Just went up: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3406

"A New Direction

Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game has gone through many evolutions since its initial release as a collectible card game in 2004 and its transition to the versatile Living Card Game™ (LCG) format in 2008. Along the way, we released two deluxe expansions, Secrets of Arkham and The Order of the Silver Twilight, the second of which focused heavily upon the introduction of the game’s eighth faction, the Order of the Silver Twilight.

Seekers of Knowledge will be more than another deluxe expansion; it will be the first in a new release model for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. The game will shift away from monthly Asylum Packs to the release of a deluxe expansion (each with 165 cards) once every four months.

We believe this is the best way forward with this particular line as it makes the game more accessible to new players helping it grow, as well as still delivering a deep and immersive experience for veteran players. However, there are no plans to apply this change to any other LCG.

Some of the these upcoming deluxe expansions will focus on a particular faction, while others will focus on themes from the mythos. Creatively, both offer exciting avenues for us to explore, and we are confident you will agree when you see the results."

I'm pretty cool with this change. Costs will be slightly less and cards will arrive in nice groups - no more having a crazy card come out one month causing a big stir and the counters to it trickle in over the next 3-4 months. Also, I won't have to rearrange my binders so often

I agree, I think this will be a good change.

From a purely marketing perspective, this cuts down on the growth of SKUs, which I'm sure many game stores have been complaining about. I know a couple of game stores in the area that only carry core sets because they don't want shelves cluttered with small expansion packs.

For Lord of the Rings, the individual packs make sense, as each comes packaged with a quest - although there are some indications that they are leaning away from the monthly packs there, with the release of the storyline expansions. I don't really follow A Game of Thrones, so can't comment there; but Warhammer:Invasion is frankly a bit of a mess, with erratic card distributions (particularly in the Core Set and the elf expansion), and no plans for reprints. Would be nice to see some more attention to WH:I, but this isn't the forum for that.

The first time I read this I was thinking these were quarterly, but they're actually 3 times per year so the rate of new cards will be slowed.

Basically we're going from 240 new cards per year to 165 new cards per yet - a significant reduction

I'm not as concerned about it - particularly since they've been so actively reprinting earlier expansion packs. Given that Dreamlands is eligible for a reprint, I can certainly understand them wanting to slow the tide of new cards.

At some point, the game needs new players, and honestly, you don't want new players to look at a mountain of expansions and think they can never catch up with that. Larger but less frequent expansion packs, particularly that focus on certain factions, are better for new players getting up to speed.

Look at the typical conversation here in the forums. New player: I'd like to get started, where do I start? Veterans: another Core Set and Secrets of Arkham. That feels accessible. What new players don't want to hear is: another Core Set and three copies of each of the last dozen expansion packs (an answer you certainly could have received a couple of years ago).

I think FFG is leaning toward a model where players can buy a Core Set or two and an expansion focused on their favorite faction. That makes it much more accessible for new players (even as they know the veterans will pick up everything).

Speaking of Dreamlands, I wonder if they're planning to reprint Dreamlands in a boxed set? That would be pretty cool and much easier to tell people to pick up?

I think this will be great. I've been trying to get all the cards to make a competitive deck so I can get into the game seriously, and it's quite a burden. You decide to switch out one card for another and suddenly you need a whole new Asylum pack (some of which are hard to track down). What would be really great is if they rereleased the old expansions as premium sets. Rather than reprinting all the Dreamlands packs, how about one premium expansion with 3 copies of all the cards? That would really help out new players (though 360 cards is a lot).

ssjevot said:

Dreamlands is primed for this since it's ready for reprint now. But yeah, I'd like to see all the old sets go to this model once they sell out and need a new reprint as well. I don't really expect them to do it for sets where they already have individual packs sitting in the warehouse though.

this works for me. i'm cool with fewer cards per year. then i can actually get used to them before something new is thrown at my feet again 4 weeks later. plus they're kicking it off with Major Miskatonic Love! mmm mmm mmm.

Yeah, I think the slower rate is fine with me too now that I've thought about it. In the long run, it helps keep things more controllable and the cards may be better tested as well. Waiting 4 months for a new box is going to take some getting used to though.

I hope the 2nd one focuses on Silver Twilight though, I was just saying yesterday that it would be cool if they got a second deluxe expansion to bring their card pool up to par with everyone else. Not that Miskatonic isn't also cool of course, nerds need love too.

I'm also really interested in the idea that some of the boxes will be designed around specific themes.

Hey, so while we're here - what do you think about the Prophecy cards? So it sounds like this is a delayed-reaction event that sits on top of your draw pile? So I guess one of two things happens:

1. You fulfill the condition that turn and the Event triggers

2. You don't fulfill the condition that turn and you end up drawing the Prophecy at the start of your next turn

Does that sound right? If so, then a Prophecy can slow your rate of draw and be used to fight Mill decks, particular zero-cost Prophecies.

Edit: This should also reduce my LCG costs quite a bit at a time when I'm about to add Netrunner to my "subscription"

Old annual price = 12 * $15 = $180 MSRP
New annual price = 3 * $25 = $ 75 MSRP (assuming the new boxes are priced the same as the old ones)

yeah, i'm a bit unclear on the prophecies myself… not sure why i'd want that. seems more than a bit situational to me. plus you lose card advantage for a turn in some sense, just to psych yr opponent out. though you do get to play a card for free, right? i dunno. confusing to me. but i am dumb.

I think Prophecy cards are interesting, but I want to see continued support for existing card types. One of the things that was really strange to me when I started looking at the expansions was how new types are introduced and forgotten. Dreamlands and dreamers, night and day, polar, etc. I don't want prophecies to be the next one-time card type. I think all of these types should continue getting new cards (there was a new night card recently, which is nice).

There have been a few Night/Day related cards recently, and others outside of Dreamlands. But, most of them have been of the sort "Do something if it's Night/Day" rather than cards which MAKE it Night or Day.

Anyway, I think the Prophecies may end up being sort of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" thing. Say I put that previewed Prophecy into play. So, you know I want to lower somebody's skill and get a free character on the board. As my opponent, what do you do? Well, many of the skill lowering cards happen at stories. Do you avoid going to stories to try to dodge it? If so, that's an advantage for me too. Do you hold onto cards instead of playing them? That's probably an advantage for me too. Or maybe the Prophecy condition is so easy to meet that you just can't stop me at all.

With a couple new cards showing up that attack someone's hand, an event that sits on the table waiting to be triggered is immune to being discarded from the hand. Maybe not a huge deal now, but could be more important over time?

We could also see other cards that do things to Prophecies. Character: Nostradamus. Exhaust Nostradamus to fulfill the condition on any Prophecy card in play.

Runix said:

Exactly. I've been tempted since a while to start with CoC, but the big cardpool necessary for competitive play / the huge number of APs necessary to get nice thematic decks (e.g. Deep Ones deck) even for casual play have pushed me away, despite my liking of the Cthulhu theme and especially the card art in CoC. Publishing the cards in faction-centered boxes is very good, so I hopefully can start with a core set and 2 such faction centered boxes to get 2 thematically nice decks…

I think I have to try both now, CoC and A:N

@dboeren: I like the thematic aspect of prophecies… When an opponent plays such a prophecy, I don't really know when he's planning to trigger its effect - or if he's even bluffing. Just like you don't know whether or not a prophecy will fulfill… This should add a little more unpredictability to the game, too.

I think the prophecies will only work good against draw-milling decks, but not against discard-milling. (I hope you know what I mean, I'm neither an expert MtG player nor CoC…) But the new Atlantis card should slow discard-milling decks down.

HilariousPete said:

Yep, that's my plan too - collect the best two games and skip the others

So the last pack of the current cycle will come out around September 6th or so. Seekers is listed as 4th quarter (Oct, Nov, Dec). So that's going to follow pretty closely after Revelations is done and we'll get a nice windfall where we're ahead of where we'd be on monthly packs. Then… the long wait.

I'm happy they decide to make new deluxe format like the houses for AGoT.

I'm ok too about the reduction of cards, so we can take time to incorporate them into deck and i hope, they use this time to test the wording !

It's no use to have several cards if they can't be played (too bad/overpovered)

a new reborn o/

THey pretty much destroy the Laughing Man/An Offer You Can't Refuse combo. You just draw as many cards as you want and then play a prohpecy when you are ready to stop drawing. Every attempt to make you draw after that you just play a prophecy as your action after the draw. Wonder if that will pull him off the restricted list or not?

For many of the reasons already sited I look forward to the 'new direction'. Does this mean rotation of all APs released before Silver Twilight? From what I can see Atlantis has a Prophecy trigger and an action that I agree would help against discard. 4 months between deluxe expansions is gonna be tough to get used to! The art of * Umr at-Tawil is superb! I love how the upper torso is defined by a break in the clouds but below it dissolves into what could be misinterpreted as rainfall. The ability of Umr at-Tawil is also nothing to sneeze at! I too enjoy the 'impending doom' of the Prophecy mechanic and what's up with the funky title and the comment "The second, and greater, question is this: why each faction only has a fragment of the whole? What do these ominous new prophecies signify?". The Seekers of Knowledge Expansion page shows a character with an additional Investigation struggle and what looks like a Polar Location!

HilariousPete said:

Polar LIVES!

Board of Trustees being Independent means you can use 607 Walter Street to prevent any destruction cards from actually succeeding in destroying it. This is a small added bonus I didn't realize before.

Hybrid said:

Don't even suggest such a thing! The reason I quit Magic was because they kept "rotating" the cards out and I had to buy the same **** card in the new years core set to use it.

This is nothing but a good change, for FFG and for consumers.

Lots of potential here.

dboeren said:

When was the last time we actually got 12 asylum packs a year though? Since pretty much never even though that was the intention of FFG to get 12 out each year.

So its more like 180 individual cards per year with asylum packs (rough average, give or take a couple asylum packs depending on which year you speak of) versus 165 individual cards in deluxe expansions…. not that significant of a change and is $90 per year vs. $135 respectively

Deluxe expansions are Mike Tyson and asylum packs are the summer boxing camp for retarded children with big ears.

LIke most here, I'm glad for the format change. I've gotten behind on the monthly releases, because of cash and lack of playtime and this will make it a tad easier to catch up. I also think that FFG really likes CoC and doesn't want to end it. I hope for some nice domain and story cards in the new sets.

Slight change of topic, but every time I read that it's licensed from Chaosium, I have to wonder, why doesn't FFG just outright buy them? I know the rpg is still popular, but I just think the profits from FFGs Cthulhu games could buy out the whole company.

sepayne7l said:

No kidding. With Chaosium's historical problems with money (understatement *), I would not be the least bit surprised that it is FFG paying the licensing fees to Chaosium that is keeping them in the black.

Arkham Horror yearly sales alone has to far outsell any Cthulhu RPG products in a 5 year configuration. That's only an ex RPGer-now-turned-boardgamer's slightly informed and likely biased opinion about that, but I would not be the least bit surprised if it was true.

Back on topic, so what do people feel about this expansion being heavily focused towards a single faction? And why?

* I personally know of some writers and artists who still to this day have yet to be recompensed for work done in the nineties for Chaosium.

Hellfury said:

Well, we don't know exactly how skewed it's going to be at this point. You could say that it will shake out eventually after every faction gets "their" expansion but that will take years at the least. 8 factions, 3 expansions per year, almost 3 years at a minimum and we know they plan to release boxes based around themes as well so I doubt you'll actually see an expansion for each faction in turn. Best to assume "never" is the target date here.

From my minis gaming roots I've always felt it was important to be fair to all factions and that they should get equal releases (the "codex" system is just about the worst way you can release a game) - but then again that's from a type of game where you mainly pick "your" faction and never stray outside it unless you decide to pick up another. In Call of Cthulhu you tend to play a bit of everything so maybe that viewpoint isn't quite valid because who exactly is being screwed here?

So, in this sort of game I suppose it's OK but it still feels odd to me. As much as I admit Miskatonic can use a tuneup I can't help but feel like other factions or themes that I like are being shortchanged just a bit, even if I have but a small fraction of a leg to stand on with that viewpoint

I suppose in the end what is important is that all factions are equally attractive to play, not that they have equal numbers of cards. So, this is probably a reasonable choice for the first set. However, I would still very much like to see Silver Twilight get the focus for one of the upcoming sets as they are substantially behind everyone else and could really use some extra cards at some point. While what they have is certainly interesting, there are just not enough choices for them yet.