Is anyone having issues with their character add-on cards being cut too small? It's very noticeable when you look at the decks from the side, and it makes shuffling tricky (they shuffle in clumps, also known as "not getting shuffled").
I looked for a thread about this issue and couldn't find one.
I know someone's going to say I should just sleeve them, but I have no interest in doing that, and I really don't think I should have to. Has anyone else had this problem?
Somebody on BGG said the same thing the other day:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1108718/slightly-smaller-cardsAs you can see I posted there that mine appear to be the same size, but it also shows you aren't the only one that has mentioned that problem.
I know at this point you are just asking if any other owners of the game have the same problem, but if you want to go a step further, you could try posting in the customer service forum here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo/customerService
That is about all I can offer. Good luck in figuring it out.
Chief Technical Officer
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With the success of the game, we've been able to move card printing to the US instead of China. The US cards are about half a millimeter shorter than the Chinese cards, though they're the same width. The difference in length is slight enough that you can't spot them on a stack unless you're trying really hard—that is, you've squared up the deck and are actively looking for a difference. Since this is a cooperative game, not a competitive one, that should not be an issue in play.
As for shuffling, if you square up the cards first and put the squared-up ends together, they should interleave just fine.
The US printer should hopefully be able to deliver more consistent color as well—there was a fair amount of color variance in the Chinese cards.
For the Character Add-On Deck, we are shipping the 2nd printing to stores, but we're still shipping the tail end of the 1st printing on paizo.com. For Adventure Deck 3, we are shipping the 2nd printing to all markets. All other PACG products are still on the first printing.
First printings have the text "Printed in China" at the end of the copyright text on the back of the box. Decks printed in the US have the text "Second Printing. Printed in USA." underneath the age warning. The second printings also include all but the most recent corrections from the FAQ.
With the success of the game, we've been able to move card printing to the US instead of China.
YAY!!!
The US printer should hopefully be able to deliver more consistent color as well—there was a fair amount of color variance in the Chinese cards.
YAY!!!
Sorry, I couldn't resist. Seeing companies make this switch makes me happy. :)
I second the "YAY!" I am glad to hear the printing is in the USA now. Also, that you're on a 2nd printing. Did you guys expect this kind of success this fast?
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I must commend Paizo for this inspiring move. I wondered about the color and texture difference, and am happy that the company makes these changes when possible even though it could remain the same. It's nice to know there are companies out there for the love of the product and customer satisfaction rather than the love of the money, and reap rewards (see unexpected success of nearly every Paizo awesome product) due to these policies.
With the success of the game, we've been able to move card printing to the US instead of China. The US cards are about half a millimeter shorter than the Chinese cards, though they're the same width. The difference in length is slight enough that you can't spot them on a stack unless you're trying really hard—that is, you've squared up the deck and are actively looking for a difference. Since this is a cooperative game, not a competitive one, that should not be an issue in play.
As for shuffling, if you square up the cards first and put the squared-up ends together, they should interleave just fine.
The US printer should hopefully be able to deliver more consistent color as well—there was a fair amount of color variance in the Chinese cards.
For the Character Add-On Deck, we are shipping the 2nd printing to stores, but we're still shipping the tail end of the 1st printing on paizo.com. For Adventure Deck 3, we are shipping the 2nd printing to all markets. All other PACG products are still on the first printing.
First printings have the text "Printed in China" at the end of the copyright text on the back of the box. Decks printed in the US have the text "Second Printing. Printed in USA." underneath the age warning. The second printings also include all but the most recent corrections from the FAQ.
Vic: Question for you. Where is the .5mm lost off the 2nd printing compared to the first printing? Is the card image shrunken so that the image ratio is changed? Or is some part of each card (like the black border) trimmed off by .5mm?
Thanks.
Thanks for coming on here with an official explanation.
I hate to be the wet blanket here. I love that you guys are moving your printing services to America, but it's a little disappointing that they couldn't match the shape that had already been established. Squaring up the decks before each shuffle is a pain and still doesn't work nearly as well as just shuffling cards that are all the same size. But if that's what I have to do, then I guess that's what I have to do.
Just so we know what to expect, would the following be accurate?
Base box: larger Chinese cards
Character Add-On: some larger Chinese still available; smaller American going forward
Adventure Deck 1: larger
Adventure Deck 2: larger
Adventure Deck 3-6: smaller
Adventure Decks 4-6 are still first printing, so they will be the larger size. The first printing run was (I believe) a printing all the way through deck 6. Now the character add-on and deck 3 have sold enough that a second printing had to be order. (Strange that the base set and decks 1-2 didn't have the same issue, particularly the base set.) But there are still 1st printing stock of decks 4-6 that haven't been released yet.
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Vic: Question for you. Where is the .5mm lost off the 2nd printing compared to the first printing? Is the card image shrunken so that the image ratio is changed? Or is some part of each card (like the black border) trimmed off by .5mm?
I've compared my first printing Cure from the base set to my second printing Cure from the character add-on. The .5 mm came from the border, specifically the bottom border (i.e. if you square up the cards along their top edge, everything will line up perfectly).
There's also about .1 mm missing from the right edge, but that's only visible if you align the cards carefully and look for it specifically.
Thanks for letting me know. I was hoping it wasn't the bottom. Oh well.
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Chief Technical Officer
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The boxes are different too: the US boxes are about a millimetre thicker, have a longer flap and open on the side. I didn't know why I had 2 different box styles until I read this thread
We've worked with the US printer to bring the box thickness closer to the Chinese boxes for future reprints. (It'll still be a side-flap, which I really like.) I don't know what products that will debut with—it may be Skull & Shackles, but it could happen sooner.
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Chief Technical Officer
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The first printing run was (I believe) a printing all the way through deck 6. Now the character add-on and deck 3 have sold enough that a second printing had to be order. (Strange that the base set and decks 1-2 didn't have the same issue, particularly the base set.) ... But there are still 1st printing stock of decks 4-6 that haven't been released yet.
Correct.
(Strange that the base set and decks 1-2 didn't have the same issue, particularly the base set.)
We didn't print everything in equal quantities. We know that not everyone who buys the base set will buy set 2, and not everyone who buys set 2 will buy set 3, and so on, so we had to make assumptions about how many people would drop out with each release. We also had to make assumptions about how may people who bought the base set would also buy the add-on deck.
Turns out that more people than we expected are continuing on through the line, and *way* more people than we expected bought the add-on deck.
As of 1/24/14 for everything except Deck 3 if you buy from Paizo directly on this website, you will get the first printing (larger) cards.
Deck 3 from Paizo is only available as second printing. And that is what they are shipping currently. So, you're only chance to get all first printing cards would be to find some place that still had a first printing of Deck 3 in stock. Doesn't seem you can tell on Amazon what printing it is. But you might be able to find it in a local store near you.
Since the Base Set is currently not into the second printing yet, there would be no way to get all the cards in the smaller size.
So you're only option is going to be tracking down that first printing deck 3. You could also check for someone selling it used on ebay or something.
Good luck.
Hmmm... That I can't say. Vic or someone at Paizo would have to answer that one.
I have to agree with Siriu, shuffling the cards (and there's a lot of shuffling) with the smaller cards is not a fun task.
Because of the smaller cards we have to pile shuffle, which makes the take take quite a bit longer and is quite tedious and exhausting
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Chief Technical Officer
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I'm not sure if you're getting what I'm saying, or if I'm not getting what you're saying.
I'm saying to do this:
Split the deck and square up the halves by tapping them on the table. Take the ends that just struck the table, and interleave those ends when you shuffle.
If you're saying that the shorter cards still slide away from you because you can't put inward pressure on the outside ends, well, try it. Maybe you hold your cards differently than I do, but I find that the *downward* pressure I put on the outside ends is enough to hold those cards in place as they riffle together.
I have yet to see these cards and I was somewhat less concerned as I was hoping that sleeves will cover the difference - although you shouldn't have to sleeve to make the cards uniform. While shuffling does sound problematic, my concern is more with the gameplay than with shuffling. If the backs look different and the size is noticeable in game, I'm not sure what to say...
Vic made this comment above -
"Since this is a cooperative game, not a competitive one, that should not be an issue in play."
If the difference in cards is noticeable in gameplay then I would definitely disagree with that statement as in a game that relies upon the randomness of card draws, different card size would screw with that and take something away from the game. You can't just wave off having differences in cards in a random draw game because it's co-op, so what, everyone should be playing nice or something? Even if they are (which I dunno what gamers you play with but I know plenty that will take whatever advantage they can get) that's still information that they shouldn't have. Oh, the top card on my deck is lighter/smaller so that must be the new +2 bow of awesome I just got, great that means I can discard these other crappy weapons that I won't need to draw it next turn.
And even if the people you play with don't play like that - it's still information you shouldn't have in a game that's based on random card draws, and that affects everyone's decision-making whether you intend it to or not. If you know that the top card at the Academy is a new card so 50% chance it's a new spell - if Ezren isn't there already I'm going to bet that he's going to check that before the game ends...
Hopefully the difference is barely noticeable, but the amount of people that post about it have definitely got me worried. Combine this with the various typos and errors on cards that already exist - and the barrier card that was shipped with the wrong set - and I'd say you guys might want to think about putting some higher level of scrutiny on the printer.
Yes, it's annoying that the cards don't match. And yes, shuffling is a little more difficult. My character add-on deck is 2nd printing. But you know, even though I notice the difference in cards, my wife and friends have not. And it hasn't affected our play yet.
And that's the point. It's play. A game. There's no money or lives on the line (or there sure shouldn't be!) It's not the WSoP or even a MtG tournament. It's friends sitting around a table having fun.
That said, I'd rather suffer a little bit of an inconvenience if it means some company in the US stays in business! Hopefully all future printing of the base sets and decks for this and future PACG boxes are printed here.
I'm glad to hear that the US printing seems to be higher quality, especially the card stock and more consistency in the color. I'll be happy to see that in future printings, especially in Skull and Shackles.
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Chief Technical Officer
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As I recall you made one run (the first printing) and did all of the adventure packs and base sets at once. Adventure packs that are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere waiting for their release dates. Did you not do this with the character add on too? Surely there must have been anticipation that most if not all of the people who purchased the base set would purchase the character add on?
We did print the add-on deck at the same time time as everything else. The way we set the print run size for it is that we called our biggest distributor, explained the concepts to them, and asked them to tell us what game they've sold had the highest ratio of add-on-deck sales to base set sales. They gave us an answer, and then we called up that publisher and asked what their ratio was, which they very kindly shared. Then we took the higher of the two, bumped it up by a significant amount, because we thought our product had more potential appeal than theirs. And it turned out that that was low. Which is to say, add-on deck sales as a percentage of base set sales for the PACG are higher than just about anything before it in the industry, and higher than anyone could have reasonably predicted.
I guess I'm just wondering why you didn't wait till you needed to do a second printing for ALL of them and clearly mark all the boxes as such.
If we ordered reprints for everything before we actually needed them, that would mean converting cash into inventory, and taking up warehouse space that we don't need to. Neither of those things are good for business.
If we waited until we needed to reprint everything and did it all at once, some products would be unavailable for months (or longer), and that would not be good for business either.
As for clearly marking the boxes, they do say "Second Printing" on them. Are you looking for a giant starburst on the front or something? That's really not necessary.
It must be a difference in the way we do a riffle shuffle. I know what you're saying but with the technique I've used for years (I handle cards all the time doing card magic) it just doesn't work. Instead when I shuffle them I have to basically square the ends up as you suggest, but then lay them on the table and riffle off from the outside edge of the corners so that the pressure is going sideways across the card instead of length wise. It's still a little tricky to get them to fall correctly and not have cards clump together occasionally, but it works. It's just very slow and tedious. Before I added the character add on pack I could pick up a deck and give it 12 good riffle shuffles in just a few seconds... Now it takes me a couple minutes just to get 4 or 5.
I found a Hindu shuffle works pretty well. That's a good way of shuffling small packets too, so it's worthwhile learning if you haven't already got it in your repertoire.
I went to all my local retailers looking for the 1st printing. I only found three copies of the Character Add-On Deck (all of them from the 2nd printing) and no copies of the other adventure decks. (If you like good gaming stores, don't live in Silicon Valley.)
Fortunately there's an online retailer that sells cool stuff (you know who I mean), which has good customer service. They checked their inventory for me and assured me that it's all 1st printing (for both the character add-on deck and Adventure Deck 3).
One of the reasons that I decided to sleeve this game was due to slight variations in color on the backs of the cards. This way promos, color variations between packs, or even slight size changes are not an issue. Given that many promos are print on demand these days, I have pretty much gone to sleeves for every card game I play.
I'd be interested in sleeving for this very reason if the sleeved cards actually fit in the box, I'm not quite ready to buy or make a custom box for the game xD
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I'd be interested in sleeving for this very reason if the sleeved cards actually fit in the box, I'm not quite ready to buy or make a custom box for the game xD
It doesn't really have to be a custom box, really. I got three of those BCW trading card boxes - don't recall the precise ones; I think it was two 550-ct and one 660-ct to leave room for dice and other accoutrements above / next to the two 550-ct boxes (six Chessex dice sets in those plastic cube-boxes fit perfectly).
http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/trading-card-boxes
They fit pretty neatly in the box, with only a little extra room. It looks like there should be space in the boxes for all cards, sleeved, plus some card dividers...but I have not done as some (e.g., Hawkmoon) have and measured precisely. It was inexpensive and required virtually no work apart from cutting the tops off the boxes, so I'm willing to chance that I might be wrong.
I'd be interested in sleeving for this very reason if the sleeved cards actually fit in the box, I'm not quite ready to buy or make a custom box for the game xDIt doesn't really have to be a custom box, really. I got three of those BCW trading card boxes - don't recall the precise ones; I think it was two 550-ct and one 660-ct to leave room for dice and other accoutrements above / next to the two 550-ct boxes (six Chessex dice sets in those plastic cube-boxes fit perfectly).
http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/trading-card-boxes
They fit pretty neatly in the box, with only a little extra room. It looks like there should be space in the boxes for all cards, sleeved, plus some card dividers...but I have not done as some (e.g., Hawkmoon) have and measured precisely. It was inexpensive and required virtually no work apart from cutting the tops off the boxes, so I'm willing to chance that I might be wrong.
Calthaer stuck with these boxes even after I offered to make him a foam board insert. The boxes do fit pretty perfectly.
I had commented on the cards being smaller in the forum for the Char Add On forum. I had said that it may not be a big deal.
After playing a few games....i can say with out a doubt...it is a HUGE deal. I shuffle hand over hand. And as was stated before, stripped cards for magic tricks are made JUST like the smaller cards we have. So you can not really shuffle unless you take the time to do a table or some other time consuming way.
As this game has you shuffle a ton, i get a pet worried that the smaller cards are not getting shuffled right.
Doing any extra work to do something as basic as shuffle is out of the question.
With that said....the game is awesome. But i can not suggest anyone getting it unless the cards are fixed. The cards are the main aspect of the game. And if they are not made right it hurts the game. Fix them for the next people that get the game. I will not be getting any more decks other then what i have now. ! and 2. Ill prob take out the char add on as well. Sad cause i enjoyed 2 of the new ones a great deal.
I had commented on the cards being smaller in the forum for the Char Add On forum. I had said that it may not be a big deal.
After playing a few games....i can say with out a doubt...it is a HUGE deal. I shuffle hand over hand. And as was stated before, stripped cards for magic tricks are made JUST like the smaller cards we have. So you can not really shuffle unless you take the time to do a table or some other time consuming way.
As this game has you shuffle a ton, i get a pet worried that the smaller cards are not getting shuffled right.
Doing any extra work to do something as basic as shuffle is out of the question.With that said....the game is awesome. But i can not suggest anyone getting it unless the cards are fixed. The cards are the main aspect of the game. And if they are not made right it hurts the game. Fix them for the next people that get the game. I will not be getting any more decks other then what i have now. ! and 2. Ill prob take out the char add on as well. Sad cause i enjoyed 2 of the new ones a great deal.
I completely agree
I agree it's a pain and hopefully wont be an issue going forward. Nonetheless, you might want to learn the hindu shuffle which doesnt rely on the cards being the same length (although they should be the same width). It's also an excellent shuffle for a small packet of cards - which is useful in the PFACG.
FWIW, the overhand shuffle isnt a very good shuffle anyhow - it's really just a series of cuts. Even with no card size discrepancy, I'd recommend the Hindu shuffle over hand-over-hand - it's quite easy to learn and is a fast, genuine shuffle.
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FWIW, the overhand shuffle isnt a very good shuffle anyhow - it's really just a series of cuts. Even with no card size discrepancy, I'd recommend the Hindu shuffle over hand-over-hand - it's quite easy to learn and is a fast, genuine shuffle.
The hindu shuffle is exactly the same as the overhand shuffle, differences in card handling notwithstanding. Neither is better than the other in the grand scheme of things
Not really. (Or at least not the way a lot of people do the overhand shuffle). The overhand shuffle can leave the deck order mostly unchanged if performed poorly.
Irrespective, it's a good solution to shuffling decks of different length cards (if the widths are constant).
I'll be blunt here. I can overhand shuffle properly. I was the poor soul in school that would practice card magic.
Done properly its not a series of cuts.
That said yeah I understand what you are saying, but I have always shuffled this way to make my cards last longer.
I should not have to do anything different when cards should just be the same size.
That and the suggested way to solve this issue is just way to much extra work. Having to tap the cards to get them flat on the edges...what?
I guess my point is...I hate that a game so fun and well designed has very very bad components. And that is what is going on with this game right now.
I'll be blunt here. I can overhand shuffle properly. I was the poor soul in school that would practice card magic.
Done properly its not a series of cuts.
No worries - it was kind of a tangent really, I figure if you did card magic you'd already know about the hindu shuffle, anyhow.
That said yeah I understand what you are saying, but I have always shuffled this way to make my cards last longer.
I should not have to do anything different when cards should just be the same size.That and the suggested way to solve this issue is just way to much extra work. Having to tap the cards to get them flat on the edges...what?
I guess my point is...I hate that a game so fun and well designed has very very bad components. And that is what is going on with this game right now.
Yeah, I agree it's an issue. I wasn't so much saying "this isn't a problem" as "this might be a way you can keep playing until the next set when the problem is hopefully sorted".
Whilst the differing length cards doesn't bother me, I can see why it would be disappointing.
My local barnes and noble just restocked shelves with 1st printing of character add on decks.
Yeah I knew about the hindu shuffle. I was just ranting in the effect I don't like being forced to do new a different way then I'm used to just cause of bad printing or components in general. :) I really do hope this gets fixed. For the next game.
Paizo was still selling first printting runs of the character add-on deck, but that was a while ago. If you call customer service, I'm sure they could tell you.
http://paizo.com/paizo/faq#v5748eaic9n0m
There is also a non-mint copy available. You could ask if that just means the box is messed up and the cards are fine.
Other than that, your only option would be to check at stores and see if any one still has a first printing copy in stock. Paizo won't be able to tell you.