You lost me at "trap".

No insider info at all.

It's already been stated that there will be character-focused mechanics which is different than what we are used to... a change. Many have already complained about it... commenting that if it makes VS like WoW... then VS will suck because in their opinion, WoW sucks (which prompted my thread about VS being okay even if it had the WoW engine).

But many of us have seen how accessible WoW is. VS is not going to use the WoW engine of course but having the ability to build a deck that focuses on your favorite character (which I would assume would be the most popular ones) brings to VS something that it has been lacking. The new Alter Ego format gives us a glimpse of what decks could be like if they focused around certain strategies that reflected the most well-known characters in the comic-verse. Maybe that's why the sets are called "Legends".

Will this make VS more accessible? I don't know for sure... but it can't hurt. I've read posts that are knocking the Alter Ego format because they feel it's making VS too simple. Is it really? Or is it making VS more accessible?

There is something someone said in the Alter Ego thread... what if the VS Legends packs each had a hero/villain card like WoW? An Alter Ego card in every pack? Wouldn't that be pretty cool? Every pack would contain a well-known comic-book character! You wouldn't have to use it and you wouldn't have to build a deck around it but it could help guide new players into building a deck utilizing the strengths of the Alter Ego card. This makes me salivate at the ways you can use these for Sealed pack play (Mini-Master would be very interesting).

But people will still resist. Why? More formats is another way to draw in more people. Is it because the way VS is cannot be touched? It's a Holy engine that should not be tampered with? The face of VS cannot be altered? Why not? Growth requires change... plain and simple.

The types of changes we are likely to see in Legends seem very smart and completely within the realm of "acceptable change".

I am anticipating an alternate focus or a slight paradigm shift as opposed to scrapping it and starting over. That's the kind of development which could bring in new people AND keep us old folk happy.

Balance FTW

I dont buy the more formats draws in more people theory. More formats create more players must learn, and create more areas of the game that individuals with dislike, while most already have a favorite adding more to it increases the chances that someone wont play a particular format becaue they dislike.
Instead we as players need to just focus on taking the time to teach people how to play the game. Theres nothing wrong with versus being complicated. In fact its what makes the game fun, all it means is that learning it will take a bit longer, big deal. Yes the game needs to shift a bit more focus towards the main characters of both universes(and give both equal footing, but thats another thread) but that doesnt mean changing rules, or formats drastically.

But I had you at 'Hello'...

Too simple? The only way it's too simple is because of the single set modification. I'd hardly see how starting play with different ability and endurance total, and more importantly, having to factor that into your choices during deck building. It adds another level of complexity. Although, admitedly, having an effect guaranteed each game does provide some great consistency.

Well, if the concept of Alter Ego is that they are useful within a set, but are probably broken over larger areas, there are a few ways to go:

(a) Start the Ego concept with Legends, and then at NEXT years Gen Con Indy PC ... you can have an Ego legal Modern Age. Eventually, it can rotate into Silver ... they could have an Alter Ego event for World's Finest as well, doing the same thing [release the 8 cards online in PDF and then actual oversized versions as prize support]. That would mean that it's two sets earlier to get Ego into Silver Age.

(b) Using the concept as presented for the Spider-Man/Alter Ego event ... but expand it into the Choose Your Own Set format ... each 'set' gets a certain number of Alter Egos to choose from [this one might be a bit too difficult, and there will be problems with cross polination probably]. The Choose Your Own Set format is a cool 'fourth format' ... and it's the second most likely to get the Ego treatment.

(c) The Ego concept would, partially, make sense of the increase in the number of rares that has been reported/speculated for Legends. As it was know in Raw Deal a "Premium Rare" slot where an Ego card [or perhaps special cards that require a specific Ego in order to pack/play it as well] would be in that slot, while a 'normal' rare would fill another slot, and then uncommons and commons. Perhaps even cards like: "Play only if you control a character or ego named X" ... that way it's playable outside of an Ego format ... but in an ego deck, you'll be able to play it as long as you draw into it.

One thing though ... how many people complained about the Modern formats hurting attendance for PCQs? Most experience, within Vs., have shown that the fracturing of formats have had a negative impact. Now, part of this was BECAUSE of the PC/PCQ system which has been changed anyway. Having a bunch of formats is great ... but those formats need to see play. Having ALL the events at the Mega Weekend is a great sign that they are making the right step in that direction. The marquee events for Hobby League is also good in that way. They need to reinforce that all formats are legal at all times, and thus if you were to build a deck for Golden Age, or Silver Age, or Modern Age ... it wouldn't be 'just for fun' ... but that you could end up playing it at an event just around the corner.

Now, they need more "Mega Weekends" for this to work perhaps, but part of it is an attitude to the multiple formats that was developed by the 'old' OP program that made only one constructed format important at any given time.

Erick, adding Alter Egos would not make the game 'simpler' on the whole.

I've heard you complain, repeatedly, about how hard it is for a new player to know everything that everyone can do. And it's true. That can be daunting if a player is trying to jump straight into tourny play. Casual, it just flat out doesn't matter - you learn as you play.

Adding Alter Egos? Let's see...having your opponent play Venom negates the entire Crime Lords affiliation, but Hulk helps you out - there's less of a chance of strategic attacks negating your formation to break reinforcemet. Sandman destroys you, and neither Spidey particularly matters. You can go through every team in Vs (I just have a Crime Lords deck sitting out right now) and do the same thing: Alter Ego X destroys me, Y and Z don't matter, B and D I auto-beat, etc... That sounds way harder, but you would pretty much have to do it.

So, whenever you built a deck, you would then have to worry about an effect that your opponent could generate 100% of the time guaranteed. It would make deck-building much more complicated.

Also, adding more formats tends to confuse new players. Jumping in and playing isn't hard - jumping in and not know if you're going to be playing Alter Ego, Two-Headed Mutant (or whatever that's called), an old-fashioned game, etc... Much more difficult.

Why are people so resistent to change? Most people here aren't. However, not all change is good. Reminds me of when Brian Michael Bendis wrote a comic about how everyone was complaining that he was changing too much stuff, but how change is always good. The best response I saw to that: Lead into gold = good change. Gold into lead = bad change. Not all changes are good.

I would point out that we play Vs., and not WoW, and we do it for a reason. WoW is not nearly as simplistic as you make it out to be. It does, however, have benefits for people who also play the computer game. The game and the cards advertise for each other. In Vs, the game advertises for the comics, but not the other way around.

Also, after hearing you talk about how good WoW is, I went on their website and started watching the tutorials. I just want to say, having finished 80% of them...WoW is WAAAAAY more confusing! Vs, all you need to know at first is this: person X hits person y, and if you have a blue card, maybe play it. WoW has quests, and I don't exactly see the purpose of those. You tap everything all the time, and I'm not exactly sure why - seems like you can maybe play one effect per turn...and only if you don't want to actually attack that turn, which you can't do unless you've lucked into drawing equipment, which you also need to tap resources to play. Maybe it's just a bad tutorial, but it makes the game seem very slow, and it looks like you get screwed by the draw constantly.

Hey all, its been a long time since I posted on these forums. I was looking over my vs. cards(which I almost had ripped from me, but thats a different story) and was feeling all nostalgic so I fifugred I'd see whats up on the vsrealms boards which I havent visited in quite some time. This thread grabbed me because it is such a relevant topic.

How do we get vs. to the masses? It is a great game(I'd argue the best on the market) which has the coolest liscenses of all time, both among nerds and the mainstream(correct me if I'm wrong, but didnt spiderman 3 have the larget movie opening of all time(.

I didnt read the whole thread, but what I did read I saw some great ideas(get comics more involved being one of the best). One thing that I'm not sure if it has been touched on is how the various formats hurt the game. thats right, golden, silver, modern in my opinion(and even when i was a hardcore vs. player) are absolutely terrible for the game.

The simple fact is that the masses(or casual gamers) keep tcgs alive. Yugioh does not thrive because of the top level "pros" and shonen jump winners. It thrives because it has thousands of casual gamers who play, tons of which are gained from the anime.

All the different formats make it very hard for a casual gamer to keep up. Lets use me as an example. I just got my collection back. Haven't played in months. Now last I checked all my local tourneys basically followed the pro schedule. I have over 50 decks. Outside of a few ban list changes, they are all playble(and I even hop on ocgtn once in a while and they still hold up fairly well). But can I enter a tourney? Is it golden age? if its not most of decks are unplayable. Most of them are golden and a few of them are silver. 0 of them are currently modern legal.

Casual gamers need to be able to take their decks and play when they want to. None of my friends play vs. so if I want to play, I need to play in a tourney, which I can only do 4 months out of the year. Very disheartening to a casual gamer.

Don't get me wrong, I dont mind buying new cards. But having to constantly keep up with all the sets and build decks to fit the current format is quite annoying and just not very viable for the average gamer.

I think if they streamlined that it would help hold more of the casual gamers, meanwhile the pros still have their money tourenys to keep them involved.

Note ... while the death of the PCQ was mourned ... it does cause a change. There is no longer a 'format' that is necessary to play. All the formats are at the next event, casual Hobby Leagues can run any format they want, and they are rotating between a number of formats for the Marquee events.

Thus, while this used to be a problem ... it would now depend on what format the Hobby Leagues want to run. They may run the format for the next PC [or whatever large event is coming up]. However, that would be their choice, instead of a PCQ where the events don't have a choice to run the event the majority of the players want to play.

There is still the issue of showing up at an event where you don't know what the format is and risk being unable to play [with 3 'ages', plus Pick Your Own Set quickly becoming a 4th constructed format].

Ok, I don't know what the new format is like. Last I plkayed there was still the old pcg/pro circuit format that was always around. I know they were talking about changing it but I wasn't here to see what those changes were.

I can say that if the only format was golden(with an expanding ban list as needed to keep the game balanced) I would be a lot more likely to stay in the game because I know I can always just grab my deck and enter a local when I have the time.

Can someone point me to a link of how the new tourney structure is?

http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/v...s/default.aspx

That's the replacement level for PCQs. Check the Random Punks section of that site for the non-rare Golden Age party we are having this month at Hobby League. You have been gone a while, so you may not know that the new mothership is VsSystem.com and it has the Metagame articles and a much more extensive and exquisite layout.

It's good to have you back, enjoy!

Oops. I think the Ego stuff should go in a new thread. See you there.

I didn't say Alter Egos made it simpler... I said that other posters were complaining that it did and I didn't necessarily agree. What Egos could do is make the game more accessible because people could build decks around their favorite characters.
Remember that Ego is a one-set format... so there is only so much borkiness to go around. Personally, I don't like one-set Constructed (I hated the Modern 2-set format) but I'm open to things that might get more people to play.
I disagree. More formats give players a choice and local game stores the ability to change their tournaments to what the majority of their players prefer:

1. Some people like to play multi-player, Giant-Sized VS will bring those players into the game.
2. Some players don't have access to the money rares... Random Punks evens the field.
3. Some players just got into VS with MTU, Alter Egos will allow them to play with just the cards they have.

It's not about making formats rotate all day... but making them available so players can try out different ways to play the game. And it's not like the engine is being changed... the decks play the same... it's just a constraint on what cards you can put in your deck.
Is "change" better than "no change"? If we need to improve sales... something has to change.
That's your opinion. WoW does have its complexities... but the engine is simpler.
Yes. And that is sad.
Trust me... the VS engine is much better than the WoW one. But if you've played Magic or never played TCGs before... the WoW engine is easier to pick up... at least in what I've seen. And that "draw screw" you talk about? It's now general knowlege that "draw screw/mana screw/mana flood" is actually an equalizer that allows casuals to compete against pros. So funny that the one thing people complain about the most... is an enabler for evening out the playfield.

Thank you! Egos is cute and fun for a hobby lg feature event, but no more than that.

And I think we do need to be careful with all these formats too.

Modern
Silver
Golden
Sealed
Draft
Random Punks
Bring your own Set
Ego
Raid, team of players against Mega Galactus

That's a lot of formats.

I have nothing against Ego as an occasional Marquee event. But, if they were released in packs, like in Legends (which is what I thought you were suggesting they should do), I can't see them honestly limiting them by set without essentially neutralizing the older sets, unless they went back and did one for every set, and then said that you could only play them each in a single set, essentially neutering a huge number of decks. Plus, they would add an enormous layer of complexity to the game and to deck-building especially.

I like Egos as a rare event. As the face of things to come? I'm game for giving it a shot, but...eh.

I agree with you here, but you seem to imply that a lot of cards, and a lot of decks, and a lot of etc... will scare off new players, so why don't you apply this to formats? I mean, going by the same logic, if a player gets into the game because of Team X, they can build just fine knowing nothing but the Team X cards. But, just a few pages back, I think you were arguing that the large number of teams will scare people off. (If you weren't, I apologize.)

My biggest problem with Alter Egos is that they leave out all players who didn't buy enough MTU. A format where you can only play a single set is guaranteed to leave out more players than any other format.

I've probably bought a box and a half of MTU, and I can't really build a particularly good deck with what I have. I could build Syndicate rush, but I don't like rush and I don't like the Syndicate characters.

Is 'bad change' better than 'no change'? Change is only better than no change if there's a good chance that will make things turn our better than they are.

I'll take your opinion on it. I can only speak on experience, and in my experience, beginning Vs is not even remotely complicated.

Agreed.

Again, I can only speak from experience, but Vs. is my first TCG, and I had no problems with it. I guess you and I (and those we played with) had two very different first experiences with the game. I guess, because of these first experiences, there is very little chance that we will ever see eye-to-eye on this.