I realize GenCon will be the primary distraction for the board the next couple of days, but with FFG's acquisition of the Star Wars license, I'm interested to see where the LCGs are headed. We've already seen an increase in interest as GRRM booms with the release of Dance and HBO's AGOT. Are we going to see any synergy in increased popularity for their lines at stores? Will there be more robust organized play/promotional support? Will we see some increased energy from the LCG department as they staff up to accommodate growth? Inquiring minds want to know.

I don't have answers to any of your questions, I'm just hijacking this to say I would have prefered a competitive Star Wars: The Old Republic tie-in game. The biggest boost to the SW franchise in the foreseeable future will come from Bioware's upcoming MMO, and its community will naturally consist of gamers willing to spend money on a regular basis, so it seems like a fertile market for a tie-in game.

Saturnine said:

I second that emotion, although to be fair, the post doesn't seem to have left that possibility out altogether - at the very least, some of the stuff I read on the site for it implied that there may be another, different LCG coming out that is the competitive version.

It seems interesting that we had a post here semi-recently saying how a vast number of us came from SWCCG to AGOT, and now they get the SW license. My hope is that they make something somewhat similar to the original (even though that's terribly unlikely), but make it multi-house by allowing people to build decks around planets and bounty hunters and the empire and the rebels and so on. But it seems unlikely, because that would be an even huger number of "houses" than AGOT has, since there were so many planets of import in the movies. That said, even having something like independents vs rebels vs empire could be a really, really fun game, and could scale relatively easily, since you have so many places to potentially build up, you know?

Yes, I'm pretty sure they'll make use of the Extended Universe eventually, as the movie canon ultimately is too limited to continually feed an LCG. Will they go as far back as the Old Republic? I don't know, but it'd be cool. I haven't played the old SW CCG and I have no idea what that was like, but I'm definitely in favor of a competitive game with a variety of factions.

A friend of mine is actually in the process of designing a Old Republic LCG based on the Game of Thrones rules and mechanics (he has way too much time on his hands, it seems). The card abilities are a mix of original ones and effects directly lifted from Game of Thrones. There's currently three factions (Republic, Sith, and Huttese). We're still in the process of balancing some of the cards, but it's quite fun.

Part of the beauty of the original game was that you had to build *two* tournament viable decks - one light side, one dark side. In order to win everything, you had to play both sides of the force in separate games, and usually in the finals, you had to play both against the other person in the finals, rather than going up the rounds alternating decks, which is what happened in the Swiss rounds.

It was a game that, in my never-humble opinion, had the best mechanics and could result in the most stream-lined and interesting decks. It would be nice to see an SW LCG that was kind of as "adult-oriented" as the original was (while children could certainly play it, children like Mr. Erick Butzlaff) - the rules were complicated enough that it took a while to master, but once you did master it, it was just so elegant and fun. And addictive. I still think back to decks I'd be making, and I haven't played for like 8 years or more.

WolfgangSenff said:

So basically, you needed to be a rocket scientist?

While I agree a competitive LCG would be great, and even with Old Republic coming out, they shoudl probably start with the movies. But either way yes.

And to answer LUke's question. Maybe (how's that for a lawyer answer) But the possibility is absolutely there. Target used to carry WotC's Star Wars Mini's game.

They will probably synergize the release with the 3d re-release of star wars next year.

Ahzrab said:

*facepalm* Oh George...

There is a funny comic (I think its pvponline) that mentions how often they release "new" star wars content, and how even the people who complain about it still buy them.

That being said, I can't find a link. Sorry.

I played the Star Wars LCG demo at Gencon today, and while it is fun (You're running missions against a timer and an ever increasing Imperial Presence), the big complaint I heard from people was that it is a rebel-only game. The Imperials are all AI, though hopefully they'll expand to either have a competitive mode (The Strategy cards seem easily replaced by a human), it was a let down that you could only be a rebel.

Hopefully with as early along in the design as it is, they'll get it a competitive mode, but it's extremely entertaining as a cooperative.

Better than LotR's co-op AI ?

WolfgangSenff said:

Playing both sides was really one of the great parts. You always had to worry about two decks for a tournament.;-) Also objective cards (comparable to agendas in AGOT) made a whole lot of themes available and viable for tournament play. The game mechanic was excellent, every card had a so called destiny number which was used as sort of a dice to determine something like a shot with a weapon. Since the cards in your deck recircualted you could track your destiny numbers and thus raise your chances to win. Also i liked that your charachters and ships moved along your locations (planetsites, planets, asteroid fields, clouds, space slug cave, ...) and occupied/ controlled them for game effects, e.g. you had to control the Endor bunker to destroy the Endor shield. Or there was a darkside objective called "set your course for Alderaan/ The ultimate power in the universe", which allowed you build up the death star laser and blow away planets.

I would really like to have a LCG for Star Wars that would halfway follow the old decipher game, but the new cooperative LCG doesn´t look like it will be that game. I like the cooperative idea for LOTR a lot, but i somehow don´t think that i would overcome the fact that i´m not allowed to play Lord Vader myself in a cooperative SW LCG. ;-)

Wow this is cool news.

If FFG comes out with a Star Wars LCG, Ill buy my first FFG product that is not Game of Thrones.

Fieras said:

Found it

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/4/6/

Fieras said:

+1 to PA... someone should be organizing a tourney for PAX. We need to re-establish a post-rings NW outpost.

"Where does Star Wars take us?"

To a place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

The SW LCG took me to look more carefully at the LCG system. I've played many CCGs/TCGs, and loved them but it seemed like if I didn't overspend, I wouldn't be competitive. Although I'm sure I'll occasionally miss the chase of an ultra-rare card, the idea of buying a complete set of cards at once sounds good to me. Also, I like the idea of releasing new cards each month to add to the mix instead of waiting months for an expansion.

I've been a fan of the AGoT novels, and now the series, so I thought I'd take a look at the rules. Then, I watched the video on how to play. And yes, I got hooked on the idea. So, I contacted the local gaming/comics store and have ordered the Core set and a bunch of Chapter packs to get into the game.

So, it looks like the SW anouncement got another AGoT LCG player.

Some things I picked up at Gencon about the SW LCG

Multiple sources told me that they at one time had a PVP version but the success of LOTR prompted them to change to co-op. (I heard this from some demo folks and 2nd hand from a player)

In the Flight report they said not to expect 2 Star Wars LCG but that they have the license for Card Games so it would be likely that other card games are in development.

Again from the Flight report Q&A they expressed that they realized that the Dark Side was a popular choice and they said that if you want to play as Vader then it makes sense for them to develop games which will let you, but they didn't seem to think the LCG was the place to do that.

I played the game and thought it was quite a bit of fun (quick writeup of gameplay and some images at CardGameDB ) I do however agree that a PVP option would have been nice. I honestly think they could be missing the chance to make 2 games in one. I think the gameplay could adapt itself to be CoOp against the encounter deck and also PVP fairly easily.