www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

Preview article up. Figured they would be starting soon with the December release date. 13 cards previewed in the article just need to click the links in the article for individual pictures.

Yay! Let the excitement resume!

Alot of good points are made in the article and it makes me like the objective deck buidling a little more then before

 The best part of this article is: 

Star Wars: The Card Game™ is coming. 

I can't wait anymore… How much time before the launch… 1 month or 2.  For sure, we'll have this game before Christmas and that's a terrific news.

May the force be with you

I was very excited when this popped up in my RSS feeds today. It's great that we're getting close enough to release for these previews, can't wait to see more. Got thirteen new card previews and everything! Keep 'em coming, FFG, and get this game out as soon as you can. Hopefully this article will assuage some concerns others have been having over deckbuilding in this game.

One question: where did the term "pod" come from? It's what I've been using to describe what FFG calls in this article "objective sets," and I've seen others using the word "pod" as well. Until this article, it was what I assumed was the official terminology for them. Was FFG calling them "pods" at GenCon, or is it a term borrowed from another game? I'll probably continue calling them pods; it's far less cumbersome than "objective sets."

So, basically they're saying "we know you are wary of the idea of not having complete control of your deck, but these are the ONLY logical ways that the cards could possibly ever go together anyway, so yeah…OBJECTIVE SETS!!"

alpha5099 said:

I think Corey called them pods in the GenCon demo video. It does feel nicer than "objective sets" though, yeah!

I am very pleased to see this new preview - it somehow makes it more real that this game really will be coming out! I also feel that the original decision to scrap the co-op game has less to do with popular opinion and more to do with the actual design, as surely the huge backlash that has been going on about this deckbuilding thing would have caused another U-turn before release. 

Looking forward to seeing what Eric has to say about this in the upcoming previews, too - he comes across as one of the most intelligent game designers out there.

herozeromes said:

I've been a fan of the deck-building aspect of this game since it was announced at GenCon, but I have to agree with you, Herozeromes -- that is exactly the impression I got from this article too.

As for the name, I never liked "pods." Sure, "objective sets" is longer, but you could shorten it to "sets" and still be fine. I'm glad "pods" is out the window.

Budgernaut said:

Team Pod for life! You'll never take it away from me!

alpha5099 said:

That made me smile. 

Meaxe said:

It comes out in December, you can see the release month on the Upcoming page.

alpha5099 said:

I like that better than Pod People. 

Yub yub.

herozeromes said:

To be honest this isnt at all the way it came across to me. It seems more like they're saying "Yes, we could make yet another card game where you choose every card and make every decision based on one cards usefulness against one other cards usefulness, but we've chosen something new. We want to give you fewer but more significant choices where you have to weigh six cards as a block against six other cards asa block, which is a whole new challenge".

I really liked this preview, I'm actually very interested in seeing how the deck design turns out :) 

 I think the part that gave me the impression it did was when it said:

"Do I have enough resources for the more expensive set? Are there enough enhancements in my deck to make good use of the Battlefield Engineers? If I draw Trench Run, is there enough firepower in my deck to take advantage of it?"

When I first read it, it made me think, "Well, yeah. Why would you ever include Battlefield Engineers if you didn't have many enhancements in your deck? Why would you ever include Trench Run if your deck was focused more on focusing your enemies than dealing damage?"

But after rereading it, I am seeing more of what I saw before this article. Maybe my deck couldn't use those two cards, but maybe the bonuses granted by the objectives are exactly what I need.

If, for example, I was running a focus-deck, it might be nice to have Rebel Assault in the deck to increase my otherwise weak damage-dealing capability. If I had a deck with few enhancements, it may still make sense to take Mission Briefing for the card draw and Mon Mothma for her ability to give +1 edge. Then if I get Battlefield Engineers in my hand, I can use it for 3 edge instead of two, making good synergy out of an otherwise dead card.

So there is a lot more going on than the narrow scope the article revealed.

Budgernaut said:

It's only the first article. Plenty more to come and the rulebook in likely a month.

It was allso good to start with something that is unique to this game: the new way of building your gaming deck. Can we now start to speculate how many objective sets are needed to really make diverse deck types?