The future of LOTR TCG

[RedGoldStag]

Aside from the issues that have been raised already (which are certainly important to consider), the logistics of designing, developing, and playtesting virtual cards could be a serious obstacle. In particular, I doubt that most people are aware of the amount of time required to playtest new cards (well, to playtest them well, anyway) even under ideal circumstances (multiple groups of players, each with members concentrated in the same local area who are able to get together and playtest in person). The fairly small size of the player base might be problematic, but I think an even bigger issue is how spread out (in a geographic sense) the player base is -- without having people in the same area, it would be difficult if not impossible to manage playtesting. I think it would have to be done via something like GCCG, which would require having the new cards made available to playtesters in GCCG (but not have the cards or games played with them visible to everyone else, unless playtesting is totally open, which has its own set of issues, but might be doable given the non-standard circumstances of this situation).

Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think that dealing with the logistics of playtesting could be a big obstacle to overcome even if everything else (support from Decipher / the Tolkien estate, widespread interest by the player base to have virtual cards, etc) is taken care of.

[chompers]

Who runs this website? Do you have their permission to start a Players Committee and evolve the website with errata, virtual cards, banned cards, tournaments, etc? If not you will need to start a new website.

Star Trek today modified their website to include both 1E and 2E sections and now support both games with virtual cards. The Australian Nationals had the largest attendance EVER this year - not bad for a "defunct" game. People travelled from Perth to Sydney to play (3000km or 1600ish miles).

Lord can do this too, it has a fan-base, but it has to start somewhere.

Step 1 - Who will lead the way? You can't vote yourself. Applications for those interested in starting off and managing the process would help - they can post their ideas, vision on a forum and then the community (those active on these boards) can vote. Once elected the process can start. Bear in mind not everyone will cooperate at the start - they are not your target audience - you are only interested in those that want this.

Nothing will happen without a leader.

[Gil-Estel]

Playtesting isn't the biggest issue I think. We have programs available, and a lot of 'online' knowledge'. Furthermore we have a lot of people who are very experienced and know the game very well. So I really think that getting this thing on the road, as something that can be viable, is the main issue. A lot of words have been dedicated to this issue, but less action is taken....I would not consider myself as experienced, as leader material, but I will support who ever I think is.

[menace64]

I'm pretty sure that D didn't give any actual money to the SWCCGPC. They did give them product, but I doubt it was a million bucks worth.

Decipher sold their Austin Powers car on ebay and donated those proceeds and more to the PC for a total of a million dollars.

[Gil-Estel]

And why not trying to bring in the experience from the Star Trek PC? They will know what to do....and which steps to take

[chompers]

Gil-Estel's idea of contacting Star Trek PC is a really good idea. Charlie Paine is the chairman and from what i can tell those running the PC are really decent people. If someone contacted him or someone in the know they might give you an idea of how they got this up and running. Bear in mind that they got Brad De Fruitier onboard and he worked for Decipher - I'd say that has a lot to do with their success as he continues to assist in desgining new cards, and also helped with getting Paramount to 'turn a blind eye' or whatever it is they are doing.

Do you want me to start a forum on the Star Trek boards asking for help, ideas for getting this started, or asking how they got started? I personally know two people that are involved in Star Trek from Australia but do not have much knowledge about those overseas.

[Gil-Estel]

I would agree, but I'm just 1 person

[Ranofer]

As a player of SWCCG and not LOTR I have to say I'd be willing to aid you guys in what ever plans you wanted to make.  I can probably make some reasonable templates to work from and we could start putting out at least a few "expansions"

The biggest problem I foresee is the balance of any new cards.  I'm ready and willing to throw in some support, but I think we should start small with halfcard V-cards rather than full ones (at least for a while or until we get somewhat known by the PC community.

Any got an idea for the theme of the first set?

[menace64]

Balance would not be an issue. If I can balance my checkbook, I can balance a game.

[TheJord]

I think we should make the theme of the revival a throwback to the beginning of the game. The Fellowship of the Ring!

In the process, we could design some new cards to compliment the revival, introduce these as the promo cards for the launch and then use these as part of the new sets.

[ket_the_jet]

Give each site two site numbers. A block site number (1-9) and another site number (1-3, 4-6, 7-9 respectively) to then have a block site path and a Movie II sitepath that goes from Bag End to Mount Doom.
-wtk

[Ranofer]

Alright, is there a place where discussions can start about a serious player's committee?  I've done a quick search on google and uncovered no official site, or forum, and this is as good a place as any.

I agree that the first set should go back to the beginning and focus on the Fellowship of the Ring.

Perhaps we can start with a simple set of 9 for the Freeps, and 9 for the Creeps, and 2 new sites?

And remember, when/if we really start working on new cards, these can't simply be "dream cards" or crazy cards. 

One question though, is there a play testing body that would actually be willing to test things before we simply release them?

[chompers]

I made a basic card template from an existing card using MS Paint in a few minutes. I am sure a more advanced one could be made using a better program such as Photoshop. Having more trouble adding text using MS Paint because of limitations of program (particularly orientation of text).


BTW - I created a post on the Star Trek message boards
http://www.trekcc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=6248

[MR. Lurtzy]

Awesome.

[Gil-Estel]

But I guess there is enough know how and experience to design new cards. There are players that I guess have been involved with testplaying and other than that, have experience in designing balanced cards.
Kuddos though on what ever there is right now.