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Why Magic Online Will Suck
An anonymous reader sends us a link to this funny dissection of online gaming. The writer obviously speaks from bitter experience. :)
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Half the entertaining value of a Magic "gathering" is seeing the people who show up...some are quite interesting based on my memories from high school a few years ago.
Online version just won't have that for a draw.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Magic the Gathering?!? Oh, yeah... I remember...
cardboard crack.
I was hooked big time, but the thing I liked the best was the interaction and watching your opponents face when you whipped out that killer combination on them.
I tried the software version and it left me cold. The AI stunk and there was no joy in owning rare cards (anyone wanna buy my REAL cards, PLEASE?!?).
The online version can only be better as far as gameplay, but given the number of enterprising hackers, they'll ruin any chance the online version has for success.
I think I'll pass...
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
I read this when penny arcade posted a link to it. I, unfortunatly, would have to agree that the unpleasent population in many online communities is much too large. I haven't tried magic online but I do know a couple of things that can help clear some stuff up in the article. The article talks about duping making everyone's account get erased. They have a protection mechnisim in place that goes like this. Each card is "born" when a deck is opened, it has a unique identifier to that specific card on the server and using that they keep track of all transactions the card has been in. Thus, if a card was duped, they could follow all the transactions back to the original duper and >ONLY ban their account. I beleive that in the contract it does say that you do own your virtual cards, not them. This would probably protect you from some of the nastyness. Now, granted, there's a lot more that can go wrong, but I don't think it's as horrible as the article implies.
And yes, it's the game that "you-know-who" plays.
... Voldemort?
Yes, I did play with him. For a long time, actually - don't ask about it.
Who is "you-know-who"
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
The author goes on and on about how cheating will be rampant online and if you dup cards that we could end up with lots of dupped card being traded or worse yet that these cards could be traded in for actual magic cards.
On and on he goes about how dangerous this online version will be... but here's the catch:
If you can get physical cards for your online cards then you're playing Magic Online when you play at your local store. The meta game is now the same game. How can you tell if someone's "real life" deck isn't stacked with duped cards from his online deck?
Well you can't. And guess what, the game was hacked a long time ago, in real life. Richard Garfield never envisioned people buying crates of the cards to get four of the rare ones in their deck... the game was hacked with money.
So next time you lose at Magic the Gathering at your local hobby store, you can call the guy a cheater. I mean, can he prove he actually bought all those cards?
I have some hope that M:tG:OL might actually work -- unlike other online games you have something serious to lose besides access -- the card collection you have built up. The biggest problem with online games, as this article points out, is the lack of repercussions to being an ass.
If you've invested a lot more that time into something (eg. bought lots of boosters) then getting kicked off for breaking the terms of use might be enough of a feedback loop to keep some modicum of control.
On most online games you just re-register under another name.
Of course then the issue is -- will they really kick off somebody who has bought $10000 worth of cards ...
They will just have to have a very anti-cheating policy.
That and if it is a least reasonably popular, it will make a whole lot of money, and they will be able to hire alot of coders to stay ahead of the cheaters.
Blizzard, Everquest, and games of that type are at a disadvantage because they only get like $10 a month from their subscribers, MtG subscribers will pay much more as they pay $3 dollars per pack of cards. Adding the fact that the cards can be redeemed for real cards will really draw the MtG fans as well.
As long as WotC pumps a good portion of the revenue into coders to fend off the cheaters, I don't think that they will have much problem. Bandwidth wise WotC is looking at a much more attractive position then the MMORPG's as the ping times won't have to be nearly so low to have a good game.
So lets add up the points shall we?
1. Less Bandwidth required (Less cost)
2. Higher Subscriber Revenues (More revenue)
3. Tangible product extremely cheap to produce
= a large amount of profit to pay coders
Sure their will be bugs, I wouldn't recommend trading with people in the first 2 weeks, for example. But I believe that it won't be nearly as much of a problem as this article's author seems to believe.
I remember a few years ago when the PC version of Magic was released. I thought it was funny. The original game's advertisement was "All you need is a deck, a brain and a friend." I guess that last requirement was a bit much for some of them.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Now my victory dance will be substantially less embarrassing.
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
... but an accurate description of the current status of Diablo II online. The supposedly secure realms have been hacked to pieces. Many people charge items to help other players, sell items on ebay, and focus on the repetitive play that the game rewards.
One of the latest hacks, for example, which I find particularly funny, can program mouse and keyboard actions so that you keep creating games and killing the same monster over and over again soley for the purpose of getting the items the monster drops. This bot works - the prices within the trading economy have already gone down about one half because of the flood of all the items from players running it.
A good online game should not be based on rewarding this kind of repetitive behavior that a bot can perform (quote stolen from LB talking about Tabula Rasa.
I've played this game years ago, back when legends and the Dark were out. Well, after looking what they were doing, they were adding "new" rules and making half-assed cards basd on older, and more powerful, cards. Then you have the Tier1 and Tier 2 playing sets. To play on the upper set, you have to BUY NEW CARDS.
This continual upgrading scheme (for paper,. nonetheless) is what ran me away. I play for fun now, and spend half the time trying to figure out the stupid new variations on the original rules.
Then again, the rules change every other week. How can they update the game so that the new rules are correctly in effect? Still, Online or offline, the game still stinks these days.
The simple fact that many "hardcore" Magic players who have a real-world card collection worth hundreds or thousands and numbering in the many thousands of cards, will most likely not want to effectively start over building their cardbase online, esp. given the very valid points that the author of the article set forth.
I used to be into Magic, and still have my collection, but, if I'm going to pay for cards, I would much rather play with the whiny post-pokemon chits up the street at the card shop who throw a fit about me being cheap because my deck "isn't Type II"....Because next time when he comes up to me begging for a sweet trade for the foil whatever he got, i can smile and say "not interested." Can't do that online. at least, not with the same effect
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Richard Garfield never envisioned people buying crates of the cards to get four of the rare ones in their deck...
Never envisioned it without also having visions of dancing dollar signs, you mean.
Seriously, the whole point of putting rare cards in any collectible card game is so that people will buy crates of cards to get them...
repeat...
When you play Magic at your local card store, you're playing against people you know and respect.
I don't give a damn what Geordie Tait thinks about online magic, I want to know - Where does he go to play cards? Damn, his e-mail is Canadian.
Now, Shadowfist, there's a game. I want to see an online version of Shadowfist+Necromunda. Here's how it would work:
You have a squad, ala X-Com, that fights other people's squads. In addition, you have a virtual deck of Shadowfist cards. The deck of Shadowfist cards contains cards that are tied to the stats of the characters in your Squad; so if a character in your squad gains the Infiltrate skill, his corresponding card in your deck gains the Infiltrator ability from Shadowfist (attack backrow sites.)
That game would rock.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
If you want to avoid cheaters, play online with your friends. Playing anonymously is for chumps.
Is because the Wizards have the intention to charge full retail price for virtual cards. That's right, the same money you could spend in a store, and get real physical cards and at least have something to look at (or take elsewhere) when you're done playing. For this idea alone, I don't see how it can work very well beyond a very dedicated core of people.
Unlike most MMORPG games, MTG: Online isn't going to charge a monthly fee. The draw for EverCrack, Ultima Online, etc is that you pay your 10 bucks same as everyone else, and it's what you do in the game that makes you better or worse than everyone else. MTGO, it's all about the size of your wallet and how much you can afford to spend on getting better. Sure, some of you can say "but you still have to know how to play the game or 10,000 dollars worth of cards don't help". Yeah, true. But during the beta, I estimated that it would cost well over $500 to become "competitive" at the game, with little or no way to change that. Things would be pretty even for about a month, and then the "Mr. Suitcase" players would overwhelmingly dominate the game, much like that one guy who figured out Magic just a little too early at your local comic/card store and whipped the crap out of almost everyone on a regular basis.
My major attraction though, was Tournaments. This is where MTGO really lacks IMO. A typical tourney with 128 players (or so) can and will take up to 8 hours to finish. 8 hours! And you can't leave and go anywhere else either, cause the round might finish early and you'd default by not showing up! I tried a few of these tournaments and they don't have the appeal of a physical tournament where you can go and mess around doing other things (like side tournaments) since you have to sit at the game for a solid 8 hours (or until you lose).
Yeah, it'll suck if hackers do their thing, and if people rip other people off.. but it has to get people to play first if that's going to happen, and I don't think it will.
What they should do (this is just a thought of mine) is sell the regular cards in stores, but print a unique serial number on each one, then you can enter those serial number onto your online account. That way your virtual deck can be the same as your real deck.
People guessing serial numbers shouldn't be a problem if there is a delay in entering the number and it uses a large enough base with enough digits.
I mean, really, how dare they bring out M:tG online during an economic recession?
:)
From what I can see, the online cards run the same as the paper cards, which means every damn cent you can beg, borrow, or steal.
I wonder how many people won't be able to pay their ISP bill because they spent all their money on virtual cards.. Pity we won't get to hear
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
Does this mean that someday, other card games will be online? Like soliatare and poker?
The author left out the one good point to onlin MtG: you can't smell the freaks you're playing against.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Also, no teenager stench, which is always a bonus...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-1
c-hack.com |
Magic: The Gathering is a brilliant game. I have played it since 1993. I have watched the development of the game from day one. Richard Garfield is a genius, and all people in the CCG industry need to tip their cap to him whenever they design any game. That said, it uses a horrible business model, one that was never intended to work on a real player level. This shows up on the tournament level and will show up in MTGO.
When the game was designed, the most powerful cards were the rarest. Black Lotus, a card that lets you get 3 mana for free (where you normally only get to produce one on the first turn and two on the second and so on), is one of the rarest of all tournament-legal Magic cards. This was done because Wizards naively believed that hardcore players couldn't collect all of the cards, so the harder it was to get something the more powerful it should be.
Unfortunately, the tournament players learned that to compete you HAD to have one copy of each of the "Power Nine," the most-abusable cards in the game. Cards quickly spiraled into the $20, $30 and even (gasp) $50 range! If those cards weren't restricted to one-per-deck (where most cards are four-per-deck), their prices would have been even higher on the secondary market.
Well, Wizards learned that those cards were too powerful and stopped printing them. Again, naively assuming that if you limit the supply that eventually things will become more fair. That wasn't what happened -- the cards became more and more expensive. Today, to get the "Power Nine," you're talking about $800 or more.
Wizards learned that having a group of "haves" and "have nots" was not good for the long-term success of the game. So they created a new tournament format that didn't use any really old cards. This was called Type II, and eventually called Standard. What the Standard tournament format did was to "ban" hundreds of cards without specifically choosing to do so. Invalidating the early players' purchases.
If Magic was an online game from day one, they could have tweaked the costs and gameplay effects of their most-broken (and most-useless) cards. But in Magic, you are stuck. Since MTG-Online must mirror MTG-card board, you get all of the drawbacks of being online but none of the benefits.
Further, when you are dealing with an online game the FIRST priority must be "how will the abusers play this game?", because if it isn't you are screwed. With MTG-card board you have tons of social gaming groups that don't have to deal with the tournament gaming scene. This is extremely unlikely to happen in MTG-Online. Again, since it is linked to a nine-year-old game with sloppy, very complex rules, problems arise.
And my biggest point: Magic is just too expensive. To play in a constructed Standard tournament with just one deck, you usually need to spend $100. Many of the most popular decks run north of $200. And these use cards that are IN PRINT! Then, when Standard has a set rotation (banning another 700 cards to make room for the new sets that have just been released) you need to buy more and more.
You can avoid this by entering Sealed Deck tournaments, but then you are paying around $20 to make a deck with a limited set of cards. I like them, but how many $20 tournaments can you enter a month? Even one every other week makes MTGO a $500/year online game.
For the record, to play any of the online CCGs that I have developed, players need to spend $10 to jump in, $35 to have a serious tournament deck and about $100 to have a full "play set" of any given expansion.
When Wizards gives up on MTG-Online, much like it has the Magic Interactive Encyclopedia and the original Magic PC game, the people who have spent their money will be left with exactly nothing. Our games allow peer-to-peer play (albiet awkwardly) such that if something ever happens to us, you can keep on playing.
Disclaimer time: I speak for Blue Sky Red Design and myself only, not for my employer, our parent company or World Wrestling Entertainment in any way.
Online wrestling as a trading card game? WWF With Authority.
Buy "having to buy new cards" I thought it was probably pretty obvious that he meant the Type II (Standard) tier.
For those not in the know, in Type II, only the two most recent expansions classes and the most recent Basic set are allowed to be used. An expansion class is generally one major expansion (Ice Age was one) and any of it's sub-expansions (Alliances was one of Ice Age's sub-expansions). This means that at any time, only 6 expansions are legal. The key is that when a new major expansion comes out, 3 total expansions leave the rotation (the major expansion and its two sub-expansions). Great moneymaker.
My knowledge on this is a bit thin, so bear with me. When you register a Windows product, doesn't it record your CPU's serial number? I was just thinking this would be a useful way to track abuse and permanently ban some of the @sses that play. Sure, you can register under a different name, but unless you swap out that core... Of course, then you'd be turning away business, even if they are idiots...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
But can you cast Jebediah's 5th level Mystical Scortcher without untapping? I think not!!
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Of course, if you were just interested in playing the game on a friendly basis, and didn't bother attending the tourneys, there were always the counterfeit cards.
Back in Toronto, there was at least one manufacturer who's product was indistinguishable from the real thing. A complete set - that's f$cking everything that was done to date - in triplicate, used to cost ~$80 cdn.
Which is kinda frightening when you consider how many people are well into the thousands 'invested'.
As for the online game, geez, I'm pretty sure the same thing will happen. Don't think I'm in the the minority here, when I say I really hate to lose because some moron with money has a better deck than me. I like the game (any game, in fact), to be a fair competition, not who has the most spare cash in the RW.
If this online Magic game were to sponcer a "get-together" like dating clubs, how many people would actually show up after the amount of smack delt online?
"Oh, so you're The Verminator... I'M GONNA RIP YOU STINKIN' HEAD OFF!!! NOBODY TALKS ABOUT MY MOTHER LIKE THAT!!!"
Hell, I'd pay just to watch....
You need a FREE iPod Nano
the whole point of putting rare cards in any collectible card game is so that people will buy crates of cards to get them...
Actually the creator thought that a most people would have two starter decks and 4 booster packs. The reason for rare cards was to help balance the powerful cards. No one at wizards thought that magic would be as popular as it became and there was no way to predict it. Richard Garfield thought you'd never actually see all the cards, and rare cards would make the game more interesting.
The dollar signs came later.
The expense is the reason I gave up on MtG. After dropping about $200 on cards, I realized that it was going to cost way too much to ever keep up. Mind you, I spent some of it about 1 tournament before some of my cards became unusable.
The tournament system was ridiculous in our area. It was the same people over and over, with no qualified judge, because WotC wanted way too much time and money to certify someone. Our nearest official judge in Lubbock, TX - which meant a three hour drive for him just to sit around and arbitrate. I don't think he ever really enjoyed it and in the end, I believe he quit working as a judge.
In the end, I watched the Magic community in our town switch over to other games. It stopped being fun and the requirements of running a real tournament were too high. I think the main discouragement for me was realizing that the point system in place meant that no one from our group was ever going to get outside the county (anyone from our group would have been OK).
I don't get it - competition can be fun without being as anally organized as WotC made it. They managed to take a game that looked great and played pretty well and turn it into some sort worldwide bizarre Darwinistic system. For what? Grins? I doubt it.
I think that maybe DnD and most paper-and-pencil RPG's are more fun because you can't make a tournament system work in that way. In the end, I went back to my book games and that's where I am now.
Never again.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
I had a friend... Let's call him Mike. Mike became bored with magic when he realized that he was spending hundreds of dollars per deck to change his proxy cards (fake cards for testing purposes) into real cards. A well-designed proxy deck will basically win every time, btw. He was sick of it.
He sold off all of his cards, and gave me his land / commons (somewhere I have a grocery bag full of living lands, wyrms, forests, etc) and bought two special starter packs that contained a starter and two boosters each. He proceeded to trade with people... collecting unwanted cards and trading bits here and there for things that other people wanted. He would hook people up for cards that they were looking for in exchange for a small cut, and he was a good dealmaker. Within a week, his deck was competitive again (he knew the power of common green), and within six months he was trading legends / antiquities and his collection rivaled that of his old deck... And within the year he was bored again and gave me all of his cards.
The moral of the story... Lots of people are going to be spending lots of money on this online game. If you can spend 10 hours playing a game every day, can you really resist buying a booster every morning? I used to be one of those people. We didn't put any value into common or uncommon cards, or even crappy rares. It sounds like there will be a lot of room for friendly tag-a-longs who are willing to ingraciate themselves by not taking the game seriously... and who don't have to pay any money to play.
Sounds fun. Where can I sign up?
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
I admit to playing only casually, and never in a tournament. I admit to not being a card game designer. But I respectfully disagree with everything you just said about price.
I stopped playing some years ago, so I don't know the new card sets and rules. Maybe things are different now. But when I was playing, I built my best decks by going to the card store and looking through the 5 and 10 cent card bins. These were the cards that 'serious players' were throwing away. They just weren't powerful enough to really cut it. No self respecting player at a tournament would play with them.
I remember one deck in particular. It was built for ~$2 plus a few common cards from my collection. There were no uncommon, rare, ultra-rare cards. And it won. My friends who were big on the tournament scene talked about 'lightweight' decks vs 'heavyweight' decks. By any standard, this should have been a lightweight deck. It creamed everything.
Was I that good? No, I was a fairly average player. Was my deck that good? Not by anyone else's standards. MtG has one of the most incredible buisiness I have ever seen. People think they can win by buying more cards - the Mr. Suitcase approach. But true to the original advertising and the original idea of what the game should be, you can win with a *cheap* deck.
I would be most interested to see a tourny in which players could buy their cards for the decks before the tourny from discount 5 and 10 cent bins. Put a price cap on it - no more than $10 for the whole deck. Maybe allow a few uncommons. No rares.
This sort of format would take some of the randomness out of sealed deck tourneys - it is entirely possible to get an unusuable deck in those sorts of situations. It would force an emphasis on deck building, creativity, and player skill rather than bank accounts. If you still want some randomness, everybody digs through the same bins. If it has to be 'fair,' give everybody a bin with the same cards in it.
And because you are deailing with mostly common cards, there does not need to be a cap on which sets are used. Opening the field up to all cards forces players to look for interesting combos that no one could ever use in the current style of tournament.
I bet the decks that came out of a tourney format like that would be some of the most fun to play. And I bet there would be be one or two every tourney that could whoop my 'unbeatable' deck.
Let's see an emphasis on creativity - as the game was intended to be played. You stop the Mr. Suitcase syndrome at the tourney level, and return to a game of strategy and a little luck. Who knows, maybe your favorite card will be lurking at the bottom of the bucket...
It's still available, and still as buggy as it was 1.5 to 2 years ago :)
Learn to Play Go
if you've ever played tribes 2 you can vote to kick certain players out of the game. if someone's cheating it's usually obvious and they get booted pretty quick. if someone's just causing trouble by trying to boot honest players, people vote no about kicking the honest player and the troublemaker ends up getting booted next.
i'm not sure how this would work in a one on one card game, maybe some sort of point system where kick requests are reviewed by moderators but the solution is democratic self regulation by the players themselves.
it works because 90% of gamers are pretty honest people and just want to have a good time...
I played MTGO quite extensively during the free beta period. Stopped when they went live and started charging far too much.
1) Cards you buy for MTGO are not stored locally, but in a large database WOTC has back at their co-lo. It is conceivable that duping/illegal card hacks are possible, but the Leaping Lizard folks have been going out of their way to make sure that doesn't happen. Of course, that setup hasn't stopped all the duping hacks in Diablo II...
2) As was mentioned in another post, WOTC is charging real-life prices for MTGO cards. Same price per pack as if you went to your local store and got a physical set. This wouldn't be terrible if it didn't lead into...
3) You don't own your MTGO cards, nor is WOTC liable to replace them beyond $15. This language was inserted into the TOS about 2/3 of the way through the beta period and caused a huge shitstorm amongst the beta testers. So let's say you've spent $1000 on MTGO cards, and there's some sort of database corruption and your account is hosed. You're now out $985 with nothing to show for it.
See, the thing is that WOTC adamantly does NOT want MGTO to compete with standard MTG. They believe that if they charge less for MTGO (say, something like $0.50 US/booster) that all the MTG players will defect to MTGO. (Never mind the fact that physical MTG is on its last legs anyways.) They're right to a degree...I do think there would be some defecting, but not nearly as much as WOTC is panicking about. As it is, a significant portion of the beta testers pledged to quit as soon as the game went live, and from what I've seen most of them stuck to their guns.
While I can understand the commentator's point about people online being complete choads, and could even be generalized, in specific instances, it's completely backwards. One case in point is Sanctum, an online collectable card game, probably the best one I've found looking around. The people are great to play with. The game is balanced. The replay options are enormous. Did I mention the people are great to play with? Instead of the 90% of people are choads (a la Penny Arcade) I'd have to say 99.98% of the Sanctum community is truly interested in helping new people play, giving pointers on how to play certain strategies, willing to trade and help new players get going with common cards and such.
I highly recommend it. I can't imagine playing M:TG Online.
Sanctum can be found here.
Regards,
Mark Norton
It was a pretty cool game, the advance variation of the French defense. I got to make the classical bxh7+ sacrifice, he brought out his king to g6 (no choice), and I was pushing that poor fool right into a mating net. When BAM, there's a big flash on my screen and his king is back on its home square!
"What the fuck was that?"
"Ha, ha! I got the recall king upgrade! My king can teleport home to its recall square three times per game!"
All right, two can play at this game. I went over to the secure server, gave them my credit card, and bought a couple of upgrades of my own. Then I went looking for the punk.
This time I played the king's gambit, 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. nf3 g5. I let him have it with 4. bxf4xg5.
"How'd you take both of those pawns?"
"Ha, ha, punk! I've got double dragon bishops!"
The punk's eyes widened as he realized there was no way to save the queen in his position.
Now that we're both wised up, the games are more even, so it's not as much fun any more. There's too much trivial complexity and it takes hours to play a serious game.
But we still like to beat up newbies. My favorite target is this one guy, GMKasparov. He would be an okay player except that he never spends any money for hypercastling or semi-transparent pawns or range-attack rooks. But he got me good last night with this weird "en passant" powerup. I think he must have a cheat client, because I couldn't even find "en passant" in the powerup catalog!
Magic online is nothing like that. It's a completely faithful reproduction of the game rules and does an excellent job of enforcing them. That said, there's no way in hell I would pay full price for virtual cards which I do not own unless I somehow manage to spend enough money within a set period of time in order to collect a full set, which I can then redeem for real cards at Wizards of the Coast's discretion. Screw that.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You have to be able to collect an entire set within a set amount of time in order to be elligible to trade them in for a real set. First of all, that's really hard to do. Second, it's really expensive. Third, it's even harder to do when you have a time limit in which to do it in. Finally, the trade-ins are still at Wizards' discretion, so they left themselves an out in case they decide they don't really want to give you real merchandise since they already have your money.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
When I heard of the online version I was breifly hopeful. I thought maybe since it doesn't involve the sale of cards it might actually be a fair game and be worth getting in to it. But then I see that, nope, its the same thing, only now you pay money to get the privlege to pretend you have a rare card (think about it - increased price through scarcity will fail utterly in an electronic forum where scarcity is completely artificial.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I played Sanctum 3-4 years ago, and it was absolutely fantastic. Cheating was never a problem, unless the occasional lossed connections in losing situations counts.
I have no idea how magic online works, but these games can be designed reliably.
I played Sanctum, and almost got into Chron X. I've never played MtG.
In addition to your points, I'd add that Sanctum was designed as computer only from day 1, so it had the ability to use much more sophisticated rules. It makes for a better game.
I agree that tweaking cards in order to balance the game, although can have some effect on the value of those cards, is far preferrable to banning them altogether (making them almost worthless), or leaving the game unbalanced.
I stopped playing sanctum only because the designers didn't understand how their game was played, and left it unbalanced.
is not to play
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
An interesting point has been made, would you seriously pay money to get virtual cards that can be redeemed for real cards, and potential play experience rivalling a high school fight?
I think only hardcore magic fans would want to play this, seriously. Anyone who doesn't play the game in real life has no incentive to play it online, since the hardcore players will be spending so much time trying to screw over the system and other players to get those uber-rare cards and redeem them so fast that nobody else has a chance at them.
Multiplayer Online games have fatal flaws
1. Any form of RL value ("ebay")
- Fine rare item, sell it on ebay, play for 6 months sell your character on ebay, etc.
2. Any form of in-game currency or inventory/items that doesn't work on market-based principals. (IE, no license to duplicate items, each item in the world is unique and can only have one owner.)
- No generation or re-spawn should be required to keep sufficient inventory in the game. All existing games as far as I know need to "replenish" stores, or the stores are unlimited, which let's people hoard certain items.
3. Inventory period.
- Can a real person hold 300 dead rabbits? Didn't think so. The reason people can hoard anything in these games is because their inventory is so deep that it allows them to. One certain game I was playing during betatest would have 60 players surround this one shop keepers respawn point, then when the server rebooted they would quickly login and buy everything the shopkeeper had and turn around and sell the items for 100000X the price. If there was a realistic limit(like in weight/room-in-backpack) on inventory, one person should not be able to buy out 20,000 units of any item and be able to fit all that in their inventory.
4. Any form of client-side storage
Diablo I/II has this problem, as the game stores data on the client side, it's easy to make whatever item you want, even make your character have any stats you want. This is also the same problem in peer-to-peer server-less games, where the client data can be "bot"-ed. The client should only recieve game state and send actions, not do any calcuation and not send what isn't requested. "Attack player X" and server does the calculation. FPS games present a further problem since to shoot, a aiming point has to be sent, and since the client also receives the location of everyone, it makes it easy to just auto-track.
In short, why would you pay money to be part of a fictional world where you get screwed over, and over and over? This is why many RPG games don't attract the right kind of people (usually the hack and slash FPS/Diablo crowd) since the people who are used to kill everything that moves ruin the game for everyone else. (Some games have a notoriety feature that makes it so pk'ers are highlighted when they are in the area.)
I play a fair bit of Diablo II online and I've developed a technique for dealing with cheats: I don't care. If someone were to steal a valuable item from me somehow, through my naivity or otherwise, I just wouldn't care. I've built up my character, and I can do it again. I'm playing the game to enjoy myself, not so I can be 133+.
I don't know much about MtGOL, but from what I've read here virtual cards will be redeemed for real ones (or at least their value). Because of this, people with good collections of genuine Magic cards can only lose. Their collections will be as valuable as the dupers' fake collection.
This is the equivalent of a government allowing virtual money in an insecure environment. If it is possible for someone to cheat the system and print their own money (or dupe their cards) with no legal recourse, it will happen, and the value of every holder of that currency will lose out.
To end this semi drunken rant, I will summarise by saying that anything's value is in the eye of the receiver. Be it cash, a Grandfather sword, or a Black Lotus card. If you can't trust the printer of the currency, don't invest in it.
Cheers,
Noims.
PS. please excuse my spelling, grammar, and keyboard (my E doesn't work right)
This is not the greatest sig in the world. This is just a tribute.
I've seen those "Magic, the Gathering" books in bookstores for years, but I never before knew how the thing worked. You buy more cards to get more power in the game. That is so tacky.
Has anyone who's posted played a password protected version of Never Winter Nights? ...as in, you provide the server for your friends and only your friends, then proceed to play a mutually respectful game with honest rewards and accountability.
Online Magic should provide the same capability. If it doesn't i suggest that you adamantly request such before paying money... online != anonymous.
That's it. The perfect solution for clubs, groups, and privateers.
'nuff said.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.