For many of the reasons already sited I look forward to the 'new direction'. Does this mean rotation of all APs released before Silver Twilight? From what I can see Atlantis has a Prophecy trigger and an action that I agree would help against discard. 4 months between deluxe expansions is gonna be tough to get used to! The art of * Umr at-Tawil is superb! I love how the upper torso is defined by a break in the clouds but below it dissolves into what could be misinterpreted as rainfall. The ability of Umr at-Tawil is also nothing to sneeze at! I too enjoy the 'impending doom' of the Prophecy mechanic and what's up with the funky title and the comment "The second, and greater, question is this: why each faction only has a fragment of the whole? What do these ominous new prophecies signify?". The Seekers of Knowledge Expansion page shows a character with an additional Investigation struggle and what looks like a Polar Location!

HilariousPete said:

 Polar LIVES!

Board of Trustees being Independent means you can use 607 Walter Street to prevent any destruction cards from actually succeeding in destroying it.  This is a small added bonus I didn't realize before.

Hybrid said:

Don't even suggest such a thing!  The reason I quit Magic was because they kept "rotating" the cards out and I had to buy the same damn card in the new years core set to use it.

This is nothing but a good change, for FFG and for consumers.

Lots of potential here.

dboeren said:

When was the last time we actually got 12 asylum packs a year though? Since pretty much never even though that was the intention of FFG to get 12 out each year.

So its more like 180 individual cards per year with asylum packs (rough average, give or take a couple asylum packs depending on which year you speak of) versus 165 individual cards in deluxe expansions…. not that significant of a change and is $90 per year vs. $135 respectively

Deluxe expansions are  Mike Tyson and asylum packs are the summer boxing camp for retarded children with big ears.

LIke most here, I'm glad for the format change. I've gotten behind on the monthly releases, because of cash and lack of playtime and this will make it a tad easier to catch up. I also think that FFG really likes CoC and doesn't want to end it. I hope for some nice domain and story cards in the new sets.

Slight change of topic, but every time I read that it's licensed from Chaosium, I have to wonder, why doesn't FFG just outright buy them? I know the rpg is still popular, but I just think the profits from FFGs Cthulhu games could buy out the whole company.

sepayne7l said:

No kidding. With Chaosium's historical problems with money (understatement *), I would not be the least bit surprised that it is FFG paying the licensing fees to Chaosium that is keeping them in the black.

Arkham Horror yearly sales alone has to far outsell any Cthulhu RPG products in a 5 year configuration. That's only an ex RPGer-now-turned-boardgamer's slightly informed and likely biased opinion about that, but I would not be the least bit surprised if it was true.

Back on topic, so what do people feel about this expansion being heavily focused towards a single faction? And why?

* I personally know of some writers and artists who still to this day have yet to be recompensed for work done in the nineties for Chaosium.

Hellfury said:

Well, we don't know exactly how skewed it's going to be at this point.  You could say that it will shake out eventually after every faction gets "their" expansion but that will take years at the least.  8 factions, 3 expansions per year, almost 3 years at a minimum and we know they plan to release boxes based around themes as well so I doubt you'll actually see an expansion for each faction in turn.  Best to assume "never" is the target date here.

From my minis gaming roots I've always felt it was important to be fair to all factions and that they should get equal releases (the "codex" system is just about the worst way you can release a game) - but then again that's from a type of game where you mainly pick "your" faction and never stray outside it unless you decide to pick up another.  In Call of Cthulhu you tend to play a bit of everything so maybe that viewpoint isn't quite valid because who exactly is being screwed here?

So, in this sort of game I suppose it's OK but it still feels odd to me.  As much as I admit Miskatonic can use a tuneup I can't help but feel like other factions or themes that I like are being shortchanged just a bit, even if I have but a small fraction of a leg to stand on with that viewpoint :)

I suppose in the end what is important is that all factions are equally attractive to play, not that they have equal numbers of cards.  So, this is probably a reasonable choice for the first set.  However, I would still very much like to see Silver Twilight get the focus for one of the upcoming sets as they are substantially behind everyone else and could really use some extra cards at some point.  While what they have is certainly interesting, there are just not enough choices for them yet.

Here's a question.  Will these include short stories?  None of the other Deluxe Expansions did, but I thought these were a fun part of the Asylum Packs.

ssjevot said:

Good question, I hope so too.

When I see characters like Umr at-Tawil, I already know about  it from the stories "The Silver Key" and "Through the Gate of the Silver Key" (Basically it is an incarnation of Yog Sothoth who is sympathetic or at least ambivalent towards the plight of Randolph Carter).

But when I see characters like "Brette Wulffsen" I am not sure if it is a character from the RPG or if it is an entirely new character created for the game and would like to know more about what is going on with the story arc/theme of the set which it is a part of.

I'm particularly happy with the announcement and the new format. I've not been playing Miskatonic much and this might be the occasion to get serious about it.

What I'd like next is a Syndicate expansion. It's one of the weakest around though I love playing it.

A good change, but I am already getting nostalgic for the walk home from the game store holding a new pack. It used to be once a week (at least!), then down to about 6x a year, and now down to about 3 with a box to wonder over instead of a pack. After the current cycle the Cthulhu  packs are finally dead, and thats a landmark for an old black border gamer like me. So ultimately this is a further step in the (right) direction from the point of view of making the game less of a collectible market, but when this first happened it had a different context. The game was renamed as a Living Card Game and it felt indeed that it had come alive more in the new format. The scene with rares had become stagnant and exclusive. So the cut in quantity of cards was ok with me, but the loss of quantity of cards with this change doesnt feel the same. I guess times are hard and all and the lower cost is going to help a lot of people and draw in many more new players, which is cool too. But I feel the draw for new players wont balance out the loss of nearly 100 cards from the annual pool.

I was a bit worried when I heard the first rumours that there'd soon be an announcement regarding the future of CoC.

But this actually makes me quite happy. I always considered a complete cycle of 6 APs as one release, so now I'm actually getting updates more often. And although it's fewer cards over all, that's easily compensated by the tighter theme.

Hellfury said:

Good point, so really it's just a cost reduction and not a significant card reduction. Even better :)

ssjevot said:

I hope they do, I always enjoyed reading the stories.  In fact, I wish they'd turn some of these story arcs into full length novels sometime.  Since they've spoken about having expansions based on particular themes I am hopeful that they might come with small booklets to help set the tone of the box.

What other goodies might be in there?  I'd love to see some faction tokens show up eventually for instance, or just about anything else faction related, remember those resin house cards for A Game of Thrones?  We're saving money already, so I'd be happy to raise the box price a few bucks if it means getting some bonus stuff inside.