For those who are wondering why there were no bans for this SOTG listen to our interview with Steve Paul said it will be up today or tomarrow and he goes more into detail for his reasoning of not doing bans for January .

MrBump said:

Hi Daniel,

I will try and get a post up there this week but I can tell you that there will be a Euro Invitational in the UK for everyone with patches and the Fight Life Championship series will be availible there as well, Paul is in teh process of sanctioning the UK regionals, so yes they will happen. Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Steve

There's very little at the moment that can cause NPE without there being useful, consistent answers to it (the only one thing that comes to mind is that Talbain with the foundation drop).

That's what I would say, but I'll wait for Steve's interview lol

All of this is good, except for one glaring problem nobody seems to be bringing up:

We have been hungry for bannings for a long time. The very fact that Steve openly admitted that our forum banter has no bearing on this game is extremely, extremely bad. Props to Steve for his honesty, but that's one thing he should've kept his mouth shut about. Again, I admire him for telling it to us like it is, but the fact that Steve basically said, "You don't matter" is one of the most risky, costly things to ever say.

Let's keep things in perspective, shall we? When STG sold the property, we had already been accustomed to the best customer service a company could ever deliver. FFG has made little to no effort to speak to us, the players. Steve, and others, "claim" to have spoken to players, retailers, etc, but something tells me there are more people here to have talked to than the "players".

UFS isn't a particularly large game, not when you compare it to the likes of Magic, Yugioh, and even Pokemon. As such, you have to understand that the frequent presence of NEW USERS (that's right, NEW users) as well as recurring veteran users, that our voice does matter. When all you ever see is thread after thread after thread of a certain card, did you ever stop and think that maybe there's a reason for that?

Now, obviously I expect James, Steve, and everybody else involved will talk over and over again, and thank GOD Steve joined me in concordance in that BRT was one of the biggest mistakes, and I'm positive it'll be banned. HOWEVER...once again, he could've said, "Sorry, nothing banned yet, be patient", NOT, "Hey forum guys, F you."

If that wasn't his intent, I apologize, but his words are there for all to read, so he better **** understand why it is I felt the way I do.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Please try again and this time read for comprehension.

It did not say "What players think does not matter and we don't listen to you at all". It did say "We don't ban based on forum threads." Two similar statements, but they are not equal. Infact I believe if you look at the thread you'll see that they do pay attention to the forums, but they state that they do not ban based on threads in the forums (a smart idea). I wouldn't ban based on threads in the forums. If they did there would be a lot fewer cards in the card pool today. This isn't a change in policy either. This is the way it was back in the STG days. Also remember the forums are the vocal minority. Those here are not representitive of all the players, and thus simply because there are 10 threads here saying ban x card does not mean banning x card is the right thing to do, and to ban something because of that is reckless and wholly irresponsible.

FFGSteve said:

This, BlindProphet, this. This is what I'm mad at. I'm not saying, "Because we want it banned, you ought oblige", I'm saying, "If there's consistently a problem that is ruining the game, discouraging newbies and veterans alike, then you're going to lose players. This has been proven by both Ibuki and Higher Calibur."

Forums are NOT the vocal minority; they're really the ONLY voice. Obviously no one FFG employee is going to call every card shop in the US and ask every player for their thought. That's what this forum is for; for us to voice our thoughts. No Joe the Plumber just calls FFG and says, "I'm sick of Lord of the Makai." No, they post it here, because they know that calling FFG to rant about X-card(s) isn't going to get them anywhere. When they post here, it makes them feel better, and that's what we want; to feel better. We want to know the company we are subservient to is faithful and understanding to us, as STG was.

So, really, the forum is one of the only voices FFG's ever going to get. Like I said, sure, they might here from certain retailers, "Hey, our playerbase here has been complaining about...", and sure, FFG may talk to people like James and other players who tell them the same thing. But, they can hear from more people here than by any other means, ergo, we are pretty much as big a voice as possible.

Basically, it's as I already said. I'm not saying they should look at OUR discussions, and use them in theirs. They shouldn't say, "Well, Shinji argued this, while this guy argued that, so..."

No, what I'm saying is, when every single player is saying, "Ibuki is too good regardless of counters, and it's wrecking tournaments", FFG should take notice (especially if they actually do receive a call or EMail) and should discuss amongst their employees the card, and if they want to ban it. They should be proactive and assertive, especially since 2008 is easily UFS' worst year ever.

So yeah.

MarcoPulleaux said:

In what part did he say that we dont matter? Obviously we matter because he has taken the time to read them, or is that way to hard of a concept to understand? If we didn't matter do you think he would even give a SOTG or much less read the forums at all?

"Just to answer the questions now, yes I know there are a couple highly debated cards out there right including Talbain. We have read the forums and talked to a lot of players and retailers, we are also playing a lot of games in house, as we always do. We are having plenty of discussions about him and some other cards. For the record I want to repeat that multiple threads repeating the same arguments is not going to make difference with what we decide. We are always paying attention to the meta but I have never banned a card because of forum threads. I can promise you are are not helping your cause posting several threads saying basically the same thing"

He has every right not to ban a card based on forum threads. Most of them only turn into a 7 page lost list of posts that are a whole bunch of whining. I can't say that I blame him...AT ALL. Heck look at the STOG thread here and see how much whining has come across that Talbain was not banned. I figured he wouldn't be banned just yet, and if you look at past bannings most have come because of their affect on the tournament scene. Oddly enough we haven't had a major tournament and there really has not been major bannings.

Instead of getting upset about Talbain, why not get excited about everything new thats comming out?

1. Promos are getting fixed!!! No spending $90 a peice to get BRTs because you have to buy a box of starters...thats AWESOME

2. Major Tournaments all year round...and none interfering with the Cons!!! We all have been asking for this. This is great news!!!

3. Steve is doing podcasts....with PLAYERS!!! He is talking with UFS players answering questions and tossing out ideas and taking feedback back to FFG, Paul, and James. How is this not a win win? We get even more information and can make even more suggestions.

All in all...great STOG Steve. We appreciate all the work you guys are doing, and thanks for the update. Look forward to listening to your podcasts.

MarcoPulleaux said:

What the deuce?! You got to be kidding me dude. 4 those of you griping, listen to the podcasts and educate yourself. Ignorance maybe bliss, but it is still ignorance none the less.

What people tend to forget is that in creating a game and maintaining it, it requires a fine balancing act. Whether it be Card Games or War Games, one thing holds true, when a decision is made it has to be made knowing that all scenario's have been tested out. Whence the 5th ed. Rulebook that came out for Warhammer 40k this past September. (While that game is not UFS related, it is still a game and trust me when I say that the changes were not fully welcomed.) Regardless, what makes making a game tough is the fact that in many ways, you are handling customers. People will always have there opinions. They may be good, they may be insulting. Knowing what Steve does, I am sure that he is aware of that. If you want to state that he does not care or that FFG does not care than I suggest u talk to a psychologist about your abadonement issues. People who are blessed to make a game do care what people think, but they can not cater to just one group or induvidual. It wouldn't be fair and would throw the game off balance.

Steve, if FFG has the time, may I suggest an article in the day and life of a Card game/ game designer. It doesn't just have to be UFS only, it can be the other properties as well. It can be a great learning tool for people who wish to go into the game design career of non-video games. Just a suggestion.

MarcoPulleaux said:

You don't understand. He's saying "WE GET IT, WE KNOW HOW THE GAME WORKS, STOP SPAMMING COUNTLESS BAN PIT FIGHTER THREADS!!!!!"

They KNOW what the problem cards are, and they KNOW they are a problem, and they have been made PERFECTLY AWARE by the countless complaints that there are problems. He's simply saying "WE KNOW, WE GET IT, STOP WITH THE NEGATIVITY, WE'RE WORKING ON IT, CALM DOWN, YOU'RE DRIVING PEOPLE AWAY, JUST STOP TYPING COMPLAINTS FOR MORE THAN TWO SECONDS PLEASE" in the absolute nicest way possible.

And I agree.

I'm assuming they want some actual tournament results to reference before dropping the hammer on something, which seems reasonable to me. I mean, as obvious as it may seem that certain cards are going to be problems, sometimes it just doesn't pan out that way, and if they pre-emptively banned every card that looked like it would be a problem we'd have quite a few unnecessary bannings. So while I don't think they'll wait through months and months of dominance like they have at times in the past, it'll probably take at least some amount of proof to justify a ban.

regarding bannings, on thing that could have been used more often: TEMPORARY ban aka lolLCK

Our threads about various cards don't matter in the final decision about what to ban, but you know what? that doesn't make us wrong. The developers aren't stupid but they do occasionally miss things (such as how OP'd cards get through) that we, the players catch. We post a thread about it, our opinion on it, and it gives the developers a warning flag that "hey, this card might be broken." They read the forums, and no, they probably aren't going to read every single page of a thread about J. Talbain being stupid, nor the 5th or 6th thread about J. Talbain being stupid, but it does bring to their attention "hey, J. Talbain might be bad for the game." when they sit down to playtest it.

Guitalex said it perfectly. It's not that they don't want our opinion on something, or that our opinion doesn't matter, it's just that they are going to do their own playtesting and possibly even use our own vocalized ideas to sit down and discuss what is and what is not busted, but they aren't going to read through 100 posts of untested, ignorant complaints and then say "hey, they're right! this card is broken! look, this one guy posted about how J. Talbain totally wrecked him, but didn't tell us how or why, and only stated that "he is broken, ban him." I think he's right."

If they always listened to the players, this games banlist would be a small book, which is something nobody really wants.

The one thing I'm pretty disappointed about is that Steve did not address an issue dear to my heart: what is FFG doing to get players into the game.

I hear things are okay in some area, but in Southern California (one of the largest concentrations of humanity in the U.S.) there are maybe 10 people actively playing... maybe only 2. In any case, I don't know these people, or haven't seen them in like a year.

I'm not saying we're the canary in the coal mine, but when you don't have players in SoCal, something is wrong.

Has anyone tried to use the venue and/or tournament searches from the official OP site? Did anyone else get the impression that they're almost completely non-functional?

I had to search for "CA" and USA in order to get California venues to come. Clicking on the tournaments link for ANY venue (even in other states) brought me to a blank page. Searching for tournaments in a particular city is impossible. If you search for California tournaments, every tournament comes up--Florida, Oregon, etc. And you can't sort by date to eliminate tourneys that already happened.

So it's pretty much impossible to even find out _if_ some brave souls are trying to run tournaments elsewhere in CA.

Then you get into the issue of contacting other players... Without PM I don't know how to contact Nintendo Man; I'd like to get his cell phone number so that maybe in the next few months we could scrape 4-6 people together for a draft (old cards, new cards, whatever we can find to draft with).

I guess what I'm saying is that this site continues to be worse for local community building than anything STG had put together... and FFG really needs to take building community and playerbase into their own hands. I'd like to hear Steve talk more about that.

MarcoPulleaux said:

If you want to rant shouldn't it be somewhere other than the state of the game thread? Besides this is steves job and you are pretty much saying he sucks at it, how do you think that makes you look?

They don't ban based on the forums, but that dosn't mean that the disscusions in the forums weren't read and disccused by them.

Oh yea by the way steve good job on the state of the game. I'm kinda looking forward to the off season tourneys.

You guys do know this is Shinji, right? You do know he'll complain about an issue that's been resolved way way back regardless of what you say, right?

great, just great. well the lord of the trolls has reared his ugly head. *sigh*

eh, not really much to think about from this, I was hoping that there may have been more information about the path of the master finals event in april (like any deck restrictions) or information about block 2 or block 1 {unlikely} cards that would be watermarked for block 3.

WhatAboutBob? said:

Speak of the devil Steves interview is finally up guys .

Um Scuba sorry to burst your bubble but yall uploaded the wrong interview you have Fred's not Steve's. I,m waiting on Steve's but Fred's was very informative none the less.Oh my bad yall do have it up.

deathcritis1 said:

Where did Fred's come in I listened to it and its Steve's is there any problem for anyone ?

Na yo I got Fred's this morning saved that's all.

deathcritis1 said:

Oh did Paul upload the wrong one then fixed it or something ?

Yeah that's the case but good interview though and I wanna comment on some things that was said but I can't right now due to the fact that no one knows what i,m talking about at this time.

Homme Chapeau said:

I actually didn't realize it was shinji, despite his signature, otherwise I wouldn't have fed the troll.

Scubadude said:

Yeah. This morning when I started to listen to it it was the wrong one, but then it was fixed latter in the day.