14 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

After seeing this art, and considering other FFG Living Card Games....

I think we are looking at this all wrong. Everyone is concerned about where they will bring the story....

Well, if they were resetting to clan wars, having only these 7 makes sense-- the Mantis don't exist and the Shadowlands are dormant.

If they were continuing through Onyx, this makes sense-- the Spider Clan was left behind in charge of the Empire and the Mantis fell apart and got dissolved.

BUT... consider this. The Star Wars Destiny card game? It doesn't take place in any particular era-- it uses characters and settings and artifacts across the franchise from the prequels to the latest movies.

Similarly, the WarHammer LCG... it doesn't take place in a world that can morph or change. All characters printed are effectively immortal as far as any "story" goes.

Given that this is an LCG and that for the base set, absolutely no player is expected to put down more than $120 on the set... with no support for a secondary market, no sort of gambling with boosters, no real way to do "sealed" or "draft" tournaments... that there just aren't going to be people buying boxes and boxes of unneeded cardboard in the form of the thousands of commons one would pick up while trying to get ahold of a playset of that rare card necessary to make any deck competitive....

This means there won't be enough money going into the product to support a story team, there won't be any sort of story tournaments or prizes, there won't be clan letters or weekly fictions... you can expect all the trappings that made the old game unique and inspired a fanatical fanbase to be entirely gone. I imagine LGS won't even support play of the game because well... everyone can buy direct here, what money is the LGS going to be making from this? The idea of local tournaments, much less Koteis and such... no real support for it. At least not from the company printing the game. Maybe the players can cobble it together on their own, BUT... it will have no effect on what gets printed.

Given all this, and the idea that the sets are intended to never "expire" with everything being legal henceforth... there is every reason to believe there won't be a storyline at all. It won't matter where in the timeline anything is set, because there will be no timeline!.. well, there will still be the old one, but nothing will advance with story.

This would effectively free FFG of the most continuous part of the job and they can just print well... whatever it is that seems suitable to them for any particular faction.

Expansions will come and I am sure the Shadowlands/Spider Clan and the Mantis will be delivered in those expansions.

Beyond that though... well... I guess it depends on whether they want to focus on introducing new factions in which case they just have to see that they are roughly balanced with the old ones... or expand new factions, in which case they have to watch out for accidentally creating extraordinarily broken combos.

I usually disagree with you a lot, but what you are saying is unfortunatly a possibility and would be a big turn off for me. However, at the very worst, I'll just continue to post Tomorrow's Prophets fictions.

5 minutes ago, Matrim said:

they seem to manage a developing story with net-runner. Saying that I am nit a story fanatic and card blurb and maybe a story with each release would do me fine.

4 minutes ago, Khudzlin said:

@TheHobgoblyn Stores support local play for the other LCGs. There are tournaments, including Kotei-level (though they're generally smaller than I remember those for L5R being). So it's not the end of the world as far as casual and competitive play are concerned. I think you're right about story prizes, clan letters and weekly fictions, though. However, since FFG purchased the whole license including the RPG, I guess that's where the story will be.

Lastly, FFG has introduced rotation into their LCG model. The Core Set and deluxe expansions stay legal forever, but monthly packs don't (they rotate out after a number of new packs).

Okay, good to know I have been misinformed about some of the details-- but I still think it is very likely that the game is going to launch without a concrete story. Unless they are going whole hog with things, it might be in their best interest to keep the exact details of what is going on in the world to an absolute minimum. It gives them a larger freedom to print things without people going nuts.

But-- it is worth noting... if there is still enough of an L5R fanbase out there, there is nothing stopping the players from putting together some sort of continuing story for the game shaped on wins at various tournaments. But the players would have to all agree to accept this... and it would have probably no impact on what is going to be printed.

I would be surprised if players results tie into the story, except perhaps big competition wins. I also suspect the story will be more a background than anything else. Happy to be proved wrong though...

i really, really wish we had better sourcing on the quotes we're getting. nebulous "developer" is as best as we've gotten. i would love to know if its an actual designer, or just a rep on site who may or may not have actual knowledge of the game's direction. its frustrating to try and speculate on something as big as this now likely reboot via vague, unattributed quotes translated from french.

7 clans make sense. Mantis and spider (or even better, shadowlands) will likely join in later.

Art, if it is new, is very very good. Way better than agot.

Looking at other FFG games (Lotr, agot and destiny) , immersion, lore and storylines will likely be implemented with great success, this is one of FFGs strongest points. Just have to see from where it will go.

Black background on mons is a disaster.

Overall, everything seems very good for now. My only fear is that they dont streamline it too much so we dont get AGOT mechanics with samurai printed over.

I still think FFG is moving forward with the story. Remember, at the end of Onyx, great clan status was removed from the Mantis? Also, there was no mention of the Spider anymore in the stories after Kanpeki ruled the Empire, which may mean that the Spider may have been cancelled as a clan and the Shadowlands is not a playable faction just like when the CCG originally started out... Just my two cents...

I hope you are right.

46 minutes ago, daimaru said:

I still think FFG is moving forward with the story. Remember, at the end of Onyx, great clan status was removed from the Mantis? Also, there was no mention of the Spider anymore in the stories after Kanpeki ruled the Empire, which may mean that the Spider may have been cancelled as a clan and the Shadowlands is not a playable faction just like when the CCG originally started out... Just my two cents...

Not according to Onyx leaks. Spider were everywhere. Deny all you want, but Spider was a BIG part of Onyx storyline.

Just now, Sparks Duh said:

Not according to Onyx leaks. Spider were everywhere. Deny all you want, but Spider was a BIG part of Onyx storyline.

Yea... I didn't read many if the leaks, but I am having a really hard time understanding how the Spider couldn't be everywhere in Onyx.

The set that was supposed to be about how they won, they weren't supposed to appear? Wut?

maybe he's talking about the little bit of onyx stories we got. there wasn't much of the spider in there, post-roflstomp. but yeah, if you have seen the leaks, you know thats not remotely the case. the spider were living large

Spider was meant as Tier1 killing machine in Onyx.

2 minutes ago, kempy said:

Spider was meant as Tier1 killing machine in Onyx.

I'm not gonna lie: as a longtime Shadowlands/Spider player, I'm very disappointed for this "news". And I hate the reboot notion, even more... I will reserve my judgment for when we hear more definite news. Basically if you reboot, there are two main ways to proceed from. Either you allow no interaction and retell the same story (and why would a company buy a property whose defining characteristic, on which its success was forged, is player interaction with the storyline and then get rid of that?), or you allow interaction, which would lead to divergent "history" (and why would you buy a property with 20+ years of lore, developement, and worldbuilding to throw all of that out the window?). About the only scenario I can think off is if they "fast track" all story without interaction (or with very limited interaction) until the Onyx/present. For instance: the basic set is Scorpion Clan Coup. The first six pack plus one deluxe cycle is the Clan Wars, the next one, the Hidden Emperor, and so on. Counting all the major arcs, two per year, that would be at least... four years to bring the LCG to date with the "present" and then start they real, new interaction...

I honestly doubt that's the plan. On the other hand, that's what they are already doing with properties like Game of Thrones. About the only "interaction" I have seen on that game has been cards with mechanics designed by big tournament winners (this already happened to certaint extent with L5R) and one votation to get an agenda (that would be more or liess like a sensei in old L5R terms) from a choice of three. I don't know, perhaps they could get votes for minor clan support. The story still would follow the already written paths, but the minor clan X would be represented instead of minor clans Y or Z.

Hanging onto Onyx Edition is like the Star Wars fans hanging onto the EU material

Once the IP changed hands all bets are off on what comes next.

Also, you guys must be remembering a different game than I. Storyline prizes set L5R apart, but it's not what made it great. The combat mechanics, multiple paths to victory, and evocative themes all came first.

I must disagree. The storyline interaction was what made L5R different, and stand out from the rest, from the very beginning. It was its very succesful gimmick, which many others tried to replicate with more or less success. And, more arguably, it is also what made it go on longer that it when other things faltered.

kempy: you sure know how to stir the pot, don't you? Which is not necessarily a compliment!

While I definitely sympathize with Spider and Mantis players for (possibly) not being present at launch, there's no way they are down and out for good (or very long, for that matter). FF knows they're cutting out a big section of their player base by not having all 9 clans at launch, so I doubt they'd want to ostracize those players indefinitely.

Obviously the releases will coincide with whatever "story" arc is present, but I have a feeling they'll tie the Mantis and Spider into the first couple expansion releases. I think a core set with 7 clans at launch, sort of setting up a "swelling darkness in the background" type story line, with the first expansion building on that premise and introduces the Mantis as a playable clan. Then the second expansion (or maybe first deluxe expansion) introduces the Spider as a playable clan, while now having escalated the swelling darkness into one of the big wars (or maybe a new one) that rips through all of Rokugan, as tradition. Something similar to this, anyway. It just doesn't make much sense for them to strip two clans out and keep them out of their reboot for a long period of time.

1 hour ago, El_Ganso said:

Hanging onto Onyx Edition is like the Star Wars fans hanging onto the EU material

Once the IP changed hands all bets are off on what comes next.

Also, you guys must be remembering a different game than I. Storyline prizes set L5R apart, but it's not what made it great. The combat mechanics, multiple paths to victory, and evocative themes all came first.

storyline prizes definitely became a problem, but its delusional to think that what kept l5r alive 20 years, after so many other ccgs died, was spectacular mechanics. it was the story, the interaction, the much maligned story prizes that helped engender such intense clan loyalty, those are what roped people into obsession with this game. i loved the ccg, but its mechanics were not what kept it going all those years. certainly not the back 1/3rd.

Also, people seem to think Rokugan and the Clans were perfectly formed when they were conceived in Imperial Edition. Far from the truth; they were very ill defined for years, and only the roleplaying books got to define them. Lion were the honorable warrior clan with bonus on attack. Crab were the not so honorable warriors with bonus of defense, and little more. For one, the Wall didn't even exist until the RPG (look for it in the cards themselvers prior to the publication of the RPG book). The Wall came about because of a trademark problem. The first expansion was going to be called "Underworld", which was the hell where all the Shadowlands monsters were supposed to came from, but then that caused a problem with another card game (it was Shadowfist, IIRC). So, the Shadowlands became a physical place on "earth", and then the Wall was needed, and only then the Crab was retconned into the anti-Shadowlands clan (and not the Shadowlands allies). For the first few years, many concepts were in flux, and they wouldn't coalesce until the RPG core book and the Way of the Clans series were written. Additionally, faction balance was almost non-existant. Even the art was, except for some very notable excepctions, terrible for those first years. But L5R was this new cool concept, with a developing story the players could aspire to affect. That was what made the game popular, and what allowed it to survive the initial cull of all the CCGs that swamped the market after Magic, giving it time to mature into a playable game beyond the coolness factor.

Yea, art is a big deal for me and why I engage with a card game. I've seen the early art in the Oracle. It was not good.

6 hours ago, Mon no Oni said:

I'm not gonna lie: as a longtime Shadowlands/Spider player, I'm very disappointed for this "news". And I hate the reboot notion, even more... I will reserve my judgment for when we hear more definite news. Basically if you reboot, there are two main ways to proceed from. Either you allow no interaction and retell the same story (and why would a company buy a property whose defining characteristic, on which its success was forged, is player interaction with the storyline and then get rid of that?), or you allow interaction, which would lead to divergent "history" (and why would you buy a property with 20+ years of lore, developement, and worldbuilding to throw all of that out the window?). About the only scenario I can think off is if they "fast track" all story without interaction (or with very limited interaction) until the Onyx/present. For instance: the basic set is Scorpion Clan Coup. The first six pack plus one deluxe cycle is the Clan Wars, the next one, the Hidden Emperor, and so on. Counting all the major arcs, two per year, that would be at least... four years to bring the LCG to date with the "present" and then start they real, new interaction...

I honestly doubt that's the plan. On the other hand, that's what they are already doing with properties like Game of Thrones. About the only "interaction" I have seen on that game has been cards with mechanics designed by big tournament winners (this already happened to certaint extent with L5R) and one votation to get an agenda (that would be more or liess like a sensei in old L5R terms) from a choice of three. I don't know, perhaps they could get votes for minor clan support. The story still would follow the already written paths, but the minor clan X would be represented instead of minor clans Y or Z.

"Why would someone want to make a new Star Wars movie and not set it at the end of the Legacy era?"
"Why would someone want to make a new Star Trek movie and not set it after the end of Voyager?"
"Why would someone want to make a Spider-man movie and not make all previous movies canon and set it in the Supreme Spider-Man story arc?"
"Why would someone want to buy the rights to make a Superman or Batman animated series and not make the entire 70 year run of the character fully canon?"
"I just don't understand why in the next Thor movie she won't be an third wave ultra-feminist with cancer and fighting against Odin's father who spouts 'casual misogyny' and 'unsolicited opinions of Israel'."

Are you... even being serious? You can't be, can you?

You really don't get the notion of "Gee, that had a good premise, but bad writers done f***ed it all up and now it is a broken mess that drove away the entire fanbase and no one new is going to buy into this now that it is rotten and stinking. Better start again with a blank slate that can actually attract new people and take this whole thing in a different direction. The hardcore fans will whine and wince, but will still buy in regardless."?

I mean-- really. Are you really that upset that you didn't get a sex scene between Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborne in Amazing Spider-Man 2 and have her run off to France to give birth to twins that she promptly abandoned and came back not saying a word about it to anyone... because, you know, some writer at some point penned a story that made that a canon event in the comics books?

3 hours ago, Mon no Oni said:

Also, people seem to think Rokugan and the Clans were perfectly formed when they were conceived in Imperial Edition. Far from the truth; they were very ill defined for years, and only the roleplaying books got to define them. Lion were the honorable warrior clan with bonus on attack. Crab were the not so honorable warriors with bonus of defense, and little more. For one, the Wall didn't even exist until the RPG (look for it in the cards themselvers prior to the publication of the RPG book). The Wall came about because of a trademark problem. The first expansion was going to be called "Underworld", which was the hell where all the Shadowlands monsters were supposed to came from, but then that caused a problem with another card game (it was Shadowfist, IIRC). So, the Shadowlands became a physical place on "earth", and then the Wall was needed, and only then the Crab was retconned into the anti-Shadowlands clan (and not the Shadowlands allies). For the first few years, many concepts were in flux, and they wouldn't coalesce until the RPG core book and the Way of the Clans series were written. Additionally, faction balance was almost non-existant. Even the art was, except for some very notable excepctions, terrible for those first years. But L5R was this new cool concept, with a developing story the players could aspire to affect. That was what made the game popular, and what allowed it to survive the initial cull of all the CCGs that swamped the market after Magic, giving it time to mature into a playable game beyond the coolness factor.

And, as in the examples I listed above, if you do a universe reboot-- you can keep everything and anything that worked and get rid of anything that didn't. (Really, I think it was a bit of a mistake to write in absolute concrete that the 3 families for each clan that had thus far been defined were the ONLY ones to exist and defined each clans' potential abilities and role so very, very narrowly to the point it makes it difficult to see how any of them are capable of running a province on their own, instead of a specialty it became a singular capability.)

Some of the plot points were actually good? Great! Bring those same plotlines up again.

You can do Marvel's Civil War in a cleaner, less cringy way... and don't need to first do that story where a guy who lives in another dimension brainwashes one of the Avengers into falling in love with him so he can take her away to his dimension, marry her and she can then get impregnated by him to give birth to him before coming back.

A lot of the events that happen in the reboots are lifted from the source material or previous versions, but they leave out the stuff that didn't work or caused problems down the line and they try to make the events they do want to keep happen a bit more sensibly if at all possible.

I liked the second part, and the bits in the first part that explain why a reboot doesn't mean that you either have to abandon everything or keep everything, but cool it with the personal attacks, please.

2 hours ago, Myrion said:

I liked the second part, and the vits in the first part that explain why a re reboot doesn't mean that you either have to abandon everything or keep everything, but cool it with the personal attacks, please.

+1, on all counts.

Now, I will note a key difference between TheHobgoblyn's examples and this one: Star Wars, Star Trek, Spider-Man, and all the rest weren't franchises where the audience had such a prominent role in shaping canon. But I don't think that negates the general point, which is that reboots happen all the time, and often because whoever is in charge of the IP wants to make it more accessible to new audiences/doesn't like the direction the previous version went/has a plot they really want to run that doesn't fit with existing canon/whatever.

From a business standpoint, what is FFG's main priority; introducing a new audience over an established audience, maintaining the established audience over a new audience, or both?

I do believe it is both. And I do think you can reboot the universe to an earlier time period with out redacting future plot points that have happened(that were good) and still allow player input in the story line as well.
I know they have done some limited experimentation with this in A:NR and GoT.
I have a question to the the vets of the IP/community, what was the actual lead time in story line input. For instance, whatever tournament that was won or system that came to a conclusion that allowed players to affect the story line, how long did it take before you saw that in product?