Statement from the new CEO, Chris Cocks, regarding Magic's digital future
And out of fucking nowhere, Worth Wollpert is finally gone, probably fired, given the timing.
So does this mean the client will start to be better?
The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.
MTGO is way beyond being salvageable, but maybe it can be made a bit more bearable until Magic Digital Next rolls in. But as long as they hire "talent" with wages below industry standards, I wouldn't get up my hopes too much.
If I was to hazard a guess, if they are real about this they are likely building a new one. Talk of cross device play and what not. That's not something you do with the current infrastructure.
Have a look at Duels. It's a striped down version of the game sure, but you can follow it easily, understanding most of what's going on as a noob. Like Hearthstone manages. With the obvious rise of an effective competition, it's now a matter of urgency for Wizards to have something that stops their market share slipping more than it has in the digital sphere.
The side effect of that is simply, it's easier to do if you do not worry about archaic rules and cards that existed in the past that complicate the simplicity of a program. I honestly feel like if they go down a Duels style road with the platform, everything outside of Standard is likely to see its focus shift. As they make things harder to program for and to accurately portray in a simplified system.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
Originally Posted by Spam
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
IIRC, Maro once said on his blog that Magic Duels is their main way to recruit new players for Paper.
Now consider the following: Why would anybody right in their mind put up with this buggy PoS when there are quality digital card games like Hearthstone? There's no lack in competitors nowadays since Hearthstone demonstrated that there's money to be made.
Now if you put 2+2 together, the bigger picture makes alot of sense now. WotC has relied for years on their massive userbase growth to generate record revenue after record revenue. But those times are over as userbase growth has come to a grinding halt (good luck recruiting people via Duels today). Player retention has always been shit, but it's probably even worse now due to the original 1.5 years rotation change, one of the most expensive Standard formats ever, shortly followed up by one of the worst Standard formats ever. I wouldn't be suprised if even Paper entered a recession sooner or later.
eSports are a rapid growing market, yet Wizards has completely missed to jump on the bandwagon. Coverage is sparse and of poor quality. That's not how you grow the game.
At least the announcement of Chris Cocks (who was hired for his technical background, coming from Microsoft) gives me hope that the revamp of their tech section does something. WER is shit, their homepage shit, etc. - imagine a official phone app that works with the DCI number that could do all kinds of stuff, be it FNM or tournament-related. That could be a gamechanger.
I guess they just plan on copying heartstone with their newest changes.. Guess this is the future Chris was talking about in his statement. #thankscocks.
It's amazing how they can take something that works very well (HS Arena) and make it ass.
Seriously, if you win 7 times and complete the league run, you BREAK EVEN? What?
Yeah hopefully that is only going to be for the draft leagues that they are running. Even at 7-X, you technically just break even if we don't factor in the price of chests or the EV of chests.It's amazing how they can take something that works very well (HS Arena) and make it ass.
Seriously, if you win 7 times and complete the league run, you BREAK EVEN? What?
Imo the worst part are the treasure chest changes. I imagine it's going to be very very hard to get Leo online now, not to mention palace jailer still isn't online. As something positive I do like the treasure chest reward rotations that they seem to be doing, it seems like a good way to distribute products that are too high in prices on mtgo.
The curated list in Treasure Chests is getting a bunch of new cards. The obvious ones are the Masterpieces from Aether Revolt (available exclusively in Treasure Chests for Magic Online), but promos with all-new art are coming as well! Cards from Theros block, Magic 2015, and Magic Origins are being added to Treasure Chests for the first time. Additionally, some cards will be changing versions and/or quantities. The Modern rare and mythic rare list will have Aether Revolt cards added.
When we made Treasure Chests tradable, we exchanged Play Points for booster packs to accommodate players who wanted to open the Treasure Chests and trade the contents. In practice, only a tiny percentage of them were opened for this purpose, and the number of boosters entering Magic Online this way was having an unhealthy effect on the Magic Online economy. Therefore, with the Aether Revolt update, we are removing boosters from Treasure Chests and instead restoring Play Points to them at the quantities and frequency ratios of the initial Treasure Chest launch.
Finally, we are reducing the frequency that Commander (2016 Edition) and Conspiracy cards are obtainable in Treasure Chests, though they will still be there for players still looking to acquire those cards. You can see the full details of all the Treasure Chest changes at the bottom of this article.
Wait am I reading this correctly?
You play until 7 wins or 4 losses. If you manage to win 7 games before your 4 losses you're rewarded with your money back and are done with the tournament???
So they copied Hearthstone, but then decided "you know what, let's not allow players to even attempt to win 12 games with their deck, if they get to the break-even point let's kick them out so they can't even hope for making a profit." It's such a shitty prize structure even when you have the ability to win 12 since its a zero sum proposition (averaging everyone together is going to give 4 wins per Arena run), so whatever their maximum loss limit (4) will also be their average prize payout (4 wins).
How could you ever hope to get people to join these?
I sold out of MTGO a looong time ago now and I keep waiting for the moment they announce something that makes me wish I hadn't. Looks like that moment has been staved off for at least another few months...
I'm slowly going to sell out again as well. I haven't played for months and I'm just waiting for good prices to sell my individual cards since there's no rush.
This made me laugh.
I tried MTGO like in 2003-4ish or something. I remember thinking this was fucking ugly (like the UI, presentation, "feel" was dated like 10 years already) and just made you cringe on every aspect. When I see current screenshots, I am amazed that this looks exactly as shitty as it did back then. How all of the shitty WotC online software department hasn't been fired years ago is inexplicable to me (well that's not true, I know the answer, and it's called even more catastrophic management).
On an other note, I tried Duels for fun. And it indeed was enjoyable to play, if only for a few games.
The problem with WotC is their corporate culture. They exploit fanboys with their love for Magic, paying sub-industry standard wage and fire them regularly to dodge further obligations if they would work longer at WotC. Of course this can't attract the necessary talent. Also, and raging nepotism. Worth was part of "The Gang", thus he sticked around 16 years despite failing at his job.
Does this mean that Chests will now be worth less unopened, because bots will have no use for the Play Points? I seem to recall that they replaced Play Points with boosters for exactly this reason?...we are removing boosters from Treasure Chests and instead restoring Play Points to them
Why don't they replace boosters with Tix? The only reason I can think of is that they want to force people to open the chests, rather than trade them away for Tix.
The issue from how I understand it is the ev of boosters have plummeted. Wizards can't sell boosters now.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
https://www.goatbots.com/prices-boosters.php
The prices for Kaladesh boosters are almost 3 tix, which is still very decent.
That the booster EV of Kaladesh is garbage should not come at a suprise. They printed masterpieces to concentrate the most part of the EV on them, so that the other Standard-legal cards get cheaper. Now you're left with a dirt-cheap Paper set. EV of Online sets is tied to the value of Paper sets. And to add insult to the injury, Online masterpieces can't be redeemed.
The lack of information about collection transfers (or about MDN) gave me the kick in the butt I needed to sell off a big part of my MTGO collection. Ended up dumping something like $1,300 worth of cards (and still thinking about selling a bit more) today.
I love Magic, but the lack of prize support and the somewhat clunky client keeps me from playing as much as I would like.
I kept a small handful of decks. We will see if I end up parting with those too.
It's kind of embarrassing how much better programmed the Pokemon TCG Online program is.
Pretty smart decision. Even if one is still playing on MTGO, you should try to trim all the excess cards, since there's a good chance that there won't be a collection transfer to Magic Digital Next. And once that's revealed, all hell will break loose.
Yeah. I would put that under the "catastrophic management" umbrella.
Decided to sell out completely two days ago since I've determined it isn't worth the time or risk to sell everything over time. Seems like my financial insticts are good as always:
https://twitter.com/MishrasFotoshop/...73639695663107
Given how they dance around the issue about collections (instead of guaranteeing the safety of them), I'd brace for some epic shitstorm sooner or later.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote