Any old Netrunner players here? What was your reaction when you saw this revival? Positive? Negative? Skeptical? Where did you hear the news?

I still remember my 1st time seeing that green/purple box at the local hobby store all those years ago. I can't believe it was so long ago.

When I saw this from a yahoo group mailing list, I think it is called netrunner hub, I thought it was just some get together event they were hosting. But then there were like 8 related replies. So I got curious and looked. Eyes wide, jaws dropped; couldn't believe what I was reading.

Netrunner is my fav. CCG. No other card game matched it (and I tried a lot) until FFG made AGoT, which sits right next to Netrunner in my mind. Now the same FFG is bringing back Netrunner!! Thank you so much! TAKE MY MONEY!!

I love the fact that it will be LCG. Netrunner's core card base always worked well. It worked so well that it was possible to have a really good time with just a starter deck. That seems to match the LCG format perfectly.

But 1 think I'm honestly not to sure about is some of the card art and template design. Some look amazing. But some has odd choice in color. I hope they are not finalized yet.

Also not sure about the setting. Android seems like a nice setting, but Netrunner was always more old school retro cyberpunk, with cyber decks and such, and a near future setting. Android, I am not too familiar with, but isn't it more far future, like say 23XX or something? And there'd be no more "decks", right?

Hi

i am a long time NR player since 1999

i have around 20 times the entire set and have played all the formats: sealed, 1/15 and no limit

i consider myself an expert of this game, i know the metagame, the balancing, i ran several tournaments, …

we with the NRO ruling team since 2008 have made some changes to balance some rules and cards and released several expansion for Netrunner .

I have always played this games and be waiting for the reprint, i have always trust that this game will one day come back

So you can image how i was happy when i saw the news !!!

i saw the bow and i was amazed, really shocked

then i saw the cards … mmm i don't like the artwork but anyway i can move on .

then i saw some gametext, decoy costing one more … i began to think, FFG said than some "obscur" point of rules has been cleared and simplifiy and then i saw the egenda 4/1 providing one tag to runner without nothing it is clear to me .. the Trace has been removed … what a shame because ok i admit that the Trace hasn't been used a lot in constructed in the official cards but has been used a lot in the virtuel expansion ( see deep run and OPen war)

then i saw the icebreaker.. nothing changed .. ok cool but i saw hadrian's wall … 9/7 with 2 sub and a powerfull effect … clearly unbalanced comparing to Netrunner. this cards should cost around 12 not less and since the icebreaker are the same … i ask myself about the balancing of Android …

Then the faction cards, we had several years ago the idea of dioscuri cards that was some cards out of the game, theplayers began the game with it and it changed some variables of the game ( starting bits, starting draw, ability, …)

I guess faction cards will be the same … But why they created some colors on cards to symbolize the factions ? i think it is too confusing … a little icon would have fit and i hope it won't restrict the playability of multifaction decks … if things are well done i hope they will give us 2 possibility :

if people wanna play a faction cards he has to play a monofaction deck ( including some neutral grey card)

if player wanna play multifaction deck he won't be able to play the faction cards .

in that sense we could have thematicla decks and as before "toolbox" decks

finally i don't know how to feel with Android, i was very angered finally about this news since i consider NR as Richard Garfiled's masterpiece FFG shouldn't destroy it …

for the moment i am more than sceptical and need to see more ….

I hope i'll be wrong but …

To me Android seems to be a good game comparing to other actual card game but needs to be differientiate from Netrunner

I looked twice and then got up and danced around the room with glee.

I think the Android setting will be a great fit. I love the LCG format but haven't been able to convince my friends to play any of them and omg I can't wait!!!

I am super excited… SUPER excited.

I don't get most of wormhole surfer's reasoning. Because one piece of ICE uses a different set of stats it somehow breaks the game when compared to a singular breaker with the same stats? That literally follows no line of logic at all. WOTC could have jsut as easily shown a strong piece of ICE and a weak breaker in their original advertisements for the game, but somehow this indicates unbalanced design in his mind… You will have to explain this one to me.

As far as the art goes, FFG has some amazing artists, I have liked the artwork at least twice as much as the best piece of art from the original game. That computer generated ridiculousness is so dated. It is like watching Buck Rogers (a show I still love) and laughing at what they imagined was going to be the future. Sure 14 years from now I will probably look at the artwork of this game and do the same thing, but it needed a fresh look, it really did (not to mention the license probably does not cover the artwork or graphic design of the original game).

They are no doubt going to be different, but the same. I personally really look forward to the reboot of Netrunner. The Android world seems really rich with its own history and notable characters and corporations. I have been planning to pick up those books (I think there are two) to get myself more into the world. Seems like I will be doing that early than I expected.

I am actually finding it hard to embrace my normal cynical side, which could be problematic. If the game isn't awesome I will be bitterly disappointed, but right now I am giddy. Giddy I tell you.

Penfold said:

If Android isn't as good as U expected … just go back into NR

for the balancing of Handrian's ..sorry my english maybe is consusing

i just wanted to tell that ice's are guided by a progression in their cost/strengh/subroutine and a such ice should cost around 12 bits … if not (actually 9) it means that the corps has an advantage since the icebreaker has not changed

It isn't your English that is bad it is your inability or unwillingness to use logic. We have seen one piece of ice and once ice breaker. How do you know there isn't a superior ice breaker that is the equivalent of Hadrian's Wall? You don't. You are basing your guesses (and wild guesses at that) on the math of a game that lasted how many years in print and development? Since almost without a doubt there will be card limits put into this game at did not exist in the original game having a different formula to determine the cost and strength of a card is going to be needed, and within that there will certainly be variance making some pieces of ICE and some ICE breakers no doubt stronger and weaker than others.

You AND I both lack enough information to be able to determine whether or not the Wall is broken within this game. Just because it would have been overpowered in the original game tells us nothing other than they have changed the power levels of cards in this game… And as I pointed out early that only makes sense given the distribution and limitations on deck building the entire LCG line holds, and therefore cannot be used as any kind of adequate measure on what the overall power level of cards in this version are going to be.

Like many, I was a huge fan of NR. Loved it. Never had enough money to buy it all but I got a nice stash of it.

I like the Android universe, but disliked the board game (it was okay, but has too many flaws to make it fun). So I'm very excited to hear about this marriage between NR and Android. I think it's a fine fit and it's an auto-buy.

Going forward, the game WILL change. I, and clearly many, consider NR the best CCG of all time. I liked it far better than M:tG. NR will have a strong backing and FFG will modernize it. But they will also have to put out expansions that will ultimately change, enchance and break the game. It happens. But so long as I can get some of my new friends to play this wonderful game, I'm pleased.

I'm extremely excited. Always wanted to try this game. The original rules have always been quite promising, and the theme was just icing on the cake. Though I have to admit that I probably would've bought only a simple start-kit (if I would've finally found one), because the unlimited cardpool and the CCG modell was/is a big no-go in my book. The art wasn't very appealing either, but that's another topic altogether…
So far the news are very positiv for me.

The art for this version so far looks good. The cards look a bit overloaded though. And there is one point that also already bothered me with LotR: Inconsitent layout for the different card types (or at least it seems that way), especially the fact that the name of the cards are in different places. Try to stack cards (in order to save some space) whose names are in the middle of the card instead of the top.

The colors are ok. Wished they would have used colors for each sides factions that fit better together, for example staying in the black/blue/purple spectrum for corp, and green/yellow spectrum for the runner.

I've never been much of a card game player -- I could never get my head around stuff like Magic for example -- but I always had a lot of time for Netrunner and I'm sad that I've long since lost that original purple and green box. So I'm looking forward to this new edition.

I was a huge fan of Netrunner, like many people. Hearing that they are going to be making it into an LCG is the best news I've heard in a long, long time.

Do I care that's it's part of the Android universe? Absolutely not. Do I care if they add/change a few things? Nope. If the basic core and feel of the game are still there, I'm going to be incredibly incredibly happy to pick this up.

I've played a ton of Netrunner since it came out, (same with M:tG). I've played close to 40 CCGs and Netrunner remains my favorite design.

I haven't gotten to play as much as I'd like in the last ten years but I've been running a Netrunner league for the last 18 months (using all my cards split among all the players + envelope boosters slowly added to the league over time after matches are completed).

Several people gave me a heads-up of the re-release within an hour of the announcement. I am VERY excited and it is an auto-buy for me.

Regardless of how I end up feeling about this new treatment of the new game, I will continue playing the original Netrunner. It is an almost perfect game in a limited or draft environment and I have enough cards to keep doing that for at least nine other players for years to come.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never got to play that many games of the old Netrunner game. By the time I was able to try it, it was long dead and opponents were scarce. The main guy I did play against sometimes has since moved away. But, it was clearly a great game and I've kept my cards in case I ever got to use them again.

Personally, I think this remake is fantastic news. A great game is being modernized and put into a better sales format, plus this is a chance to take another look at the balance and mechanics. I don't really care if the old cards are incompatible, they're a dwindling resource anyway and I'm sure people will come up with ways to use them unofficially if they want to. They do that with Call of Cthluhu too, mixing the old black-border cards in with the new ones. I have some old cards for that game too, but I don't use them, because then I'm not playing the same game as everyone else. Likewise with Netrunner, I wouldn't use my old cards in a variant either. If it's not official, it's not in my deck, because that undermines my ability to take part in the game's community.

Anyway, this is just awesome news and I can't wait until Gencon where I assume it will probably be launching and we'll finally get a fully detailed view of the game and all the answers we're waiting for. In the meantime, FFG is sure to keep posting more spoilers here too.

wormhole surfer said:

Nonsense. There is no going back. One of the problems NR had 15 years ago was that many folks weren't willing to give the game a second try if their first exposure was bad.

If FFG screws it up, no one who is introduced to the game in a screwed-up fashion will care about NR in either flavor, especially not the Wizards model, for which there are no cards and no players.

The highest hopes for some of us is that FFG doesn't fark it up beyond the state it's in. The fact that they didn't bother talking to anyone who actually knows the game is a bad sign.

Frisky AI said:

You don't know who they talked to however.

I think it is a good idea.. FFG has done a great job with its version of CoC.. . I see no reason why this new version of netrunner would be bad… definatly worth a look see..

Frisky AI said:

What? This claim is ridiculous, nor do you have any evidence to support it. Yes, I'm sure FFG went to great pains to make sure nobody on the project had ever played the original game at all or talked to anyone who did. Yeah, that makes sense.

Toqtamish said:

A wild Toq appears.

I never played Netrunner. I wasn't all that into cyberpunk back then. Just wasn't my thing. Plus some of the people I knew who played the game really lacked for social graces. So, it's new to me. I'm looking forward to it. I'm not looking forward to reading more posts of people griping about how this version doesn't live up to the dead version. As long as FFG can keep from breaking the game like they did with Warhammer: Invasion, and if the game is even half as engaging to me as MECCG was, I think I'm in for some fun.

Best gaming news I've heard in years. Couldn't have dreamed of a better setup to re-imagine my favorite game. Glad it's in FFG's hands, had Wizards ever revived it on there own, it might not have lasted long but FFG has a good track record with this stuff. I'm excited to learn more and teach others the game !

I'm so happy I peed my pants a little when I read the news announcement.

I still own a set of the original Netrunner, but I gladly welcome the FFG update. I (and many others) were clamoring for a Netrunner or Cyberpunk LCG in the forums and we got the motherload.

dboeren said:

In fact Richard Garfield said on his blog and at BGG that he was approached by FGFG ad they went to great efforts to get him to join the project but he decided not to due to conflicts with his own stuff. FFG had a time line for the production and Richard was just unable to fit into it. He also went on to say that form his initial meetings he is very confident that Netrunner is in "good hands"

You might wana check your fact before just making stuff up and looking like a complete fool.

booored said:

This is good to know. Still wondering about factions though.

Just beucase Richard Garfield wasn't on staff doesn't mean he wasn't ocassionaly consulted or that the didn't get veteran players, experienced store owners and event organisers or simply fans from within the company to help.

~ Maybe don't call people idiots because they don't have the same level of Garfield-love as you.

More to the point, I have yet to play an FFG game I didn't think was incredibly well designed. I LOVE AGoT, I'm very fond of CoC and W:I (but sadly can't afford either in a big way) I think their Penny Arcade game, their Battles of Westeros game, the Thrones Board game and the BSG game are all fantastic and unique in their own way, even while maintaining coherency within the same brand (especially in the case of the multiple Song of Ice and Fire games) I didn't like LotR but a few of my friends became Obsessed with it after we got the core set, its a great game but the co-op wasn't my thing. So even the game I dont like I think is lovingly and inteligently designed (which I can't say for every game I dont like *coughmagiccough*)

Will FFG make Netrunner 2: The Nettening? Probably not. Will they make a good game with mechanics that are in spirit with the old game while creating a new and interesting playstyle and setting? I have no doubt. I can guarantee that if you don't like it, there will be people who will, FFG don't make half-arsed products.

qwertyuiop said:

To be fair, I think this is the source of a lot of the angst. FFG's track record with LCGs is far from perfect. It's one thing for something like Warhammer: Invasion to turn out to be a disappointment. It's something else entirely to see a game you know and love demolished beyond recognition.

As an example, I was a HUUGE fan of Decipher's Star Wars: CCG back in the day. A few years after they drove it into the ground and lost the license, they created a new game called simply Wars that took the core mechanics of the SWCCG and put them in a new universe setting, with new cards, adding a factional system that hadn't existed in SWCCG. Sound familiar? Without diving into details, Wars was basically a disaster. People are worried about a similar occurrence with Netrunner.

Don't misunderstand - I think a great many of the old school diehards need to (1) Calm down, and most especially (2) Get over themselves and their egos at not being personally consulted on the revival. Right now, we know pretty much nothing about the changes, and a number of people are letting their fears of change and their bruised egos drive their comments. I'm willing to wait and see how the game plays in its new form, but my last major excursion with FFG was with Warhammer, so you can imagine that I at least understand their nervousness

Toqtamish said:

Sure he does. Not him. He is the expert on all things that are good and true.

Fanboys eh?