New for Catan

December 1^st Street Date

MFG3116

Catan Scenarios: Oil Springs

$5.00 SRP

UPC 029877031160005

Eureka! Oil has been discovered on the island of Catan.

The great engineers of Catan have learned ways to improve production using this valuable new resource, both by converting it into other materials and enabling the upgrade of cities into metropolises. But oil is scarce and its use does not come without cost. Using oil produces pollution, as well as climate changing emissions, which bring with them the threat of coastal flooding-and absolute disaster. With the discovery of oil on Catan, the Settlers face a new challenge: deciding whether the common good is worth limiting oil usage or whether the pursuit of victory is worth the risk of ruin.

Catan Scenarios: Oil Springs™ contains: . 1 tile sheet . 1 rules set

For 3-4 Players

Ages 12+

Playing Time 45-60 + minutes

Graveborn Deck

The new foil deck for Magic, Graveborn, is in.  We have them on display today and they go on sale tomorrow.

WOTC Halloween Promotions

WOTC had a couple of nice Halloween instore promotions this year, one that worked pretty well and one that made me go “Huh?”  It would have been nice on both to have more advance notice about either/both of them.

The “Huh” promotion was the Innistrad league.  Lots of nice support (Tracking poster, weekly changes in play and a window cling) but the reward for playing in the league (a poster) did not exactly excite my players or give them an incentive to come back.  Magic players are card players and respond to the offer of another card rather than some other form of epherma.  We supplemented the poster with so remaining guards from the Innistrad Launch Party and a good thing too, as the first people who earned the poster wound up leaving it on the tables after they left.  Kept the card, though and appears enough of an added inducement that most of those who started have shown up for the rest of the league nights.  Some form of alternate art card would likely work better as the reward should WOTC choose to do this again.

The Halloween Friday Night Magic promotion worked a bit better, though again, some advance notice of it would have helped in promoting it.  This was a very nice promotional kit sent to any store that registered a Friday Night Magic event on the Friday before Halloween and consisted of a standee, bags promoting FNM (always welcome) deck boxes (Not as well designed as past deck boxes, thee lacked the catches on the insert tabs to hold the box together, making it hard for them to hold together. About half the people we gave them to left them behind) and bags of Magic logoed M&Ms.  That last was especially cool as I have known few gamers able to resist candy, though several of our players had a quandary.  Do they eat the candy because, well, it’s M&Ms or do they keep it for the cool factor, since it has Magic logos on it?  From what I saw, eating them won out among most of our customers.

Solitare Boardgames

In case you ever want to play a boardgame an dcan't find anyone to play against, here are some good solitaire boardgames:
any of the new WOTC releases:  Legend of Drizzt, Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashkabon.
either of the new Walking Dead boardgames.
FFG's DungeonQuest or Gears o f War.
Dan Verssen Games' Frontline D-Day or Field Commander Rommel.

Promotional Materials

Looking at the front window of the store, I see a couple of edge lit signed courtesy of WOTC, an edge lit schedule from WOTC and Alliance, a pair of matching illuminated Yu Gi Oh signs and several posters for Magic and d&D including a full length Innistrad window cling.  Approximately 17,000 vehicles a day pass by the store and see these promotional materials in our windows.  Why?  Because these are the only two companies that send up promo materials I want to put into the window and that are large enough for a car to see as it cruised by the storefront at about 30 miles an hour.  The other promo materials we receive, standard sized posters and flyers, does get hung up, but it's inside the store, where only customers can see it.  If you want to get in the store windows, send us higher quality promo materials.

WOTC Portal Problems

WOTC has changes to a gateway systems for handling email from stores now.  Still in the early session of shakedown as weare having problems with WOTC’s email portal.  It appears to not like the saved password I put into it and, when I answer questions to retrieve the password so I can change it to one it find better, the retrieval email vanishes into the internet either.  According to the WPN customer service representative, who answers the phone quite quickly and is very helpful in resetting the password and otherwise getting me back into my portal account, even on a Saturday evening, it might have something to do with my using an AOL account as the portal does apparently not like AOL email addresses.  Hopefully, the company’s IT people will look into that as I have no intention of changing my email address for the portal’s convenience.

Deluxe Munchkin

Just wanted to point out that Deluxe Munchkin is a limited run version of the game. Steve Jackson has said they are already sold out of it and have no plans to reprint it.  The production cost is too high to justify a second print run. According to the company, the plans are, once distribution runs out of the game, to reprint the board and paws in a separate boxed set, but for more than the current $5 add on to the cost of the core game.  Heck, Munchkin has so many additions now that no one will notice one more.