Somone went on a rant about the game on bgg and Richard actually posted (allowing it wasn't a sock puppet admittedly). The comment made some interesting points about how the design was approached so I reproduce it here

Quote

Hi Carlos,

I can't speak to how the game design portion of this will go over, I am anxious to see if the depth of skill that I think is in the game is actually there; there is only so much testing that can be done in the bubble of beta. But I can correct the factual error that FFG came to me in some strategic reaction to their card game line.

I have been working on this game for many years - before I approached FFG myself. I was personally so excited about the concept I flew myself out there and presented it, unsolicited.

I'll also say that if the game fails to do what it is supposed to I am willing to accept the game design blame because they have been amazing publishing partners in putting together this product - they have been incredibly supportive of my wishes for design, never making a change without fully convincing me it is correct, and outside game design I felt listened to in the look, humor, and intended organized play.

Your observation that you know what I am looking for, and you get that with sealed deck and draft is probably mostly correct - I scratch my itch with those formats as well. However, I feel like for me there is something still missing which I used to get in leagues. The leagues would play for weeks, sometimes even months - where people had very limited sets of cards, and I really liked the long term strategies that evolved as you learned everyone's place in the league - people would get to know their decks much better than a typical draft or sealed deck tournament, and get more invested in the best way to use these resources. Technically this can still be done - but it is a pain keeping league stuff separate, and you can only do it with a tight community because it is so easy to cheat - even by mistake. That is also why printing these cards in one massive set which people can construct their own leagues out of doesn't go where I want - you can already do that with other games but hassle has proven too great for the most part.

Many who hear what I am after do identify with what I am looking for but are left cold, at least at first, by my solution - because examples of sealed decks, drafts, and leagues have some amount of customization, which Keyforge lacks. There is something very subtle which goes on with keyforge that wins some of them back in the end, which is that the mechanics lead to a style of play which isn't entirely unlike customizing on the fly. The reason for this is the fact you refill your hand every turn and when you run through your deck you reshuffle and continue - this means you can dump cards that are unimportant in one matchup and effectively 'sideboard them out', with the only cost being a bit of tempo, not the crushing cost in most games of a card. On the other hand you can sprint through your deck to reshuffle and draw that keycard again in cases that you want its effective inclusion in your deck increased.

Anyway - some things to think about.

peace -

Richard

Allowing that is Richard Garfield, the bloke is a star...

Can you provide a link to the BGG thread?

Its not a pleasant topic but that mouthy OP is... well you can see for yourself

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2036263/my-take-game-negative-preview

Hmm. To his point of customization, I wonder if at some point further into this model, the deck will come with (let's choose an arbitrary number) 6 additional cards that you can use to "deckbuild" in a league. Perhaps 1 each of Action, Artifact, Creature, & Upgrade cards, plus a random pair - each house receiving 2 cards. Perhaps in a second, thinner sealed pack that you can only open after a certain point in your league. This last idea could be a nightmare to produce without the two packs going missing.

On that note, how is this produced? For so many games, identical sheets are printed and placed into waist-high stacks. Then, the move to a cutter and are disseminated by some randomizer that I can only guess at. (I've seen some printing techniques on Kickstarter.)

For this, however, each deck must be chosen before hand and (I have to assume) printed on a single sheet. There are 38 cards in a pack (12 for each house, 1 archon card, and 1 QR code card), so maybe 1-2 decks per sheet? Then, they have to be cut, sorted (if more than 1 per sheet), and grouped for packing.

I'm sure this more labor-intensive than traditional LCGs or TCGs. I wonder what cost difference is. I think 10USD is a steal. Magic decks are 15 - yes, they are intentionally built, but I've never known them to be balanced against each other, even in the same set.

2 hours ago, Matrim said:

Its not a pleasant topic but that mouthy OP is... well you can see for yourself

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2036263/my-take-game-negative-preview

That’s a huge thread. What exactly was about organized play?

btw I’m guessing “constructed” organized play will resemble conquest format for hearthstone. players bring a handful of decks and then play against their opponents decks needing to score a win with each deck to progress.

Context counts. OP means 'Original Poster'. Though I can see how you made that mistake.

The OP in that topic is awful. And maybe his English is awful to read too sometimes... I'm quite surprised. I don't go that often on BGG to be honest but I didn't know there were such haters over there. This FFG Bashing is totally useless and trying to destroy a game before it's released is pure sadism. It is as if those people had nothing better to do in their life but to complain about everything with the ferocity of a jealous tiger...

The answer of Garfield is still interesting and provide some information to understand the how and why about Key Forge.

Well, let's wait till December then. But again...such hate is very sad to read.

25 minutes ago, Elrad said:

The OP in that topic is awful. And maybe his English is awful to read too sometimes... I'm quite surprised. I don't go that often on BGG to be honest but I didn't know there were such haters over there.

As opposed to the 'Loot Box' and 'Cheater's Dream' threads here?

Just now, Xelto said:

As opposed to the 'Loot Box' and 'Cheater's Dream' threads here?

Yes. Lace has not been that agressive-looking as that Carlos on Bgg. And to be honest the whole discussion here in that topic was not "violent"-looking when that one on Bgg is quite hard sometimes.

Yeah. Stubborn, maybe. Agressive or rude, I don't think anyone could say that.

I guess it’s just people fearing the unknown and railing against it because it is not what they perceive to be the right (and only) way to play their games.

I’d be curious to know what the reactions to M:tG would have been when first announced and we’d have access to social media like we do now. Probably not much better ?

6 hours ago, Palpster said:

I guess it’s just people fearing the unknown and railing against it because it is not what they perceive to be the right (and only) way to play their games.

I’d be curious to know what the reactions to M:tG would have been when first announced and we’d have access to social media like we do now. Probably not much better ?

"Baseball cards without gum? ripoff!"

A lot of us on BGG have learned to just ignore this OP - he has a track record of popping into FFG game pages with topics that are basically rants. He has some kind of weird animus against FFG and as such has no credibility.

8 hours ago, Joelist said:

A lot of us on BGG have learned to just ignore this OP - he has a track record of popping into FFG game pages with topics that are basically rants. He has some kind of weird animus against FFG and as such has no credibility.

He also used to post on this site, and would put out similar rants about how dreadful the new L5R game was going to be and how female Hotaru was pandering and destroying the story. I don't know whether he still posts or not, since I put him on to ignore months ago. I also believe that his username translates as 'Disgusted'

On 8/11/2018 at 3:34 PM, MrMenthe said:

Yeah. Stubborn, maybe. Agressive or rude, I don't think anyone could say that.

I would say the opposite, he has been polite while facing some rude comments.

13 hours ago, wirbowsky said:

I would say the opposite, he has been polite while facing some rude comments.

Lace has been polite and nice when you read that Carlos on BGG that's what I wanted to say earlier too. I've been taking part in pre-release conversations of some FFG games on these forums and the community is always an healthy one. That's why I was not that worried to discuss with Lace about his concern of Key Forge being or not a gambling game. It felt naturally because I've met many users here who are really nice. On the contrary, I've had some surprises on BGG and on Reddit too...bigger places can't gather only good people I guess ?

3 hours ago, Elrad said:

Lace has been polite and nice when you read that Carlos on BGG that's what I wanted to say earlier too. I've been taking part in pre-release conversations of some FFG games on these forums and the community is always an healthy one. That's why I was not that worried to discuss with Lace about his concern of Key Forge being or not a gambling game. It felt naturally because I've met many users here who are really nice. On the contrary, I've had some surprises on BGG and on Reddit too...bigger places can't gather only good people I guess ?

I don’t consider willful misrepresentation of the truth-engaging in bad faith discussions-to be either polite or nice, so we’ll have to disagree on that.

5 minutes ago, Derrault said:

I don’t consider willful misrepresentation of the truth-engaging in bad faith discussions-to be either polite or nice, so we’ll have to disagree on that.

It wasn't misrepresentation of the truth and to me it didn't sound like bad faith, because the discussion if CCGs compare to gambling were had with Magic and is still relevant today.

It was simply a different opinion.

I post on BGG a lot and that user rants at the launch of every FFG card game. I usually just skip those threads because they get quite long and miserable after a while.

12 hours ago, Ignithas said:

It wasn't misrepresentation of the truth and to me it didn't sound like bad faith, because the discussion if CCGs compare to gambling were had with Magic and is still relevant today.

It was simply a different opinion.

He made an obviously wrong claim that it’s gambling and then admitted he really just likes a competing companies’ product, advertising it several times.

If that’s not arguing in bad faith, nothing is.

3 hours ago, Derrault said:

He made an obviously wrong claim that it’s gambling and then admitted he really just likes a competing companies’ product, advertising it several times.

If that’s not arguing in bad faith, nothing is.

I get the feeling that you argue in bad faith. The claim isn't obviously wrong, because the common definition would apply to CCGs (and Keyforge), while the legal definition wouldn't (similar to lootboxes, which was his point). He also made the point that he likes games where he doesn't have to buy random components and named a few. Calling this advertising is really a stretch.

1 hour ago, Ignithas said:

I get the feeling that you argue in bad faith. The claim isn't obviously wrong, because the common definition would apply to CCGs (and Keyforge), while the legal definition wouldn't (similar to lootboxes, which was his point). He also made the point that he likes games where he doesn't have to buy random components and named a few. Calling this advertising is really a stretch.

Neither the legal nor the common definition apply, it requires a wager.

It stretches credulity to say it wasn’t advertising. He went to the site of a game he claims to have zero interest in just to make pejorative statements and talk up the game of a competitor in the same breath. That goes well beyond a simple preference.

3 hours ago, Derrault said:

Neither the legal nor the common definition apply, it requires a wager  .

It stretches credulity to say it wasn’t advertising. He went to the site of a game he claims to have  zero interest in just to make pejorative statements and talk up the game of a competitor in the same breath. That goes  well beyond a simple preference.

The wager (or stakes you mentioned earlier) is the money you pay for the pack. Not only is the insert of the deck completely random, the value is too. If you get a very strong deck you can either flip it (like people already said they would do) to gain money or keep it to have a higher chance of material goods in tournaments.

While he has no interest to play Keyforge, he has interest in the game and especially its distribution model (otherwise he wouldn't comment it). If he isn't sponsored by the competitor or trys to sell those games, the definition of advertising doesn't apply.

The only thing that I could imagine could be in bad faith is the argument that FFG is becoming EA, because the dimmensions are completely different and the lootboxes in SW Battlefront were way more excessive compared to the AAA gaming industry than Keyforge to the card game industry. But I give him the benefit of the doubt there.

The more I read bout it, the more I like it. I think this is going to be one fine product.

On 8/14/2018 at 5:19 AM, Ignithas said:

The wager (or stakes you mentioned earlier) is the money you pay for the pack. Not only is the insert of the deck completely random, the value is too. If you get a very strong deck you can either flip it (like people already said they would do) to gain money or keep it to have a higher chance of material goods in tournaments.

While he has no interest to play Keyforge, he has interest in the game and especially its distribution model (otherwise he wouldn't comment it). If he isn't sponsored by the competitor or trys to sell those games, the definition of advertising doesn't apply.

The only thing that I could imagine could be in bad faith is the argument that FFG is becoming EA, because the dimmensions are completely different and the lootboxes in SW Battlefront were way more excessive compared to the AAA gaming industry than Keyforge to the card game industry. But I give him the benefit of the doubt there.

It’s not a wager if you can’t get the wager plus in return plus additional value. Paying money for a service or good of unknown quality is not the same as making a wager whereby one stands to lose all or win tokens/cash in addition to the original bet.

Emphasis on bet. You are not engaging in betting at all by purchasing a good or service, even though there are a ridiculous number of examples where the outcome is in question (ie haircuts, any home remodeling project, investment in a business, all types of banking and loans, ordering a book before it is published, etc.)

Given the obvious application of handicapping mechanics, I can’t see a scenario where it would ever make sense to purchase another persons deck purely on the theory it was a “stronger” deck. Caveat emptor, winning at key forge is clearly more about making good decisions than it is about deck composition. Metaphorically speakin, the game is high on piloting skill and low on aircraft quality.