Palatinus' OverPower Forum

I kept hearing the term and had no idea what it meant for while, but from what I can gather it's an unreleased set that many people make homemades of for play.

So what's the full scoop on The Marvels?

http://overpower.ca/archive/Ripayuheadoff/op/marvels.html

It was completely set to launch when fleer dropped Overpower. It was an expansion on (almost) all of the Marvel Heroes, giving an extra Special to each of them, as well as a reprint on some of the more rare, or more useful Specials for certain people. The link above has the deets on the cards, what they do, and how to play them. Palatinus also hase these homemades mocked up:

http://www.beenhereandthere.com/overpower/homemades.htm

A lot of people used their own art sources or templates. I used both, some of Palatinus' are really good images.

In general, it expanded the playability of a some characters, as well as introducing a few new mechanics (I especially like the OJ-coded and OF-coded Specials). Fun stuff, but not for everyone, I suppose.

Quote from: ncannelora on April 01, 2011, 06:48:20 PM
It was completely set to launch when fleer dropped Overpower.

I wouldn't call it 'completely set to launch.' On the other hand it was more than just a set of ideas.

The novel card types had undergone some significant playtesting (ie trying to break them). But this was not complete and there was expected to be some more editorial input before the set was finalized.

John

Quote from: JohnL on April 01, 2011, 07:16:39 PM

Quote from: ncannelora on April 01, 2011, 06:48:20 PM
It was completely set to launch when fleer dropped Overpower.

I wouldn't call it 'completely set to launch.' On the other hand it was more than just a set of ideas.

The novel card types had undergone some significant playtesting (ie trying to break them). But this was not complete and there was expected to be some more editorial input before the set was finalized.

John

hmm... well I guess that's true, semantically. I only mean that it's more than just some guy's homemade cards that caught fire in the OP community.

In terms of playtesting, I don't think anyone in our group has tried to expressly break any of them, but at the same time, we haven't noticed any particular imbalances, either.

The Marvels or possibly Overpower: The Marvels was to have been more than just another booster set. It was also going to include starter decks and reprint certain cards making it an ideal set for new players to jump in with. If you look at the card list you can identify the starter deck characters as the ones with 4 specials (one new one and three reprints). Because of these reprints (and the necessary power and Universe card reprints) the set would have been large at 275-300 cards. Despite all the reprints I think the set would have been a success since there were lots of interesting, and powerful, new cards. Other sweeteners for older fans included: A new mission set (I never saw details of this included on any checklist though and we didn't play test any event cards for it); Galactus (4-stat) and Beyonder; Bastion, New Universe and Power Leech reprints; classic insert reprints; multi-power 5; non-chromium Crystal, Black King, and Team X.

You might notice that the Marvels was distinctly hero based. That's because a following set (tentatively titled Absolute Evil) was to have been a similar set based around the bad guys. Although there was some furious speculation at the time about who the two new characters would be (Thanos!) this set hadn't even begun to be developed. Although you can find some homemade sets for Absolute Evil these are entirely speculation.

John

It would be nice to get a hold of an insider from the Overpower team.  I bet there is still a lot of useful info out there for some of these sets that didn't get released.  I have tried to track down and contact some people on the internet but I have never gotten anywhere.

Quote from: Palatinus on April 08, 2011, 10:49:01 AM
It would be nice to get a hold of an insider from the Overpower team.  I bet there is still a lot of useful info out there for some of these sets that didn't get released.  I have tried to track down and contact some people on the internet but I have never gotten anywhere.

Well I'm hardly an insider but I was briefly involved towards the end of the game - enough to get my picture on the Team OverPower card! I'll post a bio in the intro thread sometime.

I'm sorry to disappoint but I think we already have what there is.

Marvels - The card list we have is probably fairly close to what would have been released. There would have been a little tweaking and some editorial input from Ron but it was getting there. We even have a specials guide for the new cards thanks to Nick. There was no budget and so no art was commissioned. There's nothing else to get.

Absolute Evil - This was barely in the throwing ideas back and forth stage. It's possible that Ron P. had a preliminary list of characters but if he did I never heard of it or saw it. Obviously there was no specials guide or art.

DC3 - This is interesting. The story is that the cost of the DC3 art was included in the JLA budget (which then reduced the profitability of JLA ensuring DC3 would never get made despite all the art having been produced). People have assembled card lists based on the art but I've never seen an actual list with game text for the specials. This, to me, seems like the item most likely to actually exist.

Other sets that were rumored were almost certainly just ideas. CrossOverPower was the idea that led to Image. Image 2 was talked about but given what was happening at the time I doubt that there was anything more than some speculation. I'd be really surprised if there was any concrete information on these 'sets'.

OverPower did not die overnight. It was a protracted death caused by a number of factors, the departure of some key personnel and then the final straw was the loss of the CCG rights to Marvel characters to WOC. At each stage various strategies were suggested to keep OverPower alive. For example at one point there was some talk about the possibility of keeping OverPower going solely as a set of small expansions (like MegaPower) marketed directly to the fans. I suspect that all such discussions, like this one, focused on economics rather than anything interesting like who would be in the set and what their specials would be!

Quote from: JohnL on April 08, 2011, 02:19:35 PM

Quote from: Palatinus on April 08, 2011, 10:49:01 AM
It would be nice to get a hold of an insider from the Overpower team.  I bet there is still a lot of useful info out there for some of these sets that didn't get released.  I have tried to track down and contact some people on the internet but I have never gotten anywhere.

Well I'm hardly an insider but I was briefly involved towards the end of the game - enough to get my picture on the Team OverPower card! I'll post a bio in the intro thread sometime.

Awesome! Which is you?   
(expecting a close up picture of the TO card emphasizing the person in question...  )

Quote from: JohnL on April 08, 2011, 02:19:35 PM
OverPower did not die overnight. It was a protracted death caused by a number of factors, the departure of some key personnel and then the final straw was the loss of the CCG rights to Marvel characters to WOC. At each stage various strategies were suggested to keep OverPower alive. For example at one point there was some talk about the possibility of keeping OverPower going solely as a set of small expansions (like MegaPower) marketed directly to the fans. I suspect that all such discussions, like this one, focused on economics rather than anything interesting like who would be in the set and what their specials would be!

Just makes me sad to think about it... 

Quote from: Nostalgic on April 08, 2011, 03:45:49 PM
Awesome! Which is you?   
(expecting a close up picture of the TO card emphasizing the person in question...  )

Big enough?

Pass the Gestalt gave us the who's who during our first meet up, I can only remember the guy on the left is Duncan Yuen.

Si.  It is. 

I thought he might post something like that, cropped for emphasis on him of course. 

Yes, that's Duncan Yuen on the left. Being on a card was one of the main prizes for the 1998 Nationals. A sign of the times, Cherie took home $5000 in 1997.

On the right hand side I can't name everyone but that's Norman Barth in the center (red shirt). Ron Perraza is in the Marvel shirt. It doesn't look like him to me but he drew it so he should know. On the other side of Norm is Drew Tabb.

Kathy Probe is in front and one of the other women may be Jessica Rose but I don't know what she looked like (she did some web stuff).

Is that Nick Williams behind and between Drew and Norm?

I'm lurking anonymously in dark glasses at the back. I don't know who the guy in the yellow shirt is. I always assumed the guy at the back in the tie was Dan Buckley who was a supporter of OP at Marvel but I've seen pictures of him since and he doesn't look like that so I don't know who this is either.

Duncan was one of my regular playing partners back in the day. He hated the fact that my max-6 deck kept beating the team he used to win the nationals.... Mwa-hahahahaaaa....

Kiss my ass, Marauders! 

-BBH

On Facebook, there are two Duncan Yuen, one's from Richmond Hill. Any idea if it's him?

Quote from: JohnL on April 08, 2011, 04:24:31 PMI'm lurking anonymously in dark glasses at the back. I don't know who the guy in the yellow shirt is. I always assumed the guy at the back in the tie was Dan Buckley who was a supporter of OP at Marvel but I've seen pictures of him since and he doesn't look like that so I don't know who this is either.

Cool. There's an avatar for ya.