Ok, after recent posts about apprentice and other things, we were talking about whether or not FFG would allow apprentice files to be made and distributed. Someone said, that they think it would hurt brick and mortar stores.... it got me thinking. I own a brick and mortar store... do you know what I think is hurting my business? FFG's old retail policy. Online stores are allowed to sell their boxes for LESS than I can buy them directly from them. Its a serious problem, and it hurts our business. I am personally going to do something about it... I don't know how, but if I can't sell my products because people are going to go online, then we won't carry it. Brick and Mortar stores are what drives and makes this game viable for their business, if they don't want to respect us, we can and will band together to demand our retailer rights.

The way that they do tournaments also hurts my business... I have had no end to the problems with trying to sanction tournaments. I hope that they get this fixed ASAP...

Tournament Promos.... seriously, limited print tournament promos that are soooooo good that they end up in every tournament decks hurts my business. Especially because we can't get any to give to our playerbase, because they are out of rotation... oh and because we can't get any tournaments sanctioned for a long time... Promos should be good playable cards, not god like must have cards that end up getting sold on ebay or whatever...

HOWEVER... I've talked to FFG recently on the phone and I think that they are moving into newer and better policies. Their free draft tournament + starter promotion is great... from what I've seen them want to do to fix the meta... thats a good thing. From the things i've been promised I feel like FFG is kinda like an OBAMA... a lot of hope and promises about change... BUT just like with Obama, we haven't had time to see if they are going to pull it off.

I propose that we should have a Bill of Rights as Gamers, and Retail Brick and Mortar stores ought to have one as well. I ask that you help me to write them, because FFG should provide certain things for the people who buy and sell their game. Some of these things are already being provided for us, but we need to be all encompassing. If they will do the following, I beleive they will see greater sales of the game without much negative concequences. What do you think FFG is already doing, what should they be doing?

Gamer's Bill of Rights

1. We deserve support for a tournament circuit and other organized play- including but not limited to tournaments and events

2. We deserve a steady schedule for releases of their products, and enough time between releases to allow us to use our cards sufficiently before they cycle out, but also release new products so that the game does not become stagnant. (not an erratic and unexpected release schedule)

3. We deserve balanced sets, that have been thouroughly playtested and are without typos, mistakes, excessive errata, or unbalanced distribution of cards. It is imperative, that we get balanced cards so that one deck archetype or single card becomes such a staple that it creates a gaming meta of have and have nots; which causes the meta to no longer be balanced.

4. We deserve the right to reasonably priced products. (this is at odds with retailer price protection, but a balance can be reached)

5. we deserve the right to timely rules resolution, FAQs, and support

What else?

FFG can't do anything about apprentice, same as every other game can't. Well, not in a cost-effective way anyway. Also, apprentice sucks, make it for MWS.

EDIT - Also, there hasn't been a balanced set since set 1. This game's tempo is WAY too fast for that.

Lord Aries said:

#1 - Done. Regionals, Nationals, the coolest prize in gaming, weekly brawl events, league kits. If you want cash prizes, that's not going to happen as that goes directly against UFS's philosophy.

#2 - Done. Product was releasing once every three months. Many folks found that too much. It's starting to look like once every 4 months with FFG - which is fine in my books. Rotation happens after the product has been in play for 2 years.

#3 - In progress. New designer who's busting his ass to give you exactly what you ask for. Set 11 - how many mistakes, typos, and erratas have been issued so far? That's the current designer. Please judge him on his work, and not the work of those who came before him with a different company.

#4 - Done. UFS is comparable with other games in terms of pricing. It's not the least expensive, it's not the most expensive.

#5 - Done / In progress - Timely rules resolution - go to the rules area, ask a question, get an official answer. The longest anything takes to resolve is possible a couple of days if it's a ruling of significant impact. FAQ's are a much more complicated issue that will eventually be tackled. Limited resources to deal with issues one at a time. Current project for the rules & design team is the rework of the tournament rules.

~~~

Regarding FFG not being able to do anything to stop apprentice - When you are politely asked by a developer to stop working on said project, and at the time UFS was under GW who was very strict about things - You aquiece to their request. When you are currently a rules arbiter / tournament organizer / guy who respects when people say no, if I'm told no, I'm not going to push things.

Wow..I don't mean to be a jerk about this, but as I read this I can't help but to comment.

1st of all you say you own your own shop right? I assume with that you do have some concept of retail. Then again maybe you dont, but I will help to explain how things really work in the retail world. Large companies can buy large amounts of product. When you buy in bulk you pay a lower price (ie. BJ's, Price Club, Costco, etc etc). Its the way retail is. You buy a few cases at a time, and they can get a discount because they buy pallets. While yes it can be a bummer, this happens in ALL retail. While yes they might be able to work out a little cheaper you'll never even get close to coolstuffinc.com. I am sorry but thats the way it works.

Being upset about not having all the cards? It happens to everyone! I didnt start with the very first set. I came into the game later after certain products weren't printed anymore. Yes I would have liked to get some of those cards, but should I have gotten upset at the company because of when I joined? No. I feel your pain dude. Honestly I really do, but I buy alot of boxes both through my store and coolstuff and dont have a full collection. Part of luck of the draw.

Now I realized you just recently joined into the game, but Steve himself has said that distribution in sets is going to be fixed. They are lowering the number of characters, so you dont pull a million of them. Look at what was announced about the latest set. Only 8 characters in a base set and only 5 in a regular set. I'd say they are already on the ball on that. As with the crazy promos...well yeah there are some out there that are incredibly hard to get. I still don't own a single blood runs true, and between our whole group of players (12) we only own 3. Steve has also said that it was their biggest mistake and something of that nature will never happen again. The promos will be fun, but the best stuff will come out of the boxes themselves.

The tournament circuit. Well yes it had been a little lacking, and they have developed new programs like the regionals, city championships, and store championships. Everything does take time so it wont happen tomorrow. I emplore you to be patient. Believe me they are working to better the tournament scene. I can't wait till april 4th to go to VA and play in their regional. Get to see Omar and some of the New York guys as well as chubbs antics. Plus I get to meet more new people. Its gonna be a great time. (p.s. they will be running these year round)

Balanced sets...well of course that would be great. There will always be some cards in any game that are better than others...no matter what you do. It happens and I have never played any game much less card game where this doesnt exist.

Rules...well they are working on a new set of Tournament rules that I believe but I am not positive should be comming out close to the next set. As far as erratas and rulings, even tho I might not agree 100% of the time Omar, Tag, and Antigoth do a pretty **** good job at replying to everyones questions quickly and always with an explination. Are we always going to agree? No we all see things differently and interpret things in different ways. That can be applied to the text on a card. Something that might read completely clear to James, Steve, or Paul might read a completly different way to you or me. It happens...chalk that one up to being human.

I know it can be frustrating at times, almost everything can be. Just hang in there they are working on all of these things, it just doesn't happen overnight.

Is anybody else amused that Lord Aries is the only one getting himself all worked up about this? From his first thread to this one, he's the only one raising the rabble rabble.

It's like trying to start a riot in a marshmallow factory.

Antigoth already posted what I'd seriously have posted, almost word for word, as it is.

I know you're excited and a bit enthusiastic, Lord Aries, but getting flustered about every single thing is only going to get people trolling you (oh wait...).

thanks for the kind words WAB, we do try our best, and work very hard behind the scenes.

as Antigoth pointed out, most of these issues are, or are in the process of, being handled. as much as it grates, the game's changing hands plus the lack of a developer for months put a huge delay on everything. (case in point, by this time last year, i had my championship card in my hands for two months. i probably won't see my card this year until set 12 releases - so believe me when i tell you that i know how hard it is to wait.)

#3 right there is sorta a holy grail of sorts for all CCGs. Trust me, it'll never happen the way you want it to.

Well, I'm not worked up... I'm pretty calm. Also, I said that I think FFG had already done most of the things on the list, and from what I saw moving in the RIGHT direction on the things they aren't/haven't done.

I do understand retail, we offered to buy 100 boxes of cards if that is what it took to get a discount, they said they don't do that. Price protection for Retailers is the number one thing they are failing to do, and it seriously could be shooting them in the foot.

Overall, the reason I'm talking about this, is I really love this game, but I want to make sure that its still here in a year or two...

I wrote the post above as a primer to discussions about whether we have the right to use things like Apprentice...

Should we have the right to have things like the database at twoheadeddragon? YEah, I bet if they tried to take that away some people would be pretty upset...

Lord Aries said:

This is really not the place to discuss challenges with bulk purchases. I know every set my retailer tends to buy 3 cases of each expansion. Your 100 boxes that you offered to buy is 28 boxes more then what my shop purchases every three months. I have no idea why you're getting upset that they wouldn't offer you a discount for making what is a normal purchase. (Keep in mind, my shop is a small shop that competes with two other stores in the same area for player base.) That 100 box purchase sounds like what some shops would normally purchase every three months.

Regarding Apprentice - You are a retailer who wants to put man power toward it. If they tell you to stop, and you choose to flip them the bird, that's between you and them.

I am not a retailer. I AM one of the official rules arbiters among my other roles with the game, which includes being a webmaster of a UFS fansite. Who would rather not deal with a DMCA take down notice. AGAIN, since *My Team and I* were the one who was last working on apprentice for the game, *I* had a great deal at stake if *I* didn't bother to listen to them. The least being my team wanting to kill me if I let them spend a crapton of time completing the apprentice patch, only to have to flush it if a DMCA takedown notice was issued.

Since the move to FFG, my team that was working on it no longer has the time. Recruiting a new team to work in it hasn't been a priority, so asking permission to do something I couldn't commit to having done in any sort of reasonable time didn't seem like the right thing to do.

Keep in mind that 2HD which is a card look up resource is completely different from a program that would allow you to play the game for free without actually having to purchase any cards. <The concern, whether reasonable or not, that faciliated STG's view.>

Again, If you want to put together an apprentice patch, and deal with that battle, that's between you and FFG. I just wanted to get permission because I have the website that can host the patch if it gets done, and has the blessing of FFG. With Raw Deal, we had the blessing of Comic Images and the Developers as long as we did not use the card images in Apprentice, because the card images created a violation of the extent of the licence CI had with the WWE. Basically at that point it started infringing on the With Authority Game, and the rights associated with that licence. That *may* be one of the concerns that STG had. But I can't speculate because I don't know for certain.

well of course we want the permission...