I have the free phantom points everyone got, and I still haven't done a cube draft ever. It does seem fun, but I just haven't gotten around to it.
And I have to say, MTGO needs some way to repeat an infinite combo. not having a way to do this is 2015 is dumb.
Couldn't the program be set to realize a pattern, and once you clicked through it so many times, you'd get a prompt asking you if you wanted to repeat the process and how many times? Maybe because you're opponent is allowed to respond it makes it too complicated, i don't know.
I like to about the philosophical aspects of magic and mtgo, so this was a neat thing to read. You make some good points.
I play to win, I like constructed, one on one, tournament practice or higher skill level. I imagine that I'd be unhappy if I was in to playing multiplayer.
Somehow, I feel like MTGO makes people get angrier than paper magic. it's hard to say, but even I feel the inner jerk bubbling to the surface when I have a bad loss.
I remember one incident where I was furious that I was getting mana screwed in a KTK draft, and my opponent played a turn three savage knuckleblade, off of basic lands. I was the one that passed the knuckleblade, as I didn't want to wreck my draft committing to a three color rare so early. In paper, I feel like I'd just have shrugged it off quickly. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think the disconnection from the human element makes raging at someone much easier to do.
Thanks for mostly saying what I've been thinking Pete. That's quite a knack. The main problem for me is that while I care about winning, if my opponents can't be bothered to be minimally sociable ("hi gl hf", "U too!" is all the interaction one can expect most times) I get seriously cranky. I may be feeling cranky anyway. But it tilts me when people just blank chat. Really? You can't type 4/5 characters?? Go Redacted yourself (Thanks Blippy, that's handy.)
So for me the fact that MTGO is a social deadlands where only a small % of players actually use the chat option makes it less appealing for me. The other problem is, if I want to solo game without social interaction I have hundreds of other games to choose from so when my MTG addiction is abated I play them instead.
Hearthstone I know nothing of because my attitude towards Blizzard these days is they are a far worse company than WOTC with horribly subpar Customer Service (personal gripe concerning D3 and their network.) So I don't know if it is a worthwhile product but if WOTC takes heed then I guess they must be doing something right. But I doubt the game will draw that much of the MTGO population away from MTG. Just as Sol Forge didn't. Nor any of the myriad other ccgs now digitally available.
I hope WOTC stops thinking only with their "Win AT ALL Costs!" brain and starts thinking with their "Have a heart dammit!" brain too because frankly, MTGO doesn't need to die to be a total failure. It just needs to continue on without serious improvement. I don't think that it will fail, mind you. I think there are enough adults at WOTC who care that stuff will get done eventually despite the weird anti-options aesthetic. (Many of the problems as I see it stem from this attitude.)
Of course the problem with "eventually" is that it means the "now" is not just rough but is nigh intolerable.
@The Woof, your complaint is echoed quite often in the forums but as many have replied there, it is a part of the game. If you want completed games you need to be more selective with whom you play. That simple. You will never get 100% completion in vintage either. People see power and bail. That's the nature of power vs not having it.
I have to view my collection in list view just to avoid it slowing way down. and I usually do trades that way too.
I don't even have a big collection. It's a couple pod decks and a delver deck, and they share a lot of cards, then a bunch of junk. I sold everything I wasn't using to fund the decks I have now.
Interesting thoughts Pete. An important addition I would like to make is that the fact people are so focused on winning breeds other behaviors/problems as well that limits MTGO from growing without additional functionality. What I mean is if you try to play a casual game with the intention of finishing the game without a concession or lost connection it is near impossible, because people can't stand losing or have no vested social interactions with the opponent. Also people many times in frustration will make attacks on others decks, "you topdeck lucky ...", "mommy buy you all those cards", and worse. There is also no good way to match like skill and like deck power besides the rooms which really just breaks down into tourney, new players and everyone else. Lastly we are confined in many psychical ways because MTGO cannot be played on an iPad which also limits our social interactions, it's not easy to bring a computer to a friends house and play but an iPad would be...
I guess my point is MTGO is strong even with all these issues, but imagine if they could address them? We might just have a game that beats Hearthstone in usage...
One of the things I loved about v3 was the binder, where I could just flip to the Promos, smoke, and ogle my full art/textless cards. Now I have to work for it, and they look like crap. ALL the art looks washed out and muddy anymore. To make it worse, I can no longer change my local card art.
Progress.
---
Re: Leagues
When I hear of Leagues in the closed beta, and the bug list therefrom, it frightens me. Given WotC's track record with all things online, it takes no Nostradamus to predict they're going to roll it out too early (if at all), and too buggy, and it'll be another months long nightmare.
I'd love to be wrong.
---
Re: MTGO (on a semi-technical level)
Yeah, it's currently [REDACTED]. I don't do much but host events. I watch more games than I play; which has it's own unique set of bugs and lag issues that I don't report because it's a pain to do so when they happen (I'm in the middle of running an event), and they do what they want anyway.
That being said, I think that v4 is a step up, technically, from v3, and does allow greater freedom and flexibility. It does "get better" with each build I try, even if some of those steps are lateral rather than forward. I do think this client has potential, and needs a Coding Poobah (who's willing to tell the Magic Poobahs above him to "get real") to bring it through. Hang tough, my man.
That being said, I think that, from my understanding of the work environment, if I were a coder, there is no way I would be able to work there. Someone would get hurt, either physically or psychologically. But that's me. I'm sure there are people would would jump at the chance.
Which I think may be part of the problem: instead of hiring Programmers, it's been Gamers who can code? Then, when that didn't work, hiring mercenaries who tore down the castle walls and rebuilt from the ground up? Dunno.
Either way, I'm predicting a halfway decent client by Q3 2015, followed by Q4 2015-Q2 2016 Leagues/Rotation issues.
If MPDC is only posted on the mothership, I'll never see it.
I guess you guys are only noticing the calendar JUST NOW. It's NOT NEW! :) I pulled the events on calendar off Gatherling, and the first few weeks I ran it, I did ask for people to tell me of their events.
Could be good as a pod cast series for the discussion of the nominations and then open up the comments to voting/commentary from the masses and a final tally and article/cast when all the voting is in.
This is really good work and I hope this can be a yearly awarding but instead of only one person's point of view. I wish every PureMTGO writer or a panel of Judges from PureMTGO will decide who will be the winner. Still Good Work and hope to read more articles from you..
I only use the plain text editor. I usually save to a doc but of course the one time I don't lol No big deal. Now I know better. It was all still there after I submitted I know because i reread after and slap my forehead at all the little mistakes. Oh well. Now I know better! Well I can recreate some of it for next week. Thanks for the responses and suggestions! Hey it's all part of learning!
My own existential angst hangs narrowly similar to Blippy's though I don't have the Event Host thing to fall back on. And Blippy is totally special in that regard. He would have been a ccc contender if he could legally enter the US.
Yet I am wondering if it is just a normal part of growing with the game that your role becomes redefined as time goes by. I no longer really feel like I am reaching a core audience with writing MTGO articles and honestly I've never been a good player. But here I am still logging in, playing, occasionally spouting an opinion. I make decks, look at prices, examine formats for gems, and of course spend time talking to AJ about broken shenanigans.
But the Joie de Magique isn't really there for me. Perhaps it is just the winter time blues. I find it harder to be optimistic when it is dark by the time I open my eyes. (I'm a night person so waking up at 3-4pm is normal for me. Just as hitting the hay at 6-8am is normal for me.
I guess what I am saying is I identify with what Blippy has said and as a fellow addict (though my drug of choice never involved spoons of any kind) with an equally long track record of sobriety I can see what he means.
To quote Little Steven (as his character in the Sopranos) "Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in!". To me that's magic in a nutshell.
I agree with you that Blippy serves as a conduit from the new to the not so new with his hosting and availability. Heck he has occasionally pulled me into his crazy schemes (events) simply by force of personality when I don't usually play those formats (Legacy, Modern, 2hg Standard for example.)
And we need ambassadors because new players do not have traditions to teach them how to do get along online. Being connected to PREs gives them that use in lieu of tutorials long needed.
Sorry that part of your article vanished. Something that might help in the future:
After I'm done writing an article, but prior to the Submit Save, I'll switch to the Plain Text Editor, copy the entire code text and paste it to a Notepad file. That way, if I ever needed to recreate the article in a hurry, I could just paste that text back into the Plain Text Editor and submit another copy of the article for Josh to use. Doing it this way avoids all of the weird pasting issues that can happen on the Rich Text Editor. (I save the Title and the Summary Text in the document too, they just aren't html coded.)
It's takes very little space to have a .txt back-up and it could help if anything like this happens in the future.
I'd been wanting to post a comment the last few weeks regarding your agitation and, dare I say, role searching, but I think you already stumbled upon what I was going to say:
You're an Event Host. You're a damned good one too. You run well organized, extremely transparent tournaments with generous rewards. Most importantly, they are always inviting and fun. While you can be a lot of things to Magic, a player, a competitor, a writer, I feel your performance as a Host is your unique role.
As you've pointed out, even Wizards acknowledges that you're something special when it comes to Hosts. They don't just hand out packs to every PRE runner. To use your metaphor, you might not be as big a drug cartel as SCG is to them, but you're the small time dealer that is great at finding new customers at the neighborhood playground. :)
If you are looking for a direction to go in Magic, try focusing on that? See where exactly that could take you both online and possibly in the paper world as well? Write articles that talk about the prep work that goes into it, the conversations with sponsors that secure sweet prizes, the ideas you wanted to attempt but were too epic to ever be!
I could be way off base; I've only been in this thing we call an Online Community for a couple of years now. However, in that time, your tournaments contributed to the bit of Community we still cling to. I don't think that's a coincidence. There is a lot of new blood lately and you could possibly inspire a few people to become involved in a new era of PREs for which would improve things for the Community.
Just a thought.
Regardless, you said it best "I'm doing this for me, not you." I've found that's what makes me happiest about writing here. The readers will make their own choices.
And hey, that PRE schedule is amazeballs! (Now an Oxford Dictionary-sanctioned adjective.) And also something you and I were talking about, like, 3 years ago! :P
I have the free phantom points everyone got, and I still haven't done a cube draft ever. It does seem fun, but I just haven't gotten around to it.
And I have to say, MTGO needs some way to repeat an infinite combo. not having a way to do this is 2015 is dumb.
Couldn't the program be set to realize a pattern, and once you clicked through it so many times, you'd get a prompt asking you if you wanted to repeat the process and how many times? Maybe because you're opponent is allowed to respond it makes it too complicated, i don't know.
8th Place! Not bad considering I re-started playing Magic in April after being gone for about three years or so.
If your elf build was anything like some of the elf builds Ive brought "underdog" could be a fitting prize/title.
Elf as the underdog prize eh? You've really loosened the definition of an underdog :)
I like to about the philosophical aspects of magic and mtgo, so this was a neat thing to read. You make some good points.
I play to win, I like constructed, one on one, tournament practice or higher skill level. I imagine that I'd be unhappy if I was in to playing multiplayer.
Somehow, I feel like MTGO makes people get angrier than paper magic. it's hard to say, but even I feel the inner jerk bubbling to the surface when I have a bad loss.
I remember one incident where I was furious that I was getting mana screwed in a KTK draft, and my opponent played a turn three savage knuckleblade, off of basic lands. I was the one that passed the knuckleblade, as I didn't want to wreck my draft committing to a three color rare so early. In paper, I feel like I'd just have shrugged it off quickly. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think the disconnection from the human element makes raging at someone much easier to do.
Thanks for mostly saying what I've been thinking Pete. That's quite a knack. The main problem for me is that while I care about winning, if my opponents can't be bothered to be minimally sociable ("hi gl hf", "U too!" is all the interaction one can expect most times) I get seriously cranky. I may be feeling cranky anyway. But it tilts me when people just blank chat. Really? You can't type 4/5 characters?? Go Redacted yourself (Thanks Blippy, that's handy.)
So for me the fact that MTGO is a social deadlands where only a small % of players actually use the chat option makes it less appealing for me. The other problem is, if I want to solo game without social interaction I have hundreds of other games to choose from so when my MTG addiction is abated I play them instead.
Hearthstone I know nothing of because my attitude towards Blizzard these days is they are a far worse company than WOTC with horribly subpar Customer Service (personal gripe concerning D3 and their network.) So I don't know if it is a worthwhile product but if WOTC takes heed then I guess they must be doing something right. But I doubt the game will draw that much of the MTGO population away from MTG. Just as Sol Forge didn't. Nor any of the myriad other ccgs now digitally available.
I hope WOTC stops thinking only with their "Win AT ALL Costs!" brain and starts thinking with their "Have a heart dammit!" brain too because frankly, MTGO doesn't need to die to be a total failure. It just needs to continue on without serious improvement. I don't think that it will fail, mind you. I think there are enough adults at WOTC who care that stuff will get done eventually despite the weird anti-options aesthetic. (Many of the problems as I see it stem from this attitude.)
Of course the problem with "eventually" is that it means the "now" is not just rough but is nigh intolerable.
@The Woof, your complaint is echoed quite often in the forums but as many have replied there, it is a part of the game. If you want completed games you need to be more selective with whom you play. That simple. You will never get 100% completion in vintage either. People see power and bail. That's the nature of power vs not having it.
I have to view my collection in list view just to avoid it slowing way down. and I usually do trades that way too.
I don't even have a big collection. It's a couple pod decks and a delver deck, and they share a lot of cards, then a bunch of junk. I sold everything I wasn't using to fund the decks I have now.
Interesting thoughts Pete. An important addition I would like to make is that the fact people are so focused on winning breeds other behaviors/problems as well that limits MTGO from growing without additional functionality. What I mean is if you try to play a casual game with the intention of finishing the game without a concession or lost connection it is near impossible, because people can't stand losing or have no vested social interactions with the opponent. Also people many times in frustration will make attacks on others decks, "you topdeck lucky ...", "mommy buy you all those cards", and worse. There is also no good way to match like skill and like deck power besides the rooms which really just breaks down into tourney, new players and everyone else. Lastly we are confined in many psychical ways because MTGO cannot be played on an iPad which also limits our social interactions, it's not easy to bring a computer to a friends house and play but an iPad would be...
I guess my point is MTGO is strong even with all these issues, but imagine if they could address them? We might just have a game that beats Hearthstone in usage...
Re: Collections (and Art)
One of the things I loved about v3 was the binder, where I could just flip to the Promos, smoke, and ogle my full art/textless cards. Now I have to work for it, and they look like crap. ALL the art looks washed out and muddy anymore. To make it worse, I can no longer change my local card art.
Progress.
---
Re: Leagues
When I hear of Leagues in the closed beta, and the bug list therefrom, it frightens me. Given WotC's track record with all things online, it takes no Nostradamus to predict they're going to roll it out too early (if at all), and too buggy, and it'll be another months long nightmare.
I'd love to be wrong.
---
Re: MTGO (on a semi-technical level)
Yeah, it's currently [REDACTED]. I don't do much but host events. I watch more games than I play; which has it's own unique set of bugs and lag issues that I don't report because it's a pain to do so when they happen (I'm in the middle of running an event), and they do what they want anyway.
That being said, I think that v4 is a step up, technically, from v3, and does allow greater freedom and flexibility. It does "get better" with each build I try, even if some of those steps are lateral rather than forward. I do think this client has potential, and needs a Coding Poobah (who's willing to tell the Magic Poobahs above him to "get real") to bring it through. Hang tough, my man.
That being said, I think that, from my understanding of the work environment, if I were a coder, there is no way I would be able to work there. Someone would get hurt, either physically or psychologically. But that's me. I'm sure there are people would would jump at the chance.
Which I think may be part of the problem: instead of hiring Programmers, it's been Gamers who can code? Then, when that didn't work, hiring mercenaries who tore down the castle walls and rebuilt from the ground up? Dunno.
Either way, I'm predicting a halfway decent client by Q3 2015, followed by Q4 2015-Q2 2016 Leagues/Rotation issues.
Could be very strong. I'm not worried about giving opponents double strike. We're going to get the most use out of it for sure.
If MPDC is only posted on the mothership, I'll never see it.
I guess you guys are only noticing the calendar JUST NOW. It's NOT NEW! :) I pulled the events on calendar off Gatherling, and the first few weeks I ran it, I did ask for people to tell me of their events.
MPDC has been running on Mondays at 2pm EST for at least four years. How do I get on your PRE calendar? :)
When the site upgrades this will be a thing of the past, and I am so looking forward to that !
Could be good as a pod cast series for the discussion of the nominations and then open up the comments to voting/commentary from the masses and a final tally and article/cast when all the voting is in.
This is really good work and I hope this can be a yearly awarding but instead of only one person's point of view. I wish every PureMTGO writer or a panel of Judges from PureMTGO will decide who will be the winner. Still Good Work and hope to read more articles from you..
I only use the plain text editor. I usually save to a doc but of course the one time I don't lol No big deal. Now I know better. It was all still there after I submitted I know because i reread after and slap my forehead at all the little mistakes. Oh well. Now I know better! Well I can recreate some of it for next week. Thanks for the responses and suggestions! Hey it's all part of learning!
This also helps others if you want to show them the article to proof since you can save it as .html and post it on a free host for them to peruse.
My own existential angst hangs narrowly similar to Blippy's though I don't have the Event Host thing to fall back on. And Blippy is totally special in that regard. He would have been a ccc contender if he could legally enter the US.
Yet I am wondering if it is just a normal part of growing with the game that your role becomes redefined as time goes by. I no longer really feel like I am reaching a core audience with writing MTGO articles and honestly I've never been a good player. But here I am still logging in, playing, occasionally spouting an opinion. I make decks, look at prices, examine formats for gems, and of course spend time talking to AJ about broken shenanigans.
But the Joie de Magique isn't really there for me. Perhaps it is just the winter time blues. I find it harder to be optimistic when it is dark by the time I open my eyes. (I'm a night person so waking up at 3-4pm is normal for me. Just as hitting the hay at 6-8am is normal for me.
I guess what I am saying is I identify with what Blippy has said and as a fellow addict (though my drug of choice never involved spoons of any kind) with an equally long track record of sobriety I can see what he means.
To quote Little Steven (as his character in the Sopranos) "Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in!". To me that's magic in a nutshell.
I agree with you that Blippy serves as a conduit from the new to the not so new with his hosting and availability. Heck he has occasionally pulled me into his crazy schemes (events) simply by force of personality when I don't usually play those formats (Legacy, Modern, 2hg Standard for example.)
And we need ambassadors because new players do not have traditions to teach them how to do get along online. Being connected to PREs gives them that use in lieu of tutorials long needed.
Sorry that part of your article vanished. Something that might help in the future:
After I'm done writing an article, but prior to the Submit Save, I'll switch to the Plain Text Editor, copy the entire code text and paste it to a Notepad file. That way, if I ever needed to recreate the article in a hurry, I could just paste that text back into the Plain Text Editor and submit another copy of the article for Josh to use. Doing it this way avoids all of the weird pasting issues that can happen on the Rich Text Editor. (I save the Title and the Summary Text in the document too, they just aren't html coded.)
It's takes very little space to have a .txt back-up and it could help if anything like this happens in the future.
- Gio
I'd been wanting to post a comment the last few weeks regarding your agitation and, dare I say, role searching, but I think you already stumbled upon what I was going to say:
You're an Event Host. You're a damned good one too. You run well organized, extremely transparent tournaments with generous rewards. Most importantly, they are always inviting and fun. While you can be a lot of things to Magic, a player, a competitor, a writer, I feel your performance as a Host is your unique role.
As you've pointed out, even Wizards acknowledges that you're something special when it comes to Hosts. They don't just hand out packs to every PRE runner. To use your metaphor, you might not be as big a drug cartel as SCG is to them, but you're the small time dealer that is great at finding new customers at the neighborhood playground. :)
If you are looking for a direction to go in Magic, try focusing on that? See where exactly that could take you both online and possibly in the paper world as well? Write articles that talk about the prep work that goes into it, the conversations with sponsors that secure sweet prizes, the ideas you wanted to attempt but were too epic to ever be!
I could be way off base; I've only been in this thing we call an Online Community for a couple of years now. However, in that time, your tournaments contributed to the bit of Community we still cling to. I don't think that's a coincidence. There is a lot of new blood lately and you could possibly inspire a few people to become involved in a new era of PREs for which would improve things for the Community.
Just a thought.
Regardless, you said it best "I'm doing this for me, not you." I've found that's what makes me happiest about writing here. The readers will make their own choices.
- Gio
This soft redesign was long due. :)
And hey, that PRE schedule is amazeballs! (Now an Oxford Dictionary-sanctioned adjective.) And also something you and I were talking about, like, 3 years ago! :P
Hehehe... "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." :) Dickens nailed that one.
Why, thank you! :)
your stuff looks so good. it's sweet.
yeah.