The future of LOTR TCG

[TheJord]

So I finish my degree soon and I want to keep this game alive. I am so jealous of work done with ST:TCG' Continuing Committee so we need to stop talking and just do it.

So...

I finish my degree in May and by the summer I hope we can have our first Virtual set released to initiate the revival. I have all the necessary contacts for license and legal issues.

There are people off here that need to be involved in card design. Thranduil, Dain and Menace pop to mind. We can get together on TLHH Chat and discuss what we will do.

Lets make it happen!

[Kenddrick]

I'm up and ready for it! Let's do this!

[legolas3333]

I think a vital part would be uniting the remnants of the LotR TCG Community, There are many small pockets of players on the internet and TLHH is by no measure universal, we need to, assimilate? unify? the rest of the players on the internet so then we're all on the same page as far as a players committee and such.

:EDIT: ok another thing is we need someone known or respected I guess to contact such people, for example Hawkeye as a former DAgent would be more respected than say me if we asked them to join our community.

[ghhhk]

Here Here!

I think we've waited long enough for this to happen through official channels.  It seems that in the past there was talk of this but that it was in the works and we just needed to wait.  I think we can safely assume that nothing will happen unless it is done by us remaining players.

ghhhk

[menace64]

I'm kind of drunk right now, but I'm up for a real venture into some revitalization.

I follow fairly closely the actions of the SWCCG PC, and we all would have to admit in-advance that our following wouldn't be as serious. The PC got official Decipher sponsorship (a million dollars up-front!), and they've been going strong ever since. If anyone can prove to me that there's still a strong, reaching community of LotR TCG - a community that wants an organization to release virtual cards - then I would be willing to be part of that organization.

(It appears that I'm a good drunk-typist. Weird.)

[Kenddrick]

Hmm how do we get official Decipher sponsorship? And also, we do need to reunite the LotR TCG community. Anyone have plans on how to do that?

[Jerba]

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.

Personally, as I've said many times, if we are going to get anywhere we can't wait to work with Decipher. Decipher is old news, they don't do this game anymore. The game is ours now. Lets just take it where we want it. The Wizards SWTCG IDC has gotten away with it for years, look em up. We might as well try. But any effort to get Decipher to help, sponsor, or permit us to do anything is wasted time imo.

There have been attempts to do this already. Most seem to have fizzled due to how screwed up the last block was. Nobody can agree on what to due with the erratas, block rules, etc. Decipher screwed the game up, we don't owe them anything.

[Gate Troll]

Decipher screwed the game up, we don't owe them anything.

[rant]So why no graphical DC's? They'd help a ton, and as jerba said, we don't owe them a wooden nickel. Its not like it'd kill the game, Decipher did that for us, and I have the impression they don't give a rat's #$&*@! about anything beside Fight Klub. So why the #$&*@! not? What can they do, sue us?  [/rant]

[Kenddrick]

I was hoping Big D could pass us some LotR TCG stuff. Not cards, but design templates, and unfinished sets. With stuff like that, we can go on and make Graphical DCs. So around how many people do we need before we can actually sit down and get this thing going?

[5tein]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think virtual cards is what's going to revitalize LOTR TCG. I'd much rather see a PC start by promoting local leagues, establishing a DGMA-like public db, set up some territorial or national championships, and really just getting the word out to everyone about how great this game still is. If anything, promote Fellowship block or Movie block. Put Virtual Cards off until the momentum is there.

I say this because everyone's excited about virtual cards because virtual cards are fun. We all love to dream up new cards. But the game hasn't failed because of lack of new cards. The game began dying long before the cards ran out; the game began dying because Decipher didn't promote local play and tourneys.

[chompers]

I gave up on LOTR because of inaction. Once again am playing Star Trek.

Why? The Star Trek is no longer finished - new cards are being made. It has a great community, which is probably only around 100-200 people worldwide from what I can tell.

However would like to play LOTR again and would do so if a players committe got started.

Stop listening to negatives that are all over this board and just jump in and see what happens. You will need some control over the input of the website however.

BTW - Star Trek's success came about because the fans are fanatics and also a new move helped.

Also - forget about Decipher. You need to get someone on board who is able to design a program to make new cards. Someone on the Trek boards has made a free program that does this.

[Treebeard13]

While Decipher is all but dead and certainly does not care about the players that were once loyal to them you do need to keep them in mind.  I strongly believe that if you do anything with the LOTR license that even suggest you are generating any kind of money - no matter how small - they will come down fast and hard.  We do need to be a little careful.

The Star Wars PC did get a lot from Decipher and it might have been close to a million in cards.  At one of the conventions where I was a Decipher volunteer they were showing a picture of a U-Haul trailer where the wheels were actually bent inward.  It had been filled, bottom to top, with Star Wars cards from the Decipher warehouse.

As far as LOTR cards - I doubt Decipher has very many in their possession.  One of the items Decipher quickly sold off when they were in trouble was the warehouse.  At one of the conventions I worked they gave away boxes of Megaman and .Hack cards for free.  It was said that they did not have room to house very much stock.

But, we should not wait.  Form a group and start making some plans.  You will get a lot of different opinions but at some point a direction has to be chosen.

Chuck

[Hobbit_Pizza]

While Decipher is all but dead and certainly does not care about the players that were once loyal to them you do need to keep them in mind.  I strongly believe that if you do anything with the LOTR license that even suggest you are generating any kind of money - no matter how small - they will come down fast and hard.  We do need to be a little careful.

D does not have that license anymore, they won't be coming down on anyone. They are barely on their feet, and even that depends on the success of Fight Klub. This great game (what once was a great game) is the product of a staff of 90+ people, which is now reduced to 7. It's not that they don't care, there are many reasons. No license, no staff, no money, no warehouse, etc. Support for the game and it's players didn't go to #$&*@! from neglect, it's because the company responsible for taking care of it basically died.

It's like a privately owned breeding kennel. The owner dies, and weeks later someone discovers all of the dead, dying, sick, or starving dogs left locked up.

[Gil-Estel]

But the greatest issue, and that is what we have seen in all these debates, is support by the players. Even if Star Trek has 200-300 active players, who are really active on this forum for example? We have 400+ members, but a small amount is really active, at least in taking action in certain things. We need more support and we need people who know what to do.

[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.