El_Tonio said:
As long as MiniatureMarket.com keeps selling the expansions for $10 each, I'll sell just the ships to anyone who wants them for $11 each + S/H. That's $4 off the MSRP.
I'm planning to put in an order with them tomorrow. Work bonus!
I was a big WotC Star Wars Miniatures player. And the amount of money I spent and duplicate cards and figures I have that I will NEVER use is insane! I'm not saying that I wouldn't do it again, because it was an awesome game. But what I am saying is that I count myself lucky that I can purchase 2 TIE Advanced Expansions (for example) and only end up with 2 duplicate cards (Vader & Maarek) that I will never use. I think we all can agree that duplicate upgrade cards are very useful. In the future, they may start selling individual ships…or card only expansions. But right now, they are trying to get as much out there for us to start playing with as possible. It may be irritating to some to have 2 extra cards that you can't use. And if it is, then don't buy them. But I think if you look at what you CAN use out of the box in comparison to what you CAN'T use, you'll see that you still got your moneys worth.
Roy
I'm glad FFG has decided to make this a miniatures game and not a CCG. If I had to buy the ships seperate and then buy booster packs of cards separately I would pass on this game. I can live with a few extra cards rather than having to pay maybe $14 dollars a ship as opposed to $15 and then have to buy card boosters or card expansions for $3 to $5 per pack of cards. No thank you. Give it all to me in one package and I'll figure out what to do with the couple of extra cards.
And from my experience, the box is not something you would want to use to store/transport the game in. The big hole in the top is the deal breaker. I plan on using a small tackle box that I used for Star Wars Miniatures. It has places for the ships, cards, die, counters, and the guides.
Roy
I've gotta throw my two credits out here. Many people who will buy this game are not hard-core gamers. Take me, for instance. When X-wing was first announced I didn't plan on buying any more than one of each expansion. Now, after hearing about how many ships others are buying, I am beginning to revise my opinion, but considering costs of living and other hobbies (LEGO), it's a very real possibility that I will only get one core set and one of each expansion. Especially if wave 2 is released this winter (too fast!). So for people like me, it makes a LOT of sense to include everything you need to play a ship in the game all in one convenient package. I don't care about repeats because the only ones I'll get are non-unique ship cards and upgrades. From that standpoint, I think FFG made the best decision for this game.
And let's face it: ANY game that has unique characters/pieces that restrict how many you can play suffers from this very problem. It's just the nature of the beast.
Parakitor said:
Especially if wave 2 is released this winter (too fast!).
Don't say that! Someone at FFG might read it! I, at least, am hoping the new expansions are here in time for the holidays (assuming the starter set hits stores before that).
Parakitor said:
I have had very bad experiences trying to make the quote system on these boards work right, but here it goes:
Aahzmandius_Karrde said:
herozeromes said:
Except that every other ship you buy would have to have everything in it anyway because you only get 2 ship markers per pack (exception the TIE Fighter at 3). You'd want to get extra stress and action tokes as well since they are quite "stingy" in the booster being only what you need for one ship. All said and done I think they made the best decision possible for what they put in an expansion pack. I don't see where they could have reduced the cost much (maybe $1 MSRP) if they were selling just the miniature.
The tokens is actually a point that I had not considered, and I will conceed that that changes my perspective somewhat.
To answer Manchu:
Aahzmandius_Karrde said:
Take the cards and chits away and you don't see a significant drop in cost for the model. But the price of chits and cards sold separately would be far higher than whatever small amount you'd save on the model just as a matter of getting them to the market by themselves. So you have just a model with very little reduction in cost on the one hand and expensive cards and chits that only have any value at all to people who are purchasing or have already purchased a separate product on the other hand. In other words, it is less costly and more valuable (to both FFG and ultimately the customer) to allow for some duplication rather than breaking things out.
Perhaps this makes me different from most other people, but I would prefer paying more to get exactly what I want vs. less to get stuff I don't need. It's not a deal breaking preference on this scale, but I don't see where it hurts to voice it.
Aahzmandius_Karrde said:
I'm glad to hear that you have never soaked, bent, scratched, torn, or otherwise damaged you game components or -- more irritatingly -- had someone else accidentally do any of those things to your game components but very few gamers I know of are this … well, lucky. Rather than being irritated by the duplication, however, it'd probably be better for your blood pressure to view it as a form of extremely cheap insurance. And as we know, even lucky, careful people can benefit from insurance.
I'm sorry to hear that this happens to you (or those around you) frequently enough that when you have duplicates you don't think "Oh well, this'll go in the drawer and never see the light of day," but rather "Oh good! Now I have a spare."
To answer Stunami:
Aahzmandius_Karrde said:
If I may, can I ask what one would expect in terms of an MSRP for just the ship? If a TIE Advanced is $15, how much should be knocked off if we dropped Vader and the other Character's stuff out? (sorry, can't remember the other's name.) How much to drop ALL the extras, and just to get a chunk of plastic that looks like a ship?
How would you prefer expansions work? Should we ask all characters cards/inserts be included in seaperate small packs, and just leave the generic ones in with the ships?
I don't ask to be confrontational, but to find out your answers. FFG has to answer these questions, and felt that players would not likely mind a few spare inserts and cards lying about, as opposed to having to pay for packaging and the like for selling JUST character upgrades. Same thing with the starter: Sure, it's designed for 2 players, but even if you're nabbing a copy for yourself, you've got at most 2 extra ships + stuff that you can leave in the box (as we've all agreed that the Core box will not be sufficent for carrying around your collection for long.
I'm not dismissing the complaint, but I think that the way FFG has done it OK, and it is a good compromise between too many products and too many extra bits.
My ideal for how expansions work? Ships and generic cards, tokens, etc told together; Unique components (whatever they may be) packaged separately, likely in themes (Imperial Aces I, for example).
As for the starter, I'd actually have preferred separate Rebel and Imperial starters. In essence, that's what I'm getting, since a friend and I will likely be splitting the starter (or perhaps two) amongst ourselves. In much the same way, I preferred A Game of Thrones when there were house specific starters. I miss that luxury.
As for what these things should cost, I'm afraid I can't judge that until I hold the product in my hands, see its quality, and can decide what I think it's worth. It's entirely possible that this game is already overpriced, though I doubt it, as I trust FFG's product quality.
KristoffStark said:
But what if by paying less you also get exactly what you want as well as things that you don't need? I really can't understand how this is problematic. If it bothers you, you could always give the extra cards to fellow players or failing that throw them away.
I'm sorry to hear that this happens to you (or those around you) frequently enough that when you have duplicates you don't think "Oh well, this'll go in the drawer and never see the light of day," but rather "Oh good! Now I have a spare."
I also find this to be bizarre. By definition, an accident is unpredictable. Who is confident enough to say "there is no chance that I will ever have to replace this card"? And even if you are that confident, how much are more are you paying to have a back up -- OR, as I have argued, what if you're actually paying less to have a back up? Paying less for more, as long as "more" includes what you want in addition to what you don't need, is objectively better.
drkjedi35 said:
And from my experience, the box is not something you would want to use to store/transport the game in. The big hole in the top is the deal breaker. I plan on using a small tackle box that I used for Star Wars Miniatures. It has places for the ships, cards, die, counters, and the guides.
Roy
Great idea.
Manchu said:
Parakitor said:
Oh, do you have the Blockade Runner by any chance? It seems like it should be about the right scale to use with this game.
Regrettably, no. When you mentioned that it's just about the right size I kicked myself a little, but most of my LEGO Star Wars sets are (surprise) starfighters! The only reason I don't have the new X-wing is because I am saving up for this game. It kills me a little, but I already have the 2006 X-wing, so I'll survive. Cannot wait for this game to arrive!
I worry about people who get irritated by the idea of having 2 dupe cards they cannot use
Parakitor said:
It's funny but since seeing the GenCon demos and investing in this game, I have been struggling against buying the Lego kits whereas before I was very ambivalent about all Star Wars merchandise. (And yes I have bought a few Lego sets in the meantime from the Batman line.) For a long time, Star Wars --which meant so much to me for so long -- has not really interested me or to be more precise has really repulsed me. The tone of the endless merchandising, where everything from every aspect of the franchise is lumped and sold together without regard for the difference, has created the impression that the real value of Star Wars in merely monetary. No doubt it is a valuable franchise in that regard. But that is not the value that I saw in it as kid watching A New Hope for the first time. FFG's initial handling of their license, their seemingly careful attitude toward each iteration (in this case so far, the Original Trilogy), has revitalized my interest in Star Wars by reminding me that it's not just about More More More but about the fun and drama and resonance of particular aspects (like dogfighting spaceships) that hint at a larger, mysterious, and compelling universe of imagination. So if I am accused of a certain fondness for this company when discussing it's products, well, I must admit that is true! And I would say they well deserve my gratitude.
The only way I could see meeting in the middle on the extra unique pilot cards issue, is if for every wave of expansions, FFG released a "Pilot Pack", which is just a one-of-everything stack of the unique pilots, for both sides. That way, you'd only ever have to have one of every unique card, and no potential "useless" doubles floating around.
That said, there are a few drawbacks to this;
1)No unique pilots in the starter box.
If I was going to get my friends into this game, I would have a better chance by saying "you get to play Luke Skywalker and try and stop my ships from getting you," which sounds more interesting than "your generic X-Wing against my generic TIE Fighters".
FFG is all about out of the box functionality, and dropping Luke into the box makes it more attractive.
2)You would still potentially have "useless cards" in the form of the unique pilots that belong to ships you don't buy.
So you have this "Pilot Pack" but think Y-Wings are super lame and you're quite happy to hold out for that sweet Millenium Falcon. Those Y-Wing pilot cards will be of no use to you at all, just sitting there in your box. Maybe you could pass them to a friend that thinks Y-Wings are the bees knees, but they may have their own interest in getting a "Pilot Pack" for other uniques.
3)By the nature of the game, you'll always have pilot cards that don't get used.
If each ship comes with 4 pilot cards, in any given match, you're not using 3/4 of the cards anyways. Sure, you have the options to swap out pilots, but it's not like you can use all the pilots at once, without buying more ships.
I suppose you could take it a step further and have a Light Side/Dark Side Pilot Pack option, but that's just too laborious for FFG to produce two different SKU's, two different sets of packaging, etc, when it would be more efficient for everyone to just ship one little carton with all of it inside. I'm sure at the design step, they realized that for the end user, we're less likely to be turned off by a few extra Vader cards than by having to by yet another product to have a complete experience.
There's no way selling a TIE Advanced pack without the two unique cards in it would cost any appreciably less amount of money to make a difference in the cost of your investment in their product. If they chopped off $1-2 off the price tag of each ship to account for this, but charged you $10 for this Pilot Pack every time a wave of ships comes out, you're only really coming out ahead financially if you buy many copies of all the ships in each cycle.
If this is the level of fleet building you had in mind, then I can see the reasoning behind wanting a means to cut the costs down, but I suspect most gamers' experiences won't reflect this.
I would think the cost of packaging an entirely second blister less the cards is actually more than including cards you could just throw away. That's 2 assembly lines instead of one. It may sound counter-intuitive and one might say "just skip a step, you save money" but then you have to track that, case it separately, and so on. You also run the higher risk of people buying the wrong thing and thinking they got screwed out of their cards.
Not worth the 3 cents savings to the consumer who doesn't want the extra card or two. Seriously, you won't really save anything and you're not stuck with it - toss it in with your paper recycling or something.
I agree with this sentiment. A long time Star Wars fan (it's not A New Hope…it's Star Wars ) I got fedup with the near ovemerchandising, the constant reworking of the original trilogy and Yoda selling mobile phones (two huge black marks for Vodaphone now). This game has re-invigorated my childhood memories and affection for the setting.
Went a bit off topic there..sorry. As far the packaging…you're always going to get duplicates of some components in a game like this, and I think FFG got it right. It's obviosly designed to appeal to non-gamers and this way it's ease t sell. The average non-gamer interested in gaming loses that interest as the additional purchases start mounting up: rulebook, then figures, some dice, some paints, maybe an additional supplement, then put it all together, then you can play…
Cheers
Mark
MarkNorfolk said:
This is exactly what I've been thinking… So refreshing to get EVERYTHING you need to play the game in one box. As a long time SW geek (*these are not the prequels you're looking for*) and a long time 40K player, I love that FFG is focusing on the right era of the Star Wars Universe and giving you everything you need to play the game in the starter and a full set of pilot and upgrade options in each ship expansion. I'm becoming disillusioned in games that require the purchase of a core rule book and then a faction rulebook and then the purchase of your mini's THEN you can actually sit down and play.
I'm not convinced that there is a real down side to having spare cards/components even if duplicates aren't allowed in the same list. More for no additional cost is better than less for the same cost. Printing cards is probably the least costly aspect of this product line, having a 2nd or even 3rd or 4th copy of Darth Vader isn't a hardship. The cost of this game is in the manufacture of the minis and paying all those spiffy licensing fees to Lucasfilm for the IP. There wouldn't be any cost savings in not including the full set of options with each ship.
I also was planning on keeping everything in the starter box if it fit… But then I was also planning on buying two starters. So maybe I'll use one as my Imperial box and one as my Rebel box until I out grow them.
-DavicusPrime
El_Tonio said:
As long as MiniatureMarket.com keeps selling the expansions for $10 each, I'll sell just the ships to anyone who wants them for $11 each + S/H. That's $4 off the MSRP.
Thanks for the heads up on this site. I am happy to have saved a nice bit of coin.
Manchu said:
KristoffStark said:
But what if by paying less you also get exactly what you want as well as things that you don't need? I really can't understand how this is problematic. If it bothers you, you could always give the extra cards to fellow players or failing that throw them away.
KristoffStark said:
I also find this to be bizarre. By definition, an accident is unpredictable. Who is confident enough to say "there is no chance that I will ever have to replace this card"? And even if you are that confident, how much are more are you paying to have a back up -- OR, as I have argued, what if you're actually paying less to have a back up? Paying less for more, as long as "more" includes what you want in addition to what you don't need, is objectively better.
It is increasingly obvious to me that our mindsets are too different to come to any kind of agreement here, so let's just agree to disagree, eh?
As I said, this irritation won't stop me from buying the product, nor from enjoying the game.
KristoffStark said:
