I am not sure if any of the other expansions are up for reprint at this time. I would hazard a guess that each of them upon their next release will be updated with the new Arena branding. As for errata cards, it has been typical to see these cards updates added to the next reprints.

So my answer for now is get the Arena versions of what is released and for the other 4 get what is out there now.

This is accurate.  The next on the list will be Druid vs Necro, but that would be at the end of this year, or early next, at the soonest for a reprint.

This is exciting! Good luck finding time to breathe Aaron. 

Well, that's why we have him scheduled for only one game in the morning and one game in the afternoon each day... unless that cloning machine arrives from Cardiff...

I don't believe we have a wiki, but if the fans demand one, I'd be interested in talking more about it. 

Quote from: Exid on April 12, 2015, 12:40:12 AM

Language is one part of the problem.
After years, a lot of french players decided to by the orioginal cards, it's hard work to understand but we didn't want to wait and wait for a hypothetical translation...
How many more french players would start MW with a translation and good addvertising? I don't know (children? players who choosed spanish or german before english at school? players who prefered play than go to school?...). I heard the french core set didn't get sold well, it was perhaps to late.

I don't have time to go to organised events, so it's not very important for me.

What is, is that MW cards can be find in game shops, with well informed people there. And that is not the case yet.

we has two problem with mage wars in france , no publicity and great problem for see the first french core set ( fret problem , dismiss of project manager .... , Asmodée has sent the box in august just before the school begin :/ and after 3 moths with no comunication , some shops has received a phone call for attempt to make promotion for this game , but all shop has make their ideas , ( too longer , too complete , etc ...) and the quality was not the same of us Core set ..... then normal , these shops has refuse to make demonstration for this game , and in bigining of junuary , we 's received a message , mage wars is stopped ans there are non extention in french , hard to interested french people who prefer a french card ( french people loves their tong ^^)

Mr Arcane Wonder why ask at your ambassador to translate your card ? your ave the mostly idea of the time , with us participation mage wars is not only your game , its us game , And if you have already the traslation for your distributor  you economise time and € ^^

i am sure its possible

We do not have any other items translated in French other than the Core Set but are working with Asmodee about expansions.  It may not be Marabunta that does it, but we're trying to fix that issue in France. 

Thank you Scott for replying to my question of your European view.
I can really understand that it is a lot more expensive to arrange something in Eu compared to more local stuff in the Us. My take on your reply is that AW has taken a corporate decision that you won't make an overall profit / gain (additional sales, increased marketing value, or expanded player pool) by making such trips / efforts / promotion. Correct? Becuaes if it would have it would have been a good investment, right?

I really hope you will revise this in the future when more funds are available. As I wrote in a post further up in this topic I'm not too imprest by the work done in this aspect by your partners over in Eu. AW would have done a much better job them self's with more passion. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to hire someone based in Eu to to this.

While I'm already writing I must also state my comment again regarding different translations. Too me I can't really see the gain doing this... This in my view could be money spent in a better way (like going to EU for example). The players you are targeting will for sure play Mage Wars with the original language. That is what all of us others are doing that is not French, German or Spanish (or English by the way) native speaking. To demand this, and take time and money from AW from your development of more expansions or simply be able promote the product more, is just to be spoiled. There are no Dutch, Sweds or Poles who are asking for this what I can see. I believe you won't translate into these languages as well, are you?

Again thanks for your reply and keep up the good work. Mage Wars deserves it. And I'm sorry if my comments sound a bit hard or not complete. English isn't my native language either...

Foreign translations, in general, cost our time more than money.  That said, not even time vs a schedule, but time in just the amount of work on someone's shoulders here at the company.  Depending on the relationship, games can be either licensed to a partner to print in their language, with them providing us a royalty, or, we can print them, and sell them to the partner at a highly discounted rate for them to distribute, but with enough profit for us as well.  There are also many locations that perfer local language for games over English, and this helps build the market and playerbase in those areas.  At the moment, Dutch and Sweedish are not being discussed, but Polish is, to potentially be added.

Overall though, the most work that licensing a game puts on a company like ours is from an operations standpoint, and it doesn't impact the design team as nothing changes in the design of the game.

We get much more feedback than is seen online at our customer service and sales emails and I can tell you the languages we choose to partner to produce are in demand.  We wouldn't be making those decisions to partner with other publishers to bring them out if we didn't think they had the opportunity to improve the game's reach and player base while being a profitable decision.

I full agree with you about the passion for marketing the games.  We believe we could do more and do better.  It is something I've brought up to all our partners in all the regions we work with.  Since the partners are investing the majority stake (usually both in time and money), they prefer to maintain marketing control, with our input and guidance.  We provide assets and suggested messaging and tone, however, we look to the partners to know the best outlets to market in.  Marketing a game is a long run and not a short sprint, and making knee jerk reactions can be worse for the wear in most cases.  That said, every relationship is different and we try to evaluate as much, and as often, as we can.

I'm sorry if you took my reply as investing money in Europe is a bad investment.  That was not the intent.  It is simply that we have a limited budget and as a small company we need to spend it where we can maximize the impact and profits to grow, and as we grow, make decisions that impact a broader range.

Again, we will have Ambassadors helping us promote the game at UKGE and Essen this year.  If anyone has other large conventions they feel we could work with in Europe to hit as well, we'd love to hear from you where the players are, where the opportunities are, and what those conventions are.  We're always happy to explore opportunities when and where they may present themselves.

My question wasn't so much about expansions, but rather the general view of the European market from AW.

Even if I agree with your thoughts iNano my concerns with Europe is that "nothing" happens in Eu like it does in the States where AW participates in fairs, arrange tournaments, or just show its presents except for there product via retailers.

As ambassador in Sweden I would really like to hear the future plan AW has for EU since time is running short to turn the tide if you listen to what people in here has to say in the matter.

Quote from: fas723 on April 08, 2015, 09:49:00 AM

I ask the same question in here as I did in the Battleground topic:

Quote

Speaking of what Koz just have mentioned, what has been said in the other topic "Is MW losing popularity", and that both you Scott and Aaron have replied to the subject in here I would really like to hear what plan AW has to get the EU market going again. Please say you have nice plan here and that you are not just going to leave it as is. I have the same feeling out of Sweden as my other follow European buddies that MW really need you commitment over here to survive / turn the trend.

If this isn't the right topic I'm sorry, but please reply in new one then. Thanks!

Hi everyone!  As VP of sales, marketing, distributor and partner relations I wanted to chime in here.

First, yes, we want to grow in the European market and no, we don't ever want to leave a market "as is".  We love our fans in Europe and I've had the pleasure of working with several of the ambassadors there who are all excellent.

Regarding fairs, shows, and events, we are a US based company and are small, we are only 5 people.  It is much more affordable to make it to local shows in the US like Origins and Gen Con than it is to get someone from our company to Essen or the UK Games Expo for example.  To give you a rough idea, for the cost of getting one person to and back from Essen, I can get an entire 20 x 20 booth and marketing at Origins.  As a fan of board gaming, there are many European small companies our size who I would love to see come to Gen Con, but simply can't do it, for very similar reasons.  I can never fault a small company for trying to spend it's money wisely this way and hope no one faults us in the same fashion.

In that light, it's why we focus so much on Ambassador relations.  Like many other competitive card games, our game thrives when supported by the community.  Last year we had several events hosted by European Ambassadors.  Jannis Grimm held gameplay events at Essen with our partner Pegasus, and this year we plan on having Chris Brett, another ambassador, at the UK Games Expo playing and teaching Mage Wars.  Just because none of us from the States make it there doesn't mean we're not trying to take advantage of opportunities in the region.

The biggest challenge I see us facing is local store organized play.  Many retailers we speak to tell us they have no one in their communities willing to step up to manage it.  This is where we need ambassador help.  If you want to see Mage Wars thrive, there is no better way than offering you FLGS some of your time to organize play groups, generate and build a community and build to organized play.

As a great example, here is a video that Jan Kriz, an ambassador of ours overseas, put together about events he's had an impact with:

https://youtu.be/AptRPtTyL9Y?t=5m30s

Do we need to release more product to keep the game from becoming stale?  Yes.  Bryan is keenly aware of the delay from a design and business standpoint.  He is a perfectionist and I don't think anyone of us wants a product that's not fun to play.  Paladin vs Siren has taken an eternity, to be as transparent as possible, and I for one think the company announced it way too soon in it's development cycle.  We're working to solve three main problems right now:

1.) Introduce more players to the game and community: We are confident new sets and the release of Academy later this year will accomplish this.

2.) Bring out more spells to keep the spellbook options fresh: We are planning on Battlegrounds, Core Spell Tome 3 and Paladin vs Siren, all this year, to accomplish this.  Battlegrounds Domination has already been announced and we are still planning the others this year.

3.) Bring out more Mages: As mentioned, Bryan and Aaron are working on the design of Paladin vs Siren, and we have the next set after PvS planned in mind already for 2016.

Regarding marketing, we have a modest budget and we use that for print and web advertising, in an effort to hit all markets.  We work to advertise in trade magazines that are seen world wide and web sites, like BGG, that have a global impact.

In addition, we have several language translations out, in motion, or coming. We have a few partners interested in beginning with Academy, since they see it as an opportune product to launch in their markets with.  Also, our European distributors all regularly acquire Mage Wars, in English, for sales to retailers in region.

While I understand the frustrations and I greatly appreciate the support form our overseas friends and fans, we look to our communities to help us grow and thrive in areas we don't have official Arcane Wonders staff located in.  Caracas, Venezuela, while yes, not in Europe, is a great example.  There is a local store there who doesn't have a local distributor.  We have worked to not only get them games, but get them set up with an Ambassador and OP and now they are regularly hosting Mage Wars events there, growing their local community. 

I will simply ask this, apart form the obvious of no new sets since Forged in Fire, what is stopping anyone from playing the game and introducing it to new players to help generate interest at the community level?

We have made the game readily available to our distributors.  We have marketed the game with retailers and fans in the region.  We have put the systems in place for volunteer supporters to promote organized play.  We've supported ambassadors at events in regions where and when we can, and as mentioned previously, we're working for 3 sets this year to help bolster the line up.

If anyone has retailers struggling to get the game moving in their community, please have them contact us.  We are more than happy to work with anyone, and in out of the box ways to make things a success.  Ask them what you can do to help locally.  Recommend Organized Play to be held at their store. 

Above all else, we hope everyone knows we want the game to grow and are doing our best to no only deliver a great experience, but also engage and make this a true community.  Games are nothing without players, and our players, unarguably, are the best I've ever met.  We love you, and want to see more success world wide, and more fun in your hands and on your table tops.

As most of you know, I'm a passionate and transparent guy.  Feel free to ask me anything, anytime.

That's my 2 cents... or as we say internally around here... "my 2 mana"

Hello fellow Mages of Etheria!

The time for our annual Gen Con tournament has come and we are working on setting up the details with the Gen Con events team.  This year, we will have a 32 seat tournament, with swiss rounds, cutting to the top 4.  As last year, rounds will be 75 minutes long.  The point system will be the same as well:

Outcome   Match Points
Match Win:  4
Modified Win:  3
Draw: 1
Match Loss: 0

Match Win: Opponent mage is dealt lethal damage, i.e. the amount of Damage either equals or exceeds their Life total.
Modified Win: In the event that neither player has attained a Match Win when time is called, the player with the greatest difference between Life total and Damage is awarded the Modified Win. If there is no clear Modified Win, both players will receive a Draw.
Draw: If a Modified Win is awarded, the player with the lower difference between Life total and Damage is awarded a Draw.

Given 5 rounds of 75 minutes, along with time in between rounds, we're expecting the tournament to last roughly 7-8 hours to get to the cut of the top 4.  The top 4 will then play each other in a single elimination style bracket, with the same outcomes listed above and we expect those two matches, and the finals, to take an additional 4 hours total.  The finals will be allotted 2 hours for the final two competitors to play.  This means the tournament is best held over two days.

We plan on hosting the tournament on either Friday, with the top 4 and finals on Saturday, or hosting on Saturday, with the top 4 and finals on Sunday.  What we need from you, as players and fans, is a preference of what two days are better as we want to be cognizant of you time at Gen Con as well. Please leave a comment below and let us know if you prefer Friday/Saturday, or Saturday/Sunday.

Thank you, as always, for your support, and we look forward to seeing you at the best 4 days in gaming this year, Gen Con 2015!

PS - Due to the release of Battlegrounds Domination, the spell cards from it will be tournament legal at the time of Gen Con!