Out of all the games I tried, this one was my favorite, largely because it wasn't a simple game. The learning curve was steep, which tended to keep away many of the immature people that CCGs can frequently attract. The detailed rules also made for a very deep strategy and games were always enjoyable.
Then suddenly, in 2002, at the height of popularity, when the Star Wars CCG was catching up to the CCG monsters, Magic: The Gathering, the company that produced the game lost the license. Decipher could no longer produce the game. Instead, the rights were given to Wizards of the Coast, the company that made games that while amusing for a few minutes, really consisted of little more than holofoil Pikachu's and feverishly releasing new editions without thoroughly play testing them, in order to suck as much money out of players as possible, without providing nearly as deep of a playing experience.
WotC was offered the chance to continue the fantastic game that Decipher had created (paying royalties on the game mechanics that Decipher had developed), but decided against it. Instead, they produced a Star Wars Trading Card Game (TCG) which amounted to little more than rolling dice. It was awful. Absolutely wretched.
Wizards did, however, make a miniatures game that was mildly successful and somewhat fun. But it never had a large player base like the Decipher CCG did.
So for the past 8 years, I've been waiting.
I've been waiting for Lucasfilm and WotC to realize they just fail at making a Star Wars game. I've been waiting for WotC to lose the license.
It's finally happened.
I've kept the three, 3" binders that hold my set collections. I've kept the 4 boxes of thousands of commons and uncommons. I've kept the stack of rares to trade and build my decks. I've kept the decks I worked tirelessly to build.
So now.... Decipher just needs to get the license back.
