In General: Magic Online BS

Hello and welcome back to In General. On Sunday's here at TGZ, I take over to talk about anything an everything relating to Magic the Gathering. This week I am taking a page out of somebody else's playbook. Actually, the same page out of a few different books.

I have mentioned on the blog before that I am a fan of Matt Sperling's article series, "Sperling's Sick of It." These are short text articles that discuss current events and how they have gotten underneath the author's skin. You can check out some of his stuff HERE.

This isn't a new or unique concept. Many other internet content creators that I follow have been using this idea for years. Ex: Brady Haran's "Paper Cut", Cinemassacre's "You Know What's Bullshit". In the old days this was just called an editorial. You submitted an article to your local print media publication that detailed your opinion on a subject. Mostly vapid nonsense, zero objective information or critical value, but often amusing.

Today I am going to reappropriate this idea for my own purposes (as if I haven't ever done this before). Here are a few things about Magic Online that I think are BS:

You Can't Build Your Own Cube

Simply put: why not? When the new MTGO client released I was absolutely sure that this feature was going to be a part of it. It is in such high demand that Magic redditors are practically beating down Wizard's door. Why can we not draft from our own cards? Why can we not make our own Cube to play with our friends? Why are you still forcing us to play the Magic Online Cube/Legacy Cube/Holiday Cube on your schedule? We should definitely be able to do that whenever we want by now. What harm could this possibly do?

Multiplayer Still Sucks

It kind of sucks in real life too, but it is much worse online. If you have tried to play Commander online lately, you will know what I am talking about. It is a painful experience that feels like it takes a decade just to finish a game. Most of the time you won't even get to finish one because players will just leave the game when they get board or when they have to go to work on Monday morning. It takes that long. We take for granted all of the little shortcuts that we get to use in real life. Sure shuffling is a pain, but it doesn't matter how long you shuffle if someone can just go ahead and take their turn while you do it.

There is also the issue of matchmaking. It is pretty tough to even get enough players to start a game. People are so repulsed by the experience that they don't even want to play multiplayer on MTGO.

Final thought: why is there not support for other multiplayer formats like Emperor, Star, Windmill, etc.?

In Fact...

Why can't you just make your own format on MTGO? Instead of waiting around for the platform's developer to add support for things like Tiny Leaders or Winston Draft, why doesn't Wizards just make the whole thing open source and let the community add the features they want. At the very least there could be an editing tool that let's you create custom parameters for a match. And I mean one that isn't terrible.

Card Availability

Not every card in the game is actually available on MTGO. Vintage Masters was a huge step towards fixing this problem, but it didn't get all the way there. The example that is bothering me the most right now is Custodi Squire from Conspiracy. This card would be super sweet in Pauper and I would like to play with it. Thanks.











No Voice Chat

I play a lot of games on Steam. Like many people I greatly enjoy the ability to use Valve's voice-over-ip servers free of charge. The ability to use live voice chat in games would really enhance the user experience. It would make it easier to playtest certain decks or formats. It would let you have a conversation with your friends while you play.

Now I understand that there would be some concerns about the vulgarity of language and abuse. I don't want MTGO turning into a Call of Duty match. But there is already a system in place to report your opponent for poor behavior or sportsmanship. Also, and this is the best part, you can just turn it off if you don't want to interact with your opponents. How hard is that?

Double points if they can get the MTGO client to include both voice chat and video chat. How cool would it be to be Skyping your mates and playing a game of Magic with them all in the same client? Pretty dang cool.

Well I am glad that I got that off my chest. Sometimes it just feels good to complain a bit, you know? It also feels great to ask rhetorical questions to an internet word processing suite. Life is good. I'll be back early this coming week as we begin full coverage of the new set, Dragons of Tarkir! See you then, Zoners!

-GG

In General: Thoughts on the New MtGO

Hello and welcome to In General. I am your host Grandpa Growth. In General deals with broader topics, just about anything at all relating to Magic the Gathering. Today I am going to share some of my thoughts on the new MtGO client.

I realize this was a hot topic about a month ago, so some might consider me late to the party. I intentionally stopped using modo for a couple weeks prior to the update and didn't start picking it back up again until very recently. So if you have been wondering where Ill-Gotten Games has gone it will be back soon! An entirely new season with Commander gameplay, drafts, Momir Basic, and Pauper for sure. If you have a format or deck that you want me to play, make sure to let me know.

I talked last week about how I am a late adopter of new technology. In this case, it was for a good reason. I tend not to buy new games or download new software right when it comes out because there are bound to be issues with launching any new product. Luckily, the new MtGO client only had some minor hiccups. Wizards didn't even fumble the roll out! This flashy new edition is surely an upgrade and does actually fix a lot of the problems that existed in the previous iteration of Magic Online. That being said, it isn't without its problems. Let's go through some of the outstanding issues.

1. Performance and Latency

I was sincerely hoping that the new client would feature a substantial increase in performance. Now I know that for some people, they never experienced any issues, even with the previous version. However, I know that for the majority of users, MtGO was just what happened between the crashes. The program itself was not optimized very well, it monopolized much more of your computer's hardware power than was really necessary. This lead to slow performance, frequent lag, and disconnections. We all remember the more recent server crashes that sent a premier events the way of the dodo.

It was my hope, and the hope of the game's development team, that the new client would directly address these issues and solve them outright. As far as the tournament cues, the issues seem to be mostly resolved. However, even in the casual rooms, the time it takes for the client to register the click of a mouse is uncomfortably high. If my pc can handle high frame rates for modern shooters, MtGO should look and feel seamless at all points.

2. Classifieds and Trade Screens

The only thing that has changed about the trade screens is the look. Pure aesthetics. I don't know how long you have spent trolling through the dregs of the bot farms, but I was really hoping it would get simplified. Nowadays, you can just input what format you want to play, what deck you want to use, and poof! The client magically hooks you up with the first available person who also wants to play that format. This change had been a long time coming, and frankly should have been introduced years. But why can't it be that way for trades?

There are already good models for what this software looks like. Have you ever bought something online? Amazon, Autotrader, Channelfireball, they all have a more advanced search and matching feature. If I want to buy a Daze, why can't I just search Daze and have the classified page send me back every user in the trade room at that moment who has at least one copy of that card available for trade. Further refinements could include: only people trading play sets, sorting by prices, or a variety of other factors. Why do we not have this?

3. Deckbuilding Screens

Much has been made of how the collection screens have been reorganized and there are claims that the whole system is more responsive and moves much faster. I have experienced a noticeable increase in the performance of the client on these screens, at least when compared to older versions. My complaint about this is the exact opposite of number two above. The advances in form have not followed those of the function.

They changed the nuts and bolts. They changed the buttons, and the functions, and the flow of how you work through the system. The WAY that you build and organize your decks has changed fundamentally. The process has been streamlined.

However, it LOOKS almost exactly the same. The subscreens where you assemble your deck, sideboard, and when you are browsing through you collection are nearly identical. The screens are still far too small. You can rarely work with your entire deck. You need to scroll side-to-side or shrink down the other windows in order to manipulate and see your entire deck at once. In fact, this new version of modo has even more little windows clogging up the screen. This was already a problem before and I felt we rightly deserved a solution. Instead, we got punished. The good Worth Wollpert giveth...and taketh away.

Well, that's all for today. Thankfully. What are your thoughts on the new MtGO? Is it better, worse, or somewhere in the middle? Leave your comments below and let us know what you think. As promised IGG will return soon and, as always, I will be back next week with another In General.

-GG