"An Old Pro and Magic Online"

[HumanError]

I'll admit it. After the first couple paragraphs I pretty much just skimmed the article on magicthegathering.com to see what he had to say about the pricing policy and as it turns out...

The whole article is really just one big advertisement for Magic Online. I mean, really now, would anyone be allowed to say anything bad about it?

I'm more than a little irritated that this article ever saw the light of day. All it is, is a big long advertisement for how great Magic Online is. "It's better than real life!"

Did anyone else read this and get uniformly disgusted? The pricing plan is a hot spot between players and WotC, and from what I've noticed and understood, players are almost unanimously against it. Check the poll on mtgnews.com. Very, precious few people are buying into it.

It's just...ridiculous, and it really kills any credibility that magicthegathering.com could have had (but then again, MaRo's has been waning for some time now - remember the Auction of the People [who are friends with Mark Rosewater]?)

Oy...had to rant.

 

[Spiderman]

I disagree.

Obviously you can think that it's one big ad, but if it really plays like he says, then it's probably The Next Best Thing. Enforcing the rules is a biggie, as is probably reconnecting from a drop. Al the rest are pretty good features.

Have you played it? Do you disgree with the meat of his article? Does it not do what he says?

The pricing plan is almost separate from what he's trying to really say.

 

[bgbowerman]

Well, I thought the article was a little 'over-the-top' myself. I've downloaded & installed the program (for 4 hours on a cable modem,) including the time it reinstalls when changes are made, but I haven't played any live games yet. He doesn't even mention how long it takes to install.

The main thing that got me was his 'I lost the first 6 drafts' statement. OK, for free, that's no big deal. But at MSRP for the packs + entry fee, you're looking at 60-70 dollars! That's more than I want to spend learning how to use the program.

Why isn't there a tutorial about the program itself? All the tutorials I've found are 'How to play Magic.' I know how to play Magic; I want to know how to use the program.

His first paragraph says 'I just couldn’t afford to keep up with the constant time and money investment...'. Obviously, he'll save time not having to travel to tournaments, but money?

'No more incorrect rules interpretations'. OK, I just saw a message about Mtg:Online handling Lure wrongly. Replies indicated this has been a known error for some time. Why is it taking so long to fix? If a rule problem is discovered live, will it take a long time to fix, too? If a rules problem is obviously wrong, there's no way to play around it, because the program won't let you play against the rules it "knows" are right.

A time clock? Yikes. Hope my ISP doesn't drop me 3 times; there goes my 35 minutes.

As for his closing mention of the pricing policy, he says you can win 8 packs for winning an 8-person draft, 4 for 2nd. This is fine, if you can consistently find drafts within minutes of entering. If you have to wait an hour or more for an 8th person, not so fine.

That is what will (IMO) determine life or death for Mtg:Online. Whether it maintains the 'critical mass' of players sufficient to allow on-demand games; casual, constructed or draft.

May your opponents fall, as wheat before the scythe,
Ben g. Bowerman

 

[Spiderman]

Why does the time to download matter? You know the size (or should), especially since fileplanet apparently has it.

What do you mean you haven't played any live games yet? Does that mean any games period? The "live" is confusing...

Since this is beta, it is my understanding that points are given out on a semi-regular basis to get packs and draft with. No one's buying anything yet, to my knowledge.

I'm not familiar with the goings on of it, so I can't comment on the Lure problem you state.

Another member here, Istanbul, leaves me with the impression that it's not that difficult to find people to draft with right now.

I probably am not the best to defend this as I haven't gotten on and played yet. All I'm saying is that I think y'all are reading way more into it than you should.

 

[Chaos Turtle]

No, I did not become uniformly disgusted uopn reading the article. To me, it seemed an honest and straightforward account of Manuel Bevand's experience with Magic Online.

I can't see how anyone who only read the first couple of paragraphs and then "pretty much skimmed" the rest of the article would actually know whether it was genuine or merely thinkly-disguised advertisement. Unless that person had pretty much made up his mind ahead of time what he expected the article to be.

Not everyone is dead-set against the announced pricing policy, just so you know, and Bevand's not decrying it does not implicitly make him a mouthpiece for WotC.

Actually, the more I've seen of the way people behave* playing Magic Online, and the knee-jerk sky-is-falling reactions to everything WotC does that falls short of offering free cards for life, the more I understand WotC's position on this matter.

I'm no fan of the pricing structure myself, but I think that WotC may be onto something here, and to quote Mr. Bevand, "for that price, I will expect an absolutely perfect service: solid servers, less disconnections, more prizes and events, qualifier tournaments, use of the real-life DCI rating, and much more…" hey, for all that, and assuming that the secondary market for 1-to-1 card exchange opens up as WotC hopes it will, I may even give it a whirl.

*(I mean, really, people cheating flagrantly by exploiting bugged cards, and drafting rares then dropping out of tournaments, hoarding cards as though they have some actual value, when it is common knowledge that all beta collections will be wiped out. It's pretty pathetic. If people will be so greedy with something they get for free, it stands to reason that they will take the free/cheap stuff over the costly real-life product. Certainly not true in every case - mine, for example - but in enough cases that WotC could stand to lose quite a bit of revenue by making Magic Online cheaper than the real thing.)