Hello everyone, and welcome to your
March 2018 status update for
First Edition Design Products. I hope that you are finding value in these reports; with little feedback, it's hard for me to know if I should stay the course or make changes. These reports originated from a desire to be transparent about our schedules and schedule challenges, and to dispel misinformation about delays and product changes. If there are specific pieces of information you want to see, please let me know. And if you find these updates to be falling short, I'd appreciate knowing that too. Ultimately, I'm making these posts for you, so if you have any questions, or concerns, please share them. If you guys PM me questions, I'll do my best to answer them in subsequent updates.
With all of that being said, here is your update for
March 2018:
ANNOUNCING: Metamorphosis
STATUS: PRODUCTION PHASE
(Formerly known as Project Discommendation, this expansion brings sixty-three (63) new and key conversion cards to 1E.)
As you
may have seen, this expansion is officially in the "Coming Soon" step of the production phase.
Metamorphosis, as
Project Discommendation is now known, will begin previews in the next few weeks for a late April (or maybe early May) release.
Metamorphosis features sixty-three (63) cards, including highly requested and popular conversions; however, there are also new cards to support those conversions.
We're currently hard at work proofreading the final file, planning out our social medial previews, preparing a spoiler schedule and writing articles for you to enjoy. Allen Gould (AllenGould) has done a fantastic job leading this expansion, and I'm very happy with where the expansion has ended up. In fact, I have a preview of sorts for you! Check out the release promo for
Metamorphosis, Condition Red:
We're also finalizing plans to officially implement the separation of backwards compatible cards from
First Edition. We will be posting all of the details in an article relatively soon, but the separation will be happening
after the 2018 World Championships in Australia in October.
Project Keiko
STATUS: DEVELOPMENT PHASE
(Project Keiko is a scripted learn-to-play experience for new players.)
We are continuing work on refining this learn to play product, featuring two decks with a scripted game. It isn't a project that contains new cards, so there is no testing in the traditional sense. We'll be doing one more round of public testing after the next set of revisions, and then looking to release this product in mid-to-late spring. If you have a friend, family member, or coworker that you'd like to teach the game of
First Edition, please let us know so you can be included in the test.
Project Jellyfish
STATUS: PRODUCTION PHASE
(Project Jellyfish is a refresh and remaster of The Next Generation block's starter decks.)
I'm happy to report that
Project Jellyfish, created by the team of Paddy Tye (KazonPADD) and Alan French (adf8), has finished design and is currently in proofreading and the final stages of testing. This product will feature new cards, some reprints, and refreshed and updated versions of all four TNG block starter decks. All of our volunteers have worked hard to give those decks a modern update, while preserving the spirit of the original design.
As part of this project, we'll be solidifying a new card pool option to recreate the original
The Next Generation block. This will provide a new, permanent option for players looking for a limited card pool in either limited or constructed play. We'll have all the details on this later this spring or early summer, when
Project Jellyfish is rolled out for release.
Project En Garde
STATUS: DEVELOPMENT PHASE
(Project En Garde is a pair of balanced decks designed to give great games against each other, and fit into tournament play.)
The new cards from these decks are in the hands of our testers so they can be put though their paces in the full card pool environment. Once the testers have completed their work there, they'll be given the two decks to test so we can make sure they play well against each other, and as tournament worthy options. The goal with
Project En Garde is to give casual, newer, and returning players a pair of decks that will let them play fun, kitchen table games with their friends. And once they are comfortable, they can take them to a tournament and compete without getting obliterated.
The two decks, and the new cards, are themed around the current
block and feature a MACO deck vs a Klingon capture deck. It will depend on testing, but I think these will be released mid-summer, shortly after the release of
Project Jellyfish.
ANNOUNCING: Project Goa'uld
STATUS: DESIGN PHASE
(Project Gou'ald is a boutique expansion to celebrate [REDACTED].)
Forgive me for being a bit coy with this, but I want to try and surprise you guys a little bit. This boutique expansion (featuring a smaller number of tightly themed cards) is being worked on by yours truly (MidnightLich), Chris Lobban (Maelwys), and Maggie Geppert (jadziadax8). I hope that it will be a fun product that you guys will enjoy, and will solve a problem currently facing the
First Edition department.
I don't have a solid timeline on this project yet, other than a strong desire to make sure it comes out in 2018.
Project Blues
STATUS: DESIGN PHASE
(Project Blues is a Delta Quadrant themed boutique product.)
Project Blues - a boutique expansion focused on the Delta Quadrant, has been in active design for a few months. The team, being led by James Monsebroten [Orbin], is working on providing some fun and exciting new tools for
decks. This project is a key example of our department responding to community demand. You've let us know you're disappointed in how little content we've made for the Delta Quadrant, so we created a project specifically to address that concern.
As above, I don't have a slot on the schedule for this project at this time, but I'm hopeful it will come out in 2018 as well.
Project Delenn
STATUS: DESIGN PHASE
(Project Delenn is the first expansion of Block 5, the TOS block, and focuses on and .)
Project Delenn has been one of the most difficult designs I've ever worked on, including the design of the Vulcan affiliation in
Live Long and Prosper. This expansion is working hard to meet a lofty set of self-imposed goals that have challenged our many design assumptions made over the years. Specifically, we're working hard to replicate the simplicity of the
Next Generation block without retreading those expansions. Similarly, we're aiming to provide a lot of strategic complexity with as little comprehension complexity as possible; in short, we want it to be easy to figure out what the cards do, but harder to figure out best how to use them.
Along side these goals, we're challenging ourselves to build the expansion differently. By focusing on deck types and not factions, we're working to make
Project Delenn have much wider appeal than just
decks.
Star Trek is rich with classic story archetypes, and we've been working very hard for the past several months to translate some of those archetypes into
First Edition strategies. I can't speak highly enough of the team; James Monsebroten (Orbin), my co-lead, and designers Jason Drake (wambundu) and James Heaney (BCSWowbagger) have put in a lot of time and energy to craft this unusual expansion.
We hope to put this expansion in front of testers in April, for a tentative release this Autumn.
Project G'Kar
STATUS: DESIGN PHASE
(Project G'Kar is the second expansion of the TOS block, focusing on the Romulans.)
Dan Hamman [SirDan] and his team have been waiting on the
Project Delenn team to finalize their plans in order to get started designing, and I'm happy to report that has happened. They've just gotten started putting pen to paper (metaphorically) and will really get cranking once Delenn gets to testing.
Project G'Kar will be continuing the themes of simplicity, strategic complexity, and archetype-driven design from
Delenn, though I'm sure Dan will zig-zag as he loves to do.
It's way too early to really narrow down a timeline for G'Kar, but as a semi-educated guess, I'll wager early 2019.
Project Londo
STATUS: PRE-DESIGN PHASE
(Project Londo is the third expansion in the TOS block, and will feature Klingons.)
James Monsebroten will be starting up his work on this expansion about halfway through testing on
Project Delenn. This is why we have a new lead designer first co-lead an expansion, so they can split their focus once the first expansion is past the midway point and on stable ground. James has shown careful consideration and open-mindedness during his work on
Project Delenn, and I'm confident he'll do similarly when he gets to run his own team.
As I said above, its far too early for me to give you a good estimate for this expansion's release, but a
bad estimate would be late Winter/early Spring 2019.
ANNOUNCING: Project Warrior
ANNOUNCING: Project Annika
STATUS: EXPLORATORY DESIGN
(Project Warrior and Project Annika are our first two exploratory design projects, feeling out odd and unusual design space.)
Today I'm happy to share with you something that we put into place late last year: exploratory design. These projects are designed to allow unrestricted creativity, free of expectation; in short, they are license to try and to fail. Exploratory design projects are not expected to meet deadlines or to deliver finished expansions. An exploratory design project is one that is staffed and developed "on the side," i.e. on volunteer's non-volunteer time. People who work on these projects do so in addition to their existing volunteer commitments.
The goal with exploratory design is to give a team room to chase down those crazy ideas that get dismissed during normal design. If it's wild, quirky, or so far outside the box it's got a goatee, it might be a good fit for exploratory design. Our goal is to have one or two of these projects running at a given time. Such projects don't have deadlines, or expectations; they aren't making expansions, they are exploring ideas. Such freedom gives those teams a lot of liberty, but the cost is that they don't have any other resources - just themselves. At the end of an exploratory design project, the team will give a write-up and or a presentation of their findings. Perhaps the next cool idea will come from such a project, or perhaps we'll find out something really can't be done.
The two exploratory projects we have right now are
Project Warrior and
Project Annika.
Project Warrior is a spin-off from the
Metamorphosis design team, and is exploring ways to do to ground combat what Tactics did for ship combat; it's being coordinated by Allen Gould (AllenGould).
Project Annika is investigating the idea of Borg cards being in non-Borg decks and/or non-Borg cards being in Borg decks. Jorn Engstrom (admiral-mogh) is the coordinator for
Project Annika.
And with that, I will sign off for the month. I hope you share my excitement at all the amazing projects that are heading down the pipeline. This is a great era for
First Edition, and I think 2018 is shaping up to be one of the best years of this banner game. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, anything I can give you more information on, or just if there's something you'd like to see more (or less of) in future updates.
-crp