Can we get to Earth one day?

I'm begging here.

Even just a little card pack? Like one of those Game of Thrones Chapter Packs, with a few extra Skill Cards, Treachery Cards, Agendas, Crises, Quorum Cards, and of course, Objective: EARTH?

If not, could you put us devoted fans out of our misery and let us know that there won't be any further expansions?

Please?

Pretty please?

I agree. I would really like to see a final expansion covering the 4th season.

Well… maybe someone should say something to the guys over at FFG… see what they say, if anything. I mean… it's got to have been asked a few thousand times already.

Seconded!

Anacreon said:

My sarcasm detector is in the shop (you would not believe the backlog on these things nowadays); I thought this was the appropriate "forum" (ba-dum- ching! ) to communicate with FFG. I'm happy to be that someone, if you'd give me an explain-it-like-I'm-five on where to go. Best I could find was a User Support form in the back of their new customer service page (…which has an oddly circular link as their top news item, but I digress).

I think a certain amount of hopelessness was misread as sarcasm. None intended.

Personally, I blame FFG for any edginess. It's like when people go too long without food or sleep; irritability is bound to follow. Personally I'm afraid I'm about two expansionless months away from all sorts of unsavory behavior.

Gotcha. I think I'm more … irked at FFG for keeping silent for so long. I understand it's in their best interests as a business to "keep all options open," as well as avoiding the risk of angering fans by announcing "no more expansions" or the like, but they're leaving faithful purchasers hanging and that's just mean.

Is it too much to ask for a candid dialogue on the likelihood of an expansion? I think too many companies assume their fans are all unreasonable, when in fact board game players are anything but: If FFG were to come right out and say, "we've done the marketing research, and we regret to say that the results don't support the release of another product in this line," I'd understand. They are a business, after all.

But checking back every few months to see "Yay! Exodus has been released!" on the news ticker? That's really starting to grate.

I wrote,…

Message:
Hello,…
I am sure you get millions of these letters everyday but, I feel I must lend my voice even if I am actually alone. It really is time to let your customers know if we are waiting in vain for another Battlestar Galactica. Week after week we see updates for new expansions for every other game you make while it has been over a year for anything regarding Battlestar. That simply is not fair to keep us hanging on. I am not asking that you reply to me personally and tell "ME" what is happening but, you guys really do owe (yes, owe) us an update even if it is to say there are no further plans for Battlestar. My favorite game is Battlestar and I, along with many, many others have been waiting patiently for something, anything regarding it. This is really not a big request, it is actually a common courtesy to a loyal fan base.

all the best, and hope to hear from you soon…
ethan T.

the BS answer back….

Greetings Ethan,

Unfortunately, we cannot comment on whether or not a certain game or expansion is in-development. Rest assured, as soon as we are ready to announce new games and newly acquired licenses, the information will be up on our website.Keep an eye on our Upcoming page for all the juicy details of what is coming down the pipeline in 2012 and beyond!
Thanks for your email, and have a great day!

Joseph Houff

Hobby Market Sales Associate

Fantasy Flight Games

[email protected]

They cannot,…or will not, cause we want to be all, "mysterious and unpredictable." And watch what Juicy details? Arkham Horror, Arkham horror, Bored of the rings, bored of the rings, Tannhauser, tannhauser, Arkham, Bored of the rings, BLAH BLAH BLAH. It has been over a year, I'm just about ready to swear off of Fantasy Flight. There is nothing legal or otherwise that would prevent them from saying,…don't despair you haven't heard the last OR better start working on your own expansions kids.

napoleonWilson said:

Ok, first of all, FFG doesn't "owe" us an announcement. We'd all like to see one but they are not obligated in any way to post something saying that no new expansions will be coming, and doing so would probably be a bad business decision. They certainly don't want to be "mysterious and unpredictable" - they want to sell product.
If there is another expansion forthcoming, a premature announcement would not be a good idea either; then we'd be clamoring for more news when they have none to give. To provide a recent example, the Star Wars LCG was announced at Gen Con last year and then there was about a 6 month period of silence from FFG on the game… toward the end of that time period interested parties began bitching on the forums about the lack of available information, at which point FFG apologized and announced that the whole game design basically had to be scrapped and restarted. I imagine this made FFG a little squirrelly about their announcements.
There's also a possibility that an expansion is in the works and they are attempting to make a combination of expansions work; that could include Core + 3rd expansion, Core + Pegasus + 3rd expansion, Core + Exodus + 3rd expansion, and Core + Exodus + Pegasus + 3rd expansion, which could be more difficult than we imagine.
There are plenty of other FFG games that haven't had an update to the news page in a long time, and sending an email in which you demand an explanation is not the proper way to handle it; a better way would be to send a complimentary message in which you advocate the release of another expansion based on your enjoyment of the game.

well…big surprise…i totally disagree with ya Sko, and I stand by everything I said in the letter.

I feel they do owe us an explaination as we are a loyal customer base that has spent LOTS of money on their products. The only arguement I can marginally concede is the clamoring of people if not enough information is brought out and then returning it to developing blah, blah blah. However, even then it is only a "meh" conceit since all I asked for was whether or not they were working on one not what it was called or any specifics just either "don't despair" or "start using your imagination" as answers would have been totally sufficient for my request. The thing about converting/combining/overlapping whatever is kinda irrelevant too since like I said I think we should just know if they are doing anything at all so that kind of detail I could care less about. The "there are lots of games" thing doesn't convince me either because the point was there are only a certain block of games that they CONSTANTLY update and I would say that if there are "plenty of other games" that are not updated it only helps my arguement and these other games should be getting some updates too. Besides,…it has been OVER A YEAR since ANYTHING has been posted about BSG,…I think a little blurb in that amount of time is more than reasonable. As far as my overall tone in the letter, I was respectful but stern and again I don't think there is anything wrong with that and I stand by it. I didnt ask for anything outrageous or to be consulted like I was on a development staff, I simply said that they owe us something after this much time saying if the game was dead or not. That is just as, "proper" as a wet, sticky, suck up letter begging for them to do the right thing.

I have my way and I guess you have yours,…thats why they make chocolate and vanilla,…even though vanilla is better.

Why don't you write a "nice" letter and see if you get any better results?

either way,…best wishes…

Napoleon.

Why do they owe us anything? Seems like an entitlement issue. I can't change your approach to anything, but I'm handling it like nothing new is coming, and if something new does get announced, then I will be an even happier fanboy. Until then, I find other things to do with my time than whine and feel entitled to information that doesn't matter. </sermon>

Shrug…see above for reasoning, if you disagree….eh. As far as "whining", it took me 20 or so minutes to dash that off to these jokers. Looking at the title of this thread I figured people might be interested to see what the official answer would be. There ya have it. That's not whining, thats being pro-active. Whining would be laying on the couch with a bag of Funions and Dr. Pepper two liters waiting for others to do something about a problem then poo-pooing them.

Munch on dude….

Napoleon

Dude, you demanded something from a game company. Then, you get pissy about their honest response to you. And now, you're getting embattled over your entitlement issues and attempting to troll about insight into my life, apparently. You're whining. You're a whiner. You need to get over yourself. Sorry for trying to frame everything in an albeit harsh "this isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of life" kind of way for you, but seriously…

P.S. I know you feel you're acting on behalf of like-minded people in this post, but militant activism isn't the way to go about getting an answer from a game company. I have a feeling that these other people who you were "speaking on behalf of" would agree.

Quite an interesting opinion…

They developed a great game and published nice expansions for the game. You like their products. And because you do they have to forget about marketing strategies, the impact a good marketing strategy has on their profit and tell you about the status of their developments.

Now that you mention it that sounds really logical!

My local games dealer once said that fortunately his products are not existential. A point you obviously missed here. Maybe they will never say another word about BSG. Maybe they'll announce an expansion next month. So what? If they come up with another expansion, I will be happy about it and buy it. If they don't there are still enough games in the shelves of my local game store that I don't have yet.

If it really bothers you all that much, just assume they'll never release anything more for BSG. Then, IF they ever release something new, you'll just be pleasantly surprised, possibly even ecstatic.

Enjoy the things you have and like, instead of being pissed at what's out of reach or doesn't even exist.

Wow. Just… wow.

First of all, napoleonWilson , I feel terrible for leaving you alone with all these armchair marketing experts for so long: they've certainly reached a critical mass in this thread, and are starting to encourage each other with delusions of truthiness.

To those armchair marketing experts: You are tragically, utterly, entirely failing to grasp the unique nature of this market, and the very important role that consumer goodwill plays in it. The market for a fourth expansion is a niche group, largely comprised of loyal FFG fans, most of us intelligent and rational consumers who understand the nature of business -- and would be as understanding of a candid explanation of what's really going on… as we are scathingly dismissive of a patronizing invitation to scoop up "juicy details" about products they know we have no interest in.

The fact that FFG seems to value maintaining some modicum of flexibility over maintaining customer goodwill --- to such a degree that they won't even discuss the former --- is frustrating, disappointing and, frankly, insulting to at least this long-time purchaser of many FFG products.

Other companies, in similar market spaces, know better .

Eunomiac said:

How's that sense of entitlement working for you?

Eunomiac said:

First off, I'm not an armchair marketing expert. I am, quite frankly, someone with a firm grip on reality. Secondly, you have no clue what FFG is up to with regards to a 3rd expansion. All they did was point the other self-empowered entitlement freak to look at other products, which frankly I'm excited about. As another long-time FFG purchaser, I've been thoroughly enjoying the Darrowdelf cycle in LOTR and the latest series of Asylum Packs in Call of Cthulhu. The Android Netrunner LCG looks interesting as well, and I've gotten several friends involved with playing Death Angel, BSG, and Mansion of Madness. I'm going to be picking more POD expansions for SH:DA and MoM as well. I'm still trying to break my friends in on Arkham Horror and Civilization, however.

The point that I'm making here is this: they have other things, and you have no insight into what's going on, and it sounds like they're trying to iron some things out. Maybe Corey is working on something new right now and doesn't have time for a 3rd expansion (I wouldn't buy another expansion unless he and/or Tim worked on it, tbqh). Maybe Edward James Olmos finally got ashamed of his directing during Season 4.5 and they're reluctant to hand over rights to the rest of the series where they reach Earth. Maybe they've gone through a few rounds of game design and they're just not figuring out a good way to tie things together or add components that make sense. Maybe reaching Earth feels too much like New Caprica, and they know that the market doesn't want that (as seen on these boards). Or maybe they're trying to get a feel for if enough people want a 3rd expansion. Or maybe there's not enough left that they can do. I mean, what characters would they add? What gameplay components don't exist? With the Ionian Nebula option, you already have a game that spans through Season 4, just not 4.5.

You see all the guesswork that I just did? That's me coming up with stuff off the top of my head in 5 minutes as to why they could be withholding an announcement. If you're the long-time purchaser of FFG products that you say you are, then there's other stuff to whet your appetite. It seems, though, that you feel entitled to something to which you're not actually entitled. That is a different problem altogether.

And if someone here cannot wait, but is open to fan-made expansions: please, take a note of the Revelations by David Turczi at the BoardGameGeek.com. Let me point you to two mayor elements of this expansion:

boardgamegeek.com/thread/760870/revisiting-the-colony-endgame/page/1 - New Caprica-style endgame representing Battle for the Colony;

boardgamegeek.com/thread/754475/building-a-seventh-skill-card-deck/page/1 - Faith, new (seventh) skill card deck, along with new crises, supercrises and destinations.

Along with them go rules for playing the Rebel Cylon (alternative for the Sympathizer/Cylon Leader mechanics), as well as new characters (eg. Diana "Hardball" Seelix, Brendan "Hot Dog" Costanza, Louis Hoshi or Romo Lampkin) and skill cards. You may play with these variants on BoardGameGeek.com BSG PBF board. Right now I participate in one of those test-games (as it is still largely work-in-progress) myself.

Thanks

Truth to be told, my expansion is far from ready, but it's coming together.

I too would be overjoyed for an official FFG expansion, but I'm preparing stuff as it will never gonna happen. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, all that…

Entitlement…lol…that's funny. I guess when we lay out arguments about poor marketing tactics and procedures of a company you hear, "We feel, since we have spent so much money on these games, we deserve to have another expansion for free at no cost to us," or perhaps "Fantasy flight makes so much money it isn't fair that they charge money for their games so we want them to give us stuff for free."

Our arguement is not based on entitlement like you keep attempting to pin on us. I know it's kinda in vogue right now with the occupy loons on the march, however in this case It's actually really silly to keep on saying it since it's just a ad hominum attack that doesn't answer back.

But it's ok,…

I like the funions sometimes too;)

Best wishes,…

napoleon:)

You write to a company to dictate the terms of "what they owe (yes owe)" you, expressly telling them that it's unfair to not apprise you of their plans, and then you are shocked, shocked to hear people claiming you're not just abstractly discussing business decisions? Please.

If you want, we can discuss the question of exactly how much of FFG's business hangs on community goodwill, and how much of that goodwill depends on providing comprehensive updates on all their upcoming games to anyone who asks for one (and I think Skowza makes a very good point regarding the Star Wars LCG; there are considerable costs to making an announcement that might turn out to be wrong), but for someone who wants to talk about marketing tactics, it's odd that whenever someone has replied with a discussion about marketing, you've changed the subject, said more about what FFG owes you, called the other person lazy, dragged your reactionary politics into it, said that this is not about what FFG owes you and that to claim otherwise is an ad hominem attack, and then called them lazy again. I can't even begin to count the layers of irony there.