|
|
Post by tdenmark on Jun 29, 2021 11:13:43 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by mgtremaine on Jun 29, 2021 18:21:20 GMT -6
trippy....
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2021 20:44:33 GMT -6
I can't think of anything polite to say.
|
|
|
|
Post by badger2305 on Jun 29, 2021 21:43:10 GMT -6
It's been coming for awhile; none of this is really a surprise. Mind you, more than two decades past, I took one look at Magic: The Gathering and thought "but I have money-eating addictions already" and never turned a card since. Those that do play, more power to them - if they have fun with it, that is.
|
|
|
|
Post by tdenmark on Jun 29, 2021 22:22:49 GMT -6
My brief foray into M:tG I quickly learned it fed into my worst tendencies as someone who likes to collect, a completist, and who likes to win. So I quit after just a few months. Though I still do think the game is incredibly fun and well designed.
I also like how it has helped to employ hundreds of fantasy illustrators and given young talent an opportunity to develop their skills and make amazing fantasy art.
They've been dabbling with D&D crossovers for a while now which was long expected, but this throwback to Basic and older did surprise me. And I like it.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2021 19:07:15 GMT -6
My brief foray into M:tG I quickly learned it fed into my worst tendencies as someone who likes to collect, a completist, and who likes to win. So I quit after just a few months. Though I still do think the game is incredibly fun and well designed.
The game ideas are kind of well designed, considering the core simplicity (generate mana, tap cards), but the game itself (the cards) aren't. I don't play it anymore, but my closest friends do, they don't mind spending a hundred dollars a month (some of them a week) into... cardboard. 
For those that don't know the game, it's basically like this:
(ultra biased opinion from a frustrated ex-player hahaha)
The problem for me is that the game is purely industry. Capitalism at it's finest.
The sets/cards aren't well designed either on purpose (cash grab) or because those guys are incredibly dumb.
They will "design" a rare or mythic card, it will cost a hundred dollars a single card, because well, they're "rare" or "mythic", or whatever, and a month later they ban the card meaning that you can't use it anymore. So they can make you spend a lot in a card or a set of cards, for it to lost all it's value some weeks later.
The game isn't inclusive as well, this problem is debatable though, because well, not everything in life is accessible for everyone. But the game is very broken, you simple can't play against a $1000+ deck using your $100 deck (and $100 already sounds a lot for cardboard toys). So you either spend more to be able to compete, accept that you will lose again and again (and only lose), or you just don't play.
The way the game is played nowadays isn't also very fun (for me), the idea is to have completely broken cards (costing hundreds of dollars each), to make combos and finish the game in three or four turns. Three or four turns? Is that even fun?
Not for me, but apparently it is for most, so you'll not have many (real) casual players left for you to "play".
Really, to play... just to have fun, guys take this game too serious, some of them can get pretty violent after a counterspell or because you... attacked. Well, the game is about combat, how I'm not supposed to attack? (Edit: this part is in fact something kind of fun, and a way to have your revenge... you can mess with an easily angry opponent quite easy... Mill him to death or counter every card he tries to summon, and see him screaming at your face like a spoiled kid)
Also, before, you used to have each color for a specif purpose/flavor. You had Black for sacrificing life and to use demons and undeads, you had Blue for messing with grimoire (scry, mill) and to counterspell, and so on... It was a nice flavor for each color to have a purpose.
Every new set they find a way to mess everything even more, you have counterspells of every color already. There is a lot of White counterspells, even Red can counter...
After all these critics, I can say that I had some fun with it in the past, and the illustrations are awesome. A bit of the lore is awesome as well, you have some very nice Settings such as Ravnica and Innistrad. I've played a Ravnica 5e game and it was nice, I wish this Setting to be more developed but since the (card) game never takes too long in the same Setting is hard to see more content on it in the future.
There was a nice tool for generating random adventures using MTG cards, since the illustrations are very nice they can be a good source of inspiration. I could not find it but you can do it easily with your own cards or by generating random cards using this link.
The approach is basically this:
Generate a card until you fill, in any order, each of the following slots.
The problem; (Creature or Enchantment card): This is a problem that has always been in an area but only now became serious or for some misterious event is puffed out from nothing
The setting; (Non base land card): This is where everything is set
The solution; (Artifact or Sorcery card): This can be considered a MacGuffin. The party could do everything on his own, but that wouldn't be fun, right?
The helper; (Creature): This is somebody that wants the problem removed
The antagonist; (Creature): This is somebody that doesn't want the problem removed
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2021 7:16:21 GMT -6
I played MTG for about a year, building a Sliver deck specifically, and I had a lot of fun, but I got the increasing feeling that it could become a major time and money sink, and I could ill afford to spend much of either.
I do like the fake module designs on some of those cards. Not enough to buy them, mind you.
|
|
|
|
Post by rsdean on Jul 1, 2021 7:30:19 GMT -6
I’ve played, though not lately, and my kids have been medium serious at times. I should see if they have any opinions on this…
|
|
|
|
Post by greentongue on Jul 3, 2021 9:58:55 GMT -6
I play because it is a LOT easier to find people to play with than RPGs.
You only need any 4 random people to play "EDH / Commander" or one other random person to play a number of other formats.
On the other hand, I really wish you could play RPGs that easily.
|
|
|
|
Post by tdenmark on Jul 3, 2021 10:13:20 GMT -6
The problem for me is that the game is purely industry. Capitalism at it's finest.
The sets/cards aren't well designed either on purpose (cash grab) or because those guys are incredibly dumb. They will "design" a rare or mythic card, it will cost a hundred dollars a single card, because well, they're "rare" or "mythic", or whatever, and a month later they ban the card meaning that you can't use it anymore. So they can make you spend a lot in a card or a set of cards, for it to lost all it's value some weeks later. You don't have to play that way. |
|
|
|
Post by DungeonDevil on Jul 4, 2021 10:27:09 GMT -6
I'm sooooo glad I never got into this. The corporate design behind this is as diabolical as the planning behind cigarette campaigns targeting children. Effective, but evil. The result of amoral intelligence run amuck.
|
|
|
|
Post by greentongue on Jul 4, 2021 11:44:31 GMT -6
Effective, but evil. The result of amoral intelligence run amuck. Do you have something that you could replace it with that would serve the same gaming purpose but wouldn't be "evil"? |
|
|
|
Post by tdenmark on Jul 5, 2021 0:00:40 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by DungeonDevil on Jul 5, 2021 12:10:14 GMT -6
Effective, but evil. The result of amoral intelligence run amuck. Do you have something that you could replace it with that would serve the same gaming purpose but wouldn't be "evil"? OD&D!!!  |
|
|
|
Post by greentongue on Jul 5, 2021 14:00:10 GMT -6
OD&D!!! I really wish that was true. Unfortunately, it is hard to even get people for "One Shots" in these times. Three or more people on a consistent schedule is very rare. IMHO Lots of people profess their interest up until the actual sitting down to generate a character and play. Many will go through the character generation, then be "too busy" to use their character for a game. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's Memorex. |
|
|
|
Post by Desparil on Jul 5, 2021 22:22:38 GMT -6
OD&D!!! I really wish that was true. Unfortunately, it is hard to even get people for "One Shots" in these times. Three or more people on a consistent schedule is very rare. IMHO Lots of people profess their interest up until the actual sitting down to generate a character and play. Many will go through the character generation, then be "too busy" to use their character for a game. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's Memorex. More than that, D&D and MtG are different kinds of fun. Back when I played MtG, I also played D&D, just on a different day of the week, and there was never a thought of "I wish I could be playing something else right now" because they simply weren't competing with each other. Ditto for video games and board games. |
|
arkansan
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 231
|
Post by arkansan on Jul 8, 2021 0:14:49 GMT -6
I like MtG in theory, but the constant churn of the games sets turns me off. Personally I started having more fun with it when people started playing Pauper in my area, a fan variant where only common cards are played. I don't play at stores anymore (the typical MtG crowd is uhh, difficult for me to get on with) but I still play with some friends from time to time.
|
|
|
|
Post by Finarvyn on Jul 8, 2021 7:35:57 GMT -6
My son and his friends play MtG sometimes, mostly at the local game store. An interesting thing is that the store has put out a warning that these cards apparently are a more limited print run than usual, and the store is hoping to get their usual supply. Sounds like WotC is trying to create an artificial demand issue, maybe to generate more buzz for the game.  |
|
|
|
Post by Red Baron on Jul 8, 2021 8:43:58 GMT -6
The "collectible card-game" format may be more profitable for WotC, but it also ruins the game by introducing power creep and new rules that the original set of cards were not designed for.
In my view, a better format for card games would be to release on standard set of maybe 150 or 200 cards for each faction, from which you could choose the cards to build your deck. They could still introduce cards with new names and art, but they should be functionally identical to existing cards.
The fun of a game is in making meaningful choices, and you cannot make meaningful choices without some level of knowledge about all of the possible rules and options. The random and uncertain aspect of the game should be the lack of knowledge about your opponents choice of cards and their play strategy. The random aspect should NOT be new rules new cards and power creep, because these prevent you from being able to have a constrained set of rules and options that you can use to base decisions on.
I'm not a MtG player I have only spent a couple hours playing it with a friend a few years back, but I have the same gripe with all collectible card games.
|
|
jamiltron
Level 2 Seer
Always looking for games/player in West LA
Posts: 44
|
Post by jamiltron on Jul 8, 2021 10:51:23 GMT -6
The "collectible card-game" format may be more profitable for WotC, but it also ruins the game by introducing power creep and new rules that the original set of cards were not designed for. M:tG got around this with the notion of "blocks", which are collections of sets that are intended to play well with each other. The expansion sets to a block is where most of the unusual designs and more involved mechanics get utilized (as opposed to being integrated back into the evolving "core" sets of the game). I found even many casual players tend to reach for the recent blocks just because the overall design tends to play out a bit better than if you're going whole hog over every possible card ever released. Mileages vary, of course. |
|
|
|
Post by mgtremaine on Jul 8, 2021 13:52:39 GMT -6
When I play, I play Legacy because basically that what the rules/blocks/cards where when we started in 1994-5. I will say that Magic basically killed our D&D game and then World of Warcraft killed our Magic games so it's all fair. (I didn't join in on the WOW thing and waited them out to bring a D&D game back in 2007).
-Mike
|
|
|
|
Post by tdenmark on Jul 8, 2021 15:28:13 GMT -6
I preordered a set.
Believe me I get all the criticisms of the "evils" of M:tG. I stand by my assessment that the game is brilliant and I appreciate that it has employed hundreds of the greatest working fantasy artists today and provided a livelihood for many. If it wasn't a great product so many people wouldn't be spending their hard earned dollars on it. Do people become addicts? Some, yes. Addicts gonna addict. I spend too much on old overpriced RPG books.
I don't buy the "corporate greed" nonsense. Companies are in business to make money, it is a far better system than a planned centralized economy. Businesses make their money by giving customers what they want. (Now Coca-Cola and their ilk who sell poison sugar water, that I have an issue with)
|
|
