Hi all,
Unfortunately, I did not get my website entirely updated like I wanted too... x.x;
However! here are a few items of highlight:
Dramatic Booster 1: One Year War (Gundam) is done~ ..sortof. : /
There's a Gundam War sales list, for all those who are wishing to complete their collections~
'Special Site Feature' is not up yet, but should be when I get back from anime North~ ;p
(I have not had time tonight to post a trading list, and probably won't untl after the weekend, but he has over 1,000 cards for sale, many of which are Uncommon and Rare, and a few Holos and Ultra Rares in there too. All good condition. Prices are negotiable, so if you have a request you can scroll to the bottom of this news post for e-mail instructions. First come, first serve.)
Ron Hoppe, Head of Gaming at Anime North this year, contacted me looking for people to run the following events:
Yu-Gi-Oh CCG
Dragon ball Z CCG
Avatar CCG
BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) RPG
Hero Clix
AN is looking for people who are willing to demo card games -any card games, but preferably current stuff people are playing. If anyone is interested, they can e-mail Ron or just show up at the con and ask one of the staff to get a hold of him.
His e-mail is a gmail.com address, with rcehoppe before the @
'Digimon Card Game Alpha' promotional material should be up... probably sometime within the next 2 weeks.
'Dramatic Booster 1: One Year War' has been scanlated... sortof (this is not our final product, but I thought it would be good to get *something* out before Anime North started).
http://savefile.com/projects/808493405For all those coming to my site to hear about the Projects, here it is in greater detail:
'Digimon Card Game Alpha' is the current card game in Japan, with it's 6th Booster on the way. Bandai America is 'restarting' Digimon as a card game over here, so my bets are on them porting over Alpha for the english audiences, since they'd probably be releasing the card game around the same time as the dub of series of 5 Digimon airs this Fall on Toon Disney (and hopefully on YTV.. ).
As such, we're scanlating Evolve 1 (the first series of Alpha) for people to play with and promote the game with. Look for that within the coming weeks~ ;]
Gundam War is a popular card game in Japan, recently having released it's 18th booster (with the 19th on the way), as well as various Starters, Dramatic Boosters, Based Boosters, and other expansions. There are *easily* over 4,000 cards to the game. As you may have guessed, it's based on Gundam. The card game drawn on elements from the animes, mangas, and just about everything else about Gundam... The card game also includes cards from every major faction in Gundam, including the Earth Federation, Zeon, Titans, Neo-Zeon, Zanscare, Crossbone, After-War Gundam X, G Gundam, Turn-A Gundam, Wing Gundam, and Gundam SEED/Destiny, along with anything else I forgot~
Bandai America ported over the game in... think it was 2005. However, due to a lack of both advertizing and availability, many people thought the game was another 'MS War' (a Gundam Bandai America released years ago that apparently didn't go so well... apparently a Bandai America original), and so the people who knew about this game and thought it was another MS War didn't touch it. Many people, however, did not know the game even existed until after it was cancelled. Some of those who knew exactly what this game was and wanted to buy it also couldn't access it... Bandai America had restricted it to 'hobby stores-only', so everyone interested in the game without a credit card or local hobby store had a problem...
Needless to say, the game didn't sell to fast, at first, and that slow initial sale speed is what caused the game to not make a profit once it became the best selling game Bandai America had out at the time (and being late on the release dates didn't help any either.. ). Bandai printed 3 series, each of which sold out 1 production run (or close to it, in the case of series 3), but then the game got cancelled, and last December 1st the website for the game suddenly disappeared -along with the downloadable Rulebook, all the FAQs, all the Erratas, all the Clarifications, ... The game itself also had a few errors in it, which also included a Rulebook that had to be re-written (so when the site went down.. ).
Due to all this, many of the Gundam War fans feel they have been cheated, and have started a project to get Gundam War Back In English!
We are going to make up for where Bandai had slipped, by translating every card and putting it in easy-to-look-up indexing system, having card scans for all the cards available for everyone to view and search through, and advertizing this game to everyone we can to reach the potential Gundam War fans out there!
As such, we are scanlating some Japanese cards so that players can promote the game. The cards can be printed out on a home printer, cut out, and put in card sleeves for people to play with. If the cards are free, people are more willing to try a game out. If people try the game out and like it, they are more willing to support the game, and there we have it!
Bandai America has told us that for the game to be 'viable', it would have to sell out 15,000 - 20,000 boxes per series (about 12 packs per box). A 12-pack box would cost about $40, based on previous prices, and Bandai wouldn't be releasing a series any sooner than once every 3 months (or more realisticaly, once every 6 months considering each series has about 200 cards in it).
15,000 - 20,000 may mean time alot (and at $40 per box, that's about $600,000 - $800,000 per series), but realy, if you break it down, it isn't.
If we can get 5,000 - 7,000 people, at least, buying 3 boxes per series, that makes your 15,000 - 20,000 boxes right there. 3 boxes per series with a new series every 3 months is $40 a month, *at the most*, and with a new series every 6 months it's more like $20 per month. Of course, there's always those who will buy more or buy less, but every little bit helps. : ]
Something else to take into account was that when Gundam War was still current, it sold out 1 production run each of cards. Now if I remember correctly, a production run was either 10,000 boxes (someone please correct me on this if I am wrong). If that's the case, and we take into account the people who couldn't buy the cards before because of a lack of access, we might have our 15,000 boxes worth of cards ready to be sold right there! :]
This is not impossibly, people. In fact, this is *very* possible. To better our chances, we're going to be making our play to Bandai during October, and flexing our willpower from mid-October to sometime in November. Why are we doing it then? Partly because Bandai America's financial year begins and ends on December 1st, and partly because the people have beenr equesting YTV to show the original Mobile Suit Gundam (0079) series for a very long time... With yTV's 'The Anime Channel' coming, possibly this Fall, having the original Gundam series air might be a reality! (which is also the reason why our first series is 'One Year War'; hey, Bandai Entertainment says mecha is very popular in Canada, and Gundam SEED is in it's 4th run on YTV, back by popular demand, so.. )
More details on our master plan as the time gets closer, but for now I suppose you're asking 2 questions:
1. How do I play this game?
2. What do you need me to do to help?
For the first question, there are 2 ways you can play this game: Offline and Online.
at the moment I don't have the rules of the game on my site, but I will soon (possibly within a week, or less, after Anime North finishes. So look for it on my site this weekend!). In the meantime, you can find the rules here:
http://invasionx.com/gundamwar/index.php?board=3.0That is part of the site that has Gundam War set up for Online Play through a gaming engine, which is one of the ways you can play, learn tips and trick, get help from a former-mod of Bandai's Gundam War board, and meet new people to play with.
http://invasionx.com/gundamwar/ For those of you who prefer to do their playing Offline, that's what the scanlated cards are for! They are not meant as piracy, but rather as promotional material to help get new players into the game. You can print them, cut them out, and slip them between the face and card sleeve of whatever cards you're using now.
For those of you who prefer to play with real cards, there are 2 options: You can either buy English cards from people, or stores where you can find them, or you can play with Japanese cards!
For those of you who want to play with Japanese cards without having to learn Japanese or carry around translation sheets, we can accomodate you there. The text boxes of the scanlated cards, which have English text in them, will be cut out and made available for download as a special 'insert-only' release each series. That way people with Japanese cards can print only the effect box, which is all that realy needs to be translated on the cards, and slip that between the card face and sleeve of their Japanese cards to play with!
Now, what can you do to help?
Promote the Game. That's it.
Find people who are playing card games, buying Gundam products, watching Gundam shows or reading Gundam manga (or mech stuff in general), and ask them if they know about the Gundam War card game. Yes, it will require courage and boldness, but then, what major worthwhile things in life don't require at least *a little* courage now and then? Play games in places where people can see you play. Try to start up a playgroup at your local card store. Let people on Gundam websites know about the game. Whatever you can do is greatly appreciated. :] (just don't break any rules in the process.. )
Want to do more than that? Well, we *do* have background tasks available, which range from helping the scanlation process to organizing and indexing card data for our master check-up sheet.
Anyine interested in helping with more 'background' work can go here and ask what tasks are available, and say what all you can (and are willing) to do:
New Recruits At Crossbone:How are we going to do what we're doing? We're translating the cards (or rather, helping Baron check through his translations). We're indexing the translated card data for quick and easy checking when the mods would have to check a series before it goes to print. We are also starting up a Japanese card album where we *hope* to have all the Japanese card scans up by October. That would be the base for error-checking on any new series that comes around. It would also be the base to double-check the 3 series already released for the future if they get reprinted.
*sees how long this news post is*
Okay, 5am now, and you probably have a good idea about what we're doing... For more questions, you can e-mail me (or catch me on one of the message boards linked to in this post). The site's e-mail is on the 'Contact' page. Please put 'Gundam War' or 'Digimon' or one of the other subject lines mentioned on that page or your e-mail might Get Deleted. I get alot of spam, and e-mails from people I don't know that don't have something relevant to this site in their subject line get deleted (otherwise it could be spam -it's a safety precaution).
Edit:
DB1: One Year War is 66 cards, and after this weekend we hope to start working on DB4, which is 55 cards and covers a little of each colour. We also hope to slowly start working on Japanese Booster 16, which is 203 cards and has a fair amount of each colour, as well as Purple/Colourless cards in it. We will decide what to do from there. Altogether, that's 324 cards, probably before the end of next month. x]
x] Thank you for your time, and Have a Great Weekend!
~CyberDramon
