That's exactly why my ideal would be both an ongoing series where IDW has freedom to do what they need, but to also have a 12 issue mini series representing each block where Wizards had more input and gave more direction.
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 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.
Which is a bit impossible since 1.) The promotional pic has Jace and Niv. Unless time travel is squeezed in there somewhere, it's pretty clear that it's set after the books and thus loooong after the Guildpact was gone and the guilds disbanded.
Poor phrasing on my part. I didn't mean the immediate fallout. I just meant that while the post-Guildpact world was shown in the books, they still need to depict it in the cards (which I'm certain will be a non-wedge fashion.)
For the record, I too both think that wedge guilds are highly unlikely, and I would be extremely opposed to it. It just wouldn't make sense as a player to see wedges in the guild set. Those are for a return to Alara or an entirely different plane.
I'm having trouble enough as it is imagining the set without the guilds because those were the key identity to everyone who followed the story and for those who just played the cards (People still refer to themselves as [Insert Guild Name of Choice Here] and refer to present day decks by the associated Guild name colors to this day), but I can see it as a possibility. The set either must have either the return of the Guilds (pick your reason for how that would happen story-wise) or show the actual fallout of the end of the Guildpact.
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.
So what are the numbers that people are *actually* complaining about. How many mythics in a set, how many people attend prereleases, and how many how many boosters does Wizards sell per set?
(The only thing that I do know is that Mythics are about twice as rare as Rares.)
And by the way... going to a Prerelease only if the card in question is worth the price of admission sounds insane to me. It's not like you return the cards you actually played with and like there are no other prizes depending on how well you do. And let's not forget the fun of getting to experience a set for the first time.
While I understand that there is now less potential value, I'd be willing to bet that the amount of people that don't attend because of this is no where near large enough to be any kind of concern for Wizards.
It's not really gone. It's just stored in a giant warehouse with "top. men." studying it. It will be in the Comp. Rules, but no new cards will be created with it. Much like banding.
This is wrong. People keep on arguing about something that simply is not true.
Maro did not say they are going to stop making tribal cards. People need to go back and read the article, I've linked back to it and quoted it once or twice in this thread already, and I'll repeat the gist of it again.
Maro said that the Tribal card type is not going to be a major theme within a set anymore, not that they will stop making Tribal cards altogether. In his article he specifically states that there might be special cases, such as with the eldrazi cards, where Tribal may still be used.
Of course Tarmagoyf will still get counters from Tribal cards. They're not erasing the card type (despite its extreme lack of inelegance from a Melvin perspective), it's just now outdated as a card design technology in terms of helping a set come together.
The problem with Alara Reborn wasn't the chapter style, it was that the writing. Especially the dialogue. It was so bland. If the prose had been better it could have worked out fantastically. With a cast that big, set on five different worlds, and cramming that all in to three hundred pages... that's not an easy task. Beyer could have gone The Quest for Karn route and focus on a personal story with just a few characters, and then a more normal chapter structure would work. But with the wide view he took, I think the chapter break up was the right choice. It allowed for a movement in the story that couldn't be as well crafted through words alone because of Beyer's level of skill at word-smithing.
The weakest main character was Ajani in my opinion, while on the other hand I loved Rafiq's innocence when it came to war and how he had to adapt. His ideas, and all of Bant's ideas, when it came to war were so ridiculous that it made it a lot of fun to read. The chapter that stuck out the most to me was when Mubin had to struggle with his paralysis to try to get the attention of anyone, so he could uncover the sword that might be the key to winning the war. It was one of the few chapters that took it's time with anything, and were I could actually feel the struggle of what was going on in the page.
It wasn't a great book, but it didn't make me throw up my hands in the air at how bad it was like the other two. (The other two books were embarrassments as books, with In the Teeth of Akoum being better than The Quest for Karn for number of reasons.)
I actually have Read Through impressions of each chapter of all the block novels, as well as Non-spoiler Reviews on my site if you wanna check them out.
Agree that it's not a fair comparison to blame the state the new "books" when it's just one author that's written two out of the three Block Novels, and it's not fair to blame the Block Novel structure when there are only three of those books, with two of those written by someone who should absolutely be ashamed of calling himself an author. There are currently 66 magic novels, and only six of those are post-mending. Ignoring Wintermute's books as extreme outliers leaves just Shards of Alara as the only example of a Block Novel, which not only had a new author (That was Doug Beyer's first novel right?), but also had a story where five planes each with their own sets of characters and settings needed to be represented. That situation is going to be unique even among future Block Novels to come.
Certainly possible, but I wouldn't read too much into it. Pretty sure that was just meant as a comical response to an oddly phrased question, "Do we know why there's an egg like object between Nicol Bolas's horns?"
Actually, Brady Dommermuth is nearly the exact opposite of Maro on twitter. While Maro can be all over the place, BD is pretty straightforward with all his replies. I'm pretty sure he really does mean that it'll be explained eventually.
(If we like the explanation is a totally different topic.)
Anyone is free to ask him questions on twitter. He openly explained that he doesn't quite get twitter but if anyone asks him a question he'll answer if he can.
No one knows for sure, but I'm going to stick with believing that there will be no more. There is simply no need for them now that the backstories of the planeswalkers are covered, and the new real comic book series coming out. The only thing left would be to explore the landscape of whatever the current plane is, but there are better ways to do that such as the Reports from the Field for New Phyrexia and the whole Josh Brauer viral campaign for Innistrad to compliment the Planeswalker's Guide series.
Experiment gone right? I don't think Blue is the destructive type. Anyone?
That's strange... I didn't delete that post of mine you quoted.
Anyway, there are plenty of reasons for destruction for knowledge's sake. Efficient use of resources, more accurate results through live testing, or simply wanting to do something because it was theoretically possible.
Nothing to debate if you just go to the source. From "State of Design 2011" by Mark Rosewater.
Fourth Stage (Ravnica through Rise of the Eldrazi): This stage was the introduction of block planning. Instead of picking a theme and continuing it through the block, design now planned out how exactly the block was going to evolve. This planning allowed for themes to be better set up and paid off.
Fifth Stage (Scars of Mirrodin through ???): Now we get to last year. What I believe Scars of Mirrodin block has done that shifts design into the next age is to radically change how mechanical themes are looked at and used. For the last two stages, themes have been used as the foundation to build the block on. Starting with Scars of Mirrodin, mechanical themes are now thought of as tools used to put a block together. Metaphorically, themes are no longer the canvas, but the paint.
To better explain, let's evaluate Mirrodin block against Scars of Mirrodin block. Mirrodin block was an artifact block. Every choice made in the set was to highlight the artifact theme. Scars of Mirrodin, on the other hand, was about something that happened on and to the plane of Mirrodin. There was an artifact component, but that was used not the understructure of the design; rather, it was a way to give mechanical identity to the Mirrans.
While eventually Zendikar did shift from just "lands" matter to "Adventure World," land was still the focus. The adventure part was a way to fill out Creative's contribution on how to spin the story of a land block. From "Achieving Zendikar, Part II" by Mark Rosewater.
At some point early in design of a large set, the design lead has to sit down with Brady Dommermuth (Magic's creative director) and decide what the world for the set is going to be. Sometimes that starts with the world, but more often than not the discussion begins with design starting with an element of the mechanical heart of the set. Ravnica started with the idea that we wanted all ten color pairs represented. Lorwyn started with the discussion of what tribes we wanted to support.
Zendikar began with the idea that we were focusing on "land matters" mechanics. The land mattered in this set. What implications did that have for the world? Why is the land so important? This was this nugget that the creative team used as their jumping-off point. The idea they brought back to us was that of an Adventure World where the land held priceless riches yet was also trying to kill the inhabitants. The design team thought of it as sort of an Indiana Jones-type world with the dial set to 11. Remember the opening sequence to "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? What if the whole world was like the opening?
So out of this whole sub-series of posts, the change in design began with Scars of Mirrodin, but FoxBat was right about the shift moving away from mechanic themed to a more broader outlook to include more flavor from the get go.
(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.
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.
Poor phrasing on my part. I didn't mean the immediate fallout. I just meant that while the post-Guildpact world was shown in the books, they still need to depict it in the cards (which I'm certain will be a non-wedge fashion.)
I'm having trouble enough as it is imagining the set without the guilds because those were the key identity to everyone who followed the story and for those who just played the cards (People still refer to themselves as [Insert Guild Name of Choice Here] and refer to present day decks by the associated Guild name colors to this day), but I can see it as a possibility. The set either must have either the return of the Guilds (pick your reason for how that would happen story-wise) or show the actual fallout of the end of the Guildpact.
(The only thing that I do know is that Mythics are about twice as rare as Rares.)
And by the way... going to a Prerelease only if the card in question is worth the price of admission sounds insane to me. It's not like you return the cards you actually played with and like there are no other prizes depending on how well you do. And let's not forget the fun of getting to experience a set for the first time.
While I understand that there is now less potential value, I'd be willing to bet that the amount of people that don't attend because of this is no where near large enough to be any kind of concern for Wizards.
This is wrong. People keep on arguing about something that simply is not true.
Maro did not say they are going to stop making tribal cards. People need to go back and read the article, I've linked back to it and quoted it once or twice in this thread already, and I'll repeat the gist of it again.
Maro said that the Tribal card type is not going to be a major theme within a set anymore, not that they will stop making Tribal cards altogether. In his article he specifically states that there might be special cases, such as with the eldrazi cards, where Tribal may still be used.
Of course Tarmagoyf will still get counters from Tribal cards. They're not erasing the card type (despite its extreme lack of inelegance from a Melvin perspective), it's just now outdated as a card design technology in terms of helping a set come together.
The weakest main character was Ajani in my opinion, while on the other hand I loved Rafiq's innocence when it came to war and how he had to adapt. His ideas, and all of Bant's ideas, when it came to war were so ridiculous that it made it a lot of fun to read. The chapter that stuck out the most to me was when Mubin had to struggle with his paralysis to try to get the attention of anyone, so he could uncover the sword that might be the key to winning the war. It was one of the few chapters that took it's time with anything, and were I could actually feel the struggle of what was going on in the page.
It wasn't a great book, but it didn't make me throw up my hands in the air at how bad it was like the other two. (The other two books were embarrassments as books, with In the Teeth of Akoum being better than The Quest for Karn for number of reasons.)
I actually have Read Through impressions of each chapter of all the block novels, as well as Non-spoiler Reviews on my site if you wanna check them out.
Actually, Brady Dommermuth is nearly the exact opposite of Maro on twitter. While Maro can be all over the place, BD is pretty straightforward with all his replies. I'm pretty sure he really does mean that it'll be explained eventually.
(If we like the explanation is a totally different topic.)
Anyone is free to ask him questions on twitter. He openly explained that he doesn't quite get twitter but if anyone asks him a question he'll answer if he can.
That's strange... I didn't delete that post of mine you quoted.
Anyway, there are plenty of reasons for destruction for knowledge's sake. Efficient use of resources, more accurate results through live testing, or simply wanting to do something because it was theoretically possible.
While eventually Zendikar did shift from just "lands" matter to "Adventure World," land was still the focus. The adventure part was a way to fill out Creative's contribution on how to spin the story of a land block. From "Achieving Zendikar, Part II" by Mark Rosewater.
So out of this whole sub-series of posts, the change in design began with Scars of Mirrodin, but FoxBat was right about the shift moving away from mechanic themed to a more broader outlook to include more flavor from the get go.