V3 Live! First crash after 165 minutes.

[eldaec]

V3 is live.

Only I think it is still down as I type this.



It lasted 165 minutes before the first crash.

[schild]

Is it still the most horrible experience ever?

[eldaec]

Casual play only so far.

Which works, though the chat is still fucking bizarre, and the UI remains ugly as hell.

I don't much like it, but you have to remember that v2 also sucked - everyone was just used to it, so I'm waiting for real drafts before I pass judgement.




Oh, and trading is broken.

[naum]

Some selected blurbs from the MO forums…

v3 reminds me of an old Coleco Vision game. Clunky, hard to navigate, ugly and buggy. I'm having flash backs of playing Apprentice 10 years ago. Making a new version retro, how did they do that? v3 should not be giving me these types of images.

v3 has less functionality than v2 did. Yes, more is promised. Then again, v3 launch has been promised for many years also. While it may be close, we haven't yet actually seen it go live.

So just exactly why should my hardware be obsoleted to run a card game with less functionality than v2.5?

Wow. Good to see they broke something that was working perfectly just a few short builds ago...

I really don't like the text IN the cards themselves. It appears that they're using a new system which "floats" the text, the title, and the symbols above a generic card background. This means a few things. For one, the text used in the card is the same used in the chat. It doesn't look good. It doesn't look like MtG text. And WotC should know there's a reasons for consistancy and clean text: it makes the cards unified, presentable, and pleasant to the eye. The current text looks bad, the tap symbols and number symbols look goofy and often don't fit right (i.e. overlap) with the text, and, get this: when I didn't have the window maxed (or is the opposite... hard to tell with the dark symbols in the top right), not only was I missing the controls on the bottom of the interface, but the text and symbols on the card were misaligned with the card itself, printing them too high on the card.

Massive Memory Leak in V3

[Raging Turtle]

It's a shame.  I'd actually like to spend a little money on Shadowmoor but there's no way I'm spending a cent on the current program.

[Johny Cee]

I poked around in v.3 a bit....  and don't have alot of desire to play around with it until they slap some more functionality in.  Too bad,  because I have a hankering to play some casual games.

[eldaec]

IGN review.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/868/868401p1.html

Notable, in that I didn't think IGN did negative reviews. Ever.

[Margalis]

Looks pretty much the same as ever. Give it another 3 years.

[schild]

5.5 is way too high.

That is not a negative review.

The good news is, it can only get better.

IGN obviously hasn't been following MtGO.

[Margalis]

The good news is that it doesn't spring out of your computer, rape you then take your wallet.

[schild]

The good news is that it doesn't spring out of your computer, rape you then take your wallet.

Are you sure?

[naum]

At least they're not harming the RL card product…

[eldaec]

So I've played a few drafts.


On the upside, the card clarity really is so much better through the drafting process, both in the selection window and the improved 'cards picked' display, and I managed to complete a evening without the server crashing once (first time this year I think).

As for the UI, in the main it is still horrible. Assuming you set to 'compact view' and get rid of the dock (note: this is not the default) then it is functional. However, the low contrast mid-brown theme is still full of noisy textures which drown out the messages the game is giving you. As information changes or messages pop up, your eye doesn't get drawn to the correct part of the screen because the change is camoflagued in the dirty brown morass. That said, you do start to learn where to look after a while. When you get out of the duel screen, everything is uniformly dreadful, you can see that only the duel screen has been seriously looked at for decluttering, everything else is just a mess. Still. The file browser windows are a particular bugbear of mine, they take up about a quarter of your screen with stupid arches and swirly bits, but only manage to let you see 7 filenames at any one time, which is a pain in the arse when searching through hundreds of random jank casual decks for the one you want. It still feels like playing something from 1993, but instead of feeling like a half-finished shareware project from 1993, it at least looks like a badly designed piece of commercial software from 1993.



All in all, it is better than v2.

Still shit.

But it is better than v2.


(so long as you don't want to play a league, or multiplayer, or trade cards, obv)

[schild]

Any update? Is it getting better?

[eldaec]

It isn't changing, they are planning an update in a few weeks. But it is mostly focussed on job stopping problems with trading, and after that I imagine they'll move on  to getting leagues, multiplayer, redemption, constructed queues etc online.

Few other niggling bugs have come out, such as if you right click while drafting, the system randomly selects the next five cards for you. But there is nothing of note to report. Unless you only want to draft and play casual, this is a come back in six months situation - not six weeks. (Oh, and even if you are solely a drafter, don't expect to be able to sell your draft cards for any reasonable proportion of cost anymore)

[Margalis]

Few other niggling bugs have come out, such as if you right click while drafting, the system randomly selects the next five cards for you.

Lol wut?

How in the world could anyone program that by accident? If that happened to me I'd be pissed as hell.

[eldaec]

More specifically what seems to happen is that when you use the brand new right click functionality, which is supposed to highlight a card that will be selected if time runs out, instead it screws up your connection and lags you ourt for several minutes.

[Aez]

I'm probably getting repetitive but it's very therapeutic.

[cmlancas]

There was an article here arguing that V3 is so fucked up because the devs have to use some backwards-ass 2D code SWG style.

Might not be true, though. 

[naum]

There was an article here arguing that V3 is so fucked up because the devs have to use some backwards-ass 2D code SWG style.

Also, they're using .NET… …has to be one of the few MMOG makers to be using that platform…

[schild]

Calling an MMOG is an insult to MMOGs everywhere. This is a game that is no more complicated I'm sure than Gemstone III on AOL.

That is to say, the state its in is inexcusable. If they'd spent money properly the first time, all this dicking around never would've had to happen.

[eldaec]

Games replays have now been disabled to... erm.... improve server stability/performance.



This is on a server that still isn't running leagues, PEs, constructed 8-mans, or card trading.

So, we are not only at a sub v2 feature set, we are in fact, sub v3 launch feature set.

[Margalis]

As I said time and time again, there was no reason to believe server stability would actually be better in V3. I'm sure they have no idea how to do load testing.

[Thrawn]

Games replays have now been disabled to... erm.... improve server stability/performance.

Aw...thats the only part of MTGO I really ever used anymore.

[eldaec]

Nix tix drafting this weekend, and PEs starting up today.

Because I'm *certain* that more people are missing ten-hour tournaments than are missing leagues...

[eldaec]

Wotc have now identified that architectural constraints in the new architecture are causing all sorts of problems if reasonable numbers of people wish to use mtgo to manage magic cards at the same time. Just to recap, this architecture that has architectural constraints is the new v3 architecture designed to avoid the architectural constraints of v2, which had an architecture only able to support twice as many people as are crashing the v3 architecture left right and centre.

They are working on things that they believe will fix this over the summer.

They are not working on 'advanced' features like redemption and leagues until after that.

I'm not making this up.

There are ongoing lively discussions within our walls about the priority list for the features that are missing from Magic Online. The reality is that there are also technical considerations that can and do affect the order in which features get developed. The prioritization of Leagues vs. Redemption is an interesting case. Leagues have always been higher than Redemption on our feature priority list. There are compelling cases to be made for each feature to be highest in the list based on what we have observed since the V3 launch. Leagues offer an important alternative to tournaments and drafts. Redemption is a critical part of the economy in Magic Online.

This is where the greater state of the system and its architecture intervene. We are working on a collection server that will solve enough of our architectural constraints that we will be able to continue to increase our ability to support more customers and provide significantly improved usability relating to digital object management (trades, deck building, deck validation, delivery, pack opening, redemption, etc...). We can't/shouldn't get Redemption working before we complete the collection server. Finishing the partially implemented Redemption feature as it was initially designed would set back system performance (more large escrows will hurt the system).

Work on the collection server is ongoing. I don't have a date for its completion. I do know that the collection server will not be done in time for Eventide at this point. Redemption is an integral part of collection management, and thus will be completed as part of the collection server project.

Development on Leagues has been held up by the post-launch stabilization effort, and now by the collection server project. While Leagues and the collection server's scope are not the same, Leagues will be easier to implement after the collection server is up and running. We will also be able to depend on better system performance for the new functionality that will come with leagues. The same goes for Leagues and Redemption, implementing them without first fixing the collection situation would degrade overall system performance.

[Morat20]

This is why you let actual SOFTWARE ENGINEERS AND DEVELOPERS make your freakin' game, instead of farming the bulk of it out to some gaming buddy who got his mad C# skills at the Learning Annex last summer.

*sigh*. Perhaps that's not fair. I guess it's possible they handed it all to a bunch of recent college grads, paid squat, and proceeded to constantly jack around the design underneath the poor saps. That would also do it.

[Raging Turtle]

It's like they're trying as hard as they can to stop me from spending money on the game.  And I've spent a LOT of money on this game in the past. 

Right now it's not even installed on my computer.

[Johny Cee]

I've tried to draft twice,  and been royally fucked each time.

First draft:  I get hung up during deck building, log back in with 30 seconds left to deck build.  Play game 1 with an 85 card deck.  During sideboarding,  get disconnected again (so I can't sideboard into a real deck) and almost win game 2 with my 85 card deck.

Second draft:  My opponent and I take turns getting disconnected for an hour,  during which time I forfeit a game somehow, until I log out in disgust.

[eldaec]

I've tried to draft twice,  and been royally fucked each time.

First draft:  I get hung up during deck building, log back in with 30 seconds left to deck build.  Play game 1 with an 85 card deck.  During sideboarding,  get disconnected again (so I can't sideboard into a real deck) and almost win game 2 with my 85 card deck.

Second draft:  My opponent and I take turns getting disconnected for an hour,  during which time I forfeit a game somehow, until I log out in disgust.

I've got to the same place.

I can't even be bothered claiming refunds anymore, when I run out of packs, I'm out.

[cmlancas]

I drafted the other night at home. Went pretty smoothly!


Perhaps all of you should get out while you still can and remember your roots at your B+M stores.

[schild]

Perhaps all of you should get out while you still can and remember your roots at your B+M stores.

Last time I went to a store that had a magic tourney going on the Mountain Dew Cheetoh Combo was in full effect. My roots are shriveled, angry, and want unclean people to go away.

[Johny Cee]

I drafted the other night at home. Went pretty smoothly!


Perhaps all of you should get out while you still can and remember your roots at your B+M stores.

I do hit up B+M stores for occasional events,  mostly releases or other Limited events.  I've even won two of the last three I've been in.

The problem is,  I occasionally want to do a quick draft on the spur of the moment and Online was perfect for that.  Emphasis on was.

[Teleku]

Fuck.  I actually enjoyed playing MTGO randomly every other year.  2.0 took getting use to, but it worked fine once you got the hang of it.  I recently had an urge to play a sealed deck league again, so installed the game and saw the new version.  Fuck.  Looks awful, and no sealed deck leagues for now they say.  And then I read this whole thread.

Fuck.

I want to give them money to play this, but I CANT.  How the fuck can they screw up a working product so badly?