In all fairness, there was a lot more constructive criticism of the first book. The cries of biphobia and erasure only started with the release of the second book, several months later (and which had many of the same problems as the first beside).
Yeah but try to think with the mind of a hasbro/wotc businessman. After seeing dozen of "Biphobia reeeeeeeee" messages on your company social media, the easiest and safest move is to write out a fast apology, delete every other project and pretend that nothing happened.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
In all fairness, there was a lot more constructive criticism of the first book. The cries of biphobia and erasure only started with the release of the second book, several months later (and which had many of the same problems as the first beside).
Yeah but try to think with the mind of a hasbro/wotc businessman. After seeing dozen of "Biphobia reeeeeeeee" messages on your company social media, the easiest and safest move is to write out a fast apology, delete every other project and pretend that nothing happened.
Oh sure, but that's not really the fanbase's fault for voicing legitimate complaints. Sure, some may have been a bit, shall we say "overzealous" about it, but those types of fans exist everywhere and always have, and probably aren't the same ones who are really upset at the lack of anything for Theros, so again it hardly seems fair to blame them for it.
Honestly i don't get what they think will gain from such sterile and toxic discussion.
The whole level of toxicity is quite fun actually, considering it's probably what convinced wotc to cancel the novel in the first place
wotc: release a bad novel
mtg community: instead of providing constructive criticism, spam "biphobia! biphobia!" on every wotc channel, especially the unrelated ones (like secret lair announcements)
wotc: decided to not release novels anymore
mtg community: *surprised pikachu*, more toxicity
Zendikar vs Rath, Zendikar winning with 74%. I don't know why Mark put Dominaria twice in this poll.
small correction: Rath is not Dominaria.
Rath was a separate, artificial plane made to fuse with Dominaria during the phyrexian invasion.
Rath's current status: overlayed with Dominaria. As in part of it and that if you planeswalked to Rath, you also planeswalked to Dominaria and vice-a-versa.
But I get what you're saying.
Quote from DJK3654 »
New Phyrexia and Mirrodin are seperate for a good reason: they would be different sets with different fanbases. Rath is a separate plane, it just got merged with Dominaria; theoretically it could be separated again. Whether or not either of them *should* be separate options is rather subjective.
Seems like splitting hairs for Argentum/Mirrodin/New Phyrexia.
EDIT: If your goal is the link go visit his blog for the post. But the post is basically a list of planes and the people would comment. The next post is the tallied amount. Essentially its a free for all instead of a bracket-system. He also did something similar for a 'type' of plane such as 'water plane' or 'steampunk plane' and one of stipulations of that is 'no wild west plane' as the last time he tried that it got hijacked by 'wild west'.
I'm assuming that the main reason why Rath was on the list is that it was referring to the plane as it was presented in the Tempest block.
Same reason why there are both Mirrodin and New Phyrexia.
Yet I'm surprised there wasn't the distinction between Dragons Tarkir and Khans Tarkir. They are different enough to warrant the Mirrodin / New Phyrexia split.
I'm just here wondering why Tiro (of Meletis) continues to insist that the book was already written. It's pretty clear that the story content of these sets is one of the last things to come together, there's no reason to believe that theros had gotten any further than an outline. Whether or not it was going to be by Weisman is pretty much irrelevant. Creative is an entire team of folks and when their huge marquee avengers endgame type storyline lands with a wet splat folks are going to freak out and reassess what they're doing. Folks are going to get let go, projects are going to be reassigned, and so on. Sure it's upsetting that it's return to theros that's bearing the brunt, but it's almost certainly a timing thing and not a sinister conspiracy based on sheer popularity.
Oh sure, but that's not really the fanbase's fault for voicing legitimate complaints.
There are always wrng ways to give a message, even if the message itself is right. I bet that corporates or market researchers did a quick count of people complaining VS people who actually bought the novel and you can easily guess which number was bigger. That means that the novel was just terrible advertisement, so cancel them.
"aye saproling?" said the forgotten planeswalker, grinning their forgotten grin
I don't think that even if you are able to prove that Lorwyn and Kamigawa are the most beloved plane somthing will change. The backlash was freaking huge. Corporates will see that thanks to a novel their company became a laughing stock at best and a bunch of bigoted and non-inclusive people at worst. And if they try to be super progressive they will risk to lose customers in Russia and China. Yeah no thanks, they will just cancel the novels and continue selling the cards that will be sold nonetheless. Innistrad proved that a new plane can be loved even without novels.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
There are always wrng ways to give a message, even if the message itself is right.
Absolutely. I'm just saying, your original point made out that there were no legitimate complaints being made, it was all just screams of "Biphobia!", and that's definitely not the case. It also lumped those with the legitimate concerns voiced in a sensible way together with those screaming zealots, and blamed them all as one whole group. Which, again, is not the case.
I'm not sure what is being expected here. The entirety of the fanbase have to all learn correct rhetorical methods to criticize bisexual erasure on the internet? In 2019?
It seems pretty reasonable to me if your customers are unhappy with the quality of your product, you improve that product. Discontinuing it altogether, if it negatively affects the rest of what you're selling, will just make your customers unhappy with your other products.
It seems pretty reasonable to me if your customers are unhappy with the quality of your product, you improve that product. Discontinuing it altogether, if it negatively affects the rest of what you're selling, will just make your customers unhappy with your other products.
They didn't before (novels were discontinued for 2 times, if my memory is right), they should now?
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
It seems pretty reasonable to me if your customers are unhappy with the quality of your product, you improve that product. Discontinuing it altogether, if it negatively affects the rest of what you're selling, will just make your customers unhappy with your other products.
They didn't before (novels were discontinued for 2 times, if my memory is right), they should now?
When they weren't writing novels they got vocal criticism from the Vorthoses that there should novels. My guess is that had something to do with them being produced again.
I would like to state again that deep lore enriches fan culture. When that declines, other IPs become more competitive.
The appropriate response to Hiring an incompetent author who wrote terrible, insensitive and genuinely offensive books would be to apologize, Cease working with that author, and at worst delay the Theros novel for review by creative before committing to release Not cancel it.
Depriving Vorthos of lore for having a justified reaction to something that is WOTC’s fault is not right. Blame Weisman, and stop this victim blaming. The WOTS novels were genuinely the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and Chandra sounded like a homophobic parent trying to talk their children out of a “phase” actually. And it was deserving of all the blacklash and far more.
Harming your brand and fan base over legitimate concerns by ruining Theros only adds to the controversy and frankly is convincing enough for disenfranchisement.
Why isn’t Nic Kelman answering for all this? Why are Theros fans answering for it instead? Did Theros fans hire Greg, outsource the material and put it behind a paywall and screw over in-house creative by firing Digges and taking creative control from people like Digges, Luhrs, Kreines (who improved dramatically with SOI and is actually impressive), and other masters of the lore?
The appropriate response to Hiring an incompetent author who wrote terrible, insensitive and genuinely offensive books would be to apologize, Cease working with that author, and at worst delay the Theros novel for review by creative before committing to release Not cancel it.
Depriving Vorthos of lore for having a justified reaction to something that is WOTC’s fault is not right. Blame Weisman, and stop this victim blaming. The WOTS novels were genuinely the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and Chandra sounded like a homophobic parent trying to talk their children out of a “phase” actually. And it was deserving of all the blacklash and far more.
Harming your brand and fan base over legitimate concerns by ruining Theros only adds to the controversy and frankly is convincing enough for disenfranchisement.
Why isn’t Nic Kelman answering for all this? Why are Theros fans answering for it instead? Did Theros fans hire Greg, outsource the material and put it behind a paywall and screw over in-house creative by firing Digges and taking creative control from people like Digges, Luhrs, Kreines (who improved dramatically with SOI and is actually impressive), and other masters of the lore?
You get that this by and large illustrates the point about WotC being cautious of utilizing lore as marketing materials for their gaming products because of an overall toxic response to a recent blunder of a marketing element, yeah? Which isn't to say fans weren't justified in their response to that previous marketing tool, just that it's ultimately unsurprising that WotC would be in a pause for reassessment phase after the backlash and that because of timing, Theros is the set impacted.
Particularly if there were concerns that the Theros lore-related products would not be sufficient to recover from the previous lore blunder that was the resolution to War of the Spark - or may even make things worse. WotC is a business and lore is a tool they use to sell sets and build (as has been pointed out above) a fan culture, which they only care about because engaged audiences buy more of your stuff. If as a result of the WotS backlash they now had concerns about how their marketing tool could still be effective, what we're seeing now is a tangible consequence of that. I get that it's frustrating, truly, but a big business is going to do what they think is best for their business, and that may not always align with what Vorthos fans want.
The controversy here, such that it is, is much ado about nothing. A business fumbles a product, fans cry out, business turtles up to reassess that element of their operation to ensure it's fulfilling its role as a marketing tool for more profitable elements of the operation and not causing more damage.
They proceeded with Eldraine though. And there was no backlash or cry out over that ebook. It’s a sign that Weisman was the issue, not lore. So unless Weisman penned the Theros ebook (doubtful) I don’t see the purpose of withholding Theros lore. I do understand your point, I just don’t find it reasonable to take such an approach.
I've been waiting almost a decade for the last Kingkiller book, surely skipping a few months of supplemental material for a card game doesn't warrant so many tears.
I've been waiting almost a decade for the last Kingkiller book, surely skipping a few months of supplemental material for a card game doesn't warrant so many tears.
The problem with that line of thinking is that skipping a few months is not what is happening. Everyone has their favorite settings or their favorite stories, or whatever. Magic is somewhat unique with that. While some of the cast is often pulled from a select few, the stories, and settings, themselves are relatively independent of everything else. That means that the lore of Innistrad is wholly different to that of Ravnica or Eldraine or Theros. Skipping a few months means skipping the story altogether. At best, this would mean that the story gets continued in a better format in 6 years.
For those that love the lore there is an understanding that exploring it further for each setting only comes about once or twice a decade. People aren't necessarily upset that there is no story (though some might be). People are upset that there is no story *for Theros*. This is a setting that people enjoy, that people have invested themselves into learning and knowing about, and who looked forward to the release of this set as a return to the lore so we could know more about it.
With Ravnica getting the attention it did and Eldraine at least getting an eBook (if I understand some of the points so far), it feels like a slap in the face for a plane like Theros, based on Ancient Greece, which has a ton of lore behind it, to be pushed off to the wayside and skipped over. People want these stories to be continued, fleshed out, or finalized and waiting for years for that to happen to then learn at the last minute that they won't get any sort of novel or eBook is frustrating.
It doesn't mean that there aren't valid concerns or criticisms being made by the people that care about the story or that their outcry isn't valid just because this is for a card game.
Nerds on the internet gonna complain about their passions. Though I suppose if the melodrama reaches a certain height the next stage of the nerd dialectic is inevitably complaining about complaining.
My hope is that a consequence of all this is a swift resolution.
They proceeded with Eldraine though. And there was no backlash or cry out over that ebook. It’s a sign that Weisman was the issue, not lore.
Is it? I think that's an assumption based on your personal feelings and biases.
While the initial WotS novel was not well received, correct me if I'm wrong, but the really big blowback wasn't felt until Forsaken came out a month ago ... two months after the Wildered Quest was released. Even if we want to say that WotC was pushed into acting back in the late spring/early summer by reactions to the first WotS novel and subsequent prequel chapters, it's reasonable that they couldn't have stopped the ball rolling on Eldraine stuff. The thing was written, contracts completed, and money exchanged. Corporate operations can be slow to pivot sometimes and if WotC considered the creative department as being a serious enough issue to pause and reassess strategy, it's not suspicious that Eldraine wasn't immediately cancelled. It's not a conspiracy, it probably just wasn't worth the financial losses to cancel a product already announce/advertised/set for release.
That The Wildered Quest was released doesn't say anything about WotC's stance on creative. Weisman is ultimately the one whose work attracted the most negative reactions, and now the business is responding as they were likely to do. I don't think there's any greater need to figure out who to pin this on.
So unless Weisman penned the Theros ebook (doubtful) I don’t see the purpose of withholding Theros lore. I do understand your point, I just don’t find it reasonable to take such an approach.
I'm sure you don't, but your feelings of entitlement to additional creative pieces of your favorite setting aren't the same as the priorities of a large business. To them, the reasonable action is to ensure that all components of their operation are aligned with the goal of selling more product. They appear to have deemed their creative department to be a potential risk to longterm profits and they are pausing to address it. That *is* reasonable because their approach isn't "share creative pursuits to a niche demographic of fans", it's "make money" and the lore you feel they're witholding from you is just a marketing tool in that approach.
I'm sure you don't, but your feelings of entitlement to additional creative pieces of your favorite setting aren't the same as the priorities of a large business. To them, the reasonable action is to ensure that all components of their operation are aligned with the goal of selling more product. They appear to have deemed their creative department to be a potential risk to longterm profits and they are pausing to address it. That *is* reasonable because their approach isn't "share creative pursuits to a niche demographic of fans", it's "make money" and the lore you feel they're witholding from you is just a marketing tool in that approach.
A marketing tool that was, I think we can all agree, more consistent when it was in house rather than farmed out.
I'm sure you don't, but your feelings of entitlement to additional creative pieces of your favorite setting aren't the same as the priorities of a large business. To them, the reasonable action is to ensure that all components of their operation are aligned with the goal of selling more product. They appear to have deemed their creative department to be a potential risk to longterm profits and they are pausing to address it. That *is* reasonable because their approach isn't "share creative pursuits to a niche demographic of fans", it's "make money" and the lore you feel they're witholding from you is just a marketing tool in that approach.
A marketing tool that was, I think we can all agree, more consistent when it was in house rather than farmed out.
I mean, I think that still depends on your standpoint, WotC likely didn't think so since they made that change in the first place. They were looking for a better return on investment, in all likelihood. Fans would largely agree with you, though, I'm sure.
Also that Eldraine ebook was part of a large marketing campaign. As you got your novel, fancy new boosters with special versions of cards from the set and had new art, high quality Disney looking trailer, a bunch of lower quality trailers that were animated, the brawl decks themselves, the pushes for the digital Arena game.
Which is why I bet they didn't can the ebook for Eldraine. They want to appear strong in their 4th quarter. Which is also why they are letting their 1st quarter look weaker as a result as its not as important to investors and they know this. So they see Theros likely as an acceptable causality.
I don't agree with their practice, but it makes the most sense.
Sorry but you think that a big corporate cares more about your feeling or artistic integrity or something like that instead of profits? Where have you been in the last 20-30 years?
The Eldraine novel wasn't cancelled because it was probably already written and ready to be published. Simple as that.
Chandra may have sounded like a terrible bigot. I don't get how this translate into "spam the secret lair announcement page".
The moment the businessmen saw that other products' popularity was harmed by a novel is the moment they decided to cut the novels. Again, simple as that.
I would like to state again that deep lore enriches fan culture. When that declines, other IPs become more competitive.
Sure, except it happened exacty the opposite thanks to the Forsaken novel. Good luck convincing the corporates to still put money and effort in potential harming new novels instead of just cutting it, wait a little and focus on the cards, like the did during Innistrad. And during Innistrad it worked.
Now guys don't me wrong i'm as Vorthos as you and it sucks to see mtg's lore department always get the short straw, but we need to be realist and not delusional. It was clear that something was bound to happen and businessmen always go for the easiest route.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
I'd agree that it's important to understand WotC's point of view, but my concern is that this extends too much into making excuses for them.
Whether or not their decision to cut novels is a reasonable one rests on the underlying assumption about how we, the consumers, react to it. Essentially it's a gamble on how we're going to behave. And we have control over that.
So if we make excuses for them offering us up an inferior product, then they made a good business decision. But if we hold their feet to the fire and demand better, that they don't deliver us something skimped on quality, they'll have to adjust further. So I think we ought to be doing the latter in addition to the insights MikeyG and others have contributed.
Sheep using hunger to justify the wolf’s behavior.
Corporate greed should never be an excuse to compromise customer loyalty and enfranchisement. “That’s just the way it is” or “that’s how we’ve always done it” are dangerous suggestions. If corporate demand strained creative to outsource its material, as I suspect, utilizing them for product development over investment into the brand (lore) to the point that Theros was compromised, then there’s a lot more at stake for them in the long term.
“It’s a card game” from people taking time to post on this forum is rich irony. There is no “it’s fiction” or “it’s a game.” There is only passion.
That said. I’ve likely had too much of that for MTG and with the loss of Theros, I’m retiring as a Vorthos. To the relief and pleasure of some I’m sure.
Yeah but try to think with the mind of a hasbro/wotc businessman. After seeing dozen of "Biphobia reeeeeeeee" messages on your company social media, the easiest and safest move is to write out a fast apology, delete every other project and pretend that nothing happened.
Rath was a separate, artificial plane made to fuse with Dominaria during the phyrexian invasion.
No, that isn't being argued. Then again, I'm not surprised you got that jumbled up considering your previous argumentative points. Rath's current status: overlayed with Dominaria. As in part of it and that if you planeswalked to Rath, you also planeswalked to Dominaria and vice-a-versa.
But I get what you're saying.
Seems like splitting hairs for Argentum/Mirrodin/New Phyrexia.
EDIT: If your goal is the link go visit his blog for the post. But the post is basically a list of planes and the people would comment. The next post is the tallied amount. Essentially its a free for all instead of a bracket-system. He also did something similar for a 'type' of plane such as 'water plane' or 'steampunk plane' and one of stipulations of that is 'no wild west plane' as the last time he tried that it got hijacked by 'wild west'.
Same reason why there are both Mirrodin and New Phyrexia.
Yet I'm surprised there wasn't the distinction between Dragons Tarkir and Khans Tarkir. They are different enough to warrant the Mirrodin / New Phyrexia split.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
There are always wrng ways to give a message, even if the message itself is right. I bet that corporates or market researchers did a quick count of people complaining VS people who actually bought the novel and you can easily guess which number was bigger. That means that the novel was just terrible advertisement, so cancel them.
I don't think that even if you are able to prove that Lorwyn and Kamigawa are the most beloved plane somthing will change. The backlash was freaking huge. Corporates will see that thanks to a novel their company became a laughing stock at best and a bunch of bigoted and non-inclusive people at worst. And if they try to be super progressive they will risk to lose customers in Russia and China. Yeah no thanks, they will just cancel the novels and continue selling the cards that will be sold nonetheless. Innistrad proved that a new plane can be loved even without novels.
It seems pretty reasonable to me if your customers are unhappy with the quality of your product, you improve that product. Discontinuing it altogether, if it negatively affects the rest of what you're selling, will just make your customers unhappy with your other products.
They didn't before (novels were discontinued for 2 times, if my memory is right), they should now?
When they weren't writing novels they got vocal criticism from the Vorthoses that there should novels. My guess is that had something to do with them being produced again.
I would like to state again that deep lore enriches fan culture. When that declines, other IPs become more competitive.
Depriving Vorthos of lore for having a justified reaction to something that is WOTC’s fault is not right. Blame Weisman, and stop this victim blaming. The WOTS novels were genuinely the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and Chandra sounded like a homophobic parent trying to talk their children out of a “phase” actually. And it was deserving of all the blacklash and far more.
Harming your brand and fan base over legitimate concerns by ruining Theros only adds to the controversy and frankly is convincing enough for disenfranchisement.
Why isn’t Nic Kelman answering for all this? Why are Theros fans answering for it instead? Did Theros fans hire Greg, outsource the material and put it behind a paywall and screw over in-house creative by firing Digges and taking creative control from people like Digges, Luhrs, Kreines (who improved dramatically with SOI and is actually impressive), and other masters of the lore?
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
You get that this by and large illustrates the point about WotC being cautious of utilizing lore as marketing materials for their gaming products because of an overall toxic response to a recent blunder of a marketing element, yeah? Which isn't to say fans weren't justified in their response to that previous marketing tool, just that it's ultimately unsurprising that WotC would be in a pause for reassessment phase after the backlash and that because of timing, Theros is the set impacted.
Particularly if there were concerns that the Theros lore-related products would not be sufficient to recover from the previous lore blunder that was the resolution to War of the Spark - or may even make things worse. WotC is a business and lore is a tool they use to sell sets and build (as has been pointed out above) a fan culture, which they only care about because engaged audiences buy more of your stuff. If as a result of the WotS backlash they now had concerns about how their marketing tool could still be effective, what we're seeing now is a tangible consequence of that. I get that it's frustrating, truly, but a big business is going to do what they think is best for their business, and that may not always align with what Vorthos fans want.
The controversy here, such that it is, is much ado about nothing. A business fumbles a product, fans cry out, business turtles up to reassess that element of their operation to ensure it's fulfilling its role as a marketing tool for more profitable elements of the operation and not causing more damage.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
For those that love the lore there is an understanding that exploring it further for each setting only comes about once or twice a decade. People aren't necessarily upset that there is no story (though some might be). People are upset that there is no story *for Theros*. This is a setting that people enjoy, that people have invested themselves into learning and knowing about, and who looked forward to the release of this set as a return to the lore so we could know more about it.
With Ravnica getting the attention it did and Eldraine at least getting an eBook (if I understand some of the points so far), it feels like a slap in the face for a plane like Theros, based on Ancient Greece, which has a ton of lore behind it, to be pushed off to the wayside and skipped over. People want these stories to be continued, fleshed out, or finalized and waiting for years for that to happen to then learn at the last minute that they won't get any sort of novel or eBook is frustrating.
It doesn't mean that there aren't valid concerns or criticisms being made by the people that care about the story or that their outcry isn't valid just because this is for a card game.
My hope is that a consequence of all this is a swift resolution.
Is it? I think that's an assumption based on your personal feelings and biases.
While the initial WotS novel was not well received, correct me if I'm wrong, but the really big blowback wasn't felt until Forsaken came out a month ago ... two months after the Wildered Quest was released. Even if we want to say that WotC was pushed into acting back in the late spring/early summer by reactions to the first WotS novel and subsequent prequel chapters, it's reasonable that they couldn't have stopped the ball rolling on Eldraine stuff. The thing was written, contracts completed, and money exchanged. Corporate operations can be slow to pivot sometimes and if WotC considered the creative department as being a serious enough issue to pause and reassess strategy, it's not suspicious that Eldraine wasn't immediately cancelled. It's not a conspiracy, it probably just wasn't worth the financial losses to cancel a product already announce/advertised/set for release.
That The Wildered Quest was released doesn't say anything about WotC's stance on creative. Weisman is ultimately the one whose work attracted the most negative reactions, and now the business is responding as they were likely to do. I don't think there's any greater need to figure out who to pin this on.
I'm sure you don't, but your feelings of entitlement to additional creative pieces of your favorite setting aren't the same as the priorities of a large business. To them, the reasonable action is to ensure that all components of their operation are aligned with the goal of selling more product. They appear to have deemed their creative department to be a potential risk to longterm profits and they are pausing to address it. That *is* reasonable because their approach isn't "share creative pursuits to a niche demographic of fans", it's "make money" and the lore you feel they're witholding from you is just a marketing tool in that approach.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
A marketing tool that was, I think we can all agree, more consistent when it was in house rather than farmed out.
I mean, I think that still depends on your standpoint, WotC likely didn't think so since they made that change in the first place. They were looking for a better return on investment, in all likelihood. Fans would largely agree with you, though, I'm sure.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Which is why I bet they didn't can the ebook for Eldraine. They want to appear strong in their 4th quarter. Which is also why they are letting their 1st quarter look weaker as a result as its not as important to investors and they know this. So they see Theros likely as an acceptable causality.
I don't agree with their practice, but it makes the most sense.
Sorry but you think that a big corporate cares more about your feeling or artistic integrity or something like that instead of profits? Where have you been in the last 20-30 years?
The Eldraine novel wasn't cancelled because it was probably already written and ready to be published. Simple as that.
Chandra may have sounded like a terrible bigot. I don't get how this translate into "spam the secret lair announcement page".
The moment the businessmen saw that other products' popularity was harmed by a novel is the moment they decided to cut the novels. Again, simple as that.
Sure, except it happened exacty the opposite thanks to the Forsaken novel. Good luck convincing the corporates to still put money and effort in potential harming new novels instead of just cutting it, wait a little and focus on the cards, like the did during Innistrad. And during Innistrad it worked.
Now guys don't me wrong i'm as Vorthos as you and it sucks to see mtg's lore department always get the short straw, but we need to be realist and not delusional. It was clear that something was bound to happen and businessmen always go for the easiest route.
Whether or not their decision to cut novels is a reasonable one rests on the underlying assumption about how we, the consumers, react to it. Essentially it's a gamble on how we're going to behave. And we have control over that.
So if we make excuses for them offering us up an inferior product, then they made a good business decision. But if we hold their feet to the fire and demand better, that they don't deliver us something skimped on quality, they'll have to adjust further. So I think we ought to be doing the latter in addition to the insights MikeyG and others have contributed.
Corporate greed should never be an excuse to compromise customer loyalty and enfranchisement. “That’s just the way it is” or “that’s how we’ve always done it” are dangerous suggestions. If corporate demand strained creative to outsource its material, as I suspect, utilizing them for product development over investment into the brand (lore) to the point that Theros was compromised, then there’s a lot more at stake for them in the long term.
“It’s a card game” from people taking time to post on this forum is rich irony. There is no “it’s fiction” or “it’s a game.” There is only passion.
That said. I’ve likely had too much of that for MTG and with the loss of Theros, I’m retiring as a Vorthos. To the relief and pleasure of some I’m sure.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||