General Probability of the Magic MMO failing

Laz

Laz

Developer
But... why?

Why would you attempt to compete in such a saturated market segment with a brand that has no real mapping to the format?

I mean, I suppose a lot of Magic's creative strength is in world-building (it certainly isn't in character development), so... maybe?
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
What do you mean no real mapping? Wouldn't it be awesome to encounter and defeat Tarmogoyfs, Nekrataals, Flametongue Kavus and rival planeswalkers in an MMO? To level your planeswalker (assuming you're playing one), unlocking new spells (read: thematic instants and sorceries) and pets (read: thematic creatures)? There's tons and tons of cards that can be easily, in form if not in function, translated to an RPG. I'm just wondering how they are going to translate discarding and milling to real time combat... Anyway, Magic has a vast amount of lore, which is like 50% of a game already. Now they just have to avoid messing up the gameplay :)
 
S

spamtrash

I think we have to start from some foundation of criticism and history before we start throwing our opinions around.

The studio they're using for this game is Cryptic, which has worked with Wizards on Dungeons and Dragons: Neverwinter (NW). By anecdotal accounts it seems like Neverwinter was a financial success (which is really all that matters in this awful world) and the familiarity with Wizards's structure is certainly why they were brought back to work on the Magic MMORPG, which is a genre they are very familiar with.

I will provide some statements by people who just are peachy keen to share their ideas about Cryptic. I've censored the poopy language because we're such a family-friendly place. The various statements are separated by ellipses.
The lovers that made Neverwinter?! That was the worst lovin' MMO I've ever played!

I'll admit it had some neat ideas but they were all executed poorly. Also it was Pay-to-Win (P2W) as love.

Poop, Neverwinter is the example I use for: "Just because you had fun with a game doesn't mean it's good." As a Rogue I was able to 1-shot players in PvP, from stealth. Also worst economy I've ever encountered, probably due to its Pay-to-Win nature.

I haven't played since a few weeks after they released the Feywild expansion or whatever. They perma-banned the largest guild in the game for using an exploit to bypass the time gate on the new content. The exploit? Sharing the weekly quest.

...

To be fair, they spent like, all day doing the exploit. They did it dozens and dozens of time. And rather than roll their characters back and patch it they just felt like banning them.

It's funny because that guild was advertised as being THE P2W guild. Their description was something like "We have credit cards and we'll use them to be better than you," or some nonsense.

They probably banned anyone that used the exploit too much, but it's funny that the biggest guild pretty much evaporated.

...

They did the same with (Star Trek: Online) STO players. They dropped an (expansion) xpac with exponential (experience) XP demands and XP gates on content. Inadvertently, their XP rescale made one short patrol mission on one planet the best XP gain in the game. So everyone and their lovin' cousin started grinding it, bringing sector servers to a screeching halt.

Cryptic's response? Limited acct bans, a mass XP rollback based upon an algorithm that caught people that NEVER WENT NEAR THAT PLANET, and they locked out that particular mission. Didn't normalize the XP and turn it back on. Years later still have the mission turned off, because presumably they don't understand what they broke.

Ladies and gentlemen: Craptic.

...

In response to, "What is Caturday in the context of NW?"

The cat part is mostly incidental. It's an absolutely massive clusterlove though.

Simply put, the auction house wasn't programmed to reject negative values when they were entered as bids.
When you bid on an item, the system deducts the amount of Astral Diamonds you bid from your account. In the case of bidding negative amounts, a negative amount was deducted from your account - which meant that you actually got a positive value added to your account, causing you to gain money from bidding.
However, when the auction ended and you didn't win it, you would be compensated for your bid. In this case, you would be compensated for your negative bid, which means that the amount you earned from the negative bid would be deducted from your account.
So, people preserved their Astral Diamonds by either converting them into Zen (which is used for micro-transactions) or by buying one of the most high value products that could be bought with Astral Diamonds in the game at that time, the Cat companion. People then proceeded to sell their millions and millions of cats on the auction house, leading to a rollback, a series of bans, and a day forever known as Caturday.
Click to expand...

The following needs to be said about Wizards; most of us know this already but it needs to be said to ensure that whatever statements said in the defense of Wizards clear these hurdles.
WotC is really amazing at being so far behind the trend that it's kinda charming.

>tries to make a more casual MtG experience for beginners
>...way after hearthstone basically tenderly loved the entire market

>Hey, a good idea would be to make the planeswalkers (which people already are sick of by this point) into a super hero gang and make movies and poop
>...thousands of years after superhero market has been established and by the time the mtg movie is actually released I bet most people will be burned on superhero movies a bit

>announce an MMORPG
>after literally every other company on planet earth has beaten that horse, killed it, cremated it and spread the ashes across the world

I'm starting to get worried the WotC HQ is in like a time rift where they are constantly 10 years behind the rest of humanity and making poopy business decisions is the only way of communicating with the outside world for help
Click to expand...

I don't really have much to add to this. Such a project is sufficiently disconnected from the people making Magic that they don't even need to wipe their hands of it. It will be amusing to see what sort of cancerous video game "features" they they add to the final product like: microtransactions, skins, lack of testing, Day 1 downloadable content, "Collector's Edition", a MTGO "fix", F@cebook Connect, mobile integration, and the like. I'll be interested in seeing this thing when its previewed at PAX, not that anybody important will be there to listen because the booth is always manned by volunteers and nobody above an Art Director shows up for panels, which are focused around "plot" and worldbuilding and they don't take technical questions like, "Why does the event reporter crash every prerelease for the past year with zero exceptions" or "Attendance is tanking outside of big communities, thoughts.". If anybody cares, there's already a game out there that captures the spirit of what a Magic video game would be like. It's called Sacrifice - a game I feel actually holds up very well if you can get past the hideous (by today's standards) graphics. If you need incentive to check out Sacrifice, Tim Curry does voice work for it.

I feel like the most tragic thing about all this is that all the people who make Magic-focused content will happily use this product to garner hits and revenue through their respective platforms like YouTube or Twitch or making content for various stores/websites whether through testing, reviewing, praising, or condemning the final product and all through its development. They're basically going to be so thrilled that this thing's development will easily amount to a month's work for them - it's going to be the gift that keeps giving so long as they don't drop it like the Magic movie. And while they're applying whatever critical thinking skills on this issue-of-the-month they'll continue to fail to devote any of that critical thinking towards addressing the problems with Wizards I've raved about in the past. Those who are positive with their criticisms are itching for preview cards or a spot in the Community Cup whereas those who are negative about it are shielded in some way or another (financially) from Wizards influence.

It's gotten to the point where I will discount anybody who shills for this company. I applaud their professional success, but their promotional efforts do absolutely nothing positive for the game. Whoever made the promotional video for the Archenemy: Nicol Bolas product - they're dead in my eyes whoever they are. Loading Ready Run - bought and owned by Wizards. Marshall at LRCast is an employee of Wizards; former host Brian Wong leaving and immediately quitting MTGO afterwards only tells me he quit because he, a dedicated Limited player, could not stomach where Wizards was taking the game; LSV taking over the job essentially solidified that LRCast will never bring up Limited-related criticisms beyond the like or dislike of a Limited format. I feel like The Professor is the only person who has ever had the stones to publicly address the issues in this game; and the only reason why he can do so is because his income is dictated by Patreon and not through the benevolence of Wizards.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I'm starting to get worried the WotC HQ is in like a time rift where they are constantly 10 years behind the rest of humanity and making poopy business decisions is the only way of communicating with the outside world for help
Click to expand...
This one almost made me spill my drink as I mentally pictured it :D

Anyway, all fair and true points. That still doesn't invalidate my post though. A good RPG steeped in Magic lore would be awesome! ;)
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I have little faith in any MMORPG managing to get off the ground thanks to WoW's iron grip on the genre.

But I guess if Warcraft is allowed to try its hand at TCGs with Hearthstone, it's only fair that Magic gets to try making an MMO.
Click to expand...
I liked this particular comment on mtgs :)
 
S

spamtrash

Jason Waddell said:
I haven't followed LRR in years. Is this true or just some verbal hyperbole?
Click to expand...
It's hyperbole. They're not actually owned by Wizards. But they do get paid by Wizards given their Magic content is on the Magic: The Gathering YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3rP64NRtmbjJFGumln1bvmYHaqhxYvlt
http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/archive/MtG

They have multi-platform appeal which allows Wizards to access various audiences without having to engage in-house resources to figure out exactly who those audiences are or whether they care. They're unoffensive, family friendly, and one can easily vet their quality of output because of free and public access to their works. They have strong social media restraint and will not invite controversy - they are, in short, professionals. It is so much cheaper to outsource to them for their equipment and expertise than developing and maintaining the infrastructure in-house just like it's easier to hire wide-eyed Pro-Tour hopefuls for a song than consult with math professors that have a mind for game development.

To be fair, I would go work for them in a heartbeat simply because they are such professionals and I myself would embrace the hypocrisy and shill with the best of them. I respect that they police their public behavior and can provide for corporations and businesses something that is rare in traditional geek media: wholesome, groomed, and high-school-drama grade humor. I wouldn't say they sold out because they're a business - they're in the business to plug or sell whatever it is that needs selling and it's a tight ship they seem to run.

I have no doubt that if I were to meet them in real life we would all be amicable and we would have a nice conversation about issues and problems in Magic that would be productive and informative for all parties. But that doesn't change the fact that I frown and get mopey over the fact they're helping market a game that could be better in all the ways that aren't actually related to the game itself.
 
S

Salmo2

I mean, if the game is fun there's no reason it shouldn't succeed. That being said, MMOs aren't exactly a good time until you get deep into the game (I'm currently dragging through the early levels of ESO...) so I don't have too much faith.

I think if they went more towards 'skyrim' versus 'ESO' it would be more exciting. I would love to play a skyrim-like game where instead of being on one map you can planeswalk to others. Like, it would be awesome to be in innistrad, fighting werewolves and shit, and then go to amonkhet, fight zombies, and then etc.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
spamtrash said:
It's hyperbole. They're not actually owned by Wizards. But they do get paid by Wizards given their Magic content is on the Magic: The Gathering YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3rP64NRtmbjJFGumln1bvmYHaqhxYvlt
http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/archive/MtG

They have multi-platform appeal which allows Wizards to access various audiences without having to engage in-house resources to figure out exactly who those audiences are or whether they care. They're unoffensive, family friendly, and one can easily vet their quality of output because of free and public access to their works. They have strong social media restraint and will not invite controversy - they are, in short, professionals. It is so much cheaper to outsource to them for their equipment and expertise than developing and maintaining the infrastructure in-house just like it's easier to hire wide-eyed Pro-Tour hopefuls for a song than consult with math professors that have a mind for game development.

To be fair, I would go work for them in a heartbeat simply because they are such professionals and I myself would embrace the hypocrisy and shill with the best of them. I respect that they police their public behavior and can provide for corporations and businesses something that is rare in traditional geek media: wholesome, groomed, and high-school-drama grade humor. I wouldn't say they sold out because they're a business - they're in the business to plug or sell whatever it is that needs selling and it's a tight ship they seem to run.

I have no doubt that if I were to meet them in real life we would all be amicable and we would have a nice conversation about issues and problems in Magic that would be productive and informative for all parties. But that doesn't change the fact that I frown and get mopey over the fact they're helping market a game that could be better in all the ways that aren't actually related to the game itself.
Click to expand...


My impression, back when I watched them, was that they started making MTG content pretty genuinely, because that's what they were into.

One of my cube articles was written in response to a Graham tweet, and we had a small, pleasant interaction on Twitter.

Mostly I really liked when they made the show Strip Search for Penny-Arcade, but PATV seems to have moved in a different direction since then.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
the only positive thought i have about the MMO is that the server costs are high and the probability of failure higher
 
CML

CML

Contributor
I would say that I'm continually surprised by people's willingness to toe a corporate line for little money, no freedom, niche relevance and a stillborn form of creativity that sacrifices autonomy for access to psychos and the basics they prey upon BUT

I hung out with journalists in college
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top