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Title: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Xilren's Twin on June 19, 2009, 06:00:27 AM Not sure how i missed this but Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers (http://www.wizards.com/magic/digital/duelsoftheplaneswalkers.aspx) just hit the xbox live arcade this week. Its a faithful recreations of true magic duelling, not that bastardized arcade mashup the form original xbox game was.
I downloaded the demo last night and i think i like it. Cut and pasted the FAQ below: Quote Q. What is Duels of the Planeswalkers? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers is a stand-alone online trading card game using the rules and gameplay of Magic: The Gathering. Q. What is the Storyline of Duels of the Planeswalkers? A. Battle your way through a series of iconic Planeswalkers to victory. Q. What platforms is Duels of the Planeswalkers available for? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers is being initially released for the Xbox LIVE Arcade system Q. What age ranges are suitable for Duels of the Planeswalkers? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers is ESRB rated T for Teen. Q. Will there be other platforms or a PC version? A. Our current focus is on the Xbox LIVE Arcade version; however, based on response to the game we may evaluate other platforms. Q. When is Duels of the Planeswalkers being released? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers will be released June 17, 2009. Q. Where can I purchase Duels of the Planeswalkers? A. You will be able to purchase Duels of the Planeswalkers from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace both on your Xbox and through the Web. Q. How many MS Points will Duels of the Planeswalkers sell for? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers is priced competitively at 800 MS Points. Q. Will there be additional downloadable content available? A. Yes, Duels of the Planeswalkers will offer a variety of downloadable in-game content to customize your Duels play experience as well as theme packs and gamer pics to customize your Xbox LIVE experience. Q. Can I purchase additional cards for my decks? A. No, in Duels of the Planeswalkers all the cards in the set are available by defeating opponents. Q. Will there be expansions or additional decks released for additional game play? A. Yes, there will be expansions available for Duels of the Planeswalkers. Q: What game modes will be available in the Xbox LIVE Arcade version? A: The Xbox LIVE Arcade version of Duels of the Planeswalkers features a full single player campaign game vs. AI opponents and a second cooperative (two-headed giant) campaign vs. AI opponents. Duels of the Planeswalkers also offers online two player, online cooperative (two-headed giant) play, as well as 3 and 4 player online multiplayer (free for all) game play. Q. Is there trading in Duels of the Planeswalkers? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers does not support trading; you can unlock all the cards in the game by simply playing! Q. What is co-operative play? A. Co-operative play is a play style where you and a teammate play against other teams or AI opponents (there’s an entire co-operative campaign.) Co-operative play uses the Magic: The Gathering Two-Headed giant rules, which means shared life totals, team attacking and blocking, as well as team victories and achievements! Q. What are the multiplayer rules? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers multiplayer uses free-for-all play. Last person standing wins. You can choose to play ranked games against TrueSkill paired opponents or unranked games against your friends and strangers. Q. How many players can play in a multiplayer game? A. Up to 4. Q. Is Duels of the Planeswalkers suitable for gamers unfamiliar with Magic: The Gathering or trading card games? A. Yes! Duels of the Planeswalkers is ideal for gamers regardless of the familiarity with Magic: The Gathering or trading card games. Duels of the Planeswalkers is the best way for a gamer to learn to play Magic: The Gathering. Q. What sort of features are there for new players? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers comes with an online tutorial where you learn while you play, a mentoring system to provide live assistance, in-game hints and even an in-game rule book and glossary. Q: Can I create new decks or modify my deck? A: Duels of the Planeswalkers allows players to customize their deck with cards unlocked by defeating opponents. The core of the deck is constant but how you choose to modify your deck is up to you. Q: What cards are featured in the game? A: The game features cards from sets as far back as Invasion™ to recent sets such as Shards of Alara™. Q: Are there achievements and if so what type? A: There are 12 Xbox achievements that can be earned ranging from ranked match wins to special awards for unique victories. The 12 achievements are worth a total of 200 Gamerscore points. Q. How do I get a Garruk Wildspeaker Planeswalker promo card? A. Please see Official Rules for details. Q. I have registered to receive my Garruk Wildspeaker promo card, but it has not arrived yet. What do I do now? A. If it has been less than 8 weeks since you registered, please be patient, your promo card is on its way. If it has been longer than 8 weeks since you registered, please contact a customer service representative at custserv@wizards.com (for U.S. & Canadian residents) or at apac@wizards.com (for residents of Australia, New Zealand, & Singapore). Please see Official Rules for additional details. Q. Is a Garruk Wildspeaker promo card available in my country? A. The promo card is available in the following countries: United States, Canada (excluding Quebec), Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, UK, Ireland, Finland, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, France, and Italy. Q. Is Duels of the Planeswalkers challenging for the experienced players? A. Duels of the Planeswalkers has a very advance AI that can be adjusted to provide challenging game play for even the most skilled of Magic: The Gathering players. Also, Duels of the Planeswalkers has ranked Xbox LIVE Arcade head-to-head competitive play. 800 points = $10.00. I'm in. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Valmorian on June 19, 2009, 09:00:22 AM So far the only bad thing I've found about this game is that you cannot create completely custom decks. Those cards you unlock? They can be ADDED to the core decks they give you, but you can't swap out any of the core cards. So basically those few decks the game gives you are the only ones you can play.
Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Tebonas on June 19, 2009, 09:39:00 AM Oh, and I almost bought it :ye_gods:
Thats the basic idea of Magic, building decks and trying them out. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Teleku on June 19, 2009, 09:53:08 AM Thats.......rather retarded. Seems like something they could easily change though if people bitch enough...
Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Bunk on June 19, 2009, 10:37:10 AM Made the mistake of buying this myself.
There is a good deal of complaining on the wizards boards over this: Quote Q: Can I create new decks or modify my deck? A: Duels of the Planeswalkers allows players to customize their deck with cards unlocked by defeating opponents. The core of the deck is constant but how you choose to modify your deck is up to you. Apparently, Wizard's didn't feel it was misleading. The actuality is: "core" means "the entire original 60 card deck". You have a 60 card fixed deck. You unlock up to 17 cards you can add to it. Each set of 17 cards is specific to that deck. You can not remove any of the original 60 cards from each deck. Personally, Magic is all about deck building and tweeking to me. I rarely keep a deck the same for more than a couple games - so this really doesn't appeal to me. It's a well put together game demo of Magic - well suited to teach new players how the game works. That's about it. At least I'll get a Planeswalker for my 800 points... Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: AcidCat on June 19, 2009, 10:42:36 AM So far the only bad thing I've found about this game is that you cannot create completely custom decks. Those cards you unlock? They can be ADDED to the core decks they give you, but you can't swap out any of the core cards. So basically those few decks the game gives you are the only ones you can play. Yeah this does suck, but I so rarely get to play Magic anymore that I might pick it up anyway. At least it's cheap. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Valmorian on June 19, 2009, 10:50:09 AM Yeah this does suck, but I so rarely get to play Magic anymore that I might pick it up anyway. At least it's cheap. Yep, if you like to PLAY Magic, and don't mind not being able to make your own custom deck then it's an excellent buy. I am quite annoyed at the customization though. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: WayAbvPar on June 19, 2009, 11:16:41 AM That sucks. I would love to play the PC MtG, but by all reports the latest builds are soul-rendingly terrible. I really miss playing every now and then.
Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: naum on June 19, 2009, 11:19:17 AM I continue to be amazed how awfully MtG is packaged as an online game offering…
I have money in my pocket that I would be willing to give to a decent, stable implementation… …and I'd be willing to fork 2-3X more than a traditional MMO for the privilege of playing… Guess I'm not saying (or thinking) anything that anyone else isn't already… Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Ingmar on June 19, 2009, 12:08:08 PM So close to owning my soul, WotC. So close.
Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Xilren's Twin on June 20, 2009, 10:40:54 AM I have only 1 mission left in the included campaign and its true, the lack of being able to truely remake your own decks does suck. Only being able to sub in the unlocked cards without stripping out some of the suboptimal ones, or even adjust your land amount, is extremely annoying.
That being said, i do enjoy playing the duels themselves, and the AI is actually pretty good. I dont think ive caught it making any truly idiotic moves yet. It plays instants appropriately, sets up combos, and once you get used to the controls it plays well. There is no question this is aimied at new players; i had to go into the settings an turn on the "display whole deck" and turn off "auto assign damage", but on the whole im impressed. The included deck designs arent bad at all despite not being able to tweak them much. You start with mono green and mono red, and i've taken that red burn deck and unlocked mono white, mono blue, mono black, a green black elf deck, and a red, white green one. The last deck i played was actually impressive; blue black with howling mines, artifact critters like bottle gnomes, some flying 4/4 thing that can make tokens, and the star was the razorback manticore, terrors, counters, etc. Kicked my ass game one so i had to swap to the WGR deck to beat it. The mono black has underworld dreams, megrim, abyssals specters, sngir vamp, other discard, drain life, terror, etc The red deck starts basic burn and gobbos: shock, incinerate, raging gob, gob hang glider, gob piker, goblin king, lightning ele, some Tims, hill giants, earth eles, and lava axes. First unlock card? Shivan dragon. Since then i've added a island/plan land destruct card, another incinerate, gob that gives my guys first strike, some enchanement i can discard lands to do damage, and a 6/1 hasted legend that can tap to do 3 dam to critter or player. Problem is, that puts me at like 67 card which no magic player wants. God, having to keep in 4 raging goblins is very annoying. If interested, go here to see the cards per deck (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1205260) Hadnt touched online play or two player giant yet. Still, worth 10 bucks? For me, sure. Others, prob not. I truly dont understand the marketing point for why they designed this game this way. Deck design is at least half the fun and some would say more than that since you spend tons more time designing and testing decks then playing the games themselves. Wotc continues to confuse me with how they are trying to keep the magic brand alive with half assed measures like MTGO, and now this. Once again, missed opportunity. This coulda been HUGE! Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: ffc on June 20, 2009, 12:14:30 PM Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Raging Turtle on June 20, 2009, 01:11:37 PM Well, hell. Now I want to download MTGO and check out all the sets that have come out since I left.
Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Rendakor on June 20, 2009, 05:47:08 PM Thanks for the warning.
Fuck you for the thread. Now I'm itching to play MtG again, and I can no where near afford it. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Xilren's Twin on June 20, 2009, 09:47:14 PM BTW, the challenges are like the old "magic the puzzling" challenges mark rosewater used to do. Defeat your opponent in one turn with this set of cards...
Wish there was more than 8 of em. And as usually, i'll throw my idea that WotC continues to ignore the huge market of former magic player would would gladly pay for an MTG "subscription" in the 15-20 dollar per month range to be able to play real magic, say draft and sealed, and not care one whit about building a collection. Yeah, i know they wont do it. but my god, this game could have easily bridged the gap between people who dont spend any money on magic, and those that spend regular reoccurring amounts that arent insane. Tightly controlled limited cardsets, limited customization (cards IN and OUT geniuses), and sell additional decks with more unlockables every month or two to get a good spread. You wouldnt be canabalizing MTGO nor paper, b/c the people playing that "seriously" are already spending way more than this would touch to be competitive. Thats the problem; almost everyone i know has gone through the same life cycle: get into Magic cause it's a great game, spend way too much for some period of weeks/months, get involved in several tournaments, taste some success which keeps you playing, start meta gaming heavily, then eventually realize you just cant keep blowing the coin on cardboard (or digital) no matter how much fun it is, and have to give it up altogether b/c there's no middle ground way to keep playing. I've tried the 20 a month for a MTGO league; it was ultimately not satifying enough b/c it was too limiting. I suspect the market of former magic players has to be a better one that trying to get brand new players. After all, former players have already demonstrated their willingness to spend money it's just most of them have been priced out of the market. There HAS to be a middle ground that would be good value to the player and still make a lot of money for WotC. MMOMTG: 15 bucks a month, limited card sets (older, specifically chosen cards to support the underlying programming), limited deckbuilding, no trading, but unlimited ability to play with those cards in a variety of ways (sealed decks, drafts, precons, tournaments, multiplayer, AI challenges, exploration, avater customization, etc etc.. it seems like ive had this design in my head forever now). *Sigh* I feel like im tilting at windmills again. (And I really wish i knew some hard numbers about how much the paper and MTGO products were making for WotC; maybe they arent idiots so much as scared to mess with the cash cow, but it cant remain popular forver. But in the abscence of info to the contrary, i call idiots.) Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Big Gulp on June 20, 2009, 10:24:22 PM After all, former players have already demonstrated their willingness to spend money it's just most of them have been priced out of the market. I feel the same way about comic books. When I was a kid I had at least 3 subscriptions going at a time, and would head to the drugstore weekly to buy other books. In the mid/late 80's this was doable at $.75 a comic. Then the collectors craze of the 90's hit and we're now at a point where just a normal comic book costs 3 or 4 bucks. How in the fuck can a kid afford that kind of money on something that they'll read in 10 or 15 minutes? Shit, I won't even pay that amount when the value/price point ratio is so out of whack. They need to drop the glossy paper, and go back to cheap pulp newsprint. Bring the prices down and build a new generation of comic book readers. Of course, neither DC or Marvel will do this, because they're quite happy to drop the girl that brought them to the dance so they can focus on chasing Hollywood loot. When the superhero movie fad finally dies they'll be up shit's creek, and they'll deserve to be there. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: naum on June 20, 2009, 10:46:01 PM I feel the same way about comic books. When I was a kid I had at least 3 subscriptions going at a time, and would head to the drugstore weekly to buy other books. In the mid/late 80's this was doable at $.75 a comic. Then the collectors craze of the 90's hit and we're now at a point where just a normal comic book costs 3 or 4 bucks. How in the fuck can a kid afford that kind of money on something that they'll read in 10 or 15 minutes? Shit, I won't even pay that amount when the value/price point ratio is so out of whack. They need to drop the glossy paper, and go back to cheap pulp newsprint. Bring the prices down and build a new generation of comic book readers. Of course, neither DC or Marvel will do this, because they're quite happy to drop the girl that brought them to the dance so they can focus on chasing Hollywood loot. When the superhero movie fad finally dies they'll be up shit's creek, and they'll deserve to be there. Then, "comic books" will be consumed for free via the web… …with a few artists exploiting their viewership for lucrative stakes whereas most will barely break even with their creative efforts… …and some will bicker, whine and yell about how the internet is destroying the creative arts… …wait, NM… Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Rendakor on June 21, 2009, 12:15:15 AM After all, former players have already demonstrated their willingness to spend money it's just most of them have been priced out of the market. That describes me exactly. I loved the game to death while I played it, but the constant cash churn of buying new sets every time a block cycles out is too much. I'd have no problem paying a subscription fee for some form of what you described, but I simply can't afford to buy tons of boosters nor expensive rares just to stay competitive. MtG is fun; it's $15/month fun, certainly. It's not $400/block cycle fun. Aside: is MtGO priced just like real MtG? Boosters are still ~$3/pack, etc. I never really looked into it because I've heard it's a buggy POS in addition to being expensive. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: eldaec on June 21, 2009, 05:01:39 AM So far the only bad thing I've found about this game is that you cannot create completely custom decks. Those cards you unlock? They can be ADDED to the core decks they give you, but you can't swap out any of the core cards. So basically those few decks the game gives you are the only ones you can play. This is fucking hilarious. I keep thinking wotc can't get any more retarded when it comes to online magic; but everytime they go right ahead and prove me wrong. The very idea of adding a card without removing another one is enough to give a conniption fit to anyone who has ever tried to teach another person how to build a deck. And building decks is the entire fucking point of MtG. Quote Boosters are still ~$3/pack, etc. I never really looked into it because I've heard it's a buggy POS in addition to being expensive. You heard right. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: schild on June 21, 2009, 05:11:25 AM not ~$3, more like ~$4.
Wizards is far too attached to the physical cards. I get that they don't want to fuck up the market, but honestly, if they think a perfect PC variant is going to replace physical cards, they're f'ing crazy. It won't, it never will. Just like DVD didn't destroy movie theaters and MP3s haven't destroyed the CD market. I know that last example is terrible, but CDs still sell like crazy. This isn't webcomics and syndicated paper comics we're comparing here. this is a tangible game and a digital variant, two things that will NEVER, EVER be the exact same experience (even if Wizards got a competent team making the game). There's a huge human element that totally changes the way paper magic is played compared to digital and frankly, I'm sick of Wizards being a bunch of knobs about the whole thing. As a gamer, it's embarrassing - a company I love being stuck in the stone age, that is. Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Rendakor on June 21, 2009, 11:17:07 AM Ok, thanks for the warning. I'll continue to avoid it and hope they'll add real deck customization to the XBL one.
Title: Re: Magic the Gathering now on Xbox Live Post by: Yegolev on June 22, 2009, 10:43:26 AM So far the only bad thing I've found about this game is that you cannot create completely custom decks. Those cards you unlock? They can be ADDED to the core decks they give you, but you can't swap out any of the core cards. So basically those few decks the game gives you are the only ones you can play. :uhrr: :uhrr: :ye_gods: :uhrr: :uhrr: |