The future of LOTR TCG

[Kenddrick]

A REPLY!!!!!!

"Hi Kenddrick,

 

It's good to see and hear that there are still some LotR TCG players outthere that are keen on advancing the game further.  We at Fiercetcg.com would be most pleased to join forces and help assist wherever possible in making the LotR PC a success.

 

You can count on us and the players here to help where we can.

 

Best regards,

 

Robby"

[chompers]

Great work Kenddrick - i have been keeping tabs on member numbers and they have grown a little since this all started. Current count 423.

Ranofer - I agree with your sentiments about the templates. To get a new website we will need a web designer to volunteer their support - do we have anyone out there? Once we do we can chat to MidnightLich to maybe take up his offer to join Star Trek unless other options come up.

We should spread the word further. We could put flyers into hobby stores, and so on. If the flyer, advertisment is the same all over the world it would be better. Is someone willing to create one we can all download and distribute.

[chompers]

I have a question and more than one opinion would help.

Assume the PC gets of the ground and we decide to relaunch the game using the Fellowship Movie block only (sets 1-3) with virtual errata and perhaps some v-cards (I am not saying this is the model - lets assume it is - it seems to match the ideas of some on these boards).

If this model was used, I envisage that new player tournaments would be restricted to Fellowship block. Everyone else could still use whatever format they want. A smaller card base will hopefully help new players. v-cards and errata cards would only be tournament legal for this format - limiting the amount of playtesting required. Further sets can be reintroduced as the PC expands.

Forces of Mordor is limited to one copy per deck in this format. Do you think it should therefore be an errata card? Does anyone have opinion about any other cards from sets 1-3 that should have errata?

Please post your ideas 

[Gil-Estel]

I think it is wise to make a new 'chapter' in this forum. This so we can keep the whole debate clean. Multiple things are running at the same time. There we could open there topics like 'Relaunch FotR', 'Spreading the Word', 'PC-talk' etc etc. That way we all know what a topic is about. Now it is getting all over the place.

[Kenddrick]

I have already thought this out, and to decide the level of action that we take, be it one small step or one big leap, I have created a poll on the main page. The responses will decide whether we do/do not take things to the next level, and how intensive are we going to be.

[Ranofer]

My opinion would be to first:

Determine what cards are unbalanced currently.  From what I've read, there were alot of loop holes, and faulty playing in some of the cards near the end of the run (specifically the final expansion set).  I would suggest that the PC go through these cards, and determine what should be done with them.  Simply banning specific cards could work and might be the easiest approach.  I would not limit tournament play, or anything of the sort.  Run tournaments like normal (minus the banned cards that the PC discusses and votes on).

The second part of the plan would be to indeed release V-cards (after they have been HEAVILY tested, and found to be balanced).  These V-cards could then use the banned cards as backdrops, without changing any of the old cards still legal.

When I suggested that we start at Fellowship and work forward, I still agree with that, but only in that the V-cards released, start with Fellowship and move forward. The only reason to start at Fellowship would to just use it as a logical starting point. We have to start somewhere with new V-cards, and that's why I suggested Fellowship (the movie, not the expansion).

I'm glad to see this moving forward.  Let me know how else I can help.

[Sete]

Taking Sauron cultures templates this weekend. Normal Minions template done. ^^  (Ah, Yes, the text in the card is just for the example of how it works with the image, my templates are cleany!)




Let me know what you think

Let's get this game up and running! I'll be working between the templates and the magazine so I'll try to work as fast as my time allows ^^

[legolas3333]

My though is to start at the fellowshp block then as we determine which cards are OP and need errata or X'ing re-release each block and cycle through every set.
This means that 1. we could examine every broken/OP card and errata or ban it and give plenty of time to the thought of V cards and testing them

[chompers]

I agree with Gil-Estel - lets move formward with multiple forums targetting components of this project. I will set them up later today if noone else has done it first or if opinion is mixed about my headings.

Thanks for getting us started Kenddrick. Nice template Sete !!

I propose the following forum headings:
Players Committee: Design Team (templates, v-cards)
Platers Committee: Rules Team (banned cards, errata, broken combinations)
Players Committee: Tournament Team (volunteering new tournament directors)
Players Committee: Web Team (do we have someone capable web design, running a website?)
Players Committee: Marketing Team (magazine, promoting the game)
Players Committee: Legal Team (permission from the powers that be, how do we do this?)
Players Committee: General Discussion (everything else)

Each forum should start with information about what we hope to achieve and can be updated by the OP to reflect where we are currently at.

It is important that everyone uses these forums - they are intended for everyone to comment - good and bad feedback will always be welcome.
Do you think these headings will encourage comments or scare people off?
Do I have too many headings or have I missed something?

[Sete]

I'm pretty much up to join the design team with anything possible (already doing the templates, card lists and the magazine layout and content) and the marketing team as well.

I'm having short time and unluckily the day only has 24h on it, but once I get some hours I'll manage to put hands into a cool TLHH logo too!

And Chompers, I think those forum headings will suit very well our purpose!!

[Ranofer]

I think thats a good start with the teams, although I'm not sure the final forum should allow access to all of those topics (too many cooks destroy the tater soup!).

Borrowing from the SWCCGPC, I would suggest using a form similar to this set up.

Section: Upcoming Major Events
*Worlds, etc (do we have major events anymore?)

Section: Lord of the Rings TCG, The Game
*General Discussion - LOTRTCG game play discussion.
*Deck Discussion - Post deck lists for discussion & review here.
*Forum Rules and New Player Q & A - Everything you need to know as a new player or new person to our site.
*Rules Questions - LOTRTCG Rules Q&A only.


Section: Player Locator & Tournaments
*Player Locator
*Tournaments


Section: Trading, Collecting and Volunteers
*Lord of the Rings Trading Forum - Trading forum for LOTRTCG
*Ranofer's (whomever) Collecting Thread - Learn about rarity, unusual LOTR items, and more!
*Volunteers -  Do you want to be a volunteer? Then you need to see this.


How does that look for a new set of forums?

[Sete]

Hey Ket, I bet it isn't his intention to "split" the community. His idea is overall good, but yeah we already have the sections here in this forum. Probably the most important thing is creating the right groups for each major thing, like Chompers examples.

One person can't do the whole new Lotr:TCG, neither a entire magazine, etc... Groups for each different thing would be the good thing to do.

But that, with the few active members here is naturally slow to do. Along with Ranofer I'll be working the visual part of this "future of Lotr Tcg", others already said they would love to write articles and deck/card reviews, etc, etc...  Any new idea and volunteer is a great value to get this games popularity back again... 

[Ranofer]

I was just going along with the idea that there seemed to be a push toward a new site.  I did suggest having a new site but it was others that asked if I'd be willing to put one up and host it complete with new forums.

I guess the only thing I was really thinking was that if people were coming from a bunch of different forums we should all meet on somewhat neutral ground (a new forum).  I mean even as it is now, we this is just a topic in a general discussion section on a forum, I don't see why we couldn't make a transition to a new forum without too much trouble.  Psychologically I think people will take us more seriously if we show progress and one of those could be a new site and forum.

That's my opinions, bash me or whatever

[Sete]

But Ket,

Aside having old cards being "remade or redesigned", wouldn't it be cool to see the game go back to the top again? I mean, there is not much we can do regarding new stuff... We could release one new set, or ten new sets, but would they be "legal"? Guess not.

Anyway, it would be fun to keep the game alive for as long as possible, thats probably the main goal. At least for me. And I'm not even an actual player, I'm a card collector... But for me cards are alive when they are played all over the world, trade, sold, spoken about... The magazine Im creating will focus on every single aspect of the game, including the newcomers. Wouldn't it be fun it newcomers felt like the game was released a month ago? Or a year ago?

Well, the new site would apply well for new Lotr:TCG sets, that would be indeed a cool thing... But then, once again, new sets? Is that a "real future"?

For me the most interesting thing right now would be lightning the flame again.

(By the way, for those reading this post: I lost all my Lotr cards. All I have left from my collections archives is a few foils from MTG and some rares from Shards of Alara. If anyone wants to help me redoing my collection I'd be forever thankful! Cheers ^^ And remember, hide your collections in a safehouse -.- who knew robbers would prefer my collections over my Ps3...#$&*@! $&%#)

[Ranofer]

I'm not sure you understand what exactly I meant by V-cards, and hey that's fair, I never explained it.

I see your point completely ket.  I don't ever want the game to become where you must join the PC and download their cards in order to have fun with it, and I'm not keen on changing the rules so much that people who return to the game after a few years of not playing are blown away by the complexity of the game.  That's not what the new cards would ever be about.  Galadriel, Lady Redeemed, for example.  Decipher released the card, why do you think people shouldn't play it?  Perhaps you think it's broken in some way?

I don't know if you've followed all the ideas I've thrown up, but I've changed my opinion slightly since we've started the discussion.  You're right about new cards, the game isn't ready for them. What the game is ready for is a frank discussion about what cards generally break the game.  Magic has plenty of banned cards (and the list grows daily it seems).  I know we aren't Magic (and hands down we're totally cooler!), but we have to look at the cards and how they make the game playable or unplayable.  

You admitted yourself that there are cards that people don't play and don't want to.  Set 11 you said that you don't like to play with.  Why is that?  What's the reasoning behind it?  My main goal is to help the PC become strong and become the go to place for updates, new ideas, and the like.  I want to see LOTR played again (although in my area, almost no games are played anymore).  As for the idea of v-cards.  I'm not exactly sure about all the details, although I'm in discussion with the people at the SWCCGPC about how they handled it and from what I've read it seems that if you don't change the image on the card (that is the movie image) then the movie people don't see it as an infringement, and as long as you leave the Decipher trademark and copyrights readable, then the Decipher people care.  While this requires more research, we aren't to that point yet.

The PC needs to come together and organize itself, but then begin filtering through the cards and determining which cards are broken, like Galadriel, and making a list of those cards.  Even if V-cards were released, they would never change the way you could originally play the card, they would just give you a new option for playing that card, but again, that's down the road, not tomorrow.

Open and frank discussions are what we need and thanks Ket for posting your opinions