>The collectible aspect is only relevant if you choose to collect or play >agaisnt collectors. If you play a CCG as a game with other people who >play it as a game -- with unopened starters, for example -- there is no >functional difference from a boardgame and if the CCG is good it will be >fun.
Ahh, I see. To obtain the balance of a good boardgame, all you must do is buy new, unopened starters everytime you play the game. Wonderful. What a great marketing concept, and WOTC should be applauded now.
David desJardins (d...@ccr-p.ida.org) wrote: > If it's really true that giving an advantage to the player with more > cards (and more valuable ones) over the player with fewer cards is not a > fundamental _goal_ of CCG designers, then it certainly should be > possible to construct CCG-like games in which that's not true.
I didn't explain myself very well. The above sounds like I am complaining about more powerful cards being more expensive and more powerful. As Dave Howell points out, there certainly are CCGs which do a good job of countering that, in that having more expensive or more powerful cards does not necessarily help you win.
But that isn't what I meant. Many people have stated advantages of CCGs which appeal to me as well. For example, they are portable, games can be played quickly, they provide lots of variety but the rules can be easily understood because they are printed on the cards, and so on. However there are also features of CCGs that I don't like, namely that they give an advantage to one player over another based on the set of cards that that player has. Whether they got those cards by buying them, or trading for them, or however.
I don't want to do those things, because I don't enjoy them. Pure sealed-deck tournaments, with no trading, solve this problem, but they don't have the other advantages of CCGs. You can't play them on the spur of the moment or one-on-one with your friends. You can't play them particularly quickly and they aren't very social because most of the game is in deck construction which is a solitary activity.
That's why I asked the question: if the features of CCGs that I would enjoy are separate from the features of CCGs that I don't enjoy, why is it that there aren't games which have the former but not the latter? I gave several examples of how such games could be constructed. I have theories of my own as to why those games don't exist, but I was hoping to hear other points of view on that question.
Dave Howell <sn...@wizards.com> writes: > What happens? Player B wins. There is a VERY STRONG correlation between # > of cards owned and skill. Player B has a lot of cards because they're > really really into Magic. Because they're so excited about the game, they > play a lot. And learn.
I never questioned any of this. I certainly think that the players who win the games are those who are skilled and knowledgeable about them. If that weren't true, then the games wouldn't appeal to me at all. The very fact that that is true is why I am interested in the idea of games which have those same features without the features that I don't like.
> As somebody else pointed out, the '94 World Champion won with a total > investment of one deck, and shrewd trading.
I don't enjoy trading. I especially don't enjoy "shrewd trading." I don't want to play games which involve trading.
> Considering that Moxes were first considered junk cards, and it was > literally months before people realized their value, I think Wizards > and Richard did an incredibly good job of countering $=winning, and > the introduction of new tournaments has been to fix the few cards that > turned out to be problems.
I agree with this too. However one still has to collect and trade cards in order to participate in this (except for sealed deck which has other problems). The question is are there---can there be---games which have the other desirable features of CCGs without this, for players who don't want to do it?
The appeal of sealed-deck tournaments suggests the possibility of a market for games which have the sealed-deck flavor of not requiring trading, but which can be easily played one-on-one between arbitrary players outside of a tournament context.
David desJardins -- Copyright 1995 David desJardins. Unlimited permission is granted to quote from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.
Cedric Chin <inv...@leland.stanford.edu> wrote: >There **is** a way to control how balanced matches are. MtG is promoting >"Type II" tournaments which only allow "in print" cards to be played. This >lessen the $$$ == WIN situation.
This good idea, however, has the side effect of allowing only the players who continue to spend money to play.
I have bought none of the MtG cards for the last few expansions, and so cannot play in a type II tourny. But I don't own the money cards, so would be at a disadvantage in a type I tourny.
-- Alec Habig, Indiana University High Energy Astrophysics aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu http://www.astro.indiana.edu/home/ahabig/ Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns.
cr...@randomc.com (P. Craig) writes: >In article <4aa6u3$...@saga.cs.cornell.edu>, k...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: >> It has always been MNSHO that it is the responsibility of the >> _game designer_ to prevent the game from being abused, not >> that of the _players_. A designer who makes a game that is >> subject to abuse has not done a good job. >Unfortunately, it is not in the best economic interests for game designers >to do that. See, if they can make CCG's where Mr. Suitcase wins, then >people will go and buy more cards, so they can win (collectibility and >artwork aside).
I think that only worked while the target market was unsophisticated. Nowadays people check out new games for the "great rare" problem, and if it has it, tends to steer away. (At present, that's most games - perhaps the reason for the decline in CCG sales :-)
>A real life example? Jyhad. The rares in Jyhad, in my opinion and the >group I play with, are not that much better than the uncommons. You can >build a very competitive deck with very little investment--there were >several people who purchased ~$30 decks and were at little disadvantage. >I think that's one reason why Jyhad didn't move as well as hoped, and some >of the investor types ended up with boxes and boxes they couldn't get rid >of. I think it is a much better game than Magic, myself. But if people >only need to buy $30 worth of cards to build a competitive deck, rather >than $300, then the game designer loses money. And consequently, they >will avoid making CCG's like that.
I have a different interpretation. As CCGs go, Jyhad has been very successful (lots of sales, its own newsgroup). But it's a fairly complex game, and works better with multiple players, so it's only going to reach a subset of the CCG market.
The problem Jyhad has is that the CCG market just isn't large enough to absorb its original print run of 180 million or so cards. Everyone was blinded by the tremendous, and anomolous, success of M:tG.
In article <invest-1212951337080...@course-mac.stanford.edu> inv...@leland.stanford.edu (Cedric Chin) writes:
><g> If I meet up with a group of seasoned CCG'ers who are really into MtG and >insist on using all the cards, they've probably passed that "must win" phase >of MtG, and will throw me a few decks to play against them so they can enjoy >themselves!
It is generally agreed that deck construction is a large part of strategy in any CCG. If I'm playing a game, I'd like to play a game in which I pit my strategy against my opponent's strategy. From this point of view, playing with a borrowed deck is somewhat meaningless - it's not /my/ deck-building strategy that is being pitted against my opponent's.
To `experience' fully a CCG, you have to build your own deck. To do that without spending big $$$, you'll have to find someone who would lend you their entire /collection/ and let you build a deck from it, not just lend you a deck. Now that is not easy. People don't carry their entire collections around.
A CCG artificially limits a player's strategy options by the cards he owns. From the mathematical gaming point of view, this is a perversion. Whether this drawback is bigger or smaller than the advantage that CCGs have interesting strategy varieties which stems for the deck-building concept is irrelevent - because IMO this advantage can be fully maintained while that drawback can be completely abolished. All it takes is ONE rule change (and a card list).
Look at a typical CCG strategy discussion post. "How to counter card X?" "Use card Y." Many players discuss CCGs with the assumption that the cards are readily availiable. But in practice, the cards are readily availiable only if you SPEND ($$$). Even if you trade, you usually have to spend money on more than a starter and a booster to get trading stock for the optimal deck that you want (one that you would build by looking at the card list).
Yea, let it be known that in <49vv6v$...@protocol.protocol.com>, the scribe chr...@yogi.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Chris Kessel) printed thus:
>>[CCG/Board Games vs. Miniatures/Board Games] >Well, miniatures are a bit different. The armies are fielded by point values, >not by the number of miniatures. >For a CCG vs. miniatures analysis you'd have to assign points to each CCG card >and then each player has XX number of points to spend on their cards. The problem >with CCG's is that you get whatever you can field which isn't a level playing >field. With miniatures the field is leveled by limiting (by a point system) what >you can field.
Well, in Magic there exists an experimental point system (see the mox.perl.com site for info). Thus, you don't have to go by the type I/ type II classifications *only*, even if it's more useful if you don't play in tournaments but with friends instead; using the restricted list for type I, for instance. (Not the banned one, almost no-one plays for ante, and the other ones are cool to play with in a friendly game.)
Just my $.03 (inflation and whatnot). cd -- cd skogsberg...@alfakonsult.se/Disclaimer: Wo bu hui jiang zhongwen. "Death to all humans!" -Battlecry of the Republic
> >The "spoiler" cards which you mention are akin to "broken rules". So if ASL > >went through rewrites and updates, the analogy would be either
> If it did go through a rewrite you would have a point.
> >a) purchase only those MtG cards and ASL that are currently available or > >b) purchase ALL versions of ASL rules, even those that are out of print, > > and playing only with those that are to your advantage.
> >And playing at "the highest levels", meaning "playing to absolutely, positiv > >win" (as in a typical high-profile tournament) is the exception, rather than > >the rule.
> I would suggest doing your homework. The ASL Rulebook that was originally rel > in 1985 is -still- the standard. There are no out of print versions of ASL ru > There was some minor errata released, but this was obtained free with a coupon > was included with the rules.
> There are no 'rare' chapters, there are no rules that are unavailable to any p > of the game.
In MtG's Type II rules, unavailable cards are banned. If you **really** need access to all the cards (heck, I do!), your alternative to owning all of them is to play with someone who'll let you borrow his cards.
> BTW: Be careful out there M:TG 'investors', the bottom's dropping out quick! > offer .10/lb. for 'em now, but that may go down by tomorrow...
Good! Then more people can play! Be careful out there boardgame 'players'!!!
> >"Need" is the key word. With most of the "expandable" boardgames, you don't > >"need" to buy the expansion. Then when you bring the game to a group of > >seasoned players who are used to playing with the expansion, they tell you > >to play the game better, you "need" to buy the expansion sets.
> Cedric,
> Have you ever played ASL? Are you speaking from experience?
> And yes, I've played M:TG.
Replace "ASL" with "CE" (and avoid Lucre and Moons)!
> > Granted. Similarly if I plonk down the bucks for a new boardgame (a > >thing I am wont to do from time to time) I can only play it if I can find > >somebody else who's interested in playing. The main difference is that if I > >can't find somebody else with a starter to play my new CCG purchase against, > >I'm out about ten bucks; if I can't find an opponent for my new board game > >I'm out more like 50 or 60 (Canadian).
> Ahh, but you can usually play a board wargame solitaire; try doing that with > cards.
In article <4a9s2e$...@merlin.delphi.com>, "dann...@beta.delphi.com"
<dann...@beta.delphi.com> wrote: > >You're comparing **all** of your CCG purchases to **one** boardgame. > >Now, if you added "Talisman, SFB, Supremacy, and AD&D" to ASL...
> Okay, compare the average M:TG purchases from one player to the average > purchases of one player of Victory In The Pacific. How about Pit, another > card game? Third Reich?
> This is really a silly argument. A game is worth what people are willing to > pay for it. If they're willing to spend hundreds on a card game, kudos to > the manufacturer of that card game.
Agreed.
> Of course, to those who've payed top dollar for > 'valuable' rares, that were falsely 'collectable', in a market that's > dropping...
May they burn in hell as CCG's become more available for smaller wallets.
On Fri, 8 Dec 1995, Cedric Chin wrote: > > Cosmic Encounter..........$35 > > ASL rules.................$45 > > Beyond Valor..............$40 > > Titan.....................$30 > > History of the World......$35
> Well, there's about five playing sessions, and 25 hours of play.
Well you clearly don't know what you are talking about. I have played more than 25 hours of Cosmic Encounter and History of the World and I don't particularly like those games. As for Titan, I play over 50 games of it per year. That's over 250 hours per year, well over 1000 hours in my lifetime. I have purchased 2 Titan sets for about $50 total, one of the sets was worn out by constant use.
- Ben
--------------------------------------------------------------------- "Cold hearted orb that rules the night, Removes the colours from our sight. Red is grey and yellow white, But we decide which one is right. And which is an illusion???." from Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues 1967
> >> And for the price of two boxes of a CCG (about the amount you'd need to buy > >>to be sure to get close to a full set of whatever cards there are), you could > >>easily buy the following:
> >> Cosmic Encounter..........$35 > >> ASL rules.................$45 > >> Beyond Valor..............$40 > >> Titan.....................$30 > >> History of the World......$35
> >Well, there's about five playing sessions, and 25 hours of play.
> Huh? Your point being?
Probably the tip of my head. Knew I should've said that...
> I can't begin to count the playing sessions/hours I've gotten out of any _one_ > of the above games.
...it depends on your playing environment how much play/cost you receive. If you have a regular ASL or CE group, great! If you're a boardgamer who can play any boardgame the local club has, better!
> If you're looking for a quick game, or one you could play several times in a > session, then CCG's certainly have the upper hand here, although I've seen > both Cosmic Encounter and HotW played several times in an evening by "normal" > people. It's common for ASL players to play "best 2 out of 3" on a given > scenario, often switching sides. At an ASL tourny, players play many games in > a day.
Yup. Whatever you enjoy. Me, I don't have any intention of entering a MtG tourney.
>Actually, I think the problem here is that the `collectibility' of >CCG cards arises largely from the strategies they enable in the >game. `Moxen' are expensive not merely because they are `a >collectible (in usual terms) game component' (like an out-of-print >baordgame), but because they enable a superior strategy in the game >by their possession. That's why if WotC re-releases the Moxen >as a common, the value would -plummet-: the alpha card is as much an >alpha card and has as much significance on the development history >of the game as before, but its function of allowing the superior >strategy finds a substitution. I hold this (co-relating $$$ possession >of game components to an advantage in the game through extra availiable >strategies) to be a perversion.
Exactly, I agree. That's why those who buy these with the expectation that they will be extremely valuable in the future may as well hit the track and put it all on a 'Old Paint' (16-1) in the third. <g>
If their buying them for the play, so be it. Then, while playing Johnny Wannabe when Johnny's Mom shows up to yank him away from the 'Magic' table, Johnny, in his anger, knocks that Coca-Cola all over that nice Moxen now worth about $.50
<dann...@beta.delphi.com> wrote: > >In my opinion, aside from winning is also the whole 'collector' > >mentality. Why do people collect baseball cards? Stamps? Rocks? > >Comics? Is that a "perversion"? Many would call it a hobby. Some an an > >investment. Really? With the enormous numbers of baseball cards being > >churned out today, you'd be making better money by buying a savings bond. > >If viewed as investments, they will take decades to become worth anything, > >if that is the motivation. Maybe collecting things isn't totally > >rational--the aforementioned hobbies can be quite expensive--but it's > >something people do. I dabbled in Magic only briefly, and am a longtime > >wargamer. After seeing the Magic players at the local gaming club with > >their cards mounted in albums, and spending quite a bit of time wheeling > >and dealing, I'm reminded of any collector's convention.
> This is a valid point. However, I think there is a difference in that stamps, > rocks, and most comics were not created to be collectable. People who collect > things, as well as board games, paintings, antiques, dolls, even oil cans, are > collecting things that were -usually- were created with a specific purpose in > -other- than to 'be collectable'. Notice I said 'most' here - there are alwa > exceptions.
> Even with baseball cards, do they limit production on specific cards within t > to make them 'more collectable' than others within that set? I'm asking; I > really know on this one. If they do, then they fall under what I call false > collectability.
We're now going off on a tangent of collectability (nothing wrong with that), but I'll agree with your statement of "false collectability", except that CCG's are nowhere in the minority.
The comic book industry of the 1950's was of true collectability, but anyone who collects comics knows that it's now false collectability. From ads on said false collectibles (: I know that baseball cards have this false collectability, too. To a rather lame extent, many items targetted towards the very non-hobby audience are cited as "collectables" (aka. Franklin Mint).
> If I make some 1/2-cent cards, and run through a room saying "I only made th > this one", and people buy it; good for me. I just think it's shaky ground to > in, IMHO. The original cards that were developed, the Alphas, Betas, etc? I > they are probably rightfully collectable, since they were a step in the deve > of the game and were obviously limited. But even then, they were labeled > 'collectable'.
I'm not sure which "collectability" point you're commenting on, here. Is it that CCG's are dumb "investments"? Or that CCG's are "false collectables"? (BTW, I agree with you on both points.)
> Here's an example:
> What happens to the value of the 'Moxen' if WOTC decides to re-release the c > one of their many 'expansions'? It's going to -plummet-.
> Now, look at that scenario if applied to a Babe Ruth baseball card. 'New one > released? Nothing substantial happens to the value of the original.
The same > be applied to the Mona Lisa, a 1950's gullwing Mercedes, or an original 'Ba
> doll.
Apples and oranges. The value of a CCG card is based on its "rarity" and its "playability". Said collectables are based solely on its "rarity".
I'd bet that a 1950's gullwing Mercedes would be **much** more available if the only car that was produced today were Yugo's...
aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) wrote: > Cedric Chin <inv...@leland.stanford.edu> wrote: > >aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) wrote: > >> Another big difference - the attitude of the gamers to their collections in > >> two games. I'm putting a lot of time and skill into painting up some > >> figures, and am proud of my work (as well as their usefulness in a game). A > >> CCG gamer is proud of his trading skill, or how much money he dropped on a > >> card (as well as how useful it is). So both games contain a "collection" > >> aspect, but the motivations are quite different.
> >If you ignore the art on the card, sure.
> Certainly collecting the cards for the art value is a point I missed. Howeve > do you create the artwork for your cards?
Nope. Don't pose for them baseball photos, neither.
: If it's really true that giving an advantage to the player with more : cards (and more valuable ones) over the player with fewer cards is not a : fundamental _goal_ of CCG designers, then it certainly should be : possible to construct CCG-like games in which that's not true.
: I'd be ecstatic to be proved wrong by someone publishing (or pointing me : to!) CCG-like games of the types that I said I would like to play.
You'll never be proven wrong, but it's not because it can't be done.
Player A: "I play B, and he always whups me, and he has a zillion cards. More cards help you win."
Player B: "Fine. Here's an unopened deck for you, and one for me. Let's take 20 minutes to tune these, and play."
What happens? Player B wins. There is a VERY STRONG correlation between # of cards owned and skill. Player B has a lot of cards because they're really really into Magic. Because they're so excited about the game, they play a lot. And learn.
As somebody else pointed out, the '94 World Champion won with a total investment of one deck, and shrewd trading. Wizards has a special test deck that can be counted on to just trounce even "tournament" player decks full of Moxes and expensive cards. It's an all-common deck.
Considering that Moxes were first considered junk cards, and it was literally months before people realized their value, I think Wizards and Richard did an incredibly good job of countering $=winning, and the introduction of new tournaments has been to fix the few cards that turned out to be problems.
: Well, there's one bad sign about the fate of board games and RPGs: Wizards has : discontinued everything except their card games, including the excellent board : game RoboRally. I know, this is only one company, but how many others might
>> >> Cosmic Encounter..........$35 >> >> ASL rules.................$45 >> >> Beyond Valor..............$40 >> >> Titan.....................$30 >> >> History of the World......$35
>> Have you -played- any of the above games to make such an assumption?
>Hell, yes. I own Mayfair CE ($35), Mayfair's More CE ($35), and a complete >copy of the Eon CE and expansion sets (way more than $35). I've downloaded >all the CE powers and hexes from the WU archive site. I've even gone through >the CE archives and **edited** all of the powers, and added them to my >collection of 200+ others. I've written tracts of land about why the Mayfair >system sucks.
Okay, so you have 1 out of 5 that you're passing judgement on. And you've spent all this time and money on the CE system when you think it sucks?
>> Well, I don't mind that a game component is a collectable item, >> but if that gets tied in with availiable strategies for winning a game, >> then something gets ugly. If a game component is collectible by virtue >> of its artistic qualities or its rare availiability, it's okay as >> long as its possession is not connected with an advantage in the >> game. Unfortunately, it _is_ connected, in the case of every CCG >> I've seen.
>Then don't play against people who **insist** upon using their unfair >advantage!!!
That's just plain silly. It's funny that it requires CCGs for people to invent the philosophy that one's opponent should deliberately limit their latitude of choice in strategies in order to be a courteous gamer. The point of playing a game is to experience the challenge of selecting the best strategy. If that selection is easy, the game designers haven't done their job. In board games, that situation manifests itself in terms of repetiveness: every game is played like all the others; many sections of the rulebook never come into play because they address non-optimal stratgies and so forth. In CCGs, it works out a little differently. The rarer cards used by the optimal strategies become prohibitively expensive and the poorer players (or those not willing to invest the money into the game) wind up having a difficult time obtaining them - but they would still use them if they could.
So all of a sudden it's discorteous to use the optimal strategy because you need to use expensive cards to implement it? I don't think so. The root of the problem is the same: bad game design. Whether that happened by accident and/or inadequate play-testing or the game company is deliberately spiking their rare sheets to improve pack sales isn't clear to me. And it probably depends on the company.
> > > > 2. CCGs are crowding out other games in retail outlets, gaming > > > > conventions, and casual play.
> > > CCG's also provide the CASH FLOW that generates enough $$$ to allow > > > (unperverted) game store owners to put their favorite RPG and boardgame on > > > shelf.
> > I don't like scotch. I don't have to like it just because my local bar > > also sells it!
> > If only CCGs made money then nothing else would sell which has never been > > the case.
> Whatever. All I know is that MtG sells better than boardgames...
> > What CCGs has done to my local games club is to destroy 20 years worth of > > friendship and pleasure. These games have split regular gaming partners > > because one doesn't wish to spend regular amounts of money just to play one > > game. Also the games have encouraged new members who game for the wrong > > reasons. They are only interested in winning cards, selling rare cards at > > inflated prices and even stealing cards!
> > You might say this is about human nature and not about card games. I would > > say that a game devised to exploit human nature is the culprit.
> The monsters have landed on Maple street.
> (I dunno -- is it THAT hard for you to start a boardgaming club???)
> Cedric.
Why don't the CCG players form their own club?
Why should I need to? The club is going strong, only the atmosphere has changed.
At last years AGM there was serious discussion of throwing CCG players out! I must say that I spoke against this. My objection isn't against the games itself but the behaviour they encourage.
As an original member I can say that for over 20 years the club has been very harmonious. There have been regular playings of all sorts of games from miniatures through various RPGs, SFB, board games and Bridge. Nothing has caused anything like the ill feeling as CCGs have done.
I stand by my comment about games that are designed to exploit human nature are the real culprit. IMO the conflict is between those willing to be exploited and those who refuse.
In article <30CD2AF7.6...@fas.harvard.edu> Drew Fudenberg <fudenb...@fas.harvard.edu> writes: >Alan Kwan wrote:
>> I hold this (co-relating $$$ possession >> of game components to an advantage in the game through extra availiable >> strategies) to be a perversion. > --Alan, while I agree with some of what you've said in this thread, I >still seem to enjoy CCG's depsite the drawbacks you've emphasized. What >puzzles me is that the frequency of your posts on L5R in r.g.t.-c.m >suggests that you've bee n spendinga fair bit of time thinking about it- >can we infer from this that you enjoy it despite it being a CCG?
Well, I do enjoy CCG's for their variety of strategies which arises from the deck-building concept. I analyse CCGs with the assumption that players have an unlimited supply of cards - an assumption which violates the "CCG Principle", as I call it, and thus is not true in practice. I /like/ the deckbuilding concept and /hate/ the CCG Principle.
I do play L5R; I have cards I traded from a starter + a booster. I do critize harshly about the $$$ problems in L5R, such as Heart of the Inferno being a rare card. It's also hard to trade in L5R because cards of the same varity level differ greatly in power.
The deck-building concept is IMO the strength of CCGs, but one does not have to maintain the "CCG Principle" in order to maintain this good point (for example, free use of proxys /in the rules/). Also, the rarity class concept drive me nuts. I can't put an Inferno or a second Samurai Cavalry in my deck unless I shell out $$$. Making cards like Heavy Cavalry uncommon seems like a baltant $$$-sucking scheme to me.
