As an anime fan, a LCG based on anime would interest me greatly. Here's what I want to see:
 
Ghost in the Shell
Macross (not Robotech, since Macross has many more series under its belt)
One Piece
Gundam
Naruto
Patlabor
Super Sentai & Kamen Rider (yes, I know they are toku not anime, but I'm a fan of both franchises and they'd make great LCG)

It's sad to read stories like these. I'm fortunate that there's a local store about 15-20 minutes away that has regular LCG players, although they usually only congregate at Wednesday night. And they play everything from Netrunner to Star Wars to Conquest as well. This is why I play both Star Wars and Conquest and will probably get into AGOT 2.0 later on. It's a shame that good games go to waste due to lack of player support at the local areas.

As an anime fan, a LCG based on anime would interest me greatly. Here's what I want to see:
 
Ghost in the Shell
Macross (not Robotech, since Macross has many more series under its belt)
One Piece
Gundam
Naruto
Patlabor
Super Sentai & Kamen Rider (yes, I know they are toku not anime, but I'm a fan of both franchises and they'd make great LCG)

I've been reading up about the changes they brought to 2E, and it appears to have fixed some of 1E's problems. 2E will have more emphasis on iconic characters over the no-name cheap cost units that players like to use; a rework on the rules for duplicate, setup, and attachments; and a revision on the factions' strength and weakness. They also took care of the out-of-control Reserve. It's a good thing I didn't buy 1E back then because 2E seems to be the game that is meant to be. 

Whether I need to buy one or three Core sets to play this game, I'm going to buy it regardless. I just hope we won't have to wait until October to buy the Second Edition.

House Stark is my favorite faction, but Night's Watch isn't too far behind so I'm definitely looking forward to create a Stark deck with Night's Watch as support. And it just makes a lot of sense in terms of thematic as well.

I would assume each faction's power level will be as close to equal as they can make it, since the eight factions are intended to be playable right out of the box, in 2-4 player matches using the contents of a single core set. Note however, that each faction is going to have its own strengths and weaknesses, with inertia pushing you toward running a support faction, to either shore up your main faction's weaknesses or build upon its strengths. We already know, for example, that House Stark will have standing, and the cards of the Night's Watch previewed so far have an emphasis on defensive play. These two strengths go hand-in-hand. I anticipate Stark with Night's Watch support (or vice versa) will be a popular combination early on.

The Ned in me has always preferred to have House Stark offer peace before bloodshed. But that being said, we are comrades-in-arms, friend. Standing together, our common foes will taste the icy kiss of Northern steel. In the words of Lord Eddard Stark, "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."

Both my brother & I have purchased 2 Core, 2 Edge of Darkness, plus one of every other packs and deluxe editions. We also brought more so we can make 2 Jedi and 2 Sith competitive decks. I know this game isn't as popular as Netrunner, but it's Star Wars and we love the universe and the feeling of being immersed in this world. However, there's some balance issue now (MTFBWY being OP), and the Jedi decks are helping the LS win way more than DS. I hope the devs will address this problem sooner rather than later.

It's been years since Overpower and the Versus System games for Marvel, and right now Marvel superheroes movies are making billions at the box office, why not make a LCG for it? Star Wars and Marvel are part of the Disney umbrella, so it shouldn't be hard to get the license, right?

I've never gotten into the First Edition, so there's a chance that I might get Second Edition so I will be able to start off at a level playing field. If I get into the game, I'll probably try Stark first because they are my favorite House from the novels. House Targaryen will be my second choice.

Descendants of Isha's status is Shipping Now, so we will probably see it in a week (hopefully). Can't wait to build a Baharroth deck!

I entered my first Conquest tournament last month, and I was winless with my DE deck, but I still had fun because most of my opponents were very cool guys (except one, that is). When you have fun even when you lose, that means the community is great and the people are nice. 

Correct

Yes i believe this is the case, and any "extra" can be put onto the quest. Eg if the location can accept 3 progress and your questing is resolved giving you 5 progress, then 3 go onto the location (location is thus explored and so the location and its 3 tokens are discarded) and your remaining 2 tokens can go onto your quest.
 
Thematically, i imagine that things in the staging area (enemies or locations) are both distant "threats" and so the heroes picking their journey around them, stealthily walking etc are all thus actions delaying progress on their actual quest (explaining how threat levels reduce your questing resolution total) wheras once you have travelled to a location (or engaged an enemy) it is no longer a distant "threat" because you are indeed actively tackling the situation (which still delays your main quest, either because exploring the location is a buffer absorbing progress tokens or because fighting enemies often prevents characters being able to commit to quest (generally speaking, not including special abilities etc)
 
So in my mind, the whole mechanics of the staging and threat works perfectly thematically. In a real quest, having to skirt around an upcoming location or monster would indeed take extra time and so would indeed result in less progress being made on your quest i do love how well the mechanic is thought out. 

Thanks. So, once you have enough Progress tokens on the Active Location, it is discarded along with all the tokens on it, right? And only then will you be able to start accumulating tokens on the current Quest? 

Well, I built two decks using only Core set cards, with Leadership/Lore in one and Tactic/Spirit the next. My brother and I tried the Passage Through Mirkwood scenario and learned the rules as we go, and I think we definitely made some errors along the way. First, it was hard to work with the resources that we generate, since each hero only produce one during the Resource phase. I know there are cards that can produce more, but we either didn't draw them or didn't have them. Also, without Allies the heroes do take a beating, and since attacking exhaust your characters you have to assign one character for questing so others can be ready for attacking later. Anyway, I think we played the game somewhat wrong but that was our observation in our first two-player game. 
 
Next time, I will incorporate other cards from the expansions and adventure packs to strengthen the decks and eliminate much of the weaknesses.

Got this today, and now several of our decks are going through some make over.

Sleeves that use the codex covers
 
Also, since Android got some nice playmats very recently, I want an aquilla playmat

Looks like The Threat Beyond war pack is coming to shelves soon. I can find an eBay seller that sells the war pack already. There's an online store that is selling it now too, but since I need to order at least $100 to get free shipping I'll pass for now.

Penny sleeves are excellent for the encounter deck cards. Something like UltraPro standard black sleeves are good for player cards. 

If they release lotr mats i will be buying at least 2, maybe 4
Please ffg, you have sales here!

I'm glad FFG is selling Netrunners play mat, but I wish they'd sell the play mats for other LCG like LOTR, Star Wars, and Conquest as well. 

I would love it if FFG would start selling playmats instead of having you to either win them at tournaments or pay a hefty price on eBay for one. 

Maybe they can create new planets for a saga expansion like LOTR, but both players have to play with the new planets and excluding the old ones. The expansion can also introduce unique rules that govern the new planets, as well.