Classic Line Ends!

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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I don't know if this should go in Off-Topic but it IS card related so...

Just got the new Top Deck and there was an announcement that WOTC will no longer print cards for the Classic Line. The Classic Line consists of the Arc System, BattleTech, Blood Wars, Legend of the Burning Sands, Netrunner, Rage, Spellfire, and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.

First: How are your feelings on this? Elation? Sadness? General apathy? :))) Surprise?

Did you know that there WAS a Classic Line?

Did you know some of these games were apparently still around?

Do you even play these games?

Caveat: Property holders of BattleTech, Netrunner, and Rage can still print cards (whoever they may be). And White Wolf acquired full production rights to Vampire and has plans to release a revised edition of the Sabbat set.
 
TomB

TomB

Administrator
Staff member
I've played Battletech, and while I'm saddened to see it go I have to admit I didn't buy into the last expansion at all. WotC really screwed up when they made Arsenal so overpowered :(. You'd have thunk they'd have known better by virtue of their experiences w/Magic, but that wasn't the case.

I guess my vote would be for apathy (Maybe this should have been posted to the Voting Forum ;)).

I wasn't aware they called it their "Classic Line" either. They sure throw that "Classic" line around a lot, don't they? It wouldn't be so bad, but they seem to want to use that tag every time they see something they're producing that they know won't be selling very well. I'm not sure I see how that makes it "Classic", but I'm sure they have their reasons.
 
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theorgg

Guest
I feel like a man standing on a high cliff looking down at the village he left behind to go to other places.


In Pace Requeasat, Netrunei.
your excellently intricate strategies and the overshadowment of magic hath dammed thee.

wow. this tells me I made the right choice all those years ago...

*Sob!*

sorry, being reflexive...
 
C

Chaos Turtle

Guest
Put me in the "Who cares?" category.

But, some of those games aren't necessarily dead, per se, just going to new homes, where they may actually be better cared-for than they were at WotC, who just doesn't have time for the non-moneymakers like PokeMon, Magic, PokeMon, Legend of the Five Rings, and PiokeMon.

Hopefully we'll see the better ones again soon...
(not that I care, in case I forgot to mention it ;))
 
S

Seeker of Truth

Guest
I can't say that I'm devastated at the discontinuation of the lines, but I can say that I thought Netrunner was a great game that just didn't get enough support to keep it alive (I mean, how many expansions did it have, one? In comparison, Magic has had what, nineteen?). If WotC had backed up Netrunner with the kind of stuff they do for Magic and Pokemon, I think more people would have realized that the game was great.

I also tried to get into Battletech, too, but that one didn't go over so well. But hey, I thought high enough of it to spend money on it, so that's saying something, too. ;)
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I thought about putting this in the Voting Forum too but a whimsy feeling overtook me... :)

I've only played Vampire myself and that probably once, a LONG time ago. I certainly don't play any of them now... and I didn't know there was a Classic Line either. Some may be going to new homes but to be honest, it looks like if it's not Magic or Pokemon (and I guess Legend of the Five Rings) it'll probably fade away. What's happened with Star Trek and Star Wars and MiddleEarth? Beats me, and they may have a following, but they sure aren't in the limelight.

So so far apathy is the common feeling... :)
 
D

Dune Echo

Guest
I sent the following letter to TopDeck and Will McDermott in regards to this. What do you guys think of what I said?

To whom it may concern:
On page 25, I quote:
"What Comes Next?
The 'Classic Decks' section is undergoing a change as well. TopDeck will still support all of the retired lines, but we're going to cover them less often and in more detail. Starting with issue #10, we'll cover half the games, but with twice the detail--instead of simply providing a deck list, we'll have more room for things like single card strategies, rules variants, and even more in-depth deck analysis.
While each game won't get space in every issue, each game will appear frequently enough to give its fan ongoing support..."

Instead of covering these games in such a detailed way, why don't you provide more coverage towards Magic: The Gathering? I bought TopDeck #8 for one very simple reason: it had the Prophecy pullout and a pack of Prophecy. I never renewed my subscription to TopDeck once it had run out (from what was leftover from my Duelist subscription) because of one thing: Magic is not covered enough! To me, most of the good articles seem to be geared towards Pokemon. While I understand that it is in your best interest to make money, and Pokemon makes money, your current coverage does not encourage me to buy your magazine at all except when something big hits (i.e. Prophecy expose). I would buy TopDeck if I knew that it had the fun stuff again: competitive theme decks ("Rebels With A Cause" on pg. 7 is simply an EXCELLENT ARTICLE! Is Daneen your wife, Will? Because if she is, tell her she's a great writer and good at coming up with fun decks! "La Playa Yavimaya" was a great article too!), Single Card Strategies/Card Spotlight (I read my old Duelists and still want to try out The Wretched because of these little bars of text), background on set development (I love seeing how cards evolve, what ideas were cut, etc.), artwork/artist reviews, a focus on multiplayer such as strong multiplayer cards and deck (arche)types (I know I read that TopDeck is meant to focus on casual and if I could, I'd quote it). Anyway, I think TopDeck needs to focus on Magic more. I can finish reading all the articles in 20 minutes or less. In the Duelist, I had at least a good hour's read along with a resource I could use later.
And whatever happened to the Duelist going online? Or was that just a big lie?

A reply would be greatly appreciated and thanks,
Kirsin Koch
"Dune Echo"
http://www.casualplayers.org[/QUOTE]
Click to expand...
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
That pretty much hits the nail on the head. I'm also letting my Top Deck subscription run out from the Duelist; the Magic articles are too short and just not what they used to be in the Duelist.

And I too made a deck based on The Wretched after reading it in the Duelist! Wow... :)
 
M

Mundungu

Guest
I very much miss the Duelist too ...

Now there were good articles about magic, strategies and cards.

Not just decklists and card prices.

A little bit like the DOJO.

I loved the DOJO for the strategy part of it, the general concepts and so on. Well maybe the disappearance of those elements led to its ruin...

It seems Magic is only about decklists and tournament reports.

This is why I like CPA, the only place ABOUT magic, not winning at Magic.
 
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Gizmo

Guest
I`ll miss Netrunner - it was the only game system I have found to be more elegant than M:tG.

I also have umpteen million full sets of Rage, but I just like looking at them - if ever a set was printed purely for aesthetic reasons it was Rage. The first edition was a riot, mainly because they forgot to actually include a proper set of rules and so games quite accurately displayed the 'he who shouts loudest wins' pack interaction of Garou - you really did actually end up with an Alpha player at the end of the night, he was the big guy who nobody ever dared argue with.
Second edition Rage was actually a VERY good game, but the Umbra expansion rules complicated it by about a factor of ten and IMHO killed the game off.

And as for The Dojo - you are reading it now. The Dojo exists wherever Magic players meet online to post ideas and swap decks and strategy advice. That is the spirit of The 'Kusumoto' Dojo, and it will live on long after the death of the site which bears the name.

http://www.thedojo.com is dead, long live The Dojo!
 
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galtwish

Guest
I'm going to miss Battletech, because I loved Battletech since middle school (1990 for me), and the card game was good, but not great. The local game store had two big boxes of loose singles for $.05 each (and gave discounts on handfuls). I could play this game with my brother, who is 13 and can't concentrate on Magic (and our parents forbid us to play. How's that for you; I'm nearly 24 with a college degree and my parents forbid me to play Magic. yeah, we all see how that's worked out)

I'm actually kind of upset that they will never print the last expansion of Spellfire (which is all ready to go to the printers). I love AD&D (only 1st ed.) and being able to play with Acerarek, Vecna, Tomb of Horrors, Sword of Sharpness, etc. is a lot of fun. Additonally, there is a very dedicated group of people still playing Spellfire (who have created 3-5 really good expansions on their own).

I never played netrunner, but have heard from several sources that it was a great game.

In closing, LONG LIVE SHADOWFIST! (the best multiplayer ccg to my knowledge)

Erik
 
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galtwish

Guest
http://www.shadowfist.com, due out by mid-late summer. Here in So Cal, we get together about once a month to play either draft (everybody drafts in what can be one huge pool) multiplayer 3-4 person games, or constructed 3-4 player games. Does anyone else still play?

Erik
 
A

Apollo

Guest
To cover the 2 major topics that showed up in this thread.

1)Apathy, no, no, no :) I've heard of the games but never had the money or the desire to branch out from Magic into another game I might get addicted to. Until MLB Showdown, which is pretty cool even if I'm the worst dice roller in the history of the universe. 1-15 is not a good record.

2)TopDeck does need to cover Magic more. I've let my Duelist subscription run out, although they sent me 3 more issues than I was actually supposed to get. That was a great letter, Dune. Most Pokemon players are not going to take it serious enough to buy a magazine based on just the card game. In addition, the fact that they have no Magic coverage will drive those players away. As soon as all of the Duelist subscriptions run out and spontaneous subscriptions from people who bought the first couple of issues go away, the magazine will be in trouble.

Apollo
 
S

Spaceman Spiff

Guest
tag guard


no i havent played them
no i dont care about them
no i dont know they were still around
no i didnt know there was a classic line


there ;)
 
S

Seeker of Truth

Guest
Dune Echo:

I feel the same way you do about the coverage of Magic in TopDeck. Although I still buy every issue right on schedule, I find that, while the Pokemon half of the issue focuses solely on Pokemon, the "Magic" half of the issue seems to cover everything else, from Magic to the "Classic line" to computer games, so the coverage isn't equal, while the page count on each side may be. Plus, half of the Magic coverage isn't really serious, with stuff like Backdeck taking up part of the Magic space instead of serious articles on the game itself.

By the way, did you include the CPA website with your letter? If so, I hope they decide to print your letter; it would be good exposure for the site. Anyway, compared to the regular drivel they print in the letters column (how many letters can they print from people asking WotC for free packs of whatever?), I hope they'll be interested in a real letter to the editor (and I hope they don't give some kind of wisecrack response, either).
 
D

Dune Echo

Guest
Yeah, I did include the website. Don't know if they can legally print it though.
Basically, I'm expecting no response, period. I think my letter hit them right we they KNOW they're hurting, but since Pokemon sells so much, they're not willing to face the fact and are expecting us to be there once the fad dies out where once more they will print decent articles that are worth reading.
If I do get a response, I think it will be in the same form that all the letters are answered in TopDeck, in a wise-cracking, "quick-answer, no serious information" format they answer all their letters.
You know, it wouldn't be so bad if they had stuck to what they said they were going to do (Keep the Duelist online ALIVE AND WELL!) and made TopDeck something the casual player truly wanted to read. Stop focusing on tournament play so much and focus on the less prestigious things. Encourage fun play, not playing to win. (This Deck's A Pile encourage's a player to be cutthroat and sometimes totally removes the original deck concept IMO.)
 
T

theorgg

Guest
oh, are you talking about where two pro players take forgive and forget and tell me card-by-card how to turn it into an extended legal control stompy?

=======
spore flower is CLEARLY ineffecient in the role that green needs to play. I took out all four of them for the similar fat bastard called Blastoderm. It even uses the three-counter method.
 
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