From AEG:
L5R Players,
As you know, we want Emperor Edition to exceed your expectations in all aspects (Story, Card Mechanics, Game Play and Product Packaging). You have already seen the impact that this commitment has had on the fictions and also have been introduced to some of the changes in Card Mechanics and Game Play through the Designer Diaries written by Bryan Reese and the rest of the Design Team.
Packaging-wise, Emperor Edition is our boldest product ever for the L5R CCG line, taking the design of the Emperor legal expansions – Before the Dawn and Second City – and also Forgotten Legacy to another level!
This has created challenges for our printers, who have responded admirably. However, with Emperor Edition, we regret to say that we got word from our printer that they are unable to hit the schedule and that, as a result, the product will be delayed. With a standard expansion, this would have likely been a 1 or 2 weeks delay but with Emperor, this means a longer delay, pushing us into the holiday season.
As a result, we have decided to push the release of Emperor Edition into January 2012.
We are disappointed by this, but we also believe this gives us a better chance to help retailers for the release of the product in 2012, since they are extremely busy over Christmas and the entire holiday season. For you, the end customer, this also means multiple release events at your local store allowing you to impact the storyline of L5R.
We also know that there have been some unofficial announcements about French and Spanish language edition releases. With our partners we have made the decision to no longer print the localized language versions of L5R.
We have found over the years that a good many of the players use English language cards and retailers in France and Spain are forced to carry both. We are going to make Spanish and French language edition PDF’s available to anyone who is a member of the Imperial Assembly so they will have access to translations for clarification if need be. For those players this negatively effects we do apologize, but we ultimately feel this will help everyone and we will do everything possible to help players playing these editions to have the information they need to play at all levels.
