12 minutes ago, Danwarr said:

They do, but they are very very slow about it. From what I understand about Old5R, AEG was very responsive to the community. FFG is not.

I'm afraid that it's been exaggerated in the telling a bit. It could take quite a while for any story results that needed to actually reflected on cards to show up. Story results that could be reflected in story fictions alone were faster (but could feel quite rote at times). Most of the really cool stories about L5R's interactive storytelling date back to earlier years of the game.

Incidentally, there was a really cool article written on the game in 1999 (in Salon of all places) that captures what it was like in the game's original glory days. It's a fun read.

21 minutes ago, Myrion said:

I suppose that's a fair point of view.

I still say that they captured the old game's essence, because to me that was to have mechanics that carry all that wonderful, wonderful flavor.

Fair enough. I guess I'd just refer to that as the essence of the setting rather than the essence of the game.

39 minutes ago, Yoritomo Reiu said:

I'm afraid that it's been exaggerated in the telling a bit. It could take quite a while for any story results that needed to actually reflected on cards to show up. Story results that could be reflected in story fictions alone were faster (but could feel quite rote at times). Most of the really cool stories about L5R's interactive storytelling date back to earlier years of the game.

I remember back when I played more actively, one of the designers commented that a lot of the cards that were story results were (mechanically) designed in advance, the story outcomes mostly determined the art, flavor text and when they were released. I think the fastest turn-around I saw on a story card was maybe 6 months (I want to say that there were some GenCon results from the beginning of Hidden Emperor that were released as cards in the last expansion of that story), but generally you didn't see story cards until the next editions expansions started coming out.

2 hours ago, oDESGOSTO said:

M:TG had the oldest resource system in any xCG ever. And from a design POV it's one of the worst resource systems ever.
Still... the game uses it. And is still being played.
About the "network effect", I recognize it. But if a game is dull, say Yugioh or Pokemon or any other japanese crappy xCG, the game will not have the success or impact M:TG has.
I remember a game that tried to break through the market, being labeled "better M:TG" or "MTG 2.0"... said game also had 1M USD event to catch people and had support from Team Covenant as well. That game is now dead and buried. Yes, it was The Spoils, the next big thing. So, network effect didn't saved those games. Some are still being played around but not in the same way MTG is.

And I respect Richard Garfield a lot. He designed and is still designing some of the best games in the market. I value that. And also his honorific title.

I do believe Magic The Gathering is a great game and without question the most successful of all time, but Yugioh and Pokemon are not far behind, in fact in 2016 Pokemon surpassed them in sales and this is not the first time it has happened over the years.

I don't really see how this reflects or has anything to do with Legend of the Five Rings. As much as I love the IP, Legend of the Five Rings can be said to have been a marginally successful CCG at absolute best. "Crappy" games as you called them like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, as well as stuff you have never heard of like Force of Will, Card Fight Vanguard, Dragon Ballz ... they all surpassed Legend of the Five rings by a margin so wide they aren't even in the same category. Legend of the Five Rings is a cult classic, one supported by a small dedicated community.

With FFG taking over it, that community isn't likely to grow by a whole lot because as much as everyone here is an FFG fan, most FFG card games fall into the same "small community" category, at least in the light of the Pokemons and Magic The Gatherings of the world. What you can expect out of FFG is what we have come to expect from all FFG games. Amazing support, dedicated releases, longevity and high quality.

It may not be the same game, but FFG has a way of taking an IP and making it there own and making it successful. I personally have full confidence in them to make this a great game.

4 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

As much as I love the IP, Legend of the Five Rings can be said to have been a marginally successful CCG at absolute best.

This is going a little far. It may have been a marginal game towards the end, but at its height it was one of the most successful CCGs on the market.

13 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

Amazing support, dedicated releases, longevity and high quality.

???

1 hour ago, BigKahuna said:

Amazing support, dedicated releases, longevity and high quality.

I'll give you dedicated releases and high quality but support and longevity are questionable.

3 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

I don't really see how this reflects or has anything to do with Legend of the Five Rings. As much as I love the IP, Legend of the Five Rings can be said to have been a marginally successful CCG at absolute best. "Crappy" games as you called them like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, as well as stuff you have never heard of like Force of Will, Card Fight Vanguard, Dragon Ballz ... they all surpassed Legend of the Five rings by a margin so wide they aren't even in the same category. Legend of the Five Rings is a cult classic, one supported by a small dedicated community.

At one point L5r was running between 30 and 50 yearly tournaments with an average attendance of 40-90 players and tournaments at the major conventions that often had attendances exceeding 250, more if you count the side tournaments for people who didn't play in. So i mean, small...mmmmmaybe, i kind of doubt anyone has actual numbers for it. It was also a property that for a very very long time propped up an entire gaming company, and spawned a successful enough rpg that the setting got the d20 treatment back in 3.0. So financially outperformed by pokemon and yugioh? Yeah probably, but i think you're probably wrong with dragonball z, force of will, and card fight vanguard.

6 hours ago, Myrion said:

Maybe the Spoils was supposed to be a big thing, but it never even registered here. I only know the name because it's advertised on a few deckboxes I own for Magic.

From what I understand, Spoils from a design perspective was Magic with some changes, the biggest being the resource system (which mirrored Vs. System in that any card could be placed face down as a resource). It didn't have a strong theme or story behind it and was marketed--at least for part of its run--as a tournament game. I don't think fixed starter decks were a thing, as a lot of the focus seemed to be on draft formats. That probably did more to hurt the game than anything else: starter decks are a cheap entry point for new players and a good way to learn the game. Releases were slow, the game died at least once, and by the time it was revived I think most people had just moved on to something else. There wasn't much to bring people back.

4 minutes ago, Nagori-A-Go-Go said:

From what I understand, Spoils from a design perspective was Magic with some changes, the biggest being the resource system (which mirrored Vs. System in that any card could be placed face down as a resource). It didn't have a strong theme or story behind it and was marketed--at least for part of its run--as a tournament game. I don't think fixed starter decks were a thing, as a lot of the focus seemed to be on draft formats. That probably did more to hurt the game than anything else: starter decks are a cheap entry point for new players and a good way to learn the game. Releases were slow, the game died at least once, and by the time it was revived I think most people had just moved on to something else. There wasn't much to bring people back.

I remember spoils, I didn't like it.

Art was too silly, an no starter decks. It all seemed too haphazard.

5 hours ago, Danwarr said:

They do, but they are very very slow about it. From what I understand about Old5R, AEG was very responsive to the community. FFG is not.

I disagree strenuously with this statement that FFG is not responsive. I know one of the Netrunner World Champs. I know the design time might not seem fast fo the World Champ cards, but I know that there is a lot that goes into the process. Frankly we don't know how they will handle the interactive part. There isn't ton to base it off of at this time. Sure there were some Netrunner tourney's that let the player make some decisions, but that was before they acquired L5R, so none of us can really say what will happen going forward.

24 minutes ago, Silver Crane said:

I disagree strenuously with this statement that FFG is not responsive. I know one of the Netrunner World Champs. I know the design time might not seem fast fo the World Champ cards, but I know that there is a lot that goes into the process. Frankly we don't know how they will handle the interactive part. There isn't ton to base it off of at this time. Sure there were some Netrunner tourney's that let the player make some decisions, but that was before they acquired L5R, so none of us can really say what will happen going forward.

I'm coming at it more from a product support perspective in general. FFG can be very slow to respond to the community or with balance changes. The new MWL for Netrunner, for example, should have probably been released shortly after worlds. FFG will sometimes go months without any information coming out.

I know they care and they do work on their products, they just generally aren't very timely about it.

Well, you also need to account for the merger with Asmodee in that time frame as well. I don't necessarily disagree about the interval between FAQ and tourney rules updates being long, some time excruciatingly so, but there are sometimes reasons and mitigating factors.

On 4/21/2017 at 4:41 PM, Belechael said:

Personally, I was hoping for the same rules with new cards, same as how the old non LCG GoT became the LCG GoT.

What we are given now is a game with different rules and mechanics, with some similarities with the old one.

As far as I am concerned this is a negative for me, and it will take a lot more information, even some playtesting with some actual decks that others will buy when the game hits the stores, in order to make a decision on whether to buy it or not.

So far not so good, imho.

Buy Personalities, draw some cards, and fight on Turn One.

Buy Personalities, draw some cards, and fight on Turn Two.

Buy Personalities, draw some cards, and fight on Turn Three.

Its like all the good parts of the game without ramping up and snowballing.

It's an ABOMINATION of a game. ABOMINATION.

I am really excited for the new game. My friends have been saying for years that the best sets were the Direct to Player sets, which I think many people are forgetting were AEG's own foray into LCG. That isn't really a new concept for this game. Let's also be honest with ourselves- AEG was flailing towards the end. Its not like some sainted model was snatched away and changed unilaterally. They continually updated rules, without much of a mind towards impact. The removal of A Favor Returned/Bamboo Harvesters/Going 2nd gold plus being able to split gold made Ivory suck so bad I bailed. I couldn't believe just how little mind was paid to these changes and I had no interest in straight losing just because I went second (YMMV, maybe this got better after base set). I salute AEG for keeping it going as long as they did and the effort they threw behind it and all the volunteer labor.

With regards to the present, fading and not busting provinces and no Shadowlands faction are all concerns of mine but I'm going to withhold judgment. I'm stoked to get to play this game again with my friends.

2 hours ago, Dovla said:

It's an ABOMINATION of a game. ABOMINATION.

Would you say its a....

SLAP IN THE FACE?!!?

8 hours ago, McDermott said:

At one point L5r was running between 30 and 50 yearly tournaments with an average attendance of 40-90 players and tournaments at the major conventions that often had attendances exceeding 250, more if you count the side tournaments for people who didn't play in. So i mean, small...mmmmmaybe, i kind of doubt anyone has actual numbers for it. It was also a property that for a very very long time propped up an entire gaming company, and spawned a successful enough rpg that the setting got the d20 treatment back in 3.0. So financially outperformed by pokemon and yugioh? Yeah probably, but i think you're probably wrong with dragonball z, force of will, and card fight vanguard.

In years 2004-2006 there were French and Spanish Koteis that broke 200 or some even reached nearly 300 players.

Here are the numbers if you scroll down every year into Kotei season: http://www.jadehand.com/tourneys/

10 hours ago, Daner0023 said:

Buy Personalities, draw some cards, and fight on Turn One.

Buy Personalities, draw some cards, and fight on Turn Two.

Buy Personalities, draw some cards, and fight on Turn Three.

Its like all the good parts of the game without ramping up and snowballing.

I wish it was that simple for me!

What I wanted (and mind you I was NOT playing when FFG bought the game, so I just heard the whole deal, I had ZERO info on what was announced back then), was something along the lines of:

4 provinces, 2 decks, gold scheme smoothed somehow, personalities (mostly, like in GoT LLG in contrast to the previous CCG version) with Force, Chi, gold cost, honor. Mechanics to support dueling as we knew it, five ring conditions (perhaps without enlightenment, I could live with that, despite being a Dragon ), and probably a few more things I cant think of right now.

If I was content with the scheme you described I would play Magic, GoT, LotR, etc.

Besides the story, which for me sucked big time after the end of the Toturi Dynasty, those aforementioned rules/mechanics/conditions are what make L5R L5R, take those away and you have a different game.

Don't get me wrong, it might be the best game the gaming world has seen since Magic, but it may not be L5R to me.

Just now, Belechael said:

4 provinces, 2 decks, gold scheme smoothed somehow, personalities (mostly, like in GoT LLG in contrast to the previous CCG version) with Force, Chi, gold cost, honor. Mechanics to support dueling as we knew it, five ring conditions (perhaps without enlightenment, I could live with that, despite being a Dragon ), and probably a few more things I cant think of right now.

Your preferences:

• 4 Provinces : Check
• 2 Decks : Check
• Gold Scheme smoothed : It's called Fate now, but Check
• Personalities : the biggest difference is Chi -> Political so I'd say mostly Check
• Dueling as we knew it : this is difficult, there is dueling but it's not quite as we knew it
• Five Ring conditions : the five rings are integral to the conflict mechanics

The biggest difference of things which you care about seems to be the dueling. How do you feel about that part?

And Fate has a crucial difference to simply a smoothed gold scheme. Let's not minimize the changes either - they are there.

Largely I agree, though.

1 minute ago, Myrion said:

And Fate has a crucial difference to simply a smoothed gold scheme. Let's not minimize the changes either - they are there.

Largely I agree, though.

There are certainly important differences with Fate, but it really does fulfill the need for a smoothed [purchasing resource] scheme.

It does, but I wouldn't call it "Name change, otherwise check!"

It's more "Name change, things are not permanent now and you get the smoothed scheme you want: Largely check, with one major change."

My initial feeling is the mechanics have changed substantially (for the better) while keeping the core of provinces, 2 decks and the types of win conditions overall (even if getting there is different) . But most importantly while doing this I feel like they have kept the feel of L5R the setting, which as important as the mechanics are was for me more important.

8 minutes ago, Belechael said:

Don't get me wrong, it might be the best game the gaming world has seen since Magic, but it may not be L5R to me.

Well, it's called L5R, but it's not the same as the L5R CCG. I don't think anyone said the contrary. These are two different games with a few similarities.

There are people who won't like the new one. Well, they could always keep playing the CCG. Just not expect new releases. Nobody will forbid you to do that. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be having a ton of fun with the L5R LCG.

Even if the game is different.

Even if the story is different (I hope it is!).

Even if the characters are different. You know that Crab girl with a hammer that Steve Horvath confirmed is not O-Ushi? She could as well be a fusion of Yakamo and O-Ushi. FFG could change anything they want. There will always be people who will find it outrageous, but there are quite a few of us who will just find it awesome.