Ok so this isn’t really a review so much as my thoughts on the state of this game in general. But to me the idea of Inquisitor has killed this TCG. I love trading card games and haven’t really played them for a long time previous to LoN largely because the cost was too high with MTG due to the constant shift of cards (I liked picking up new boosters of expansions but overall I couldn’t buy hundreds of cards in every expansion just to say competitive when I already had so many already). With the loot cards as bonus I actually was fairly excited here, and I think they did a fairly good job on the game.
When Foresworn was released, I kind of questioned a new expansion just a month after the main game was released, but I figured it wasn’t entirely bad to help flesh out the game which I do think Foresworn did. But now it’s been about 2 months and we are stuck in with yet another expansion… I only have had time to get about 3 or 4 packs of Foresworn and I have yet to even get a booster in game. The expansion release of every other month is just too quick for my blood and the interest of the game has died down enough that there aren’t a ton of players who are still around. Those who are around are those who are heavy collectors and have invested a lot into it. So here again we are faced with the same Dilemma that MTG had of a large investment, only worse because expansions are coming even faster than that game. MTG generally put 2-3 out a year, wheras this game is on track for 6! This is even worse considering the free in game packs are few and far between… If I’m lucky I get 1 pack a month, but usually not even that… Even on the higher drop rate weekends I tend not to get one, and I’m not going to invest platinum in game to buy the ones off the broker either. The devs stated at launch that the game was designed so that you could be competitive without investing through the tutorial cards and the free cards in the game. But this just hasn’t happened in the least. If I’m going to play a TCG I would go back to MTG at this point… it allows you to be more competitive with fewer cards than LoN does (I’ve seen people who are competitive with purely commons whereas in LoN if you play against someone with a set of a number of rares in their decks, you are toast if you don’t have another rare to really combat them).
I think it was easy for people to say the game was nothing but a money grubbing scheme by SOE. SOE is known for it, but I honestly didn’t think it was going to be this bad. What really sucks is the loot cards are really cool and they seem to get better with every expansion (this one brings rings that give xp & items that increase status contributed to the guild, how sweet is that?!). But without money, how would I get em? On ebay they are going for about $20 for the decent ones=/