This is a really good interview. tl;dw is…
- their next game was going to be D&D, but they changed course and are doing something else now
- Vincke has a vision for “the one RPG to rule them all”, and each of their past three RPGs is a step closer to it
- the next game is not going to be that master vision but one step closer toward it, with their previous 3 RPGs proving out emergent design/multiplayer, story and consequence, and personal stories/performance capture, respectively
- Vincke would like to have this next game done in 3 years compared to BG3’s 6 year development cycle, but realistically expects 4 years, as long as there isn’t something like COVID-19 or a war in Ukraine to impede their progress
Hasbro pulled a bunch of typical big corp enshitification tactics with their licensing and digital assets over the last couple of years.
They’ve also tanked the used market for people. 2 decks I had that I paid way too much for aren’t worth the cardboard they are printed on now. (MTG)
Moral of the story: run proxies. Speculators and investors ruined the market, WotC just let them do it. (Also, fuck the secondary market and the reserve list. It’s cardboard. Some of us just want to play)
Those decks were for competitive play. They wouldn’t let me run proxies.
My moral: Don’t give WotC anymore money, ever. Fuck 'em.
This is why I bailed out of Standard, finally. I’ve moved entirely into Limited.
I’ll still do pay-to-play with drafts of new sets here and there, but proxy Cube is where it’s at. My fun-to-price ratio with the game has never been better.
Oh, these were modern decks. Not T1 mind you, but still they destroyed the value that I had in it to me.
I just hate that at any time they can reprint something and it’s pretty much get fucked to anyone who paid $400+ for a 4x.
For example. Or my dude here.
Ah, that kind of price churn has been the norm in (lower case “l”) legacy formats for as long as I’ve been playing the game (25+ years now). It’d be reprints, bans, or just plain old power creep. Those formats have been too expensive/volatile for me for a very long time now.
Wait what happened?
Reprinting some things, neglecting to reprint others, power creeping the stuff they did reprint out of the game, banning some stuff that was too powerful while printing other stuff that’s just as good for the same reasons. You know, standard card game stuff.
Okay, sure, but they’ve been doing that since… what? Chronicles?
The rate of bans has dramatically increased since 2020. They even had to errata an entire new mechanic in the Ikoria set because some of the companion cards were crazy broken with the original design.
An extra wrinkle to this is that they are making bans due to how cards perform in online play, as best-of-one is a widely played format now.
I mean, I absolutely agree Best of One is an awful way to gauge card strength.
Did not know they’d ramped up bans.
🩱