This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#492546
BCSWowbagger wrote:I think there's a risk in providing too many entry points into the game...
The current Beginner's Rulebook does exclude...
The Beginner's Rulebook does include...
I made all these decisions about what to include and what to exclude pretty much on my own, based on my own judgment about what is "core" to the game and what isn't. My target audience was all newbies...
As far as I know, this aspect of the Rulebook was not closely scrutinized when it was approved. So I'm open to the suggestion that it struck the wrong balance between "explaining the core game" and "being easy enough for newbies to understand." I'm open to the suggestion that the Beginner's Rulebook should exclude a few more things, and include a few other things. But I think the approach of having another Beginner's Rulebook, only this time even simpler, would do more harm than good (although I realize that the idea comes with only the best of intentions).
Actually, I did look at the Beginner's Rulebook quite a lot, when proofreading. But you provide interesting new arguments here.
I'll have to process all this, and look at both my own ideas and yours, and the Rulebook again, critically, before making any (if any) of the suggestions you suggest.
Thanks for sharing your views and decision-making process! :thumbsup:
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By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#492638
other card games (especially magic) have huge rulebooks, but they are more organized. you have to be a lawyer to fully understand them though :D
also they got reworked since the 90s.

while magic had some organ transplantations over the years, 1e is still on life support.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#492722
Yeah, interesting metaphore. But where Magic -- though great to play, every now and then -- is not unlike a Vidiian (having seen a LOT of transplants, the worst of it being it's horrible new layout and nifty, flashy, too-smooth artwork), there 1e is not unlike a Borg droning on (on life support? Fine -- yet it still tramples on. Pun intended). Magic is fun. :thumbsup: But 1eSTCCG keeps me awake at night; it's that cool. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: 8)
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#492764
Putting on rose coloured glasses with Magical-christmas-land-o-vision mode set to ON!

Ok, here goes!

The Question was: What do you want to see from The Continuing Committee to help you recruit new players?

Broke it down as much as I could according to how the CC is structured.

GENERAL ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
First off I think the CC needs to have a look through the whole organization and see what is needed and who does what and how to set up a grandfather process so that if anyone leaves there is no vacuum or loss of operation while a new person to take over is being hired. As well make it so that the organisation diagram actually states the names of the different branches as well as tells people who does what. Like now there is no one responsible for the homepage! Looking at the organizations from the outside through eyes that never have seen it would help I think as new players would have no clue who to contact, who’s in the IT department etc.

DESIGN
Cognitive load
The game has become to complex - and that’s not saying little. Each card is now so complex that anyone new to the game can’t comprehend due to years and years of aggregated knowledge.

Set design
Sets need to be designed with new players in mind. That means more reprints of older cards that they might not have or can get their hands on in droves. Rotation of the current meta/card pool to make the game be less about the collection of 20+ years of cards and experience and more about what you can do with the cards in the current pool. This will also help out with the power creep problem that we’ve been having. Rotation creates the Esher staircase effect which is good for all involved, especially new players.

Simplify the game
Make the rules simple to understand and learn. There should not be a weapon to be used against an opponent, it should be something so simple that you only need to learn it once. The same goes for the Turn order. It should be made so that everyone knows when you can play something or activate an ability without having to look it up.

More randomness
The game is now more or less a predetermined spreadsheet/process that only break down if the opponent interacts with you (and as such everyone is trying to find ways to avoid). We need more luck of the draw and more what if’s. This thing that we have now have gone to far and new players just don’t see the idea behind it. They have not been part of the evolution that led to here. But to get them aboard we need to end this now and make the game more uncertain again.

Starter decks
Dirt simple affiliation decks. They can come in different complexity levels as long as the affiliation is being presented in a good and simple way. They need to be done just for teaching, nothing else. This is nothing you go out and win a tournament with. This is a way for us to make people try out a new affiliations they have not tried before. We could do this for say artifacts, alternate universe or battle bridge side deck as well.

Duel decks
We need more ways to show off the flavoure of each affiliation. Duel decks could be a way to go. Making them balanced against each other and nothing else. Maybe make them a little customizable so that it’s not the same everytime you play them. Moving a card from the seed to the draw and vise versa.

Fix seeding
Seeding is still too complicated. I’m sorry but it is. We need a way to make it even faster. The building dilemma combos is where the game is won for a good player usually. A new player don’t even know about all the dilemmas they can potentially find underneath. This is a deeper discussion that I would love to take somewhere else if someone wants to have it.

RULES
Simplify the Rules
Make the rules simple to read, understand and learn. They should be built in the order of only teaching the things you need when starting out. And then build on top of that. The glossary should probably be hidden from the new player in the beginning. As that would probably frighten them off more than do good.

Limit number of Copies
Can we please limit the number of copies you can have of each card. This is a killer as you can not anticipate anything. And building deck actually becomes harder when you are are not forced to only be using 3-4 copies of anything instead of any number. Restriction breeds creativity.

Define zones
We need names for all spaces in the game. And we need to have a better way of talking about them and finding good, short words for them so that we can use the same syntax on cards. Right now we have a “Out of play area” when we could call it something thematic like the “Void” or something like it.

Simplify the game-language
Today we have a very hard language to decipher on the cards. Just thinking of “Unless” on a dilemma hurts the brain. Defining everything better and making it easier to understand will help players immensely.

Stop using abbreviations
I know, it sucks but try to see it from someone that have no knowledge of DRAGS or what it means feel like when they come to our forums or read our articles. We just have to remember to write it all out when communicating or find a way to have the site auto explain it to the reader somehow.

WAREHOUSE
Ease of use and fast communication
Make the warehouse easy to use and prompt to get back to you if anything is not working. As this is something that is asking for someones money, this should be treated with the same respect you require at any other online store. This might be a none issue as I have not ordered anything recently but In the past there has been long waits for deliveries etc.

ACHIEVEMENTS
Crank it up or take it away
They need updating and have a more active presence. There should be front and center so that you know what you can hunt for as well as well in advanced tell you when things are changing and how so no one feels that they could not get everything that they wanted.
More so there needs to be achievements for writing articles or building and posting decklists or just organizing a tournament. Not just play in tournaments. If we want new people to interact with the rest we need to give them the ways and the means as well as some incentive. Or just take it away if there is not enough resources to run it. Just to remove the distraction from the rest of the stuff on the site.

ERRATA
Errata cards to current rules syntax
A lot of the new players that I teach just can’t understand how some cards work as the old version says something else than what it actually does. Some cards should have been updated to have new wording to go with the latest rules syntax so that if and when cards get reprinted they get printed with the latest game text corresponding with how the rules behave atm. The cards could maybe have the text on the side of the image if it’s too hard to superimpose the new text on top of the image. Anything to help the player, new or old to remove the need for memory or experience issues.

ART
More Current UI
Update the game to current knowledge about good UI design. Right now the game has more or less stood still since -94. Decipher or anyone else for that matter did not have a clue what good UI/UX design was back then. We need to update the cards a bit to make them easier to use. Sure, we know how as we have 25 years of experience of using them. But if we want someone new to come in and play we need to meet them halfway at least as they have so much more to choose from now than we had back then. If we are not willing to change a bit we will go extinct as the current player base gets older.

More/New alt cards
Make new AI/Promos/Alternative Boarders/etc. More cards to chase is good for a part of the hobby that we seldom talk about, the collectors. Sure most of them don’t care for them but some do and they need more to chase. And we need more ways for them to get them outside of tournaments as that is the hardest issue they face usually.

ORGANIZED PLAY
More ways to play
We should embrace more ways of playing the game. And give out points/achievements etc to all regardless of what people play.

Make point difference matter again
Players have a real hard time understanding how to calculate the standings during a tournament. The older system might not have been the best but at least it was easy to track who was winning and with how much.

Smaller card pool
I can not reiterate this enough times! New players need a smaller card pool. Around 1500 cards is the most they can be thought to learn and we will have to go that way if we want to be able to introduce more players. Other games are struggling with the same issues so we are not alone here. The younger generation just don’t have the same attention span and more and have more things that compete with their time so if we want to be able to cut through their static we need less cars for them to have to remember. If we or they later want to play complete or traditional or some other format that has yet to be invented that’s a later problem.

Legal expansions
Please make it easier to play the game by having a rotation of expansions the baseline for how tournament works. All the other games have this so why don’t we? It will make it easier for players to come in and not having to compete with players like me that have at least 4 copies of every card ever printed since the game started. Printing does not count as it’s also about having to learn all those cards and get the same amount of experience in using them as any of the better players.

Shorter play time
A game round can not be longer than 1h, period. I have tried and tried to get new players to attend a tournament but the time needed to play is driving people away. Sure some formats can have longer time but the standard format for tournament play should follow the general convention of 1 hour rounds.

More turns per player
The game have become so fast that in the right hands a deck can get their 100+ points in 4-5 turns. This is not in any way, shape or form something a new player can try to achieve in any future. The game needs to slow down and give players more turns before the game ends.

Less thing to do each turn
Today there is too much happening in one turn due to the fact that we only have a very few turns to do everything in. This has made it more or less impossible to actually track what’s going on in the game and new players just can’t keep up. They zone out after the first turn and by the 5th they have stopped all together caring what to do as they can’t remember all the things they needed to remember for the deck to work.

Fix the sudden death problem
Right now whoever goes first will usually have a turn more than the other player, giving him a real good advantage. Either give players equal amounts of turns i.e. one player wins and if that player was the starting player the other player will have another turn to maybe catch up. Or find a way to make the starting player have a less of an advantage somehow like just drawing 4 cards in your starting hand or something like it? New players feel this a lot, especially now that the game is so short (they don’t do as much during their turns as experienced players).

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS
Readability
The site is unreadable at the moment. Any larger mass of text can not be more than 55-65 characters wide for the eye to be able to read it. And it need to scale for mobile devices that would have smaller screens too.

Daily/Weekly articles
To have new people come in we need more and punctual communications. People are creatures of habit and want to be able to come back on a set day for a specific content. It looks like we are moving in the right direction here.

Card of the day
Let’s do what most other games do and let’s start having an article about a card each day. It doesn’t have to be much, just some interesting facts or a cool deck or whatever. But something that makes you want to come back every day for new, short and probably interesting information.

Associated Card/Rule on same page
Would be excellent if you could find all the rules associated with a card and/or links to it in the rulebook and glossary and other documents to make it really easy for players to figure out what a card does. During games I’ve seen players use the search function on the site for a card they want to see instead of the rules or glossary because it comes more natural.

How to play section
We desperately need a how to play section that explain the game, points you to good information and starter decks etc as well gives you all information you’ll need in the right order.

Explaining each card type
This is probably something that can be found under the How to play section but it’s needed for player to understand how each card type works and what rules are assosiated with them.
Better card images
If we want players to come play our game we need to start updating the older sets with better images as more and more players are turning to just printing the whole deck because it’s easier than to find a specific card (if you even have it)

A 1E section
Actually all games needs a specific page so that you can focus on one game at a time and only get that information. We can still keep the landing page with all games but it should be more “corporate” with what’s happening in all games and what tournaments etc is on the schedule…

Where to play
We need to make it even easier to find players. So making it a requirement to add your address might be an idea? Something is needed at least as this is important and one of the reasons some are just collection as they can’t find any to play with.

Timeline for products
The number one question I get from players is “when it the next set coming out?” We need to be able to set deadlines and keep them or at least be super transparent when and why something did not happen according to plan. This is crucial as a timeline of upcoming product shows that the game is living and thriving.

Articles and pages and less reliance on forum
We need to stop relying on the forum for information and do more articles and even pages for the recurring information. Make things simpler and easier to find.

Competitive play + Schedule
We need a schedule for the coming months/year for all the higher level tournaments that we want to drive traffic towards. Make it more visible and graphic to entice more attenance.

Ways to play - OTF etc
Make it easier to find and understand what ways there are to play this game and what rules, errata, ban and card pool etc is involved.

Youtube updates about the game
Maybe try to show off the game being played on a youtube channel or a news section once a month? A vlog of some sort? Collect those that still exist and get them under one umbrella?

Other channels - more presence
Do we have a presence on Twitter? Reddit? Slack - new ways to communicate

DON’T KNOW WHERE TO PUT THEM
Giveaways - on site, ambassadors, tournaments
More ways to find cards to give away to be able to get people into the game. Have a door card that you get to show up to a tournament etc...

Affiliation Fanclubs
One for each affiliation. A card a year from member votes. A small fee is probable needed to take care of the P&P. But something to be a part of the game in more than just a player. Maybe even make t-shirts with affiliation logo on them to make players brandish their favourite team. This could probably updated yearly with a new design. And all this can of course be Print on demand or pre-order only.

An “How to teach the game” guide
As much as we need a guide on the site to teach the game we also need a guide for all those who are out there finding new players on how to best do that. Mark Rosewater have done more than one podcast and probably articles on this and they have a lot of data behind this so we might as well take a page from their playbook.



I think that's it or at least all that I could come up with now after looking at my notes from interacting with new players. If I have stepped on any toes of if you feel that I have in anyway hurt or angered you, please contact me and I'll try to explain what I was trying to communicate as non of this was supposed to be and attack on anyone.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#492802
I do love a good manifesto, but I'm gonna skip to the parts I have comments on. :)
Smiley wrote:That means more reprints of older cards that they might not have or can get their hands on in droves.
This should be a solved problem, since all cards are printable. (Now, someone with a good scanner and some free time updating old images would be lovely, but firmly a Nice To Have).
Rotation of the current meta/card pool to make the game be less about the collection of 20+ years of cards and experience and more about what you can do with the cards in the current pool. This will also help out with the power creep problem that we’ve been having. Rotation creates the Esher staircase effect which is good for all involved, especially new players.
I like the idea in theory, but it's proven to be trickier in practice - namely, that we just don't kick cards out fast enough to make it feel "moving". (Also, TNG block set the expected powerlevel so high that everyone just wants to play that. ;) )
Fix seeding
Seeding is still too complicated. I’m sorry but it is. We need a way to make it even faster. The building dilemma combos is where the game is won for a good player usually. A new player don’t even know about all the dilemmas they can potentially find underneath. This is a deeper discussion that I would love to take somewhere else if someone wants to have it.
Now this one I'd have to take issue with - the seed phase is one of the distinctive features of 1E. If anything, I'd like to see more focus on that step.

Simplify the Rules
Make the rules simple to read, understand and learn. They should be built in the order of only teaching the things you need when starting out. And then build on top of that. The glossary should probably be hidden from the new player in the beginning. As that would probably frighten them off more than do good.
I agree with this... except that it requires community buy-in for the inevitable collateral damage. A solid third of the Glossary is just card-specific cross-references and explanations - that's a lot of simplification... if we're willing to accept that some cards are going to work differently because we didn't keep the old Decipher "what we *really* meant was" text.
Simplify the game-language
Today we have a very hard language to decipher on the cards. Just thinking of “Unless” on a dilemma hurts the brain. Defining everything better and making it easier to understand will help players immensely.
Don't know if you can have this one *and* keep three-line templates. Now, can/should we get our templating down so the same words do the same thing (and different words do different things)? Heck yeah. But we just don't have room on the card for 2E-style "replace this under the mission" text.

Ease of use and fast communication
Make the warehouse easy to use and prompt to get back to you if anything is not working. As this is something that is asking for someones money, this should be treated with the same respect you require at any other online store. This might be a none issue as I have not ordered anything recently but In the past there has been long waits for deliveries etc.
Unpopular opinion: if we're going to expect business-level service, then we should be moving (and paying for!) a proper fulfillment system.
Card of the day
Let’s do what most other games do and let’s start having an article about a card each day.
You volunteering to write 365 short articles a year? ;)

I used to write those kind of little card blurbs for Decipher (and occasionally filling in on Wes' COTD). They're harder than they look - especially if you don't want to just make Madlibs style "this card has X and goes in Y deck" clickbaits.
Timeline for products
The number one question I get from players is “when it the next set coming out?” We need to be able to set deadlines and keep them or at least be super transparent when and why something did not happen according to plan. This is crucial as a timeline of upcoming product shows that the game is living and thriving.
I was going to argue this as a "we get what we pay for", but on second thought I think the root problem is "we plan for best case", where we need to plan knowing that someone is gonna get sick, someone is gonna get slammed at work, someone is gonna find out their kid has extra-curriculars every night this week and need a ride, someone's relatives are gonna come visit... and that's before we get into any actual *set-related* issues! Honestly, I think we'd better serve the community with a "we tell you a date when it's ready" system.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Regent
Community Contributor
#492811
Smiley wrote: ACHIEVEMENTS
Crank it up or take it away
They need updating and have a more active presence. There should be front and center so that you know what you can hunt for as well as well in advanced tell you when things are changing and how so no one feels that they could not get everything that they wanted.
More so there needs to be achievements for writing articles or building and posting decklists or just organizing a tournament. Not just play in tournaments. If we want new people to interact with the rest we need to give them the ways and the means as well as some incentive. Or just take it away if there is not enough resources to run it. Just to remove the distraction from the rest of the stuff on the site.
There's a lot to chew on here, but this one jumped out at me as legit confusing.

I agree that more publicity on the Achievement front would be good for business, and I think it's something that has been (or at least once was) a raging success. The problem is I'm not sure the CC was a) ready for that success or b) knew what to do with it. Like the dog that caught the car, I've always perceived a case of "now what?" On the achievement front. So I guess I'm tracking with the first part of your argument.

As for the second part, this is where my confusion comes in. Deckbuilding achievements have been around since the beginning. Ditto Tournament Report achievements. Ditto TD achievements. A few years back they added achievements for running larger tournaments (8, 12, 16, and 20+ players), running tournaments with new players to incentivize recruiting, traveling to different regions to play in tournaments, playing in league tournaments, and multiple leagues, etc.

Maybe article writing should be an achievement too, as good content is always in demand, but aside from that I'd ask what you think is needed that doesn't already exist?

As for getting rid of them completely, as one of a few resident achievement hounds, I would oppose that idea strongly and be very disappointed if it happened. Chasing achievements has given me reason to try decks I may never have built otherwise and is a good way to challenge myself, which keeps the game from getting old and stale.

If Rogue ever decides he doesn't want the job, I would hope that whoever his nerd boss is (JeBuS?) backfills the position, and I'd apply to the job myself if nobody else wanted it, because in my opinion, the achievement has been a huge net positive for the game and the community.
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By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#492834
I dont neccessarily disagree with all the points made, but it reads like he wants another game lol.
Also I dont see how most of those points attract more players.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#492838
Ensign Q wrote:I dont neccessarily disagree with all the points made, but it reads like he wants another game lol.
Smiley has put more work than most into the internals of the game, so I think we can assume he likes 1E. :)
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#492841
Ensign Q wrote:more randomness is definitely not what the game needs. I abandoned pretty much all other game because of that. if you want random, play dice
Well, I really dislike most dice games. What I was trying to convey is that the game now is a process on a spreadsheet that triggers each turn. It needs to be more of what you have in hand and what you draw.
I miss back when the game was "let's see what's on top of the deck, hopefully it's something that I can use?"

Now you have everything set up with seed cards, downloads, side decks etc. There's just not enough wonder and chance left. The game is more or less decided during deckbuilding. It should be more about how you play and what you draw.
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#492842
AllenGould wrote:I do love a good manifesto
Thanks! The question was asked and I have a lot of notes collected on this so I thought I'd share.
AllenGould wrote:
Smiley wrote:That means more reprints of older cards that they might not have or can get their hands on in droves.
This should be a solved problem, since all cards are printable. (Now, someone with a good scanner and some free time updating old images would be lovely, but firmly a Nice To Have).
According to new players that I have interviewed this was a big problem. THey did not have all the card and the older D sets where just too back quality to play with. This is something that would benefit us in the long run as well as just be a refreshing thing to see on the site.
AllenGould wrote:
Smiley wrote:Rotation of the current meta/card pool to make the game be less about the collection of 20+ years of cards and experience and more about what you can do with the cards in the current pool. This will also help out with the power creep problem that we’ve been having. Rotation creates the Esher staircase effect which is good for all involved, especially new players.
I like the idea in theory, but it's proven to be trickier in practice - namely, that we just don't kick cards out fast enough to make it feel "moving". (Also, TNG block set the expected powerlevel so high that everyone just wants to play that. ;) )
We might have to think about a restart to be the new starting point for this rotation to begin. Then set a good amoint of cards into the system. With the added reprints this would be less of a problem as design would not need to design 400 new cards with a good balance in one set. =)
AllenGould wrote:
Smiley wrote:Fix seeding
Seeding is still too complicated. I’m sorry but it is. We need a way to make it even faster. The building dilemma combos is where the game is won for a good player usually. A new player don’t even know about all the dilemmas they can potentially find underneath. This is a deeper discussion that I would love to take somewhere else if someone wants to have it.
Now this one I'd have to take issue with - the seed phase is one of the distinctive features of 1E. If anything, I'd like to see more focus on that step.
I sort of agree with you as well. The problem here is what we like and what new players need. The problem is that it's breaking the game up in two different sections and it has not defined time or deadline. So depending who you're playing it could be 3 minutes of 45 minutes of your play time (this has happened to me, for real!). And as I stated, We need to fix seeding! It might not be just this solution. It might be others. But the feedback I've gotten was pointing towards this.
AllenGould wrote:
Smiley wrote:Simplify the Rules
Make the rules simple to read, understand and learn. They should be built in the order of only teaching the things you need when starting out. And then build on top of that. The glossary should probably be hidden from the new player in the beginning. As that would probably frighten them off more than do good.
I agree with this... except that it requires community buy-in for the inevitable collateral damage. A solid third of the Glossary is just card-specific cross-references and explanations - that's a lot of simplification... if we're willing to accept that some cards are going to work differently because we didn't keep the old Decipher "what we *really* meant was" text.
Sure. I have no problem with card changing, becoming banned/needing errata etc. But other might have. But if we want new players to be able to understand, learn, play and stay with the game we will need to go this route in some fashion.
AllenGould wrote:
Smiley wrote:Simplify the game-language
Today we have a very hard language to decipher on the cards. Just thinking of “Unless” on a dilemma hurts the brain. Defining everything better and making it easier to understand will help players immensely.
Don't know if you can have this one *and* keep three-line templates. Now, can/should we get our templating down so the same words do the same thing (and different words do different things)? Heck yeah. But we just don't have room on the card for 2E-style "replace this under the mission" text.
You are so right. This would change how we designed cards in the future was well as might force us to have a look at the card layout/template... Again, this is a concern that comes up way too often when I teach and play with my students. They just can't grasp the syntax. And they are game design students!
AllenGould wrote:
Smiley wrote:Card of the day
Let’s do what most other games do and let’s start having an article about a card each day.
You volunteering to write 365 short articles a year? ;)

I used to write those kind of little card blurbs for Decipher (and occasionally filling in on Wes' COTD). They're harder than they look - especially if you don't want to just make Madlibs style "this card has X and goes in Y deck" clickbaits.
I don't think it should be on just one person. I think this would be and excellent thing to get achievement points for as an example. And if everyone chipped in we would have a lot of them to make people come back to the site each day to see what new silly tidbit you could learn from just one card. =)
AllenGould wrote:
Smiley wrote:Timeline for products
The number one question I get from players is “when it the next set coming out?” We need to be able to set deadlines and keep them or at least be super transparent when and why something did not happen according to plan. This is crucial as a timeline of upcoming product shows that the game is living and thriving.
I was going to argue this as a "we get what we pay for", but on second thought I think the root problem is "we plan for best case", where we need to plan knowing that someone is gonna get sick, someone is gonna get slammed at work, someone is gonna find out their kid has extra-curriculars every night this week and need a ride, someone's relatives are gonna come visit... and that's before we get into any actual *set-related* issues! Honestly, I think we'd better serve the community with a "we tell you a date when it's ready" system.
I agree with that statement. we are not a company and as it's hard to know what to expect from all the people helping out. But to keep new players interested, I'm told that a up to date schedule that is kept is a pull as it states that the game has legs.
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#492843
Armus wrote:
Smiley wrote: ACHIEVEMENTS
...As for the second part, this is where my confusion comes in. Deckbuilding achievements have been around since the beginning. Ditto Tournament Report achievements. Ditto TD achievements. A few years back they added achievements for running larger tournaments (8, 12, 16, and 20+ players), running tournaments with new players to incentivize recruiting, traveling to different regions to play in tournaments, playing in league tournaments, and multiple leagues, etc.

Maybe article writing should be an achievement too, as good content is always in demand, but aside from that I'd ask what you think is needed that doesn't already exist?

As for getting rid of them completely, as one of a few resident achievement hounds, I would oppose that idea strongly and be very disappointed if it happened. Chasing achievements has given me reason to try decks I may never have built otherwise and is a good way to challenge myself, which keeps the game from getting old and stale.

If Rogue ever decides he doesn't want the job, I would hope that whoever his nerd boss is (JeBuS?) backfills the position, and I'd apply to the job myself if nobody else wanted it, because in my opinion, the achievement has been a huge net positive for the game and the community.
I might have missed this information entirely! I'm sorry I missed it and apparently the new players that contacted me as well. We might be able to solve some of this problem with just better communication. =)
But more achievements would be a good thing.
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#492844
AllenGould wrote:
Ensign Q wrote:I dont neccessarily disagree with all the points made, but it reads like he wants another game lol.
Smiley has put more work than most into the internals of the game, so I think we can assume he likes 1E. :)
Yes I do =) A lot! I even force all my students to play the game and test for me. =)
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By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#492847
weird flex, but okay

turning the game into just another rng fest, doesnt sound like love to me :P 1e accomplishes to kinda play out like chess and thats what makes it the best cardgame around right now.
its its fundamental strength and the main reason new players could be attracted to it that arent enfranchised with trek imo.
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By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#492850
Smiley wrote: Less thing to do each turn
Today there is too much happening in one turn due to the fact that we only have a very few turns to do everything in. This has made it more or less impossible to actually track what’s going on in the game and new players just can’t keep up. They zone out after the first turn and by the 5th they have stopped all together caring what to do as they can’t remember all the things they needed to remember for the deck to work.
Smiley's post should get a lot of attention for some very well thought out ideas........

i'm zeroing in on this one because I couldn't agree more. I played a MACO deck in my return to the tournament scene that was doing so much that honestly if my opponent had said "I'm playing luke skywalker for free to the death star" i wouldn't even have blinked because i was in a trance. Frankly i was having a hard enough time during his turn looking at MY OWN cards and trying to remember and plan out what to do on MY upcoming turn that i couldn't be bothered to pay any attention to what he was doing. now-a-days it isn't unrealistic to have 10+ verbs face up on the table that you can be using the game text of during a turn. It is just a LOT, and it also plays right into the "there aren't enough turns in the game" problem as well.

I played one game where i had the Troi that downloads Intuition in the deck. I didn't really need the card but she was in the deck, so what the hell, i threw it in. I played her turn one, DLed Intuition, and NEVER used it because i forgot about it, since there were other "main engine" cards of the deck i was more worried about making sure i used.

be honest, have you ever during a game thought "oops, I forgot to do <blank>!" I bet it happens a lot.
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