Anyone care to summarize so I don't have to sit through 48 minutes for the handful of MTGO relevant details? (I hate this new trend of doing everything over audio/podcasts, as if everyone has ample time to listen to such things instead of skimming text efficiently.)
We are lazy programmers who lean hard on the libraries provided by Microsoft (which is why XP is no longer supported). There are "plans" to address memory leaks in each sprint - and if you want to stream, you should get a better computer since the streaming programs also take a lot of memory. The new client still makes the same reliance on Microsoft libraries, so there are no immediate plans for native Mac or mobile play.
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Half a billion in revenue in the last two years. "We have a team of 4 people". ~5:15. I know he said dev's are basically in another department, but if the Dev's aren't talking to the customers and he's filtering what we're really saying, of course we have a crappy product.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Half a billion in revenue in the last two years. "We have a team of 4 people". ~5:15. I know he said dev's are basically in another department, but if the Dev's aren't talking to the customers and he's filtering what we're really saying, of course we have a crappy product.
lol that's such bull*****. "The devs are in another department."
Any big game that is run competently allows communications between the actual devs and the players. Look at how MMOs do it. Wizards is just lazy and cheap and they feel no sense of accountability.
Four people? LOL. I bet they spent less than a couple hundred thousand dollars on this client, out of their millions and millions.
Half a billion in revenue in the last two years. "We have a team of 4 people". ~5:15. I know he said dev's are basically in another department, but if the Dev's aren't talking to the customers and he's filtering what we're really saying, of course we have a crappy product.
I get the feeling that the people who are doing the designing either don't have a clue, or are overly attached to certain ideas and are clinging to them like their jobs depend on it, and the people who are handed the design to actually code it are doing the best they can with what they are given.
As someone who has never programmed with WPF, is MainNavigation the default name for the main form when you start a new project?
Well as Jon Loucks said in his "Why I Quit Wizards" post, most of the people haven't been there very long in the MODO department. In all likelyhood, zero people who started coding this turd of a client are actually still there. Most likely its inexperience in coding which is why they started building on default Microsuck code. After all, MODO is being built on the cheap.
Well as Jon Loucks said in his "Why I Quit Wizards" post, most of the people haven't been there very long in the MODO department. In all likelyhood, zero people who started coding this turd of a client are actually still there. Most likely its inexperience in coding which is why they started building on default Microsuck code. After all, MODO is being built on the cheap.
There are also alot of things design wise that you look at and think "Why would they do *thing X* in that way?" and thats not the fault of the programmer, they are given design documents that outline what is wanted, they just translate that into code.
The fact that they needed to bring in outside specialists does say alot though, clearly the people they had could code in WPF, they were just no-where near experienced enough to code in it well, going by what they were being paid, I would expect there were a number of graduates, because they weren't willing to pay the money for experience.
It's a bit unfair to compare to Hearthstone. Of course Blizzard can make a slick Hearthstone client -- they put out major gaming releases every year. Once you've programmed the UI for something as complicated as World of Warcraft, a card game is pretty easy. WotC/Hasbro doesn't put out major releases. Though it does make you wonder why MTGO can't look at least as good as Duels of the Planeswalkers? I recall even the original Duels looked more clean than this client.
I also don't understand why the card have to look so fake. Why can't they look like images of real cards? That to me would make a big difference.
It's a bit unfair to compare to Hearthstone. Of course Blizzard can make a slick Hearthstone client -- they put out major gaming releases every year. Once you've programmed the UI for something as complicated as World of Warcraft, a card game is pretty easy. WotC/Hasbro doesn't put out major releases. Though it does make you wonder why MTGO can't look at least as good as Duels of the Planeswalkers? I recall even the original Duels looked more clean than this client.
I also don't understand why the card have to look so fake. Why can't they look like images of real cards? That to me would make a big difference.
I don't understand how they went BACKWARDS regarding the way the cards look. V4 cards look fake, like you said...V3 at least passed as realistic looking cards.
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What magic online needs is recognition from its directorate that it could become so much more than it currently is.
A huge problem with this comparison is that Hearthstone is not a paper game. As I understand it, Magic still makes most of its money from paper cards. This is likely misguided and becoming more so as time goes by and more and more things become digital, but I believe someone at WotC feels it's important to not damage the paper game with the online client. Of course the online client can be leaps and bounds better than paper -- but then the paper business might dry up, and they seem unwilling to take that chance. Blizzard doesn't have the risk of cannibalizing its own existing product.
Blizzard realized that vulnerability and went directly at WotC with a polished, online-only alternative. I honestly don't think WotC cares about being compared to Hearthstone, because for whatever reason they still want to sell dead trees.
Also let's not forget that many CCGs have experienced early popularity and then withered away because there was no lasting design space. Remember "Marvel Versus"? They threw a ton of support at it, for a time it was "bigger than Magic." It lasted 4 years. The only other CCGs that have had prolonged success were piggybacking off popular cartoons: Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Other games couldn't survive even with great tie-ins: the various Star Wars CCGs come to mind.
So let's not crown Hearthstone the new champion until it survives past the novelty phase.
We were told that many of the issues (loading speed, memory leaks) would be fixed when V3 turned off. This has not happened.
To be fair, it's been like 3 business days since they shut down V3. Did you really think all that stuff was getting solved overnight?
What magic online needs is recognition from its directorate that it could become so much more than it currently is.
A huge problem with this comparison is that Hearthstone is not a paper game. As I understand it, Magic still makes most of its money from paper cards. This is likely misguided and becoming more so as time goes by and more and more things become digital, but I believe someone at WotC feels it's important to not damage the paper game with the online client. Of course the online client can be leaps and bounds better than paper -- but then the paper business might dry up, and they seem unwilling to take that chance. Blizzard doesn't have the risk of cannibalizing its own existing product.
Blizzard realized that vulnerability and went directly at WotC with a polished, online-only alternative. I honestly don't think WotC cares about being compared to Hearthstone, because for whatever reason they still want to sell dead trees.
Also let's not forget that many CCGs have experienced early popularity and then withered away because there was no lasting design space. Remember "Marvel Versus"? They threw a ton of support at it, for a time it was "bigger than Magic." It lasted 4 years. The only other CCGs that have had prolonged success were piggybacking off popular cartoons: Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Other games couldn't survive even with great tie-ins: the various Star Wars CCGs come to mind.
So let's not crown Hearthstone the new champion until it survives past the novelty phase.
We were told that many of the issues (loading speed, memory leaks) would be fixed when V3 turned off. This has not happened.
To be fair, it's been like 3 business days since they shut down V3. Did you really think all that stuff was getting solved overnight?
Vs was killed off because they took away the licence, I'm pretty sure it still had plenty of life left in it.
Regarding your last statement, I don't think it was going to get solved overnight, it should have been solved well before the old client was shut off. The client right now is where it should have been a year ago, instead they stubbornly stumbled on making small improvements until they realised that turn off date was getting closer and got outside help.
Either he or Worth stated that having V3 and V4 running simultaneously was strenuous for their servers, and that closing down V3 would mean an immediate improvement in V4.
I don't think any of us individually is capable of assessing overall server performance over a weekend. How can you say with certainty that stability improvements have not been made? A lot of people are just now making the switch so the server activity on V4 probably shot up.
I don't think it was going to get solved overnight, it should have been solved well before the old client was shut off. The client right now is where it should have been a year ago, instead they stubbornly stumbled on making small improvements until they realised that turn off date was getting closer and got outside help.
The argument though is that it took too many programming resources to keep V3 running, so not enough was devoted to V4. Now that V3 is no longer supported, all of those who worked on it can switch to V4. It will take time for them to make a difference though.
I'm not trying to be a V4 apologist here, I'm just looking for realistic expectations.
The argument though is that it took too many programming resources to keep V3 running, so not enough was devoted to V4. Now that V3 is no longer supported, all of those who worked on it can switch to V4. It will take time for them to make a difference though.
I'm not trying to be a V4 apologist here, I'm just looking for realistic expectations.
The problem (IMO) is that they waited far too long before they brought in outside help to assist the optimization of the client, it should have been painfully obvious to anyone that looked at the beta when it was first shown (in the original spotlight and in the closed beta beforehand) that they were *way* out of their depth with what they were trying to do. Keep in mind that at that point the client had already been in development for something like 2 years. If you really look back to how far the client has progressed, its only really been since they brought in outside help that it has moved along with any kind of real improvement. I mean seriously, who remembers the giant borders around everything that was there for a *long* time before they removed them (to much fanfare), who the hell thought they were ever a good idea?
They should have bit the bullet far earlier and increased the investment in the new client (the contracting of the outside team) instead of letting it slowly plod along for so long.
No we're not! MTGO is free. You choose to enter events or buy additional products. If the client prevents you from playing properly, you get a refund and keep the product. (They are very good about giving refunds.) If you don't like the game, don't play it! We did not pay for a client made to our specifications. You might feel that way, but it's misplaced loyalty -- thinking that by being a loyal customer, you've earned something.
They have every right to publish a completely horrible game client. They also have every right to shut it down, without notice. You have every right to stop paying them.
Any expectations of quality that you have are purely fabricated in your mind. They did not offer a service at a particular price and fail to provide it, or fail to offer a refund in its place. We can hope for better but that's all.
This is not like when a game ships with a $60 price tag and is unplayable. Technically MTGO is free-to-play software with a lot of premium upgrades.
No we're not! MTGO is free. You choose to enter events or buy additional products. If the client prevents you from playing properly, you get a refund and keep the product. (They are very good about giving refunds.) If you don't like the game, don't play it! We did not pay for a client made to our specifications. You might feel that way, but it's misplaced loyalty -- thinking that by being a loyal customer, you've earned something.
They have every right to publish a completely horrible game client. They also have every right to shut it down, without notice. You have every right to stop paying them.
Any expectations of quality that you have are purely fabricated in your mind. They did not offer a service at a particular price and fail to provide it, or fail to offer a refund in its place. We can hope for better but that's all.
This is not like when a game ships with a $60 price tag and is unplayable. Technically MTGO is free-to-play software with a lot of premium upgrades.
Extremely dumb post. MTGO is not "free" by any definition of the word. It costs money to acquire cards on it. Period.
Honestly, you sound like you're fanboying. Can't take any of your arguments seriously. And btw, since our last conversation about the client crashing I have crashed at least 15 times.
Two years in beta. Half a billion dollars in profits during those two years. 99% of player feedback ignored, even on extremely obvious bugs. Incompetence and greed.
I stand by what I said. If you don't like the client, don't use it. If you want to improve it, voice your issues to Wizards. But expecting a certain level of quality is just wishful thinking and thinking that you're paying for the service is flawed. You're paying for cards (which you always get to keep) and you're paying for events (which are always refunded when they fail). The client itself is not the product.
This isn't like an MMO where you're paying in advance for a certain level of service over time.
thinking that you're paying for the service is flawed. You're paying for cards (which you always get to keep) and you're paying for events (which are always refunded when they fail). The client itself is not the product.
Oh OK, well in that case they can just get rid of Magic Online, and we can all play games against each other via email. Or maybe we could use facebook or forums to play. And then we can somehow mail each other the cards and packs that we win oh wait we can't everything is electronic the client IS the product your argument is utterly and completely nonsensical.
Oh OK, well in that case they can just get rid of Magic Online
Yes! They can do that if they want, because it's not a subscription service that we've paid for. It's in the terms of service, they can shut it down tomorrow if they wanted to.
We were told that many of the issues (loading speed, memory leaks) would be fixed when V3 turned off. This has not happened.
To be fair, it's been like 3 business days since they shut down V3. Did you really think all that stuff was getting solved overnight?
Uh what? Haven't they been developing V4 for more than a year now? If it was a problem during the beta (and it was) it should have been fixed a long time ago. I can't even build a deck without getting fatal error messages now. I spend more time waiting to be logged in than I get in the actual program itself.
They also discuss Hearthstone. Marshall specifically asks "Why can't magic be more like hearthstone" and Jon gives a detailed answer. He says MTGO have been planning a lot of the features that Hearthstone had, but they just got there first.
Really? MTGO has been around for over twelve years, not counting the initial public beta. Hearthstone less than one year, including their public beta. So "they just got there first" sounds awfully stupid.
They also discuss Hearthstone. Marshall specifically asks "Why can't magic be more like hearthstone" and Jon gives a detailed answer. He says MTGO have been planning a lot of the features that Hearthstone had, but they just got there first.
Really? MTGO has been around for over twelve years, not counting the initial public beta. Hearthstone less than one year, including their public beta. So "they just got there first" sounds awfully stupid.
I'm pretty sure he means that people within the company have been trying to pitch ideas similar to what hearthstone is doing (I assume around the play models, the arena type events etc) since well before Hearthstone was put into beta, but no-one was interested. Suddenly hearthstone is released and is a massive success, and all the higher ups in WOTC are suddenly asking why can't MTGO do that. I can only assume the people who constantly got knocked back just shook their head and walked away.
There are areas within the company that simply don't have a clue about how to go forward in the digital realm and are stubbornly trying to force what works for paper and make it work for digital.
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Get it together, Wollpert!
We are lazy programmers who lean hard on the libraries provided by Microsoft (which is why XP is no longer supported). There are "plans" to address memory leaks in each sprint - and if you want to stream, you should get a better computer since the streaming programs also take a lot of memory. The new client still makes the same reliance on Microsoft libraries, so there are no immediate plans for native Mac or mobile play.
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Ebay - decks/Promos/DVDs
Trade thread (constantly updated)
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lol that's such bull*****. "The devs are in another department."
Any big game that is run competently allows communications between the actual devs and the players. Look at how MMOs do it. Wizards is just lazy and cheap and they feel no sense of accountability.
Four people? LOL. I bet they spent less than a couple hundred thousand dollars on this client, out of their millions and millions.
I get the feeling that the people who are doing the designing either don't have a clue, or are overly attached to certain ideas and are clinging to them like their jobs depend on it, and the people who are handed the design to actually code it are doing the best they can with what they are given.
As someone who has never programmed with WPF, is MainNavigation the default name for the main form when you start a new project?
There are also alot of things design wise that you look at and think "Why would they do *thing X* in that way?" and thats not the fault of the programmer, they are given design documents that outline what is wanted, they just translate that into code.
The fact that they needed to bring in outside specialists does say alot though, clearly the people they had could code in WPF, they were just no-where near experienced enough to code in it well, going by what they were being paid, I would expect there were a number of graduates, because they weren't willing to pay the money for experience.
I also don't understand why the card have to look so fake. Why can't they look like images of real cards? That to me would make a big difference.
I don't understand how they went BACKWARDS regarding the way the cards look. V4 cards look fake, like you said...V3 at least passed as realistic looking cards.
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Winner of SCG Worcester Team Sealed Open with Gerard Fabiano and Curtis Sheu, September 28, 2013
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A huge problem with this comparison is that Hearthstone is not a paper game. As I understand it, Magic still makes most of its money from paper cards. This is likely misguided and becoming more so as time goes by and more and more things become digital, but I believe someone at WotC feels it's important to not damage the paper game with the online client. Of course the online client can be leaps and bounds better than paper -- but then the paper business might dry up, and they seem unwilling to take that chance. Blizzard doesn't have the risk of cannibalizing its own existing product.
Blizzard realized that vulnerability and went directly at WotC with a polished, online-only alternative. I honestly don't think WotC cares about being compared to Hearthstone, because for whatever reason they still want to sell dead trees.
Also let's not forget that many CCGs have experienced early popularity and then withered away because there was no lasting design space. Remember "Marvel Versus"? They threw a ton of support at it, for a time it was "bigger than Magic." It lasted 4 years. The only other CCGs that have had prolonged success were piggybacking off popular cartoons: Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Other games couldn't survive even with great tie-ins: the various Star Wars CCGs come to mind.
So let's not crown Hearthstone the new champion until it survives past the novelty phase.
To be fair, it's been like 3 business days since they shut down V3. Did you really think all that stuff was getting solved overnight?
Vs was killed off because they took away the licence, I'm pretty sure it still had plenty of life left in it.
Regarding your last statement, I don't think it was going to get solved overnight, it should have been solved well before the old client was shut off. The client right now is where it should have been a year ago, instead they stubbornly stumbled on making small improvements until they realised that turn off date was getting closer and got outside help.
I don't think any of us individually is capable of assessing overall server performance over a weekend. How can you say with certainty that stability improvements have not been made? A lot of people are just now making the switch so the server activity on V4 probably shot up.
The argument though is that it took too many programming resources to keep V3 running, so not enough was devoted to V4. Now that V3 is no longer supported, all of those who worked on it can switch to V4. It will take time for them to make a difference though.
I'm not trying to be a V4 apologist here, I'm just looking for realistic expectations.
The problem (IMO) is that they waited far too long before they brought in outside help to assist the optimization of the client, it should have been painfully obvious to anyone that looked at the beta when it was first shown (in the original spotlight and in the closed beta beforehand) that they were *way* out of their depth with what they were trying to do. Keep in mind that at that point the client had already been in development for something like 2 years. If you really look back to how far the client has progressed, its only really been since they brought in outside help that it has moved along with any kind of real improvement. I mean seriously, who remembers the giant borders around everything that was there for a *long* time before they removed them (to much fanfare), who the hell thought they were ever a good idea?
They should have bit the bullet far earlier and increased the investment in the new client (the contracting of the outside team) instead of letting it slowly plod along for so long.
No we're not! MTGO is free. You choose to enter events or buy additional products. If the client prevents you from playing properly, you get a refund and keep the product. (They are very good about giving refunds.) If you don't like the game, don't play it! We did not pay for a client made to our specifications. You might feel that way, but it's misplaced loyalty -- thinking that by being a loyal customer, you've earned something.
They have every right to publish a completely horrible game client. They also have every right to shut it down, without notice. You have every right to stop paying them.
Any expectations of quality that you have are purely fabricated in your mind. They did not offer a service at a particular price and fail to provide it, or fail to offer a refund in its place. We can hope for better but that's all.
This is not like when a game ships with a $60 price tag and is unplayable. Technically MTGO is free-to-play software with a lot of premium upgrades.
Warning for Trolling
Extremely dumb post. MTGO is not "free" by any definition of the word. It costs money to acquire cards on it. Period.
Honestly, you sound like you're fanboying. Can't take any of your arguments seriously. And btw, since our last conversation about the client crashing I have crashed at least 15 times.
Two years in beta. Half a billion dollars in profits during those two years. 99% of player feedback ignored, even on extremely obvious bugs. Incompetence and greed.
This isn't like an MMO where you're paying in advance for a certain level of service over time.
Oh OK, well in that case they can just get rid of Magic Online, and we can all play games against each other via email. Or maybe we could use facebook or forums to play. And then we can somehow mail each other the cards and packs that we win oh wait we can't everything is electronic the client IS the product your argument is utterly and completely nonsensical.
Yes! They can do that if they want, because it's not a subscription service that we've paid for. It's in the terms of service, they can shut it down tomorrow if they wanted to.
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Uh what? Haven't they been developing V4 for more than a year now? If it was a problem during the beta (and it was) it should have been fixed a long time ago. I can't even build a deck without getting fatal error messages now. I spend more time waiting to be logged in than I get in the actual program itself.
Really? MTGO has been around for over twelve years, not counting the initial public beta. Hearthstone less than one year, including their public beta. So "they just got there first" sounds awfully stupid.
I'm pretty sure he means that people within the company have been trying to pitch ideas similar to what hearthstone is doing (I assume around the play models, the arena type events etc) since well before Hearthstone was put into beta, but no-one was interested. Suddenly hearthstone is released and is a massive success, and all the higher ups in WOTC are suddenly asking why can't MTGO do that. I can only assume the people who constantly got knocked back just shook their head and walked away.
There are areas within the company that simply don't have a clue about how to go forward in the digital realm and are stubbornly trying to force what works for paper and make it work for digital.