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Serperoth posted:That seems like a pretty good idea tbh. it was in their annual stockholders report. But software development despite what people seem to think, is not a rapid process. I would rough guess that if they threw an appropriate amount of resources (~5m in software dev maybe) that it'd still take two years for things to get made with any sort of quality. Maybe an alpha quality release with the majority of card interactions possible in a year or so. The better thing with a ground up release and a lot of the keywording things being perhaps more machine-readable thanks to the Duels implementations (rather than MTGO) is that you can probably re-use a lot of the logic from Duels to make a new unified MTG game client that has the MTGO functionality of tournaments and trading and applies at least some of the F2P aspects of Duels to a game that lets people play for free up to a point, supplement the free with some paid options and eventually let that Duels player go from free to whale in the same client. it'd be super nice if they'd learn from Hearthstone and make things cheaper and more on the IAP side of things with the ability to earn points for free that you can use to play events and/or buy packs with, but I have a feeling that any money invested will justify their decision to keep things at full Store Prices.
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May 31, 2016 19:58
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Serperoth posted:That seems like a pretty good idea tbh. There's no way they're even close to actually doing this, even though it's what they desperately need to do. They're understaffed just in terms of being able to keep the current version working and up to date with new sets, never mind developing a completely new version in parallel. Remember that last huge version update to MTGO 5 years ago or whenever it was? It was a flashy new client program with some marginally better UI and stability improvements, that still runs like a dog and there's been hardly any improvement on the back end. And it was a huge effort on their part to do even that much. They have their hands full just trying to keep MTGO from crashing whenever they code new cards in. To actually make improvements they'd really need to double their digital team's size, install new management, and pay competitive salaries for the Seattle tech sector. Or they can just keep trundling a long doing what they're doing. The program works most of the time, rakes in a fair bit of money, and hasn't failled too disasterously in a while.
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May 31, 2016 20:02
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Telex posted:The better thing with a ground up release and a lot of the keywording things being perhaps more machine-readable thanks to the Duels implementations (rather than MTGO) is that you can probably re-use a lot of the logic from Duels to make a new unified MTG game client that has the MTGO functionality of tournaments and trading and applies at least some of the F2P aspects of Duels to a game that lets people play for free up to a point, supplement the free with some paid options and eventually let that Duels player go from free to whale in the same client. I'd be skeptical of the value of Duels code. As an example, the devs are pulling Archangel of Tithes from the card pool because, in their opinion, it's a complex card that leads to too many bugs. The actual storefront is also fraught with issues (collections are stored entirely locally).
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May 31, 2016 20:11
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that feel when you find an Inquistion of Kozilek in your card pile and look it up and it's 15 bucks on TCGPlayer now how do i actually sell this drat thing
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May 31, 2016 20:23
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As has been suggested, it's likely MTGO cannot be improved without being completely torn down and starting again. The stuff about coding every card individually is so mindbogglingly incompetent I can't even begin to think what the program looks like under the hood.
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May 31, 2016 20:23
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MTGO is a mess due to poor initial planning for new rule changes while having to deal with old cards. Duels remedies that by making the game simpler and play more like paper, where priority isn't always explicitly passed, detailed portions of the rules are glossed over/don't come up, etc. The problem is that you need robust testing and planning for a program to look as nice as Hearthstone while having the correct tournament behavior and rules complexity of MTG. The "real" solution of rebuilding MTGO is very expensive and WotC is incredibly wary of risk. E: MrL_JaKiri posted:coding every card individually ok WotC get a software architect if you rebuild MTGO so your program doesn't end up being entirely anti-patterns again ThePeavstenator fucked around with this message at 20:29 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 20:27
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MrL_JaKiri posted:As has been suggested, it's likely MTGO cannot be improved without being completely torn down and starting again. The stuff about coding every card individually is so mindbogglingly incompetent I can't even begin to think what the program looks like under the hood. It's literally individual json(from what I recall leaking) entries for each individual card with no reference to inheritance or polymorphism. Like each card has a section of code that references when it can be cast, then the actual cost/effect code is written, then copy/pasted between editions of the card.
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May 31, 2016 20:29
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Skyl3lazer posted:It's literally individual json(from what I recall leaking) entries for each individual card with no reference to inheritance or polymorphism. Like each card has a section of code that references when it can be cast, then the actual cost/effect code is written, then copy/pasted between editions of the card. I will never complain about working on another legacy system for the rest of my life no toxx
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May 31, 2016 20:31
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IIRC it was supposedly perl scripts not json, but otherwise that's correct. Bugs have occurred which back this up (specific printings of relic seeker being bugged).
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May 31, 2016 20:31
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Skyl3lazer posted:It's literally individual json(from what I recall leaking) entries for each individual card with no reference to inheritance or polymorphism. Like each card has a section of code that references when it can be cast, then the actual cost/effect code is written, then copy/pasted between editions of the card. Imagine if someone had invented some kind of metatypes like "creature" or "instant" that share a lot of structure with each other, or given rules text keywords so you know it's a standardised effect. What a world that would have been
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May 31, 2016 20:35
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Reuse is good, but polymorphism is overrated. Also "just make a new client from scratch" is what they just did, recently in fact. If you all recall it was a poo poo show for 18 months after release.
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May 31, 2016 20:44
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I think the MTGO client is - aesthetically at least - absolutely fine and completely appropriate for the game. I'd be happy with a Hearthstone-ish ranked play system with a ladder, an option for phantom drafts so I can just draft for the fun of it and more opportunities to get play points for free.
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May 31, 2016 20:45
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mcmagic posted:This isn't the reason I don't play MTGO. I have a pretty big paper collection and I can't justify paying for the same card twice to myself. I mostly use it for $5.00 pauper decks or casual random commander where I can spend like $20.00 on a deck. I don't know the troubles ya'll have with MTGO. I just play casual EDH, pauper and rarely draft and I have a 7 year old gaming computer and it literally never crashes or goes slow on me. 80s James Hetfield fucked around with this message at 20:53 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 20:51
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:Reuse is good, but polymorphism is overrated. Also "just make a new client from scratch" is what they just did, recently in fact. If you all recall it was a poo poo show for 18 months after release. They don't need to make a new client from scratch; the client's not really the problem; they need to make a new server from scratch.
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May 31, 2016 21:12
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the MTGO client is bad, there's no mobile version, there's no mac version. The prices are absurd for a digital game, there's nobody sane who should be dumping money into it. Duels is "better" but only in the sense that there's a really laggy mobile version. The prices are still pretty bad and it's not the real game. It's better, in that I can play without having to pay, but still not good. Both are fully and completely embarrassing in the light of Hearthstone eclipsing the popularity of MTG in less than a year with 30 million players and 20-30m/mo in revenue which I guarantee MTGO does not bring in, and maybe the paper product after operating costs probably doesn't clear that either. I can't imagine anyone at Hasbro is super proud of what they're putting out in this age of online/mobile gaming and would love to change it, but that poo poo is not cheap to do.
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May 31, 2016 21:14
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mcmagic posted:I'm talking about the whole process of turning cards into cash without getting killed by the buylist prices... No, what you are actually talking about is your made-up fantasy idea of how something you clearly have no familiarity with whatsoever works. And doubling down on said position with emphasis.
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May 31, 2016 21:14
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Angry Grimace posted:No, what you are actually talking about is your made-up fantasy idea of how something you clearly have no familiarity with whatsoever works. And doubling down on said position with emphasis. I actually tried to do this about 2 years ago when I was playing MTGO so you're wrong.
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May 31, 2016 21:15
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:Reuse is good, but polymorphism is overrated. Also "just make a new client from scratch" is what they just did, recently in fact. If you all recall it was a poo poo show for 18 months after release. I'd be exceptionally surprised if even MTGO had the rules functionality encoded client side only. As that is not just incompetent but actually insane.
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May 31, 2016 21:18
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Telex posted:the MTGO client is bad, there's no mobile version, there's no mac version. The prices are absurd for a digital game, there's nobody sane who should be dumping money into it. They are really kind of locked into the pricing model they've built for themselves with MTGO. That's the peril of being an early adopter, you can do it get wrong, and get locked in to your bad decisions. It would be really hard for them to shake up pack / event pricing on MTGO right now without destabilizing the secondary market and pissing a lot of people off. If you look at how over-cautious and worried they are with even something as simple as Modern reprints in paper, for fear of pissing off collectors, imagine how reluctant they are to mess with MTGO in any big way.
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May 31, 2016 21:20
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mcmagic posted:I actually tried to do this about 2 years ago when I was playing MTGO so you're wrong. I mean it's a factual matter and not just your bad opinion about cards, so no, you just managed to screw up something which is impossible to screw up because you're apparently as dumb as you sound. Like, how the gently caress do you imagine buylists work in paper?
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May 31, 2016 21:24
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Imagine the WoW auction house setup on mtgo.
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May 31, 2016 21:28
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Molybdenum posted:Imagine the WoW auction house setup on mtgo. Yeah and thats only what? 10 years old? 12 years old?
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May 31, 2016 21:29
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mandatory lesbian posted:that feel when you find an Inquistion of Kozilek in your card pile and look it up and it's 15 bucks on TCGPlayer make an e-bay and paypal account if you don't have them already, grab the image of the card from magiccards.info, search listings on ebay for Buy It Now, price yours 1c cheaper than the cheapest including shipping, buy a plain white envelope (dollar tree/99cent stores are probably the cheapest place to buy envelopes), buy a single stamp (you can only buy singles at the post office, but you can buy books at the grocery store, wherever you buy them they're the same price), load up card in sleeve and toploader, tape it shut, put in envelope, ship it to the guy that bought it from you.
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May 31, 2016 21:32
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Molybdenum posted:Imagine the WoW auction house setup on mtgo. It'd be nice, but I think this would also desperately need a 1 -> 100 or 1000 conversion for tickets to be particularly useful. It would also probably have.... interesting effects with the MTGO economy.
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May 31, 2016 21:32
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Sigma-X posted:make an e-bay and paypal account if you don't have them already, grab the image of the card from magiccards.info, search listings on ebay for Buy It Now, price yours 1c cheaper than the cheapest including shipping, buy a plain white envelope (dollar tree/99cent stores are probably the cheapest place to buy envelopes), buy a single stamp (you can only buy singles at the post office, but you can buy books at the grocery store, wherever you buy them they're the same price), load up card in sleeve and toploader, tape it shut, put in envelope, ship it to the guy that bought it from you. my post office sells books of stamps, cause i brought some today, but thank you
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May 31, 2016 21:36
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Entropic posted:It would be really hard for them to shake up pack / event pricing on MTGO right now without destabilizing the secondary market and pissing a lot of people off. I think the existing secondary market is proof that they've got it all wrong already and it can't actually hurt to fix it. The prices of new packs and new cards are absurd compared to their resale value online. The EV of an SOI booster is what, less than a dollar? It's at least 2ish for paper. Therefore the price of a booster on MTGO should be at best, 2 bucks. There's no legit reason not to price sealed product appropriately because the secondary market already has. I'm not sure there would be much of a correction other than the one from increased supply which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
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May 31, 2016 21:41
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mandatory lesbian posted:my post office sells books of stamps, cause i brought some today, but thank you He means that the only place you can buy singleton stamps is at the Post Office...
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May 31, 2016 21:43
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Entropic posted:They are really kind of locked into the pricing model they've built for themselves with MTGO. That's the peril of being an early adopter, you can do it get wrong, and get locked in to your bad decisions. They are ultraconservative in their decision making, no doubt. But I believe modo will never expand quickly enough not to be eclipsed in the market if they don't make some drastic changes. If that means the secondary value of people's digital collections is wiped out so be it. Denying yourself large untapped markets out of concern for your current market is the classic innovator's dilemma. Some way to play constructed without having to have the cards is a good first step. Some sort of phantom league where you just need event points and a decklist to join, where the cards never enter your collection, with either a subscription fee or a reasonable (imo ~10%) rake on fees minus prizes would be sustainable and would turbocharge their usage. Cut the tie of redemption between online and paper events, and you can then offer online events at different pricepoints that don't have to assume a $3.99/pack parity.
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May 31, 2016 21:43
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:They are ultraconservative in their decision making, no doubt. But I believe modo will never expand quickly enough not to be eclipsed in the market if they don't make some drastic changes. If that means the secondary value of people's digital collections is wiped out so be it. Denying yourself large untapped markets out of concern for your current market is the classic innovator's dilemma. Their business model prints money in both paper and digital. Why would the cannibalize all of that and burn their current player base? What market do you think they're going to hit that's going to be more lucrative?
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May 31, 2016 21:49
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What's the funnest deck you've played/built? Links please. Want to try some new stuff.
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May 31, 2016 21:49
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ButtWolf posted:What's the funnest deck you've played/built? Links please. Want to try some new stuff. Legacy Grixis Delver.
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May 31, 2016 21:52
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ButtWolf posted:What's the funnest deck you've played/built? Links please. Want to try some new stuff. What format/era? Mine is Standard Birthing Pod in SoM/Inn standard. Edit for link ScarletBrother fucked around with this message at 21:57 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 21:53
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ButtWolf posted:What's the funnest deck you've played/built? Links please. Want to try some new stuff. Floch's Sphinx-Elixir deck, bar none. 26 LANDS 2 Azorius Guildgate 4 Hallowed Fountain 6 Island 2 Mutavault 6 Plains 4 Temple of Enlightenment 1 Temple of Epiphany 1 Temple of Triumph 30 INSTANTS and SORC. 4 Azorius Charm 4 Dissolve 3 Divination 2 Last Breath 3 Planar Cleansing 4 Quicken 4 Sphinx's Revelation 4 Supreme Verdict 2 Syncopate 4 OTHER SPELLS 1 Elixir of Immortality 3 Jace, Architect of Thought SIDEBOARD 2 Archangel of Thune 1 Deicide 2 Dispel 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion 2 Gainsay 1 Jace, Memory Adept 2 Last Breath 4 Nyx-Fleece Ram
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May 31, 2016 21:53
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ButtWolf posted:What's the funnest deck you've played/built? Links please. Want to try some new stuff. Legacy UWR miracles. Fun enough that I have played it for the past ~5 years. (The fun is in talking to your opponent about anything other than Magic, so don't play this against grognards)
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May 31, 2016 21:54
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ScarletBrother posted:He means that the only place you can buy singleton stamps is at the Post Office...  my bad, sometimes i have terribad reading comprehension
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May 31, 2016 21:55
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Sigma-X posted:Their business model prints money in both paper and digital. Why would the cannibalize all of that and burn their current player base? What market do you think they're going to hit that's going to be more lucrative? The market of people who don't want to spend $360 on a playset of LotV, especially if they already have done so in paper. The market of people who don't want to deal with a lovely collection view full of thousands of chaff commons that can't be deleted. The people who want to try out or test a variety of decks without committing hundreds of dollars just to see if they enjoy how it plays. The people who want to play magic but don't have giant amounts of disposable income. The people who don't want to have to time the market and deal with rotations. The people who are used to hearthstone and other games and who will either glaze over or laugh when they learn how much mtg costs by comparison. Basically everyone except those who believe they have a store of value in their online collections already. Your statement also contains the implicit assumption that this is bad for their current player base. It's not. They'd receive the ongoing benefits of a larger playerbase and dead simple access to any format too.
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May 31, 2016 21:58
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:The market of people who don't want to spend $360 on a playset of LotV, especially if they already have done so in paper. The market of people who don't want to deal with a lovely collection view full of thousands of chaff commons that can't be deleted. The people who want to try out or test a variety of decks without committing hundreds of dollars just to see if they enjoy how it plays. The people who want to play magic but don't have giant amounts of disposable income. The people who don't want to have to time the market and deal with rotations. The people who are used to hearthstone and other games and who will either glaze over or laugh when they learn how much mtg costs by comparison. Basically everyone except those who believe they have a store of value in their online collections already. They also need to somehow make it as entertaining and quick as Hearthstone because many of those people, understandably, don't have the patience to deal with us lovely MTG nerds. So that means restrict the responses to HELLO and WELL PLAYED and put a timer on a turn like duels did. And if you're a grog that can't put up with that, gently caress you and stick with paper.
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May 31, 2016 22:01
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Sigma-X posted:Their business model prints money in both paper and digital. Why would the cannibalize all of that and burn their current player base? What market do you think they're going to hit that's going to be more lucrative? More customers. Is this a trick question? Blizzard jumped into the game out of absolutely nowhere, made a card game that was free AND cheap AND competitive AND casual, and in one year made more money than MTG. Anyone looking at the game from a completely rational and neutral perspective on revenue and customers bases looks at that and sees a significant problem and lack of inspiration to capture those customers. They were out there somewhere, but the MTG product wasn't cheap/compelling/good enough to get them on board. That kind of poo poo is exactly what you hire new c-level execs to figure out.
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May 31, 2016 22:03
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Madmarker posted:Floch's Sphinx-Elixir deck, bar none. My budget deck from the following Super Standard was my favorite. Deck: Riddle Me This    //Lands 4 Island 4 Izzet Guildgate 4 Mountain 4 Shivan Reef 4 Temple of Epiphany 4 Temple of Triumph //Spells 4 Blast of Genius 4 Catch // Release 1 Cyclonic Rift 4 Dictate of the Twin Gods 4 Enter the Infinite 4 Izzet Keyrune 4 Magma Jet 4 Riddle of Lightning //Creatures 3 Omenspeaker 4 Sigiled Starfish  Display deck statistics
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May 31, 2016 22:06
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4x Faerie Miscreant 4x Toppelgeist 4x Cleric of the Forward Order 4x Reflector Mage 4x Whirler Rogue 2x Avacyn 4x Mirror Mockery 4x Invocation of St Traft 4x Eerie Interlude 4x Compelling Deterrence Lands Despite clearly being really really terrible it's great fun to play, and has taken at least one game in every match up I've played with it (somehow). (You put Mirror Mockery on your own stuff, in case it's not clear)
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May 31, 2016 22:12
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