Trantor said:

Yeah, keep printing the Core Set might be cheaper. But printing such Upgrade Pack is still super cheap and they would earn good money out of it even with a low print run but of course having people buying the Core Sets would earn them even more money. I would see it as a nice move towards the player base if they would make such an upgrade pack.

@booored: Thanks for your constructive feedback.

BiJay said:

your welcome. About time somone in the thread said the truth instead of pontificating bollocks. Its not going to happen.. give up on it.

booored said:

Yep.

booored said:

It already has been said but also with some arguments why, which is much more helpful than your post. People have the right to say what they want. And I think FFG wants to know what we want because we are their customers. How they deal with those informations is completly up to them.

BiJay - Keep in mind that printing the upgrade pack might make you and others in this thread happy, but it would upset people who bought multiple packs. Such a change would garner as much, if not more, ill will as good will. Also, the smaller print run isn't a point it its favor. The smaller your print run, the lower your margin is on each item you print. I think its fairly safe to assume that FFG has crunched the numbers and is using the model that maximizes their profits.

Bohemond said:

Yeah, it seems like that is what they're doing atm.

Bohemond said:

That did not stop them from reprinting all of the old AGoT chapter packs to include 3x of each card, after loyal players had been buying three chapter packs for some time to get playsets of certain cards...

Charge ten or fifteen dollars more for the core set and include 3x of each card. It is quite frustrating to have to buy multiple core sets.

I can't wait for Star Wars to come out so we can have these same discussions again.

They might not make this mistake then - it's a new product they might see that it's better to just make the first box complete.

Currently it feels like an incomplete game to me - and I know that has put other people off it (It nearly put me off).

In any case I really think that FF have seen that making the sets complete from the get go is the way forward - and the core set for Lord of the Ring's is just a hold over from the old model - therefore I think they'll fix it eventually.

mkultra said:

Especially since we've already started that discussion over there once. I'm sure it can go on forever. But I think we're stuck with how it is. In order to justify 2-of-a-kind in the core, they'd have to raise the price to cover all the potential buyers of 2 and 3 core sets. That kind of price increase may undermine the interest of casual players that only buy one core set.

I bought 3 core sets and I don't regret it at all. I can understand not wanting to spend a ton of extra money but you can find the core sets for $30 or less on Amazon or other places (I think I got my third one on sale for $21).

Plus there is currently almost 200 people on Boardgamegeek who have core sets up for trade. Find a trade match with someone who played the game like once and disliked it and thus the cards are practically new and you can get one for an old game and the price of shipping. Barter system for the win!

One option they could explore is to start selling singles. you used to be able to get them from www.toywiz.com but no more it seems. I'm a bit bummed by it because not only did I find it extremely useful for deck building but, I was also able to buy individual encounter packs and therefore have permanent encounter decks setup.

Rapier said:

Changing anything because a vocal minority of hardcore gamers enjoys complaining and then buy three core sets anyway would be utterly counter-productive, especially if providing a core set with three copies of every card would increase the set's cost to a point where casual gamers (who clearly make up the majority of buyers) stop being interested.

I think it's a mistake because the ultimate goal for fantasy flight is to sell people on the game to the extent that they invest in all the expansion packs - now that essentially means the hardcore gamer's

Right now FF will make more from someone that buys all the expansions than from 3 people buying the core set - that is; if FF flight make the core set more desirable to the hardcore fans - they're more likely to get people willing to invest in there long series of expansions.

They seem currently to be keen to support this game for several years and I only see the trend continuing where the game increasingly becomes a money spinner from the hardcore gamers who want all the expansions not the causal gamers that don't care about complete sets.

Therefore I think they need to either adjust there core set - make a more expensive delux core set if they want to keep casual sales as well - or else print something to satisify hardcore gamers.

I know a lot of people that won't pick this game up entirely because the idea of initially having to buy 3 copies of the core set makes the game sound too expensive. - All of them play other card games like Magic the Gathering; where the entire goal is to have a functional deck containing exactly the number of cards you want up to the limit the rules allow.

No way to buy singles + multiple core sets makes the game seem expensive to anyone with that mindset and most card gamers I know are coming at it with that mindset.

Rapier said:

I suggest that you read Christian Peterson's posts on this exact topic at board game geek, both of which have been linked to earlier in this thread. The short version is that FFG has analyzed these issues extensively and concluded that your alternatives would lower their profits.

Rapier said:

You do realize that it is cheaper to buy three core sets of any LCG than it is to buy enough boosters to complete a playset of any Magic release. Just buying 4 of each rare will cost more.

I would like to point out that according to the LCG info page on FFG's website, nowhere do they describe this format as "playset in one box." What they do describe is "no more blind purchases" and "fixed distribution." That is all an LCG is. A fixed set of cards - you know exactly what you are buying unlike other games that sell their product randomly in booster packs. AGoT and CoC used to be sold this way. FFG decided they could survive the CCG glut and continue to produce cards for their fans by switching to this method. If it weren't for this switch, those games probably would not be here today.

If WotC decided to sell Magic in sets that included 1 of every card for $40, I think people would be lined up to buy 4 sets upon every release, including all those people you know.

I probably would.

Both of those are also fairly old posts - and I have taken the time to read them yes.

At the time they were posted though - there wasn't much support at all for this game. As more expansions are produced the profitable group will shift from casual players to those that are "hooked".

A half-way point did occur to me - they could make it so that you need 2 core sets - and then a pack that contains only the cards which you don't have 3 of with 2 core sets. The real rub comes when the 3rd core set purchase is only for about 20 cards.

Edit: Didn't see your post Mkultra.

People that want to play magic competitively don't buy boosters to get their missing cards (at least when they learn better) .

The main thing magic has going for it in that regard though is the sale of singles - because you can work out the cards you want and buy them individually.

Typically people would buy a box of boosters - sort what they had; sell the excess and buy the missing cards to complete their deck or decks.

There's no real sale on singles in the LCG model - because everyone knows what they're getting and the excess cards are therefore just going to be wasted.

The scale of cards in a magic release compared to a lord of the rings release would mean that a complete set would cost you more - but a comparative number of cards (but full play sets of them) doesn't - at least at the UK prices it doesn't.

As to your point that they never claimed that one core set was enough - you're right. I'm not arguing that they should or might want to consider changing it because I feel cheated; I knew in advance of buying what to expect and after careful consideration decided it was worth investing in this game to try it anyway. So there's not a sense of entitlement here.

It's a question of changing the design of the core set to meet with the direction that they're taking the game.

Remember, we aren't talking about the distribution line fore a single product, we are talking about the distribution for all the LCG product lines. As such, I don't think anything has changed in the past nine months since Christians last posts that would indicate that they need to alter the distribution models. The fact that the consumers of the LotR chapter packs have bought into the product and are effectively 'hooked' isn't a reason to switch. In fact, quite the opposite. If they are hooked they are MORE likely to buy multiple packs.

As for magic and the singles market, its hard to even compare costs to an LCG. In most releases, getting your hands on a play set of just a single chase-card will cost you more than three boxes of core. Putting together a single tournament caliber deck can often run you more then core + every expansion to LotR thus far.

Not that I wish to perpetuate this discussion any longer than entirely necessary, but:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2243

I direct you all to comment #8 at the bottom of the page

spalanzani said:

good catch

nail=in coffin