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. :)

Comments

You won't see the players

[peterdaly]

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

you-know-who?

[stefanlasiewski]

And yes, it's the game that "you-know-who" plays.

Yes, I did play with him. For a long time, actually - don't ask about it.

Who is "you-know-who" ... Voldemort?

Re:you-know-who?

[Zaphod-AVA]

You-know-who that he is referring to is likely Jamie Wakefield, as further evidenced by his reference to punching 'Jankfield' later in the article.

Wakefield was a well known magic player and columnist who quit the game for Asheron's Call. Many magic players were fans of his articles, which were better thought out and written than this piece of tripe IMO.

If the author is consistant, he is likely to want to punch me in the skull. My email address is zaphod(at)charter.net, feel free to contact me for my physical address.

-Zaphod

It won't suck...

[Tranvisor]

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.

A deck, a brain, and a friend?

[bryanp]

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.

This is good

[charlie763]

Now my victory dance will be substantially less embarrassing.

Re:There is some hope ...

[josh crawley]

---"Of course then the issue is -- will they really kick off somebody who has bought $10000 worth of cards ..."

That's 10000$ bucks for free for them. Why not?

Re:There is some hope ...

[Bastian]

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.

You've obviously never spent much time on AOL.

As a teenager speaking for all my peers across the planet, all I can really offer up in response is this: my peers are complete assholes, in both senses of the term. They have the common sense of your average toddler, and about the same amount of empathy for others, to boot. (DoNt FoRgEt, ThEsE aRe ThE pEoPlE wHo InVeNtEd TyPiNg LiKe ThIs.) Those two qualities, combined with the sense of invulnerability that the Internet provides, does not make for someone who feels they need to follow the TOS, even if failing to do so means a few bits on a distant server might be twiddled.

(I extend my deepest apologies to anyone reading this who is between the ages of 13 and 20 whose higher-order mental processes have survived puberty. You're a model to us all. really.)

another reason why it will fail..

[DMaster0]

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.

Why it doesn't suck (IMO)

[goober]

Was just playing it this morning. The software and gameplay is very good. Most of people's complaints about it however, is the pricing. This may be a good thing. Online players are less likely to make a whopping huge investment in virtual cards. (Like I have in Real Life...ugh!) Thus you can actually have fun playing with crappy decks as you are not repeatedly pummelled by some luser with his $400 pile of rares.

Also, no teenager stench, which is always a bonus...

Penny Arcade said it best

[jcsehak]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-1- 28&res=l

Magic Was Never Designed For This Business Model

[blueskyred]

As the designer and producer of the #1 online collectible card game, WWE With Authority!, and the producer of the longest-running online collectible card game Chron X (over 5 years!), I speak with some "authority" on this subject.

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.

Re:gotta agree

[Prior Restraint]

eyegor said: cardboard crack.

Hi. My nick is Prior Restraint, and I'm a Magic addict.
("Hi, Prior!")

It's been four years since my last game, (applause) but I still have to take it one day at a time.
("Amen!")

I can still remember how it all started: I joined a gaming club in college because -- surprise! -- I'm not a very sociable person. At first, it was all RPGs, which was "okay". I mean, I had dabbled a little in high school, even ran a campaign once, and it didn't affect me, right?

Then, suddenly, I found myself going to cons. Talk about your unwashed masses! (cynical laughter) That's where I met The Pusher. He was doing free demos, trying to set up tourneys with the con coordinator, that kind of thing.

And I ignored it. I mean, it's a card game; it was beneath me, you know? But not everyone did, ("That's right!") and you know what? I started seeing it in my club's office.

Show of hands: How many here got their first deck for free? Quite a few, I see. That's how I got pulled in. My former S.O. had been into this... this "game" -- and don't think that word wasn't carefully chosen to make you think it's safer than it really is. ("Preach on!") My very own S.O. handed me a deck after I asked what all the fuss was about. Blue-green, as I recall. Even came with a Sol Ring and a Wall of Flesh.

I got in at the worst possible time: revised edition had only been out for a little while, and popularity was sky-rocketing. I began learning strategies, and we all know where that leads -- say it with me, now: "I just need one... specific... card".

Oh, but those... Pushers... at WotC know better than that. Oh, yes they do. Suddenly, revised is going out of print, and fourth ed. is on the way. Now what do you do, my friends? I'll tell you what I did: I found myself debating the merits of doing without a couple of textbooks in order buy a full set of dual lands! That is what Magic does to people, ladies and gentlemen. First, you give up certain luxuries, like eating on campus instead of ordering pizza. But it's a slippery slope, my friends, ("That's right!") and pretty soon, you're eating ramen noodles twice a day; drinking Pabst, or worse yet, Milwaukee's Best; and living in contested gang territory for the lower rent!
("Don't hold back!")

And the rule changes! Cumulative upkeep? Of course! Cooler cards need that sort of balancing. Buried vs. destroyed? Sure! I can probably muddle my way through it.

I stuck by my new master all through fourth edition. This time, it was green-black. I joined a group that played for ante. When I lost my Sorceress Queen to a rookie mistake (I failed to make good use of my Pestilence), I knew I had hit rock-bottom.

But, my friends, that was the turning point for me. For the first time, I was truly seeing my situation as it was. Now, I'd like to tell you I tossed out my cards and never looked back, but... we know that only happens in the movies.
("Tell it like it is, Prior!")

*sigh* And so, I kept playing. I stopped with the ante; I no longer considered going to tournaments, and that was good. But I kept playing, anyway. I couldn't shake it, because I kept telling myself I could control it. Despite everything, I still said to myself, "Self: you've got a decent deck. Nothing too fancy, but it can hold its own. You can play with it 'just for fun', and still avoid the treadmill that has you chasing after cards".

Does anyone know what lesson I failed to learn? Oh! I think I heard it in the back: I forgot about WotC's plans for me. I forgot about new editions, and new rules. So, all of a sudden, fifth edition comes out, and my deck can't stand up to the phasing and flanking bullshit cards people throw down at me. I'm right back at square one. It was the day I caught myself at the comic book store fondling the fifth ed. boosters that I knew I had to go cold-turkey, or not at all.

To this day, though, I find myself tempted. I have co-workers into their thirties who still play. Last week, I caught a glimpse of some seventh edition cards: everything's about the graveyard now. "How appropriate," I thought, and yet I was tempted. Right this minute, as I type, I know that in a box in the closet behind me are some cards I was too weak to throw out back then, and too weak to dig out right now. Perhaps someday, I'll have the strength to face them down. Until then, they are a constant reminder of the daily struggle to lead a normal life.

Thank you for your time.

I was playing chess on the net the other night.

[Anonymous Coward]

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!