Magic Duels

I'd like to say my two cents about the problems and the future of Magic Duels myself. This post is a rather one long rant but it might give some slight insight on the matter to someone who stumbles upon this post and reads it^_^.

Unexpected Extended Downtime

As you may know Magic Duels lauched more or less two weeks (or one week) ago and since then there are serious problems with server connectivity and other stuff. For example many of the players can't launch the game at all and many are struggling with Unknown Fatal Errors (I'm not struggling with those because I spent few weeks sending emails to WotC trying to figure out why my MODO crashes all the time, when I managed to make it work all the software I had troubles with started to work. The game is actually pretty demanding so if you don't meet requirements don't even try). I feel like I'm one of the lucky players that actually managed to launch the game without a problem and play it.

I downloaded the game soon after its release. It wasn't showing up on Steam nor there were any links to it. I found the game link via google somewhere and downloaded it. This was a very strange indicator because the game was supposed to be officially released. The game showed on Steam but wasn't available for download. Well, that release was more of a rumor than actual announcement to me, as wotc's page was stating 'TBA' for majority of the time. This for me was a signal that either something is wrong or WotC doesn't care about this. (I suspected the first)

When I finally launched the game (I had troubles downloading it) it announced that I couldn' connect to the server. I thought that reconnecting in few minutes would actually connect me. I thought that this might be a problem on my end (I had problems connecting with the iOS version as well which uses different server as it seems). I got a bit upset and opened MODO and played on that...

Some time later I tried to connect with Magic Duels...still nothing. So I tried clicking on Customer Support and see where that would lead me (if someone like an ORC would be present I would ask him/her about it). It directed me to the normal WotC Customer Support so I rather searched some forums on Steam and then used google to find out what is going on. I ended up on Magic Online's Twitter page, but that linked me to Magic Duels where I could read this tweet -> 'Magic Duels on Steam is experiencing unexpected downtime.'

So I gave up and tried the day later. It still wasn't working. I checked the Twitter account and saw a post from WotC that the game is experiencing connectivity issues or that the server is down. Either way I couldn't play. Actually I did not try to play offline because when playing on iphone and I got disconnected I lost the data (the progress simply did not save and I had to replay it). Since I expected the game to function in the same way I decided not to play the game. Many of the players who downloaded the game weren't aware of this tried playing it just to find out that all their progress is gone after finally connecting to the server. And I understand their frustration. Many of the players lost even those cards they obtained when the server was actually working. During all those days I would have actually found some time to play the game and grow my collection a bit.

During the time I had nothing to do I was looking at other people's posts so I found out how buggy the game seems to be and that the game does not even work for many players. I myself found few bugs and I managed to crash the game even though I have no idea why that happened (it seems the problem lies somewhere in creatures with counters on them, as the game crashes only when there are counters somewhere in play but what triggers the crash is a mystery to me)

• zooming on a card that is either enchanted or another card is attached to it somehow flips it over
  
• scrying in general is pretty buggy it either crashes the game when done at the end of turn or it won't let you put the cards on the bottom/top of the library
  
• in chandra's campaign in one of the encounters one cannot confirm an attack. I won by dealing direct damage but that wasn't easy and I was glad I won and did not plan on replaying that again.
  
• there are triggers that do not trigger when they should or do not trigger at all (especially when permanents leave play at once), the first card I opened was Kothophed, Soul Hoarder.
• quests did not update
• my deckbuilder does not let me name my decks nor change the deckbox for some reason...iOS version does it so I guess this is not a normal behavior.

Whatever...these paragraphs describe my attempt at playing the game. In the end I managed to play it and progress but when I wanted to play and progress even further I again got those connectivity issues and couldn't play. I was struggling with one Liliana encounter and after dying to 3 consecutive Consume Spirits I just did not want to get screwed if by a chance I would win. I wasn't prepared to play more times then needed. So I ended up playing on MODO because that seemed to be working^^. Certainly this way WotC earned more money from me^_^. By now (during the two drafts I played) I should have all the campaigns finished and be happily playing online with other players but I can't since I couldn't play when I had the time to play and was actually looking forward to it. So in a way I also feel that we should be awarded some packs for all the lost time. If Steam saves the time when the game was downloaded they could give us some kind of compensation. But I would be glad if the game worked and one could play and would not need to fear that the server might go down mid-game.

Great potential
The majority of posts one finds on the internet is about people complaining that this or that doesn't work and being angry at Wizards. All this most probably drove a lot of people away (and the following posts in which players ask other players for their battle.net tag proofs that. Which is pretty sad because this game seems to work very well and in my opinion is now better than HS. Anyway will those people come back to try Magic Duels after such an experience? Server issues at launch are common or at least that seems to me, but are usually fixed the very same day. But this got past ridiculous. It's been almost a week and one still cannot enjoy the game because of the connectivity issues. Maybe it is even worse because some people connect and some don't. Yesterday I couldn't connect when I got back to my flat and hoped to finish the campaigns. That bothered me a bit because I knew that other players that play the game managed to play it (because I was getting random messages about it in my facebook's messenger, what they opened, how fun was to battle Griselbrand's demons etc.) and I was stuck with 1/1s in Liliana's campaign.

Anyway apart from all those negative posts about all the problems and incapability of WotC (or whoever runs the servers) part of the posts is actually positive and some are even overly positive. Anyway the game is good and has a great potential but to what end? Many people are expecting WotC to come up with something really good and expect either that there will be possibility to draft or that earlier sets will be added to the game. In general people want to play Magic ('real Magic') and most probably for 'free'. I really like this idea, but that's not going to happen in this society that revolves around money. Money is something that keeps companies or individuals alive. There is nothing for free no matter what (I don't speak about Magic now, in general). Even what seems to be 'free' is not because we pay for it with time or something else that converts to money in the end for someone.

I personally think that people should not expect much from WotC and the reason why is very simple. Wizards of the Coast is not giving us means to play Magic for free so we would not need to play IRL. DotP was a game that was supposed to introduce Magic to new players and to acquire them. WotC said that this campaign was successful (the rise was something like 40% compared to 10% from the years before the dotp campaing. that's what we were told at Wizards of the Coast conference). I've met some players that converted from DotP to paper Magic. Those players had a very healthy view on the game and were willing to play very strange decks. Everything was fine and it was joy to play with them because one felt like when he was starting 20 years ago. Those people couldn't understand the secondary market though and were driven off tournament play very fast. This certainly is group of players WotC targets but can those people create their own casual groups and play paper magic? (in this country I can imagine that this won't work, at least in this city the competition is high and most players are behave like jerks when newbies show up). Thus Magic Duels's aim will be more or less similar to DotP's campaign I think. To acquire even more players that would create the best target group for WotC (casual players). That is my assumption. But I can be wrong. (I'll get back to this later)

Anyway what surprised me with Magic Duels is how many people and different kinds of people expected this release. Magic players in the community usually ignored DotP. At GPs no one would even try playing the game. Those who play the game are not paper magic players. But when Magic Duels was announced to be F2P and a platform for future sets and content many more players started to look forward to the game. So I wonder what group of players WotC wanted to target because the development of the platform will be based upon that.

No matter what WotC might give us something we want but they certainly won't give us everything (like we might be able to get (more) coins while winning a 2HG match). Certainly they won't allow us to play a set of Mythics in a deck though. Considering the fact that there might be an entire block available (after it is released), they won't allow us to play Standard the way it is played IRL/MODO. Not only this would drive casual players away but it would give means to try the decks to those who would like to join the (semi-) competitive means (not to mention that getting those cards would be way more difficult if you can't buy those cards directly, this would mean huge difference in decks' power level in Magic Duels and that's something I don't really want to see). They need to earn money of Magic Duels somehow and I don't think that this is the way to go.

Why do I even mention this? The thing is...Magic Duels is the first game that actually some Magic players look forward to. Those players have different expectations from DotP players. DotP players evolved into something different as well and those have bigger expectations as well, but those are (usually) untouched by formats, secondary Magic market and such. They want to play their game, advance in it and grow their collection so they can have more fun with more cards. Since those players already had the chance to play with powerful cards they crave for more of them not just some commons and uncommons. RL Magic players want something way more narrower and specific. (they don't usually play with all those c/us unless they draft)

Magic Duels is now a Free 2 Play game but one either pays with time spent or money. With the system there is (that you can have a limited amount of cards) it will actually be pretty tough to collect all those cards with 6 cards per pack and rarity not guaranteed. It seems like no one realizes this. I mean, come on guys, do you really want to pay for something that is even more random and less likely to happen (opening the card you want)?
As for the older sets. Giving us the opportunity to play even more powerful decks does not sound that good. Something like a format would need to be introduced otherwise everyone would be playing the same and those not owning the cards would be pretty screwed. Also Magic Duels is yet another simulation of the real game. As someone said before me MODO nor any DotP game is not Magic. It allows us to play the game of Magic with certain limitations. One can hardly play something like combo elves on MODO due to all those triggers and infinite combos cannot really go infinite due to the fact that one needs to go through it manually. There is no way of creating a loop. Imagine playing such a deck in Magic Duels. I was already fed up with two triggers that triggered during my draw step. The games would take ages as there is no time limit for example....Anyway older sets bring many problems not only for programmers, but for the players and wotc. It breaks the balance of power level and that alone is a huge problem.

We were discussing F2P TCGs with my flatmate. We both like SolForge but we don't like the model. We both would really be happy if there was a secondary market on which we could buy the cards or at least be able to share our collection so we could play Highlander or other constructed events for which one of us don't have the cards. This would also allow players that start with the game now to acquire the cards they need. I know this also means that the money StoneBlade wants would go elsewhere (this shows that the game is pay2win but...well what games are not?). Thus the whole model would have to be changed. They would have to sanction tournaments and let us pay for it with real money for example. But this certainly would help the game in my opinion. The problem is that keeping an economy like this working is not an easy feat.

In Duels the only thing we pay for for the time being are the booster packs and I find that very dull...acquiring one pack though is not that easy (it is easy but it takes time) as it consumes quite a lot of time and that is for example what I hated about Hearthstone. If I wanted a good collection of cards I had to play Arena, play at least 5-7 rounds and then do the same. This though takes ages in my opinion so I gave up. But here I can at least get the cards I want unlike in Duels where I just have to be lucky to get the cards I want.

With the changes awaiting MODO players it seems that they want to divide the players in groups and cater each group seperatedly. MODO will be good for players with high win ratio and it will become even more hostile for less successful players and 'new players'. There is a platform that can be used by casual players though and they can spend their money on that. The question is what will happen with those players driven away from MODO? Do WotC think that they will start playing paper magic or Magic Duels? Probably. A Magic player is someone who usually tends to go back to the game and it doesn't matter in what form. Magic Duels seems appealing and those potential once gain Magic players. All those players were looking forward to the game because they can see that it can be good and that there is a great potential. But we are were rewarded with a game that is buggy and servers not working...

But how all this will help to earn WotC money that is something I'm not sure. There is something I either miss or there are other changes that await the players/TOs etc. A lot has changed in the past two years concerning venue support, tournament structure, set release etc and I really wonder where it all leads. I accepted the changes regarding no more core sets and only two sets per block both as a player and professional card seller. This change also showed me that many players were really unhappy with how things were at the end of each block (I speak about type 2 players). Those players did not like the decks that became too powerful and the format wasn't changing much as well. But now it seems that the format changed considerably. It keeps all the players busy, forces them to buy new cards but keeps them relatively happy about the format (now majority of decks being burn does not seem fun...but that might soon change). As for changes on MODO it seems that WotC wants to limit the number of players (reduce the number rather). As for Magic Duels...I will have to wait and see what their primary intention is.

So no matter what happens in the future, I hope WotC knows what they are doing.