Sorry for the double post, but this was just too rich. It's from Pete Jahn's State of the Program article where he talks about MTG Arena.
That is AMAZING. There have been literally a dozen different mtg games with ai opponents.Magic does not (yet) have any sort of play-against-an-AI option. The game is complex enough that developing a playable AI may never be feasible – or affordable. Without an AI opponent, Magic Arena opponents will be forced to play against real opponents.
Amusingly, he also goes on to say that MTG:A is doomed, but he approaches it from the "people don't like losing, and FTP players won't stick around if they're always getting creamed by real decks" angle.
Their follow-up to the disaster yesterday. Vague changes coming soonTM.
https://mtgarena.community.gl/forums/threads/26830
I like how the "economy post" they'd been hyping for weeks is retroactively labeled "an overview of the current economy" and not, this thing about the future of the economy we've been telling you it is for weeks now.
I think it's all best summed up by one guy who just posted in response to it:
"How are you so bad at this?"
https://forums.mtgarena.com/forums/threads/27221
So apparently, you can only competitively draft by paying with gems, which should translate into 10-12$ each. And while 3-2 or higher makes you go infinite, you'll never be able to sell the cards you're drafted - meaning the rest of the prices are going to get worthless rather quickly.
What's the point then? MTGO lost ground because it's too expensive, yet they keep pulling the same horseshit on MTGA with their "premium content" excuse. This is hilarious and downright sad at the same time.
I believe you need quite a number of stocks to be able to do that directly. Nothing preventing stockholders from writing to them, I believe they have a lawful duty requiring them to answer such queries.
I just cannot understand any more who this game is aimed at. This type of thing, gems only, seems clearly aimed at the usual suspects. But why would they swap from MTGO if they effectively can get a much bigger return there by selling cards?
According to the Hasbro CEO shareholder info this week, it's mainly aimed at former player and newcomers (here's the link). It's still questionable why
a) old players would pick up a gimmicky version that doesn't even have the old cards they love (let's face it - if you return to magic, you want to play with your old, awesome shit, not the new, overcosted garbage) and
b) new players would pick up a way more complex game that is several times more expensive than the competition and has F2P experience that is ass.
I've run into people (okay, one) who used to play Magic on a very casual level, and they picked up Magic Duels and loved it on tablet. I imagine Arena is aimed at people like that, who used to love cafeteria magic and can now dick around with it on a tablet or phone.
However, I can't see that player dropping $12 in gems to play a single series of premium Limited.
That's the thing, freemium games mostly financed by whales who spend a metric shitton of money on the game (90% of the entire revenue, if not more, is pretty common). But you still need a substantial playerbase to attract said whales. Meanwhile, WotC wants to have their cake and eat it, too - and that's the problem. The way they construct their economy, they expect alot of the playerbase that should normally be F2P to drop money on the game. This is never going to work, no matter what dumb excuses they're going to cook up next.
I expect there will be many firings after it launches and bombs, but once it has launched and bombed, it takes awhile to get over that - if they ever do, and that depends on making the correct fixes right away, which they probably won't do either.
Fundamentally it comes down to them treating this as a competitor to paper, and not a companion.
Interesting tidbit: Mishra's Photoshop (also well known for doing economy math for MTGO) did the math on Arena competitive drafts and apparently the rake on MTGA is a whooping 53% (because the game drops you at X-2, so it isn't a full swiss triange)
Dowloaded the June update. Actually played a fair bit tonight. The collection dump of Kaladesh really is a huge difference maker. Honestly, once you have a collection where you can at least build something to play, the rewards feel ok. But if they don't do the "here's one of every card in the set, plus some extra playables, or at least a bunch of wildcards" every time a new expansion drops I can't see anyone playing this from scratch.
Playing legitimate MTG decks with a shitty sealed collection is literally nobodies idea of a good time. But playing with some jank brew that includes a few bombs can be pretty fun. So far my shitty Red Rock concoction based on Chandras and a single Karn I burned by sole Mythic Wildcard on is doing pretty solid. 2-1 in a competitive league thing I joined for 1k Gold. I mean, I've literally only played against the red/black Chainwhirler deck so far, but it turns out ramp+giant monsters+removal is a good plan vs. that deck, so cool so far.
The 4B Saga is really strong value if you can hit it early.
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