Hello everyone, time for another STOG. It has been in the 30’s this week and it feels kinda warm, which is weird beyond belief to me:) I have several things to talk about so lets get started.

First up the Invitational. For the one being held here in warm (didn’t see that coming did you) MN we will have hotel details, etc posted this week, it is being held the 18th and 19th of April about two minutes from our office. We are still working on the details for the UK/Euro invitational, which I hope to have info for next month.

OP is getting a serious overhaul when set 12 hits I will have full details in the next STOG. What we have now is more than ready for a change. I’m excited about what we are working on right now and I think you will be too.

I know I have said I did not want to issue any bans before set 12 hits the meta but one card is just too much of a problem and it is clear to us that set 12 will not make a difference, so as of now 3 dot J. Talbain is banned.

In addition to new standard and league OP, as well as the new regional events, this fall will also see the introduction of the Fight life championship series that will give everyone a chance to become a champion at the store level.

This week we will be posting details for the ShadoWar character creation contest. Where you write up the background, personality and fighting style of a character. If we pick you character you will get to work with James to design the character card and with me and the art director for the art. You will receive 150 copies of the card at least three months before it is released anywhere else and it will be tournament legal. So not the same as winning the greatest prize in gaming but still very cool and an example of the kind of cool things we can do with out own property that we cannot do with a license.

Set 12 is looking really good, James has set a high bar for himself with this set. There is a new card ability in the set that we will be spoiling soon and he has done something with Tira that has never been done in UFS before that really captures her personality from Soulcalibur 4.

Next week we will debut a new retail incentive program to get more stores involved with UFS as well as help current stores increase their player base, this will go on at the same time as a new player promotion. Several games have fallen by the wayside over the past year and we believe with the addition of Tekken 6, Soulcalibur 4, and our own new IP ShadoWar, along with our new OP programs that this could be our best year ever and want to help new players get into the game, so make sure to check it our next week and help us get the word out.

Finally you have heard about Tekken 6 license, this is the first time that we have secured the right to a game before it has shipped and hope to do some amazing cross promotions with them. Oh yea in case you didn’t hear NIna will be in the first set, I’ve seen a lot of speculation of what characters will be in the first set, remember we have changed the number of characters in expansions to 5, so with Nina being spoiled that leaves four more.

See you in the arena,

Steve

This state of the game is just like a wet dream.

Everything i wanted.

Create A Character has me excited like you wouldnt believe.

I'm sad to see the wolfman go (just a little, not a LOT), but I'm very, VERY interested in the character creation contest. I'm SO entering.

Yay, banned Talbain.

I wonder what people will complain about next? (j/k)

Great STOG

I'm interested in the create your own Shadowar char, and Im glad to see ole JT go.

Great stuff Steve.

FFGSteve said:

Hee hee hee you said the magic words >3 . I am excited enough guys xD you can stop enticing me now lol. I like this SOTG it covers alot of questions that I had. Kinda sad about JT I hate to see characters banned. Never played as him though so im not that heartbrocken . Anyhoo keep up the good work guys I am really excited about all these events and such you are having but one question if you will. For the path of the master event with all the patches is gen con the only place we will be able to exchange them? I have I think 8 patches but I cant go to gen ;-; im sad about that. Is there another place or do you have any plans to exchange them at different locations?

you don't get promos for the patches at gencon ^^;; if you can make it up to MN in a couple months (i'm not sure if it'll be at a convention/have a convention-high entry fee or not) then you can get those exclusive promos...

i know one of my players will be sad to see JT go, as he was in the process of building him, but i think its for the best that he doesn't, since my playgroup mostly consists of new players.

I had a feeling during our SOTG interview something was going to happen Steve I am all for it though . Great stuff to hear of all the massive programs in the works I can't wait to get more details .

LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR !!

First off I'm excited about Tekken 6, this should be really interesting. I have high hopes for the art, with Nina already being one of the 5 character, that only leaves 4. I'm hoping Kazuya or poster boy Jin will be in the set. Also I really hope the research is done on the characters fighting style in six. Seeing how Jin's fighting style is Kazama,Mishima, and Tradition Karate. What would he be? All/Evil/Order that would be sweet. Haha

Secondly, I'm super excited about the create a character, I've really been excited about UFS ever since Paul Taylor and Scott Gaines got me introduced to it. I think UFS has the most potential out of the current games, and it seems to be climbing at a steady heathy pace. So I really want to give it my all in this contest.

Third, alas... R.I.P J.T hopefully he will never bring sexy back. As much as I liked him, anything that causes a disruption within a game and "breaks" rules doesn't belong. Lets just be thankful he didn't have Evil or Order on him.

Everything else seems on the up and up, good job guys. Thanks for developing an awesome game!

Will we be getting a new TR before Set 12 drops? If so, when? I'm currently in the process of getting all the bans, erratas, and other misc. rulings together for a "cheat sheet" of sorts for my Regional upcoming in early March.

Just gonna add an addendum onto this:

For those who didn't listen to the podcast, Steve informed the Commit 1 Podcasters that they are reprinting 4-6 cards with each set that comes out. He told us that they are reprinting 5 cards with Soul Cal 4, and spoiled 2 of them, those being:

Martial Arts Champion from Extreme Rivals.

&

Mark of the Beast from Blades of Fury.

guitalex2008 said:

Tell me, I need to do some photoshop.

Just following everyone else, and posting my comments:

Talbain = meh. Never really got to face him since his initial release, where one player played him off All rather than the Feline Spike version. I also saw madeofwin's "Werewolf Terrorist" in action at Gen Con UK, and was surprised to see such a high risk deck work so well. I'm kinda glad the doggie went as he avoided one of the important parts of the game (playing foundations), and IMO anyone who broke an important aspect of the game should need to go (might I mention Cassandra2 or Hugo3).

Tekken = already said before in the various other speculation threads, but I'll say it again: YES! Looking forward to Nina and hoping she gets her version of the Crippler Crossface as an attack. Really hoping for King, Paul, Kazuyam Bryan and Yoshimitsu(4?) too. Oh well, I can live without one of them. And if Ganryu's in it... EPIC GANRYU TECH FTW! (I abuse Ganryu's infinite hop in the game, calling it "tech")

Set 12 = really interested to see this set, especially the new Siegfried. If it's anything like Siegy4 (apart from the confusing wording), it'll be awesome. the new ability intrigues me, and so does this new Tira, as she's very interesting in SCIV anyway. Shadowar's starting to warm to me (perhaps getting hold of a Temujin might have helped), and I'll definetly be entering a character creation once details are put up.

Nyobari said:

Possibly.

Feel free to email me what you've got for your cheet sheet [antigoth AT gmail DOT com], I've been putting something similar together myself.

Cascade said:

That's a good idea, but those cards don't excite me. Do you know if a "set" means the pair of sets that are released or each indiviudla set within the pairs? Probably the former though.

With J. Talbain gone, that's one less very big thing to worry about (or is it?). Oh gawd, must erase match-up from brain, requires system reboot.

Vote steve for president....

Talbain banned = thank you very much .

Thanks for all the new info.

talbain banned. lol. do that mean that for the mtl regional, i might actually fail at failing?

Three words:

Bout....

Effin...

Time...

You know I'm gonna be on that ShadoWar Create-a-Character idea. I've already been brainstorming. ^^

As for Tal-banned, never saw him in play enough to complain, but he sounds like serious business. I'm "meh" on that point.

This is quite the early birthday present, thank you Steve. Now I wonder if I should ask for a cake with a giant X through J. Talkbain's picture.

Drewkasa said:

That would be awesome! Take pictures if you do.

Great STOG...I love the new programs and they all are going to be fun and exciting. Especially can't wait to see what comes out with the create-a-character.

Very interested in seeing Tira. I know my brother can't wait to get his hands on her already.

BTW Antigoth/Nyobari...when you guys get done compiling your "cheat sheet" would it be possible to post it for download somewhere? I'm sure plently of scouts and players would love to have this as a resource at tournaments and in general. I know it can be alot of work, but what you guys are doing is awesome!

WhatAboutBob? said:

Would love to! The end result for me is to have it available on the support tab.

will there be any other way to redeem our resource patches?

GeneralReaction89 said:

As told to me by various others and Paul Bromen himself - no. If you cannot make it to one of these events, you cannot redeem the patches.