Deja Vu!

[kempy]

https://www.alderac.com/2021/03/05/history-of-aeg-14-wizards-buys-frpg/

Odcinek czternasty.

[kempy]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/4620840921280288/?comment_id=4621156621248718&reply_comment_id=4621451157885931

Rob Hobart
Some historical context:
L5R 4e sold over 11,000 copies of its core book across the product's five-year lifespan. This was considered a very solid success and was a better performance than many RPGs.
D&D 3rd Edition, on the other hand, sold over 100,000 copies of the Player's Handbook in its FIRST YEAR.

[kempy]

Odmęty jutuba.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Hakene/videos

[kempy]

Celestial Sword of the Lion - foil promo, true story.



https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/5249961431701564/?comment_id=5250001025030938&reply_comment_id=5250226865008354

[I'atz'ek]

Kłamczuszki

[kempy]

Ktoś tam próbuje ostatnio nawiązać kontakt z graczami z Top 8 z Day of Thunder w celu przeprowadzenia wywiadów. Nie sądzę, żeby się to udało, np. w przypadku zwycięzcy:



https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/5273256556038718/?comment_id=5273328282698212

[kempy]

[gaijin]

Ta informacja od Johna stoi trochę w sprzeczności z tym, co usłyszałem od niego mniej więcej rok temu, kiedy rozmawialiśmy na Messengerze. Wtedy podawał dużo niższe liczby, ale chyba pomyliły mu się boxy z case'ami  Przynajmniej tak mi to wytłumaczył, kiedy spytałem go o różnicę pomiędzy tym, co opowiedział mi bezpośrednio, a tym co napisał ostatnio na FB.

Jeśli kogoś to naprawdę interesuje, to mogę wygrzebać te poprzednie wiadomości i pokazać dla porównania. Prawda pewnie leży gdzieś pośrodku

[kempy]

Jeśli kogoś to naprawdę interesuje, to mogę wygrzebać te poprzednie wiadomości i pokazać dla porównania. Prawda pewnie leży gdzieś pośrodku

Mnie interesuje. Dawaj.

[gaijin]

Jeśli kogoś to naprawdę interesuje, to mogę wygrzebać te poprzednie wiadomości i pokazać dla porównania. Prawda pewnie leży gdzieś pośrodku

Mnie interesuje. Dawaj.

Sorry, trochę mi zeszło Tak to wyglądało jakiś czas temu. Ale tak jak John zaznaczył także i wtedy, to nie są w żaden sposób oficjalnie potwierdzone dane.

[kempy]

Odnosnie zamieszania z Spirit Wars

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/5945953945435639/?comment_id=5946814108682956

John Zinser
I think the story is that a small publisher had a computer game called Spirit Wars. WOTC were contacted by lawyers from that company demanding we stop using the name and asking for damages. Both Ryan Dancey and myself lobbied hard against paying out any money. It was a frivolous claim to dig into WOTC’s deep pockets. Unfortunately it feel in the not expensive enough to fight range and they settled. We had to stop calling the set Spirit Wars and started calling it the Set that Shall not be named. The reality was that the print run had already been sold and so the net effect on us was just the payout. I hate frivolous law suites with a white hot burning passion. It still gets my goat to think back on that today and I was not the person paying the money.

[kempy]

https://twitter.com/CCGHistory/status/1593335478740213760

[kempy]

MacBeth2001 — Dziś o 20:23
Fun Fact: In the near-final proof version of the Forgotten Legacy set, Cast Aside the Weak had different art, and its printed art was on another card (Creating Order, maybe?). However, while making the final checks, I noticed that the two arts by Leonardo were opposite reflections of each other, and I thought it would be thematically more approriate, since the "happy" version was on the one Bushido Virtue in the set, that the "sad" version should go on the set's one Dark Virture, so the art was moved to "Cast"

[kempy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/l5r/comments/10cwatl/comment/j4if6xh/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

[kempy]

Gdyby ktoś chciał współuczestniczyć w kolekcjonerskiej euforii Gaijina to proszę:

https://www.facebook.com/1298413164/videos/720087143167869/

[kempy]

https://obakemerchant.com/the-sad-and-somewhat-stupid-story-of-hatsue-and-yozo/?fbclid=IwAR2BBugPE-snQPiw8pe6TNrvWsnI1OfcT2n4Midi0J-u8Q5RqZj7Zn2hWRo

"THE SAD, AND SOMEWHAT STUPID, STORY OF HATSUE AND YOZO
Fecha de la publicación: 06/03/2023
It has been almost 20 years, so I apologize if some details are fuzzy, or I get some of them wrong.

This went down during 2004, at Gen Con Barcelona. I think this was the last event to carry the Gen Con brand in Spain. Barcelona, along with Madrid, was one of the oldest hubs of OP activity for L5R, with a very active community, and an experienced team to TO’s. The official Spanish distributor at the time was Millennium and they got a storyline tournament for us to run. It was a huge thing for us! By now, I really don’t remember if this was a single day thing, or a 2 or more day event, with qualifiers and main event.

At the time, the Diamond arc was developing, with Iuchiban causing a lot of trouble, while the Gozoku was still just a plot thread in the background. The storyline was about the location of the Hidden Heart of Iuchiban, which would eventually play a part on his defeat. The organization of the tournament took a lot of preparation. We were experienced but we had never done anything of this scope before. May L5R players from around Spain and Europe would be coming, and we wanted all to have an enjoyable event! Honestly I don’t remember a lot of details of what went into it; my own specific responsibility was taking care of the side events, the idea being that, at any moment, players that were out of the main event were able to pick new games.

Of course, we went very early to the event venue, which was a large sports court. When we got to Millennium’s convention stall, they presented us with stack after stack of promo cards, in their Spanish-language version. Most of these promos where already know to us, as they had been officially spoiled in the forums, or the website. However, there were several that were completely new and unknown to us! Among these, were Hatsue and Yozo. There were a few others, too, that I don’t remember right now, for reasons that will became clear by the end of this. (And, just to be clear, The Wasting Disease XP was NOT part of this batch).

Anyways, we explained this to the Millennium person in charge. “Are you sure these are OK to release? Keep in mind they are completely new. Maybe they need to be held for a later date.” He gave us explicit instructions that EVERYTHING needed to be given away, completely, by the end of the event. So all these promo cards were extra prices that we weren’t counting on when we started the day, and we HAD to give them away. Because we already had all kind of prizes for winners in the main event, we decided that a good way to make sure everybody had a easy chance to get their hand on these cool hands would be to use them as prizes for the side events.

So, the main tournament started and, has rounds advanced, people started dropping out once they had no chance to make the cut, and they came to play on the side events. To make sure everything was spread fairly, instead of a few players hoarding the cool cards, we changed the format of the side event and we settled on 8-player pods, with a single elimination format. The moment you lost a game, you were out, and you only had to wait a few minutes until there were other 7 players ready and start another pod! Once this started, and as people kept droping out of the main we got people playing non-stop in the tournaments, and there were several of these going simultaneously! Everbody was having fun playing.  It was hectic, and even the AEG European representative, who had come to the tournament, took part in them. 20 years later, everything is a blur. It was an exhausting event, if very rewarding! We got only positive feedback from the tournament and we considered it a success!

Then, as weeks, then months, went by, some of these new promos did appear in English, too. In the end, everything was released… everything but poor Hatsue and Yozo. The arc legality changed, and for whatever reason, there was never an English release of them.

So, let’s jump forward about 10 years, give or take 2 years. During a board conversation with a French player, he starts to give me hell, angrily accusing the Barcelona TO team of having caused the non-release of Hatsue and Yozo. Apparently, the not-so friendly AEG European representative had been bad-mouthing us on the French boards, explaining that the complete English run of these two cards had been destroyed to punish us for spoiling these cards.

Of course, this was stupid. To start with, the AEG guy could have easily nipped this on the bud by letting us know these were not to be given out. when there were only maybe half a dozen out of the bag. Instead, apparently, he took the time to participate in these side events and kept is mouth shut at the time. Then, what kind of stupid punishment is one that the punished doesn’t even know is being dished out? And, who is being punished, exactly? The TO’s, that have done their work, and who don’t even know there is some punishment going around (at least not until 10 years later)? Or the overall community? Were these two cards destroyed because of a stupid tantrum?

At the time, I don’t know what made more angry, the stupidity of the idea, the two-faced attitude of the European representative, or the rude French guy.

…and that’s the sad, stupid story of Hatsue and Yozo.

We got eventually a version of Yozo as a Celestial card (Celestial as the card type, not the arc), as another promo card named Yozo’s inspiration. However, we never got any information about Hatsue."

[kempy]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/6379327168764979/?comment_id=6380367538660942&reply_comment_id=6380783988619297

Rob Hobart:

"AEG was going to publish a big fancy Axis & Allies-style L5R wargame in 2008 or so. Huge box, a ton of miniatures, multi-player game with potential expansions, all that sort of thing.
IIRC, "Art of War" was the working title but it's been quite a few years so I could be mis-remembering it.
Due to issues with the production contract in China (this was AEG's first attempt to work in the Chinese manufacturing world), a currency fluctuation drove the production price too high and got cancelled. The only bit of it that ever saw the light of day was the game-board design, which was used as the map in the 4th Edition core rulebook."

Art of War?

"Yep. Like I said, I edited the rules document, as well as the text for the action cards that would have been included. I was told the final designs for the miniatures had also been approved. (They were going to be larger than the typical 25mm style to allow for more detail and coolness.)
A huge disappointment that it never got made."

"They were already starting up with the "let's do boardgames" plan back then (though it took a few years to get properly rolling) and this was actually AEG's first attempt to produce a boardgame of their own in China. I always wondered why they didn't go back a few years later and try again since all the design and development was already finished. My suspicion is that the production contract was some kind of horrible exclusive thing that prevented this. (They did say later that they "learned a lot" about making stuff in China from the Art of War failure.)
But ultimately that's just speculation on my part -- only Zinser, Rowland, and Lapore know for sure, and since they're still making boardgames in China and need to maintain their corporate relationships over there I doubt they'll want to say anything about it."

[kempy]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/6629396960424664/?comment_id=6630284843669209&reply_comment_id=6631170920247268

Rob Hobart
The decision to destroy the Mantis was not because of Naval being too strong, it was because Brand and Story felt that a faction needed to be destroyed at the start of the arc to show that all bets were off and the usual "return to status quo after a 2-year-arc" model was no longer in effect.

[kempy]

Kilka wspominek o Worlds 2006.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/8504548106242864/

https://imgur.com/a/DSWmo2x

"In addition to Faber Van Kraanen's winning deck, the product included a subset of 21 brand new cards (1 to 3 copies each). These were the result of the World Championship held several months previous in Brussels (if memory doesn't fail me). After the tournament Top of Faction were led one after the other into a room staged as the Tomb of Shinsei, unavailable to everybody else and had the chance to colaborate in the final form these cards would take, by claiming them for their faction and matching them with a card type background. "

Tobias Vater
It was very cool down there. But not only the clan champions could enter there. Each clan choose an advisor to their champion during the main event. SL advisor was Hakene with a very passionate speech about Kokujin, his favourite personality. After we entered, not many cards were left, so we choose the scarab box. When we left with it i was asked if i know the clans and stories from Legend of the burning Sands. I heard the name the second time in my life, had no clue what it was about so i obviously said something like "Yes im am totally aware with everything from it". After that clan names were said which i have never heard before and i thought "shit". The only clan name which made some sence to me was "The Jackals" so i choose that. After i went home Hakene sent me a link to the Lotbs wiki with an article about the Jackals (or even the text from it - damn you memory!) and i thought "nice....you couldnt have probably chosen a better clan". I really think, up to this day, that this decision, made out of an uninformed mind, was the birthing our for the "Breeder".
Years later i went for a visit to my friend Faber van Kraanen and was surprised to see another Scarab Box at his place. He then told me, since he was a ratling they asked him which item he wants to steal and he choose the scarab box because he thought it would be a nice deck box. He didnt knew that it was 2cm to thin to hold any L5R cards ^^.
PS: Salman Barakat told me later they opened the Tao at his home with brute force, just to see it was a phone book ^^

Kostas Adamopoulos
I was the top dragon in that event in Brussels, as you correctly remember, and the experience was surreal. We were led through the tomb once to see all the artifacts then one by one, in order of final finish, to pick up our chosen items. I was after the Egg, but the Phoenix claimed it before me. I was so nervous that I didn't even realize that they had hinted about the card type of the pick with the card frame behind it, although I'm not sure it was followed throughout.

[kempy]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/9480150422015956/?comment_id=9480291685335163&reply_comment_id=9490314314332900

John Wick
Matthew Phillips Matthew D. Wilson also put "AEG has no honor" on the cover of the Way of the Dragon book. I was not the only target of his bile.
Matt was very bitter at the end of his tenure at AEG. He hated everyone.

[...]

And if you want the whole story, it goes like this:
Matt had quit AEG and was working for WotC, but still doing art for AEG.
When Time of the Void came about, everyone on the creative team was allowed a "signature card." Both Matt and I asked for Kachiko. He claimed he created the character and I had nothing to do with her creation. Matt did indeed draw the art for "Scorpion Shugenja A" as a chase card, and inspired by the art, I wrote the "Long Knives" short story that appeared in the front of the first edition rulebook. Before that, she was just a chase card, was not married to the Emperor. After that, she became my viewpoint character for telling the story. Matt insisted that he came up with all that. You can believe who you like.
When I learned Matt had also petitioned for Kachiko to be his signature card, I told John Zinser that I was happy with neither of us having the card. I'd pick the Scorpion Stronghold card. I did this out of good faith, knowing the reason Matt picked the card was so that I couldn't have it. I didn't care.
Then, the art arrived with the kanji in the throne. I told AEG that kanji was code, and they told me, "We checked. It isn't." So, I privately checked it out with a friend who read/spoke Japanese. They told me what it said. I told AEG and they ignored me, saying their expert disagreed.
Then, the art came out. Stuff happened afterward that involves money and legal bullshit, and non-disclosure forms.
That's the whole story. Don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself.

[...]

Maxime Lemaire
Jaime Lawrence The RPG Kickstarter ran out of money despite being highly funded, crashed and burned, had to be rescued by Chaosium, and finished very late by releasing a half-finished book at the end.

John Wick
Maxime Lemaire My name was on the company, but I was not in charge of finances. That person called me one morning and said, "You're out of money and I want a golden parachute or I'm suing." I spent my life savings paying off him off, paying off the company debts, paying off unpaid employees, and he got away scott free with a lifetime sales royalty, and I was forced to give away 7th Sea or go into bankruptcy.
As for the "half-finished book," Chaosium fired me before it could be finished, so I was not responsible for its final draft. And despite the fact I was working on three different projects for them, their reason was "We don't have anything for you to do."
Yeah, my name's on the tin, and shit rolls uphill. And I've apologized to everyone for what happened. If my apology isn't good enough, there's very little else I can do.