(Message luke:55)
Date:    Fri, 07 May 1999 10:36:34 PDT
To:      <l5rinfo@frpg.com>
From:    "Luke Peterschmidt" <Lukeout@frpg.com>
Subject: Re: To Poll or not to Poll

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X-ListMember: andy@cowell.org [l5rinfo@frpg.com]

>Ah...the old "Poll results never indicate what the polled people
>really want" arguement followed with the "Almost everyone hates X"
>arguement, with the "Groups of less than millions can not be
>accurately polled, or the voices of those groups don't know what
>they are saying" line.  What a bunch of hooey.  Guess the 30/30 to
>40/40 poll and vote was just a fluke, huh?  I think it'd been better if
>you'd simply have said "I want to make these changes.  I'm going
>to make these changes.  There will be no discussion."  It short,
>sweet, and much more to the point.  I recognize the need for spin,
>but geez...

I think you missed the point, or I wasn't clear. There are definitely times
when polling is the best way to go. But, polling only works on certain types
of topics - usually details of game play like the 40/40. We will continue to
poll on these types of things.

Just Tuesday George and I were playing a game with a mix of old and new
framed cards and the topic came up that maybe we should reprint some commons
from earlier sets with the new frames in upcoming expansions. Just some
commons and we would add them to the common sheet so that the next set would
have 100 commons and the normal number of Uncommon and Rare so the set would
be just as easy to collect. If we decide that this is a possibility, we
would definitely put it up for a vote. We would probably also allow you all
to vote on many of the cards that we reprint.

Polling just doesn't work for metagame decisions like Organized play for
quite a few reasons, the most obvious is that the systems are too
complicated. But there is the issue that if you're trying to add something
brand new, no one has a really good handle on what it will do to the
metagame, so many of the opinions boil down to conjecture and emotional
responses not logic. The effects of going to 40/40 were logical - everyone
knew exactly what that would do to the game, introducing foil stamped card
reprints is not that kind of thing.

We will continue to Poll in the future for decisions that are specific and
logical to go that route with. We will also continue to take initiatives
that we believe will be the best for the L5R metagame without polling. The
real question you should be asking is "Does Luke understand what L5R is all
about." If the answer to that question is "no", I have the power to destroy
your game. If the answer is "yes" then you should at least know that I'm
doing everything in my power to grow the game while staying true to story,
community, and casual play environment.

Luke Peterschmidt
Brand Manager: L5R, LBS


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