I’m almost on the same boat and I think capturing people like us is key for the long-term success of the project.
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Thanks for doing it hope the games stays alive. Time is limited so would love to spend some money on it!!!
Sooner or later events have to pre financed, teams need to meet and whatever else!
Give us a chance to support you!
Coming from software development, we need tools for people, not devs.
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On top of that, I have a Fan Alt Art for the card Imp available as Cards & Matt they are designed by EFE and would be willing to provide them as price support.
The IPO is from other guys.
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You have my admiration (and jealousy, if I’m being honest with myself).
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So do we have an idea or a strategy for making a new cycle?
What methods of balancing will we use (click counting ect).
#future-design.
No offence, but I think that pretty premature. AFAIK The Board hasn’t even been selected yet…
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Then who are all these guys?
That looks like the board to me.
I agree that some kind of info on the direction NISEi is headed would be nice.
As stated in the text you quoted, those are the members of the initial selection committee. Their main purpose is to solicit applications for and select the board.
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The following thoughts occurred to me this morning in no particular order.
- In order to stand the best chance of survival, “Nextrunner” (the game community, set of mechanics, and theme we all love) will need to become synonymous with Jinteki.net. In other words, stop thinking of Nextrunner as a physical card game historically developed by FFG with a fan-run online play component. Nextrunner is Jnet.
- Consider what it would mean to rebadge Jnet, and use various strategies to more obviously delineate it from the trademarks. This could be as simple as changing the URL and the card backs, and as thorough as to clone the game through retheming or genericizing the game’s flavour, (e.g. a faction name “Jinteki” could become “Jinteko” or “Genetics Inc.”).
- Consider envisioning “Nextrunner” as a standalone online game that’s good enough to attract new players through word of mouth and “discoverability” among fans of great indie games. If this were the goal, the path to get there would be a lot clearer than how to continue a card game. What is the end point we want to reach, and how can we work backwards from there?
- Jnet-as-game solves the problem of availability, since new players can still fall in love with the game despite not owning cards (the “rotomappliance model”). We all already have all the cards.
- Jnet-as-game would give the soon-to-be-selected leadership team something tangible to have leadership over, rather than presiding over a game that doesn’t really exist anywhere anymore.
- Don’t let the realities of print-and-play block the development and testing of new cards. Jnet provides all the tools to do this in a better way than FFG did anyway (seems like they were using Microsoft Office as their primary toolset). We finally, finally have an opportunity for transparent (or more transparent) Netrunner design and playtesting. I don’t mean to criticize our playtesters here, moreso FFG’s management and methodology. This doesn’t mean Netrunner becomes Hearthstone with periodic “balance updates,” I think it’s important for Nextrunner to still be as playable as a physical card game as possible.
- I would be SO excited about a new cycle beginning even as an online-only cycle. Giving the community control over how to roll it out would lead to some exciting improvements on FFG’s “marketing.” The hardcores would obviously be more likely to test on a dev server and submit feedback, but the release event itself to the wider community to correspond both with doneness, polish, art and theme, and legality, could still be a pretty big fucking deal.
But yes, physical cards are tricky:
- Having a wide swathe of patently unavailable cards is not really a problem if you invert your thinking. I joined Magic in summer of 1994 and by then parts of the card pool were beyond my grasp. With every year this only got worse, but actually made the game more desirable for many!
- Everybody wants meatspace organized play to continue since this is the critical aspect of the community. I think there will always be a “classic” format that appeals to diehards and/or is proxyable. In the longterm, some consideration might be given to the idea of a “standard” format that is more approachable so as to convert Jnet-as-game players into meatspace players (and therefore full community members). I know nothing about print-and-play, but if I joined late and adored Jnet-as-game, I’d happily have a modest set of cards printed so I could play in the pub. At worst, it’s just physical memorabilia for an online game I love.
- Consider the idea of appointing regional subcommittees responsible to the executive in charge of acquiring unwanted collections and unsold cards. Create a centralized way to connect new Jnet-as-game players with physical cards.
- Weird thought experiment, but maybe a rarity system or marketplace would spring up? In its death, maybe the LCG model gets a rarity model for physical play after all? How much would you pay for three copies of Paperclip? Sound crazy? Maybe. You can always proxy, but maybe someone would want the real thing. Let them dream, right? “Oh my gosh, an original copy of Push Your Luck, I hope your kids don’t want to go to college.”
Wilder idea(s):
- Consider coordinating with the owners of NRDB, Ancur, and Always Be Running so that “Nextrunner” the game consists of an integrated platform for play, deckbuilding, rules reference, and tournament rankings/stats, all well-connected and even perhaps hosted on one domain. Doing so would have risks, but would centralize the donation and patronage required to sustain the infrastructure/provide a consistent experience.
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There was an interview with @Orbital_Tangent on Bad Publicity yesterday where he specifically states NISEI is in the process of selecting The Board: [Android: Netrunner] Project NISEI // Bad Publicity - YouTube
If you’re wondering about what the project’s at/about the FAQ is a good starting place. Also I’d urge patience. Literally everyone is a volunteer. We all want this game to survive but it’s going to take time and a lot of effort to make progress.
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Jnet as a standalone game has two major practical problems, I think:
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Players expect standalone computer games to have rules enforcement. We already see regular questions from new players about “is x allowed? I thought it was against the rules, but Jnet let me do it.” Without the explanation that Jnet’s just a tool for the players to use to follow Netrunner’s rules, that problem would get much, much worse. And it’s my understanding that Jnet’s architecture is really not conducive to adding rules enforcement, as that was never one of its goals.
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Jnet has historically gotten very slow when there were more than 50-100 simultaneous games. I know they’ve done work on the performance, but I suspect it’s still going to struggle if you have several hundred games at once. I could be wrong, though.
That’s ignoring smaller but still important issues like chat moderation and paying for the increased server costs.
This started getting underway on the Tuesday after the announcement and I slept six hours that week, mostly from stress.
People’s patience is valued on this. I can’t imagine how other Jako/Orb are feeling, as well as others who are all putting in so much work just so we can keep playing after MOpus.
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Given that FFG regularly left us with no news for months with no explanation, I think we can afford to be patient.
My only thought is that the project will live or die on transparency. It has to be seen as open and done by fans of the game for fans of the game, not as a niche extra for the elite. I’m optimistic that they’ll get this and do a much better job involving the community in game’s decisions (including design).
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Those two groups are not mutually exclusive…
Without intimate knowledge of their internal workings I cannot say for certain, but this strikes me purely as an affordability issue, that can be solved by just throwing more money at it, for a better/faster webhost.
It’s possible that their current codebase spirals out of control no matter how powerful the servers driving it are, but since it’s a fan-run project, I’m not expecting top of the line back-end supporting it right now. I easily see that changing if NISEI gets off the ground…
/puts on acting president hat
@nutritionalzero thank you for your thoughts! I am not entirely sure how feasible that will be, but we have and will continue to build relationships with jinteki.net, NRDB, ABR, and ANCUR so as to both preserve those resources moving forward as well as see what further collaboration can be accomplished.
Just as a reminder to all, our google drive directory is open for viewing by anyone who wants to know what we are up to. If you are at all curious what’s being worked on, that’s a great place to start. Transparency is one of our founding principles, so it’s very important to us to get that right. We are doing what we can to involve community members through this process, and are laying foundations for how the organization can continue to do so (and improve upon!) once the Board is selected (which shouldn’t be too far away!).
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/puts on acting PR hat
You may also ask any questions by sending an email to projectnisei@gmail.com, sending a tweet to @projectnisei, or (and this is the least efficient way, unfortunately) joining the #future channel on Stimhack Slack. I, personally, am trying to answer as much as I can.
That all said, let me be real honest: Not a lot is solidified to the point where we can say anything other than “the leadership will decide.” We’ll have more to say soon, I am sure, but until then just bear with us as we sort out how this will all work.
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Personally, I wouldn’t want Netrunner to become a purely online game. For one thing, I much prefer in person games, and I think a lot of other people do too. There are already plenty of computer games and the social aspect of Netrunner and the physicality of cards are essential parts of the experience for me. I can already play Hearthstone if I really want to. Jinteki is great but (to me, at least) the point here is to keep Netrunner going, not to turn it into something else.
The calls for patience are well taken, of course. Lots of time to figure stuff out. And thanks to the folks behind NISEI for being so open and clear about what’s happening and where this is going. I speak for a lot of people when I say that I’m much happier about where we’re going now.
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