With no more novels and Savor The Flavor going on sabbatical, along with a tie-in comic book that only marginally relates to the current goings on in the multiverse, I'm tempted to say that storyline has become the absolute last priority for the guys at MTG.
Apparently they think that if they put better flavor on the cards, it will be enough to satisfy Vorthos. ("look! we made a whole top-down block just for you! don't you like all of this delicious flavor? You don't need books, you have postcards!")
or even worse, that Vorthos isn't important enough to warrant much attention.
I bet Matt Cavotta is turning in his grave...and he's not even dead yet.
In any case, this has all left me wondering what the future of storyline will be. I'm sure they will still spend a considerable amount of time on flavor. MTG's flavor is the main thing that differentiates itself from other games. but it just seems that the ongoing storyline is going to be taking a major backseat.
It depends on what you consider storyline. Without books the personal storyline about characters, how they think, act and are, is basicly over. But the broadstoryline, that tells us the rough story of a plane can still work. We don't even need a weekly column for that.
Just look at the Innistrad storyline, first we see a world plagued by vampires, werewolves, geists and madmen creating zombies. Luckily it is protected by an angel Avacyn made by Sorin. She fought the demons by locking them up in the Helvault. We find out that the angel is disappeared and suddenly everything goes from bad to worse. The demon Griezelbrand managed to lock himself and Avacyn in the Helvault. The religious leader of the humans died in an attack on the capital. Enter Liliana, she wants to kill Griezelbrand and has to free him (andd thus Avacyn) from the Helvault and plans to use Thalia, the new leader of the militairy, for it. She succeeds and Avacyn is free. Other stuff happens, we don't know yet.
I see only one problem with you saying that "we don't even need a weekly column". Just about every piece of (detailed) lore that you just described as "coming from the cards" actually came from Savor the flavor and since StF is not being produced regularly anymore, the flavor of future sets will FAR less impressive.
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It depends on what you consider storyline. Without books the personal storyline about characters, how they think, act and are, is basicly over. But the broadstoryline, that tells us the rough story of a plane can still work. We don't even need a weekly column for that.
Just look at the Innistrad storyline, first we see a world plagued by vampires, werewolves, geists and madmen creating zombies. Luckily it is protected by an angel Avacyn made by Sorin. She fought the demons by locking them up in the Helvault. We find out that the angel is disappeared and suddenly everything goes from bad to worse. The demon Griezelbrand managed to lock himself and Avacyn in the Helvault. The religious leader of the humans died in an attack on the capital. Enter Liliana, she wants to kill Griezelbrand and has to free him (andd thus Avacyn) from the Helvault and plans to use Thalia, the new leader of the militairy, for it. She succeeds and Avacyn is free. Other stuff happens, we don't know yet.
Still a lot of storyline. We have a good idea what happens and happened on Innistrad. Sure you don't exactly see it through the characters eyes, which would have been interesting, but not necessary for the story line. The story still exists, just on a different level than it used to. We didn't even need a weekly column for that as most of them were about different aspects of the creative proces. If this trent continues we could see the same thing for Hook block, even if the only use a monthly feature article to give us the story.
The problem with that is that it is hard to care about a story going on when you don't have a dog in the fight. Without characters that we can grow attached to, the plight of what's going on falls flat.
Why should we CARE what's going on with Innistrad? What's our stake in it?
I am very displeased by this turn of events; I enjoy reading the novels that accompany the game, even if I have read only a very few at this time. I do hope that WotC continues to place importance on the flavor and story aspects of the game, not merely its mechanical aspects.
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The problem with that is that it is hard to care about a story going on when you don't have a dog in the fight. Without characters that we can grow attached to, the plight of what's going on falls flat.
Why should we CARE what's going on with Innistrad? What's our stake in it?
This. I HATED Mirrodin1. I HATED New Phyrexia (needs moar Yawgmoth).
And yet, when The Quest for Karn sucked, I wanted to rewrite it to make it good. Why? Because of two things: 1) Elspeth is awesome and I want her to be well-written (like in Honor Bound) 2) Those short stories from the Mirrodin site actually made me CARE ABOUT THE MIRRANS, especially Thrun and Melira.
Literally, the only reason I care so much about the fall of Mirrodin is because I really liked just about every character in that story arch. One of the things I don't like about Innistrad is that there... really aren't any characters. There's Geralf, Gisa, and Thalia. And I guess Raben, but his story didn't really seem to matter in the big picture. Mikaeus always felt like just a token pope-guy, so I never really cared about him either. Where's my Thrun! Where's my Ria of Bladehold! Where's my Elspeth or my Koth? At least with Mirrodin Besieged, I knew what Tezzeret was up to. This time all I know about Sorin is that he wants to free Avacyn (and since I know how she gets freed, and he's not a part of it... wtf).
Anyway, enough ranting. You get the point.
tl;dr: New Phyrexia Guide was full of characters, plus the War Reports. Innistrad Guide has maybe a couple names (Tovolar? Is there anyone else?), and Gisa, Geralf, and Thalia. So only three characters to care about.
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Actually, I think it is good from a set-design perspective. Generally speaking plot-driven design falls flat by set three (and once in a while by set two). It's part of the reason why AVR and RoE had to be separate: the changes required for the plot couldn't be part of the earlier blocks.
I'd rather have the ability for the cards to tour more of a plane or skip ahead significantly in the timeline so we get new stuff, instead of the standard 'Oh man we're in a fight to stop the world from ending. Again.' Getting away from plot-centric sets, at least temporarily, should give us a break from Armageddon.
That said, I'm sad to see the novels end. I would rather have seen the Magic novels continue more in line with D&D (and to a lesser extentthe Planeswalker books) of telling stories completely independent from the current setting of the year. But given that WoTC seems to be trying to get out of publishing entirely, maybe this isn't so surprising.
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Anyone seen MaRos tumblr today? Next to Bradys explanation why they discontinued the novel line I think we can get a pretty clear picture how WotC views this issue: it's OUR fault!! What the...:mad:
I am over reacting here, but this really ticks me off! I have been buying their crappy novels, comics and what not for years and years and all I got was this stupid shirt ... wait, I'm getting off track...
But seriously - it couldn't have possibly been the case that their sh*t products have deterred people from buying them ... no, no, no... there is just too few people willing to pay for their brilliant but sadly underappreciated products. Or maybe they failed to effectively market them to actually grow a market for their non-card products ... no, no, no ... in their eyes it is probably our fault we didn't convince everyone we knew what great products Magic offers besides cards!
Geez... really?!?!
*facepalms* Wow, just wow. I cannot say anything about that blasphemy. I mean, they pretty much blame us for not appreciating crap? Okay, I see the logic there, they want the Vorthoses to be blind consumers.
And funny thing with the IDW comic is that it isn't even closely connected to the main plot - BAD DECISION there IMO. The card game Bradywalkers are just going to be guest characters in it. It could've been a vehicle now that the novels are shelved.
Quick and important note. Savor the Flavor will be coming back. It's return is important to Trick Jarrett.
I want to stress that Savor the Flavor will be coming back. I am 100% serious about this, it is simply a matter that the timeline ran out and we weren't able to get a new person and plan in place to take it over. It might be gone for a few weeks but it will be coming back.
Honestly I'm ok with seeing the novel go. They were written terribly not to mention had horrible inconsistency.
But I was exited about the new "media" stories. The short stories, war reports, puzzle stuff. Thats all really, really good. I've been let down witht he fact their hasnt been much connection from cards to story. Thalia should have been huge. The short stories should have been about her.
So. Again. I think if they up the short stories, and unique views into the world, but with connection to the cards... I'll be satisfied.
When Maro and Brady feel that the cards are tools to show us how the planes are, and what kind of creatures and in them, rather than a means to tell a story..i think we'll never see a good focused story again. (for example, Tempest showed us preaty good how Rath was, and i did a great job to show us how some parts of the story went - i remember they having a problem that people don't see the cards in the order the story goes, but for me that's a good thing, if one wants, you could line up the cards so it told a story!)
i would love to see that kind of storytelling in the cards today!
The only problem is this game (like so many other TCGs) has lost any respect for the flavor, story, or even art of the cards because it caters too much to guys obsessed with auto-win mechanics and breaking cards into win-cons.
Granted I've seen some combos have a funky flavor translation (like the Kraj + certain attractive elven women), there are times when I just feel simply exhausted from all the (as Doug Beyer put it one article) 'Vorthos tap dancing'. -.-
If competitive players only care about the text beneath the art, I see no reason to tell the story through the cards.
Most players aren't competive. By the same token, most players aren't hardcore storyliners either. Most players are casual players. They like that their cards have flavor, but don't care enough about it to go out and buy the books.
Most players aren't competive. By the same token, most players aren't hardcore storyliners either. Most players are casual players. They like that their cards have flavor, but don't care enough about it to go out and buy the books.
I also think this is the current situation. I tried to read one of the last novels, and they really were really badly written. At the same time, I don't think WotC wants to spend enough money to hire a good writer or a "loremaster" to keep continuity with all the stories.
In some ways, these sets being to feel like the very old sets, like The Dark, Fallen Empires, and Legends. There was some flavor and a basic story that can pieced from the cards, but nothing was examined too deeply.
I think that the quality of the novels was definitely a big part of it. Deserved or not, Magic novels have the reputation of being worse than even the D&D and Warcraft novels.
Anyone seen MaRos tumblr today? Next to Bradys explanation why they discontinued the novel line I think we can get a pretty clear picture how WotC views this issue: it's OUR fault!! What the...:mad:
I am over reacting here, but this really ticks me off! I have been buying their crappy novels, comics and what not for years and years and all I got was this stupid shirt ... wait, I'm getting off track...a\
But seriously - it couldn't have possibly been the case that their sh*t products have deterred people from buying them ... no, no, no... there is just too few people willing to pay for their brilliant but sadly underappreciated products. Or maybe they failed to effectively market them to actually grow a market for their non-card products ... no, no, no ... in their eyes it is probably our fault we didn't convince everyone we knew what great products Magic offers besides cards!
Geez... really?!?!
Check the aggression, please. The truth is Magic novels have never sold particularly well, and demand fell. From a financial perspective there's no reason to hire better writers when there appears to be no demand for the books as is.
Books, sad to say, have a limited audience. Tie in books have an even more limited audience.
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Anyone seen MaRos tumblr today? Next to Bradys explanation why they discontinued the novel line I think we can get a pretty clear picture how WotC views this issue: it's OUR fault!! What the...:mad:
I am over reacting here, but this really ticks me off! I have been buying their crappy novels, comics and what not for years and years and all I got was this stupid shirt ... wait, I'm getting off track...
But seriously - it couldn't have possibly been the case that their sh*t products have deterred people from buying them ... no, no, no... there is just too few people willing to pay for their brilliant but sadly underappreciated products. Or maybe they failed to effectively market them to actually grow a market for their non-card products ... no, no, no ... in their eyes it is probably our fault we didn't convince everyone we knew what great products Magic offers besides cards!
Geez... really?!?!
I am so pissed I feel like punching Chuck ****ing Norris in the face.
Look in all honesty it is our fault, completely and utterly our fault. Well ok not completely, but................. yeah.
I love(d) the books, even the bad ones and all we did is ***** and whine, and grumble, and all that. WotC lurks here more than you think.
Look at where all of our pissant bickering about clockworking has lead....... it lead ****ing nowhere, the books are gone now...... We sure showed them.
But wait at least we still have Savor the Flavor, right? oh. thats right we have a 1054 post long thread here of people complaining about it, and now that's gone too....... riiiiiaaaaaggggghhhhhhtttttt bang up job boys.
What really just gets to me is I obviously love Lili for person reasons, and I've been waiting since Agents of Artifice to get a book devoted to her....... Just as they're about to release 2 books featuring her, it all goes black.
Damn it Brady the books already written, cover art already completed, release the damn thing. I wanted Lili to read it when she got older.
Blah, I can believe that nerdy neckbeards finally accomplish something, and I can't reveal in it, I can't stand behind it, I can't be proud of it.
Well lets just calls this the "John Wilkes Booth of Achievements."
Please keep things civil in the future. Thanks.
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Well, I wouldn't quite go that far. If you look at the last couple of years it becomes apparent that the trend is rather towards flavour and enhancing that.
I've been telling myself that but I guess I'm just wishing it could happen faster y'know? So far, there's still too much talk in my area about combos, win-cons, and Johnnies/Spikes/Melvins slurping it all up. At times, I've had those who try to shift from that and get into flavor only for them to demonstrate an even lesser knowledge of lore than I do. (Case in point, my other thread here regarding etherium.)
The major thing I took from Multany's complaint was the way they tell the story with the cards. Because this could be a grand opportunity (if done right).
I have no disagreements with that. It's just these days players still buy cards for the sake of winning the game (at least as far as my area is concerned). Art, story, or flavor text still take a back seat to win-cons and infinite-combos. Heck, I sometimes wonder just how much WotC reels in from tournaments compared to anything flavor-related.
But wait at least we still have Savor the Flavor, right? oh. thats right we have a 1054 post long thread here of people complaining about it, and now that's gone too....... riiiiiaaaaaggggghhhhhhtttttt bang up job boys.
What really just gets to me is I obviously love Lili for person reasons, and I've been waiting since Agents of Artifice to get a book devoted to her....... Just as they're about to release 2 books featuring her, it all goes black.
Damn it Brady the books already written, cover art already completed, release the damn thing. I wanted Lili to read it when she got older.
Savor the Flavor IS coming back. Boy is it ever tiresome to have to say that over and over again. They just couldn't get somebody to take over by the time Doug stepped out. Seriously getting tired of it...
And the Curse of the Chain Veil wasn't exactly going to be great. I've read some of Vornholt's other material, and if you thought Wintermute was bad, then you haven't seen how low a book can sink. Brady flat out stated that the book was so far off their expectations they COULDN'T publish it. Just think about that, if they printed Quest for Karn, how off must Curse have been?
What's more, is that Curse was supposed to have been out BEFORE Mirrodin started. It isn't like they had two books about to come out for Liliana. They'd already scrapped one.
Savor the Flavor IS coming back. Boy is it ever tiresome to have to say that over and over again. They just couldn't get somebody to take over by the time Doug stepped out. Seriously getting tired of it...
And the Curse of the Chain Veil wasn't exactly going to be great. I've read some of Vornholt's other material, and if you thought Wintermute was bad, then you haven't seen how low a book can sink. Brady flat out stated that the book was so far off their expectations they COULDN'T publish it. Just think about that, if they printed Quest for Karn, how off must Curse have been?
What's more, is that Curse was supposed to have been out BEFORE Mirrodin started. It isn't like they had two books about to come out for Liliana. They'd already scrapped one.
This.
And i don't think it's fair to blame the 'boards for what happened. Numbers don't lie, and it basically boiled down to the bottom line. Yeah, the latest round of books have been crappy, but don't forget that even their better books were a niche market at best. We can discuss all day on what they could have done differently marketing-wise for those books, but the end result is still that NONE of their books did well, regardless of the quality of the writing. and our complaints about StF really don't seem to factor much into them taking it off the shelf for a while. if that were the case, They'd have pulled the plug on Beyer months ago.
and yeah, Lilly's book was stillborn for a reason. your desire reminds me of the Monkey's Paw story where the wife wished to see her son after he died, and the son came knocking at the door...:rolleyes:
trust me. You didn't want that book.
I want to respond to Voila!'s posts over at MTGS, too. Please know that across the 66 published Magic novels, we have tried every combination of more/less creative control, more/less time, and more/less money. No combination of those elements guarantees a great novel. (And I'll reiterate that the novels you think are great are generally in the bottom half sales-wise, and the novels you loathe are generally in the top half. There are exceptions.) Great novels are rare, and many of them take YEARS to write.
Unlike publishing companies who usually buy a book and publish it only if it's already good enough, we commissioned books on spec and had to publish what we got (after a few precious weeks of revision), regardless of how the final draft turned out. Only one book differed so sharply from our expectation that we elected not to publish it. You can probably figure out which.
Curse of the Chain Veil wasn't going to be great, and they smartly put their foot down.
And of course the bit about how historically money spent on a Magic novel doesn't equal to how well the book sells and how well it is received is important as well.
The problem continues though that the other player types will always get what they want as long as the card game continues. Melvin, Timmy, Johnny, and Spike are always going to get cards they want to continue. Vorthose on the other hand, is getting his back turned on him. Not that this is completely true, but that is at least how it feels. No, the books were not good. And no, the short stories and StF don't wrap everything up nicely for us. The fact remains though that it was nice to feel like Wizards was always trying to appeal to us as best they could. Now it feels like we were put in the back seat of the car, told to shut up, and deal.
What I am saying is I don't want them to continue to produce bad novels with the storylines. I want StF to come back (which I know is...eventually) and I just want something more. Something to produce the story as full as they can and appeal to my needs as one of their target demographics/consumers so that I don't continually wonder what is going on in the story they claim is there.
I think you may be right in your sentiment, the only problem is that you are grouping "Flavor Seekers" in with the whole wide range of Vorthoses, while it's actually only a tiny sub-set of the whole Vorthos spectrum. Brady said it himself that with the very best estimates, only 1 in 10,000 players ever bought a book that wasn't in a fat pack. 0.01%. That's it.
(Non-fat pack books being relevant to them because the fat packs were discounted so that the books were given away for free, so only the 0.01% of players were actually contributing to their revenue.)
While people may have taken MaRo's remarks as insulting and/or callous, Wizards does what it does (dailymtg, tournaments, making a quality game that constantly changes, but remains balanced most of the time and is aware of power creep) because it sells product. Wizards is appealing all the other Vorthoses by moving to unique settings each year, depicted with unique art styles, and by increasing the prominence of top-down design... and I assume that helps with player retention and enthusiasm for the game. It helps to sell more product.
But for us, the Vorthos part that seeks out more beyond the cards... we are so insignificant in the larger scheme of things and are costing Wizards money instead of making them money. Maybe a fully developed story told in novel form will help encourage us to keep playing and keep buying product, but the man hours it takes to execute on that, especially in proportion to how many of us there are compared to the entire player base... it just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sense so much that the plot of each set is going to reduce in complexity.
The answer to the question I think you're trying to get at is this: We won't be creating a plot of novel-like complexity and then trying to shoehorn it onto cards. Instead we'll be creating a plot we believe can be communicated through the means we have: cards, short videos, marketing efforts, and whatever other media venues materialize. Form follows function.
The only potential light at the end of the tunnel, a light that might not even be there, is that a simpler plot can be told more easily in comic book form. A huge problem with a lot of the webcomics is that they felt rushed. When you compared them to their counterparts in the novels, it was easy to see why. They were trying to tell too much in a limited page count.
The dream for me, at this point, would be for a 12-part mini-series that covered the central story of each block. The planewalkers already do feel like comic book characters anyway, and climaxes that don't end in deaths of the villain in a comic book is standard practice. (Which would work nicely if the central antagonist happened to be a planeswalker like Nicol Bolas, Tezzeret, etc). It can work if the plot is simple enough, and good stories can still be told. Plenty of excellent stories have been told in 12-issue arcs, or even less.
And if that dream can't be reached, I could be happy with a regular ongoing Magic comic book. Wizards cannot stop creating new planeswalkers because they need to mix in new ones with the familiar to keep people interested in the cards. And each year there will be more and more planeswalkers that can't be used for longer and longer periods of time. It can't be helped. A block without a single new planeswalker might work once if the overall theme is right, but two years in a row? Three? Players will feel cheated that Wizards is only recycling planeswalkers we've seen before. (Perhaps that will plateau. There is probably a number large enough that it won't matter, but that won't be any time soon.)
With so many planeswalkers with nothing to do, it seems to me that it only makes sense to allow them to have more prominence in the comics. Maybe Dack will always be the main character, maybe not, but as the years pass IDW will have a larger stable of characters to pull from that are just gathering dust.
If the comic line actually exists years from now. There's the rub. That can't ever happen if no one buys these comics that are coming out now.
It's a good thing the comics are of a pretty high quality, and that IDW is the perfect publisher for Wizards to have made a deal with. And sales have been good enough that IDW is going forward with a second mini-series, but it could end there. Magic certainly doesn't sell enough to get front page status on their website, so my dream is probably already dead.
But still... I'm doing my part and buying the comics. I haven't been disappointed in them so far, and at this point all I can do is hope the comic line doesn't end with The Spell Thief mini-series.
I think you may be right in your sentiment, the only problem is that you are grouping "Flavor Seekers" in with the whole wide range of Vorthoses, while it's actually only a tiny sub-set of the whole Vorthos spectrum. Brady said it himself that with the very best estimates, only 1 in 10,000 players ever bought a book that wasn't in a fat pack. 0.01%. That's it.
(Non-fat pack books being relevant to them because the fat packs were discounted so that the books were given away for free, so only the 0.01% of players were actually contributing to their revenue.)
While people may have taken MaRo's remarks as insulting and/or callous, Wizards does what it does (dailymtg, tournaments, making a quality game that constantly changes, but remains balanced most of the time and is aware of power creep) because it sells product. Wizards is appealing all the other Vorthoses by moving to unique settings each year, depicted with unique art styles, and by increasing the prominence of top-down design... and I assume that helps with player retention and enthusiasm for the game. It helps to sell more product.
But for us, the Vorthos part that seeks out more beyond the cards... we are so insignificant in the larger scheme of things and are costing Wizards money instead of making them money. Maybe a fully developed story told in novel form will help encourage us to keep playing and keep buying product, but the man hours it takes to execute on that, especially in proportion to how many of us there are compared to the entire player base... it just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sense so much that the plot of each set is going to reduce in complexity.
The only potential light at the end of the tunnel, a light that might not even be there, is that a simpler plot can be told more easily in comic book form. A huge problem with a lot of the webcomics is that they felt rushed. When you compared them to their counterparts in the novels, it was easy to see why. They were trying to tell too much in a limited page count.
The dream for me, at this point, would be for a 12-part mini-series that covered the central story of each block. The planewalkers already do feel like comic book characters anyway, and climaxes that don't end in deaths of the villain in a comic book is standard practice. (Which would work nicely if the central antagonist happened to be a planeswalker like Nicol Bolas, Tezzeret, etc). It can work if the plot is simple enough, and good stories can still be told. Plenty of excellent stories have been told in 12-issue arcs, or even less.
And if that dream can't be reached, I could be happy with a regular ongoing Magic comic book. Wizards cannot stop creating new planeswalkers because they need to mix in new ones with the familiar to keep people interested in the cards. And each year there will be more and more planeswalkers that can't be used for longer and longer periods of time. It can't be helped. A block without a single new planeswalker might work once if the overall theme is right, but two years in a row? Three? Players will feel cheated that Wizards is only recycling planeswalkers we've seen before. (Perhaps that will plateau. There is probably a number large enough that it won't matter, but that won't be any time soon.)
With so many planeswalkers with nothing to do, it seems to me that it only makes sense to allow them to have more prominence in the comics. Maybe Dack will always be the main character, maybe not, but as the years pass IDW will have a larger stable of characters to pull from that are just gathering dust.
If the comic line actually exists years from now. There's the rub. That can't ever happen if no one buys these comics that are coming out now.
It's a good thing the comics are of a pretty high quality, and that IDW is the perfect publisher for Wizards to have made a deal with. And sales have been good enough that IDW is going forward with a second mini-series, but it could end there. Magic certainly doesn't sell enough to get front page status on their website, so my dream is probably already dead.
But still... I'm doing my part and buying the comics. I haven't been disappointed in them so far, and at this point all I can do is hope the comic line doesn't end with The Spell Thief mini-series.
I have to agree with this. And Im with you. The only thing we Vorthos can do is support and hope its enough. Buy the comics.
Apparently they think that if they put better flavor on the cards, it will be enough to satisfy Vorthos. ("look! we made a whole top-down block just for you! don't you like all of this delicious flavor? You don't need books, you have postcards!")
or even worse, that Vorthos isn't important enough to warrant much attention.
I bet Matt Cavotta is turning in his grave...and he's not even dead yet.
In any case, this has all left me wondering what the future of storyline will be. I'm sure they will still spend a considerable amount of time on flavor. MTG's flavor is the main thing that differentiates itself from other games. but it just seems that the ongoing storyline is going to be taking a major backseat.
Am I offbase in assuming this?
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I see only one problem with you saying that "we don't even need a weekly column". Just about every piece of (detailed) lore that you just described as "coming from the cards" actually came from Savor the flavor and since StF is not being produced regularly anymore, the flavor of future sets will FAR less impressive.
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The problem with that is that it is hard to care about a story going on when you don't have a dog in the fight. Without characters that we can grow attached to, the plight of what's going on falls flat.
Why should we CARE what's going on with Innistrad? What's our stake in it?
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
This. I HATED Mirrodin1. I HATED New Phyrexia (needs moar Yawgmoth).
And yet, when The Quest for Karn sucked, I wanted to rewrite it to make it good. Why? Because of two things: 1) Elspeth is awesome and I want her to be well-written (like in Honor Bound) 2) Those short stories from the Mirrodin site actually made me CARE ABOUT THE MIRRANS, especially Thrun and Melira.
Literally, the only reason I care so much about the fall of Mirrodin is because I really liked just about every character in that story arch. One of the things I don't like about Innistrad is that there... really aren't any characters. There's Geralf, Gisa, and Thalia. And I guess Raben, but his story didn't really seem to matter in the big picture. Mikaeus always felt like just a token pope-guy, so I never really cared about him either. Where's my Thrun! Where's my Ria of Bladehold! Where's my Elspeth or my Koth? At least with Mirrodin Besieged, I knew what Tezzeret was up to. This time all I know about Sorin is that he wants to free Avacyn (and since I know how she gets freed, and he's not a part of it... wtf).
Anyway, enough ranting. You get the point.
tl;dr: New Phyrexia Guide was full of characters, plus the War Reports. Innistrad Guide has maybe a couple names (Tovolar? Is there anyone else?), and Gisa, Geralf, and Thalia. So only three characters to care about.
180 Winston Dueling Cube!
Antiquities War-themed Artifact Cube!
I'd rather have the ability for the cards to tour more of a plane or skip ahead significantly in the timeline so we get new stuff, instead of the standard 'Oh man we're in a fight to stop the world from ending. Again.' Getting away from plot-centric sets, at least temporarily, should give us a break from Armageddon.
That said, I'm sad to see the novels end. I would rather have seen the Magic novels continue more in line with D&D (and to a lesser extentthe Planeswalker books) of telling stories completely independent from the current setting of the year. But given that WoTC seems to be trying to get out of publishing entirely, maybe this isn't so surprising.
*facepalms* Wow, just wow. I cannot say anything about that blasphemy. I mean, they pretty much blame us for not appreciating crap? Okay, I see the logic there, they want the Vorthoses to be blind consumers.
And funny thing with the IDW comic is that it isn't even closely connected to the main plot - BAD DECISION there IMO. The card game Bradywalkers are just going to be guest characters in it. It could've been a vehicle now that the novels are shelved.
They were never specific with it tho, but I have a feeling that even the Planeswalker novels have also been shelved.
Serra Stan - Angel Enthusiast - Garruk and Tyvar thirsty follower - Flavor and Art Enthusiast
This saddens me. I personally liked the novels, they were honestly a big part of why I enjoyed playing.
The logic of discontinuing them is upsetting, as they were poor quality so fewer should be sold. But I'm certain they never did well anyways. Oh well.
But I was exited about the new "media" stories. The short stories, war reports, puzzle stuff. Thats all really, really good. I've been let down witht he fact their hasnt been much connection from cards to story. Thalia should have been huge. The short stories should have been about her.
So. Again. I think if they up the short stories, and unique views into the world, but with connection to the cards... I'll be satisfied.
The only problem is this game (like so many other TCGs) has lost any respect for the flavor, story, or even art of the cards because it caters too much to guys obsessed with auto-win mechanics and breaking cards into win-cons.
Granted I've seen some combos have a funky flavor translation (like the Kraj + certain attractive elven women), there are times when I just feel simply exhausted from all the (as Doug Beyer put it one article) 'Vorthos tap dancing'. -.-
Most players aren't competive. By the same token, most players aren't hardcore storyliners either. Most players are casual players. They like that their cards have flavor, but don't care enough about it to go out and buy the books.
I also think this is the current situation. I tried to read one of the last novels, and they really were really badly written. At the same time, I don't think WotC wants to spend enough money to hire a good writer or a "loremaster" to keep continuity with all the stories.
In some ways, these sets being to feel like the very old sets, like The Dark, Fallen Empires, and Legends. There was some flavor and a basic story that can pieced from the cards, but nothing was examined too deeply.
Check the aggression, please. The truth is Magic novels have never sold particularly well, and demand fell. From a financial perspective there's no reason to hire better writers when there appears to be no demand for the books as is.
Books, sad to say, have a limited audience. Tie in books have an even more limited audience.
I am so pissed I feel like punching Chuck ****ing Norris in the face.
Look in all honesty it is our fault, completely and utterly our fault. Well ok not completely, but................. yeah.
I love(d) the books, even the bad ones and all we did is ***** and whine, and grumble, and all that. WotC lurks here more than you think.
Look at where all of our pissant bickering about clockworking has lead....... it lead ****ing nowhere, the books are gone now...... We sure showed them.
But wait at least we still have Savor the Flavor, right? oh. thats right we have a 1054 post long thread here of people complaining about it, and now that's gone too....... riiiiiaaaaaggggghhhhhhtttttt bang up job boys.
What really just gets to me is I obviously love Lili for person reasons, and I've been waiting since Agents of Artifice to get a book devoted to her....... Just as they're about to release 2 books featuring her, it all goes black.
Damn it Brady the books already written, cover art already completed, release the damn thing. I wanted Lili to read it when she got older.
Blah, I can believe that nerdy neckbeards finally accomplish something, and I can't reveal in it, I can't stand behind it, I can't be proud of it.
Well lets just calls this the "John Wilkes Booth of Achievements."
Please keep things civil in the future. Thanks.
-Stardust
Trade Thread
I've been telling myself that but I guess I'm just wishing it could happen faster y'know? So far, there's still too much talk in my area about combos, win-cons, and Johnnies/Spikes/Melvins slurping it all up. At times, I've had those who try to shift from that and get into flavor only for them to demonstrate an even lesser knowledge of lore than I do. (Case in point, my other thread here regarding etherium.)
I have no disagreements with that. It's just these days players still buy cards for the sake of winning the game (at least as far as my area is concerned). Art, story, or flavor text still take a back seat to win-cons and infinite-combos. Heck, I sometimes wonder just how much WotC reels in from tournaments compared to anything flavor-related.
Savor the Flavor IS coming back. Boy is it ever tiresome to have to say that over and over again. They just couldn't get somebody to take over by the time Doug stepped out. Seriously getting tired of it...
And the Curse of the Chain Veil wasn't exactly going to be great. I've read some of Vornholt's other material, and if you thought Wintermute was bad, then you haven't seen how low a book can sink. Brady flat out stated that the book was so far off their expectations they COULDN'T publish it. Just think about that, if they printed Quest for Karn, how off must Curse have been?
What's more, is that Curse was supposed to have been out BEFORE Mirrodin started. It isn't like they had two books about to come out for Liliana. They'd already scrapped one.
This.
And i don't think it's fair to blame the 'boards for what happened. Numbers don't lie, and it basically boiled down to the bottom line. Yeah, the latest round of books have been crappy, but don't forget that even their better books were a niche market at best. We can discuss all day on what they could have done differently marketing-wise for those books, but the end result is still that NONE of their books did well, regardless of the quality of the writing. and our complaints about StF really don't seem to factor much into them taking it off the shelf for a while. if that were the case, They'd have pulled the plug on Beyer months ago.
and yeah, Lilly's book was stillborn for a reason. your desire reminds me of the Monkey's Paw story where the wife wished to see her son after he died, and the son came knocking at the door...:rolleyes:
trust me. You didn't want that book.
Click the pic for more info.
Curse of the Chain Veil wasn't going to be great, and they smartly put their foot down.
And of course the bit about how historically money spent on a Magic novel doesn't equal to how well the book sells and how well it is received is important as well.
What I am saying is I don't want them to continue to produce bad novels with the storylines. I want StF to come back (which I know is...eventually) and I just want something more. Something to produce the story as full as they can and appeal to my needs as one of their target demographics/consumers so that I don't continually wonder what is going on in the story they claim is there.
(Non-fat pack books being relevant to them because the fat packs were discounted so that the books were given away for free, so only the 0.01% of players were actually contributing to their revenue.)
While people may have taken MaRo's remarks as insulting and/or callous, Wizards does what it does (dailymtg, tournaments, making a quality game that constantly changes, but remains balanced most of the time and is aware of power creep) because it sells product. Wizards is appealing all the other Vorthoses by moving to unique settings each year, depicted with unique art styles, and by increasing the prominence of top-down design... and I assume that helps with player retention and enthusiasm for the game. It helps to sell more product.
But for us, the Vorthos part that seeks out more beyond the cards... we are so insignificant in the larger scheme of things and are costing Wizards money instead of making them money. Maybe a fully developed story told in novel form will help encourage us to keep playing and keep buying product, but the man hours it takes to execute on that, especially in proportion to how many of us there are compared to the entire player base... it just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sense so much that the plot of each set is going to reduce in complexity.
The only potential light at the end of the tunnel, a light that might not even be there, is that a simpler plot can be told more easily in comic book form. A huge problem with a lot of the webcomics is that they felt rushed. When you compared them to their counterparts in the novels, it was easy to see why. They were trying to tell too much in a limited page count.
The dream for me, at this point, would be for a 12-part mini-series that covered the central story of each block. The planewalkers already do feel like comic book characters anyway, and climaxes that don't end in deaths of the villain in a comic book is standard practice. (Which would work nicely if the central antagonist happened to be a planeswalker like Nicol Bolas, Tezzeret, etc). It can work if the plot is simple enough, and good stories can still be told. Plenty of excellent stories have been told in 12-issue arcs, or even less.
And if that dream can't be reached, I could be happy with a regular ongoing Magic comic book. Wizards cannot stop creating new planeswalkers because they need to mix in new ones with the familiar to keep people interested in the cards. And each year there will be more and more planeswalkers that can't be used for longer and longer periods of time. It can't be helped. A block without a single new planeswalker might work once if the overall theme is right, but two years in a row? Three? Players will feel cheated that Wizards is only recycling planeswalkers we've seen before. (Perhaps that will plateau. There is probably a number large enough that it won't matter, but that won't be any time soon.)
With so many planeswalkers with nothing to do, it seems to me that it only makes sense to allow them to have more prominence in the comics. Maybe Dack will always be the main character, maybe not, but as the years pass IDW will have a larger stable of characters to pull from that are just gathering dust.
If the comic line actually exists years from now. There's the rub. That can't ever happen if no one buys these comics that are coming out now.
It's a good thing the comics are of a pretty high quality, and that IDW is the perfect publisher for Wizards to have made a deal with. And sales have been good enough that IDW is going forward with a second mini-series, but it could end there. Magic certainly doesn't sell enough to get front page status on their website, so my dream is probably already dead.
But still... I'm doing my part and buying the comics. I haven't been disappointed in them so far, and at this point all I can do is hope the comic line doesn't end with The Spell Thief mini-series.
I have to agree with this. And Im with you. The only thing we Vorthos can do is support and hope its enough. Buy the comics.