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Matt,

You might want to consider getting a userid that will allow you to post
here without waiting for an editor to okay your messages. It's free, and
it will also give you the ability to edit your messages after posting
them.

I think Larry was complaining about a marketing ploy for getting people to
buy more than they need. It's commonly done with cards. You buy a packet
of trading cards without knowing what's in it and hope you get some new
ones. But it seems less likely to me that this would be done with
figurines. I imagine that Navia Dratp will include some starter sets and
booster sets, but I doubt that they will be selling their figurines in
mystery grab bags. With the higher prices of figurines, I expect that
would be a bad marketing ploy. It seems more likely to me that most
figurines will be sold individually like action figures.

As for myself, I don't expect to buy the game at all. This is partly
because I'm poor, and this game is just an extravagant luxury item to me.
Also, I have never been into collectible games, perhaps because they were
never a fad when I was a kid. The first collectible game I ever heard of
was Magic the Gathering, and I never heard of it until I was in graduate
school. And I've still never played it. The only collectible game I ever
played was Pokemon, which I played once with a much younger cousin who was
into the game. I somehow won without really understanding the rules, and I
know I won only because that's what my cousin told me. When I was in high
school, the really big thing in gaming was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I
remember remarking once that I had spent around $200.00 on this game. It
was like a collectible game in that you would buy it in components, but it
wasn't the same thing. I would describe it as a modular game, not a
collectible game. The main things to buy for the game were rulebooks,
modules, and dice. You could buy figurines for it too, but I never did. I
was still in high school the last time I played AD&D, and I eventually
sold most of my books. Since then, I have never played another role
playing game.

I do hold out some hope that Navia Dratp will draw some people into Chess
variants. It sometimes takes only a little push to move someone in this
direction. My early interest in Chess variants had lain dormant for many
years. In 1998, I downloaded an abandonware copy of Battle Chess II for
the Amiga, and I ran it on an Amiga emulator on my PC. This turned out to
be Chinese Chess, which got me interested in the possibility of finding
programs that would play other Chess variants. I then found programs for
Shogi, Grand Chess, and Capablanca's Chess. A short time later I
discovered this site, and shortly after that, Zillions debuted, and the
rest is history. It's possible that Navia Dratp will directly inspire an
interest in Chess variants in only a few people, but even if that's all
that happens, it could have a rippling effect if even just one of them
becomes a regular member of the CV community. So there is potential that
Navia Drapt will help the CV cause even if I'm not going to buy the game
myself.