I agree with Penfold on basically everything he said, my LFG never, NEVER, has any Thrones core sets in, even though they get a few in every month or two. They sell like hotcakes.

As I've said before, my meta consists mostly of people who own 1 core set, 1 deluxe and two or three packs. Thats a total investment of just under $100 (less of the people who split the core set) over the last 2 years. The thing is with the LCG, as with anything, if you don't want to buy it you don't have to. But for the people who want to be tournament standard they can buy what they see, rather than random booster boxes, and know their cards will not only be top teir but that they will be viable next year, and the year after, etc.

Were so hung up on talking about "casual" plyers or people just geting in but is it so diferent in magic or any other card game? You buy the starter, maybe a pack or two, play it a bunch. If you still like it, buy a few more packs. If you Still like it, go competative. What's the big difference again? That it feels overwhelming for new players to start? Personally I feel more overwhelmed by Magic when I played it than with Thrones, infact I think the LCG provides a simple continuity of packs, all with their internal logic, that is easy for new players to grasp. In Thrones if someone says "I like The Brotherhood" you tell them to buy the Brotherhood cycle. In Magic if someone says "Asian inspired art" you can tell them that Kamigawa is rotated out, but if theyre lucky they can get the older packs, and Hopefully get some rares in those or else fish on a singles store and then their cards will still not be valid 50% of the time. How is that better?

I guess what I'm saying is that by staying away from rotation and showing people what's in each pack LCGs manage to keep a strong sense of continuity and internal logic. In a game that rotates if your favourite cards just rotated out youre boned. Play the game with new themes that may not be to your liking or get out =/

Well yea MTG system is terrible. I think many agree with that but I guess MTG is good example because everybody knows it. I just don't think "only almost as costly to play in high level as MTG" is very good thing for any game. But this is a bit personal issue for me. I played a lot of tournament Magic from Ice Age to Invasion but haven't bought any packs since then and now I play different and more specialized  CCGs. I just hoped LCGs would avoid one of the biggest problem of CCGs which is the huge investment if you want to focus in tournament play.

But I still like LCG model because it offers easy way for casuals to get into games. You can just buy 1-2x core sets and some expansions and you are good to go. That is why Netrunner core should offer great experience out of the box also. But old school Netrunner worked very good just with starters so I think Netrunner might work good also with 1x each card. There just have to be instructions what kind of decks you can build out of Core set. I hope also they make a lot of cards in core set solid and playable so it offers more strategies. This was one problem in CoC core set. There were too many cards costing too much and some not so great cards. So deck building with just core set felt surprising shallow. But Core set should be introduction which also works as stand alone game. Rulebook should say that if you enjoy deck building aspect also you should start buying some expansions. I actually think Netrunner has chance to do this best of all LCGs this far if FFG has play tested the core set enough.

I'd like to add that when I started playing Call of Cthulhu, the known-content packs and online deck builders made it a very low-intimidation event.

I decided up front that I wanted to field a Dark Young themed deck with some Syndicate support (to keep the cost down), and I was able to go to cardgamedb.com and browse all the cards filtering for that subtype.  I examined the cards, looked at what packs they were in, and what potentially useful Syndicate cards I wanted were in those packs as well.  I tried to put them in a rough priority order, and decided on a reasonable budget.  Everything that fit in the budget was ordered from top priority down, and with the small number of leftover card slots I made due with some second-choice cards.

By following this process I was able to build the exact deck I wanted buying a fairly small number of packs.  Any new player can follow a similar process instead of feeling that he has to buy everything.  If he has an experienced player available to advise him, he can get an even more competitive deck out of it than I did - at that time I was only a beginner and my deck design judgement wasn't as good as today.

 ^ That right there is why the LCG model is so powerful. Any player with half a brain will be able to plan out their deck construction simply, and without much fuss. Most gamers would do the same, and those that just buy blindly would pobably have the same problem in any game, LCG or otherwise.

That said, I think the one thing that keeps the LCG back, profit wise, is the lack of a strong draft format. I know people home brew their own but nothing beats the word of the developer on something like this. Drafts are one of the best ways to make money off a card game And one of the most enjoyable ways to play for players of all skill levels, its a shame that the LCG can't provide that to a certain degree, but this is way off topic!

Has anyone taken into account the "spam-like" nature of Netrunner? Assuming they don't use the 3x card limit (which I'm REALLY hoping they don't, since it ruins some of the fun Archetypes like Rio and PM/PWS) then 3x/2x/1x would be fine…if they 3x the right cards. I'll gladly buy 3x core sets if every one has 3 (or more) Jack-n-Joes, Brokers, BSBs, or any other card that can be used across multitudes of decks. However, I would hate the all 3x model if I had a bunch of Corpse Call, Management Shake-Ups, PWS, etc. sitting around. I would also hate 1x if they don't limit the card counts because I can't buy 6x Core sets to make my Rio Deck or my Corp War/AMS deck. Get what I'm saying? It depends on the card restrictions…

Nothing is known yet for sure, but we do know that none of the other LCG's allow more than 3x copies of a card.  Also, I think a fair number of people would be unhappy if they were "forced" to buy multiple copies of each pack, which is how many of the casual players would see it - that the company was trying to squeeze more money out of them or else they wouldn't be competitive.

It's a problem easily solved though.  If there are some cards that you somehow need many of to enable an interesting deck type, you can always issue multiple slightly different cards (maybe different in name only and nothing else). Then you can keep the 3x rule and still allow 9x or 12x or whatever you want on a card-by-card basis.

Totally agree, I would be upset to by 3 Core to have the best cards *3 (curiously, most of the time the *1 cards are the strongest)

But FFg knows that if the games is good we will buy at least 2 (if we can wait for the further packs) or 3 if we can't

Hellfury said:

I feel exactly the same way, which is why I bought precisely one core set.  However, there is nothing in this argument against buying a first copy of the core set.  You can make do with what comes in the box, but then again, I don't do tournament play.  (Then again, are there LotR tournaments?  If you're playing at home, then you're just playing a coop with an additional handicap.  No big deal.)

Also, did you realize that they include 4x Gandalf in the LotR core?  I don't hear about people with one set chucking him out.  Instead, he gets used in multiple decks, which I feel is the correct response to this situation.

DerBarchen said:

For reference, Warhammer: Invasion has a draft variant.

swingjunkie said:

Surely with Android: Netrunner being different to the original game, this type of thinking may no longer be relevant? I'm not saying this version would be an entirely different beast, but if you new limits are in effect then surely the only recourse is to adapt to what is provided rather than attempting to retread the old paths.

Decks might no longer be strong for fielding, say, a disproportionate amount of Bodyweight Synthetic Blood or Corporate Wars, but they can still be strong within the given constraints, whatever they might be. 

I bought into Netrunner late and it had all but dissapearerd from the shelves in the UK. A starter set and half a dozen booster. I mainly played with my eldest boy in the summer before he started University. He left with Net runner and returned them home along with thousands of MTG cards and some accompanying books 7 years later (March 2012), for storage. He is excted as am I concrning its re release.

I am concerned with the LCG requirement of multiple core decks to be tournement effective. Maybe FFG should consider some Faction expansions to bring certain Fctions (Runner or Corporation) singly or in multiples up to the requirerd level.

LOTR LCG is one of my favourites however IMO the deck building aspect has almost superceded the theme and the latter is the most enjoyable part. Too muck deck building and it becomes some sort of abstract bridge game with extras. This could be addressed by restricting cards (heroes , allies, events etc ) to specific adventures e.g. Mirkwood ,Dwarrowdelf etc and I would like to see a time line. This as an expansion together with 2 x certain cards to bosts the core set would be welcomed by me and maybe others. Until this guide appears by FFG or A N other I am halting my collection at the Core, Mirkwood cycle , The Massing at Osgiliath nad Khazad-dûm . As more and more the forums turn to cross cycle deck building.

I really hope Netrunner works and retains its great playability. My son may have been corrupted by Richard Garfild's sequel MTG but I hope not.

It would be great if Netrunner was limited to say core set and only a few expansions it may not fit FFG's profit model but it would certainly prevent LCG's being seen as just a profit cyle and for OC collectors ( a habit I have broken)

 First off I am totally new to all of this LCG gaming and FFG as a company so please consider this before flaming me.  I bought tons of CCGs back in the day; trust me if it was printed I probably have it.  One of the things that concerns me is the lack of any company rep posting anything in the boards.  Most every game I have ever bought had the rules and card lists out way before the game was released.  This allowed people to learn the rules and even in some cases start to think about the decks they wanted to build before the cards were in your hand.  Netrunner was one of the few games I never bought and I have heard players state that this was an awesome game with wonderful mechanics and gameplay.  I am more than willing to put some cash down for this but I am worried about the lack of solid information on the game here on the website.  I mean as a case of point they have in the news section about the Gen Con Tournament.  It says to look for the info in the support section of the Android Netrunner site yet there is nothing there at all.

Please FFG get us some solid info (card list and rules) on the site.  Netrunner, from what I hear, is a solid game that people have been waiting to see again.  I do not think that giving the consumer more information will hurt sales of this in any way at all.  Like I have stated I have never bought any of your products and more info would be the tipping point for me to decide whether to give you my money.

Thanks for listening to me.

FFG has already stated that they will have the rulebook up before Gencon.  No specific date has been given, but it WILL be there.  Also, since this is a reprint it's fairly easy to pull up the original Netrunner rules if you want to get a general idea of how it will work.  There may be some minor changes, but I doubt the core rules will be any different.  As for the "look in the support section" - that post just went up a couple of days ago.  Give them some time.

FFG doesn't typically post much to the forums for any of its games.  What they typically DO do is put up periodic small articles, but they probably won't do many of these until after the game goes live.  In these they frequently show off new cards that will come out in future sets, but I haven't seen them do it for a game that isn't released yet.

While you will see the rules (or you can look at the original ones now), I highly doubt they will post a list of ALL cards.  They've never done that for any game they make.  They've shown some cards, and will likely preview a few more, but that's all you're going to get until launch.

dboeren:

FFG has already stated that they will have the rulebook up before Gencon. No specific date has been given, but it WILL be there. Also, since this is a reprint it's fairly easy to pull up the original Netrunner rules if you want to get a general idea of how it will work. There may be some minor changes, but I doubt the core rules will be any different. As for the "look in the support section" - that post just went up a couple of days ago. Give them some time.

Me: In essence, they're abusing the fact this game is loved and well known. It gives them license to take their time with information, knowing people will stay firmly baited to the hook (which, when you think about it, is the only real business purpose of preview information).

dboeren:

FFG doesn't typically post much to the forums for any of its games. What they typically DO do is put up periodic small articles, but they probably won't do many of these until after the game goes live. In these they frequently show off new cards that will come out in future sets, but I haven't seen them do it for a game that isn't released yet.

Me: They do it all the time for their board games, in fact most only get these articles prior to release. 'Course, that just makes sense since, again, previews primarily serve baiting purposes.

dboeren:

While you will see the rules (or you can look at the original ones now), I highly doubt they will post a list of ALL cards. They've never done that for any game they make. They've shown some cards, and will likely preview a few more, but that's all you're going to get until launch.

Me: I'll second this. Never seen them post all the cards in any shape or form. Even their manuals lack card references.

p.s. Whomever set these forums up should be flogged. No user acceptable BBCode? Pishaw!! "Pishaw," I say! 

 They don't post to their forums for any of their LCG's with any regularity they do post to the specific minisites they set up. While I play a number of their board games I've never even peaked into their other forums so I don't know if they have designers and producers posting their regularly but I was under the distinct impression that it was a company policy to not engage in discourse on the forums. I would find that double standard to be more than a little strange.