Allen Divers of Azrael Productions continues to answer fan questions, including thoughts on game-balance, foils, and translations. Perhaps most interesting, are the plans for preserving the identity of two separate but related games. Y'see, Azrael is in a tough position. They've got the rights to two games called Rage, with the same card backs, but different (and largely incompatible) rulesets. Each has a fairly hardcore group of supporters that has to be engaged to make a relaunch successful. This requires very careful planning and implementation. It sounds like they may be on the right track.

Date:  Wed, 10 Jan 2001 16:46:51 -0600
From:  Allen Divers (allen@azraelproductions.com)
To:  rageinfo@egroups.com
Subject:  RE: [Rage] Original Rage

      
    > >From a fun, friendly game stand point, the game is great.  From a serious
    > > tournament level though, things need to be addressed such as
    > timing and of
    > > course all those "broken" cards that exist.  During our Rage
    > rules review,
    > > we got tied up with a lot of these.
    >
    > yeah, see, we never had to think about the tourney problem. Of course we
    > here know which cards are broken, but since most of us are gamers of the
    > first hour we are expert of our decks and it is not that easy to trick
    > your opponent into your broken-combo :-)

    Which is always a deterrent for new players to come into any game.  Having
    played many different games, and having been a tournament director for most
    of them, I've seen too many new players start up, get hit by a broken-combo,
    and never play the game again.

    > But I know what you are talking about and you are right of course.
    > I myself don't like it that everything needs to be balanced perfectly
    > for tournament play (I am, and most of my friends are, fun player), but
    > the majority of players are out for tournaments.

    There is a level of fairness that must be maintained.  When providing a
    tournament scene, the company must maintain a level playing ground for all
    players, either newbies or veterans.

    > As long as the rules would not change too seriously (which I fear as
    > soon as I hear "timing" !) things wil lbe ok - you might even be as
    > friendly as providing rules for players with the old cards (like two or
    > three pages in the booklet that let them know how they can still use
    > their old and broken cards :-)

    We've got some ideas, but before making them official, we'll be posting them
    here.  Kind of a wide-beta testing scene.

    > All in all I like the idea that Rage might come back and I hope that the
    > WW classic version will make it.
    > btw, are planing to do foil cards also ;-)

    I'll be honest when I say, foil cards are the last thing on our minds.  The
    quick answer is no, we won't deal with foils in our first few sets.. they
    just provide extra costs we're not willing to deal with now.  There is also
    the stigma of them being over powered cards.. but that's another issue
    entirely.

    Allen

Date:  Wed, 10 Jan 2001 16:49:31 -0600
From:  Allen Divers (allen@azraelproductions.com)
To:  rageinfo@egroups.com
Subject:  RE: [Rage] Original Rage
      

    > Since you seem able and partly willing to print two versions of the
    > game, why not concetrating on one and printing it in more than one
    > language ? I had a shop before and I experienced the problem to sell
    > english stuff to the germans here (although I don't say "print a german
    > version", you might need to see which language would be best as second -
    > the german kids are at least pretty "rich" ;-). WotC were clever enoug
    > hto do prints in other languages fast, while other (now dead games)
    > concentrated on the market of english speaking peoples - and the main
    > customer is a kid of 14 - 16 which is mostly able to speak it native
    > language only !
    > At least you can think about that possibilty (and if it's going to be
    > german I know a possible translator :-)

    I would love to print foreign language versions, and yes, a company hurts
    itself when it tries to sell to those countries with the standard english
    version.

    The problem here is cost.  1) cost to translate 2) cost for separate
    printing 3) importing costs to Europe.

    Wizards of the Coast has an advantage.  They have an office in the Europe
    which eliminates the cost of 1 and 2.  They print right there in Europe, so
    no customs charges.

    One option would be to commission translations for everything, then post
    them on the web.  Its a quick solution, but could help pave the way.

    thanks,

    Allen

Date:  Wed, 10 Jan 2001 17:03:11 -0600
From:  Allen Divers (allen@azraelproductions.com)
To:  rageinfo@egroups.com
Subject:  [Rage] The Name Game

      
    Ok, I mentioned I would talk about something that the R3 project addressed a
    few months back.

    Here's the problem.  You've got 2 games.  Both are named Rage.  One has a
    sub name called Rage Across Las Vegas.  The original version took on
    different names such as Classic, WWRage and so on.

    So, you want to bring back both... fine, easy enough to do... but there's
    that name problem again.  Retailers for the most part will not take the time
    to know the difference between the two.  New players will be confused
    because they don't know which Rage is their Rage.  Do you change the names
    to fix this problem?  Do you also change the backs of the cards to reflect
    this?  So then, what about all the old cards that are out there?

    Here is our solution.  We've renamed the games.  In all of our marketing
    schemes, ads and even product packaging, we will use these names to refer to
    the two different games.  The names also reflect the direction of game play
    for each game.

    Classic Rage, White Wolf Rage will be referred to as Rage: Apocalypse.  The
    majority of the time, we will simply call it Apocalypse.  Packaging will
    emphasize that name over the Rage name.  The backs will not change.  The
    fronts of the cards will have either glyphs or text added to easily identify
    which version it belongs to (we haven't finalized this bit yet).

    Apocalypse's storyline will reflect the war between Gaia and the Wyrm.
    Tournaments and storyline events will reflect this.

    Rage Across Las Vegas will be referred to as Rage: Tribal War.  The majority
    of the time, we will simply call it Tribal War.  Packaging will emphasize
    that name over the Rage name.  The backs will not change.  The fronts of the
    cards will have either glyphs of text added to easily identify which version
    it belongs to.

    Tribal War will tell the story of the interaction of the tribes.  We look to
    conclude the current storyline in Vegas, then move on to other areas.

    Those are our plans in a nutshell... so what do you think?

    (oh, and not to sound mean or anything, this decision is final.  Its the
    best solution we could come up with that would not draw lines between the
    community again.)

    Allen Divers
    CEO, Azrael Productions
    http://www.azraelproductions.com