16 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

I know my biggest problem with any of the old story. The way people are using it to bludgeon the new one. As someone who never read anything that happened before Ivory, when i started playing, I've been enjoying everything I've seen so far. I haven't been enjoying people propping up the old story as some how perfect, and complaining about every little change from the old story. It's annoying for someone who just wants to enjoy the game, and worse it makes old players look bad, even worse it can drive new players away.

My little rant over.

How many versions of the King Arthur story have you read / seen? Do you compare them? Have a favorite?

Do you compare the remake of Battlestar Galactica to the original? Or any movie remake (they're not hard to find nowadays) to its original?

In horror stories, do you compare different versions of Frankenstein's monster, or any of the many Dracula stories?

If your answer to these is no, you're practically unique. Of course we're going to compare the remake to the original. We want the new one to be better, while still preserving the good parts of the original. Not, of course, that any of us would agree on which parts are good or bad Still, if comparisons to the original are going to get you down, you're probably not going to have a good time on these boards. It's not going to stop.

39 minutes ago, agarrett said:

In horror stories, do you compare different versions of Frankenstein's monster, or any of the many Dracula stories?

Sure you do. But you must admit that it is going too far here. We have people threatening to quit right away if the color of the hair of character x is different than the original, while someone else is sure that the game is doomed because the story is too close to the original. All in between, everybody talks about the old story and very few seems to be interested in the new lore. At least this is my perception, as I have to skip the majority of discussions as they end up talking about stuff I have no clue about, with people fighting over details that are now irrelevant as we are in a new storyline.

I've been on many game forums, but I've never found this level of nitpicking and sometimes anger... before the game is even out! I'm not going to say it's going to drive new players away, but for sure it makes hard to partecipate

45 minutes ago, agarrett said:

How many versions of the King Arthur story have you read / seen? Do you compare them? Have a favorite?

Do you compare the remake of Battlestar Galactica to the original? Or any movie remake (they're not hard to find nowadays) to its original?

In horror stories, do you compare different versions of Frankenstein's monster, or any of the many Dracula stories?

If your answer to these is no, you're practically unique. Of course we're going to compare the remake to the original. We want the new one to be better, while still preserving the good parts of the original. Not, of course, that any of us would agree on which parts are good or bad Still, if comparisons to the original are going to get you down, you're probably not going to have a good time on these boards. It's not going to stop.

I'd agree. but I didn't say compare. In fact, I purposefully didn't say compare. I don't care about people comparing. I care about the constant *******.

50 minutes ago, agarrett said:

How many versions of the King Arthur story have you read / seen? Do you compare them? Have a favorite?

Do you compare the remake of Battlestar Galactica to the original? Or any movie remake (they're not hard to find nowadays) to its original?

In horror stories, do you compare different versions of Frankenstein's monster, or any of the many Dracula stories?

If your answer to these is no, you're practically unique. Of course we're going to compare the remake to the original. We want the new one to be better, while still preserving the good parts of the original. Not, of course, that any of us would agree on which parts are good or bad Still, if comparisons to the original are going to get you down, you're probably not going to have a good time on these boards. It's not going to stop.

And too answer your questions, Never really thought about different versions of King Arthur, so I don't compare them, or have a favorite. I never watched battlestar. Never really cared enough about complaining about remakes to spend that much time comparing them. I can say I've never spent much time comparing Hammer Horror to the Universal monsters either.

I mean, yeah it may make me unique, but I'm also aware that most all these things are made at different times and different sensibilities that any comparing beyond one of an academic nature is kind of fruitless. But again, comparing isn't complaining. I didn't say Compare.

1 minute ago, franzvong said:

Sure you do. But you must admit that it is going too far here. We have people threatening to quit right away if the color of the hair of character x is different than the original, while someone else is sure that the game is doomed because the story is too close to the original. All in between, everybody talks about the old story and very few seems to be interested in the new lore. At least this is my perception, as I have to skip the majority of discussions as they end up talking about stuff I have no clue about, with people fighting over stuff that is now irrelevant as we are in a new storyline.

I've been on many game forums, but I've never found this level of nitpicking and sometimes anger... before the game is even out! I'm not going to say it's going to drive new player away, but for sure it makes hard to partecipate

As an old school L5R-er who played the CCG since around 1996, I am enjoying the heck out of the new fiction and the reworking of the world. Admittedly we don't have a lot to go on yet, but so far they seem to have struck the exactly correct balance between "World we have seen before" and "It's a whole new Rokugan!" I am excited to see a bunch of stuff I recognize while, at the same time, I have no idea what is going to happen next.

I, personally, am extremely pleased.

Sure, there are a lot of people complaining. This is the internet after all. But I would be very surprised if the silent majority of "old school" players do not feel as I do.

1 minute ago, Yogo Gohei said:

As an old school L5R-er who played the CCG since around 1996, I am enjoying the heck out of the new fiction and the reworking of the world. Admittedly we don't have a lot to go on yet, but so far they seem to have struck the exactly correct balance between "World we have seen before" and "It's a whole new Rokugan!" I am excited to see a bunch of stuff I recognize while, at the same time, I have no idea what is going to happen next.

I, personally, am extremely pleased.

Sure, there are a lot of people complaining. This is the internet after all. But I would be very surprised if the silent majority of "old school" players do not feel as I do.

I give this message my enthusiastic supprt.

24 minutes ago, franzvong said:

Sure you do. But you must admit that it is going too far here. We have people threatening to quit right away if the color of the hair of character x is different than the original, while someone else is sure that the game is doomed because the story is too close to the original. All in between, everybody talks about the old story and very few seems to be interested in the new lore. At least this is my perception, as I have to skip the majority of discussions as they end up talking about stuff I have no clue about, with people fighting over details that are now irrelevant as we are in a new storyline.

I've been on many game forums, but I've never found this level of nitpicking and sometimes anger... before the game is even out! I'm not going to say it's going to drive new players away, but for sure it makes hard to partecipate

To respond to this a second time:

I think a lot of the griping is due to the fact that we don't have a comprehensive backstory from FFG yet. The old players don't know what parts of old-Rokugan are still intact and which parts are not. So, we are all coming into this with favorite parts from the old story and, some of us, are getting very salty when something shows up that craps all over our expectations.

"Here is a list of things that you can change without upsetting me, but don't touch my favorite things!"

I, personally, have a few expectations set up about how this new setting will (or, more likely, won't) handle Bayushi Dairu. If the topic is completely ignored (which is very likely) when the Scorpion fiction shows up, I will be a bit cross about that. But everything else has been so great so far that I will not let my personal bugbear color my vision of the entire setting.

As I said before, I am enjoying things too much to let an admittedly minor crack ruin my day.

48 minutes ago, franzvong said:

Sure you do. But you must admit that it is going too far here. We have people threatening to quit right away if the color of the hair of character x is different than the original, while someone else is sure that the game is doomed because the story is too close to the original. All in between, everybody talks about the old story and very few seems to be interested in the new lore. At least this is my perception, as I have to skip the majority of discussions as they end up talking about stuff I have no clue about, with people fighting over details that are now irrelevant as we are in a new storyline.

I've been on many game forums, but I've never found this level of nitpicking and sometimes anger... before the game is even out! I'm not going to say it's going to drive new players away, but for sure it makes hard to partecipate

Agreed. As a veteran of the old L5R forums, even I never expected such...I'll just say passionate expressions of opinion here.

I'm beginning to think this franchise would be more successful going forward if nobody had ever heard of it before.

3 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

I'm beginning to think this franchise would be more successful going forward if nobody had ever heard of it before.

Yes and no. I'm not sure it would get the attention it did if it wasn't the reboot of an existing thing. I wouldn't have paid attention to it. Otherwise, it would probably just be seen as "Oh it is just another anime thing. Meh".

I think a lot of the problem right now is a lack of people playing it. So they critique everything else!

5 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Agreed. As a veteran of the old L5R forums, even I never expected such...I'll just say passionate expressions of opinion here.

I'm beginning to think this franchise would be more successful going forward if nobody had ever heard of it before.

That's certainly not true. I can't speak for everyone else, but each of these fictions is giving me a pleasant dopamine rush brought on by pure nostalgia.

Also, many of us wouldn't be here if this were a new property. Buying the license was a very wise business decision, even if they got some of the more gripe-y fans along with everyone else.

6 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

I'm beginning to think this franchise would be more successful going forward if nobody had ever heard of it before.

Of course it would be! There are so many players around here who think they own the setting and keep comparing what FFG does to what AEG did. There were good things in AEG's version of the story, but the lack of consistency bet<een the numerous story teams and story arcs probably hurt the setting a lot.

Now, we have a genuine opportunity to start something new, but with every fiction so far, people around here see the sky falling because :

a) the story is different from what they know, and that's heresy to them.

b) some elements of the story stay the same, and in the AEG version, it lead to bad things, so we're doomed to have the sucky stories repeating

c) some elements are too close, or not close enough, to Japanese stuff, and that's horrible, so we're doomed.


I just wish people would stop complaining every day about every piece of news or new fiction. Even Kempy posts a lot less negativity these days.

On the other hand I guess the happy people mainly stay silent. Internet is for the discontent people at heart.

1 hour ago, franzvong said:

I've been on many game forums, but I've never found this level of nitpicking and sometimes anger... before the game is even out! I'm not going to say it's going to drive new players away, but for sure it makes hard to partecipate

I see you never had a chance to visit the old AEG L5R forums.

3 minutes ago, Ser Nakata said:

On the other hand I guess the happy people mainly stay silent. Internet is for the discontent people at heart.

^ This

People that complain also care. The more people care about what you are doing, the better.

The number of people that are here solely to ruin everyone else's good mood are pleasantly few.

16 hours ago, wolfien8 said:

I don't think that is true, throughout this we see that the Daimyo guy (M-whatever, I am bad with names) is constantly concerned with the well being of his people. I agree that he wants to care for every person as the population dwindles, but I don't think that he seems like a guy who would trample a little girl. He would probably do the same thing in good time. Dragon cares about individuals and doesn't always fit in to the I am better than you style.

Agreed. I do note that, while we are told that he is thinking about the population crisis, there's no hint of him having to use that to control anger or anything like that. He comes across as a genuinely nice guy, and the incident just reminds him of one of the problems he's dealing with.

9 hours ago, Mirumoto Kojiro said:

Then you don't understand what he was. This contains plenty to be concerned about.

I mean, if you like it, great. I'm not judging you. But I'm here for the old Dragon clan I supported loyally for years. I supported the game because I supported the clan. I left the game (as did others here) because of what was done to the clan, especially Togashi. If this is going the Wick way, I'm keen. If it's going the Wulf way, I'm out. My time and money are limited these days and I'd prefer not to waste it.

For the benefit of those among us who aren't intimately familiar with all the old fiction and who wrote them, could you please elaborate? What differences were made that were so grievous?

4 hours ago, Fumi said:

Any time a sentence starts this way, it's wrong.

If some scientist discovered a cheap immortality drug, the internet would immediately fill with whining about how it took too long.

More to the topic at hand, not everyone is a fan of the original story.

I'm pretty sure that if such a drug were invented, people would quickly discover that immortality in this world isn't all it's cracked up to be.

4 hours ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:

This actually gives me some trepidation about the clan.
One of (if not THE) worst part of the Dragon in Old5R was their seclusion. More often than not it left them out of the story. If the beginning of New5R's Dragon is also mountain seclusion, that looks really bad. They need to come down from the mountain now and stay down.

That seems to be where the current story is headed, so hopefully FFG is aware of the old Dragon issue.

1 hour ago, agarrett said:

How many versions of the King Arthur story have you read / seen? Do you compare them? Have a favorite?

Do you compare the remake of Battlestar Galactica to the original? Or any movie remake (they're not hard to find nowadays) to its original?

In horror stories, do you compare different versions of Frankenstein's monster, or any of the many Dracula stories?

If your answer to these is no, you're practically unique. Of course we're going to compare the remake to the original. We want the new one to be better, while still preserving the good parts of the original. Not, of course, that any of us would agree on which parts are good or bad Still, if comparisons to the original are going to get you down, you're probably not going to have a good time on these boards. It's not going to stop.

The problem isn't comparing; it's limiting yourself to comparing. I can make a huge list of the differences and similarities between the Lord of the Rings films and books. This list tells me absolutely nothing about the story as it's being told in the adaptation, and tells even less about whether or not the adaptation is any good. I have seen films that stayed very close to the books they were based on and ended up as horrible movies. I've also seen films that strayed quite far from the books and were still entertaining, well-told stories.

More important than merely recognizing the differences is looking at what impact they have on the story. Maybe upon looking at the new story, you realize that you really enjoy it. Or maybe you find out that you hate it. Either way, just saying, "It's different!" stifles rather than enhances discussion.

2 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

^ This

People that complain also care. The more people care about what you are doing, the better.

The number of people that are here solely to ruin everyone else's good mood are pleasantly few.

During my time working in 'the industry' I came to understand that the online* L5R community had a reputation as one of the most toxic fandoms in the card gaming community.

While I won't go into details, when conversations I had early on with people after the IP sale lead me to believe that FFG was not prioritizing nor particularly interested in retention of the old fan base, and was more focused on growing a new one, I have to say I was relieved.

Focusing on retention was one of the many reasons L5R at AEG died a slow, hemmoraging death.

By the end you'd think the only active fans were people who'd quit years ago and just stayed around for the enjoyment of throwing some stones now and then.

(* It's important with L5R to distinguish the online community from the actual physical community, which usually always drew universal praise.)

20 hours ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

Very nice work. A good start for my favorite Clan.

For those who haven't seen it, this is Togashi Kazue:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/W9OnD

Given that she's described as having the dangerous and disturbing power of what amounts to mind control: Maybe in this version oh L5R, Kazue is the new "Kokujin". Perhaps she's actually involved with spreading the Perfect Land Sect.

She's an airbender?

7 minutes ago, Network57 said:

She's an airbender?

I have to say it sounds more like she's a mindbender.

4 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I have to say it sounds more like she's a mindbender.

*GROAN*

9 hours ago, Mirumoto Kojiro said:

You clearly understate the loyalty some of us had in the old days. I will never play Crane, or any other clan. I'm a Dragon.

What you have to understand is that there were basically two old Dragon clans- the one by the original creator and the one they were retconned into. I'm interested in supporting my old clan. I've no interest in supporting the mess they were made into.

Sounds to me like you're loyal to your own idea of the Dragon, as opposed to what may or may not be the reality of the clan itself. You're stuck between a personal identity and a past longing.

What is Loyalty? What is not Loyalty?

52 minutes ago, Tetsuro said:

During my time working in 'the industry' I came to understand that the online* L5R community had a reputation as one of the most toxic fandoms in the card gaming community.

While I won't go into details, when conversations I had early on with people after the IP sale lead me to believe that FFG was not prioritizing nor particularly interested in retention of the old fan base, and was more focused on growing a new one, I have to say I was relieved.

Focusing on retention was one of the many reasons L5R at AEG died a slow, hemmoraging death.

By the end you'd think the only active fans were people who'd quit years ago and just stayed around for the enjoyment of throwing some stones now and then.

(* It's important with L5R to distinguish the online community from the actual physical community, which usually always drew universal praise.)

I never understood this position, honestly. In my experience, the L5R online community was saintly compared to, say, the WotC community, or the Paizo community, or the GW community...
Saintly.
And that's again, the online community I speak of. The physical community, as you say, received almost universal praise for being awesome.

3 hours ago, RandomJC said:

I know my biggest problem with any of the old story. The way people are using it to bludgeon the new one. As someone who never read anything that happened before Ivory, when i started playing, I've been enjoying everything I've seen so far. I haven't been enjoying people propping up the old story as some how perfect, and complaining about every little change from the old story. It's annoying for someone who just wants to enjoy the game, and worse it makes old players look bad, even worse it can drive new players away.

My little rant over.

1 hour ago, Ser Nakata said:

Of course it would be! There are so many players around here who think they own the setting and keep comparing what FFG does to what AEG did. There were good things in AEG's version of the story, but the lack of consistency bet<een the numerous story teams and story arcs probably hurt the setting a lot.

Now, we have a genuine opportunity to start something new, but with every fiction so far, people around here see the sky falling because :

a) the story is different from what they know, and that's heresy to them.

b) some elements of the story stay the same, and in the AEG version, it lead to bad things, so we're doomed to have the sucky stories repeating

c) some elements are too close, or not close enough, to Japanese stuff, and that's horrible, so we're doomed.


I just wish people would stop complaining every day about every piece of news or new fiction. Even Kempy posts a lot less negativity these days.

On the other hand I guess the happy people mainly stay silent. Internet is for the discontent people at heart.

There were 3 stories released, and only 1 of them really garnered complaints. Maybe... if so many people have a problem with the way the story felt - it means the story didn't feel right. Maybe... you're defending something because you didn't find it a problem, but maybe that is because you are new to it, and don't realize what was so bad about it. Fitting you both use Unicorn icons then, eh? So rather than just telling people who feel the Lion clan story wasn't so great that they are wrong, listen to what they thing was wrong about it.

Every story needs to show the strengths and weaknesses of their clan, and set a strong tone for what is to be expected from that clan. The Lion clan is widely heralded as the best military in Rokugan, with the best minds for strategy running it. The Crane need to use the courts to keep the Lion from overrunning them! This is the setting through the entire history of Rokugan, and even with the reboot we are getting the same line. In the news page for The Price of War fiction one of the first lines is litterally "The Lion’s military prowess is unrivaled, as there are no sharper tacticians and no larger armies in all of Rokugan." In the Masters of War card previews we get this blurb about Toturi "Level-headed and calm, Akodo Toturi’s brilliance on the battlefield gives the already formidable Lion Clan army even more teeth."

Those are lines that attract the proper type of players to the Lion, and show non-Lion players what is to be respected from them. Then in the fiction they are completely written off as ignorant and brash, practically suicidal. The Crane overrun them tactically on the battlefield. It directly contrasts the flavor the Lion clan should have. It was not written well, and there is nothing wrong with criticizing a poor piece of fiction.

The Crane and Dragon fictions both showed the setting well, and represented what the clans were about. Their strengths and their weaknesses. The Lion clan fiction represents the Lion as weak on the battlefield, weak tactically, weak in leadership and loyalty. If you aren't a Lion clan player then maybe you don't care that they are depicted that way, and you think "I enjoyed reading this" because it wasn't about you. To players who are aspiring to Lion clan in the new game they were looking to this piece of fiction as their chance to shine... and it didn't...

So please - quit defending that fiction because "you" didn't find it problematic. You aren't Lion.

There hasn't really been any criticism of the Dragon clan story - It was told well, and it looks like the Dragon clan players are happy with it. It really represents them, their strengths and their weaknesses. The only things I hear that are negative are that people don't know which way they are going to go with Yokuni. There were a few things done before, and some of them were done badly. Just as with the Lion fiction - they are just worried their clan is not going to satisfy the player-fantasy they want to be a part of.

Player fantasy is important for games - it's the reason we play it. FFG doesn't have to cater to our whims, but their goal should clearly be to create the proper fantasy for each clan. If they don't, then these players really may be gone - and there may be more players that never join. L5R is a great game because the fiction is stronger than other games, which makes it important. I do think these players should give the new fiction a chance, and accept that FFG may change some things to make a more coherent story - but the success of that will rely on FFG keeping the fiction quality high.

As far as I understand, the difference people are asking about between "Wick Dragon" and "Wulf Dragon" is the nature of Kami Togashi. Wi-Togashi was an actual dragon, who received a vision of all future until the second day of thunder. So in order to defy fate, Togashi created the Dragon Clan and spent 1000 years turning them into a super weapon that would be given to the Toturi when the need was there. In the mean time, Togashi would pretend to die and switch identities, and manipulate events over the 1000 years in order to maximize his chances of arriving at the desired outcome. In the black-and-white world, Togashi was as white as they get.

Wu-Togashi wasn't an actual dragon, but he figured out a way to keep living despite his body dying. Over the generations, he was preparing young Tatooed Monks to be his new vessels, fusing himself and them to continue living. His visions were slightly changed (I don't remember how much), and in general Togashi was much less clean white and way more gray. He still wanted the best outcome for the empire, but was also forced to take certain non-heroic measures to do so, including the body hopping antics.

The overall problem with Togashi was, IMHO, that he was a plot device created for a very specific story and to influence it in a very specific way. Which meant that after that specific story ended, both Togashi and Dragon Clan had no identity, no purpose, and kind of no place in the Empire. Indeed, overall Dragon Clan occupied the niche of "outsiders" and were basically the stereotype of mysterious cryptic asian monk living in the mountains possessing infinite wisdom but too cryptic to share it and only coming down the mountains to give the actual hero critical bit of advice and handing him the McGuffin.

3 minutes ago, shosuko said:

There were 3 stories released, and only 1 of them really garnered complaints.

I'm going to admit, I stopped reading right there. Cause that's bull. All three stories have garnered complaints, almost always about how it's changed. You can rant all you want about my rant, but you can't come to the table with an obviously false premise. I mean literally the reason this post is in THIS thread is because someone is complaining about THIS story.

4 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

I'm going to admit, I stopped reading right there. Cause that's bull. All three stories have garnered complaints, almost always about how it's changed. You can rant all you want about my rant, but you can't come to the table with an obviously false premise. I mean literally the reason this post is in THIS thread is because someone is complaining about THIS story.

They aren't complaining about THIS story - they are expressing their fear about what the next story will be. Read everything a person says if you want to respond, otherwise you respond to what you *think* they said, not what they actually said.

Of the 3 fictions - only 1 of them really received negative reviews. The others may have had some criticism, but nothing like the Lion one did.

I liked all 3, as have a lot of others. As far as I can tell there is no class action starting amongst fans concerning the lion story.

claiming only lion clan fans truly count is a ridiculous point of view. Very lion though.