MTGO Survey

[Barook]

Please take your time (about 5 minutes) to tell them how horrible the current experience is:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/183962...on-Survey-2014

Looks like Papa Hasbro finally got the wake-up call that there's some terrible wrong with MTGO, especially considering the Hearthstone bit.

[apple713]

Please take your time (about 5 minutes) to tell them how horrible the current experience is:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/183962...on-Survey-2014

Looks like Papa Hasbro finally got the wake-up call that there's some terrible wrong with MTGO, especially considering the Hearthstone bit.

they need to get a group of programmers like the ones who created hearthstone to help them or else MTGO will die out.

[Barook]

I agree.

Paying below industry standard to employ way too few programmers who also happen to be completely untalented isn't exactly the best business decision.

I see the survey as an reaction to catastrophic Q3 earnings regarding MTGO (announcement is next Monday), considering they're actually mentioning Hearthstone this time and asking specific questions about the last three months (aka V4).

[cdr]

They need to write MTGOv5 in a real language/framework like C/C++ and Unity. Hearthstone is Unity, possibly the biggest game client ever done in it. Unity makes cross platform porting pretty easy - Hearthstone could even port to web browsers / javascript like the Humble Mozilla Bundle games if Blizzard wanted to, though they'd have to slim it down a fair bit.

Writing a game client in .NET WPF is the biggest joke in history.

[Dice_Box]

So in the end, it will not be years of people asking them to get their act into gear that does anything but a better game? Guess it proves the rule, you go where the money is.

Losing players to a better designed platform has really driven some fear into them.

[Undomian]

I knew that I didn't think very highly of MTGO going into this survey, but actually having to express my thoughts on the client numerically makes me realize how bad it actually is.

[H]

So in the end, it will not be years of people asking them to get their act into gear that does anything but a better game? Guess it proves the rule, you go where the money is.

Losing players to a better designed platform has really driven some fear into them.

How often is there innovation without any competition? From a bottom line standpoint, why spend money to improve something if you are in the green? Of course, we know why, but from a blind perspective, it will take loss (or fear of potential loss) to drive action.

Chances are good that they have finally seen red with regards to MTGO, probably in it's growth (I can't imagine it would be in the red in overall profitability, since we know they pay the programmers peanuts and server costs can't be that high). I can easily see MTGO comping negative now and the survey is probably pretty spot on to the fact that it is a mixture of frustration with the client and competition (Hearthstone).

I think they should really be looking at adoption problems as well, because the chance for organic growth from paper to online is tremendous and I mean orders of magnitude large. I mean, with how much they are trying to make playing tournaments a comfortable and pleasing experience for everyone, the online experience is comparatively in the stone age.

[Tylert]

Why is the client bad? because of the game itself (Having to treat all triggers without being able to make a shortcut like in real life for example) or because of crashes and bad ergonomy?

If it's the game itself, I guess nothing can really be done. Magic is WAY more complex than Hearthstone and there's no way to say that your opponent doesn't want to react after one trigger or another.

[Dice_Box]

The client is bad because it is unstable and unintuitive to use. When they can not keep their own premium events from going down, you know there is an issue that needs resolution. The overall problem has been that they seam to be unwilling to invest the time and capital needed into MTGO and now that there is another option, people are taking it. This appears to have caused a stir. Bout fucking time from what I can tell.

[Tylert]

Your rant seems legit :)

[menace13]

I knew that I didn't think very highly of MTGO going into this survey, but actually having to express my thoughts on the client numerically makes me realize how bad it actually is.

IKR? The ball started rolling and I had to force myself to give anything a high grade. Variety of formats is the only one I can think of atm.

#ResignWorth

[mini1337s]

IKR? The ball started rolling and I had to force myself to give anything a high grade. Variety of formats is the only one I can think of atm.

#ResignWorth

I would say 50% of my responses were 3, 35% 1-2, 10% 4, 5% 5.
If I didn't have a Magic addiction, I'd wouldn't put up with the client.

[Barook]

I would say 50% of my responses were 3, 35% 1-2, 10% 4, 5% 5.
If I didn't have a Magic addiction, I'd wouldn't put up with the client.

I gave a few 3s where stuff was alright, some 2s and the majority of points 1s. The client is that bad and absolutely infuriating to use, especially since they made the client overall worse instead of better since I started using the beta 16 months ago. And the V4 client has been in development for 6 years now, with over two years of beta, and yet, it's still a steaming PoS.

That, alongside with continued string of low value MOCS promos (S&T was the only exception; fuck you, Mike Turian!) made me quit playing events with entry fees altogether for now until they get their shit together. No reason to feed them money if they don't deliver.

The management of MTGO is a joke. At the PTQ event last weekend (or the weekend before, can't remember), 3 people of the top 8 couldn't submit their draft deck and had to play with 80 cards decks. While that is already bad enough on its own for such a high-profile tournament, Mike Turian called the winner and tried to coerce him into forfeiting his price (a spot in the next Pro Tour) and to replay the Top 8. Of course the winner declined since their fuck-ups aren't his fault, but it just shows how unprofessional the people at the helmet truely are.

They need to write MTGOv5 in a real language/framework like C/C++ and Unity. Hearthstone is Unity, possibly the biggest game client ever done in it. Unity makes cross platform porting pretty easy - Hearthstone could even port to web browsers / javascript like the Humble Mozilla Bundle games if Blizzard wanted to, though they'd have to slim it down a fair bit.

Writing a game client in .NET WPF is the biggest joke in history.

Isn't that the reason why it can't be ported to other OS?

I imagine that a well-done client on a tablet could be a great experience and lots of fun - and that's coming from something who absolutely hates tablets.

To be fair, Magic is a game way more complex than Hearthstone. But I agree that MTGO should have been rewritten from scratch years ago. Instead they decided to be cheap and now it's going to bite them.

[mishima_kazuya]

"Don't get cheap on me Dodgson. That was Hammond's mistake."
- Dennis Nedry before he got killed by a dinosaur

[cdr]

Mike Turian called the winner and tried to coerce him into forfeiting his price (a spot in the next Pro Tour) and to replay the Top 8. Of course the winner declined since their fuck-ups aren't his fault, but it just shows how unprofessional the people at the helmet truely are.

TBF that's not actually true. I followed it when it happened, the guy actually asked Turian to call him. The MTGO guys also let the winner keep the the invite and prizes and gave out a second invite and prizes for the replayed T8.

Isn't that the reason why it can't be ported to other OS?

MTGO can't be ported because it's 100% written for Windows. WotC is Microsoft's bitch and always has been, there's a directive on high that demands only Microsoft products be used.

Hearthstone was written to be portable (Unity) and so Blizzard can port it to anything they want (tablets, consoles, web browsers, commodore 64) with a minimum of fuss.

[Barook]

MTGO can't be ported because it's 100% written for Windows. WotC is Microsoft's bitch and always has been, there's a directive on high that demands only Microsoft products be used.

I've never heard of that.

I wonder how much money they lose from not being able to join the mobile market.

[apple713]

MTGO can't be ported because it's 100% written for Windows. WotC is Microsoft's bitch and always has been, there's a directive on high that demands only Microsoft products be used.

they are going to lose a lot of money, because a lot of people who have money to invest in the game refuse to use windows. The only time i see windows computers is in offices. like 90% of friends / students have mac's

[cdr]

they are going to lose a lot of money, because a lot of people who have money to invest in the game refuse to use windows. The only time i see windows computers is in offices. like 90% of friends / students have mac's

They're losing a lot of money mostly because the product is garbage, but chaining themselves to Windows certainly didn't do them any favors.

They're using .NET, WPF, ClickOnce, etc - stuff Microsoft intended for corporations building internal enterprise apps. And they went and made a game client with it. Not only did they use beta-quality frameworks that were entirely tied to Windows, they used them for things they were never designed to be used for. If they had used standard game development tools not only would the client be way more portable, it would be way less bloated and buggy.

But hey, this is WotC, the company that has never produced a competent digital product in its existence.

[apple713]

They're losing a money mostly because the product is garbage, but chaining themselves to Windows certainly didn't do them any favors.

They're using .NET, WPF, ClickOnce, etc - stuff Microsoft intended for corporations building internal enterprise apps. And they went and made a game client with it. Not only did they use beta-quality frameworks that were entirely tied to Windows, they used them for things they were never designed to be used for. If they had used standard game development tools not only would the client be way more portable, it would be way less bloated and buggy.

But hey, this is WotC, the company that has never produced a competent digital product in its existence.

neither has their parent company, hasbro so that doesn't lend any help either. The reluctance to switch is a big numbers game and quarterly earning draws a lot of attention to losses / decreased earnings so this may be the motivation they need to get the attention of higher ups.

[Barook]

neither has their parent company, hasbro so that doesn't lend any help either. The reluctance to switch is a big numbers game and quarterly earning draws a lot of attention to losses / decreased earnings so this may be the motivation they need to get the attention of higher ups.

The problems are many-folded, though. Not only are the programmers and the client subpar, there also seems to be alot of meddling from managers inside Wizards who have no idea what they're doing.

The best thing would probably be acquiring a software studio with competent programmers who redo the entire client from scratch with little to no meddling from outside AND having them maintain the client afterwards instead of Wizards' current clown troop around Worth "No ice-cream for me!" Wolpert.