Magic the Gathering:Duels

[JasonPratt]

I quit (due to lack of sign-in meaning my progress wouldn't be saved) before getting to any skill quests that would earn me any gold. But when the server issues get ironed out I'll be back.

[Nefaro]

I'll probably wait a month or so.  Maybe the connectivity problems will be gone by then. 

A good expectation to have for most MMOs and popular free-to-plays.

[Bison]

I've enough gold saved up to purchase 2 packs for sure and am pretty close to 3 packs, so I think the ftp is working well enough.  What I hope is that they don't cycle sets out of the game.  It'd piss me off if they take origins off the market in 6 months and only keep the latest set on the market.

I will say that while the skills tests are incredibly easy; they are one of the best explanations of MtG abilities rules that I've seen and do exactly what they are intended to do.  Show new players how abilities work in a clean and concise manner.

So far my blue/white deck is not performing well at all in the solo duels.  I've played 4 duels and lost every single one of them.  Removal is severally lacking in my deck, but hopefully I can open some decent cards with my packs.

[JasonPratt]

I have to admit, having this just makes me want to get Shandalar (with its expansion) working on DosBox.

But still. Yeah, what do people do when WotC moves on to the next iteration of the computer game? If I bought Magic 2012 or 2013 (which I think I did once upon a time) and actually spent time and maybe money working on that, are my decks toast? Or Magic 2015 which for some insane reason was the first game since Shandalar to allow you to truly deck-build -- if I had spent a lot of time unlocking and/or buying cards for that, is all that effort gone now? Do I have to start over?

While that isn't a practical problem for me, since I never did much with those games, it speaks to one of the reasons I never did much with those games: what happens if I take the time to get cards in this year's version (is this 2016 now?), and then they roll out a new version next year? I have 30 year old cards (a few of them even black-border originals) sitting around in a box somewhere, not admittedly too well kept, but they exist and I can dang well play with them whenever I want. Their electronic versions seem suspicious for a collectable card game; I worry they're going to throw my collections away and require me to start over again fresh every year or so. Other CCGs on the market are certainly persistent.

[Nefaro]

Didn't someone earlier mention that the developer stated it was sticking with this Duels system for awhile, just requiring DLC for new stuff in the future?  Hence no date in the title and free-to-play core game.

That's not to say it won't get flushed eventually, for something newer.  But if this is true then maybe we won't need to keep purchasing the core game every year, so it stays compatible.

[Bison]

Yes this is supposed to be the only version for a while with new expansion released on it.  I'm saying that I'd like to know that origins packs will be for sale in a two years from now and not just pulled from the market place.  That would cause a very broken mp game quickly.

[JasonPratt]

Finished the basic tutorial at lunch and the first mission of the first tutorial campaign (so to speak).

I noticed along the way that flavor text doesn't seem to even be an option, just practical texts in the description window. Was flavor text abandoned earlier? I mean, even Shandalar figured out an easy way to include the flavor texts.

(Mental note... Shandalar...)