Random promos? Will we get Victor Pelletier at last?
Ector
"Tournament Kit for 12 players ($12.00) - Victor Pelletier or Kisha
Bhimji [random], Crematorium, Ensemble, Botched Move".
I would be very grateful if somebody explain me what does the word
"random" mean here? Is it the official promo policy or not? Does that
mean that if we order these kits to get Victor Pelletier at last, we
can get another bunch of Kisha Bhimji instead? Kisha is definitely
good, but we don't need more, and we really don't need more
Crematoriums, Ensembles or Botched Moves.
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
I'd guess that, ya know, some of them contain Victor Pelletier and
some of them contain Kisha Bhimji, and you order a tournament kit and
one of them shows up and you open it up and see which you got. I bet
if you order two, you have a better chance of getting the one you
want...
-Peter
gpett...@gmail.com
I know that some tournament kits with Victor Pelletiers have already
shipped. Perhaps you could trade with someone who has extras.
--
- Gregory Stuart Pettigrew
The Lasombra
> "Tournament Kit for 12 players ($12.00) - Victor Pelletier or Kisha
> Bhimji [random], Crematorium, Ensemble, Botched Move".
> I would be very grateful if somebody explain me what does the word
> "random" mean here?
It means that I am not going to open every single tournament kit and
sort them out for you.
At some point, the Kisha Bhimjis were replaced with Victor Pelletiers.
In any case, I am currently out of stock. When I restock, it could be
either one.
Ector
wrote:
> I know that some tournament kits with Victor Pelletiers have already
> shipped. Perhaps you could trade with someone who has extras.
Are you joking? Who can have EXTRA Victor Pelletier, and who will
trade him for Kisha?
Yours,
Ector
Ector
>
> It means that I am not going to open every single tournament kit and
> sort them out for you.
> At some point, the Kisha Bhimjis were replaced with Victor Pelletiers.
> In any case, I am currently out of stock. When I restock, it could be
> either one.
different package has a distinguishing number (or date) on the paper
envelope. Do your words mean that you cannot determine which package
has Victor without opening the package? If so, this must be
intentionally made by WW stuff, right?
I was totally disappointed by the very idea of "championship-only
promos", but if this is going to continue SUCH way (people will pay
for the Kits just to get old promos that everybody already has!), this
will smell much worse than the history about cruel CCP that banned a
player for revealing some "unfair" deals with ship blueprints.
So, is there a chance to get Victors without playing stupid lotteries
or not? Are you sure that their envelopes are completely identical?
Yours,
Ector
The Lasombra
> On May 29, 4:39 pm, The Lasombra <thelasom...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It means that I am not going to open every single tournament kit and
> > sort them out for you.
> > At some point, the Kisha Bhimjis were replaced with Victor Pelletiers.
> > In any case, I am currently out of stock. When I restock, it could be
> > either one.
>
> I've seen some Tournament Kits, and, as far as I can recall, each
> different package has a distinguishing number (or date) on the paper
> envelope.
Absolutely false.
There is a checkbox to indicate if the envelope is a Tournament Kit or
a Demo Package.
There are no other distinguishing features.
> Do your words mean that you cannot determine which package
> has Victor without opening the package?
Yes.
> If so, this must be intentionally made by WW stuff, right?
What is the precise nature of your problem? You get 1000% more
information from my site on the contents of the promo kits than any
other distributor is offering. If you were to buy them from anyone
else, you wouldn't be guaranteed to even get the current library
promos.
> I was totally disappointed by the very idea of "championship-only
> promos", but if this is going to continue SUCH way (people will pay
> for the Kits just to get old promos that everybody already has!), this
> will smell much worse than the history about cruel CCP that banned a
> player for revealing some "unfair" deals with ship blueprints.
So?
> So, is there a chance to get Victors without playing stupid lotteries
> or not?
Yes.
Ebay.
Live it, learn it, love it.
> Are you sure that their envelopes are completely identical?
Yes.
OrgPlay
We've run out of Kishas. So they were replaced with Victor. We are
almost out of Angelos, so will be changing that one too.
Oscar Garza
Organized Play Coordinator
CCP|WhiteWolf
Ector
Thanks for the detailed answer.
> > So, is there a chance to get Victors without playing stupid lotteries
> > or not?
>
> Yes.
> Ebay.
> Live it, learn it, love it.
>
Not a chance for us, since our playgroup needs at least 20 Victors. I
don't think we'll be able to find that much on Ebay, especially for a
normal price.
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
> different package has a distinguishing number (or date) on the paper
> envelope.
I don't think this is actually the case. All the tournament kits I
have gotten involved a paper envelope and no distniguishing
characteristics.
> Do your words mean that you cannot determine which package
> has Victor without opening the package?
I suspect this is what his words mean.
> If so, this must be intentionally made by WW stuff, right?
I'm not sure I understand what this means.
> I was totally disappointed by the very idea of "championship-only
> promos",
Did you miss this when it all happened? Heck, Fred and I were even in
a magazine debating this very issue. Victor is already, more or less,
common as dirt. I have a pile of 50 of him left over from my S Word of
Caine pre-release (I was theoretically trading them with someone
overseas, but there was a failure in there somewhere). I picked up
another one at a tournament this past weekend. I picked one up at
another tournament I went to a few months ago. I have 3 or 4 my own
(i.e. the ones that I legitimately got for being in tournaments) and
then the other 50 or so. The ability to get Victor is incredibly easy.
Heck. The first 5 people to e-mail me and then actually mail me a self
addressed stamped envelope? I'll *give* you a Victor. For nothing but
the postage.
> but if this is going to continue SUCH way (people will pay
> for the Kits just to get old promos that everybody already has!), this
> will smell much worse than the history about cruel CCP that banned a
> player for revealing some "unfair" deals with ship blueprints.
Dude. Remember that time that people were all like "Hey, uh Ector? You
should probably stop being such a fly off the cuff reactionary to
everything? And you should probably consider what is going on *before*
you say crazy ass things?" Yeah, that.
> So, is there a chance to get Victors without playing stupid lotteries
> or not? Are you sure that their envelopes are completely identical?
You get Victors by ordering prize kits. And occasionally they show up.
And if not, you try again. Or get some off e-bay. Or send me an e-mail
and then mail me a self addressed stamped envelope.
Hey-soos.
-Peter
pd...@lightlink.com
Frederick Scott
You may not be aware of it, but I think every Sword of Caine prerelease
tournament kit had some number of Victor Pelletiers in it. I didn't run
a SoC Prerelease so I don't know for sure but they got awfully plentiful
on EBAY, just at the same time the Gran Madre di Dio Italy's did. So
if your people wanted a Victor P, they should have attended such a prerelease.
Unfortunately, this wasn't announced in advance which is something I don't
understand. It should have been announced (assuming I'm right).
Fred
Ector
> We've run out of Kishas. So they were replaced with Victor. We are
> almost out of Angelos, so will be changing that one too.
>
So I guess that we have to wait a bit more and then place an order.
BTW, don't you think that more accurate packaging and marking would be
much more beneficial for the promo purposes (rewarding the players for
participating in the tournaments)? Being a tournament organizer for
more than a year, I find the current packaging extremely ineffective.
Some promos are very popular and highly valued (Kisha Bhimji, Angelo,
Genina), others are so cornercase that no one needs more than one copy
(for the collection). I currently have a pile of unneeded Crematoriums
and Ensembles - players don't consider them a "reward" anymore.
Nevertheless, now I will get much more of that unwanted promos since
we really need a lot of Victors. Besides, if we fail to get Victors
for the first time, we'd have to order more Kits, and finally I would
swim in these Ensembles, Crematoriums and Botched Moves...
Yours,
Ector
texasjusticar
> Not a chance for us, since our playgroup needs at least 20 Victors.
Sounds like you also need some Praxis Solomon.
-----------------------------------------
Ethan Burrow - the witty guy
http://monger.vekn.org
http://presence.vekn.org
Ector
> Did you miss this when it all happened? Heck, Fred and I were even in
> a magazine debating this very issue. Victor is already, more or less,
> common as dirt. I have a pile of 50 of him left over from my S Word of
> Caine pre-release (I was theoretically trading them with someone
> overseas, but there was a failure in there somewhere).
We are a small, isolated playgroup, and it's very difficult to order
anything for us. For the several reasons, we didn't order SoC
prerelease, and, frankly, we've got our first SoC boosters just a few
weeks ago. Surely I didn't know that Victor is common now! But I still
value him very highly, and I'm sure that many of my players that are
"too busy" to attend the tournament would find some time should I
declare that each participant is going to get Victor.
> Heck. The first 5 people to e-mail me and then actually mail me a self
> addressed stamped envelope? I'll *give* you a Victor. For nothing but
> the postage.
Generous offer. I wish I had an envelope with American stamp, which
is, as anyone can guess, is absolutely unavailable here :)
But anyway, I don't need Victor just for myself. I need him to REWARD
my players for participating in my tournaments. He was intended to
serve this purpose, right?
> Dude. Remember that time that people were all like "Hey, uh Ector? You
> should probably stop being such a fly off the cuff reactionary to
> everything? And you should probably consider what is going on *before*
> you say crazy ass things?" Yeah, that.
I do what I have to do. If my words seem crazy to you, then you just
cannot imagine my situation. That's all.
> > So, is there a chance to get Victors without playing stupid lotteries
> > or not? Are you sure that their envelopes are completely identical?
>
> You get Victors by ordering prize kits. And occasionally they show up.
> And if not, you try again. Or get some off e-bay. Or send me an e-mail
> and then mail me a self addressed stamped envelope.
You must be ordering dozens of the Kits regularly, we order just 3-4
per year or so. You must have a tournament each week, maybe more - we
have one tournament per two weeks at best. Plus, if you calculate the
delivery cost, customs fee and so on, the real price of the Kit is
much more than $12 for us.
There's nothing we cannot handle ourselves, but this doesn't include
ordering "random" Kits. Please understand that we'll receive the
ordered Kit 1-2 MONTHS after the ordering, so "try again" sounds like
a mockery! Is it completely impossible to mark the packages somehow?
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> We are a small, isolated playgroup, and it's very difficult to order
> anything for us.
That should make it hard to get everything. Not just promos.
> For the several reasons, we didn't order SoC
> prerelease, and, frankly, we've got our first SoC boosters just a few
> weeks ago.
But you had the opportunity. All Princes were alerted to the potential
to get a really inexpensive pre-release kit that came with 25 each of
Victor and the wacky "we hate Tupdogs" loquipment card (Mondo Del Rio or
something?) I can't for the life of me see how they could have made it
any easier for people to get these cards.
> Generous offer. I wish I had an envelope with American stamp, which
> is, as anyone can guess, is absolutely unavailable here :)
I'm sure you can find some clever way to make this work. I hear that
there are IRC coupons (International Reply Coupons) just for this sort
of wackiness. Heck. If you can find a way to send me some money to pay
for the postage, I'm sure $2.00 would do it. You can also probably order
US postage through the intarweb.
> I do what I have to do. If my words seem crazy to you, then you just
> cannot imagine my situation. That's all.
You do what you have to do? You could have got a pile of 25 Victor
Peltiers, 25 of the other promo, and then a couple boxes of boosters at
half price by running a SoC pre-release tournament. Even after the fact
(I ran a post-release tournament). How could they have possibly made
this easier for you?
> You must be ordering dozens of the Kits regularly, we order just 3-4
> per year or so.
Me too.
> You must have a tournament each week, maybe more - we
> have one tournament per two weeks at best.
I run like 4 or 5 tournaments per year. I'm not quite sure where you are
getting the ideas you are getting.
> There's nothing we cannot handle ourselves, but this doesn't include
> ordering "random" Kits.
That is how they work. You order a kit. You get what you get. When I
ordered kits from a local retailer who got it from a distributor, I got
a 6 month out of date prize kit with no new cards at all. 'Cause that
happened to be what the guy at the distributor happened to pick up. At
least when you order them from Jeff, you get a reasonable idea of what
you are going to get.
> Please understand that we'll receive the
> ordered Kit 1-2 MONTHS after the ordering, so "try again" sounds like
> a mockery! Is it completely impossible to mark the packages somehow?
You seem to misunderstand how this sort of thing works. Most tournament
support packs are ordered through stores who get them from distributors
(at least last I checked). The distributors don't keep track of what is
in the kit. They just keep track of "we have X support kits to
distribute". Someone orders one, some random guy walks into the
warehouse and picks up a kit out of the box of support kits, and sends
it to the retailer. No one is going to sort through the support kits to
find the right one even if it *is* marked. They just cycle them in and
cycle them out. We are lucky to have access to support kits through
TheLasombra, as Jeff actually knows what they are for and what people
are looking for, so he kindly puts up information about what is in them.
But that is one guy in the world of tournament pack distribution, and
most folks don't get their tournament support from him.
Peter D Bakija
pd...@lightlink.com
http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html
James Coupe
You're confusing "need" and "want".
Also, bear in mind that just 12 months ago, you needed between 50 and 70
copies. If you wait just a few months more, the numbers you believe you
need may have dropped to sensible levels.
--
James Coupe
PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR.
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING.
13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
Ector
> In message <1180453678.581832.309...@u30g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Ector <E...@mail.ru> writes:
> >Not a chance for us, since our playgroup needs at least 20 Victors.
>
> You're confusing "need" and "want".
"need" and "want" here - we don't sell the promos, we use them to
reward our players for participating in tournaments. We have nothing
but their response to evaluate whether they actually need some promo
or just happy to get it (possibly to trade for something they need
more).
> Also, bear in mind that just 12 months ago, you needed between 50 and 70
> copies. If you wait just a few months more, the numbers you believe you
> need may have dropped to sensible levels.
Yes, we *need* at least 20 Victors, if you count number of copies that
people would be happy to BUY for a decent price. As a tournament
organizer, I would be happy to have 50-70 just to make my tournaments
more attractive, to help newbies build uber-effective voting decks and
so on.
Yours,
Ector
Ector
> In article <1180456292.745439.163...@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Ector <E...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > We are a small, isolated playgroup, and it's very difficult to order
> > anything for us.
>
> That should make it hard to get everything. Not just promos.
the situation.
> > For the several reasons, we didn't order SoC
> > prerelease, and, frankly, we've got our first SoC boosters just a few
> > weeks ago.
>
> But you had the opportunity. All Princes were alerted to the potential
> to get a really inexpensive pre-release kit that came with 25 each of
> Victor and the wacky "we hate Tupdogs" loquipment card (Mondo Del Rio or
> something?) I can't for the life of me see how they could have made it
> any easier for people to get these cards.
Well, *theoretically* we had the opportunity, yes. But in practice, we
missed it, for several serious reasons. As I already told you, we are
getting things we order 1-2 months after the order, so we decided to
order booster displays instead. Should we know that Victors are in the
prerelease kits, we'd try to get the prerelease, for sure.
> > Generous offer. I wish I had an envelope with American stamp, which
> > is, as anyone can guess, is absolutely unavailable here :)
>
> I'm sure you can find some clever way to make this work. I hear that
> there are IRC coupons (International Reply Coupons) just for this sort
> of wackiness. Heck. If you can find a way to send me some money to pay
> for the postage, I'm sure $2.00 would do it. You can also probably order
> US postage through the intarweb.
I'll think about it in case we won't get our Victors in the Kit we are
going to order. Again, thanks for the generous offer.
> > I do what I have to do. If my words seem crazy to you, then you just
> > cannot imagine my situation. That's all.
>
> You do what you have to do? You could have got a pile of 25 Victor
> Peltiers, 25 of the other promo, and then a couple boxes of boosters at
> half price by running a SoC pre-release tournament. Even after the fact
> (I ran a post-release tournament). How could they have possibly made
> this easier for you?
Look, we aren't living in USA where you get the ordered items 3-4 days
after the order. We live in Belarus, where the customs can "hold" any
"suspicious" postage, and the tax officers consider any postage as an
"income" that we have to pay tax for... and so on. That's why we act
like a partisans or smugglers - we order to our friends in Europe,
then ask another friends to bring the goods to Belarus. Can you
imagine this? I guess not. But I really told you that you cannot
imagine my situation, didn't I?
Besides, the bank system here is awful, and the best thing one can do
is keeping his money at home :) I don't have a credit card at all. Our
Princess has two small children, so she is very busy, and we're trying
not to bother her if we can. Fortunately, I've managed to "recruit"
the owner of a local gaming club in VTES. That's why we decided to
order SoC booster displays instead of prerelease kits - how could we
know that Victors are there? Believe me, we didn't miss the prerelease
kits just because of my foolishness.
> > You must be ordering dozens of the Kits regularly, we order just 3-4
> > per year or so.
>
> Me too.
So why did you suggest "try again" solution? We need just 3-4 per
year, so what we're going to do with the unneeded kits? Use the promos
as a wallpaper?
> > You must have a tournament each week, maybe more - we
> > have one tournament per two weeks at best.
>
> I run like 4 or 5 tournaments per year. I'm not quite sure where you are
> getting the ideas you are getting.
I was trying to explain why the "try again" solution is inappropriate
for us.
> > There's nothing we cannot handle ourselves, but this doesn't include
> > ordering "random" Kits.
>
> That is how they work. You order a kit. You get what you get. When I
> ordered kits from a local retailer who got it from a distributor, I got
> a 6 month out of date prize kit with no new cards at all. 'Cause that
> happened to be what the guy at the distributor happened to pick up. At
> least when you order them from Jeff, you get a reasonable idea of what
> you are going to get.
For me, this sounds *incredibly* stupid. What is a promo? It's a WW
support for club-makers and tournament organizers to attract more
players for their tournaments. WW prints them and sells them without
much profit just for that purpose, right? So, why they cannot clearly
mark the contents? Why??? Promo Kits are *NOT* booster packs, and they
weren't intended to make profit. Why should a club-maker buy a RANDOM
promos? If WW is really trying to help the tournament organizers, why
the promos are random?
OK, so I'm an organizer. I have a bunch of Ensembles and Crematoriums,
all my players already have them, and they don't want any more copies,
but I'm running out of the popular promo cards for the major
tournaments. How can I know *when* to order the Kit to get the new
promos and don't get the old ones? How can I be sure that I won't get
the old promos instead of the new ones even if I order after a certain
period of time?
After all, somebody pays his own money for the Kits (and it results
much more than $12 here, as I told you), so why the Prince or
organizer can't at least order the things that are going to be popular
among their players? If the Prince pays for the promos, but gets a
bunch of unneeded stuff, can you call this a "support" at all?
WW definitely could organize the promo thing much better.
Yours,
Ector
James Coupe
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes:
>On May 29, 11:42 pm, James Coupe <j...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:
>> In message <1180453678.581832.309...@u30g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
>>
>> Ector <E...@mail.ru> writes:
>> >Not a chance for us, since our playgroup needs at least 20 Victors.
>>
>> You're confusing "need" and "want".
>We're talking about promos, right? It's very difficult to distinguish
>"need" and "want" here
No, it's very easy.
Do you have to have Victor Pelletier to make decks? No. There are many
dozens of decks you could make in which Victor would be a hindrance due
to being of the wrong clan, having an irrelevant special ability, and
the wrong disciplines.
If you choose to make a deck in which Victor Pelletier might be useful,
do you have to use him? No, because you can just tweak your deck to do
something differently. Obfuscate Ventrue can benefit from Catherine du
Bois. If you don't have her, though, you can make a different deck.
If you have 1 or more Victors, do you have to put multiple in a deck?
No, because you can just try out different vampires and he might be a
good backup vampire. For 5 pool, he's not bad. But his special is a
bit expensive, in most cases - a "7 cap" vampire would have 8 points,
and Victor has 5 points of disciplines. Paying 3 points for a Princedom
is WAY over the odds of good design these days. (For 7 pool, see Ira
Rivers, Quentin King III. Or for Archbishops, see Marie Faucigny or
Ladislas Toth.) So you could have him as a backup for other strategies,
but you don't have to make him the focus of a deck.
Can you make a deck that requires 3-6 of him? Quite possibly. But
that's no different to pretty much any other vampire in the world, promo
or no. Or some rares. You don't *need* 10 War Ghouls to build a deck,
but they were rare and you *could* make a deck with 10 of them, if you
wanted. Did you need to? No. If you just had a small collection of,
say, 500 cards, you could make a stealth bleed deck, or a KRC/Bewitching
Oration deck, or... But if you wanted 10 War Ghouls, you either had to
buy boosters which were far more random than promo packs, or buy
singles. On eBay. No difference.
You don't *need* 20 copies of Victor.
> - we don't sell the promos, we use them to
>reward our players for participating in tournaments.
And you can use any promos for that. You can also use other things to
reward players - you don't have to buy promo packs. It's not unheard of
for groups to buy prints, t-shirts, White Wolf sourcebooks, edge
counters/jewellery/badges/Zippos (that sort of thing), and use those as
interesting prizes. (Prints can be had for very little money indeed,
from the right artists.)
If you want to spread something out among all players, boosters work
very well generally. Boosters from an unusual set, or a choice of
boosters ("Legacies, or Third Edition?"), can work very well indeed.
Additionally, many players enjoy participating in tournaments anyway.
Although some may think "Ooh, free stuff", many players will play
anyway. You don't actually *have* to have Victors to make them play.
>We have nothing
>but their response to evaluate whether they actually need some promo
>or just happy to get it (possibly to trade for something they need
>more).
If they *need* the promo, it's been available for a year and sold on
Ebay multiple times.
But they don't *need* it. They have many decks they can play without
him. Many many decks.
If they need him so much, how are they playing the game now?
>> Also, bear in mind that just 12 months ago, you needed between 50 and 70
>> copies. If you wait just a few months more, the numbers you believe you
>> need may have dropped to sensible levels.
>Yes, we *need* at least 20 Victors,
Nonsense. And self-contradictory.
Just a few lines above, you were telling us you can't tell the
difference between "need" and "want". And now you can apparently
emphatically need them.
Which is it? Can you tell the difference or not?
>if you count number of copies that
>people would be happy to BUY for a decent price.
That's not needing them. That's what people want.
I would be happy to buy many many cards for a decent price! And
sometimes I do buy them. I don't need them. They're not game-breaking.
They're not earth-shattering. They're not required to compete. Are
they perfect for a particular deck? Sure, they're just great for a
particular deck. Do I need them? Not on your life.
With a few exceptions of very basic cards that are found in a wide
variety of starters (Blood Doll, some wake tech etc.), there are very
few cards that are even close to being needed to play.
You want some Victors and you didn't put on a National Championship for
Belarus. You want to reward players for playing in tournaments, but
didn't put on a tournament to get the cards. Now other people won't
sell you guaranteed copies of Victor because they don't have any way of
telling what's in a pack. Ye gods.
>As a tournament
>organizer, I would be happy to have 50-70 just to make my tournaments
>more attractive, to help newbies build uber-effective voting decks and
>so on.
Victor is *not* needed for uber-effective voting decks.
For most voting decks, you'll want a title or three - to get access to
the cards like Parity Shift, and the various other titled vampire cards.
But let's first quickly deal with the non-titled option. For an uber-
effective voting deck, you're playing pre/PRE. There are LOTS of other
vampires out there with PRE. You don't have to have Victor for that,
though it's perfectly possible you'd want to use him. But...
...he's Camarilla. If you're not playing Independents, and so have
access to some sort of title granter, you'll probably want to use that.
Now, as a Ventrue (Group 4), he's Camarilla. You need Praxis Seizures,
or similar. But stop and think. You're a newbie. You need to get hold
of those cards. Where from? The last available sets are Sword of Caine
(Black Hand/Sabbat), Third Edition (Sabbat), Nights of Reckoning
(Imbued), Legacies of Blood (Laibon), Kindred Most Wanted - which does
help, two Praxis Seizures in one starter, the 10th Anniversary Tins (he
doesn't want group 1 or 2!).
Can you get anything earlier than that? Maybe. What you'd really want
is access to Camarilla Edition, which is mostly unfindable worldwide.
Boxes surface occasionally, and are eaten by established players who
want them RIGHT NOW. Not a newbie friendly set anymore - older players
buying boxes make it hard for a newbie to buy half a dozen boosters when
he or she has some spare cash.
So, you're fighting an uphill battle. Either getting hold of the
support cards as a newbie is tricky OR Victor is going in a non-
Camarilla deck. Which is a pain. He's the wrong sect to benefit from
more accessible title granters (like a Crusade: Wherever), and so you're
paying a fair whack for a vampire who's not so helpful. Some decks do
this with weenies - play a mostly Sect X deck, but have a few weenies
from Sect Y to help out, but 5 is a little large. If you're paying 6-8
for his title, you have the wrong title for a number of cards. Eternal
Vigilance, Creation Rites, Auto-da-fé. And if a player likes using
Private Audience, you can't do it here without some effort.
For a newbie, you should really be focusing them on Third Edition with
potential supplements from Sword of Caine (if appropriate), or Black
Hand (if you can get hold of it sensibly, or care to order and split a
box, or something).
Legacies of Blood is a REALLY good set, in my opinion, but not so great
for a newbie to go diving in - although the starters have some very good
cards for a newbie after the basics. But I wouldn't generally advise
starting a newbie on those clans, or trying to build a Bloodline deck.
However, even if you would (which is quite possible), they wouldn't
generally fit the bill for an "uber-effective" vote deck. Why not?
Vampire selection, for a start. Slightly awkward discipline combos in
some cases are a secondary issue, though some Laibon tech can make up
for this now and then, in interesting ways.
But, back to Sabbat, Victor Pelletier is a Ventrue. One of the deep
joys of the Sabbat is the early V:tM mis-print of the Ventrue Antitribu
having Auspex, which was carried into V:TES. This means that, amongst
other things, Ventrue and !Ventrue don't mesh in the ways you think they
should if you're comparing, say, Nosferatu and !Nosferatu.
What Ventrue Antitribu are there to mix with Victor in an uber-effective
voting deck that make use of his PRE? Vanessa, but she's group 2.
Ditto Kyle. Edward Neally (group 3) could be great, but he may be hard
to find. Why? He's one of the Sabbat drop-ins in Camarilla Edition,
and he's 7 cap. Owain Evans might be great, from Black Hand. He even
has the cel to match with Victor!
Ventrue Antitribu from Third Edition or Sword of Caine with Presence?
Nada. Not one.
So, who are we going to mix him with? dom/PRE, he might turn up in some
Lasombra decks with some PRE. (5 in group 3/4.) But then he doesn't
help you with Power Structure, which is annoying, and detracts from the
uber-effectiveness somewhat.
You might go with cel/PRE and play with !Toreador. Scalpel Tongue,
perhaps. But a number of such decks include Palla Grande - it's useful
for a one-card lunge. Annoying that he doesn't get to help out with
that. Though if you look at them, the !Toreador are pretty expensive
for good title vampires in groups 3 and 4 (which Victor can play with),
so an uber-effective deck might be off the cards here too - you're
paying for Victor to have the wrong title, and don't have other vampires
available cheaply to help out. You could push votes with Foundation
Exhibit, of course, but... Victor isn't an untitled !Toreador.
What uber-effective Victor powered vote decks is it that you're making
that are good for newbies? And why aren't these uber-effective vote
decks taking over the world in other places? Quite a few people already
have a stack of Victor. What have you seen that they haven't?
faustish
>
>
> Ector
Ector -
Please contact Rick Stock at wesleydodd at aol.com. I know he has
"sponsored" several tournaments and at the moment he has many Victors
and Kishas. I am sure he could help you out.
Cheers & Happy Hunting.
Faustish
Salem
> On May 29, 10:47 am, Ector <E...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
>> Not a chance for us, since our playgroup needs at least 20 Victors.
>
> Sounds like you also need some Praxis Solomon.
heh. that cracked me up. maybe i need sleep. :)
--
salem
(replace 'hotmail' with 'yahoo' to email)
Salem
> We've run out of Kishas. So they were replaced with Victor. We are
> almost out of Angelos, so will be changing that one too.
What the hell?? I never got an Angelo! I've never even seen him!
I play in a small isolated playgroup that doesn't have regular
tournaments. I _need_ an Angelo! I demand that some really nice cool
VtES internet icon sell me some for cheap! heck, for free even...whaa...
--
salem
(seriously, I have never even seen Angelo. I'd really like to, though!)
Peter D Bakija
> Well, *theoretically* we had the opportunity, yes. But in practice, we
> missed it, for several serious reasons. As I already told you, we are
> getting things we order 1-2 months after the order, so we decided to
> order booster displays instead. Should we know that Victors are in the
> prerelease kits, we'd try to get the prerelease, for sure.
The announcement said "This kit contains 25 Victor Peltier promos..."
You were handed the announcement. The announcement said "It has the
cards you so desperately want". What *else* do you want them to do?
> I'll think about it in case we won't get our Victors in the Kit we are
> going to order. Again, thanks for the generous offer.
I'm a generous guy.
> Look, we aren't living in USA where you get the ordered items 3-4 days
> after the order. We live in Belarus, where the customs can "hold" any
> "suspicious" postage, and the tax officers consider any postage as an
> "income" that we have to pay tax for... and so on. That's why we act
> like a partisans or smugglers - we order to our friends in Europe,
> then ask another friends to bring the goods to Belarus. Can you
> imagine this? I guess not. But I really told you that you cannot
> imagine my situation, didn't I?
I can. Yet you get stuff anyway. So it shows up. You could have
ordered the SoC pre-release kits. You had the information that it had
the promos. It would have shown up eventually. All this discussion is
moot. The opportunity was there. You chose not to take advantage of
it.
>That's why we decided to
> order SoC booster displays instead of prerelease kits - how could we
> know that Victors are there? Believe me, we didn't miss the prerelease
> kits just because of my foolishness.
'Cause the announcement said "Contains 25 Victor Peltier promos". They
announced that. On the prince list. And anywhere else the situation
was discussed. I knew the kits came with Victor Peltiers. You should
have too.
> So why did you suggest "try again" solution? We need just 3-4 per
> year, so what we're going to do with the unneeded kits? Use the promos
> as a wallpaper?
Give them out. You said "I do what I need to do". What you might need
to do is order more support kits. What you needed to do was to order a
SoC pre-release kit. Yet you didn't.
> I was trying to explain why the "try again" solution is inappropriate
> for us.
But it isn't. You order some kits. If you don't get what you want, use
them and order some more. Eventually, what you want likely shows up.
> For me, this sounds *incredibly* stupid. What is a promo? It's a WW
> support for club-makers and tournament organizers to attract more
> players for their tournaments. WW prints them and sells them without
> much profit just for that purpose, right? So, why they cannot clearly
> mark the contents? Why??? Promo Kits are *NOT* booster packs, and they
> weren't intended to make profit. Why should a club-maker buy a RANDOM
> promos? If WW is really trying to help the tournament organizers, why
> the promos are random?
They aren't random. They are in packs that get distributed. And the
distributors just distribute what they have, without really checking
to see what is in there. This is, yes, suboptimal, yet it is what we
have.
Luckily for us, WW made a very generous offer to sell us half price
booster boxes complete with bundles of identified, high want promos.
Which somehow you didn't notice.
> OK, so I'm an organizer. I have a bunch of Ensembles and Crematoriums,
> all my players already have them, and they don't want any more copies,
> but I'm running out of the popular promo cards for the major
> tournaments. How can I know *when* to order the Kit to get the new
> promos and don't get the old ones? How can I be sure that I won't get
> the old promos instead of the new ones even if I order after a certain
> period of time?
You can't. Unless the company makes a special offer to make sure you
get the exact promos you want. Oh, wait. They did that.
> After all, somebody pays his own money for the Kits (and it results
> much more than $12 here, as I told you), so why the Prince or
> organizer can't at least order the things that are going to be popular
> among their players? If the Prince pays for the promos, but gets a
> bunch of unneeded stuff, can you call this a "support" at all?
> WW definitely could organize the promo thing much better.
They probably could. But this is the system we have, as it is likely
the most efficient one. On the up side, it is really easy for folks to
get inexpensive tournament support. On the down side, there is some
randomisty in what promos you end up with. But then sometimes, the
company will do things like offer specifc packs of promos as support,
tell us they are doing so, and give them to us at a fantastic price
(again, the SoC pre-release kit was 2 boxes of booster for the price
of 1, and 25 each of 2 previously hard to get promos. And they
specifically told us what promos they were.) And yet somehow you
didn't notice this, didn't take advantage of it, and instead are here
complaining that the company makes it too hard for you to get the
promos you want. Do you see how this is a circular argument that is
always going to end up back at "you should have ordered the SoC pre-
release kit"?
-Peter
gpett...@gmail.com
I have 12 extra Victor Pelletiers. I wouldn't trade them for Kisha
Bhimjis, but there are a lot of things I *would* trade them for.
gpett...@gmail.com
> after the order.
FWIW, my SoC prerelease kit arrived over a month after the set's
release. And I live in the USA. That's why I have 12 extra VPs. 15 in
the kit minus the 3 for my collection.
Ector
> In message <1180503833.8...@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes:
> >On May 29, 11:42 pm, James Coupe <j...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:
> >> In message <1180453678.581832.309...@u30g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
> >>
> >> Ector <E...@mail.ru> writes:
> >> >Not a chance for us, since our playgroup needs at least 20 Victors.
> >>
> >> You're confusing "need" and "want".
> >We're talking about promos, right? It's very difficult to distinguish
> >"need" and "want" here
>
> No, it's very easy.
>
> Do you have to have Victor Pelletier to make decks? No. There are many
> dozens of decks you could make in which Victor would be a hindrance due
> to being of the wrong clan, having an irrelevant special ability, and
> the wrong disciplines.
Victor? Yes, we can build decks without him, so what? We can live
without him, right, but we don't want to! I bet that you could survive
without your car, for instance, but it makes your life much better
> If you choose to make a deck in which Victor Pelletier might be useful,
> do you have to use him? No, because you can just tweak your deck to do
> something differently. Obfuscate Ventrue can benefit from Catherine du
> Bois. If you don't have her, though, you can make a different deck.
This is a pathetic argument. "If you don't have Arika, use Queen Anne
instead"? We are trying to build good decks, and some decks are good
enough only with Victor.
> If you have 1 or more Victors, do you have to put multiple in a deck?
> No, because you can just try out different vampires and he might be a
> good backup vampire. For 5 pool, he's not bad. But his special is a
> bit expensive, in most cases - a "7 cap" vampire would have 8 points,
> and Victor has 5 points of disciplines. Paying 3 points for a Princedom
> is WAY over the odds of good design these days. (For 7 pool, see Ira
> Rivers, Quentin King III. Or for Archbishops, see Marie Faucigny or
> Ladislas Toth.) So you could have him as a backup for other strategies,
> but you don't have to make him the focus of a deck.
I'd say that he very easily becomes a focus of a deck. His primary
advantage is speed. With Dreams or Info HW you can get him on Turn One
(!), and on the second turn he can play Alastor, while the other
players didn't get any votes against or any vampires to block.
Alternatively, he is simply amazing in a weenie vote deck, since
pushing Praxis Seizures/Crusades is MUCH more easy when you already
have 3 permanent votes.
> Can you make a deck that requires 3-6 of him? Quite possibly. But
> that's no different to pretty much any other vampire in the world, promo
> or no. Or some rares. You don't *need* 10 War Ghouls to build a deck,
> but they were rare and you *could* make a deck with 10 of them, if you
> wanted. Did you need to? No. If you just had a small collection of,
> say, 500 cards, you could make a stealth bleed deck, or a KRC/Bewitching
> Oration deck, or... But if you wanted 10 War Ghouls, you either had to
> buy boosters which were far more random than promo packs, or buy
> singles. On eBay. No difference.
As I said above, decks with 4-5 Victor are quite possible and are
going to be powerful enough.
The difference between Victor and War Ghoul is big enough. War Ghoul
was designed to be an expensive rare card, Victor was designed to be a
promo card. Good rare cards reward players for purchasing boosters,
good promos reward them for participating in the tournaments. This is
the official WW policy.
So, if my player feels that he *needs* 10 War Ghouls, he has to pay a
lot of money for Tzimisce starters, boosters or on eBay. But if my
players need Victors, it's my job to get them, since I organize the
tournaments here. My players deserve these promo cards as any other
players from Europe or USA. They played a decent number of
tournaments, so I cannot understand why they have to pay ridiculous
prices on eBay. Besides, most of them (including myself) don't even
have a credit card.
>
> You don't *need* 20 copies of Victor.
I surely do, as well as my players. If you pretend that I don't *need*
any thing that I can live without, it's just a verbal equilibristics.
You could live in bungalo without gas, water and electricity - does
that mean that you don't need all this? My definition of "need" is:
"My life is going to become much better with it, and the advantages of
having it much outweight the disadvantages".
So, I don't need 10 War Ghouls, since they will enable me to build
just one deck, and this advantage doesn't outweight the disadvantage
of having to find them and pay $120-$150 for them. But I really need
4-5 Victors, since they will allow me to build different decks, and
they should be much easier to find or buy, as long as they are not
"championship-only promos" anymore.
>
> > - we don't sell the promos, we use them to
> >reward our players for participating in tournaments.
>
> And you can use any promos for that. You can also use other things to
> reward players - you don't have to buy promo packs. It's not unheard of
> for groups to buy prints, t-shirts, White Wolf sourcebooks, edge
> counters/jewellery/badges/Zippos (that sort of thing), and use those as
> interesting prizes. (Prints can be had for very little money indeed,
> from the right artists.)
OMG... OK, I will assume that it wasn't a mockery. Anyway, it wasn't
very clever.
What books or T-shirts are you talking about? One Tournament Kit
provides promos for 4-5 tournaments. How many books or T-Shirts
(badges, counters, zippos etc) would we need to replace the promos?
And how much they would cost? The Kit's price ($12 + delivery fee +
customs fee) is already quite high for us!
> If you want to spread something out among all players, boosters work
> very well generally. Boosters from an unusual set, or a choice of
> boosters ("Legacies, or Third Edition?"), can work very well indeed.
You're talking about prizes, not promos. "Promo" is a thing that is
issued to EACH participant. We definitely don't have money to issue a
booster to each player!
>
> Additionally, many players enjoy participating in tournaments anyway.
> Although some may think "Ooh, free stuff", many players will play
> anyway. You don't actually *have* to have Victors to make them play.
This is true. We can live without promos. That's why I told that we
*need* 20 Victors (for our decks), but I'd like to have 50-70.
>
> >We have nothing
> >but their response to evaluate whether they actually need some promo
> >or just happy to get it (possibly to trade for something they need
> >more).
>
> If they *need* the promo, it's been available for a year and sold on
> Ebay multiple times.
They don't have credit cards or bank accounts. And they can't afford
paying $40 or more for Victor. You can say that they don't need Victor
that much :) Now we really need at least 20.
> But they don't *need* it. They have many decks they can play without
> him. Many many decks.
>
> If they need him so much, how are they playing the game now?
See above. If we can play without Victor, that doesn't mean that we
don't need him.
> >> Also, bear in mind that just 12 months ago, you needed between 50 and 70
> >> copies. If you wait just a few months more, the numbers you believe you
> >> need may have dropped to sensible levels.
> >Yes, we *need* at least 20 Victors,
>
> Nonsense. And self-contradictory.
>
> Just a few lines above, you were telling us you can't tell the
> difference between "need" and "want". And now you can apparently
> emphatically need them.
>
> Which is it? Can you tell the difference or not?
I don't know exactly how much copies we need, since I didn't make
polls among my players. But I can swear that our community would
purchase at least 20 copies for $3 each. If this isn't equal to "need"
in your eyes, what does?
I also didn't made polls "Will you change your decision to miss a VTES
tournament if I tell you that each participant will get Victor?" that
would answer your question about "want". 20 and 50-70 are just my
estimated numbers, but I think they are quite accurate since I know my
players.
> That's not needing them. That's what people want.
>
> I would be happy to buy many many cards for a decent price! And
> sometimes I do buy them. I don't need them. They're not game-breaking.
> They're not earth-shattering. They're not required to compete. Are
> they perfect for a particular deck? Sure, they're just great for a
> particular deck. Do I need them? Not on your life.
>
> With a few exceptions of very basic cards that are found in a wide
> variety of starters (Blood Doll, some wake tech etc.), there are very
> few cards that are even close to being needed to play.
Hey, by your definition of "need" you don't need VTES at all! Really.
You can live without it.
>
> You want some Victors and you didn't put on a National Championship for
> Belarus. You want to reward players for playing in tournaments, but
> didn't put on a tournament to get the cards. Now other people won't
> sell you guaranteed copies of Victor because they don't have any way of
> telling what's in a pack. Ye gods.
We didn't have Nationals last year, since we weren't prepared for it.
This wasn't our fault - and we're going to have Nationals this year.
We didn't order a prerelease kit for serious reasons, and one of them
is the fact that a tournament organized 2 months after the release
(when we hoped to get the postage) can't be called a "prerelease".
But we still play at least one tournament per month, so I cannot
understand your point.
>
> Victor is *not* needed for uber-effective voting decks.
>
Yes, we can build good decks without Victor. But most of us really
think that Victor will enable to build *more* effective decks that we
could build before. So, we need it if we want to play the MOST
effective decks, and we definitely want.
>
>
>
> What uber-effective Victor powered vote decks is it that you're making
> that are good for newbies? And why aren't these uber-effective vote
> decks taking over the world in other places? Quite a few people already
> have a stack of Victor. What have you seen that they haven't?
A weenie voting deck is good for newbies. See my March newsletter for
an example. A voting deck based on cel/for/PRE (Ishtarri + Victor) is
good for the newbies - just because Forced March is much cheaper than
Freak Drive. And so on.
I guess that most of the players got enough copies of Victor just a
few months ago, so you can expect to see some decks with him in the
future.
Yours,
Ector
Ector
> OrgPlay wrote:
> > We've run out of Kishas. So they were replaced with Victor. We are
> > almost out of Angelos, so will be changing that one too.
>
> What the hell?? I never got an Angelo! I've never even seen him!
>
> I play in a small isolated playgroup that doesn't have regular
> tournaments. I _need_ an Angelo! I demand that some really nice cool
> VtES internet icon sell me some for cheap! heck, for free even...whaa...
Let me guess... This was intended to be funny? Really?
You don't have Angelo, and your playgroup really wants/needs him. You
knew about his existence and you order Tournament Kits, Prerelease
Kits and similar stuff more-or-less regularly. This means that one of
the following things is true:
a). You weren't informed about appearance of Angelo (which WW could
and should do)
b). You happened to get the packages without Angelo due to the
"random" packaging (which is definitely not good enough).
So, what is "funny" here??? Do you like to be unable to get what you
want? Are you a masochist?
Yours,
Ector
Ector
> On May 30, 2:25 am, Ector <E...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
> The announcement said "This kit contains 25 Victor Peltier promos..."
> You were handed the announcement. The announcement said "It has the
> cards you so desperately want". What *else* do you want them to do?
random pile od cards.
OK, we missed our opportunity to order the prerelease. And I've missed
the announcement you're citing (was it sent only to the Princes?). So
what?
> I can. Yet you get stuff anyway. So it shows up. You could have
> ordered the SoC pre-release kits. You had the information that it had
> the promos. It would have shown up eventually. All this discussion is
> moot. The opportunity was there. You chose not to take advantage of
> it.
Was it the Prince-only announcement? I'm not a Prince, you know. I'm
just a Sheriff :)
> 'Cause the announcement said "Contains 25 Victor Peltier promos". They
> announced that. On the prince list. And anywhere else the situation
> was discussed. I knew the kits came with Victor Peltiers. You should
> have too.
Well, so our Princess didn't pay attention to this. We can't blame
her, since she has two small children, and that's something! I was
completely sure that Victor will appear few months later, and I
couldn't even imagine such lack of order as "random promos"!!!
Do you wish to say that since we failed to order the prerelease, we
have to play stupid lotteries just because WW is unable to mark the
envelopes?
> > So why did you suggest "try again" solution? We need just 3-4 per
> > year, so what we're going to do with the unneeded kits? Use the promos
> > as a wallpaper?
>
> Give them out. You said "I do what I need to do". What you might need
> to do is order more support kits.
Surely I will give them out, but this won't attract anybody to my
tournaments. My players will use them as a wallpaper, I guess :)
> What you needed to do was to order a SoC pre-release kit. Yet you didn't.
I couldn't. I'm not a Prince. I wasn't informed about Victor
Pelletiers, so I didn't know that it was so important.
> > I was trying to explain why the "try again" solution is inappropriate
> > for us.
>
> But it isn't. You order some kits. If you don't get what you want, use
> them and order some more. Eventually, what you want likely shows up.
Why are you so sure? What if I get the *old* promos (prior to Victor)
and then *new* promos (after the Victor)? And why are you trying to
defend the "random promos" practice that is obviously very bad?
>
> They aren't random. They are in packs that get distributed. And the
> distributors just distribute what they have, without really checking
> to see what is in there. This is, yes, suboptimal, yet it is what we
> have.
If you cannot say what is in the pack without opening it, this is
called "random", AFAIK.
> Luckily for us, WW made a very generous offer to sell us half price
> booster boxes complete with bundles of identified, high want promos.
> Which somehow you didn't notice.
Holy shit... Didn't I tell you that I'm not a Prince, so I didn't
receive any announcements? Yes, I know that prerelease is cheaper than
booster displays, but our Princess was unable to order it in time for
some serious reasons. And we're trying not to bother her more than
absolutely needed.
> > How can I be sure that I won't get
> > the old promos instead of the new ones even if I order after a certain
> > period of time?
>
> You can't. Unless the company makes a special offer to make sure you
> get the exact promos you want. Oh, wait. They did that.
Oh wait. They did that one time. Congrats to the lucky guys who get
it! The unlucky guys - return to the traditional lottery. Cool! :)
> Do you see how this is a circular argument that is
> always going to end up back at "you should have ordered the SoC pre-
> release kit"?
>
No, I don't see any "circular arguments" here. I can applaud WW for
such great prerelease kits, but I still think that marking Tournament
Kits is a relatively easy task that would make ordering much easier
and eliminate the stupid "lottery". Actually, that's all I wanted to
say in this topic :)
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
> They don't have credit cards or bank accounts. And they can't afford
> paying $40 or more for Victor. You can say that they don't need Victor
> that much :) Now we really need at least 20.
Then what thay *need* is to get a credit card and a bank account.
Sometimes, the easiest way to solve a problem is with money.
> Hey, by your definition of "need" you don't need VTES at all! Really.
> You can live without it.
That is correct. And nowhere in this discussion is he indicating that
he "needs" VTES. And then demanding that someone do something for him
as a result.
> We didn't have Nationals last year, since we weren't prepared for it.
> This wasn't our fault
As was not ordering a SoC pre-release kit.
> We didn't order a prerelease kit for serious reasons, and one of them
> is the fact that a tournament organized 2 months after the release
> (when we hoped to get the postage) can't be called a "prerelease".
Yet you still could have ordered them and had a tournament anyway. The
opportunity was presented to you. Had you take advantage of it, none
of this would be an issue at all.
-Peter
Peter D Bakija
> I've already told this. I just want to order promos I need, not just a
> random pile od cards.
That isn't how the system works, generally speaking. There might be a
way to have a better system, but it isn't the one we have.
> OK, we missed our opportunity to order the prerelease. And I've missed
> the announcement you're citing (was it sent only to the Princes?). So
> what?
You are complaining that the company is making it hard for you to get
the promos you want. Yet they made it extremely easy to get the promos
you want, and you didn't take advantage of that. And instead are
complaining that they aren't helping you. Do you see the problem
there?
The announcement about the promo packs probably was sent to princes
only. As the people who organize tournaments and provide folks with
promos are, for the most part, princes, that makes sense.
> Was it the Prince-only announcement? I'm not a Prince, you know. I'm
> just a Sheriff :)
That's just stupid. You run tournaments. With an iron fist,
apparently. Yet you are not part of the organization that makes sure
you can do that effectively?
> Well, so our Princess didn't pay attention to this. We can't blame
> her, since she has two small children, and that's something!
You are the guy running all the events. You are the guy trying to get
promos. The way you do that is be being a prince and having access to
the prince discussions.
> Do you wish to say that since we failed to order the prerelease, we
> have to play stupid lotteries just because WW is unable to mark the
> envelopes?
No, I wish to say that people who organize tournaments were
specifically alerted as to how to get a big pile of Victors for
virtually nothing. It is not the fault of the company that you failled
to notice or take advantage of it.
> I couldn't. I'm not a Prince. I wasn't informed about Victor
> Pelletiers, so I didn't know that it was so important.
Why aren't you a prince? You organize all the tournaments. You provide
prizes. This is no one else's fault but yours.
> Why are you so sure? What if I get the *old* promos (prior to Victor)
> and then *new* promos (after the Victor)? And why are you trying to
> defend the "random promos" practice that is obviously very bad?
'Cause it isn't obviously very bad. White Wolf does not gaurantee you
any specific promos in their prize support packs.
> Holy shit... Didn't I tell you that I'm not a Prince, so I didn't
> receive any announcements?
You did in this e-mail, yes. Which makes no sense at all to me. You
are complaining that the company is screwing you by not making these
promos available to you, when they did make them available to you and
your response is "I didn't know they were available to me 'cause I'm
not a prince, so they weren't made available to me." Why aren't you a
prince?
> Yes, I know that prerelease is cheaper than
> booster displays, but our Princess was unable to order it in time for
> some serious reasons. And we're trying not to bother her more than
> absolutely needed.
For christ sake. You apparently run all the tournaments and organize
everything. Why is someone else the prince?
> Oh wait. They did that one time. Congrats to the lucky guys who get
> it! The unlucky guys - return to the traditional lottery. Cool! :)
It has nothing at all to do with luck. It has to do with working in
the system that is set up for you. Which you aren't a part of,
apparently.
-Peter
sutekh_23
Shoulda come up for the qualifier in Sydney then dude, we got
angelo's, and victors :)
Sutekh_23
Kushiel
> So, what is "funny" here??? Do you like to be unable to get what you
> want? Are you a masochist?
Oh, man. I'm wiping the tears out of my eyes. Seriously.
You're a walking, talking comedy sketch, Ector.
John Eno
Frederick Scott
news:1180541592.9...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> On May 30, 11:00 am, Ector <E...@mail.ru> wrote:
>> OK, we missed our opportunity to order the prerelease. And I've missed
>> the announcement you're citing (was it sent only to the Princes?). So
>> what?
>
> You are complaining that the company is making it hard for you to get
> the promos you want. Yet they made it extremely easy to get the promos
> you want, and you didn't take advantage of that. And instead are
> complaining that they aren't helping you. Do you see the problem
> there?
>
> The announcement about the promo packs probably was sent to princes
> only. As the people who organize tournaments and provide folks with
> promos are, for the most part, princes, that makes sense.
(ducking around sniping about whether Ector should be a prince or not...)
I didn't remember the Prince's Conclave SoC Prerelease announcement
saying anything about Victor Pelletiers. I did recall it saying there
would be Gran Medre de Dio, Italys in it. I just went back and checked.
I was right. The announce says the kit contains 15 GMdD,I and 15 Kestrelle
Hayes.
What prerelease annuoncement are you talking about?
Fred
Peter D Bakija
"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote:
> I didn't remember the Prince's Conclave SoC Prerelease announcement
> saying anything about Victor Pelletiers. I did recall it saying there
> would be Gran Medre de Dio, Italys in it. I just went back and checked.
> I was right. The announce says the kit contains 15 GMdD,I and 15 Kestrelle
> Hayes.
>
> What prerelease annuoncement are you talking about?
There was some announcement somewhere--I ordered the SoC pre-release
kits knowing it came with Victor Peltiers in it. I don't recall exactly
how that information got to me, but I am assuming it was on the conclave.
James Coupe
Your pompous stamping is pretty damn funny. Honestly.
>Do you like to be unable to get what you
>want? Are you a masochist?
You're playing a collectible card game. The very essence of the
distribution system is random assortments of cards into packs. You
choose to play this game, knowing that that's the distribution system.
Clearly, you are a masochist.
Frederick Scott
Nope. Unless I overlooked a thread or a message somewhere. And it doesn't
look like anything at all was posted in the Prince's Forum. Maybe you
saw it on some fansite like Path of Blood or Presence? If so, it would be
a little unfair to expect Ector to have found it there. (He should probably
be a Prince, though. I agree with that.)
Fred
Peter D Bakija
"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote:
> Nope. Unless I overlooked a thread or a message somewhere. And it doesn't
> look like anything at all was posted in the Prince's Forum. Maybe you
> saw it on some fansite like Path of Blood or Presence?
You got me. You saved all the e-mail from the conclave? I haven't,
personally, but I discovered it somewhere without trying real hard, or
really, even trying. Yet ordered the SoC pre-release kit with full
knowledge that I was getting a big handful of Victor Peltiers in there.
But it was also, like, 3+ months ago, so don't remember all the
specifics.
> If so, it would be
> a little unfair to expect Ector to have found it there. (He should probably
> be a Prince, though. I agree with that.)
Perhaps. If it turns out that this information got to me through some
other channels (although I can't imagine what they were), I'll stand
corrected. But still, it makes zero sense at all that he isn't the
prince of his neighborhood.
The Lasombra
>>In article <6Vl7i.429201$6P2....@newsfe16.phx>,
>> "Frederick Scott" wrote:
>> Nope. Unless I overlooked a thread or a message somewhere. And it doesn't
>> look like anything at all was posted in the Prince's Forum. Maybe you
>> saw it on some fansite like Path of Blood or Presence?
>You got me. You saved all the e-mail from the conclave?
No need.
The Conclave mailing list is search-able, here:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/ConclaveMonitor
> I haven't, personally, but I discovered it somewhere without trying real hard, or
>really, even trying. Yet ordered the SoC pre-release kit with full
>knowledge that I was getting a big handful of Victor Peltiers in there.
>But it was also, like, 3+ months ago, so don't remember all the
>specifics.
Here's your email about not being able to get them from Alliance, in a
response to the contents including Kestrelle Hayes.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/ConclaveMonitor/message/1777
I couldn't find any messages that mention Victor by himself, just
Victory Points or Victories in the Infernal Plague events.
Peter D Bakija
The Lasombra <TheLa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Here's your email about not being able to get them from Alliance, in a
> response to the contents including Kestrelle Hayes.
>
> http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/ConclaveMonitor/message/1777
>
> I couldn't find any messages that mention Victor by himself, just
> Victory Points or Victories in the Infernal Plague events.
Hmm. I stand corrected. How did I discover that, then?
Ector
> On May 30, 10:04 am, Ector <E...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
> > They don't have credit cards or bank accounts. And they can't afford
> > paying $40 or more for Victor. You can say that they don't need Victor
> > that much :) Now we really need at least 20.
>
> Then what thay *need* is to get a credit card and a bank account.
All banks here are nationalized. Keeping money there is risky: our
"democratic" government can rob the money every day. Besides, it may
require some stupid bureaucratic papers about how did you get the
money. People who regularly travel abroad order things for us.
> > Hey, by your definition of "need" you don't need VTES at all! Really.
> > You can live without it.
>
> That is correct. And nowhere in this discussion is he indicating that
> he "needs" VTES. And then demanding that someone do something for him
> as a result.
Did you notice that the discussion about the definition of "need" is
extremely pointless?
> > We didn't have Nationals last year, since we weren't prepared for it.
> > This wasn't our fault
>
> As was not ordering a SoC pre-release kit.
No, this was our fault. But still, I don't believe that ordering the
prerelease kit should be our only chance to get Victors without a
lottery.
> > We didn't order a prerelease kit for serious reasons, and one of them
> > is the fact that a tournament organized 2 months after the release
> > (when we hoped to get the postage) can't be called a "prerelease".
>
> Yet you still could have ordered them and had a tournament anyway. The
> opportunity was presented to you. Had you take advantage of it, none
> of this would be an issue at all.
Well, you know now that I coudn't get the information about Victors
even if I were a Prince. But anyway, is a wish to get the promos our
playgroup needs (not a promos that we already have) is something
unusual or innatural?
Yours,
Ector
Ector
> On May 30, 11:00 am, Ector <E...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
> > I've already told this. I just want to order promos I need, not just a
> > random pile od cards.
>
> That isn't how the system works, generally speaking. There might be a
> way to have a better system, but it isn't the one we have.
SHOULD implement a better system (which they obviously should) instead
of blaming me for not ordering the prerelease, WW might actually
implement a better system.
> > Was it the Prince-only announcement? I'm not a Prince, you know. I'm
> > just a Sheriff :)
>
> That's just stupid. You run tournaments. With an iron fist,
> apparently. Yet you are not part of the organization that makes sure
> you can do that effectively?
People don't like the "iron fist". I'm constanly accused for using
Dominate instead of Presence :) That's why a gentle, beautiful
Princess that is loved by everyone is a great help for me - and
together we rule the crowd much more effective. Usually.
Besides, our Princess is a person who taught me VTES, and I'm
eternally grateful. Nobody did more to spread the game here than our
Princess. She ordered ALL promos we get, and her husband (who is
currently in Italy) orders the singles from TheLasombra for the whole
community. She deserves to be a Princess much more than me, and people
love her. I'm just a judge, a volunteer fanatic of the game and so on.
> You are the guy running all the events. You are the guy trying to get
> promos. The way you do that is be being a prince and having access to
> the prince discussions.
Now I know (thanks to TheLasombra) about The Conclave. And I don't
have to be a Prince to read the messages.
Yes, only Prince can order promos and prereleases, but when I know
that we NEED to order something, I call our Princess. As long as I
couldn't know that we did NEED that prerelease, you cannot blame me
for ignoring the opportunity.
> > Why are you so sure? What if I get the *old* promos (prior to Victor)
> > and then *new* promos (after the Victor)? And why are you trying to
> > defend the "random promos" practice that is obviously very bad?
>
> 'Cause it isn't obviously very bad. White Wolf does not gaurantee you
> any specific promos in their prize support packs.
Why it does not? Can't you see that it would be much better for us?
Yours,
Ector
Ector
>
> No need.
>
> The Conclave mailing list is search-able, here:
>
> http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/ConclaveMonitor
Thanks a lot! I've added the group to my bookmarks. Hope I'll never
miss something important...
Yours,
Ector
Salem
> In article <a8vr53lkuo8n5hdh2...@4ax.com>,
> The Lasombra <TheLa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Here's your email about not being able to get them from Alliance, in a
>> response to the contents including Kestrelle Hayes.
>>
>> http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/ConclaveMonitor/message/1777
>>
>> I couldn't find any messages that mention Victor by himself, just
>> Victory Points or Victories in the Infernal Plague events.
>
> Hmm. I stand corrected. How did I discover that, then?
I'm guessing in the "host a SoC pre-release" section of the WW site.
Which has since been taken down. You could as LSJ if he archived the
page if you really want to check, though?
Hmm....maybe google archived it....
Peter D Bakija
> Did I tell you that you cannot understand my situation? Surely I did.
> All banks here are nationalized. Keeping money there is risky: our
> "democratic" government can rob the money every day. Besides, it may
> require some stupid bureaucratic papers about how did you get the
> money. People who regularly travel abroad order things for us.
You are in a wacky situation. Not an unusual one, to be sure, but a
wacky one. You can't hold the company responsible for not working in
such a way to facilitate making things easier for your specific wacky
situation. They provide promos as best they can. If people can't get
them through the standard channels for whatever reason, there is the
back up plan, which is "buy them off the internet", generally for a
reasonable price, Victor certainly now that they have flooded the
market (heck, if I were less scrupulous than I am, I could probably
sell the 30 I have for about 5 bucks each. But instead I'm giving some
away to people in other countries who are sending me envelopes and IRC
coupons. And then saving the rest for my next tournament). So there
are two built in reasonable ways to get them, both of which generally
work. That you have a particular and wacky situation is unfortunate,
but not something that the company can work to fix.
> Well, you know now that I coudn't get the information about Victors
> even if I were a Prince. But anyway, is a wish to get the promos our
> playgroup needs (not a promos that we already have) is something
> unusual or innatural?
No, but you are faulting the system for not being able to conform to
the specifics of your unfortunate yet very specifc situation. For most
folks, ordering a pre-release kit, or ordering a handful of prize
packs isn't an issue. And failing that, picking up singles on e-bay
isn't an issue. So the system is built to work for *most* folks.
Again, it is unfortunate that you are in a situation where ordering a
pre-release kit or ordering a handful of prize packs isn't a viable
option. And ordering singles off e-bay isn't a viable option. But
again, this is a very specific situation that affects not most people.
-Peter
Peter D Bakija
> There surely IS a way to have a better system.
Not necessarily one that works for the company. You have to measure
the worth of the system for the company to the worth of the system for
the players. It is likely that the system they have is the one that
works best for them, and if it works best for them, it is likely that
they will continue to support it, which works best for us (i.e.
overall support of a free promo system). If a system that works in the
way you want it to is difficult for the company to maintain, and thus
they want to not support it any longer, how does this benefit us?
The system as it is works well enough for most folks. Which is the
compromise that most buisnesses need to make to make things work.
> If you say that they
> SHOULD implement a better system (which they obviously should) instead
> of blaming me for not ordering the prerelease, WW might actually
> implement a better system.
Such as what? What is a better system that works?
> Why it does not? Can't you see that it would be much better for us?
Because it is inefficient to operate the system in the way you want it
to operate. Distributors order prize support packs. White Wolf sends
distributors prize support packs. They stock the prize support packs.
People order the prize support packs. They distribute the prize
support packs. The distributors are only going to order more prize
support packs if the ones they have sell out, and there is no set
schedule for this to occur. If the distributor still has prize support
packs from the last time they got some, those are likely the ones you
are going to get when you order them now, even though there are newer
ones in circulation. Assuming a reasonable turnover rate, the packs
cycle and the new cards get to the players. But it is unlikely that
the distributors are going to want to have to put a great deal of
effort into sorting and finding specific support packs among other
specific support packs for a product that produces very little income
for them (prize packs are really cheap and likely produce limited
money for both WW and the distributor). So White Wolf makes it easier
for them to distribute by not marking them as to what is in them. So
players order them, they get what they get, and most of the time, it
works out fine.
There is a reason that WW works this the way they work it. And that
reason is likely "it is the most efficient and productive way to get
this very low profit item into the hands of the players as quickly as
possible."
-Peter
Ector
>
> You can't hold the company responsible for not working in
> such a way to facilitate making things easier for your specific wacky
> situation. They provide promos as best they can.
don't believe that issuing random promo packs is "the best they can",
and I'm pretty sure that they could do much better.
> If people can't get
> them through the standard channels for whatever reason, there is the
> back up plan, which is "buy them off the internet", generally for a
> reasonable price, Victor certainly now that they have flooded the
> market (heck, if I were less scrupulous than I am, I could probably
> sell the 30 I have for about 5 bucks each.
I will order them for myself for $5 each if we fail to get them in the
promo packs. But I would prefer to issue such great promos to the
participants of our first Nationals that's going to happen on Sep 1-2,
and we definitely cannot afford $5 for each participant.
> No, but you are faulting the system for not being able to conform to
> the specifics of your unfortunate yet very specifc situation. For most
> folks, ordering a pre-release kit, or ordering a handful of prize
> packs isn't an issue. And failing that, picking up singles on e-bay
> isn't an issue. So the system is built to work for *most* folks.
> Again, it is unfortunate that you are in a situation where ordering a
> pre-release kit or ordering a handful of prize packs isn't a viable
> option. And ordering singles off e-bay isn't a viable option. But
> again, this is a very specific situation that affects not most people.
I guess that marking the Tournament Kits contents would be beneficial
for ALL playgroups. Each Prince or tournament organizer would be HAPPY
to order the promos he need instead of just "random promos". So why
are you talking about "my specific situation that affects not most
people"?
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
> The company is definitely not responsible for our problems. But I
> don't believe that issuing random promo packs is "the best they can",
> and I'm pretty sure that they could do much better.
How are you sure of this? Have you run a card game company? Have you
distributed products through national distributors? You have no idea
what is or is not possible or what is or is not workable. Maybe there
could be a better way. But maybe not. You don't know either way.
> I will order them for myself for $5 each if we fail to get them in the
> promo packs. But I would prefer to issue such great promos to the
> participants of our first Nationals that's going to happen on Sep 1-2,
> and we definitely cannot afford $5 for each participant.
If you are running a national championship, have you, ya know,
considered contacting White Wolf and, ya know, *asking* how you could
get some Victor Peltiers? I don't know for a fact that it will help,
but can it possible hurt?
> I guess that marking the Tournament Kits contents would be beneficial
> for ALL playgroups. Each Prince or tournament organizer would be HAPPY
> to order the promos he need instead of just "random promos". So why
> are you talking about "my specific situation that affects not most
> people"?
Again, cause for most folks, they system works fine--I order a prize
kit, and something shows up, and I'm happy with it. I am yet to be
disapointed by the contents of the support kit. My player base is
never like "Man. This sucks! I'm not playing in the next tournament
unless we get better promos." Heck, when I order them from
TheLasombra, I mostly know what is going to show up, which is even
better. But it isn't a problem either way. Your specific situation is
one where:
-Ordering kits is difficult and time consuming.
-Buying cards off e-bay is difficult and time consuming and not a
possibility for most of your player base.
and yet
-You all feel an irrational and desperate need to get what you don't
have and can live without.
Which doesn't describe most people involved with this game. Your
situation, again, is specific and weird. Most people involved in this
chain of activity don't face these hurdles, order support kits through
regular channels, get what they get, it works just fine, and they are
all happy and it isn't a problem. If the system that is currently
working, efficient, and makes most folks happy is good enough *most*
of the time, and changing that system makes it less efficient,
possibly not work, and won't neccessarily make that many more folks
happy, changing it is probably a bad idea.
-Peter
James Coupe
Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes:
>How are you sure of this? Have you run a card game company? Have you
>distributed products through national distributors? You have no idea
>what is or is not possible or what is or is not workable. Maybe there
>could be a better way. But maybe not. You don't know either way.
One particular problem I've run into when ordering stuff is that if you
have a choice of a half-dozen different things and you just want one of
*any* of them, this can be a pain with a lot of
shops/wholesalers/orderers. They often can't/don't deal well with
having the idea of one code covering all of a bunch of products which
*also* have their own codes.
This can be exacerbated when you're in an awkward bit of the world
(which for many V:TES-based purposes can mean "outside of North America
and Canada, and some of western Europe") and it can take an age to order
things and get a response. For people who just want a promo pack or two
for a tournament, having to specify which promo pack they want. "Sorry,
out of stock." So you order another one. With days, possibly weeks,
passing each time. "Sorry, no Genina packs left." Try again. Repeat.
Frederick Scott
>> I guess that marking the Tournament Kits contents would be beneficial
>> for ALL playgroups. Each Prince or tournament organizer would be HAPPY
>> to order the promos he need instead of just "random promos". So why
>> are you talking about "my specific situation that affects not most
>> people"?
>
> Again, cause for most folks, they system works fine--I order a prize
> kit, and something shows up, and I'm happy with it.
No, he's right. The system would be cooler if you could order exactly
the kit you wanted based on knowledge of what promos were in it. And
the system doesn't necessarily work "fine" now. The you-get-what-you-
get rule can be a random pain in the ass.
I would say the real issue is whether allowing princes to specify which
kit they wanted would be too much trouble for White Wolf, its distributors,
and the retailers who order them for us. And also in a world like that,
there would be some problems with popular kits running out far too fast
(and consequent whining by various princes that they were never given a
fair chance to get them) while other kits languish on the shelves. I
suspect these are probably why Ector's suggestions has little chance of
seeing reality. Not that it wouldn't be good for us.
> -You all feel an irrational and desperate need to get what you don't
> have and can live without.
>
> Which doesn't describe most people involved with this game.
Just wanted to wave my hand here and say, "Hey, Peter! This describes me!"
But you knew that already... ;-)
Fred
Peter D Bakija
"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote:
> No, he's right. The system would be cooler if you could order exactly
> the kit you wanted based on knowledge of what promos were in it.
I agree that it would be cool if this is how it worked. But apparently,
the realities of the distribution system get in the way. White Wolf is
doing this the way it does for a reason, and I'm guessing the reason is
"it is the most efficient way for it to work, and if we did it the other
way, the distributors wouldn't want to deal with it, it would come back
in house, and would become financially inefficient for us to continue".
I could be wrong. But I suspect I am not.
As noted by James, having a distributor work with multiple variables for
a single product is a pain. And often is just as much of a pain for the
customer as the distributor.
As it is, the system works good enough for what it is, and probably the
most effective for the company.
> And
> the system doesn't necessarily work "fine" now. The you-get-what-you-
> get rule can be a random pain in the ass.
But it does. You order a kit, you get something cool. Most of the time,
it is something you didn't get last time due to the high turnover rate.
Sometimes, yeah, ok, you suffer from lag. But mostly, not so much.
> I would say the real issue is whether allowing princes to specify which
> kit they wanted would be too much trouble for White Wolf, its distributors,
> and the retailers who order them for us.
Which is reason enough not to do it.
> And also in a world like that,
> there would be some problems with popular kits running out far too fast
> (and consequent whining by various princes that they were never given a
> fair chance to get them) while other kits languish on the shelves. I
> suspect these are probably why Ector's suggestions has little chance of
> seeing reality. Not that it wouldn't be good for us.
If we lived in a perfect world, yes, you'd be able to order exactly what
you wanted and get it all the time. For free. As we are giving the stuff
out as a promotion anyway. But we don't live in this world, and the
system we have works within what we have to work in, and most of the
time, works well enough.
> Just wanted to wave my hand here and say, "Hey, Peter! This describes me!"
> But you knew that already... ;-)
Heh. See, again, looking back to Victor, I lived for the year without
him. Never felt I was suffering due to a lack. And got some eventually
(for free, mind you). Which worked fine. And Ector will, eventually, get
some too. Even with the system that we have.
Salem
> If we lived in a perfect world, yes, you'd be able to order exactly
> what
> you wanted and get it all the time. For free. As we are giving the
> stuff
> out as a promotion anyway. But we don't live in this world, and the
> system we have works within what we have to work in, and most of the
> time, works well enough.
i think you also forgot in your perfect world scenario the clause "and
no one would abuse the system". Cause i remember the WotC days when they
did send pretty much what you asked for (mind you,the range of options
was very very small to the point of being just one option, i think) and
it didn't cost anything. Not even postage.
*wipes tear from eye* ah, good times...
Salem
> On May 30, 3:42 pm, Salem <salem_christ....@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> OrgPlay wrote:
>> > We've run out of Kishas. So they were replaced with Victor. We are
>> > almost out of Angelos, so will be changing that one too.
>>
>> What the hell?? I never got an Angelo! I've never even seen him!
>>
>> I play in a small isolated playgroup that doesn't have regular
>> tournaments. I _need_ an Angelo! I demand that some really nice cool
>> VtES internet icon sell me some for cheap! heck, for free even...whaa...
>
> Let me guess... This was intended to be funny? Really?
No. It was dead serious. One of the players in my playgroup here (which
is Canberra, Australia) moved to New York, USA, for the sole reason that
he would then get a chance to get an Angelo promo. and he did. Those of
us still here are very jealous. And as a bonus, he got to trade away
some of his Tara, The Hollow One (Mage) cards. That is the kind of
desperation we face here. I still don't have an Angelo, and I still have
too many Taras, _and_ I can't afford to move to another country. Maybe
the best option would be if WW paid for my travel expenses? That way
they don't need to change their card distribution method.
> You don't have Angelo, and your playgroup really wants/needs him.
_Needs_. I suspect I may develop a terminal disease without this card to
bolster my immune system.
> You
> knew about his existence and you order Tournament Kits, Prerelease
> Kits and similar stuff more-or-less regularly. This means that one of
> the following things is true:
>
> a). You weren't informed about appearance of Angelo (which WW could
> and should do)
Well, I am not a prince. I assume my prince may have been told. Maybe not.
> b). You happened to get the packages without Angelo due to the
> "random" packaging (which is definitely not good enough).
Indeed. I had been trading cards to build an Angelo deck all year,
waiting for when the promos hit. They never did. Now I have a bunch of
cards for a deck I can't even play!
> So, what is "funny" here??? Do you like to be unable to get what you
> want? Are you a masochist?
No, it's terrible! We need some sort of CCG superhero to fly around the
world delivering NEEDED promos to those who.... erm.... need them.
Salem
well, if I had seen that anywhere in the advertising, I would have!
(actually, I still wouldn't have. Have you seen the price of petrol
lately? sheesh.)
But now there should be plenty of sydney people with spare angelos to
trade, right?
any social games going on in the afternoon of saturday the 9th of june? :D
I'll bring Taras to trade.
Frederick Scott
>> And
>> the system doesn't necessarily work "fine" now. The you-get-what-you-
>> get rule can be a random pain in the ass.
>
> But it does. You order a kit, you get something cool. Most of the time,
> it is something you didn't get last time due to the high turnover rate.
> Sometimes, yeah, ok, you suffer from lag. But mostly, not so much.
I disagree. A couple years ago, they were passing out kits with Port
Authorities (God BLESS the card designers but that was a useless piece of
shit! :-) ), I think Anthelios, and a few other things that were either
over-distributed or near useless or whatever. I mean, the big problem
with that particular kit was that it had been in the warehouses for a
REALLY long time. I knew that Retribution was in the pipeline somewhere
and even if it's not a promo that exactly brings tears to your eyes with
its utility, at least it's something new. The problem is, I don't know
if I'm going to get it if I order it. So I'm put off ordering a
tournament kits right up to tournament time hoping to see Retribution
show up in droves on EBAY so I'd know there's a chance I might get it in
my kits. I do NOT want to waste any more money on more Port Authorities.
Of course, I ordered the kits last moment so they did't come in time for
the tournament. And I got more Port Authorties and no Retributions. =:-{
Is any of this drama really critical shit? No, of course not. Ultimately,
the goodness of having a tournament is having the tournament; the promos
are frosting. (Of course, it helps my outlook considerably that I can
spread money around freely on EBAY; mustn't forget that!) It's just that
it's a pain in the ass because I hate ordering stuff that might be junk I
just don't need.
And there's one other point that screams to be made here. Everybody is
giving Ector a lot of shit about his usage of the words "need" vs. "want".
As in, "Ector, you don't _need_ Victor Pelletier. You just _want_ him."
This is true enough. If there's a good reason Ector can't have Victor
Pelletiers then fine. He'll just have to deal. But I got the sense
that certain people thought that it was neat Victor Pelletier was
hard to get for a year because they thought it felt good to have a card
that other people couldn't get. In fact, I got the sense that this was
the whole argument for "Championship promos" or whatever they're called.
You know what? If it's silly to suggest that anyone //NEEDS// Victor
Pelletier, then it's even sillier to suggest anyone //NEEDS// to have cards
other people can't get. So if Ector doesn't need Victor Pelletiers last
year or now or ever, then VEKN doesn't need Championship Promos at all,
either. Not last year; not this year - never (again, hopefully...) In
the long run, that should simplify and thus mitigate certain logistical
issues which led to Ector's current situation vis-a-vis Victor.
...
> looking back to Victor, I lived for the year without
> him. Never felt I was suffering due to a lack.
Sure, me too. (Well, honestly, I did buy one or two on EBAY but never
really put them to more than theoretical use.) But it's so unnecessary...
Fred
Frederick Scott
news:465f4d02$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
> No, it's terrible! We need some sort of CCG superhero to fly around the world delivering NEEDED promos to those who.... erm....
> need them.
It's a bird...it's a plane...no, wait it IS a plane and there's a guy
getting off with a huge suitcase...he's:
SUPER JEFF THOMPSON!
Shade
> (actually, I still wouldn't have. Have you seen the price of petrol
> lately? sheesh.)
It has to be cheaper than the cost of a trans-tasman flight!
It's costing me more to fly Wellington to Sydney for the Australian
Champs than it cost me to fly London to Turin (holidaying in Salzburg,
Innsbruck, and Milan en route!) for the EC last year... that just
seems so wrong.
> But now there should be plenty of sydney people with spare angelos to
> trade, right?
I hear they'll be given out at the Wellington tournament but it would
be cheaper to eBay them at say $50 a pop than fly to Wellington to
attend I imagine. I'll bring one over just for you if I get one
though, all you'll have to do for it is run interference for me when
all the Kiwi bashing takes place ;-)
Peter D Bakija
"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote:
> I do NOT want to waste any more money on more Port Authorities.
> Of course, I ordered the kits last moment so they did't come in time for
> the tournament. And I got more Port Authorties and no Retributions.
Which is unfortunate, but not going to kill anyone. You also got 3
boosters and a bunch of other promos too, probably wakes and/or forceds
and/or blood dolls. Which, for 12 bucks, isn't a bad deal.
> Is any of this drama really critical shit? No, of course not. Ultimately,
> the goodness of having a tournament is having the tournament; the promos
> are frosting. (Of course, it helps my outlook considerably that I can
> spread money around freely on EBAY; mustn't forget that!) It's just that
> it's a pain in the ass because I hate ordering stuff that might be junk I
> just don't need.
But most of the stuff is stuff you can use. And someone still might need
some Port Authorities. And eventually, the Retributions will show up.
I like that we get cool promo cards. Is the system perfect? Of course
not. But it works pretty well most of the time, and if it is the system
that enables WW to keep the program up and running, I'll suck up the
occasional extra Port Authorites.
> But I got the sense
> that certain people thought that it was neat Victor Pelletier was
> hard to get for a year because they thought it felt good to have a card
> that other people couldn't get. In fact, I got the sense that this was
> the whole argument for "Championship promos" or whatever they're called.
Not from me it wasn't. Ever.
Frederick Scott
OK, fine. But if that's not it, there is none. They can pass out more
regular 'ol (tm) promos at continental and country championships and do
just as well.
Fred
Peter D Bakija
"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote:
> OK, fine. But if that's not it, there is none. They can pass out more
> regular 'ol (tm) promos at continental and country championships and do
> just as well.
As mentioned many times before, I really don't see it as that it is a
big deal, again. I mean, like, there have been *plenty* of event
specific promos that I didn't have access to for whatever reason (didn't
run the Prophecies League, whatever). And eventually, the promos made it
out to circulation. And everyone got them at some point.
There is clearly a very profound difference between our worldviews, in
terms of what we should or should not have, as the game is concerned--I
don't *need* (or even *want*) every card in the game. If I am missing
some, and I am, I'm totally ok with that. If it turns out I need one of
those, I'll find one eventually (and the more cash I feel like laying
out, the sooner it will show up :-). You clearly feel a need to have all
the cards, all the time. Which if that is what you are into, go nuts.
But as a result, we are never ever going to see even remotely eye to eye
on this.
Frederick Scott
Sure, it's arguable whether it constitutes a problem to players at large
to be denied access to any particular very small group of not-overtly-
critical cards. However, in the absence of there being an attraction to
a card due to its unavailability to other players, I'm just pointing out
that there's no actual positive reason to print such a card. All _you're_
saying is that it's not such a bad thing. But a card which is not such a
bad thing is a waste of ink and cardboard if it's not a good thing AT ALL.
So if Ector doesn't need a particular promo card, then by the same token,
nobody else needs promo cards which have the special quality of being
particularly unavailable to others, either.
Fred
chr...@comcen.com.au
> sutekh_23 wrote:
> > On May 30, 10:42 pm, Salem <salem_christ....@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> (seriously, I have never even seen Angelo. I'd really like to, though!)
>
> > Shoulda come up for the qualifier in Sydney then dude, we got
> > angelo's, and victors :)
>
> well, if I had seen that anywhere in the advertising, I would have!
>
> (actually, I still wouldn't have. Have you seen the price of petrol
> lately? sheesh.)
>
> But now there should be plenty of sydney people with spare angelos to
> trade, right?
There'll be some with one and possibly two if they made the final. I
also have some promo packs left over from the tournament. I'll let you
know if they'll be given out at the next tournament. They may possibly
end up as prize support at the Nats.
>
> any social games going on in the afternoon of saturday the 9th of june? :D
There are actually. Julian is coming down from Newcastle. Get in touch
with Nick.
>
> I'll bring Taras to trade.
>
Got any Frontal Assaults?
Chris.
Ector
> White Wolf is
> doing this the way it does for a reason, and I'm guessing the reason is
> "it is the most efficient way for it to work, and if we did it the other
> way, the distributors wouldn't want to deal with it, it would come back
> in house, and would become financially inefficient for us to continue".
> I could be wrong. But I suspect I am not.
Just imagine that WW prints a DATE of packaging on the each package.
This could be done with a common stamp. How much could this cost for
them? Few cents per package, I presume. If you know the date, you can
easily determine the contents - they could print the contents for each
period on their site. Will you agree to pay few cents more for the Kit
if you know the contents? I would be happy to.
Certainly, there are other problems here: some promos are more
popular, others are less popular, so people can buy all "good" promos
and leave the "bad" ones. But I don't think that it's really a
problem: most people want to get ALL the promos, and they don't
purchase promos they already have. Any abusing behaviour (like
purchasing promos to sell them on eBay) can be easily discovered and
punished. This system would be much better for all.
> As noted by James, having a distributor work with multiple variables for
> a single product is a pain. And often is just as much of a pain for the
> customer as the distributor.
A distributor could continue the current practice WITHOUT separating
the Kits by date. A GOOD distributor would take the advantage of the
information or at least allow the customers to specify the needed
package period when they order. Absolutely no problems here.
> As it is, the system works good enough for what it is, and probably the
> most effective for the company.
I don't think that random promo packaging is "good enough". Getting
the unneeded promos is a waste of promos and money. You can issue
them, sure, but they would fail to fulfil their primary role: attract
people to the tournaments. Thus, how can you say that such a waste is
"good enough"?
>
> You order a kit, you get something cool. Most of the time,
> it is something you didn't get last time due to the high turnover rate.
> Sometimes, yeah, ok, you suffer from lag. But mostly, not so much.
Oh yes, you order a kit, you get something cool. But most of the time
promo cards are cornercase cards, and most people need only one copy
of each promo (if the promo is unplayable, it's at least collectible).
Getting the promos that you've already issued and unwanted to anybody
is definitely NOT "cool".
> > I would say the real issue is whether allowing princes to specify which
> > kit they wanted would be too much trouble for White Wolf, its distributors,
> > and the retailers who order them for us.
>
> Which is reason enough not to do it.
Really? Quite a good reason not to do anything at all - "this would be
too much trouble"! Designing promos is much larger trouble than this,
printing and packing promos is also much more trouble, so is there any
sense of avoiding the final part of the work, that isn't really that
troublesome? Especially considering the fact that issuing the unwanted
promos NULLIFIES all the work.
>
> If we lived in a perfect world, yes, you'd be able to order exactly what
> you wanted and get it all the time. For free. As we are giving the stuff
> out as a promotion anyway. But we don't live in this world, and the
> system we have works within what we have to work in, and most of the
> time, works well enough.
OK, this time it isn't working well enough. At least for my playgroup,
and for Salem's playgroup that missed Angelo. We aren't living in
perfect world, but this doesn't mean that WW cannot make its support
slightly better.
> And Ector will, eventually, get some too. Even with the system that we have.
Surely I will. Now I know that Victor isn't so impossible to get as he
was before, and I can trade for him, get him from eBay, etc.
But I want to use him the way he was intended: as a promo at our
Nationals. If I we order the Kit right now and don't get Victors,
we'll have no time to order the second Kit prior to the tournament.
We'll definitely address WW, different sellers, maybe even you (though
we hate to ask for help like beggars), but I'd prefer a system that
would allow me to buy what I need.
Now, for God's sake, can you answer me WHY should I have a chance to
miss the possibility to use the card the way it was intended to? If I
get Kishas instead of Victors, my players wouldn't consider it a
"promo" at all - they already have too much. And how can you pretend
that such system is working "just fine"?
Yours,
Ector
James Coupe
>> Hey, by your definition of "need" you don't need VTES at all! Really.
>> You can live without it.
>
>That is correct. And nowhere in this discussion is he indicating that
>he "needs" VTES. And then demanding that someone do something for him
>as a result.
Actually, it's somewhat more subtle than that.
Clearly, no-one needs V:TES. But within V:TES, what cards do you
*need*?
Perhaps the closest we've had to ultra-rare chase cards that you must
have to compete in V:TES was way back before 7/7. Tomb of Rameses III,
Return to Innocence etc. You could defend against them without them -
bounce, Arson etc. But, say, your grand-prey plays them. Using them,
he ousts your grand-predator and predator with such super-speed that you
may not have had a chance to make a significant dent in your prey, and
are next on the chopping block.
There were choices between over-powered strategies, like RtoI or Legacy
of Pander, or even trying out Thoughts Betrayed (which was super-
powerful but wouldn't necessarily let you win because it's about
combat). But somewhere in there, there were cards that we might just be
able to say you needed to compete.
These days? None of those apply.
What cards are needed these days? Let's exclude Imbued, for the sake of
simplicity. You probably need:
- Blood Doll / Minion Tap or maybe Tribute to the Master
- some form of wake tech, from a small number of cards
- possibly, the simple damage votes which don't have too many
alternatives (KRC, ConAg)
Stealth, bleed, aggressive combat, defensive combat, and intercept have
huge numbers of alternative cards available. And there are many and
varied masters you could play, and so on. Yeah, you can build decks
without them - particularly the damage votes! But they're fundamental
to so many decks, and new players should probably be encouraged to try
those decks out, just to get a handle on the basic parts of the game,
before adventuring into other decks.
So, we might just say that you need some of those cards. And notably,
pretty much all these cards are turning up in starters!
Legacies of Blood:
Akunanse: 3 Blood Doll, 2 Rat's Warning (wake)
Guruhi: 3 Minion Tap, 2 WwEF, 3 Cats' Guidance (wake-ish), 5 Con Ag, 3
KRC, (2 Domain Challenge?)
Ishtarri: 2 Blood Doll, 3 WwEF
Osebo: 2 Blood Doll, 4 Forced Awakening
Third Edition:
!Brujah: 2 Blood Doll, 6 Kine Resources Contested, 2 On the Qui Vive
!Malk: 2 Blood Doll, 2 On the Qui Vive
!Tremere: 2 Blood Doll, 2 On the Qui Vive
Tzimisce: 2 Blood Doll, 3 Forced Awakening, 3 Guard Dogs
Victor Pelletier? Sure, he's a nice vampire. For 5, he has good
options. For 6, meh, it's a Primogen. 7 is an expensive prince. 8 is
a potential Justicar but a wee bit pricey relative to what else you get.
Good vampire. Needed? Not on your life.
Salem
>> But now there should be plenty of sydney people with spare angelos to
>> trade, right?
>
> There'll be some with one and possibly two if they made the final. I
> also have some promo packs left over from the tournament. I'll let you
> know if they'll be given out at the next tournament. They may possibly
> end up as prize support at the Nats.
we so need more public holidays in this country. there's a cool club on
in melbourne that only happens the night before a public holiday...so it
won't be on for 5 months until the nats weekend....but since i missed
the nats last year, i guess i had better go this year.
>> any social games going on in the afternoon of saturday the 9th of june? :D
>
> There are actually. Julian is coming down from Newcastle. Get in touch
> with Nick.
ok, i'll jump on the sydney list and make some noise. :)
>> I'll bring Taras to trade.
>>
>
> Got any Frontal Assaults?
no, sorry. :) didn't get much 3rd ed. it was all upside down! (and if i
had got some, i wouldn't be trading any!!)
XZealot
> This suspicion contradicts with all your previous line of arguments.
> Just imagine that WW prints a DATE of packaging on the each package.
> This could be done with a common stamp. How much could this cost for
> them?
$11,000/per year for 1 human being with a simple rubber stamp at
minimum wage 40hr/week. You are paying this person the very minimum
allowable wage by law, so you can expect this employee to be a brain-
dead, apathetic, total fuck-off that's going to require constant
monitoring.
If you automate it, then it becomes an investment which much be paid
off and requires additional maintainance for your existing service
staff.
That's real money for something that they aren't making a profit on.,
Comments Welcome,
Norman S. Brown, Jr
XZealot
Archon of the Swamp
Ector
consider the cost of creating the promos. Designers must create the
card ideas, artists must draw the art, and there are much more people
who should do much more things. And all these people are far from
"brain-dead, apathetic fuck-offs", so they get much more than $11.000/
per year. But all their work is wasted when a Prince gets the unwanted
promos. Because the unwanted promos don't attract anybody - and that's
what they meant to do. Simply enough?
Yours,
Ector
Ector
>
> Victor Pelletier? Sure, he's a nice vampire. For 5, he has good
> options. For 6, meh, it's a Primogen. 7 is an expensive prince. 8 is
> a potential Justicar but a wee bit pricey relative to what else you get.
> Good vampire. Needed? Not on your life.
advantage is SPEED. Yes, you pay 8 pool for a Justicar, and your
Justicar has just 5 blood and doesn't have as much disciplines as
Anastaszdi Zagreb (another justicar for 8 pool), but you can get
Victor much faster. This is crucial, especially for a fast-acting
decks. Besides, why do you think that 7 pool Prince is "expensive"?
There are only 4 cheaper Princes in the whole game, and Calebros can
easily lose his title. Plus, Prince of Paris can really abuse The
Louvre.
I won't argue whether I "really need" Victor or not. I have some deck
ideas that can work properly only with Victor, and I like these ideas.
For me, that's enough to say "I need him".
Yours,
Ector
XZealot
Actually, its really complicated. I've boiled it down to a simple
number that is alot of money, and you are saying it is a waste of
time. Alright, if I was running white wolf then based upon your
response, I would say, "NO MORE PROMOS", as they are a waste of
money.
Does that make you happy?
Ector
system ALREADY costs them much more money that would the package
marking cost. Probably, 100 times more. And when this system works, it
works wonderfully: people like promos and like WW for printing such
beautiful "gifts" for them.
But, unfortunately, the system does NOT always work as good as it
could - especially when a Prince gets the promos he already issued in
the "random" package. Did you ever try to gift a child a toy he
already has? :) I'm trying to demonstrate that increasing the
production costs to completely eliminate such cases (probably, 1% cost
increase or so) is going to make the whole promo system much better.
Please tell me frankly, what do would you prefer: paying $12 for a
random package of promos or paying $13 for a promos you really need?
The answer is almost rhetorical.
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Looks like you're seriously underestimating Victor. His primary
> advantage is SPEED. Yes, you pay 8 pool for a Justicar, and your
> Justicar has just 5 blood and doesn't have as much disciplines as
> Anastaszdi Zagreb (another justicar for 8 pool), but you can get
> Victor much faster.
*Much* faster? You realize that Victor costs 5 and Anastazdi costs 8,
right? Those both take about 2 turns of influence, ignoring special
accelerators. Victor comes out a bit faster. Sometimes. Most of the
time, he takes 2 turns to get out. Just like most other princes. And
some Justicars.
> This is crucial, especially for a fast-acting
> decks. Besides, why do you think that 7 pool Prince is "expensive"?
'Cause he doesn't have any special abilities and his disciplines are sub
par for a 7 cost vampire.
Peter D Bakija
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> This suspicion contradicts with all your previous line of arguments.
> Just imagine that WW prints a DATE of packaging on the each package.
> This could be done with a common stamp. How much could this cost for
> them? Few cents per package, I presume. If you know the date, you can
> easily determine the contents - they could print the contents for each
> period on their site. Will you agree to pay few cents more for the Kit
> if you know the contents? I would be happy to.
This isn't helping you when you order the kit from the distributor--the
distributors are unlikely to check the date for you. Any more than they
are likely to check the contents for you.
> Certainly, there are other problems here: some promos are more
> popular, others are less popular, so people can buy all "good" promos
> and leave the "bad" ones. But I don't think that it's really a
> problem: most people want to get ALL the promos, and they don't
> purchase promos they already have.
What would happen is that some dubious retailer would catch wind of a
popular promo coming out, order a whole bunch of them, sell them off on
e-bay, and the people who want 1 or 2 of a given kit would be unable to
get them. Your own suspicious mind that is incredibly warry of
corruption doesn't see this?
> Any abusing behaviour (like
> purchasing promos to sell them on eBay) can be easily discovered and
> punished. This system would be much better for all.
How is it going to be easily discovered and punished?
> A distributor could continue the current practice WITHOUT separating
> the Kits by date. A GOOD distributor would take the advantage of the
> information or at least allow the customers to specify the needed
> package period when they order. Absolutely no problems here.
A "GOOD" distributor? In the US there is, give or take, two or three
distributors. Whether they are GOOD or not is irrelevant. We have what
we have. You order a support kit, they grab one out of the box, and send
it to you. They aren't going to check the date any more than they are
going to check the contents.
> I don't think that random promo packaging is "good enough". Getting
> the unneeded promos is a waste of promos and money. You can issue
> them, sure, but they would fail to fulfil their primary role: attract
> people to the tournaments. Thus, how can you say that such a waste is
> "good enough"?
Promos don't attract many people to tournaments. Tournaments attract
most people to tournaments. Promos are just a nice extra. Most of the
time, the given promo system works fine.
> Oh yes, you order a kit, you get something cool. But most of the time
> promo cards are cornercase cards, and most people need only one copy
> of each promo (if the promo is unplayable, it's at least collectible).
> Getting the promos that you've already issued and unwanted to anybody
> is definitely NOT "cool".
People like free stuff.
> Really? Quite a good reason not to do anything at all - "this would be
> too much trouble"! Designing promos is much larger trouble than this,
> printing and packing promos is also much more trouble, so is there any
> sense of avoiding the final part of the work, that isn't really that
> troublesome? Especially considering the fact that issuing the unwanted
> promos NULLIFIES all the work.
Again, the issue is whether or not that changing the system makes it
untennable to continue. There is a reason that WW does this the way that
they do it. And probably another reason that they don't do it the way
you want them to. And it likely has nothing at all to do with not
wanting to make the player base happy. And likely has everything to do
with efficiency of distribution, workload, and difficulty to abuse.
> Surely I will. Now I know that Victor isn't so impossible to get as he
> was before, and I can trade for him, get him from eBay, etc.
> But I want to use him the way he was intended: as a promo at our
> Nationals. If I we order the Kit right now and don't get Victors,
> we'll have no time to order the second Kit prior to the tournament.
Again. You are running a big prestigious National tournament. Have you
contacted Oscar and asked if you can get some Victors? Ever?
> Now, for God's sake, can you answer me WHY should I have a chance to
> miss the possibility to use the card the way it was intended to? If I
> get Kishas instead of Victors, my players wouldn't consider it a
> "promo" at all - they already have too much. And how can you pretend
> that such system is working "just fine"?
'Cause it does work just fine. If your players are fickle enough to not
show up to the tournament simply because you are bribing them the the
flavor of the month promo, not much can be done.
XZealot
I'll take $12 randoms every time, as "what you really need" is
entirely arbitrary or involves inventorying multiple Prize Support
packs for the purpose of providing a selection to choose from. That's
more money tied up in inventory that generates ZERO revenue for the
company.
The health of the company is more important than a 1% segment of the
market.
Ector
>
> I'll take $12 randoms every time, as "what you really need" is
> entirely arbitrary or involves inventorying multiple Prize Support
> packs for the purpose of providing a selection to choose from. That's
> more money tied up in inventory that generates ZERO revenue for the
> company.
promos to $13 promos that you could select yourself - it's a pity for
your players. I guess that you don't issue promos regularly enough to
feel the "pleasure" of issuing the third Crematorium. Any Prince/
organizer who regularly issues promos is going to pay $1 more for the
possibility to choose. Thus, the company loses nothing, and everyone
wins. Except for you, probably, if you REALLY happy with the random
promos. As long as you obviously don't fully understand the idea of
"promos" (what they were intended to do), I think that it wouldn't
matter much even for you.
Yours,
Ector
Ector
> *Much* faster? You realize that Victor costs 5 and Anastazdi costs 8,
> right? Those both take about 2 turns of influence, ignoring special
> accelerators. Victor comes out a bit faster. Sometimes. Most of the
> time, he takes 2 turns to get out. Just like most other princes. And
> some Justicars.
And even if I won't get them, I can still influence out Victor and a 3-
cap vampire in two turns, which is crucial for some decks based on
Victor (weenie vote, for instance).
> > This is crucial, especially for a fast-acting
> > decks. Besides, why do you think that 7 pool Prince is "expensive"?
>
> 'Cause he doesn't have any special abilities and his disciplines are sub
> par for a 7 cost vampire.
Looks like you don't know that NO deck uses ALL disciplines and
abilities of its vampires :) Did you ever used Timothy Crowley's
Animalism? Rake's Auspex?
Marcellus is a 8-cap Prince with just 5 points of Disciplines, and,
futhermore, his Protean is often neglected. Well, he has +1 bleed, but
he's 8-cap, not 7-cap! And look, he's quite good in Toreador With
Guns. The same could be said about Victor. His disciplines are enough
to make him popular. He even has Celerity to play Forced March instead
of Freak Drive and save blood.
Yours,
Ector
Ector
> This isn't helping you when you order the kit from the distributor--the
> distributors are unlikely to check the date for you. Any more than they
> are likely to check the contents for you.
things.
> What would happen is that some dubious retailer would catch wind of a
> popular promo coming out, order a whole bunch of them, sell them off on
> e-bay, and the people who want 1 or 2 of a given kit would be unable to
> get them. Your own suspicious mind that is incredibly warry of
> corruption doesn't see this?
I've already answered this. That dubious retailer would be quickly
determined, and WW could just stop selling the Kits to him.
Besides, a "dubious" retailer could do the same even now, since the
combined cost of almost all promos on eBay are much more than the cost
of the Kit.
> > Any abusing behaviour (like
> > purchasing promos to sell them on eBay) can be easily discovered and
> > punished. This system would be much better for all.
>
> How is it going to be easily discovered and punished?
Simply enough. Promo Kits were designed only for the Princes/
Tournament organizers. So, a distributor should report which Princes
bought his Kits, and how many.
> A "GOOD" distributor? In the US there is, give or take, two or three
> distributors. Whether they are GOOD or not is irrelevant. We have what
> we have. You order a support kit, they grab one out of the box, and send
> it to you. They aren't going to check the date any more than they are
> going to check the contents.
I don't think that they are so dumb to fail to check the date. If they
are, nobody would buy from them.
> Promos don't attract many people to tournaments. Tournaments attract
> most people to tournaments. Promos are just a nice extra. Most of the
> time, the given promo system works fine.
Promo is a gift from the company. It helps making a tournament like a
holiday. Promos show people that WW is alive, that it cares about
them, and that it rewards them for attending the tournaments. If you
don't understand this, you must feel that promos are unnecessary at
all. But this is far from true.
Following the same line, bad/unwanted promo is a bad/unwanted gift.
While the good/wanted gift demonstrates that WW is kind and caring
like Santa Klaus, bad and unwanted gift clearly demonstrates that WW
doesn't care about the players (especially if such promos are issued
second or third time). Yes, it's nice to have another piece of
beautiful paper. Nobody needs it, so everybody asks "Why these again?"
And I have nothing to answer.
Can there be ANY doubt that the "random promos" idea is awful?
> People like free stuff.
People are NOT magpies to ike ANY free stuff. Would you like a free
beer bottle (empty)? I wouldn't. Are you happy to find a lot of free
ads in your mailbox? Some of them are very beautiful! :)
Besides, promos are not just "stuff" - they are GIFTS from the
company. And intelligent people NEVER gift random things. I'm sure
that your wife wouldn't be happy if you present her exactly the same
hair-driyer as you've gifted her last time. Why should the players be
happy, then?
> Again, the issue is whether or not that changing the system makes it
> untennable to continue. There is a reason that WW does this the way that
> they do it. And probably another reason that they don't do it the way
> you want them to. And it likely has nothing at all to do with not
> wanting to make the player base happy. And likely has everything to do
> with efficiency of distribution, workload, and difficulty to abuse.
So, I'm trying to demonstrate some reasons to change the current
behaviour. And, IMHO, the reasons are good enough.
> Again. You are running a big prestigious National tournament. Have you
> contacted Oscar and asked if you can get some Victors? Ever?
We will do it in a few days. But now we're talking about the whole
"random promo" system.
> If your players are fickle enough to not
> show up to the tournament simply because you are bribing them the the
> flavor of the month promo, not much can be done.
>
I may be expecting too much from WW, but I'm trying to demonstrate to
my players that the company is alive, that it's strong and proud, and
so on. Promo cards are very good for this, if they are wanted.
Everybody loves gifts - if they are gifts, not a mockery like the
third Crematorium. I'm not "bribing" my players with the promos - I'm
enhancing their feel of holiday with a gifts from the company. This is
how the whole promo system was intended to work.
Obviously, the random system often causes this system to fail. I still
can present the "old gifts", but they are ineffective! They don't
inspire people anymore! I shouldn't even call them "promos", since
they fail to perform the primary task of promos. Can't you see this?
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Pardon, but looking at the date and OPENING the package are different
> things.
Yes, they are. But they are both things that we have no idea of whether
or not the distributors are willing to do. Here is the thing--you keep
insisting that X, Y, and Z would be simple to do and should happen,
'cause it is easy. Again, have you ever run a game distribution
buisness? I suspect not. So you don't actually know what is or is not
easy to do. Again, there is probably a reason that this system exists in
the way that it does, and you saying "but it would be easy to check the
date!" doesn't mean that it actually would be.
> I've already answered this. That dubious retailer would be quickly
> determined, and WW could just stop selling the Kits to him.
How are you missing this very, very important point--White Wolf does not
sell tournament support kits to people or companies. Distributors do. WW
sends support kits to *distributors* who then, as middle men, sell them
to stores, from whom players order them. Distributors are huge companies
that have tons and tons of stuff and sell this stuff to stores all over
the country/world. If I want a support kit, I go to my local retailer,
ask him to order me a kit, he makes an order to his distributor who
sends him a kit. The distributor is *not* White Wolf. It is a
non-interested third party. That has no interest in making sure that the
players get the most current promos as they have no idea what the promos
are. They also have no interest in stopping unscrupulous dealers, as
they have no idea who is being unscrupulous. All the distributor knows
is how many support packs are in the box of support packs and how many
need to get sent somewhere when they are ordered. That is all they know.
> Simply enough. Promo Kits were designed only for the Princes/
> Tournament organizers. So, a distributor should report which Princes
> bought his Kits, and how many.
Distributors don't do this. Again, distributors are huge warehouse
companies. In the US there are, like, 2 big ones (Alliance and someone
else?). A distributor is, if you will, a giant warehouse. With a million
different game products in it from a thousand different companies. And a
guy (well, lots of guys, really) with a computer. That guy gets an order
from a retailer. He walks into the giant warehouse. He picks up the
stuff that is ordered, puts it in a box, and sends it to the retailer.
The distributor *does not care* who orders what, and is unlikely to be
willing to do things like check to see who is actually a prince
(especially as the prince who orders things is not involved in the
information that the distributor gets--just the retailer who has the
account with the distributor) or what the date on the pack is. The
distributor just wants to move its stock.
> I don't think that they are so dumb to fail to check the date. If they
> are, nobody would buy from them.
You clearly do not understand what a game distributor is.
> People are NOT magpies to ike ANY free stuff. Would you like a free
> beer bottle (empty)? I wouldn't. Are you happy to find a lot of free
> ads in your mailbox? Some of them are very beautiful! :)
> Besides, promos are not just "stuff" - they are GIFTS from the
> company. And intelligent people NEVER gift random things. I'm sure
> that your wife wouldn't be happy if you present her exactly the same
> hair-driyer as you've gifted her last time. Why should the players be
> happy, then?
'Cause the motivation is different. I go to a tournament to play a
tournament. If I get free stuff, that is an extra bonus. I don't go to a
tournament, however, to get free stuff.
> So, I'm trying to demonstrate some reasons to change the current
> behaviour. And, IMHO, the reasons are good enough.
Yet as you fail to understand the system involved, and how it is
probably unlikely to be able to fix this issue the way you want it to,
this demonstration is unlikely to have an impact.
It is possible that this system could be changed and more convinient for
players, yes. But such a change would probably be much less convinient
for the company.
> Obviously, the random system often causes this system to fail. I still
> can present the "old gifts", but they are ineffective! They don't
> inspire people anymore! I shouldn't even call them "promos", since
> they fail to perform the primary task of promos. Can't you see this?
I do. But I also seem to have a better understanding of the realities of
distribution than you do. Yes. The system is not perfect. But it works
reasonably well. In most cases. And it could probably work better, yes.
But as the hurdles for making work better than it does are probably
significant disincentive to fixing them, the company keeps the system it
has. As it works good enough. Most of the time.
James Coupe
Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes:
>In article <1180855573....@q66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>> I don't think that they are so dumb to fail to check the date. If they
>> are, nobody would buy from them.
>
>You clearly do not understand what a game distributor is.
In particular, it might be worth re-reading many complaints about
*really crappy* distributors that have been had on the newsgroup.
Particular areas for complaint have been... eastern Europe.
Making the life of distributors harder is likely to lead to them
screwing up more.
Morgan Vening
wrote:
>In message <pdb6-21E94F.1...@news-server.stny.rr.com>, Peter D
>Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes:
>>In article <1180855573....@q66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
>> Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>>> I don't think that they are so dumb to fail to check the date. If they
>>> are, nobody would buy from them.
>>
>>You clearly do not understand what a game distributor is.
>
>In particular, it might be worth re-reading many complaints about
>*really crappy* distributors that have been had on the newsgroup.
>Particular areas for complaint have been... eastern Europe.
>
>Making the life of distributors harder is likely to lead to them
>screwing up more.
Also, there seems to be a recurrent belief that if it was dated, or
marked in some way, that it'd be better for the player base. That
might be true. But it wouldn't necessarily, for the distributor.
Let's say, for example, over the course of two releases, White Wolf
release a relatively decent promo (say, Victor Pelletier), and a
relatively crappy one (say, Port Authority) in two seperate promo
packs.
The player base as a whole, fundamentally reject the crappy promo,
either going for a single pack, or none at all. The distributor sells
out of the good one, and then is left with a box of unsellables. The
distributor is NOT going to want to do that. So it's in their best
interests, to do it business as usual.
I'm sure most players with a local game store have seen the
phenomenon. Owner gets in X boxes of Preconstructed starters. Opens up
say 3 or 4 displays. Players, knowing the contents, purchase all the
good quality starters, and leave the remainder. The owner isn't going
to be anxious to open further displays and extend this. So what's his
solution (assume he's not game-specific savvy enough to comparative
price, or isn't restricted in doing so by local law*)?
But as to the issue at point, it seems to be a case of "ME NOW! ME
NOW!". And that attitude is incomprehensible to me. I want Victor
Pelletier. But until I acquire him, I have plenty of other deck ideas
I want to try (Twice-Damned Stopwatch, Cailean's Carnival). It took me
more than ten years to get Dan Murdock and Mariana Gilbert at a decent
price, I can wait a couple months for Victor.
* I remember back in the heyday of CCG's, hearing of some
councils/municipalities that came down on stores selling an item above
RRP as profiteering (or some similar legislation). It's been ten years
since, but who knows.
Morgan Vening
Shade
> "What you really need" depends on YOU.
Dude I'm thinking you need to look a bit more at the positives here.
You have what sounds like a large player base, you get good turn outs
to tournaments, and you have a place to buy cards. That sounds pretty
good to me. OK so you can't get the promos you want. I've been back
in New Zealand for six months and have played no tournaments - because
there are none to go to (1) - so haven't got any promos for ages. But
that's OK because I can make like a hundred decks that don't need any
of the promos. Heck there is not even a retailer in Wellington (a
city of about 350,000 people I think) that sells VtES cards. But
that's OK too. Well actually that sucks a bit but I can't do too much
about it :-)
People here have kindly offered to help you out getting a few of the
promos you want, I suggest you take them up on their offers rather
than fighting a battle you're not going to win...
Simon
(1) Technically there have been three "tournaments" in Auckland but
they play a five card limit (or a 1CL in one of them!) which means
they're not VEKN tournaments, and you know, 5CL is crap.
James Coupe
<mor...@optusnet.com.au> writes:
>I'm sure most players with a local game store have seen the
>phenomenon. Owner gets in X boxes of Preconstructed starters. Opens up
>say 3 or 4 displays. Players, knowing the contents, purchase all the
>good quality starters, and leave the remainder. The owner isn't going
>to be anxious to open further displays and extend this. So what's his
>solution (assume he's not game-specific savvy enough to comparative
>price, or isn't restricted in doing so by local law*)?
That reminds me of a conversation I had with a FLGS owner a few years
ago. For reference, the shop had stocked almost every CCG known to man
at some point, and had a good relationship with its main distributors
generally, and would put in effort for people to track down particular
items (tracking a want list that could be checked whenever second hand
items were resold, finding things from odd distributors if possible,
etc.) So, it was a shop that was happy to put in effort when it could.
I can't remember whether it was all sets that White Wolf were selling
individual starters for, or whether it started a little later on. So,
in theory, distributors could get just certain starters, because they
had product codes etc. The FLGS owner pointed out that, in his
experience, the distributors would just ignore that, sell boxes of
starters and move on. The margin on gaming items was low enough without
adding extra complications, and crappy stock control problems (for the
distributor). Of course, that shifts a number of such problems onto the
FLGS, but that's a) not really a concern for the distributor and b)
there are few enough distributors in most areas and most FLGS owners
don't put in much effort to find other distributors that they can
exploit the situation somewhat.
Ector
> Again, there is probably a reason that this system exists in
> the way that it does, and you saying "but it would be easy to check the
> date!" doesn't mean that it actually would be.
it, too. All I can do is demonstrating how serious is the problem. And
it's really serious. It would be great if WW would find an acceptable
solution, and it would raise the prestige of the company.
> The distributor *does not care* who orders what, and is unlikely to be
> willing to do things like check to see who is actually a prince
> (especially as the prince who orders things is not involved in the
> information that the distributor gets--just the retailer who has the
> account with the distributor) or what the date on the pack is. The
> distributor just wants to move its stock.
Nevertheless, the distributor HAS the records about all purchases in
his computer, so he can relatively easily send this data to WW.
Besides, do you want to say that ANYONE can purchase Tournament Kits
now, because distributors don't care? I don't think so.
> 'Cause the motivation is different. I go to a tournament to play a
> tournament. If I get free stuff, that is an extra bonus. I don't go to a
> tournament, however, to get free stuff.
Who does? I go to the tournament and get a useful promo - so I'm
happy. I get a useless promo that I didn't have before - well, it's a
nice gift from the company and a cute picture. I get a third
Crematorium... WTF?
> It is possible that this system could be changed and more convinient for
> players, yes. But such a change would probably be much less convinient
> for the company.
All I'm trying to do here is attempting to make them THINK whether it
could be changed or not, and how it could be changed with minimal
losses. It would be MUCH better if this would be changed. I definitely
don't know much about the card-printing business, but the promo system
is currently working with serious faults, and it would be great if
they manage to fix it.
Yours,
Ector
Ector
>
> Let's say, for example, over the course of two releases, White Wolf
> release a relatively decent promo (say, Victor Pelletier), and a
> relatively crappy one (say, Port Authority) in two seperate promo
> packs.
>
> The player base as a whole, fundamentally reject the crappy promo,
> either going for a single pack, or none at all. The distributor sells
> out of the good one, and then is left with a box of unsellables. The
> distributor is NOT going to want to do that. So it's in their best
> interests, to do it business as usual.
"ultra-rare" cards that cannot be found in boosters. Each fair Prince/
organizer that uses promos as a gifts to his players (not to sell them
on eBay) would want to buy ALL promos. I mean, he will need Port
Authority, too, since it at least collectible. We had a lot of Port
Authorities, and nobody complained, at least the first time.
Besides, the current promo distribution is "one good promo + 3
cornercase promos" in a pack. Good promos are Angelo, Genina, Kisha...
now Victor. Almost each package is wanted.
> Owner gets in X boxes of Preconstructed starters. Opens up
> say 3 or 4 displays. Players, knowing the contents, purchase all the
> good quality starters, and leave the remainder. The owner isn't going
> to be anxious to open further displays and extend this. So what's his
> solution (assume he's not game-specific savvy enough to comparative
> price, or isn't restricted in doing so by local law*)?
Any seller with minimal brains can solve this "riddle". I've never
seen the laws prohibiting raising the price for the most wanted
starters. The catalog price for 3rd Edition Tzimisce starter is
$10.00, War Ghoul costs $12 at TheLasombra, and much more on eBay.
Thus, the "right" retail price for the starter is at least $13-$14,
and people would buy it.
Alternatively, most sellers offer the whole display or "half-
display" (4 different starters). This isn't the same as random promo
packs, since there is nothing random.
> But as to the issue at point, it seems to be a case of "ME NOW! ME
> NOW!". And that attitude is incomprehensible to me. I want Victor
> Pelletier. But until I acquire him, I have plenty of other deck ideas
> I want to try (Twice-Damned Stopwatch, Cailean's Carnival). It took me
> more than ten years to get Dan Murdock and Mariana Gilbert at a decent
> price, I can wait a couple months for Victor.
I don't know how could you get such impression, especially after my
words that now I'm completely sure that I will get him for myself. And
I can also wait a few months... especially after waiting for almost a
year :)
But I serioiusly cannot understand why the promos are random. And it
really hurts the whole promo idea.
Yours,
Ector
Ector
> You have what sounds like a large player base, you get good turn outs
> to tournaments, and you have a place to buy cards. That sounds pretty
> good to me.
> Heck there is not even a retailer in Wellington (a
> city of about 350,000 people I think) that sells VtES cards. But
> that's OK too. Well actually that sucks a bit but I can't do too much
> about it :-)
Guess how we've done it in a country with average monthly salary about
$200? And English isn't the native language?
We are FANATICS. And we are constantly working on spreading the game.
I could even say "struggling"... did you ever hear about a player that
missed a draft just because he couldn't afford it? It happens very
often here. I personally recruited at least ten players - some left
the game, alas, but the new ones are replacing them.
Minsk is a city of about 1,800,000 people, and there weren't any VTES
retailers here for two years. Moreover, we cannot rely on our banks,
most of us don't have credit cards, and there are other problems you
cannot even imagine. That's why our people appreciate the gifts from
WW much more than anywhere else: the promos demonstrate that the
company cares about them.
If you think that you can't do much, you're wrong. You can create a
VTES playgroup if you will work hard enough.
>
> OK so you can't get the promos you want. I've been back
> in New Zealand for six months and have played no tournaments - because
> there are none to go to (1) - so haven't got any promos for ages. But
> that's OK because I can make like a hundred decks that don't need any
> of the promos.
I can make a thousands of deck without promos, too. So what? Why
should I refuse to build the good decks WITH promos? Why should I miss
the opportunity to give the promos to my players?
>I suggest you take them up on their offers rather
> than fighting a battle you're not going to win...
You're obviously overestimated my aggressiveness :) When I notice
something that isn't working good enough, I'm trying to fix it. Or at
least I'm calling the people who can fix it, if I cannot fix it
myself. The random promo packaging is a bad idea.
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
> Surely. But I don't know the reason, and I suspect that you don't know
> it, too.
I do know the history of this system, which indicates that in the
past, WW operated in house, had all sorts of troubles getting things
to people, and then switched to the current system as it made
everything easier for them, and the system has worked just fine for a
while now. Yeah, the slight flaw is that there is sometimes a time lag
in distribution of newer promos. But other than that, they like the
system, which indicates that they are using it for a reason.
> All I can do is demonstrating how serious is the problem. And
> it's really serious. It would be great if WW would find an acceptable
> solution, and it would raise the prestige of the company.
It really isn't that serious of a problem. Again, your situation is
the exception, not the rule. Most folks have little trouble ordering
and getting ahold of the stuff they want.
> Nevertheless, the distributor HAS the records about all purchases in
> his computer, so he can relatively easily send this data to WW.
Again, you say "relatively easy" as if you have an idea of how these
things work. Why is the distributor going to want to do this? It is an
added pain in the ass that they don't necessarily want to have
anything to do with. That, and they only have information that a given
retailer ordered X kits. What does this tell anyone?
> Besides, do you want to say that ANYONE can purchase Tournament Kits
> now, because distributors don't care? I don't think so.
Bascially, yes. The gateway for buying these things is on the
retailer's front (i.e. the retailer has information that product X is
only to be sold to Y people). So the retailer is responsible for
determining who can or cannot order these things. But once the
retailer determines you can buy something, they just order from the
distributor. Again, the *distributor* does not care who orders what.
At all.
> Who does? I go to the tournament and get a useful promo - so I'm
> happy. I get a useless promo that I didn't have before - well, it's a
> nice gift from the company and a cute picture. I get a third
> Crematorium... WTF?
At a certain point, I'll be like "Man. Another Victor Peltier. Crap."
too...
> All I'm trying to do here is attempting to make them THINK whether it
> could be changed or not, and how it could be changed with minimal
> losses.
You don't *know* if it could be changed with minimal losses. You
clearly don't have a full understanding of the system of distribution,
so how can you even begin to understand what would be involved in
*changing* the system you don't understand in the first place?
-Peter
XZealot
Yes, but from White Wolf's point of view, why would they ever set up
such a system?
I've already explained to you why they wouldn't.
Peter D Bakija
> But I serioiusly cannot understand why the promos are random. And it
> really hurts the whole promo idea.
Sigh. The aren't specifically random. The company releases support
kits. They are filled with the current set of promos. They are sent to
the distributor. People on the front end (i.e. Princes and tournament
organizers) go to local retailers and order support kits. The retailer
then sends an order to the distributor for X support kits. The guy at
the distributor walks into the warehouse, grabs X support kits out of
the box, packages them and sends them to the retailer. The retailer
hands them to the person who ordered them.
Where the randomosity enters the equation is at the distributor. If
the distributor had, say, 20 old support kits, and then got 40 new
support kits, they then have a box with 60 support kits in it. Someone
orders a couple support kits, they reach into the box, pull a couple
out, and send them away, and they may or may not be the new ones. On
the other hand, if the distributor has 2 old support kits when it gets
40 new ones, most folks will get new ones. It has to do with turnover
of stock. Not intentional randomosity. Which is the cost of an
efficient distribution system.
-Peter
Kevin Walsh
> I didn't remember the Prince's Conclave SoC Prerelease announcement
> saying anything about Victor Pelletiers. I did recall it saying there
> would be Gran Medre de Dio, Italys in it. I just went back and checked.
> I was right. The announce says the kit contains 15 GMdD,I and 15 Kestrelle
> Hayes.
>
It would have been false advertising if it did say it contained Victor
Pelletier.The SoC Prerelease kit I got didn't have it.
Kevin Walsh, Prince of Dublin
James Coupe
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes:
>On Jun 2, 10:26 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote:
>> > This is crucial, especially for a fast-acting
>> > decks. Besides, why do you think that 7 pool Prince is "expensive"?
>>
>> 'Cause he doesn't have any special abilities and his disciplines are sub
>> par for a 7 cost vampire.
>Looks like you don't know that NO deck uses ALL disciplines and
>abilities of its vampires :)
This is factually wrong.
- many weenie decks use ALL disciplines and abilities of their vampires
(which are, by and large, one or two disciplines and almost no
special abilities)
- a number of "star vampire" decks are expressly kitted out to use every
single thing on the star, and the weenies are disposable chaff
there for support (with some overlapping discipline, usually)
- a number of interesting decks can be made using very vanilla vampires,
who just have the disciplines you want. Low to mid-cap in-clan
decks, for example, can do this reasonably well.
However, there are several other points to bear in mind.
- One of the key features of the vampire design process is minimum
capacities. (This is codified in a very rigid way in Create-a-
Clan, and is clearly more flexible for real vampires.) Spend 7
on a vampire and you can get *better* disciplines, not just
more. Look at, for example, Sir Walter Nash. Three superiors.
That's very solid for many, many decks.
- For politics, big can be good. As can weenie. Falling between two
stools doesn't necessarily work that well for an "uber-efficient
vote deck". You want pool gain and you want vote gain. Awe,
Voter Cap, Minion Tap can all work wonders here. But not so
great with a 5 cap. Ditto, Fifth Tradition.
- For a stealth-less Ventrue deck, big can be good - Seduction being
great here. Ditto, combat defence - Obedience is good.
> Did you ever used Timothy Crowley's
>Animalism?
I've seen it done. And tried it myself once, actually.
>Rake's Auspex?
Fun in Toreador decks, yes. Especially when compared to some of the
truly awful Group 1 Toreador, relative to modern standards.
Auspex is also one of those disciplines people sometimes try to graft
onto decks. Dominate is the obvious one, for bounce, but you'll
sometimes see Auspex, for Revelations and friends.
>Marcellus is a 8-cap Prince with just 5 points of Disciplines, and,
>futhermore, his Protean is often neglected. Well, he has +1 bleed, but
>he's 8-cap, not 7-cap!
WotC designed some over-costed vampires. What point are you trying to
prove with that?
See also Nakova, Tatiana Romanov, Quinton McDonnell, etc.
>And look, he's quite good in Toreador With
>Guns. The same could be said about Victor. His disciplines are enough
>to make him popular. He even has Celerity to play Forced March instead
>of Freak Drive and save blood.
And yet still not *needed*.
Fun for some decks? Absolutely. A potentially good vampire for a
variety of decks? Sure. Are there dozens upon dozens of good decks you
can play without him? Undoubtedly.
Ector
> > All I can do is demonstrating how serious is the problem. And
> > it's really serious. It would be great if WW would find an acceptable
> > solution, and it would raise the prestige of the company.
>
> It really isn't that serious of a problem. Again, your situation is
> the exception, not the rule. Most folks have little trouble ordering
> and getting ahold of the stuff they want.
the Kits rarely enough, you will almost never get the same promos. Try
to order a bit more often, and you will get tons of them. IMHO, this
isn't good enough.
> > Besides, do you want to say that ANYONE can purchase Tournament Kits
> > now, because distributors don't care? I don't think so.
>
> Bascially, yes. The gateway for buying these things is on the
> retailer's front (i.e. the retailer has information that product X is
> only to be sold to Y people). So the retailer is responsible for
> determining who can or cannot order these things. But once the
> retailer determines you can buy something, they just order from the
> distributor. Again, the *distributor* does not care who orders what.
> At all.
So, this is the retailer's work. He should report who buys the Kits,
and he can order the specified kits from the distributor.
And please don't think that distinguishing Kits with different date,
code or other marking is more difficult than distinguishing other
stuff. All traders are trained to do this. Most role-playing products
and miniatures are so numerous that they use the company code to avoid
mistakes. This can easily be done with promo Kits, too.
> > Who does? I go to the tournament and get a useful promo - so I'm
> > happy. I get a useless promo that I didn't have before - well, it's a
> > nice gift from the company and a cute picture. I get a third
> > Crematorium... WTF?
>
> At a certain point, I'll be like "Man. Another Victor Peltier. Crap."
> too...
Definitely! Absolutely! That's what the random promo system leads to.
One Prince would swim in the promo A, but have no promo B, other
Prince may have the reverse situation. Should they trade? It would be
great if they could, but sometimes the distance is too large.
> You don't *know* if it could be changed with minimal losses. You
> clearly don't have a full understanding of the system of distribution,
> so how can you even begin to understand what would be involved in
> *changing* the system you don't understand in the first place?
I don't even pretend that I know could it be changed with minimal
losses or not. But it would be wonderful if it could be. And it's
their interest, too, not just mine.
Yours,
Ector
Peter D Bakija
> And please don't think that distinguishing Kits with different date,
> code or other marking is more difficult than distinguishing other
> stuff.
It isn't. But if you mark the kits differently, that is one more bit
of information that needs to be taken into account, one more thing to
go wrong (have you ever tried to order a specific starter deck from a
distrubtor, as opposed to just a box of starters? It doesen't work as
often as it does--you go to the store, order an Akunanse starter, they
order one from the distributor, and a week later an Osebo starter
shows up...), and one more hurdle for the system of distribution of
stuff that is basically at cost for everyone in the chain. And then
you also get a distributor who gets stuck with a bunch of old kits
that folks aren't ordering anymore, so they don't get any new ones.
And the system falls apart anyway.
As it is, most of the time, it works fine. Folks order support kits
every few months, and they get more or less new ones every time. The
system is simple, doesn't not require any extra effort on anyone's
part, and gets the promos into circulation well enough.
>This can easily be done with promo Kits, too.
Again, you say "easily" as if you run a game distribution company.
> Definitely! Absolutely! That's what the random promo system leads to.
No, that is what a system of a limited number of promos leads to. I
got a Victor Peltier at all of the last 3 tournaments I went to. Along
with a bunch of older ones. 'Cause there aren't that many promos out
there. And going to 3 tournaments in a few months results in getting
the same promos.
> I don't even pretend that I know could it be changed with minimal
> losses or not.
And yet you keep claiming it would be easy to do.
> But it would be wonderful if it could be. And it's
> their interest, too, not just mine.
It might be good if it could change. But again, the system they have
works well enough. And the benefits to the system they have
(efficiency of distribution) probably vastly outweigns the negatives
(once and a while, someone doesn't get the new promos as soon as they
wanted).
-Peter