Curevei
10/21/2010 6:13:00 AM
On Oct 20, 8:30 pm, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Now that I've taken on the role of VTES Storyline Coordinator, I am
> particularly interested to hear from the players and the VTES
> community regarding their thoughts on storylines and what you'd like
> to see.
>
> This is a fairly open-ended thread, so feel free to post whatever
> comments, praise, or criticisms you have. But some general lines of
> thought that might be useful include:
>
> #1. What are your favorite past storylines and your least favorite
> ones? What did you like (or didn't you like) about them?
Actually, probably easiest to just go through them all.
Baltimore - I had forgotten everything about this except the winners/
reward card. Boring.
Eye of Hazimel - Maybe my favorite as it introduced interesting rules
that weren't overwhelming.
Lambach's Legion - Don't recall anything about it except the crappy
Adv. Lambach card.
Infernal Plague - Really like the concept of the auction. Had a bunch
of problems getting the number right. But, rather than introducing
new cards, it was more about new rules, which I think makes more
sense.
Nergal - Already tired of infernal storylines. Nergal player was
interesting but not fun. I played Nergal once and it was obvious that
you just needed to beat down on people mercilessly. Also, having the
mechanic only in the finals was suboptimal. Not to say I didn't enjoy
it. I played in four of them and found it amusing, but then, I also
played in four finals.
Cultists - Lame. The special deck thing was already trite. The power
level of it was over the top. The plot was so pedestrian.
Anarchs and Alastors - I wasn't expecting much going in as I kind of
saw the point of storyline play being to support a clan, but multiple
drafts is awesome, so much more interesting than regular, single
drafts, and we learned how fantastical drafting Dark Sovereigns was.
Warlord - Not sure why this isn't on the website, don't really
remember what order it was in in the series. I had little interest
since it required playing Camarilla clans which I think are already
way overplayed in events. The random deck thing was usually annoying
even if it let me put a bunch of cards in that no one ever plays.
Eden's Legacy - Nice concepts, very broken environment. Motivated by
Knowledge was absurd as it allowed people to constantly dig for
answers, also overencouraged blood gain.
Bloodlines - Perfect concept, Lilith's Blessing did a lot to ruin the
enjoyment, though. Amazing how much more fun certain clans are when
there's no scarce penalty and, to a lesser extent, no grouping rule.
Tedious levels of bloat. Further proof Tupdog should never have been
printed, though giving real Gargoyles a chance would have worked
better by just limiting the no slave disad to unique Gargoyles.
In general, I think storylines are better when the distortions are
limited. Metagaming shouldn't be "everyone will play a bunch of
Villeins, so I'll run half a dozen Suddens" but something more
subtle. Common or special decks got old fast.
> #2. What sorts of themes (story points, backdrop) would you like to
> see in future storylines?
Going from the mechanical to the flavor, the Baltimore flavor was
about right even if it was so trivial that I had forgotten about the
event. No more infernal, if I actually cared what the story was,
which I don't. Cultist flavor might have been okay if there was any
context or follow up for it. Really, the flavor of the events is
unimportant to me since there's no meaningful follow up in how the
game is changed mechanically to account for it. Compare with L5R
storylines where factions get meaningfully impacted based on what
people play.
> #3. What sorts of mechanics (special rules) would you like to see in
> future storylines?
More subtle ones. Nergal was playing a different game all together.
Cultist deck didn't read that strong but was heinous in play. Trying
some of the more likely variations you might see in a non-storyline
event, like dropping grouping or making Trophies better would make
sense. As interesting as the infernal auction was to see what people
would do, I think that sort of mechanic requires too much thinking.
More positive ones. Eye of Hazimel was mostly a benefit. Probably
want to find things in the game that suck and find some mechanic that
rewards them, rather than, say, Prophecies League style where the
games can be exasperating.
> #4. With the changes going on at White Wolf / CCP, there will be many
> new changes to VTES. In particular, storyline events will no longer
> have the allure of special promo-only cards. Do you think people will
> still need these incentives to play storylines? What sorts of changes
> do you think the storyline should undergo (or needs to undergo) as the
> VTES CCG enters its next crucial phase?
I think storyline promos are a massive draw, mainly because there's no
other real reward. You try to win with your clan, find that other
people aren't interested in playing with them, so you have
(frequently) no chance of helping your clan. For those few clans that
have any chance, most of the reward cards sucked, so you didn't really
win anything, anyway. Even if a card gets made that doesn't suck,
like Baltimore Purge, talking about adding one card to a game - the
overall game impact is trivial.
People like me really like variant rules. Many of the people I've
played with don't. So, the variant rules don't seem to be much of a
draw.
About the only thing I can see is increasing player fame. Make a
bigger deal of the individuals who win events, though that sort of
undermines that storylines are supposed to be about the storyline, and
it's not necessarily all that fair, either.