1E Project Status Update - December 2020

by Charlie Plaine, Director of First Edition

4th December 2020

Hello folks; it's December 4th, 2020, and that means it's been six months since my last Project Status Update for First Edition. That's too long, and I apologize, but it's been a tough year on all accounts - for all of us. I hope that you'll be understanding when I say these are a lot of work to create, and find a way to appreciate this update. I suspect you will, and that won't be a problem; I appreciate that, if it's the case. Before jumping into the update, I want to remind you that we have a very pretty project chart to go along with, courtesy of Cristoffer Wiker (Smiley). This Trek-themed PDF chart outlines all of the projects below. At a glance, you can see their progress and which steps are complete, in progress, or on hold. I hope this helps you better understand where our projects are in the pipeline. And with that, let's go over where we are:

Completed Projects

A Private Little War a.k.a. Project Londo
STATUS: RELEASED
(Project Londo is the third and final expansion of Block #5, the Original Series block, and focuses on cards.)

This is old news, but A Private Little War was released in October 2020. Though Trek playing as a whole has been down this year due to a global pandemic, what I have seen of people playing has been positive. I've had a lot of positive feedback on the expansion, with some going so far as to say it's their favorite expansion in years. Time will see if that remains the case, but there's a lot of fun stuff in APLW. I hope you'll take the time to check it out.

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Current Projects

Project Storm
STATUS: DEVELOPMENT
(Project Storm is a stand alone expansion based on the end of the Dominion War.)

Project Storm has been in testing since mid-August, and is nearing the end of its development journey. There has been a lot of feedback on the cards, which have undergone a lot of changes over the past four months. The design team of Andreas Rheinländer (Dukat), Derrik Marsh (HoodieDM), and Paddy Tye (KazonPADD) - led by Cristoffer Wiker (Smiley) - have worked hard to address concerns big and small on their cards. The end result is going to be a fun set of cards pulled mostly from the final, ten (10) episode arc of Deep Space 9.

Right now, the Rules and Creative Teams are doing their hard work to get the expansion ready to move into production. At the same time, the testers are working hard to address any lingering concerns and make sure the cards are in great shape. We'll be finishing up that work over the rest of 2020, and this expansion should be moving into proofreading and then production in early 2021. I hope that you'll see this in February or March of 2021, but that's always subject to change. When you do, I hope you'll enjoy the new decks based around Dominion-occupied Cardassia, the Cardassian resistance, and the Alpha Quadrant Alliance the team has worked so hard to create.

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Project Rogue
STATUS: DESIGN
(Project Rogue is the first of two expansions in the Movie Block, focusing on the era of the first six movies.)

The design team for Project Rogue has been hard at work coming up with fun new cards and ideas based around the first six Star Trek movies (and the Enterprise-B bits of Generations.) The team of Paddy Tye (KazonPADD), Allen Gould (AllenGould), Derrick Marsh (HoodieDM), Jason Robinette (JasonRed3), Niall Matthew (sexecutioner), and the recently retired Austin Chandler (DarkSabre) have found ways to supplement the existing themes from the cards we have in the game. At the same time, there are some neat surprises in story for you, too.

Project Rogue will keep working for the next couple of months, while Project Storm finishes testing and we test a few smaller things. I expect to see this expansion going to testing in late January or early February, and hopefully releasing in late Summer or early Autumn of 2021. In the mean time, I'm sure the team will keep working and doing internal testing to make the expansion as great as it can be.

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Project Quarantine
STATUS: DESIGN
(Project Quarantine will bring a small refresh to the Q Continuum Side Deck, complete with some fun new Q cards.)

In between the two expansions of the movie block, we'll be bringing you something new from the Q Continuum. The team of Dan Hamman (SirDan) and Thomas Vineberg (Exon), along with some help from  James Monsebroten (Orbin), have put together a nice little boutique set of Q-related cards. Our hope is that Project Quarantine will refresh the Q Continuum side deck and make it more functional - if not competitive - in the modern game. Along with some new cards, expect some rules updates and some errata to make sure Q and his shenanigans can again appear in modern First Edition.

Project Quarantine will be starting testing immediately after Project Storm enters production, with the intention to do a small testing phase now and another after Project Rogue. This boutique expansion should then release in Summer of 2021, after Rogue and before Solo.

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Project Solo
STATUS: PRE-DESIGN
(Project Solo is the second of two expansions in the Movie Block, pulling from Generations through Nemesis, with a large focus on the latter movie.)

Following up on Project Rogue, Project Solo will be focusing on the final four Star Trek movies, the Enterprise-E era. Dan Hamman (SirDan), our most experienced lead designer, will be heading up the project team of five (5). Aside from Jason Robinette, who is working on both teams in the Movie block, the team will be Brian Sykes (Armus), Daniel Matteson (OKCoyote), and Cristoffer Wiker (Smiley). Most of this expansion will be pulled from Nemesis, which is largely unrepresented in the game.

Dan's team has also just gotten started on their work, and they have even more time to plan and design before going to testing. Our tentative schedule is for Project Solo to release in the Winter of 2021.

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ANNOUNCING: Project Mandalorian
STATUS: PRE-DESIGN
(Project Mandalorian will be non-block, standard size expansion, that falls between the Movie block and the Delta Quadrant block.

For now, I'm going to keep the details light, but I will tell you that Project Mandalorian is starting to staff up and get early concept work done. This expansion will be a full (standard) size, and will release after Project Solo (the Movie block) and before the first expansion of the Delta Quadrant block (block #7). That will likely be our model moving forward, as we alternate between two block expansions and one non-block expansion.

As this will hopefully be a template for future expansions in the same space, it will be very much like the early 1E virtual expansions - a little bit of something for everyone. It won't have big block themes or be tied to a particular series, era, quadrant, or other "hook." There may be themes, like "interaction," or "battle", but they'll span lots of different decks. For now, all I can tell you is that this will be very different than most of the expansions we've made in the last eight years, and I think you're going to like it.

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Unscheduled Future Projects

Project En Garde
STATUS: DESIGN
(Project En Garde aims to provide a pair of balanced decks design to give great games against each other, and fit into modern tournament play.)

Project En Garde has been around for years. The idea is to make a pair of "duel decks" that are well matched against each other, for players to use in their home and kitchen table games. The primary goal is to make sure they play well and have enough variety in the deck it keeps them fresh from game to game. As a secondary goal, if we can make them "tournament adjacent" in terms of quality, they can help players step from kitchen table to local play events without the stress of deck building or the risk of getting annihilated with a starter deck.

I'm pleased to say this project is moving along very nicely. Along with myself, the team of Paddy Tye, Dan Hamman, and Niall Matthew (sexecutioner) have designed a suite of new cards to support the "Chain of Command" theme of the decks. The decks themselves are mostly done, and will hopefully enter testing along Project Quarantine. As we've said previously, the two decks will be and , based around the two-part episode "Chain of Command." It should be fun to see get much needed development, and get these two decks moved along towards completion.

Even though we plan on testing these decks soon, this is a big project, so there is not yet a release date for the finished product.

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Project Viking
STATUS: DESIGN
(Project Viking is a boutique style expansion "booster shot" for the Vidiian affiliation.)

Not much has changed with Project Viking since our last update, as the design team of myself, James Heaney (BCSWowbagger), Brian Sykes (Armus), and myself have all been busy with other work. However, we have an initial draft of the cards done and are starting to find time to begin our internal testing with them. I am very excited about the potential deck style, them, and the new cards we've made for the Vidiians and I can't wait to move forward.

After we finish internal testing and are happy with the file, the plan remains to hand our notes and our cards over to another team of fresh eyes. This "second design team" will then repeat our internal testing, but be given the power to develop and change the cards to meet our stated goals. This is an experiment, but if successful, it will lead to a much stronger finished set of cards that can then go through standard testing. It should eliminate "confirmation bias" and lead to a much better finished product. And, if we're being honest, the Vidiians need that!

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Project Keiko
STATUS: ON-HOLD
(Project Keiko is a scripted learn-to-play experience for new players.)

We're happy with Project Keiko as a scripted, learn to play experience designer for people familiar with games and gamers. But unfortunately, we haven't figured out the best way to use this product and thus haven't put much time and energy into finishing it. Having a "teach yourself at home" product is very important, and I'm pretty confident we'll end up using Matt Zinno's (commdecker) work here, it's just not moving forward right now.

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Project Argentum
STATUS: PRE-DESIGN
(Project Argentum will be a project celebrating some of the best single episodes of Star Trek. It's been repurposed from a previous product to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the game.)

Earlier this year, we held a poll to pick a theme for a boutique-style expansion, and was the winner. Fortunately, the previous version of Project Argentum had some cool content that we were able to salvage and repurpose for this boutique - we even got to keep the name of the project the same. We're working hard to bring you further adventures of the crew of the I.K.S. Rotarran, but it's way too early in the process to talk about it much right now. Though I will say, if you've been following Will of the Collective, it's a good bet that card can find a home here!

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ANNOUNCING: Project Parachute
STATUS: PRE-DESIGN
(Project Parachute will be an independent boutique style expansion disconnected for any particular release schedule or theme.

I'll be covering this in more detail in future updates, but one of the biggest problems we've had in the Department of First Edition is being inconsistent with our release schedules. As is want to happen in life, there are delays or problems with putting out an expansion and that often leads to a big gap between releases. We've improved, and will keep improving, with our scheduling, but you can't always predict what delays there will be.

Project Parachute is our attempt to help address that issue by having an expansion "on reserve." The idea was inspired by something similar done by Wizards of the Coast for Magic. The idea behind the name is that we can "pull the cord" and move a ready-and-waiting project into production to help fill a gap when it happens. To make that work, we'll be making and testing an expansion that isn't tied to a particular block or theme, and then putting it on hold. When we need it, we can release it to keep our schedule consistent. Plus, this will give us the chance to deliver an "old school, everyone gets something" style of expansion that is popular with some of our community.

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Exploratory Projects

Exploratory projects aren't traditional design in that they aren't looking to create a set of cards that we'll release. Instead, these teams are looking at higher concepts, bigger concepts, and the wilder ideas that may or may not ever work in the game. The end result of each of these projects is data. Each team will present a report to the Department of First Edition, and from that report decisions will be made about the long-term viability of the explored concepts.

Project Babylon
STATUS: EXPLORATORY DESIGN
(Project Babylon is an exploratory design project looking at the problems with Nors, and potential solutions to those problems.)

This project, under the leadership of Paddy Tye [KazonPADD], has turned over an initial set of Nor-related changes for testing. Though small, these changes help to start culling the rules overhead of using these cards, and lay the groundwork for future, more significant improvements. After some of their early efforts made it into The Neutral Zone, the team is waiting for the results of testing before deciding how to proceed.

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Project Warrior
STATUS: EXPLORATORY DESIGN
(Project Warrior is an exploratory design project looking for ways to do to ground combat what Tactics did for ship combat.)

There has been no progress on this project since my last update, so I'll just repeat what I said then:

"Fresh off of his return to the game, Jason Robinette (JasonRed3) has joined Allen Gould (AllenGould) and Jon Carter (pfti) on this project. Progress remains slow, because exploratory projects are always the lowest priority for our designers, but I have high hopes that when these three do get working, we'll see great things."

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Project Annika
STATUS: EXPLORATORY DESIGN
(Project Annika is an exploratory design project looking for ways to play Borg along with other affiliations.)

There has been no progress on this project since my last update, so I'll just repeat what I said then:

"Though things have been slow, Andreas Rhinelander [Dukat] has agreed to take on the lead of this project to keep things moving. Andreas and Derrek Marsh (HoodieDM) will be working on this as they can and hopefully, someday in the not-too-distant future, give us some cool direction to take the Borg."

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That's all for now. I hope this information helps you understand where we are, and how we're constantly striving to improve. For any projects previously announced but not updated here, nothing has changed. In the mean time, please tell me what you like and don't like about this new format for these updates. What information are you missing? Do you want to see things presented differently, or organized in a different way? Sound off, and I'll keep working on making these better and more useful.

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