The party at Decipher.com is in full swing, and though I haven’t seen quite as many questions and answers as I would have expected, it seems the atmosphere is staying true to the theme; a party.
The Decipher team has been sociable, conversational and fun loving from everything I’ve observed. They’ve loosened their ties and gone at it, trivia, jokes and general conversation over this massive, constantly expanding message board. At times it can get a bit hectic, having to refresh every ten seconds and noticing five new posts at the top of the page, and twenty more added to previous threads.
The trivia has been the biggest hit, engaging the party goer’s minds with true Middle-Earth trivia. The questions have been geared towards everyone, from simple facts, “Where did Frodo meet Aragorn?” to brain benders such as, “What road is the Ivy Bush on?”
Everyone’s a winner, whether your there to ask a question, let your thoughts be known, or even to conquer the trivia challenges and find yourself the recipient of prize merchandize.
Kyle Heuer (Marketing) has been around for the long haul today, delivering trivia and answers to sporadically up and down the numerous message threads.
There are many ways to heal a Companion:
1) play a copy of that companion from hand during Fellowship phase
2) game text on a card that removes a wound from a Companion
3) starting your Fellowship phase at a Sanctuary
I’m sure there are more, but that is the quick and dirty.
Tim Ellington (Taskmaster and Design) stepped in to deliver his services to the fans questions, and participate in the trivia mayhem.
How much contact have you had with the Tolkien Estate?
We did not have design interaction with the estate. I (and others) have worked with New Line Cinema in New York and Los Angeles, Tolkien Enterprises in Berkeley, and we have had some contact with Mr. Jackson’s group in New Zealand.
It has all been wonderful!
When doing the design and fields of the cards do you consider artistic rules concerning the proportions?
I’m not in the art department, which does all of the template designs… but I would guess they do. One element I know that was very important on some of the cards was to retain as much of the aspect ratio to the movie frames as possible to keep the “cinematic feel.”
Are there multiples of each character, and is there a variation in their rarity?
There are two versions of each Fellowship member from the story. One rare of each, and the others are uncommon, common and/or fixed.
Chuck, among others among the Decipher team, has been busy on the boards as well.
For example, there’s a version of Frodo with the Gandalf signet, and a version of Frodo with the Aragorn signet. I think.
Anyway, you’ll find game text (like the Gandalf we showed) that lets them work together.
Like in JK, each companion card will only have one signet (if any…many don’t have any at all).
UNLIKE in JK, the signets are not any kind of deckbuilding restriction. You can mix and match your companions with signets however you like.
It’s just another “layer of texture,” like cultures, which you can use when you’re building your deck. It’s also a readily identifiable icon that helps players new to TCG’s build decks.
And they look pretty cool, too. Like wax seals. Very nice.
I don’t claim to know everything their talking about, not being an avid RPG card slinger myself, but to those who are well versed in this medium of entertainment, I hope you’ve learned something.
Remember, the party lasts till 9 PM Eastern time, so if you haven’t participated, go Here and procrastinate no longer!
Posted in:
Share:
The all day event at Decipher continues with Sandy Wible, Monica Jones, and Tom Lischke, who stuck around beyond the call of duty.
Unfortunately Monica Jones had computer trouble, by Kyle from Decipher held contact with her on the phone and did his best to entertain the masses with trivia, and short answers for the avid fan’s questions.
So what did we learn? Well, to start a fan asked the question, “Are there any Tolkien games being made by EA or Sierra?” and our very own Ostadan came to our aid, putting this complicated question into an understandable perspective.
EA has the license for LotR games based on the _movies_. Sierra (actually Vivendi/Universal) has the license for games based on the _books_. Several games are planned — I know that Vivendi will have a “Fellowship” game for the X-Box planned for early next year, and have revived the online roleplay project. I do not know what EA’s plans are.
Tolkien sold the movie/media rights (and derived rights) years ago, and they are held by Tolkien Enterprises. The book copyrights and derived copyrights are held by the Estate, and of course the publishers.
And of course, it’s more awesomely complicated, since the rights for the Silmarillion and other posthumous works are separate. It took about half a page of tiny print in the rulebook for the Iron Crown CCG to explain the whole mess.
Sandy Wible (Production) then came on the scene:
For those who don’t know, I handle a lot of the production details, as well as helping the Art and TCG people with all kinds of odds and ends.
Lately, I’ve been working hard getting the press sheets ready to go to the printer, and also finalizing the foil templates for the cards.
She was asked:
What does most of the art consist of. Still, publicity shots?
We have always desired to use images that are _not_ publicity shots in our games. You see the publicity shots all over the place… which is great for their purpose, but we like to show you something unique and different.
Also, film images tend to have more “real life” in them. You know what I mean… you can look at a publicity shot and tell right away that it was staged.
In some of our other games, we have resorted to using stills and other things only where the film images turned out blurry or too far away or something.
We have gone to great trouble and expense to wheedle (and yes we wheedled big time) images from the film that NOBODY else has access to. When you get your cards, you’re going to see images from the film that aren’t available anywhere else!!!
What’s in a deluxe starter set?
We plan to have the special precon deck made just for the Deluxe Starters (based on hobbits and Ringwraiths), glass damage markers, glass Fellowship tokens, a booster pack, a collector’s card list, and more. Now, some of this might be eliminated (such as the card list) since we’re still finalizing the contents, but this is the basic idea.
Tom Lischke (Design) stuck around to answer more questions:
Adventure Path: a line of up to nine sites. When the game starts, only a site 1 is in play (a Hobbiton or Bree site, most likely). As fellowships move, sites are added to the path as necessary until at the end, there will be nine (site 9s are stuff like Amon Hen, Falls of Rauros, etc.). Rivendell is at 3, Lorien is at 6.
Adventure Deck: each player has an Adventure Deck with nine sites in it (one of each number).
The player who goes first puts out their site 1, and both players put their fellowship marker on it. When a fellowship moves, if the site they are moving to hasn’t been revealed yet, one of their opponents plays that site from their adventure deck (for instance, if the furthest advanced fellowship was at site 5, and choose to move, one of their opponents would play their copy of site 6).
What will Decipher be using for advertisement and giveaways? Monica Jones (Vice President of Marketing) gives us a peak:
We’ll be producing posters, static window cling, etc. for retailers and posters for giveaway to guys like you. Have you seen any of the oversized LOTR TCG cards? I think they’re pretty cool.
Well folks, this will be going on all day, so if you have any questions, or just want to hang around and answer the ongoing trivia in hopes if winning prizes, go Here and tell ‘em Berendir sent yah.
Posted in:
Share:
A few months ago, we were one of the first sites to report here that Kinder would be making confectionery to tie-in with the release of the Fellowship of the Ring. Well, Kinder’s German website have unveiled some great photos of the LotR figures that will be included in their chocolate eggs, as well as a display which will likely to be found all over Europe when the special chocolates eggs are released on the Fifth of November. [More]
Posted in:
Share:
New Line have just posted a small reminder of the front page of the official site, reminding us that NEW Fellowship of the Ring trailer will be shown on Monday, 24th September during the season premiere of Angel on WB.
Posted in:
Share:
For those who might have missed it, the official site has updated it’s Explore the Epic interactive map of Middle-Earth, with an in depth look at Bree and also the addition of “Humans” to the Races of M-E profiles. Worth checking out just for some nice high-rez images of both Aragorn and Boromir. [More]
Posted in:
Share:
The Cool folks at Decipher are celebrating in a very special way today! They’re getting the talent behind their LOTR goodies and doing Q&A sessions with them! check out Berendir’s first report! More coming soon! [More]
UPDATE: Check out another update from Berendir!
Posted in:
Share:
