Beyond the Wall, Season 2 Episode 31

Sorry Noj but you are just behind the times! Our meta here in Australia died about 6 months ago unfortunately... even Store Champs and Regionals couldn't pull us through with our dedicated but small and fragile group.

The prize support, organized play, stale meta, etc have absolutely nothing to do with it. It is the fact they have promoted an announced a new game to replace the existing one since November LAST YEAR and we still don't have product. Yes, Gencon people have there sets, but that is a small proportion of the community... there is not a single 2.0 box in Australia yet that I am aware of. The other things don't matter when we can't even play the game yet to begin with!

I have come to the conclusion that our meta is basically going to have to be re-built from the ground up, new game with new players. I know a few that will transition over from 1.0 but it has been months since a game of that has been played.

The biggest thing FFG can do now to help us out is to just get us some stock on the shelves!

Adding links to the demo decks throughout the day:

Stark vs Lanni.

NW vs Tyrell

A pretty sad episode, all things considered. Very displeased to hear that the great Ottawa meta is falling on hard times! Hopefully when the actual product is widely available, many folks will drift back in.

I have to agree that the "momentum" gap is real. Here in NYC we are getting a relatively steady steam of new players. Some are competitively interested (largely from the other LCGs and, strangely, L5R) and others are more causally interested. These players are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and it is quite refreshing. At the same time we may have reached the limits of our proxy decks and few 3x cores (since newer players cannot build and refine their own decks, they are forced to relay on what the more experienced players build and bring). The lack of a fresh influx of product and chapter packs has also discouraged many of our long time players (much longer time than I) from coming on a regular basis. This has created a weirdly growing but stale meta.

Besides actually releasing the 2.0 product, there are a few things FFG could do to shake things up. First and foremost would be releasing a FAQ for 1.0, which would encourage those still playing that game and/or going Worlds (i.e. me) to actually play the game on a regular basis. I'm not overly interested in playing with the GenCon FAQ, since the Worlds meta will be quite different.

Second, FFG could announce and (speedily?) release a Winter tourney kit for 2.0, this would allow metas to begin to organize launch tournaments for October/November, when game is actually in stores. In my experience having tournaments to look forward to (even if they are smaller and a few months away) will excite competitive players and get them coming out to play nights more often.

On a final note: please, Darknoj don't leave us for Magic! 

FFG don't value organised play very highly.

I've worked very closely with WOTC and seen their organised play first hand.  It's an enormous infrastructure investment and logistical challenge - I wouldn't be surprised if Magic's organised play department is bigger than the whole of FFG!

FFG can't compete on organised play and don't want to.  WOTC is virtually a single product company and so they put every piece of energy behind driving that product forward with laser intensity.  FFG are spread wide and spread thin, and we've seen in Netrunner that when a game achieves a critical mass of momentum they've no interest in expanding their program to cater for that wider playerbase.
 

It's the nature of the beast and you really have to understand this when you make a commitment and investment to play an FFG game, otherwise you'll only get frustrated when they fail to care as much as you do.

WOTC is virtually a single product company and so they put every piece of energy behind driving that product forward with laser intensity.  

This here is the king of argument I wish I'd made, and feel like an idiot for not thinking of! I think this is the real nail in the coffin; FFG advertising *at best* (the X-Wing stuff) only advertises about 30% of their product line.

This here is the king of argument I wish I'd made, and feel like an idiot for not thinking of! I think this is the real nail in the coffin; FFG advertising *at best* (the X-Wing stuff) only advertises about 30% of their product line.

30% is a huge overestimation... they support brands for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Warhammer, Cthulhu, Netrunner, frequently with multiple games spun off each brand (X-Wing, Armada, Imperial Assault, Star Wars LCG, the RPGs) and then over 60 other standalone board games.

I doubt any single piece of FFG marketing covers 5% of their product line, let along 30%.

Organised Play for A Game of Thrones is only a piece of a piece of a piece of their total business.

From what we had last seen of their "Product Mix" pie charts (which, admittedly, weren't clear if they were based on money, units moved, profit, etc), in 2014 YTD at Gencon, LCGs were about 14%, Minis (which at the time was basically just X-wing) was 32%.

Obviously they've launched Armada and Imperial Assault since then, and didn't have similar pie-charts in 2015, but the 30% "maximum" is pretty much the upper boundary I can realistically place.

Fair enough, I was thinking more about unique product lines rather than weighted by importance.
 

Anyway, we're on the same page I think in having to recognise that any one product like AGOT is relatively small fry to a company as diverse as FFG.  It's not realistic to benchmark them against something like Magic.  Doesn't mean they couldn't have done better, but it means you have to understand why they didn't care so much about getting it right.

This was my biggest concern when 2.0 was announced. I spoke with several FFG employees at worlds last year expressing this issue with them, and about the possibility of a pre-order system through FFG directly so they would have a "better" estimate on the demand for 2.0 release. I am not sure if the issue was meeting demand or just shipping/printing issues, either way the result looks to be the same. I am still very eager for 2.0 to hit the shelves but I have to admit my excitement has dwindled over the past month. I understand Gencon being the big release date for all the new products, but is it actually released then if it doesn't hit shelves until Sept/Oct? It seems much more like a pre-release to me, which would be fine if it were advertised as such. I just hope to have this game in hand soon.

I'm an ANR and Wh40k Conquest player and have preordered 2.0 (UK based). FFG have done the same with these games to. New deluxe (Tyranids and Data & Destiny) we're available in limited numbers at gencon but they won't be in shops for ages. It's frustrating and unfair.

I agree and i am one of the "lucky ones" who have the core set before everyone else since i was a gencon but by the time the finally release it here i am going to sick of it and waiting on 3 or 4 chapture packs to change things up.

I've been playing with printed off proxies since Gencon and nowhere near bored of it yet.  I'm waiting for the release because I think we'll go from 3 or 4 local players to 20+, and I look forward to teaching as many to play as I can.

 and pack their bags with us.

It sounds so innocuous.

The wait for the core set is intolerable. Podcasts like this one help bridge the gap.

I wouldn't want to see big tournament prizes for AGOT. Playing a tournament in a relaxed environment with friendly players and a beer or two is preferable to a super competitive environment with gamesmanship and aggressive rules lawyering.

I have been busy lately and just got to listen to this episode today. A huge thanks to Jon and Alex for the super kind words. You guys are awesome. It really means a lot. I do this just to spread the love of this game to others and it's nice to be recognized by fellow content creators. Keep up the great work.

One a side note, requested by Alex and others, we will be live streaming some Melee tomorrow (Thursday night). Come on over and join in the fun and interact with us. Here is the link: 

Geeze Jon I'm in your meta and I'm going to Worlds! 

For some reason Bulgaria Meta is standing still. What we did is that half of us made proxy cards and we test with those and we always have 2-3 people playing 2.0, rest (like me that don't like 2.0) practice Melee and some test Joust for upcoming tournaments (Greece Nationals, Stachlek). Our meetups still stand at the normal 5-6 old players and few new for 2.0. This week we were 8 people. We all played 1.0 still.

Complaining about delays; frustration about the lack of support; frustration about FFG Organized Play. I always knew Darknoj was, at heart, a Star Wars LCG player.