[MidnightLich]

Welcome to today's First Edition Friday Monday Question, where you get a chance to answer questions that will help shape the future of First Edition. Today is a question about logistics, but if you'd like to catch up on previous entries, here's a list of all of my previous Friday Questions:

1 NOV 2019 What is your opinion of the "full page" policy?
25 OCT 2019: What do you want to see in a Halloween set?
18 OCT 2019: What is your favorite expansion?
11 OCT 2019: Which TNG main character needs a new card?
4 OCT 2019: Which Star Trek story needs more cards?
27 SEP 2019: How many points should [SPOILER] be worth?
20 SEP 2019: Which rules always confuse you?
13 SEP 2019: What do you think of [SPOILER]?
6 SEP 2019: Which card needs an alternate image (AI)?
30 AUG 2019: Which characteristic needs love?

I simply forgot to post this on Friday, even though I meant to, so the timeliness of this is a bit off. But if you didn't know, yesterday, November 10th, was the 25th birthday of the game we love. So this question is all about your first pack, or first time seeing the game, or anything in that camp.

What was your first experience with 1E?

Mine was seeing the cards in my local game store in my small hometown. I started saving up money to buy singles, and before long had all of the bridge crew. Then I got a job and started buying packs and built my first deck - a deck that hunted Borg cubes. The game never really got much traction in my hometown, so I never played more than a few times with the store owner. I would eventually rediscover the game in college and spent a fortune buying cards off eBay.

How about you? What was your first experience with 1E?

In the mean time, it's pretty amazing we're all still here a quarter of a century later. I hope that you're all doing well and still loving the game as much as I do.

-crp

[Iron Prime]

A good friend from middle school told me about the game and brought his cards over. It turns out our mutual cousin* had seen the cards at game store in "The Cities" (Minneapolis/St.Paul area) and bought some; this lead to him getting some also. It as a Friday or Saturday night and he didn't have a lot. So we proxied outposts using paper and house-ruled a three-way treaty so the personnel could all work together. I think he only had a couple start and a few packs - two starters and a couple packs at most. I was hooked immediately (I suspect nicotine was rubbed on the cards prior to packaging).

We were "in the middle of no where" so our play group was my friend, his two brothers, myself, and our mutual cousin. Many many hours spent on this game; including most multiplayer variants. Usually we would have Star Trek TNG episodes recorded on VHS from network TV on in the background. Ah the good ol' days....




*I was related through the mother's side, my friend through the father's side

[jadziadax8]

My freshman year of college (1998-99) I had been hanging out with this girl Denise from my chemistry class. I asked her to be my roommate the next year, but before agreeing to be roomies, she told me I needed to meet her friend Cheryl, since we'd be hanging out together a lot. It turned out that all three of us had a passion for sci-fi in general and Star Trek in particular. We got along famously and applied to live in a triple room in the dorm. Denise and Cheryl played STCCG and gave me a bunch of their extra cards. I was completely hooked. Cheryl and I ended up living together for three years (Denise transferred to a different school), running tourneys in Champaign, IL that whole time. I miss those two a lot. We're scattered around the country now and have fallen out of touch.

[Mr.Sloan]

Buying a starter, 12 years old to young to understand the english rules. I played it anyway.

One year later someone explained to me you need to build "decks"...

[BCSWowbagger]

Friend of the family (also a Trekkie) gave me two starter decks of Premiere, soon after "All Good Things" aired. I was 5 at the time.

I have absolutely no idea how we got two legally playable decks out of two Premiere starters, but I played my father a number of times, and my allowance money pretty much funded packs of cards throughout the entire period of my life where I had an allowance.

[SudenKapala]

so the timeliness of this is a bit off.

Timelinezz? I don't care about timelines. I'm not Janeway... ( )

But if you didn't know, yesterday, November 10th, was the 25th birthday of the game we love.

I totally missed that!! I knew it was somewhere this year, but didn't look it up...

In the mean time, it's pretty amazing we're all still here a quarter of a century later.

Indeed!

I hope that you're all doing well

...

and still loving the game as much as I do.

More so, obviously!

What was your first experience with 1E?

Actually, I still fondly remember and retain my very first card: a slightly worn BB USS Oberth, which I got from an acquaintance at school -- tail end of 1994? I remember it was gloomy weather, at least.
I started buying WB, myself, a while after that; and soon met one of my current gaming friends and Trek discussion partners, Lucky Luuke, in-store. (I think that was during the time that Premiere '94/Alpha was sold; BB'94 was already getting scarce, then.)
Together, we managed to get my roleplaying- and MTG-group on board. Which later fell by the way-side, due to life happening -- but lots of fun had, in the mean time.

[SudenKapala]

Buying a starter, 12 years old to young to understand the english rules. I played it anyway.

One year later someone explained to me you need to build "decks"...

...
...

[Klauser]

I remember it well. I stopped in at our towns local (and only) gamestore one evening back in late 1994 and ran across a couple of young acquaintances excitingly ripping open packs of what I later learned was Black Bordered Premier.

Turns out our town got several expansion boxes in - and there was a distribution error and instead of getting the normal 1R-4U-10C mix, each pack had multiple rares - I heard that one pack had as many as 10 rares!! I hung around in the store and watched them open all the packs in two boxes.

Unfortunately, all the packs were sold out (no kidding), but I got to watch some deckbuilding and some basic gameplay.

I finally got into the game seriously when the white border cards were released. We wound up with about 6-8 steady players after a couple months, which was the start of our local playing group.

[tlmirkes]

My brother got a free Warp Pack from a local card shop when he bought some Magic packs. (Who didn't?)

More legitimately: one of my college professors in the early aughts. My digital media professor was a dyed-in-the-wool nerd and gamer. We had already bonded over mutual interests in sci-fi, and were knee-deep in the Babylon 5 CCG. When our B5 circle shrank a bit (it's best as a multiplayer game), we started delving into Trek, and it became our go-to when we couldn't get a full table for B5. Even as our group grew again, we started using the Great Space Wheel and had multiplayer Trek games up to 4 players.

We kept playing for a few years after I graduated, but have lost touch since I moved for work and life got otherwise busy. :/

[AllenGould]

I think I've told this story before, but I very nearly was a Magic player instead.

The summer before uni, I was staying with family friends while working, and one of their relatives had dropped off two starters of Magic and two of Trek (WB Premiere). So, we read the rules, tried to split up the cards into two legal decks, and played a game, and I got hooked on the one that played better.

Basically, the reason I play Trek and not Magic is the Kli/Rom treaty.

[SudenKapala]

We kept playing for a few years after I graduated, but have lost touch since I moved for work and life got otherwise busy. :/

Friendships can be rekindled. I contacted 2 old friends after more than a decade, bluntly asking, "hey, it was fun back then and I'd like to try playing Trek again, are you game?"
One said no to playing, but we did get back in touch; with the other, I regularly play again.
Perhaps via Skype/Lackey you could at least reminisce...?

Basically, the reason I play Trek and not Magic is the Kli/Rom treaty.

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...

I love this question / thread. Many nice stories!

[Takket]

I was I believe 16 at the time (1994) when the game first started. Was after WB was released because my mother game back from a conference in California with two starter decks and i think maybe a couple packs.

Half for me, half for my best friend. He had lots of klingon stuff and I had Fed/Rom and a treaty card. So i gave him all my klingons and he gave me all his fed/rom so we could make a decent deck. We only had a few dilemmas so we memorized them all, just depended on where we seeded them. I used Takket to complete Investigate Anomaly almost every game and hence he became a favorite of mine LOL

I remember at first we didn't realize when you completed a mission that it couldn't be completed again. So we would do the same mission over and over until, realizing how stupid this was, we made a "house rule" you could only do it once. not knowing this was the ACTUAL rule lol

We also did stuff like attempt missions from outposts in space to not risk ships........

He had a couple of k'vorts and was always blowing up my USS Nebula and Science vessel. One day I finally got a ❖ d'deridex and my parents let me spend $5 on a kurlan naiskos at a game store. It was like finding gold!!!!!!!!! He had a kevin uxbridge so it was hard for me to ever pull off the naiskos, and i think alexander Rozhenko was my only Civilian so i couldn't attack him with it (because obviously the Romulans are going to obey the wishes of a Federation/Klingon species brat on their ship), but i could move about the spaceline with no fear of him and that made winning much easier.

oh also he had a damn red alert and i had none. if he got that out early i was DONE. Needless to say i LOVED Yellow alert when that came out! NULLIFIED RED ALERT!!!!!!

[SudenKapala]

Great annecdote, Takket -- thx for sharing. And recognizable, for that early time!
What strikes me now, with modern but simple non-engine fun decks (let alone with advance decks), is that a Red Alert does not automatically win a game any more. But back in the day, it certainly was a winning draw!

[HoodieDM]

I got into STCCG with the First Contact expansion. The movie just came out, I loved it so much, thought I'd give the game a try. Loved it even though I felt really over whelmed at first with the concept of the game. I then remember going to the local Borders Bookstore and finding them having AU expansion packs which was awesome and then going to my local card store and buying a bunch of 1E WB Premiere and pulling a Jean-Luc Picard, William Riker, and U.S.S. Enterprise out of like 12 packs. Was a grand day!

~D

[Data's Socks]

My introduction to collectible card games came from visiting some friends one evening and instead of finding them on the Super Nintendo, they were engrossed in a game of Magic. This was in 1996 I want to say, so this new genre had passed me by for a good couple of years. I remember seeing lands being tapped for resources, and an Illusionary Wall in particular, and just wrapping my mind around the entire concept. I really wanted some cards of my own.

One weekend I walked into a specialty game store to carry out this task and was once again taken by surprise, this time by the sight of ST:TNG starter decks, booster packs, and even a Collector's Tin. Hot damn, but I really should've surfed the Internet more often or something. This was one of those times being so amazed and so excited about something to get (another one was seeing Technozoids on the shelves one Christmas, after thinking for years Zoids could only be found overseas), and feeling there was no way I was leaving without it. I chose the Premiere starter and couldn't wait to get back home and crack it open and see how it all worked.

Over the years I've wondered now and then what it might've been like to have focused on Magic instead, or especially Star Wars considering Decipher obviously had that in the spotlight as well. But in terms of finding a game I keep going back to, and actually being able to build the decks that I want for the most part, I'm really glad I chose this one.