30 minutes ago, phillos said:

Dedicated online gaming outlets like CSI or mini mart seem to be much more reliable at meeting their demand and closing preorders when they reach their limit. Of course then you can't take advantage of Prime shipping but I also noticed Amazon's price is usually full retail while MM and CSI give you a bit of a discount to offset shipping.

That's the problem when CSI is your FLGS. Everyone goes there so they often end up sold out before the local guys can get theirs. I don't think I ever did get an ivory mantis starter.

If the audience is prepared to just take whatever is offered whenever it is offered(like ill treated KS customers confusing sad acceptance with patience), there really is no incentive for FFG to do earlier wide launches. Not saying FFG is abusing their customers or the industry (ANA on the other hand...), but I don't get why they do it. LCGs consistently have solid demand which can justify a simultaneous-ish launch.

I can understand why you are getting salty. I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I think it's fine. It's rewarding the dedicated people who are attending the kick off event. Considering the core set is just going to printers now I'd imagine it's a pretty big rush order just to meet the Gencon demand, and I'd prefer that go to the people dedicated enough to travel to Gencon and preorder tournament tickets or wait in those hellish lines to purchase a copy. Hopefully the gap won't be that long. If I recall correctly AH TCG's wait from the initial Arkham Nights prerelease was pretty reasonable. The problem with that game's release was the demand was much higher than they expected.

Do we know that when they updated the website is when the order actually hit the printers? Is the updated website referring to the Gen Con order, or the wider release?

I think historically the Gencon stock is just a rush order from the first printing, but I'm obviously not in the know about the inner workings of FFG. All I know is I don't recall that page flipping status back and forth between the Gencon and wider release, but monitoring that page we need to assume they are being truly transparent about product status. I'm not sure that's 100% the truth. I think it's really just equal parts a marketing tool (building hype) and it's meant to filter out email traffic asking for product status.

7 hours ago, Mon no Oni said:

I'm not sure if this has been already noticed, but a change has happened in the status of the L5R Core set, according to the Upcoming section of the site. The game is "At the printer", since exactly a week ago. What this means for an expected release date (GenCon aside) I don't know.

Since the FFG UK Natuional Championship on 9/17 does not include L5R.......I'm gonna guess that the expected street release day for L5R is after that.

32 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Since the FFG UK Natuional Championship on 9/17 does not include L5R.......I'm gonna guess that the expected street release day for L5R is after that.

FFG has said Q4 or October a number of times now. There is a rumor floating around that some places might have it sooner, but the official line from FFG is October.

Just now, Danwarr said:

FFG has said Q4 or October a number of times now. There is a rumor floating around that some places might have it sooner, but the official line from FFG is October.

Is that not after 9/17.

Just now, Ishi Tonu said:

Is that not after 9/17.

It is. I was just getting a bit more specific for those curious.

I imagine FFG is being prudent. They won't schedule at the UK Nationals without knowing for sure if the game would be out. On the other hand *if* the stars are right and it's out by then, well, then it's just a missed chance... or they can put something together fast (or even better, they'd have already planned for that eventuality).

TBH the printing may well all be started at the same time, but chances are they're air shipping what they need for Gen Con and having the rest sent by boat. As a comparison, Greenbriar Games just had to order a reprint on some map tiles for their Folklore the Affliction boardgame. They outright said the only way they're getting any product to gen con is air shipping a small shipment, and even though the reprint is already at the printers, they don't anticipate having product ready to ship to kickstarter backers until September. That's not allowing for potential delays with the boat, customs, reallocation of product to distributors for the distributors to then fulfill orders to stores...

I just hope FFG is not grossly underestimating the demand.

They might be; still they already stated this would be their biggest initial print run ever for a LCG. In any case this would be better than them overstimating the demand! One thing can be fixed over the next few months, the other, might be a problem for the long life of the game.

The moral is: if you want to avoid disappointment, go to your FLGS and make your reserve already, if you have that option. Let your retailers know and don't wait. For Arkham Horror I still remember how people walked in the store a couple of weeks after release expecting to find the game. You cannot expect there is one copy (or three!) printed with your name on it; but you can reasonably expect there will be a copy that your retailer will be happy to set aside for you if you let him know.

7 hours ago, phillos said:

I can understand why you are getting salty. I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I think it's fine. It's rewarding the dedicated people who are attending the kick off event. Considering the core set is just going to printers now I'd imagine it's a pretty big rush order just to meet the Gencon demand, and I'd prefer that go to the people dedicated enough to travel to Gencon and preorder tournament tickets or wait in those hellish lines to purchase a copy. Hopefully the gap won't be that long. If I recall correctly AH TCG's wait from the initial Arkham Nights prerelease was pretty reasonable. The problem with that game's release was the demand was much higher than they expected.

No salt(maybe a little disdain for kickstarter sycophants). I really wonder about this. The three month gap is a long time for other people to make money off of FFG's product via ebay and the like. If I were FFG, I'd want that money to be my money, or at least reduce the amount of time other people profit off my stuff. The NES classic(or consoles in general) is a famous example of this. I also don't see it as much of a reward for dedicated people as much as a good promotion for GenCon itself and a good way to get short money, speaking with the experience of waiting for past LCGs, but I can see how L5R could be viewed differently as it's an institution in itself. Maybe the hype and anticipation overshadow the less patient drop off.

On 7/10/2017 at 0:57 PM, JJ48 said:

I hope we get more regular updates for the location of the game.

"At the printer 07/03/2017"

"At the water cooler 07/05/2017"

"At Larry's cubicle 07/06/2017"

...and so on.

Damnit Larry...

I'm still burned by Star Wars Destiny's poor supply at launch...oh wait, I mean poor supply always. Right now I'm very worried about being able to get L5R, based on what I've seen of FFG's distribution so far. I am unfortunately "not dedicated" enough to get this game at GenCon (if by "not dedicated," you mean "I have real friggin' responsibilities and can't afford to haul off to Indiana for a $40 board game"), so I'm wholly dependent on FFG's ability to get this game out to stores. If they short-print the first run, a lot of people are going to be screwed. Star Wars Destiny still hasn't recovered from that. Then again, maybe it will be easier for them to recover from a short first print than Star Wars Destiny, since they don't have to deal with making those fancy dice. All the game components will, I think, be paper and cardboard--aside from the initiative bid dial, which looks like it's going to work like an X-Wing dial and feature one of the plastic pegs from those.

35 minutes ago, Mandalore525 said:

I'm still burned by Star Wars Destiny's poor supply at launch...oh wait, I mean poor supply always. Right now I'm very worried about being able to get L5R, based on what I've seen of FFG's distribution so far. I am unfortunately "not dedicated" enough to get this game at GenCon (if by "not dedicated," you mean "I have real friggin' responsibilities and can't afford to haul off to Indiana for a $40 board game"), so I'm wholly dependent on FFG's ability to get this game out to stores. If they short-print the first run, a lot of people are going to be screwed. Star Wars Destiny still hasn't recovered from that. Then again, maybe it will be easier for them to recover from a short first print than Star Wars Destiny, since they don't have to deal with making those fancy dice. All the game components will, I think, be paper and cardboard--aside from the initiative bid dial, which looks like it's going to work like an X-Wing dial and feature one of the plastic pegs from those.

I feel you, I'm about 4 hours away by car and I've STILL never attended GenCon.

On the plus side, with the whole 'doubling' of the GenCon event, they might takes steps to Insure enough product for the general release.