U guys just have to have faith in the ones who are trying there hardest to keep the game going...tell everyone and things will work out in the end..i know it may not seem like it but if we can get someone else 2 take over the game then we have complete control over it and can fix all the problems it has since we are the players and know what those are....It could be better then ever

But this cant happen if we start losing people now...keep playing and keep interest

JDub said:

Basically - Relase what you've already printed. If it sells like hot cakes, then obviously it's worth making more. If it sells like the last few sets have, cut your losses and pull the plug.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you the prime example on how to run something into the ground, then proceed to stomp on it while it's down. Truth be told, I'm not surprised, in fact I was actually laughing reading Stevie's post.

It's funny how they stopped caring once they gave all of us the big "f you" and rotated early. It's even funnier that there were all these prize support problems, mainly us getting a bunch of now useless cardboard toilet paper, and they didn't seem to care. What's funniest of all, is that unless you knew the designers directly, they for the most part turned a blind eye to your gripes about the game in general. Yes folks this whole game stank of shenangins the day James Hata stepped up to design said game.

Oh and to whoever it was who said that the other guy was wrong when he said (yes yes I know, I forget names :oP) that James' hiring was the stupidest thing ever, you're in fact wrong...

Well ok maybe not completely wrong, but wrong enough to get my point across. All he really did was do what should have been done before and ban/change a crap load of cards. He was not the messiah of UFS, and all he did was make the game do a completely 180, turning it from freak control wars that required too much thought to mindless aggro wars that required no thought.

Yeah, and on top of that, I have to wonder if they designed anymore cards past this point? You know just in case, I don't see them waiting till now to see if the game can keep going and if it did, start designing cards now for a release 2, 3 months down the line. I'm kinda curious about whats lying around at the office.

Al rite, tell me this, how in F... are they comeing out with other board and liveing card games and books that dont sell, trust me they dont sell, and keep them alive? Board games suck, the books sucks, and this was the only thing they had that was good. Yea they was going to loose money, look at the US now. And they saying they care, which they don't, it they would have said Soul Cal was the last set I would have been happy with that, but they kill it a couple weeks after release. Just tell me, how are you keeping the other games a float if your bleeding out money?

Halbard100 said:

No, there was nothing officially in the "playtest" schute after SCIV: QFS.

Actually that's something that's a giant misnomer. It can really only take 3 months to a set.

One Month to Playtest
One Month to prep, get to the printers, and so forth.
One month to get back from the printers, and ship.

Is that a really short turn around? Yes. Does that lead to gaps in playtesting? Yes. Does that lead to rushed product with greater room for mistakes? Yes.

Some of the most time consuming aspects of designing a set is the art descriptions, then doing the card layout, and finally getting approvals from the licence holders for the cards in conjunction with the art.

I know a couple of players / playtesters had ideas or suggestions of what they wanted to see in next set. But that's about as formulated as you'll get for "what was lying around the office."

~~~~

griderdog1,

Difference being - the cost of supporting / handling UFS is significantly different then boardgames & books.

The costs associated with the development of UFS meet / exceed the costs of developing other games.

Then in addition to the costs to produce, are the "support" costs. OP - printing, shipping, maintaining / managing the organized play aspect. Those are extra costs over and above the core game production costs.

I remember talking with Ledezma as he was getting settled in at FFG. Almost as soon as he got there, FFG was seeing the costs of maintaining prize support for UFS, and they were wanting to slash those costs. After Ledezma left, Broman had that same battle, and inturn when it got dumped on Hata's lap Hata was constantly fighting that battle.

**Please note - when I'm posting this, I'm not saying anyone's opinions are wrong. I'm just posting what I know from my experience floating around the industry for as long as I have.**

Antigoth does speak the truth there. There were no playtest files after Quest for Souls.

griderdog1 said:

I think you greatly underestimate the board game business. CCGs is a dying business. Sure a lot of the bigger CCGs will be around but for the most part it's a dead business. Board games and such appeal to the older gamers (you know the ones that have money, not 10-25 year olds that is the main age of CCG players). Go take a look at the most owned FFG games of people on these forums:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_comunidad_stats.asp

The top 10 are all board games, and each one of those has over 2,000 people who own it (at least double then the number of total UFS players and the most popular game has 6 times as many people owning it then current UFS players). And I bet the people on these fourms are less then half of the people who even actually own any of those games. Most (maybe all?) of those games also have expansions and or other games based on the same thing. At my local shop they have more people show up on Friday nights for open gaming to just play board games then they get for any CCG. You might not see it when you go into your local gaming store that board games are big business because most people get together with a bunch of friends and play at home.

JDub said:

Especially considering that they have far less of an entry cost than CCGs.

I still hate that NOW is when the rest of us are learning about this. I keep thinking about "What if" and if that would have made any difference what so ever.

Halbard100 said:

The difference players *could* have made was buy more.

If Tekken 6 sold out... if QFS sold really well, and drove a mass re-order.

Go look at the thread where people were complaining about how few promos there were in the pre-release kit.

In that thread I made the crazy suggestion of "Order more release kits." Then I was immediately lynched, becuase most shops, the players / stores couldn't afford to bring in more then 1 kit. That means that in those instances most stores didn't sell more then 6 booster boxes of any given expansion.

Just think of how grim the sales of UFS truly were.

Speaking locally, because that's what I know best...

In it's hay day - there were 3-5 stores locally carrying UFS. 3 of those held pre-releases, and each of those three shops ordered as many pre-release kits as they could (in one shops case it was at least 4-6, and in another it was at least 3 kits.) Additionally the pre-release kits content would sell out, and then those stores would have to re-order. At one point the shops were re-ordering expansions at least once a month.

Fast forward to QFS

2 shops in Winnipeg brought in QFS pre-release kits.

One shop was limited to 1 pre-release kit.

The other shop got 4 kits, but still has enough QFS, that they don't have any plans for a re-order any time soon. (Infact they will probably never re-order QFS).

And that is part of the downward spiral of UFS sales. If QFS sold out, and then the shops had to reorder, and then the reorder sold out, and they had to reorder again... that was what they were hoping for.

We need a bail out O well, I guess no reason to cry about it now and ask for a do over. I think at this point I'm going into the bargaining phase of loss.

Reading all the hatred and frustration in this thread, I feel I need to offer my point of view.

It's always a sad thing when a ccg dies, especially when it's your favorite our only ccg. I've been playing ccgs since the start, or almost, and I've seen a lot of them die while I was enjoying every bit of them: Middle-Earth, from ICE, a company who died altogether; Battletech, from WotC, a leading company we all know, who killed so many licences for the sake of creating a sort of monopoly in the ccg industry (among these The Simpsons, GI JOE, Star Wars...); Star Wars, LOTR and Star Trek, both from Decipher, who practically died, if not for a few guys working in their basement on Fight Klub; 7th sea, City of heroes and Spycraft, all from AEG who managed to keep only L5R alive; VS system, sent to the grave by Upper Deck to keep WOW alive; and the list goes on...

One thing we all have to realise: UFS had a good and long run. Many sets were released, the card pool is huge: there is more than enough to keep playing if you still care. I will. I actually prefer it this way: a dead game means cheaper cards, no pressure of buying the next set, and the next... Which is actually the reason I left the game at first: the sets were coming in too fast.

And for those who want new cards, check out what the Wars and Trek community has done on their player's commitee and continuing commitee: tons of virtual expansions available for free on the net.

Anyhow, ccg is indeed a dying business. Few companies survive, and the one who does need to adapt. The LCG models seems very good right now, since it managed to save both COC and AGOT, two well designed game, deep in lore and also playable in multiplayer, a rare thing. LCG appeal to both the ccg player tired of falling in the ccg money pit, and to the board game player who want to try lcg on a limited scale.

As for board games, for me, it's the way to go. Here in Montreal, not only the ccgs die, the game store do. So we're left with a handful of stores, where magic is sold, bu rarely anything remotely underground. So we play at home with friends, hardcore gamers and relatively new gamers alike...

And for those who still feel bitter: believe me, I was pissed when Decipher closed down on us, I was sad when ICE went bankrupt, and I mourn quite a few other ccgs. But now I bring out a box out of the closet now and them, and I still enjoy the dead ccg.

A ccg is alive as long as you keep playing it.

Happy holidays to all

armored_butterfly said:

We're still planning on playing at the Gamers' World, though at a less frequent pace (1 day a week as opposed to 2).

well, if you can revive it id stand by you. i love the game and im very upset it is gone. so please help bring it back!!!

Please make sure you join the google group then, theres a link in my signature. And get all the other players from your area to join in, we need as much support as possible and members are the best way to keep a tally.

To the diehard players keep your cards UFS may make a comeback I cant say anything but thereis something being worked on. My only issue Fantasy Flight Games only did one printing of this set before bailing some of like at the venue I play could only get one box thats crap

Scarred_Angel said:

There's still more boxes of QFS in the FFG Warehouse. Probably at your distributor as well.

Awesome game. Sad to see it go.

actually our disdributor cant cant get any more they are gone

Great... just great...

I finally manage to get new people interested in the game and now they're cancelling it... I mean I understand why, but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I was looking forward to the possibility of a set based on Street Fighter IV since I saw that Soul Calibur IV was made as well...

Looks like I'm pretty much out of things to look forward to from Fantasy Flight.

Send an email to [email protected] and have everyone in your playgroup do the same, tell him you all support him re-launching the game. It's not dead, just in an ICU!

Scarred_Angel said:

Who is your distributor?

Antigoth said:

Yeah, I am still hoping to buy a few more boxes (only got all of one during the prerelease season) but our stores haven't seemed to find stock of yet either. Its probably just a local/isolated phenomenom but our QFS sold more than a few prerelease kits here in Calgary.

I'll probably just order direct from FFG sooner or later.

- dut

As one of the noobs of this game I'm deeply saddened I won't be seeing any new content. But I think I'll take advantage of this oppurtunity to collect the whole Shadowar set and obtain all the cards I ever wanted.

But I honestly hope for this game to make a return in atleast a new form in the near future (like in the next couple of years). Oh how I wish I was a billionare and could pick this game up. Oh well. While this game is the reason I got into FFG, it will be very hard to get into another card game even a lcg after this heartbreak. I'll continue to play this game and collect cards until I can't collect anymore. I still believe with all my heart that can and potentially will make a return oneday in another form. So for now farewell UFS until we met again in the Card Game crossroads.