Now that we have the restricted List I'm really hoping that someone at FFG is getting onto the other major rules issue that is outstanding. Mainly a comprehensive card FAQ.
Yes they have the FAQ section in the RRG but there are far too many developer rulings that came out in the early release days that are populating outside forums and databases that need to be collected and hosted by FFG for easy reference by players. It could be either on a hosted card database or a document that is updated on a regular basis (either monthly or Quarterly) and address the common questions that crop up on specific cards (Way of the Crab and targeting versus action cancellation abilities/effects) rather than general rules interactions.
This to me is the next big project that they need to address and hopefully will be something we see in the near future.
Comprehensive Card FAQ
This is something I patitioned for from Day 0.
But was quickly informed by the wider LCG community that this it is not how FFG operates.
And that the community driven Unofficial FAQ (witht he occasional official FAQ update to the Rules Reference) would be the best expected outcome.
Would be pretty cool.
I vaguely remember the Devs saying they were working on this. Though it might have only been the devs and not FFG as a whole.
On 5/22/2018 at 7:08 PM, Schmoozies said:Now that we have the restricted List I'm really hoping that someone at FFG is getting onto the other major rules issue that is outstanding. Mainly a comprehensive card FAQ.
Yes they have the FAQ section in the RRG but there are far too many developer rulings that came out in the early release days that are populating outside forums and databases that need to be collected and hosted by FFG for easy reference by players. It could be either on a hosted card database or a document that is updated on a regular basis (either monthly or Quarterly) and address the common questions that crop up on specific cards (Way of the Crab and targeting versus action cancellation abilities/effects) rather than general rules interactions.
This to me is the next big project that they need to address and hopefully will be something we see in the near future.
Most of the early release days rulings were incorporated into the updated RRG, so that the majority of rules questions can now be answered just by reading the rulebook.
There is a card database that is updated on a regular basis and addresses the common (and rare!) questions about specific cards. I take it your issue with it is that it is not... official?
Edited by mplain51 minutes ago, mplain said:There is a card database that is updated on a regular basis and addresses the common (and rare!) questions about specific cards. I take it your issue with it is that it is not... official?
Pretty much, any time you're at the mercy of an outside source its bad optic for a company, can't be bothered to do it themselves.
On 5/24/2018 at 3:14 PM, Schmoozies said:Pretty much, any time you're at the mercy of an outside source its bad optic for a company, can't be bothered to do it themselves.
Well, I think that's exactly correct - they can't be bothered to do it themselves, because it's not a small amount of work, and they're hesitant to dedicate paid employees' time to fix something they don't see as a problem.
I believe most players that have rules question are content with finding answers they need on 5rdb, so there is little actual demand for an official compilation, and that's why they don't do it.
Anyway, is making a Oracle-like compilation a common thing in the card games industry? I know only of MtG, and that is a venture of an entirely different level, with much more resources. Can you actually expect every card game developer to create comprehensive card databases with FAQs for every card?
7 hours ago, mplain said:Well, I think that's exactly correct - they can't be bothered to do it themselves, because it's not a small amount of work, and they're hesitant to dedicate paid employees' time to fix something they don't see as a problem.
I believe most players that have rules question are content with finding answers they need on 5rdb, so there is little actual demand for an official compilation, and that's why they don't do it.
Anyway, is making a Oracle-like compilation a common thing in the card games industry? I know only of MtG, and that is a venture of an entirely different level, with much more resources. Can you actually expect every card game developer to create comprehensive card databases with FAQs for every card?
The problem is that OldL5R actually did have an official compilation. The best compromise for FFG would be to simply officially sanction using 5-RingsDB as a legal tournament rules reference. This would save FFG the resources needed to create/maintain a card reference themselves while avoiding arguments in competitive play.
Thaddok
9 hours ago, mplain said:Well, I think that's exactly correct - they can't be bothered to do it themselves, because it's not a small amount of work, and they're hesitant to dedicate paid employees' time to fix something they don't see as a problem.
I believe most players that have rules question are content with finding answers they need on 5rdb, so there is little actual demand for an official compilation, and that's why they don't do it.
Anyway, is making a Oracle-like compilation a common thing in the card games industry? I know only of MtG, and that is a venture of an entirely different level, with much more resources. Can you actually expect every card game developer to create comprehensive card databases with FAQs for every card?
FFG has an entire Organized Play division (even if it is only a few staff) and sells itself on the OP experience. If you already have the department than there is no reason you can't make the establishing and maintenance of such a database a part of the job description so I don't really see that as an excuse.
Just making one of the outside sources an "official" site and linking it in the rules section would go a long way to solving the ambiguity issue, but still doesn't address the core issue that they are beholden to an outside provider to maintain a very importance resource for their players. I don't discount the work that CardgameDB and FiveringsDB do in maintaining those FAQ's but what happens if the decision is made by those sites that its no longer in their interest to maintain the Database (either due to cost or changing interest). What if the outside servers that the sites are maintained on go down for an extended period or back ups fail and the data is lost.
And further what about rulings that you may not have been privy to as they were sent directly to an FFG inbox or through a message that you weren't aware of or didn't notice,
There are too many ambiguities that can be created (even worse when two sites are maintaining a rulings archive and may not have all the same rulings on each) that it would be better if there were one universally recognized comprehensive FAQ, and again for optics that is something that should be hosted by the creators of the game and not an outside source.
I mean, they're already beholden to an outside provider (Cascade Games) to actually organize/run most of their premiere level OP events, so what's one more outside provider to manage tournament rulings? ?
To be clear 'most' only refers to American events, excluding GenCon and Worlds.
1 hour ago, Kaito Kikaze said:I mean, they're already beholden to an outside provider (Cascade Games) to actually organize/run most of their premiere level OP events, so what's one more outside provider to manage tournament rulings? ?
The difference is that is a contractual obligation which means that Cascade has committed to do it for a fixed period and there will be penalties for them if they fail to follow through on those obligations. At the end of that contract they can simply re-up, bring everything in house or go with a different organizer for OP events.
There is as far as we are aware no such contract with the DB sites so they could dump everything on a whim tomorrow if they wanted and than where would we be?
17 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:The difference is that is a contractual obligation which means that Cascade has committed to do it for a fixed period and there will be penalties for them if they fail to follow through on those obligations. At the end of that contract they can simply re-up, bring everything in house or go with a different organizer for OP events.
There is as far as we are aware no such contract with the DB sites so they could dump everything on a whim tomorrow if they wanted and than where would we be?
Answer: the same place we are now.
More generally, its really not that bad if one of these sites shuts down for FFG. As I mentioned previously... the cheapest and simplest solution for FFG is to make one of these sites the "official" source for rules and instruct their rules/design team to CC their rulings to whomever maintains the site.
Thaddok
PS: As a side note, you appear to simply be guessing about Cascade's and the two DB site's arrangement(s) with FFG... unless you have some additional information?
2 minutes ago, Thaddok said:Answer: the same place we are now.
More generally, its really not that bad if one of these sites shuts down for FFG. As I mentioned previously... the cheapest and simplest solution for FFG is to make one of these sites the "official" source for rules and instruct their rules/design team to CC their rulings to whomever maintains the site.
Thaddok
PS: As a side note, you appear to simply be guessing about Cascade's and the two DB site's arrangement(s) with FFG... unless you have some additional information?
Cascade, its not so much a guess as the assurance that a company their size doesn't just go out and run events where they have to pay staff just because they like a game. Plus there is anecdotal information that the reason we can't get a Kotei anywhere in Canada is that they have a contract to run events in North America and due to visa restrictions none of their staff are permitted to work in Canada so they can't send people to run events up here.
The DB sites is purely speculation on my part, but again if you had some sort of deal with either of the sites it would make far more business sense to advertise that deal (for both parties) and drive traffic between each other.
Don't FFG own the CardgameDB site. Isn't that why the FAQs there were generally the trusted source previously?
They bought it some time ago, yes.
31 minutes ago, Tabris2k said:
And I'm glad for it. Now they just need to start filling it up.