I was just looking back at the last Descent news items. The most recent was in May - reminding you that if you buy a copy of Dungeonquest you can use the heroes when playing Descent.

Prior to that August 2010 announced the Ocean Map Board for Sea of Blood going on sale.

So my prediction is that the next news item will be in February 2012 reminding us that if we buy an additional set of Descent dice we don't have to keep passing all of the dice included with the game from player to player.

Maybe I'm becoming jaded and cynical, but when do you think we will actually get some new Descent news? Or will it suddenly disappear from the website as being a no longer supported product?

My guess would be that GenCon is our last hope, if something isn't announced about it there, I would say it is going the way of World of Warcraft the Boardgame and the Dodo.

*Edit* Forgot to add that I think the reason for this is that Sea of Blood and the Quest Compendium (the last two products released for this line) were such utterly rushed and poorly put together pieces of crap that sales stunk on both of them. I think because of this FFG doesn't want to mess with Descent anymore as they view their sales as having petered out.

Thanks to the success of Runewars and such, I believe they view the Terrinoth IP as viable, but I think the poor sales of the last two items made them not want to put effort into Descent anymore.

Kartigan may have a point. I suppose time will tell, but the release schedule has definitely dropped on Descent.

Personally, I'm hoping it will eventually be resurrected in a second edition, but that might not be for a few years yet.

I really think that Gen Con 2011 is the last calling: if nothing will happen right there, Descent will be history

I am not so sure that its GenCon or bust. Did anybody really expect a twilight expansion? Aside from the flop that was sea of blood, I think Road to Legends opened things up by taking the game out of the stright dungeon crawl and into some outdoor settings. A mountain or dessert themed expansion may be an interesting hit.

Was runwars really that popular? I know some people bought it, and a few really like it, but you read arround the web or at board game geek, the game is liked but to loved.

I belong to a pretty big gamers circle, There are 4 copies of twilight imperium amoing the people I know, and only one copy of runewars, and we love descent.

Me and my friends are all of the same opinion of runwars, great game, will not turn down a game, but give us the choice we will play twlight Imperium, and its not like we are sci-fi lovers, we do love descent.

Dywnarc said:

I think any new expansion could be a hit as long as it isn't crawling with imbalances and errors. Things like printing two components which could be, and in fact are, required at the same time on opposite sides of the same tile don't exactly do wonders to help reviews or sales. From what I've read, that's just the tip of the iceberg with SoB.

Descent is a fantastic game (both vanilla and AC, IMHO) but for whatever reason, quality has been taking a pretty big hit in the last couple of offerings. Whether FFG grew disenfranchised of hearing bad reviews and decided to just stop, or whether they've gone back to the drawing board to ensure the next one is flawless, we the fans can't really say right now. Maybe they just decided the game is "big enough" and decided to quit before people started accusing them of milking the cow.

Dywnarc said:

It was popular enough to keep the Terrinoth franchise alive, at any rate. As evidenced by the upcoming Rune Age deck builder - the brand name of Terrinoth has proven popular enough to maintain, even if Descent as a single entity therein seems to be in decline. I think that was all Kartigan was saying.

At any rate, I at least hope they get into some reprints, because I'm just starting with Descent and I'd be sad if I was unable to get all of the expansions.

New stuff overall would be a lot better, though.

It would actually be very interesting to see some sales numbers on different games and expansions.

One thing which might speak against new Descent stuff is that while an entertaining game, the system is heavy and the games take very long. When you combine that with a need for a core box and 1-4 expansions (depending if you want to have a "full" game), the new players are jumping directly in the deep end of the pool waving a stack of dollars/euros in their hands. As it stands Descent is quite intimidating block of a game suitable only to people hardcore gamers with A LOT of time on their hands.

What I think FFG will NOT do is that they will do to Descent what they did to Arkham Horror with Mansions of Madness. To take the IP and the central idea and create something that is with lighter rules mechanics, less downtime, more streamlined and still delivering storydriven experience. This would definitely be the end of Descent as we know it, but with something similar to MoM they would be competing directly with their own game. One reason why there haven't been anything new for Descent might well be because they're directing their support to a similar kind of "keeper/OL vs. investigators/heroes" - game in their own line.

I don't think the right way to go would be another expansion adding rules and complexity and miniatures.

One way to bring Descent effectively back to life would be if FFG would offer revised (faster) ruleset and new more storydriven quests as either small box or print on demand expansions. We Descent veterans could use the existing miniatures and dungeon tiles with a new rules engine and at the same time this would boost the sales of the core box and expansions.

I know not all people are fans of Corey Konieczka's designs, but if I was FFG boss I'd lock Corey up with Descent for a week and tell him to come up with a version 2.0 with a fresh spin.

Take this all with a grain of salt as I'm a HC gamer whose group has a real too many games, not enough time - issue.

I think the gist of it is that Descent needs a new core set rather than an expansion. Be it a version 2.0 of the game or not. The problem is that whatever expansion they release right now it would require the old core set and that might drive people away. If they however release a new core set people could buy just that and play just that. If it was compatible with the old Descent then even better, if not, well... it's still more stuff to play for the "veternas" while being more accessible for new players.