What is going to happen when MtGO goes Gold?

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BigBlue

Guest
First off, it will probably not flop as much as people think it will due to it's price. There are a good number of people who will pay.

But for those who don't pay, what will the effect be from those who leave the cardboard community? Wizards was afraid they would change their sales dramatically, so they priced it the same as real boosters. What they fail to think about is that it will still affect the magic community. It already has affected the Internet community.

Another big detriment to the fan sites is the MagictheGathering.com site. a Fan site cannot compete with paid writers who know the game from the inside and have what appears to be limitless resources when it comes to staff at Wizards. I'm not saying that fan sites must or will definately go away, but if the secondary market on cards drops, the places paying to keep fan sites going will drop. Fan Sites will see a drop in visits. If we want to keep the CPA going, it will be a tough but worthy venture. Generate traffic, and you'll generate revenue possibilities and interest in the site.

I would look to what has been successful in the past, sites like the Dojo. Another example I would take comes from another of my virtual hangouts. It is a sports site whose front page is updated by a few admins and is links to other sites and their articles. It has a small section devoted to in-house articles as well, and the boards are busy with discussion on things related to the team. We could include a rating system on the links from readers to provide feedback for those articles and also a "discuss this article" link to a thread. While the meat of the articles comes from somewhere else, you'd see discussion remain here. How it works is that any board member can submit a link, and multiple admins approve those links throughout the day.

Just a thought, or two.
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make. You're asking "What will be the impact on Magic when MTG Online goes gold?", correct?

Some people will continue to play, especially those who can't find a living opponent. Depending on if it does tourney play though, I think most people will still go to tourneys in person with physical cards (those who already go or want to try against "live" competition). Those who are playing Online now but refuse to play just won't; they aren't paying for product anyway so no real monetary loss to WOTC there.

Now the comparison with magicthegathering seems to be a different subject. Are you saying that fan sites can't compete with paid sites? I don't go there, so I don't know the quality of the writings or who's doing it. Is it WOTC staff, players who are getting paid, or both? If it's like the Dojo, except with the addition of WOTC staff, I don't see the problem. If some place is out there that's offering better Magic "talk", you might as well go there.
 
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BigBlue

Guest
Don't take offense man. I'm just seeing a lot of doom and gloom here lately. Magic discussions seem non-existent anymore. If you've never been to MagicTheGathering.com you should pay it a vist. I have no desire to belong to their message boards, I dont' even read their boards, but their articles are good. They are written by people like Mark Rosewater and have a daily question from players which have been answered from a who's who of Wizards. I'm sorry, but 9 out of 10 people are going to read one of those articles before they read something written by joe player.

So why not reap the best of both worlds. Post a link to that article with another link to a thread to discuss it's contents. Other threads will still appear on the boards. It doesn't cost you a thing. And if you allow board members to submit links and someone like yourself only has to authorize it then you don't have to do all the work yourself. You'd be amazed what articles people find on the web and find interesting.

Taking a defensive stand against fresh ideas is only going to push more people away from the CPA until the CPA is one or two guys arguing about why everyone left. Sorry if you feel I stepped on your toes. I appreciate the work you do already and am just trying to help.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I didn't mean to sound defensive, I was only trying to clarify what you were posting, which seemed to be two topics where the subject seemed to indicate it was one.

I think what you posted are very good ideas and I agree with the link idea. I do it right now for rakso's articles, although he sends me the link because I don't go to StarCity either. If people want to send links to interesting stuff, feel free and I'll try to post them.
 
I

Istanbul

Guest
1. All accounts will be wiped, all cards will be gone.
2. Now that it's pay, 75% of the people quit.
3. Due to having to rebuild by actually *buying* or the $15 liability limitation, another 15% quits.
4. The remaining 10% begins to rebuild their collections and remake their decks.
5. More players are drawn in. The game experiences a false start where many new players start, play briefly, and quit.
6. The game settles into a slower but steadier growth, ending up at about 1500 users 'active' (not necessarily online, but 1500 total people who play at some point or another on a regular basis). The redemption program is seldom, if ever, used due to the cost of rebuilding.
7. Magic Online continues on into the metaphoric sunset, with people trading like *crazy* to complete and redeem as many sets as possible if the thing goes under.
 
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Istanbul

Guest
God, I hope not.

Even letting beta testers keep 1% of their collection...I have over 93,000 e-cards. I'll just keep 930 rares. Hey look, a new Mr. Suitcase! Any and all newbies would be severely outclassed, and would turn away from the game in disgust faster than you can cringe at pulling a Mudhole from an Odyssey booster.

Letting people keep X cards would be better, but would be the same problem. I can keep 60 cards? Okay. 4 BoP, 4 Wrath, 4 of each 7E painland, 4 of each Apoc painland, 4 Shade, 4 Finkel, 4 Call. My name is Mr. Suitcase, KNEEL before me.
 
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BigBlue

Guest
I know what will happen with the Beta thing from a MtGO standpoint. I was thinking more globally. Will those players who've been devoting the majority of their Internet "Magic" time to that come back to forums like this one or will they do something else?

I think Wizards is intentionally stringing along the Beta process to make people more hooked on it in the hopes that they'll not find 3.29 per booster expensive. I'm envisioning them as pushers right now.

It will be interesting what form the reward comes in for the testers. About a thousand people have been testing it for 6 months or longer and I'm curious if they'll simply say that the 6 months of free usage is reward enough. I really don't care if they give anything to us. For me that usage is reward enough and I think the product is "worth" 3.29 per pack, it's just that I don't think people can afford 3.29 per pack. What WotC has done is forced people into choosing their game store. Either you will choose MtGO or they will choose their local premier store. Most people would like to do both, but their price prohibits that.

I hope that we see an influx of posters who've been absent while they play MtGO for free. I hope that those posters have interesting things to say about what they learned while using MtGO, I know I learned a ton about drafting having interacted with some very good players. You never really know who your opponent is there, you could be playing Kai Budde or you could be playing Joe Scrub.
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I'm getting the impression that you think we had users who left because of MTGOnline? I don't think that's the case... I get the impression only about five people play it with some degree of regularity, and they're still here and posting/lurking.

Do you think new people will come here when it goes Gold? Certainly it's possible, but if they totally quit Online and all Magic, there's probably no reason for a new person to come here. If they want to play in person and "keep up", they might...
 
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BigBlue

Guest
You think there are only 5 people here? oh, I thought it was higher, at least that's the impression I had. And it doesn't mean someone who is using it hardcore, any minutes spent there take time they might have spent contributing here, not that they would necessarilly, but I figured the number was higher, or maybe the quality of the posters/players who are spending time there is the void I envisioned. I could be wrong, and probably am.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Well, I know Isty plays for sure. Last time it was mentioned (about a month ago?), EricBess and nodnarb played. I sent a disk to Ura. I guess you play too, although you haven't been posting recently (is that why? ;) ) Not sure about Gizmo.

That's all I could really think of. I tried to get on back in January but something was weird with my connection and I haven't bothered since (combination of no time and when I did have time, just didn't think of it :) )
 
E

Elrond

Guest
I still play, just not very often and it's usually at weird times of the day, like when I can't seem to go to sleep at 2 in the morning.
 
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BigBlue

Guest
Originally posted by Spiderman
... (is that why? ;) ) ...
Click to expand...
Actually I'm weaning myself off it so I'm not tempted to pay for it when it isn't free. :) Which is why I've been posting more frequently. And my "new" solution to our "problem" is to just start posting magic stuff instead of taling about how no one is anymore. no use in being a hypocrite. :D
 
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Gizmo

Guest
I, and everybody I know, use Apprentice. I dont see any attraction to MtgO. And to my knowledge Kai et al still use Netdraft, we used to draft with them quite regularly.
 
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