Ok, my turn ("Boo!!" "No!!" "Go away!")

Well, I've been looking at this new game, SWTCG, though not looking TOO closely. So forgive me if I'm not entirely accurate, but I just thought I'd tell you guys what I thought about it, because I know you guys all care so much what I think

Good stuff:
-I have to admit I do dig this idea of the dice...it'll be something different. Plus there are some interesting possibilities.
-Stacking. I dig that idea as well.
-Foils of every card! Cool
-Starters INCLUDE foils...pretty sweet.

Things I am indifferent to:
-The card art. At first I didn't like it much, now I don't really care much.

Bad stuff:
-Not much gametext. I'm hoping this will change in later sets, but I'm not holding my breath.
-5 card packs. I don't really like this idea, but then again I'm not a poor kid

Now, let's just see how the tournament structure is. I'm not familiar with the Magic tournament scene, but I'm assuming it'll be similar to that. Does anyone know what the Magic tourney structure is like compared to Decipher's? Do you get a rating, are there championships, opens, etc?

 

I know for a fact that magic does have a great tournament system. almost every comic/card shop in my area holds magic tournies at least once a week (sometimes 2 or 3 times a week or more)...there are nationals which wizards sponsors, and they do have some really good stuff for their players. it will be interesting to see if the support for their new game will be the same as it is for magic...

 

"Things I am indifferent to:
-The card art. At first I didn't like it much, now I don't really care much. "

Well considering only one real card has been seen its kind of hard to judge the art. Every CCG has some crappy looking cards and some good looking cards.

"Bad stuff:
-Not much gametext. I'm hoping this will change in later sets, but I'm not holding my breath. "

Again how can you really judge this without seeing any spoilers?

"-5 card packs. I don't really like this idea, but then again I'm not a poor kid "

Well if thats what floats little kids boats I say whatever. I won't buy them and neither will most other older gamers.

"Now, let's just see how the tournament structure is. I'm not familiar with the Magic tournament scene, but I'm assuming it'll be similar to that. Does anyone know what the Magic tourney structure is like compared to Decipher's? Do you get a rating, are there championships, opens, etc? "

Well according to most I have talked to Wizards has the best tournament structure and support there is for Magic. I would imagine if the SWTCG is successful it will get the same treatment.

 

"Well considering only one real card has been seen its kind of hard to judge the art. Every CCG has some crappy looking cards and some good looking cards."

Um...there have been a couple different cards released, and with card layouts you really only need to see one card to get it...I just think that the card layout is well organized but kind of cheesy looking.

"Bad stuff:
-Not much gametext. I'm hoping this will change in later sets, but I'm not holding my breath. "

"Again how can you really judge this without seeing any spoilers?"

Again, there have been a couple cards released, not to mention I asked the designer, what's his name...Robert Garfield or whatever, and he said that most cards have about the same amount of gametext as the Anakin does, which is about a line or two.

 

About the game text: I think having brief game text could be good in some cases, but I don't want every card to only have one short thing it can do. When brevity refers to teh amount of text used to express a gameplay capability, then I'm all for making it as short and simple as possible. But I don't like the idea of keeping the number of things a card can do down. Now sure, there are some cards that can only do one, briefly described thing, and they can be pretty powerful stuff. For example, Strength of Spirit in LotR has pretty simple text, but it's one of the most versatile cards there is. But on the other hand, short simple text can often translate into perhaps powerful but very vanilla gameplay functions (like an interrupt that says "Draw 2 cards."; powerful and brief, but the very essence of blandness). Also, brief-but-powerful text usually works best on a card like an interrupt that one gets to do one thing before it leaves play anyway. A card like a character that stays in play for in indefinite period of time should have a couple cool tricks up their sleeve. A case in point is the newly released Virtual Black 2, even moreso before the ability to pull a starship weapon was removed.