During last Beyond the Veil interview with Tilty he confirmed that all these pink shiny versions of agents is fluff only with no extras. Or at least it was the plan. The pure and simple psychology behind the card collector games to offer something rare and fancy.
Excuse me, as I have never been into card collecting etc. but I am really curious. Does it really work for you? Are you really motivated to grind/buy purple shiny ones? There are no extras. There is even no different graphic. Which is âfulffâ thing I would be able to understand at least. No stat bonuses but at least to have some nice different picture of my agent. Or unlock some extra gallery with nice pictures of agents. Or unlock some lore info about their background. Anything. But the current version with shiny effect only⊠I cannot help myself, but it is laughableâŠ
NopeâŠI also found the effect underwhelming for how much more expensive they are on the AH and how much more rarer they are in drops.
Itâs like a bit of sparkleâŠeven pokemon gave more with recolors. Would be cool to get like alternate skins like the skins of museum stuff or so. Fluff only is fine but it gotta do more than sparkle a bit in white of all colors that I care. That said not going to pass up a shiny agent if it drops.
I understand fluff argument. For me, I donât need any extra numbers. I am not minmaxer. If I would get some extra lore info about agent or as mentioned some nice picture of him, I would think about to get some purple ones maybe.
But this sparkle effect. First thing I though was they canât be serious, It must be a jokeâŠ
The shiny agents are very underwhelming (Lydia and Oleg). As there isnât any reason to have them, I have zero intention of purchasing/pursuing more of them.
The âshinyâ effect actually looks ugly on the agent pictures, and if I ever accidentally use a foil version of an agent dossier then I would be willing to pay to remove the effect.
My first online game was a TCG. That didnât have shinies, but many TCGs later had.
The first time I was introduced to shinies, I was all âoooh, itâs so shiny!â and âit will take forever to collect all shines!â and âwait, I can probably get A LOT of cards I need for this shiniy that I already have a regular version ofâ and âwhy do we like shineis?â.
In later card games shinies often mean animated art. Itâs cooler than just a glossy version, but itâs still just a shiny.
To answer you question: In general: Itâs cool to have something rare, and itâs fun to show off animated cards, but I do not go out of my way to obtain them. If I get it, cool, if not, no biggie. As for the shiny agents specifically: underwhelming and I canât really who them off in a match now can I?
Actual shiny treatment would be a bit silly too (high quality beard gloss, now available in 24 colours!), but I wouldnât mind trading in the sparkles for some background art. Trade in the discount police photoshoot look for some location shots based on their bios, maybe sneak a few small easter eggs into the pictures. I recognize itâs a significant art investment though, so Iâm not about to expect it.
Iâm not a collector so my opinion doesnât directly apply, but I actually dislike the effect. For me a foil agent isnât in the âI donât careâ territory, itâs in the âI donât want itâ territory. I have already passed on a foil agent to sell on the AH and I didnât buy the foil Lydia from Caligari.
Does Oleg Yablokov have a non-foil variant when you buy the SA Collectorâs Edition? It should be an option.
As far as i can tell from my dealings with card collection fans, the point of foil cards is either to be uber-powerful (some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, apparently), exclusive foil only (also some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, apparently), or something to show off with (e.g. by having an all-foil Magic deck).
(Generally, virtual cards e.g. in browser games seem to fall into at least on of the three categories, usually the first and/or second.)
Funcom misses all three points: foil agents donât do anything special, theyâre not exclusive (aside from that SA CE one), and people canât show off with them because there is literally no way to show of oneâs collection.
Iâd be amazed if anyone gives a damn about SWL foil agents, as that would require someone far more âcollector for collectionâs sakeâ than any real CCGer I have ever met.