Lit Fantasy Flight Games and the Star Wars TCG

Man, that art looks gorgeous. I wish they weren't all about the randomized thing, so you have to buy tons of them to get special cards, which are probably the kinds of cards I want (A-Wings, Wedge, any EU characters or ships, etc). And I never got the hang of the rules. Is this going to be at all like the CCG?

 

Well, Clone Wars has the major lock on the Prequel era, and Del Rey is doing it's best to ruin the post NJO era. the OT and early years to either side are pretty free right now. Plus, it is easy to start with the classic trilogy and expand from there.

 

I imagine it's also part of the build up to the OT 3D.

When the comic was announced, it felt surprising early, but with the new news that ROTS 3D is coming out right after AOTC 3D, that must mean ANH 3D is only a year away so they're clearly doing a deluge of OT products in time for 2013.

 

It'd be absurd for them to even consider doing anything else. They don't really have a choice in the matter, if they want this to go well. I expect everything they do for the foreseeable future will follow suit.

 

Yeah, WOTC getting the RPG license and then focusing initially on TPM... that was a bad decision.

 

Fantasy Flight Games uses a Living Card Game format which isn't randomized, so the sets contain the same fixed cards. Does away with that particular frustration.

 

In fairness, their first books came out in 2000, plus think about how thoroughly the OT had already been mined by WEG.

 

You say mined, I say expanded. I really wish they had managed to get the Rogue Squadron sourcebook and AJs 16-18 out.

 

Well said, Wes. They expanded it in a BIG way. As for a Rogue Squadron sourcebook, I wish they had managed to do this as well. Hell, a guide to Rogue Squadron was put out now, it could take up a whole book the size of the EGTW or more, especially if there was bios for all major Rogues, articles on the starfighters they flew, parts of the people they worked with, battle/campaign details, etc. From the formation of the Rogues to the squadron's latest version in 138 ABY and beyond!

--Adm. Nick

 

Oh, absolutely. *points to sig*

What I meant was, look at it from Wizards' POV: that era had already been covered for 10+ years by a competing company's product, so why reinvent the wheel right off the bat when you have the opportunity to offer completely unique material that's never been seen before?

Same reason everything right now ties in to either The Clone Wars or the 3D releases: you naturally want to hitch your wagon to whatever's currently in the spotlight.

 

Thank the Force that LFL, at least back in the day, was concerned about having all the pieces connect together. I love Tim Zahn's forward from the Trawn Trilogy Sourcebook, when he tells the story about how shortly after starting Heir to the Empire that LFL mailed him a box of WEG sourcebooks and told him to draw from and incorporate into his work.

Ah, the good ole' days!

--Adm. Nick

 

That said, I've seen people claiming that WEG was the single worst thing to happen to the EU- simply because it "was minimalist".

 

I am not sure where they get that from. WEG never really focused on hard numbers for fleets. The one time they did, in the Imperial Sourcebook, the Empire ended up with hundreds of thousands of warships even on the low end. WEG expanded the universe and added new characters, places, starships, and weapons. We all live in the EU they helped create!

--Adm. Nick

 

Of which "only" 25,000 were Imperial Star Destroyers- that person seemed to prefer the notion of hundreds of thousands of ISDs.

 

The defense rests.

 

Indeed. Probably falls into the middle zone between "minimalist" and "maximalist" if judged more fairly.

 

BINGO! Hence my claim to be a "moderate" on these debates.

--Adm. Nick

 

Here would be an example of the sort of debate I've had.

All in all I'd say I'm comfortable with Guide to Warfare cementing the "moderate" position into canon.

 

Touché.

 

It was less about "minimalism", though - Saxtonites wanted Saxton's ideas to be the core of the EU, and WEG was already the default thanks to Zahn and Stackpole.

It's an excellent time to be an EU Star Wars fan, in my opinion.

 

It's certainly a fascinating time, what with TCW, the new Guides, and the Live-action (if it ever gets released).