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The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

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Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#61

Post by evanelias »

empath75 wrote: post #47
threetonesun wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it harder to play? If you didn't understand the rules amongst friends you made them up. But the game also tended towards more battles like "my flying bear defends against your dragon, oh no a lightning bolt". I tried getting back into it a few years ago because I still love the idea of MTG and every card had a book of text and all the best combos were sorted out the second a set released. Which -- I understand wh…

one word: banding.

Don't forget the even-more-specific "bands with other" ability from Legends!

I still have a hundred of those Legends rules insert cards somewhere in my basement. Sadly they aren't in demand by collectors.

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#62

Post by rendaw »

johtso wrote: post #40
awithrow wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its probably the nostalgia talking but a lot of the early magic was the art as well. It was professional enough to look good but not so polished that it didn't have its own character. I had favorite artists and it was always fun just admiring the art. The new cards just don't capture me the same way. Something about them is too polished or too homogenized. They don't leave any room for imagination. I feel the same wa…

I agree, I find so much of the art of modern magic cards completely uninspiring. They all look the same. Old magic cards had an element of the strange and the quirky. Sometimes the designs bordered on naive. Hand painted illustrations had a distinctly human touch. And the illustrations were punchy and had contrast. You knew exactly what a card was from a distance. A lot of the modern art is just polished, air brushed…

My favorite thing about the cards is they were little windows into a deep and mysterious world, hinted at further by the mechanics of the cards.

I thought it was just nostalgia, but looking at the sets you linked the 1995 one (I'd never seen) excites me while the 2024 does nothing... it could almost be AI. It's not just the same faces, but the same framing, same expressions, same "grand fantasy architecture", same MMO-esque magical swirls and sparkles, etc.

The abstract pieces weren't just whimsy, they felt like they could be based on vastly different local traditions or culture, history, or come from different time periods.

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#63

Post by bsder »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #12

The guy who invented the power 9 complaining about these new designers making rares that are too good… right. Also the hate on Arena is bizarre - it’s not perfect but it is polished and works well on (at least) iPhone PC and Mac.

The Power 9 are only almighty powerful in 2 player games. If there are 3 or more players, the Power 9 are nowhere near as decisive.

The main thing that went wrong with MTG was reducing it to 1v1 primarily. MTG is a hugely different game when there are multiple simultaneous opponents.

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#64

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

mxwsn wrote: post #13

Part of the original magic that Garfield talks about, the player experience of discovering a world of cards you've never seen before, is captured by recent video games like Inscryption (especially) and Slay the Spire. Dominion is also an excellent game as the progenitor of the deck-building game genre, where you build a deck from scratch inside each game (and Inscryption/Slay the Spire descend from), rather than outs…

So it seems like it went wrong when greed took iver and now there are so many cards that it doesn't make sense.

I love all the 3 games you mentioned, but not mtg because card packs should be illegal from my perspective (I know it's a me problem). they can say whatever they want, it is legal gambling

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#65

Post by paleotrope »

valbaca wrote: post #45
mrbluecoat wrote: post #36

> We send all the flattened Magic packaging and booster packs to the prison and the inmates do the product fulfillment. Was that a joke or serious? I was enjoying the article until that abrupt end and it just felt dark. A company forcing imprisoned humans to distribute their product?

Are you unfamiliar with the Prison Industrial Complex? Are you unfamiliar that slavery is illegal in America except for prisoners ?

Again, this was in Belgium.

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#66

Post by barbariangrunge »

hobs wrote: post #27
mxwsn wrote: post #13

Part of the original magic that Garfield talks about, the player experience of discovering a world of cards you've never seen before, is captured by recent video games like Inscryption (especially) and Slay the Spire. Dominion is also an excellent game as the progenitor of the deck-building game genre, where you build a deck from scratch inside each game (and Inscryption/Slay the Spire descend from), rather than outs…

And I will never be unsad about dominion.isotropic.org shutting down with its dead simple and fast dominion implementation, they promised to take it down if the company ever did its own thing and they did and you had to buy every expansion and it generally sucked.

Board game companies make so little money, don’t begrudge them for asking for money in exchange for completely optional content

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#67

Post by barbariangrunge »

2024throwaway wrote: post #9
getwiththeprog wrote: post #4

Linked from the article are the pre release testing cards.. According to Garfield - it all went wrong after this! Magic with it's twice a year new sets and pay-to-win is not what he had envisioned. https://www.magiclibrarities.net/955-rarities-alpha-beta-gam...

You definitely don't have to pay to win. I play entirely on MTG: Arena, and you can pay $0 and still build a competitive deck. For paper magic, just find people who don't have sticks in their posteriors and use homemade or printed versions of the cards you want.

I remember my fancy black deck I was so proud of and all the nights playing against tooth and nail, a deck full of cards many of which was worth as much as my whole deck. It sucked. I won 1/3 games at my best because I wasn’t willing to sink hundreds of dollars into my decks

Playing with printed cards though is janky. It’s not how the game is meant to be played and contradicts the aesthetic experience. Better to switch to dominion where the intended experience doesn’t revolve around pay to win

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#68

Post by Euphorbium »

getwiththeprog wrote: post #4

Linked from the article are the pre release testing cards.. According to Garfield - it all went wrong after this! Magic with it's twice a year new sets and pay-to-win is not what he had envisioned. https://www.magiclibrarities.net/955-rarities-alpha-beta-gam...

Twice a year sets are a thing of a past. Now they pump sets every 2 months.

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#69

Post by gklitz »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #64
mxwsn wrote: post #13

Part of the original magic that Garfield talks about, the player experience of discovering a world of cards you've never seen before, is captured by recent video games like Inscryption (especially) and Slay the Spire. Dominion is also an excellent game as the progenitor of the deck-building game genre, where you build a deck from scratch inside each game (and Inscryption/Slay the Spire descend from), rather than outs…

So it seems like it went wrong when greed took iver and now there are so many cards that it doesn't make sense. I love all the 3 games you mentioned, but not mtg because card packs should be illegal from my perspective (I know it's a me problem). they can say whatever they want, it is legal gambling

I quite like magic the gathering online for this purpose. You can’t trade cards, so the gambling and trading aspect go away. And you get wild cards in packs so it’s easier to craft the specific decks you want. Also the rapid cycle of releases just feels more fitting here. I’la be away for some months now and again and come back to an entirely new challenge of cards and decks. I also paying is optional, you get enough resources just playing regularly that you join events and play drafts regularly. But you can also just pay to have enough to only play events if you feel like regular games become boring.

Re: The creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' knows where it all went wrong

#70

Post by mxwsn »

orlp wrote: post #17
mxwsn wrote: post #13

Part of the original magic that Garfield talks about, the player experience of discovering a world of cards you've never seen before, is captured by recent video games like Inscryption (especially) and Slay the Spire. Dominion is also an excellent game as the progenitor of the deck-building game genre, where you build a deck from scratch inside each game (and Inscryption/Slay the Spire descend from), rather than outs…

A very recent game that also captures this in a unique way is Balatro. The cards that you play are ordinary playing cards, but the way you modify how they score and what cards you have in your deck is a cool discovery process.

Thanks for the recommendation! Balatro is quite fun
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