Simply put, the two cannot compete with each other indefinitely without one dying, and wizards cannot shaft the thousands of magic online users by simply shutting down the service and leaving them without their collections. I mean, technically they can do the latter, but it would be a possibly fatal mistake for digital magic, as this game is inherently built on trust in the product, and vaporizing thousands of players collections, collections that they spent large amounts of money on, simply because there is a new client (which is what Arena is) and then expecting to sell those same cards back to them would be an awful look and send the message that the product cannot be trusted. It would, in short, be a bigger threat to the brand than Chronicles was.
In addition to these issues, both clients have major, mutually exclusive problems, as well as major, mutually exclusive features. MTGO sucks for esports, is ugly, and is generally clunky, but provides a platform for playing with nearly every magic card ever printed, over a range of formats including modern, legacy, vintage, commander, and all of this with multiplayer functionality, and it handles the vast number of cards that have to be programmed in pretty well. Magic Arena is an esports friendly, attractive, streamlined offering that's easy to jump into, but much of that comes because it has to support a very limited card set, does not support any formats beyond standard and limited (with the future potential of an Ixalan forward non rotating format and maybe Brawl), does not support multiplayer(and devs had said multiplayer is a problem for Arena's architecture), and a grindy "free" to play nature that does not appeal to everyone.
There are, however, ways forward that can solve this problem to the mutual benefit of Wizards and the community.
Solution 1: Maintain Magic Online while the devs continue to work on adding features to Arena. Once Arena can support all the cards on MTGO, all the formats, and multiplayer, retire MTGO. Here's the kicker though: In closing MTGO, wizards transfers all accounts to Arena, along with their collections, excluding tickets and play points or converting them to gems. This solution allows MTGO players to transfer over to Arena without losing anything, and sends the message that digital magic is a product you can trust, and that so long as wizards supports digital magic your collections will be supported (which is really quite reasonable).
Solution 2: If Arena is incapable of supporting the full roster of magic cards, different formats, and multiplayer, for whatever reason (or would suffer performance issues that would render it another mtgo), then support both indefinitely, but merge user's accounts. Treat mtgo as an extension of Magic Arena, and expansion pack that allows players to play magic formats that Arena cannot support. By merging accounts, they could make Arena legal cards that a player earns or buys on either Arena or MTGO show up on both clients, so a player can grind on Arena and use those cards on mtgo. This would allow Arena to focus on providing the best possible esports experience for standard and limited while also serving as a way to entice newer players to explore magics history, by being able to take the cards they earn on Arena on mtgo. It could lead to increased sales as some of these players start to get into other formats and seek to buy cards for them, or try out cubes and other offerings. In this solution, we see Arena take the lead but use its influence to promote mtgo and what it does, rather than compete with it. Wizards could also streamline mtgo in this scenarion, dropping formats that are better implemented on Arena, and possibly making it that playing Arena would be necessary to acquire standard sets (say, only offer the current draft and sealed formats on Arena).
Now granted, a stupid executive might balk at these, as they may see it as giving away cards for free to mtgo users, but its clear that, if Arena is meant to be the future of digital magic, that it is really a new client, not a different product. Wizards isn't actually losing anything by letting mtgo users migrate their collections to Arena, as those are cards that Wizards already sold to the public. What is really at stake is the money that those players may spend on new cards, money they won't spend if their collections are vaporized but WILL spend if their collections are protected. Further, other Arena users would see mtgo users collections being vaporized as a bad omen for their own budding Arena collections, that wizards would be willing to shaft them just as hard the next time they decide to update the client. Every time a player gets ready to shell out money, they'd remember mtgo collections being vaporized and second guess whether the same would soon happen to them. It is in everyone's interest, both players and wizards, to find a solution that allows mtgo players to keep their collections, whether that is on mtgo, moved to Arena, or some other solution.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
The big problem with fusing MTGO and Arena is that there is a lot of money tied up in the MTGO economy. The larger bot chains are essentially fully fledged businesses, with thousands of dollars' worth of tickets and product moving relatively briskly around the economy each day, and Wizards doesn't want to rock the boat too hard when it comes to the online economy because tanking it would destroy faith in digital Magic. Even something simple like set redemption changes can cause bad things to happen to the online economy, and merging two games together like that would likely wind up doing more harm than good.
What I'd personally like to see them do is have Arena as a game mode for MTGO rather than being its own thing. Can either get the full Magic experience online through regular MTGO play, or you can play the Arena mode for funsies without there being prizes involved.
The big problem with fusing MTGO and Arena is that there is a lot of money tied up in the MTGO economy. The larger bot chains are essentially fully fledged businesses, with thousands of dollars' worth of tickets and product moving relatively briskly around the economy each day, and Wizards doesn't want to rock the boat too hard when it comes to the online economy because tanking it would destroy faith in digital Magic. Even something simple like set redemption changes can cause bad things to happen to the online economy, and merging two games together like that would likely wind up doing more harm than good.
What I'd personally like to see them do is have Arena as a game mode for MTGO rather than being its own thing. Can either get the full Magic experience online through regular MTGO play, or you can play the Arena mode for funsies without there being prizes involved.
This is a good point, but I'm looking at it from the perspective that there needs to be a fix to stop mtgo from going away entirely and people losing collections, which would include the stores. If mtgo never becomes in danger of being taken out by Arena, neither solution I proposed would be needed. Your point makes me lean more toward wanting option 2, though, since it would preserve the mtgo economy. I do want to note that the mtgo economy has tanked since Arena, with card prices dropping significantly.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Standard MTGO is dead. You play Arena.
Modern/Legacy/Vintage, is where you play MTGO.
Simple as that.
This was my impression. I haven't actually played MTGO in years, and I don't particularly like Arena's interface, but this is exactly the sense I got from beta testing Arena and seeing discussion around the web.
Yeah you can play arena all hours of the night or day, and the queue's just flow. Trying to play Standard on MTGO is embarrassing, there is almost nobody left. Modern is fine still.
while it does feel kind of weird having 2 clients to play MTG online, I feel that they've done reasonably well differentiating between the two.
I'm not a computer/programming expert (not even close for that matter), but I'm assuming coding a bunch of older cards and rules interactions into Arena would be a nightmare. This makes me feel that Arena would be best for standard as it only requires programming sets in as they come out. Leaving MTGO for older formats feels fine to me as it has an actual economy built off of mostly getting cards and tickets from bots.
I just started playing Arena a lot the past few days and am really enjoying it. I like the interface and how it works. I tried to get into MTGO before but couldn't really. Maybe I'll reconsider how much I play online clients now as it's pretty fun for me now. I'm still pretty unsure how they're doing paper events so I might be tempted to get my fix online
while it does feel kind of weird having 2 clients to play MTG online, I feel that they've done reasonably well differentiating between the two.
I'm not a computer/programming expert (not even close for that matter), but I'm assuming coding a bunch of older cards and rules interactions into Arena would be a nightmare. This makes me feel that Arena would be best for standard as it only requires programming sets in as they come out. Leaving MTGO for older formats feels fine to me as it has an actual economy built off of mostly getting cards and tickets from bots.
I just started playing Arena a lot the past few days and am really enjoying it. I like the interface and how it works. I tried to get into MTGO before but couldn't really. Maybe I'll reconsider how much I play online clients now as it's pretty fun for me now. I'm still pretty unsure how they're doing paper events so I might be tempted to get my fix online
The issue I see is that if Arena is attracting the new players, taking a lot of limited, and monopolizing standard play, with the future Arena eternal format possibly competing with modern, that new players won't make it over to mtgo. Merging accounts would make it easy for Arena players to give mtgo and it's formats a try.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Now that's something I didn't take into account. Eventually Arena might need its own Eternal format, so that people can have something to do with their rotating cards.
Merging accounts is something that could be an idea. But again, I know next to nothing about computer software/online accounts or the like so I don't feel like I can talk about how much work that would be or how to go about it. I can say that would be interesting or cool
They cannot get rid of MTGO but they also do not want to really support MTGO.
So in the future, Arena will be for Sealed, Draft, Standard, (the eventual) Post-Modern and (the inevitable) Commander-Lite. MTGO will be for Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander and Pauper, as well as other weird formats (like Australian and Canadian Highlander).
If you do not want to play Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander or Pauper, then you have no reason whatsoever to play MTGO.
They cannot get rid of MTGO but they also do not want to really support MTGO.
The problem is MTGO is an affordable way to play non-rotating formats, and Wizards would really just prefer if everyone were to play nothing but Standard, Limited, and maybe like Brawl or something.
They cannot get rid of MTGO but they also do not want to really support MTGO.
The problem is MTGO is an affordable way to play non-rotating formats, and Wizards would really just prefer if everyone were to play nothing but Standard, Limited, and maybe like Brawl or something.
That's partly what I worry about.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I think they are going to support both, and MTGO still for a long time, probably another 10 years.
1 will only happen if they do bring modern, legacy and vintage to arena, nevertheless it won't be soon, probably a long wat (more than 5 years, even 10).
I wouldn't worry much about MTGO, as long as it if profitable they will support it.
Now that's something I didn't take into account. Eventually Arena might need its own Eternal format, so that people can have something to do with their rotating cards.
Merging accounts is something that could be an idea. But again, I know next to nothing about computer software/online accounts or the like so I don't feel like I can talk about how much work that would be or how to go about it. I can say that would be interesting or cool
They've already stated that they're going to create a new non-rotating format when rotation happens, so as people who play Arena have a way to use their cards that rotate.
They've already stated that they're going to create a new non-rotating format when rotation happens, so as people who play Arena have a way to use their cards that rotate.
Why do I have a feeling that it'll manage to be even worse than Frontier was? And that one was just a blatant cash grab by store owners wanting to move old inventory that had rotated (a trait it shared with Tiny Leaders, which was a similarly terrible format).
They've already stated that they're going to create a new non-rotating format when rotation happens, so as people who play Arena have a way to use their cards that rotate.
Why do I have a feeling that it'll manage to be even worse than Frontier was? And that one was just a blatant cash grab by store owners wanting to move old inventory that had rotated (a trait it shared with Tiny Leaders, which was a similarly terrible format).
I dont think so. Guilds and Ravnica, and even Dom, are all better by far, than any of the sets that made up Frontier. Even Khans.
Why? Once the cost of running the service cost more than the people paying into the service. I think it's going to happen within a year or two. (Alpha Investments (Rudy) thinks Wizards is going to drop MTGO in 5 years - I think he's wrong)
Why I think a year or two? If MTGO was doing well wizards wouldn't make Arena. I think MTGO was not as profitable as they said.
I dont think so. Guilds and Ravnica, and even Dom, are all better by far, than any of the sets that made up Frontier. Even Khans.
The problem isn't set quality per se, but the diversity of answers in the format. Legacy has Force of Will and Wasteland keeping things from getting out of hand. Even Modern has access to extremely flexible, powerful pieces of removal and disruption (Thoughtseize, Path, Surgical, etc). A smaller format is inherently going to be at a disadvantage there as those kinds of answers aren't things Wizards likes to print in large quantity anymore. It's a problem Frontier had and it's a problem any new format is going to have as the questions each deck can ask get stronger as new sets release while the answers generally don't keep pace.
The problem isn't set quality per se, but the diversity of answers in the format. Legacy has Force of Will and Wasteland keeping things from getting out of hand. Even Modern has access to extremely flexible, powerful pieces of removal and disruption (Thoughtseize, Path, Surgical, etc). A smaller format is inherently going to be at a disadvantage there as those kinds of answers aren't things Wizards likes to print in large quantity anymore. It's a problem Frontier had and it's a problem any new format is going to have as the questions each deck can ask get stronger as new sets release while the answers generally don't keep pace.
I think thats the difference between the last 3 sets, there are good answers, even main deck ones.
There's "good" and then there's "glass cannon combo can never dominate the format as long as people are maindecking zero-mana counterspells that they side out against fair decks" good. Modern needed bans to keep those kinds of decks under control. Legacy just kind of shrugs for the most part.
Format balance gets better, not worse, the older you draw the set legality line.
Yeah I'm not going to disagree there. Modern is borderline unplayable to me at this point, and on a long enough time line, the same thing will happen to any format.
That said, the answers to me, in the last 3 sets, are all better, and less embarrassing main deck, than what Frontier had.
Meanwhile, I'm just playing Burn because Wizards doesnt want to accept that Best of One is broken.
In addition to these issues, both clients have major, mutually exclusive problems, as well as major, mutually exclusive features. MTGO sucks for esports, is ugly, and is generally clunky, but provides a platform for playing with nearly every magic card ever printed, over a range of formats including modern, legacy, vintage, commander, and all of this with multiplayer functionality, and it handles the vast number of cards that have to be programmed in pretty well. Magic Arena is an esports friendly, attractive, streamlined offering that's easy to jump into, but much of that comes because it has to support a very limited card set, does not support any formats beyond standard and limited (with the future potential of an Ixalan forward non rotating format and maybe Brawl), does not support multiplayer(and devs had said multiplayer is a problem for Arena's architecture), and a grindy "free" to play nature that does not appeal to everyone.
There are, however, ways forward that can solve this problem to the mutual benefit of Wizards and the community.
Solution 1: Maintain Magic Online while the devs continue to work on adding features to Arena. Once Arena can support all the cards on MTGO, all the formats, and multiplayer, retire MTGO. Here's the kicker though: In closing MTGO, wizards transfers all accounts to Arena, along with their collections, excluding tickets and play points or converting them to gems. This solution allows MTGO players to transfer over to Arena without losing anything, and sends the message that digital magic is a product you can trust, and that so long as wizards supports digital magic your collections will be supported (which is really quite reasonable).
Solution 2: If Arena is incapable of supporting the full roster of magic cards, different formats, and multiplayer, for whatever reason (or would suffer performance issues that would render it another mtgo), then support both indefinitely, but merge user's accounts. Treat mtgo as an extension of Magic Arena, and expansion pack that allows players to play magic formats that Arena cannot support. By merging accounts, they could make Arena legal cards that a player earns or buys on either Arena or MTGO show up on both clients, so a player can grind on Arena and use those cards on mtgo. This would allow Arena to focus on providing the best possible esports experience for standard and limited while also serving as a way to entice newer players to explore magics history, by being able to take the cards they earn on Arena on mtgo. It could lead to increased sales as some of these players start to get into other formats and seek to buy cards for them, or try out cubes and other offerings. In this solution, we see Arena take the lead but use its influence to promote mtgo and what it does, rather than compete with it. Wizards could also streamline mtgo in this scenarion, dropping formats that are better implemented on Arena, and possibly making it that playing Arena would be necessary to acquire standard sets (say, only offer the current draft and sealed formats on Arena).
Now granted, a stupid executive might balk at these, as they may see it as giving away cards for free to mtgo users, but its clear that, if Arena is meant to be the future of digital magic, that it is really a new client, not a different product. Wizards isn't actually losing anything by letting mtgo users migrate their collections to Arena, as those are cards that Wizards already sold to the public. What is really at stake is the money that those players may spend on new cards, money they won't spend if their collections are vaporized but WILL spend if their collections are protected. Further, other Arena users would see mtgo users collections being vaporized as a bad omen for their own budding Arena collections, that wizards would be willing to shaft them just as hard the next time they decide to update the client. Every time a player gets ready to shell out money, they'd remember mtgo collections being vaporized and second guess whether the same would soon happen to them. It is in everyone's interest, both players and wizards, to find a solution that allows mtgo players to keep their collections, whether that is on mtgo, moved to Arena, or some other solution.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
What I'd personally like to see them do is have Arena as a game mode for MTGO rather than being its own thing. Can either get the full Magic experience online through regular MTGO play, or you can play the Arena mode for funsies without there being prizes involved.
Modern/Legacy/Vintage, is where you play MTGO.
Simple as that.
Spirits
This is a good point, but I'm looking at it from the perspective that there needs to be a fix to stop mtgo from going away entirely and people losing collections, which would include the stores. If mtgo never becomes in danger of being taken out by Arena, neither solution I proposed would be needed. Your point makes me lean more toward wanting option 2, though, since it would preserve the mtgo economy. I do want to note that the mtgo economy has tanked since Arena, with card prices dropping significantly.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Spirits
I'm not a computer/programming expert (not even close for that matter), but I'm assuming coding a bunch of older cards and rules interactions into Arena would be a nightmare. This makes me feel that Arena would be best for standard as it only requires programming sets in as they come out. Leaving MTGO for older formats feels fine to me as it has an actual economy built off of mostly getting cards and tickets from bots.
I just started playing Arena a lot the past few days and am really enjoying it. I like the interface and how it works. I tried to get into MTGO before but couldn't really. Maybe I'll reconsider how much I play online clients now as it's pretty fun for me now. I'm still pretty unsure how they're doing paper events so I might be tempted to get my fix online
The issue I see is that if Arena is attracting the new players, taking a lot of limited, and monopolizing standard play, with the future Arena eternal format possibly competing with modern, that new players won't make it over to mtgo. Merging accounts would make it easy for Arena players to give mtgo and it's formats a try.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Merging accounts is something that could be an idea. But again, I know next to nothing about computer software/online accounts or the like so I don't feel like I can talk about how much work that would be or how to go about it. I can say that would be interesting or cool
So in the future, Arena will be for Sealed, Draft, Standard, (the eventual) Post-Modern and (the inevitable) Commander-Lite. MTGO will be for Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander and Pauper, as well as other weird formats (like Australian and Canadian Highlander).
If you do not want to play Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander or Pauper, then you have no reason whatsoever to play MTGO.
The problem is MTGO is an affordable way to play non-rotating formats, and Wizards would really just prefer if everyone were to play nothing but Standard, Limited, and maybe like Brawl or something.
That's partly what I worry about.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
1 will only happen if they do bring modern, legacy and vintage to arena, nevertheless it won't be soon, probably a long wat (more than 5 years, even 10).
I wouldn't worry much about MTGO, as long as it if profitable they will support it.
Spirits
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/mythic-invitational
https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/with_replies?lang=en
Spirits
Why do I have a feeling that it'll manage to be even worse than Frontier was? And that one was just a blatant cash grab by store owners wanting to move old inventory that had rotated (a trait it shared with Tiny Leaders, which was a similarly terrible format).
I dont think so. Guilds and Ravnica, and even Dom, are all better by far, than any of the sets that made up Frontier. Even Khans.
Spirits
Why? Once the cost of running the service cost more than the people paying into the service. I think it's going to happen within a year or two. (Alpha Investments (Rudy) thinks Wizards is going to drop MTGO in 5 years - I think he's wrong)
Why I think a year or two? If MTGO was doing well wizards wouldn't make Arena. I think MTGO was not as profitable as they said.
I think thats the difference between the last 3 sets, there are good answers, even main deck ones.
Spirits
Format balance gets better, not worse, the older you draw the set legality line.
That said, the answers to me, in the last 3 sets, are all better, and less embarrassing main deck, than what Frontier had.
Meanwhile, I'm just playing Burn because Wizards doesnt want to accept that Best of One is broken.
Spirits