch-all contact us e-mail (as opposed to the form - I was never able to find what I needed from the form), you can send your concerns there and they'll pass it on to the proper authorities. I personally can't vouch for that part because I never personally tried it.

It's no secret that SCIV02 and T601 were printed at the same time. But people like my store owner LOVED the idea of having just one set. Why? Let's use the base set as an example.

With two sets available, players in each meta might naturally migrate toward either set. In the base set this year, that set was SCIV01. This wasn't just because Shadowar was unknown; it was because Knight Breaker, Midnight Launcher, Menuett Dance and other ridiculously awesome cards were in that set. This doesn't take away from the awesomeness that are Fury of the Ancients, Driven by Fear, Striking Thunder, Wrath of Heaven, etc, but it's like comparing apples to oranges. They're both delicious, but when faced with the decision, and you have a huge jonesing for apples, that orange suddenly doesn't look so interesting.

Do players like one set at a time? It's a mixed bag. Some (like me) are college students and we'd love nothing more than relief to out wallets as we complete a collection or build a deck. Others are more worried about how all the licenses will be handled (considering we have SF, SCIV, DS, SNK, T6 and SW now), and as much as a year may pass until you see another set from your favorite license. TBH, this is the only setback I see.

Does anybody else wonder why they haven't printed another Street Fighter set and are just focusing on Soul Calibur and Shadowar as their core sets? One possible theory is that they no longer possess the licenses for their old stuff (aka King of Fighters, Samurai Showdown, Street Fighter). Maybe all they have now is Soul Calibur, Tekken, and Shadowar...

I don't know about you guys, but that would indicate to me that the game is pretty much done for or is going to be soon.

PromoZasalamel said:

OR, you know, that they didn't plan on rotation happening, leaving the game without sets from each of its licenses and had SCIV and Tekken lined up for the rest of the year since SC hadn't had a set in the entire last block.

Which is, you know, what actually happened. So you can stop wondering and crying wolf and all.

guitalex2008 said:

I've made no secret of my distaste of NamcoBandai lately - Imagine how I feel as much as I LOVE the one license/set business model.

Why are we still talking about this TT_TT

Halbard100 said:

TripsEX said:

And this is the most polite the discussion has been so far.

Well, this page.

Erm, okay, the last few posts.

...

Help me out here.

Postman197865 said:

::Head Desk::

I'll just stop posting. That's what I've been doing for the last two years. Obviously there is no point to me continuing to do that.
If you're asking for a dedicated FFG Staffer to do that - until sales increase for UFS there is no chance that it will happen, since FFG does not do that for ANY of their games.

Antigoth, I am not suggesting that you stop posting because I appreciate your incite, don't get me wrong. It's just that you aren't FFG. I'm not trying to say that you are not good enough. But, we do need to here from the company every now and then.

Please don't leave us

Homme Chapeau said:

Note to self do not post rational commentary about the nature of the game. People don't read it. Flame on!