So what is KNOWN about the collectors edition??

Regarding the board, cards and so on, as I said EVERY component we'll be upgraded, and I will follow up with more questions on the other items shortly.
We'll definitely have a revised version of the rulebook and the card wordings, which hopefully will have a much shorter FAQ (I can't promise there will be NO need of a FAQ!). And we'll make the revised rulebook available on the web, of course, for people who already own the game.
Most likely this rulebook will become also the reference for future reprints of the game - but of course the way it will be printed will also be special to the Collector's Edition.

Regarding the cost, we don't plan to cost the same as 3D-Catan, but I can't say for sure yet as lot of things have still to be calculated. But I can promise that, whatever the cost, there will be a good ratio between production value and cost, as it was the case with the "regular" edition of the game

There are few things we are sure of regarding the Collector's Edition, but it will DEFINITELY include painted figures.

Most of the other suggestions are in the line of what we want to do - I'll open another thread on the board on monday, because it WILL be larger (we are thinking about 20 to 25% larger - more is impossible or it won't fit any table!) and of course tweaking borders and trying to optimize the playable area - possibly to get rid COMPLETELY of the alternative army tokens (which very few people use anyway).
There will also be additional "touches" to make the board special but I'll not tell for the moment!
We thought about cloth, but we think that the relationship between light-weight plastic figures and cloth would be problematic.

We are also thinking of larger cards, in a size similar to what is used normally for tarots, with increased font size (we will post some of the preliminary layouts as soon as possible).

Of course we'll also need the dice to be special, something will be there for the counters, and the RULEBOOK of course we should not forget...

1) Yes, we are planning to do the figures "fully" painted, not just with a spray or something like that.
2) Yes, in the same line as we are planning to include the relevant BottA figures we are also thinking to include Gollum
3) At the moment we are considering to do only the basic game, or the basic+twilight, in this edition, not the "Battles" game
4) Yes, we plan to have a very nice serigraphed or hot-stamped wooden box, this will be one of the things we are quite sure are included
5) Timetable, we are trying to do this as a fall 2007 release, so between september and december. Price, our guess is this edition should be somewhere between € 150 to € 190, but this is not final until all the decisions about production are chosen and quoted properly, of course.

Regarding other questions:

- It is quite possible that SOME - not all - of the components which are part of the collector's edition will be made available separately for the people who already have the game. The cards and boards, which got the most criticism from a functional point of view, come to mind first of course.

- We don't plan we'll go into extensive re-sculpting of existing figures, because in a limited print run like the Collector's Edition this will have a huge impact on the cost without much added value, I think.

- Regarding how the Collector's Edition relates to "Expansions": the Collector's Edition does not mean an end to expanding WotR, just like the Collector's Edition of Catan does not mean Catan is not expanded anymore. This is in fact the only reason why I am doubtful to incorporate Twilight of the 3rd Age (the BotTA "Strategy" component), because it will then become somehow different from other future expansions which are not a part of the Collector's Edition.

- However, we will NOT include any new Expansion-type material in the Collector's Edition. We don't want anybody to feel they MUST buy the Collector's Edition to have new stuff in the form of a few characters and new cards or rules. This type of additions below to the next Expansion (which we hope to release in 2008), rather than to the Collector's Edition, which is made for people who have not bought the game yet and want a deluxe version, for people willing to trade away their current "normal" edition for an improved one, and of course for collectors and fans who want to treat themselves to a nice gift. We don't want to force people who "just" want to play a good WotR game to buy this one.

The Collector's Edition will be available worldwide, from the various companies who licensed the game from us (which include FFG for English, Asmodee for French, Phalanx for German/Dutch, Fantasy Shop for Greek, Devir for Spanish/Portoguese).

Not all of them are committed yet to release the product (very logically, as you can see we are still working on its specifications and price!) but we are quite sure that at least five of the languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian)should be represented in this edition, and the Collector's Edition will be available in these languages from the appropriate companies.

Here I am again to discuss the components of the Collector's Edition. The previous thread shifted from miniature paintings to wishlists in general and much discussion is on the board, so I think it's proper to focus on the board - also because today I have an official announcement to do.

Something which people did not ask, but I thought of doing (maybe because I have long been a fan of Decipher's Lord of the Rings TCG, which introduced Tengwar cards as promos) is that when we did a Collector's Edition, I wanted more Elvish in it.

I liked the small touch of the Mordor Track done with Elvish numerals and Elvish has a special graphic quality which is very pleasing.

So, I can officially announce that DAVID SALO, the "man who speak Elvish", translator and creator of the Elvish dialogues in the Lord of the Rings movies, has delivered to us a full elvish translation (or transliteration in some cases) of all the names on the game board. And DANIEL REEVE, the master calligrapher and map-maker whose works prominently feature in the movies in the form of handouts and such (see his works at http://www.danielreeve.co.nz/), will do the calligraphy so that all the map will be hand-written in Elvish, with metallic gold ink...

Yes, that's quite crazy but true. Hopefully somebody else than me will like the idea

We will put small sub-letterings with the "normal" regional names for the few fans which do not know the game board regions by heart and can't read Elvish :-)

Last, regarding color changes to the map. We consider the map as a work of art by John Howe, so we want to be respectful of that art and we can not and will not flood it with green in Photoshop.
That said, I am going back to John with your suggestions and see if he can come up with a good solution for the problem. It's his art, and we don't want to add a beard to Mona Lisa...

Well, John Howe replied very promptly to my question, and we have good news.

First, he's not contrary to the idea of modifying the existing board. Second, if this is compatible with schedule, he could even paint a completely new board... Now, I can't really promise this second option will happen (John's schedule has a tendency to be very dense, and we don't want to postpone the project to 2009), but the fact that we have his approval on intervening the map opens the way to accomodating some more of the people's requests.

The point on "secondary" understandable lettering is taken. We definitely want the board to be usable, and hopefully the larger size will make everybody happy. We also plan to improve the use of the printed area, by tweaking the borders, reducing some of the areas to the South and East, and we are experimenting with using a reasonable level of spherical distortion to increase the size of the regions in the central portion of the map, which of course are used a lot!

Again, thanks to everybody for voicing their opinions here, positive and negative. It's clear that we will not be able to make EVERYBODY happy but at least we can make the best attempt we can, with the knowledge of what people want!

Well, at a point we thought to do this edition in Elvish only... for a couple of minutes, then we stopped drinking :-)

We plan to have as many languages as possible. Currently War of the Ring is licensed in 8 languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portoguese, Greek - and of course we do the Italian edition ourselves).

I think that if not all publishers, at least the 5 major ones (English, Italian, French, Spanish, German) should be partecipating to the "Collector's Edition Project".

Well, honestly the point of the Collector's Edition is not only to improve the game "technically" - that's what a "Second Edition" would be suited for. Of course this does not mean that we will not make all the technical enhancements we can to make the game experience more enjoyable.

That said, I appreciate all comments - negative ones are as good as the positive one - with the understanding that of course we will not be able to make people with opposite views equally happy!

We want to make every component of the game "special", not just better. I have NEVER seen a Middle Earth map in Elvish and quite like the idea - granted that this is something that the Tolkien enthusiast will appreciate more than "normal" gamers.
I suppose that at least as many Tolkien fans as non-fanatic gamers will be interested in this edition of the game, and that most people interested will be BOTH Tolkien fans and gamers (like I am!).
For these people, you never have ENOUGH of the ambiance until you are wearing a mail coat and riding to the help of Gondor ;-)

I am confident that the board will be pretty cool, as well as being an interesting "resource" for the scores of would-be Elvish linguists who populate hundreds of web sites... and still be better to play with than the original board.

And yes, I have not forgot the thread regarding enhancing cities and strongholds...

A double-sided map is an idea I have been considering, given that more people than I expected seem to dislike the idea of the Elven gameboard...
(Or may be we do 6 languages instead than 5 in this edition, one of the six being Elvish only ... :-)