Magic the Gathering Arena

[Berekän]

With the corpse of Magic Duels still warm, Wizards doesn't want to miss on the sweet sweet F2P market and they're releasing a, yet another, F2P online version of the game.



https://magic.wizards.com/en/articl...d-know-about-magic-gathering-arena-2017-09-07

WHAT IS MTG ARENA?
Magic: The Gathering Arena is free-to-play, authentic Magic, reborn digitally for gamers, fans, and streamers.
[...]

We want to create the deepest, richest digital card game on the market. Magic already boasts some of the deepest strategy of any TCG in the world, tabletop or digital, and MTG Arena's goal is to live up to that depth right at the start of Closed Beta. By the time we go into full launch, MTG Arenawill feature the full card sets in Standard, with around 1,000 new cards added every year. That means deeper gameplay, more experiences to discover, and more room to explore.

We want to create a version of Magic that's as much fun to watch as it is to play. Viewing MTG Arena on Twitch or other platforms will be a fast-paced, exciting, and easy to understand experience for fans across the globe. Our goal is nothing less than creating one of the premier esports communities, with viewing experiences packed with fun visuals, awesome sound, and cool ways to learn from and interact with our evolving catalogue of content.

We want to create a game that can evolve. We've created an all-new Games Rules Engine (GRE) that uses sophisticated machine learning that can read any card we can dream up for Magic. That means the shackles are off for our industry-leading designers to build and create cards and in-depth gameplay around new mechanics and unexpected but widly fun concepts, all of which can be adapted for MTG Arena thanks to the new GRE under the hood.

[...]

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR TABLETOP MAGIC AND MAGIC ONLINE
The focus of MTG Arena will be on the newest cards and game modes. Because of this, we know that Magic Online—which has a library of nearly every card ever printed from the game's entire history—will continue to offer experiences to players that are unique to Magic Online. Development on Magic Online will continue with new card sets, new updates, and ongoing tournaments. For more on the future of Magic Online, be sure to read Chris Kiritz's article, also posted today.

Another key goal for for MTG Arena is for both the tabletop and digital versions of the game to complement one another. We are exploring opportunities to connect real-world in-store play with digital play. We are still developing and evolving our plans, but we want your Magic gameplay to be part of a larger, integrated experience over time, in ways that have never been possible before.

 

[RuySan]

Eternal brought MTG formula much further on the context of a digital game.

Having simultaneous turns is a headache rules wise, so I really doubt this will play better than any of the current games.

I was a beta tester for mtgo, and strangely the game just got worse and worse over the years. So yes, I'm not really hopeful for this one.

 

[Scruffy]

so they're catering to kids
that went well for WOW and other games

 

[Jaesun]

Eternal started doing what MTG should have BEEN doing a long time ago....

But MTG just has too much of a following (and brand name recognition)....

 

[spectre]

so they're catering to kids
that went well for WOW and other games

Because card games aren't for kids

So this is this MtG Next that Eterna developers have been working on? It looks a bit like their piece of work.
What surprises me is that cards do not do a 90 degree rotation for tapping, I thought that shit was sacred, copyrighted and patented to kingdom come.

I'm barely interested in it because of the developer involved. They seem to know their job much better than Stainless, who developed the previous duels games.
Keeping my figers crossed so that they can implement a few different game modes. 2HG would be nice, functional draft would be the bestest thing ever.

Hope they manage to avoid the pitfalls of the previous iterations and don't dick around changing the rules.

 

[Scruffy]

Because card games aren't for kids

plenty of kids playing poker
and i guess kids are those with the money to spend on stuff

yes, i see how it makes sense

 

[spectre]

Because card games aren't for kids

plenty of kids playing poker
and i guess kids are those with the money to spend on stuff

yes, i see how it makes sense

It's okay to admit that you're talking about toys for children.
Yes, sometimes the toys get expensive and the children get bigger.
It's a fucking vidya game forum, noone's gonna judge ya. It's all friends here.

 

[Scruffy]

it was really never about kids. complex interactions and specific rules are a little too much for a kid's brain. I'd say it more for teenagers onwards. Not my point though: Magic's "core" community has always been young adults and making it "fast paced and easier to understand" and yadda yadda yadda basically means taking away that complexity that made the game great. They already did that years ago, turning the control-aggro-combo metagame to an aggro-sometimes control-but-mostly-aggro-and-it-must-have-creatures-in-it-anyway metagame. I guess it wasn't dumbed down enough yet and this is an attempt at that.

Heh, I guess I'm just an old crank, I'm just glad i was able to see Necropotence summer and the Urza nonsente (still my favorite block with tempest) and all that shit. I tried getting back into it but it felt... boring.

 

[da_rays]

So...thats a new MtG game that is gonna be Twitch friendly? Nothing more added to the table? If so , meh , I have a hard time getting back into MtG with all the new cards games out there. And playing boardgame and some of the newest digital card game have ''spoiled'' me . Anyone feeling Devil advocate? Why should I play this instead of X digital card game?

 

[illuknisaa]

Apparently Arena is made in unity.

System requirements:

Q. What are the recommended system requirements to run MTG Arena?

A. OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit)
Processor: Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 1024MB VRAM
Resolution: 1280 x 720 minimum display resolution
DirectX: Version 10/11/12
Network: Broadband internet connection
Sound Card: DirectX-compatible sound card

 

[Zer0wing]

Clumsy as hell that is, controls are unintuitive, yep that's Magic Duels Again. Posting this as beta-tester.

Apparently Arena is made in unity.

And it shows.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Just got in the beta as well. Didn't get the chance to build a deck yet.

Will break NDA as soon as I can.

 

[Zer0wing]

Will break NDA as soon as I can.

I'm always 5-7 cards short on OP decks. Fuck this RNG factor.

 

[FeelTheRads]

OK, did a couple of games.

Seems fine to me. It's very early beta, though, with placeholder graphics and stuff like that.
And it's really not Duels.
Duels was absolute shit. This at least took lessons from the other games and it plays (in terms of UX, of course) pretty much like Eternal.

 

[Grunker]

To anyone saying this is Duels: it's not. The good news is that it's way more like "real" Magic. The bad news (depending on who you are) is that they're looking to supplant MTGO with it.

 

[v1rus]

The bad news (depending on who you are) is that they're looking to supplant MTGO with it.

Any concrete info on that, or just an assumption?

 

[FeelTheRads]

They specifically say in the FAQ that it will not replace Magic Online.

It will most likely replace Duels, and good riddance.

 

[Grunker]

The bad news (depending on who you are) is that they're looking to supplant MTGO with it.

Any concrete info on that, or just an assumption?

Speculation grounded in quotes from them. They said in an interview with MTG Goldfish that MTGO is not sustainable in the long-term future and when they announced Arena they called it the "future core of digital magic." They never called Duels core.

In addition, Duels didn't compete with MTGO at all since they were so obviously different products. This seems like it's going to compete with MTGO directly. Hell I might switch myself even, I'm playing more Eternal than MTGO these days anyways.

 

[Zer0wing]

Speculation grounded in quotes from them. They said in an interview with MTG Goldfish that MTGO is not sustainable in the long-term future and when they announced Arena they called it the "future core of digital magic." They never called Duels core.

Everything can change, the greed of WotC and their "paper" Magic department has upredictable side effects and sank alot of digital adaptations prior to Arena.

 

[FeelTheRads]

By the way, if this will be successful it will probably mean the end for Eternal.

It's not like it's swimming in players as it is, and with a potentially good Magic client it will have even less of a chance to attract players from there.
Their attempt to mix HS with Magic seems doomed to fail.

 

[Grunker]

They seem to be making money - there's a new set on its way. So I wouldn't count them out just yet. As I understand it they don't need many players to make a turn-around since Eternal is actually very cheap to make.

Their Draft is downright excellent. You can feel LSV's hands all over that shit.

 

[Zer0wing]

Played a few more games. The game is painfully slow and unresponsive sometimes for no good reason and even disconnected one time. I guess windowed mode with alt-tabbing is not favored by bare Unity engine game.

Also, need. Crafting. Badly. So many unplayable mythics and so short on MVP commons.

 

[UglyBastard]

Any infos about the pricing model? I guess it's not going to be f2p viable, considering it is MtG after all.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I don't know anything yet. You can only buy packs with gold so far and it costs 1000 gold per pack.
I needed to do 3 quests to buy a pack. I'm guessing rewards will be balanced in the future. Game is really early beta. Many things are undecided.

There are placeholders for some crystals stuff which I assume will be for crafting.

Regardless, I'm not paying anything. I didn't pay for any digital CCG and I'm not going to start to. If it's unplayable as f2p then I can just stop playing. It's not like there aren't free Magic clients.

 

[v1rus]

Imho, if they wanna compete with other ccgs (mainly HS), and they most prolly are, they are gonna have to make it f2p friendly, even at Hearthstones level, at worst.

That aside, lack of Voice acting (and special animations, to a lesser extent ) for cards seems like its gonna hurt the game. Perhaps they are gonna record some retroactively?