For the record, I think it's worth pointing out what things aren't causing issues with the MTG storyline. Particularly if some people are liable to have misconceptions about causes to the issue in question. We should include this in an overall discussion where the actual causes to the issue are analyzed, with non-causes dismissed.
I'm inclined to agree what we're seeing with the storyline in Theros being a consequence to upheaval in the staffing. If I'm not mistaken, some years ago this same exact issue occurred, with a moratorium called in on any further MTG novels, with similar fan backlash. Novels eventually began to be produced again. So that suggests that this move could be just a temporary setback. The likelihood of it being temporary increases with the more noise fans make about it.
So what, Theros just becomes a casualty? This resolution was anticipated for 6 years. Even if they double back and release lore for other sets it won’t be enough. I’ll speak for myself, although it goes without saying, that a novel for Theros is what I wanted most from MTG and it’s not happening, regardless of the future. It’ll never set things right for Theros or for me unless they release a proper book for it, even if it’s late.
It’s literally just Greg Weisman and his horrible writing.
I've been vocal on my feelings on the matter, but I know for a fact I'm not the only one who found the WotS story as a whole terrible - as in the story the creative team put together, not just the novel written by Weisman. As I've said, as bad as the novel was, he didn't butcher a good story, he just failed to make the best of an already one.
So what, Theros just becomes a casualty? This resolution was anticipated for 6 years. Even if they double back and release lore for other sets it won’t be enough. I’ll speak for myself, although it goes without saying, that a novel for Theros is what I wanted most from MTG and it’s not happening, regardless of the future. It’ll never set things right for Theros or for me unless they release a proper book for it, even if it’s late.
It's an embarrassment for this huge company to allow a lapse to occur at all. And it seems to fit a trend of WotC becoming more and more disorganized. I'm feeling pessimistic about the next year of Magic sets at least.
It’s literally just Greg Weisman and his horrible writing.
I've been vocal on my feelings on the matter, but I know for a fact I'm not the only one who found the WotS story as a whole terrible - as in the story the creative team put together, not just the novel written by Weisman. As I've said, as bad as the novel was, he didn't butcher a good story, he just failed to make the best of an already one.
The plot had some unique twists and good setup for future material. I enjoyed how several elements of various storylines coalesced actually. The immortal sun, employing Vraska, her and Jace teaming up with Her memories temporarily wiped, the exploitation of Amonkhet, Rakdos as an emergency mount for Gideon, the Blackblade failing and Lilliana turning on Bolas with the poetic justice of Bontu delivering the harvest of Bolas’s own spark. Even the Elderspell, if explained more thoroughly, could have had implications. The loss of all those sparks could have had multiverse level consequences on par with the mending, in the hands of a competent author.
Instead we got Rat, toilet humor and almost an entire paragraph literally listing the characters present. As in a literal list. Don’t even get me started on using capital letters instead of adjectives and descriptive language to emphasize a dramatic event (we learned to do better in first grade). Let alone the utter obliteration of characterization and lore arcs. Such as Jace and Vraska, Nissa and Chandra, and just about everything else. The hunt for Planeswalkers involved with Bolas and the idea of the Ravnica guilds having access to an artifact such as the immortal sun, out first example of plane-bound entities having possible dominion over planes walkers (let alone the very hub of planes walkers) is catchy and has potential. That and the Dimir ascending as they have. The story’s basic outline actually was promising. Weisman ran it to the depth of Dante’s hell, except without Virgil as a guide, and with incompetence on par with the horror you’d expect to see nine circles in.
Whelp... Looks like we are back to the short story snippets in the articles.
They were bad enough, but it seems they were also leagues better than the dumpster fire that was the War of the Spark novel, if nothing else, because they were a short thing you have to suffer through, like ripping off a patch from an old scratch, instead of wearing a cast for a broken leg.
Can't say I'm thrilled at the idea, but at least people won't have the plot paywalled.
EDIT: I still missed the times when they put relatively decent novels in the fat-packs. They clearly weren't masterpieces of literature, but still...
Whelp... Looks like we are back to the short story snippets in the articles.
They were bad enough, but it seems they were also leagues better than the dumpster fire that was the War of the Spark novel, if nothing else, because they were a short thing you have to suffer through, like ripping off a patch from an old scratch, instead of wearing a cast for a broken leg.
Can't say I'm thrilled at the idea, but at least people won't have the plot paywalled.
EDIT: I still missed the times when they put relatively decent novels in the fat-packs. They clearly weren't masterpieces of literature, but still...
Whelp... Looks like we are back to the short story snippets in the articles.
They were bad enough, but it seems they were also leagues better than the dumpster fire that was the War of the Spark novel, if nothing else, because they were a short thing you have to suffer through, like ripping off a patch from an old scratch, instead of wearing a cast for a broken leg.
Can't say I'm thrilled at the idea, but at least people won't have the plot paywalled.
EDIT: I still missed the times when they put relatively decent novels in the fat-packs. They clearly weren't masterpieces of literature, but still...
They didn’t need to be anyway. That said, the Kamigawa novels were actually quite good. Very good, actually. Among my favorite fiction overall, not just among MtG.
It’s literally just Greg Weisman and his horrible writing.
I've been vocal on my feelings on the matter, but I know for a fact I'm not the only one who found the WotS story as a whole terrible - as in the story the creative team put together, not just the novel written by Weisman. As I've said, as bad as the novel was, he didn't butcher a good story, he just failed to make the best of an already one.
The plot had some unique twists and good setup for future material. I enjoyed how several elements of various storylines coalesced actually. The immortal sun, employing Vraska, her and Jace teaming up with Her memories temporarily wiped, the exploitation of Amonkhet, Rakdos as an emergency mount for Gideon, the Blackblade failing and Lilliana turning on Bolas with the poetic justice of Bontu delivering the harvest of Bolas’s own spark. Even the Elderspell, if explained more thoroughly, could have had implications. The loss of all those sparks could have had multiverse level consequences on par with the mending, in the hands of a competent author.
I personally just saw the whole thing as the blandest, shallowest interpretation of the basic fantasy epic formula they could slap together. It felt like every beat of it was done not for the sake of producing a quality story, but because "that's how these stories go". Sure, there might have been some potential setup there for something good, but I feel like it's the opposite of what you're saying - a bad story that a good writer might have been able to make something of, as opposed to good story that a bad writer butchered.
We could...but that would involve WotC hiring people based on merit and not solely on their gender and/or ethnicity to check a box for forced inclusivity and diversity.
Oh, come on dude. Don't start with that whole tirade here. Can you put your favourite toy away for just five minutes please?
Oh your right... i forgot that only WotC employees can say whatever they want on company time that has nothing to do with the game. But here on a free forum people cant voice concerns because it doesn’t agree with WotC.
I guess continuing to ignore it will totally make it go away...
I will say i surprised you didn’t just report me to the forum masters like they want you to.
To be fair, the only reason I haven't reported it, is because the mods got there first.
As an affiliate member of the National Autistic Society and an ASD person, I find your comments rude, divisive and completely unevidenced. I'd ask you to apologize for your comments, but I doubt there would be any sincerity in an apology. And no, this isn't a free for all forum, it's a forum for discussing from a variety of viewpoints, elements of the MTG game, it's associated properties and the decisions taken by WOTC and its staff. Promoting your personal ideologues - political or otherwise - and insulting other members, or the staff of MTGS or WOTC for elements of their personage, is not debate, but simple rudeness.
On Topic: I agree with most users here, that the lore quality since War of the Spark has been diminished. I am not a personal fan of Theros or Elspeth, but believe from a narrative standpoint that simply glossing over important plot-hooks designed to interlink with the War of the Spark story is a poor choice and inconsiderate of the audience.
I feel that WoTC's handling of narrative in recent years has greatly declined, from the way in which a promising conclusion to the Bolas Arc was mishandled (your mileage may vary), lacking the sense of scale and casualty that much of the audience demanded. I feel that the rush to then have characters with promising future narratives quickly killed off (Dovin), potentially in an attempt to react to criticism, is a short-sighted and damaging move for the narrative. I feel the retcon of Chandra, and the hasty retcon of the retcon was damaging to the brand of the product and damaged audience goodwill.
I feel also that a large portion of current narrative problems comes from a lack of understanding on WoTC's part of how to handle flagship characters, lacking an understanding of which parts of the audience favour which characters and 'why', relying too heavily on focus groups and selective surveys and not enough on the direct opinions of those invested into the characters. I think they also have misunderstood what their audience wants, associating the popularity of a worlds settings and lore (and that of it's characters), with the direct sale of cards (playing pieces), rather than using the metric of engagement (how people are interacting with a product). I believe this leads to short-sighted, business led decisions where sales and profit are placed as emphasis over storytelling and play experience, though who would be to blame for this is impossible to know without pulling back the curtain on WoTC/Hasbro's internal workings.
I feel the move to smaller stories could be positive, as while I didn't enjoy the story of Eldraine, I do think it was reasonably well-handled for what it was, and giving chances to aspiring creatives is always something I advocate for. Similiarly, I believe a story regarding the events of Theros using the same smaller narrative would of been brilliant, both for the greater sense of narrative scope and engagement with Theros/Elspeth's fans. I believe WoTC has missed an opportunity here, over-correcting from the longer, multi-year spanning story of Bolas machinations into a removal of much lore based materials that provide an anchor for players emotional investment beyond monetary speculation of card values or collecting specific playing pieces.
I also agree that the short stories of Amonkhet were a great way to engage with players and entirely suitable for the new 'single set narratives' that WoTC seems to want to pursue, but has failed to capitalize on. While not to my taste, the format of these mini-stories provided scale, lore pieces and narrative pacing while being open-ended enough due to their smaller size that other authors can make additive content to follow them without being railroaded or contradicting the grand premises other authors have designed.
TLDR: WoTC needs to focus on more Eldraine like or Amonkhet like stories for single-set worlds, and save ebooks/paperbacks for stories spanning multiple sets, which should be planned and written ahead of time, rather than during set design, and to integrate writers and lore experts into the project team as full members so that narrative doesn't contradict itself, and works to amplify the tonality and themes of a given set, rather than running alongside or counter to it.
If they were ever going to do a Theros novel, they would have started work on it before the Weisman hate gained steam for that to influence anything.
Maybe they did start it, and that's why there's no novel - because it's entirely possible that given the current situation, they passed another review on it and decided to not release it.
I find it a little bit hard to believe they would go to all the trouble of having a novel written and just...not release it. Not even delay the release. That's money down the toilet. Would the backlash ever amount to a more significant loss of actual profit than whatever they would earn from sales? I don't know. Maybe.
If they were ever going to do a Theros novel, they would have started work on it before the Weisman hate gained steam for that to influence anything.
Maybe they did start it, and that's why there's no novel - because it's entirely possible that given the current situation, they passed another review on it and decided to not release it.
I find it a little bit hard to believe they would go to all the trouble of having a novel written and just...not release it. Not even delay the release. That's money down the toilet. Would the backlash ever amount to a more significant loss of actual profit than whatever they would earn from sales? I don't know. Maybe.
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Welcome to today's world, were businessmen direct artistic sectors following the rules they have learnt in their sheltered economy school. Ravnica novel sold bad = Theros will sell bad! You can win the economy nobel prize with a prediction like this.
You reap what you sow. This whole "let's copy the supehero comics" formula was a recipe for a disaster. Marvel&DC comics come out every week and have dozen of different issues. There is plenty of time and space to flesh out characters and make them relatable and memorable. Magic only has one set every three month. You can't ******* try to do the same thing, it's simple math. It's the reason why Peter Parker is 100 times better than Jace, Captain America is a better Gideon, and so on.
Let's also add the fact that your characters have to be as marketable (aka generic, for economy genius) as possible. Your racist elf need to be retconned as a generic tree hugger and your evil sorceress need to become a strong, indipedent anti-heroine. It's a recipe for a disaster.
But until fanboys will stop sucking planeswalkers' ****s and will stop justifying this *****ty model, that's what you get.
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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.
The sad part of all the gatewatch-Bolas arc is that htye took the effort to make it a big narrative for 3 years, there is some great writing in there in aminkhet specially.
And then the grand finale got blown up by one of the worst books I have read in my life. I could live with the story in the cards and device the details my self, surely there is already fanfiction trying to fix the mess the novel is, getting rid of Teyo and Ratand and filling the plot holes.
If they are skipping a novel in Theros because of the flop war of the spark novel was then I am Ok with it, I hope they sack the lore director and bring more competent people so we get better lore later in the year. But if they are just cutting costs for the sake of profit it is really shameful.
The problem I found with War was that they pulled a Cloverfield/The Day the Earth Stood Still wherein it had a super good build-up with a terrible anti-climatic end. The War of the Spark arc itself felt rushed and very sloppily put together. I don't know if it was for the sake of timeline metrics or whatever but the moment they announced the conclusion of the Bolas arc mid-Ixalan or Dominaria it felt that it was rushed. They could have split the Spark "conclusion" into two sets.
The online chapters they did from like Shadows Over Innistrad on to Dominaria were fantastic and really lead credence to the overall lore and setup to the big storyline arc. It was fantastic. It actually revived my love of fantasy-fiction and took up creative writing again too. The only reason they opted for the books for Spark was probably to generate revenue off of the lore due to its popularity. Business decision. Pure and simple.
And the reason why they're not publishing novels anymore is probably due to the poor reviews of WotS and its "sequel." Rushing things doesn't help anyone or the bottom line.
'buster
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
I don’t understand what Weisman being the worst author MtG has ever seen has to do with Theros? Unless he was originally contracted to write the Theros novel? Thassa forbid. That’s the only scenario I can forgive WOTC for failing to release a novel for Theros. Because if it’s between a novel for Theros by Weisman or no novel, I will absolutely choose to have nothing.
But it’s not as if Weisman is their only option for novels. No one has collected into mobs over Kate Elliott, Wrexler or Sanderson. On the contrary, actually. They had options.
I mean I don't think that they have to go with weisman, I think that it was a systemic failure somewhere further up the chain of creative that lead to the choice to use him and approve his book without substantial edits. Maybe they ended up in a bind, knowing they had a bad book but a huge story beat they absolutely had to publish on time regardless.
It's also not just a subjective thing, there's no way that a creative team that put up all those decent web articles was happily accepting three paragraph chapters and clumsy characterization and half the events taking place off-screen.
The problem I found with War was that they pulled a Cloverfield/The Day the Earth Stood Still wherein it had a super good build-up with a terrible anti-climatic end. The War of the Spark arc itself felt rushed and very sloppily put together. I don't know if it was for the sake of timeline metrics or whatever but the moment they announced the conclusion of the Bolas arc mid-Ixalan or Dominaria it felt that it was rushed. They could have split the Spark "conclusion" into two sets.
'buster
What's wild is we got three straight sets of ravnica but only one of them actually had story. All the prequel novel stuff should have been coming out with guilds and allegiance if they really wanted to build it up, but instead we got two sets of silence and then everything loaded up on the back end. I really do think there must be some systemic behind-the-scenes failures here.
Supposedly the Ravnica sets were events taking place while the Spark arc was building, showcasing who would side with whom and for what reasons, conveniently omitting the key pro/antagonists in the arc itself (i.e. the Gatewatch and Bolas et al.). They could have done a lot more with that too absolutely.
Perhaps people had become so tired of the Gatewatch arc that they felt pressure/compelled to end it due to consumer fatigue and in all honesty it was getting rather tiresome and old. One rule of storywriting: You don't want your characters to become so disliked by the audience that it ruins it for you and everyone else committed to that writing. I'll give them kudos in that the character development of Jace and Vraska in Ixalan was superb, unfortunately they put Jace and the rest of the Gatewatch everywhere they could and that was detrimental to the roll-out and reception of it.
I have higher hopes for whatever path they choose to go--right now it seems to be centred around the Kenriths but who knows where it will go thereafter.
'buster
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
The problem I found with War was that they pulled a Cloverfield/The Day the Earth Stood Still wherein it had a super good build-up with a terrible anti-climatic end. The War of the Spark arc itself felt rushed and very sloppily put together. I don't know if it was for the sake of timeline metrics or whatever but the moment they announced the conclusion of the Bolas arc mid-Ixalan or Dominaria it felt that it was rushed. They could have split the Spark "conclusion" into two sets.
The online chapters they did from like Shadows Over Innistrad on to Dominaria were fantastic and really lead credence to the overall lore and setup to the big storyline arc. It was fantastic. It actually revived my love of fantasy-fiction and took up creative writing again too. The only reason they opted for the books for Spark was probably to generate revenue off of the lore due to its popularity. Business decision. Pure and simple.
And the reason why they're not publishing novels anymore is probably due to the poor reviews of WotS and its "sequel." Rushing things doesn't help anyone or the bottom line.
'buster
War of the Spark was original thought of to have 2 set, it was cut to one when they switched from two sets in a block to no blocks. I also wonder if some stuff from forsaken(Dovins death, Liliana getting rid of the chain veil ect) where left over the storyline parts they had to cut.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
None of these explanations account for Theros. Perhaps set releases outpaced creative. But that wouldn’t explain why Eldraine received a novel and Theros did not. To establish Garruk as healed and will and Rowan as protagonists going forward perhaps. But what’s the point of caring about that when wOtC is so willing to waste plot lines as promising as elspeth and Theros? Who the hell should care?
None of these explanations account for Theros. Perhaps set releases outpaced creative. But that wouldn’t explain why Eldraine received a novel and Theros did not. To establish Garruk as healed and will and Rowan as protagonists going forward perhaps. But what’s the point of caring about that when wOtC is so willing to waste plot lines as promising as elspeth and Theros? Who the hell should care?
No that basically fits the timeline. War of the spark the novel came out in april but they probably saw the issues with earlier drafts before that. The wildered quest was already being worked on, but work on the theros content was probably in preliminary stages. They've retooled what they got into excerpts for this website and have decided that the plotline of theros isn't as critical. It's a returning plane so we already kinda know its deal, and the whole crux is just following up on a plot beat they set up years ago. Elspeth escapes being dead and kills Heliod and goes back to, idk, reliving trauma throughout the multiverse. Ashiok is sinister. Ikoria they're going to have to redouble efforts on just bc it's a new plane.
Eldraine got a novel cause its a new plane and we don't know anything about it and is actually unique fusion of its inspirations and not just a 1:1 uplifting of Greek Mythos.
Eldraine got a novel cause its a new plane and we don't know anything about it and is actually unique fusion of its inspirations and not just a 1:1 uplifting of Greek Mythos.
Eldraine is a fusion and lifting of Grimm Fairytales and Arthurian Myth. A lot of them on a 1:1 basis.
I mean, even so Eldraine is still new, something you can't exactly say for Theros. I doubt there is a particular reason for it except it just wasn't a cost effective choice to make more Theros storyline, not sure why it's hard to imagine.
I mean, even so Eldraine is still new, something you can't exactly say for Theros. I doubt there is a particular reason for it except it just wasn't a cost effective choice to make more Theros storyline, not sure why it's hard to imagine.
We already know of Ravnica. But for some reason we got:
3 Sets
3 Sets worth of story articles
3 Novels (yes even the Djano's Gathering Storm)
A 4-issue comic series featuring the aftermath with Chandra's PoV.
Also Eldraine maybe new, but we didn't get anything except a 23k word Planeswalker's guide to Innistrad over its three sets when it was a brand new plane.
I guess there is a hole in your logic. As if its so clear cut and dry, why would they not want story articles to promote their own game? The weekly advertisements that are short stories?
But hey your the one defending that its fine the state this is in.
I could even argue you are not even a Vorthos-type person so you are not really caring about any of this. While the Vorthos are actually being vocal about the sorry state.
I mean, Ravnica is one of, if not the most, popular of the planes, Theros is not. Ravnica held host to the biggest event of the story arc they had been building for the last few years. Theros... is not doing anything that we know of, except Elspeth coming back, which isn't nearly as big.
And you're comparing a block from eight years ago to a set from this year? Things changed since then. And then changed again.
As for the state of things honestly don't see it as that big a deal. If people are complaining about things it makes sense that they would stop doing them. People got what they voted for.
I mean, Ravnica is one of, if not the most, popular of the planes, Theros is not.
Then Ravncia needs no story content if its so popular. While a less popular would need the attention. Right?
Ravnica held host to the biggest event of the story arc they had been building for the last few years.
Ah yes the most mocked crescendo in MTG's history. Not even Onslaught or Timespiral can hold a candle to it.
Theros... is not doing anything that we know of, except Elspeth coming back, which isn't nearly as big.
A character coming back from the dead is no biggie for you? In a story world where death tends to be permanent? WOW! Why don't we just resurrect all the dead characters if a character coming back from death is no biggie right? As that is what you are saying.
And you're comparing a block from eight years ago to a set from this year? Things changed since then. And then changed again.
Why yes, because Theros Beyond Death isn't getting more lore-related content than Innistrad which is the last known time there was no comics, no novels, no story articles.
As for the state of things honestly don't see it as that big a deal. If people are complaining about things it makes sense that they would stop doing them. People got what they voted for.
They asked for less trash writing, not no writing.
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I'm inclined to agree what we're seeing with the storyline in Theros being a consequence to upheaval in the staffing. If I'm not mistaken, some years ago this same exact issue occurred, with a moratorium called in on any further MTG novels, with similar fan backlash. Novels eventually began to be produced again. So that suggests that this move could be just a temporary setback. The likelihood of it being temporary increases with the more noise fans make about it.
|| 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 ||
It's an embarrassment for this huge company to allow a lapse to occur at all. And it seems to fit a trend of WotC becoming more and more disorganized. I'm feeling pessimistic about the next year of Magic sets at least.
Instead we got Rat, toilet humor and almost an entire paragraph literally listing the characters present. As in a literal list. Don’t even get me started on using capital letters instead of adjectives and descriptive language to emphasize a dramatic event (we learned to do better in first grade). Let alone the utter obliteration of characterization and lore arcs. Such as Jace and Vraska, Nissa and Chandra, and just about everything else. The hunt for Planeswalkers involved with Bolas and the idea of the Ravnica guilds having access to an artifact such as the immortal sun, out first example of plane-bound entities having possible dominion over planes walkers (let alone the very hub of planes walkers) is catchy and has potential. That and the Dimir ascending as they have. The story’s basic outline actually was promising. Weisman ran it to the depth of Dante’s hell, except without Virgil as a guide, and with incompetence on par with the horror you’d expect to see nine circles in.
|| 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 ||
They were bad enough, but it seems they were also leagues better than the dumpster fire that was the War of the Spark novel, if nothing else, because they were a short thing you have to suffer through, like ripping off a patch from an old scratch, instead of wearing a cast for a broken leg.
Can't say I'm thrilled at the idea, but at least people won't have the plot paywalled.
EDIT: I still missed the times when they put relatively decent novels in the fat-packs. They clearly weren't masterpieces of literature, but still...
|| 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 ||
To be fair, the only reason I haven't reported it, is because the mods got there first.
As an affiliate member of the National Autistic Society and an ASD person, I find your comments rude, divisive and completely unevidenced. I'd ask you to apologize for your comments, but I doubt there would be any sincerity in an apology. And no, this isn't a free for all forum, it's a forum for discussing from a variety of viewpoints, elements of the MTG game, it's associated properties and the decisions taken by WOTC and its staff. Promoting your personal ideologues - political or otherwise - and insulting other members, or the staff of MTGS or WOTC for elements of their personage, is not debate, but simple rudeness.
On Topic: I agree with most users here, that the lore quality since War of the Spark has been diminished. I am not a personal fan of Theros or Elspeth, but believe from a narrative standpoint that simply glossing over important plot-hooks designed to interlink with the War of the Spark story is a poor choice and inconsiderate of the audience.
I feel that WoTC's handling of narrative in recent years has greatly declined, from the way in which a promising conclusion to the Bolas Arc was mishandled (your mileage may vary), lacking the sense of scale and casualty that much of the audience demanded. I feel that the rush to then have characters with promising future narratives quickly killed off (Dovin), potentially in an attempt to react to criticism, is a short-sighted and damaging move for the narrative. I feel the retcon of Chandra, and the hasty retcon of the retcon was damaging to the brand of the product and damaged audience goodwill.
I feel also that a large portion of current narrative problems comes from a lack of understanding on WoTC's part of how to handle flagship characters, lacking an understanding of which parts of the audience favour which characters and 'why', relying too heavily on focus groups and selective surveys and not enough on the direct opinions of those invested into the characters. I think they also have misunderstood what their audience wants, associating the popularity of a worlds settings and lore (and that of it's characters), with the direct sale of cards (playing pieces), rather than using the metric of engagement (how people are interacting with a product). I believe this leads to short-sighted, business led decisions where sales and profit are placed as emphasis over storytelling and play experience, though who would be to blame for this is impossible to know without pulling back the curtain on WoTC/Hasbro's internal workings.
I feel the move to smaller stories could be positive, as while I didn't enjoy the story of Eldraine, I do think it was reasonably well-handled for what it was, and giving chances to aspiring creatives is always something I advocate for. Similiarly, I believe a story regarding the events of Theros using the same smaller narrative would of been brilliant, both for the greater sense of narrative scope and engagement with Theros/Elspeth's fans. I believe WoTC has missed an opportunity here, over-correcting from the longer, multi-year spanning story of Bolas machinations into a removal of much lore based materials that provide an anchor for players emotional investment beyond monetary speculation of card values or collecting specific playing pieces.
I also agree that the short stories of Amonkhet were a great way to engage with players and entirely suitable for the new 'single set narratives' that WoTC seems to want to pursue, but has failed to capitalize on. While not to my taste, the format of these mini-stories provided scale, lore pieces and narrative pacing while being open-ended enough due to their smaller size that other authors can make additive content to follow them without being railroaded or contradicting the grand premises other authors have designed.
TLDR: WoTC needs to focus on more Eldraine like or Amonkhet like stories for single-set worlds, and save ebooks/paperbacks for stories spanning multiple sets, which should be planned and written ahead of time, rather than during set design, and to integrate writers and lore experts into the project team as full members so that narrative doesn't contradict itself, and works to amplify the tonality and themes of a given set, rather than running alongside or counter to it.
This user has language problems due to their mental health problems and sometimes may not use the best wording to explain their thoughts.
Draft the "'What Is This Nonsense?'" casual cube.
I find it a little bit hard to believe they would go to all the trouble of having a novel written and just...not release it. Not even delay the release. That's money down the toilet. Would the backlash ever amount to a more significant loss of actual profit than whatever they would earn from sales? I don't know. Maybe.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
They did something similar with The Curse of the Chain Veil planeswalker novel when the novel where canned. https://mtg.gamepedia.com/The_Curse_of_the_Chain_Veil
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
You reap what you sow. This whole "let's copy the supehero comics" formula was a recipe for a disaster. Marvel&DC comics come out every week and have dozen of different issues. There is plenty of time and space to flesh out characters and make them relatable and memorable. Magic only has one set every three month. You can't ******* try to do the same thing, it's simple math. It's the reason why Peter Parker is 100 times better than Jace, Captain America is a better Gideon, and so on.
Let's also add the fact that your characters have to be as marketable (aka generic, for economy genius) as possible. Your racist elf need to be retconned as a generic tree hugger and your evil sorceress need to become a strong, indipedent anti-heroine. It's a recipe for a disaster.
But until fanboys will stop sucking planeswalkers' ****s and will stop justifying this *****ty model, that's what you get.
And then the grand finale got blown up by one of the worst books I have read in my life. I could live with the story in the cards and device the details my self, surely there is already fanfiction trying to fix the mess the novel is, getting rid of Teyo and Ratand and filling the plot holes.
If they are skipping a novel in Theros because of the flop war of the spark novel was then I am Ok with it, I hope they sack the lore director and bring more competent people so we get better lore later in the year. But if they are just cutting costs for the sake of profit it is really shameful.
The online chapters they did from like Shadows Over Innistrad on to Dominaria were fantastic and really lead credence to the overall lore and setup to the big storyline arc. It was fantastic. It actually revived my love of fantasy-fiction and took up creative writing again too. The only reason they opted for the books for Spark was probably to generate revenue off of the lore due to its popularity. Business decision. Pure and simple.
And the reason why they're not publishing novels anymore is probably due to the poor reviews of WotS and its "sequel." Rushing things doesn't help anyone or the bottom line.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
I mean I don't think that they have to go with weisman, I think that it was a systemic failure somewhere further up the chain of creative that lead to the choice to use him and approve his book without substantial edits. Maybe they ended up in a bind, knowing they had a bad book but a huge story beat they absolutely had to publish on time regardless.
It's also not just a subjective thing, there's no way that a creative team that put up all those decent web articles was happily accepting three paragraph chapters and clumsy characterization and half the events taking place off-screen.
What's wild is we got three straight sets of ravnica but only one of them actually had story. All the prequel novel stuff should have been coming out with guilds and allegiance if they really wanted to build it up, but instead we got two sets of silence and then everything loaded up on the back end. I really do think there must be some systemic behind-the-scenes failures here.
Perhaps people had become so tired of the Gatewatch arc that they felt pressure/compelled to end it due to consumer fatigue and in all honesty it was getting rather tiresome and old. One rule of storywriting: You don't want your characters to become so disliked by the audience that it ruins it for you and everyone else committed to that writing. I'll give them kudos in that the character development of Jace and Vraska in Ixalan was superb, unfortunately they put Jace and the rest of the Gatewatch everywhere they could and that was detrimental to the roll-out and reception of it.
I have higher hopes for whatever path they choose to go--right now it seems to be centred around the Kenriths but who knows where it will go thereafter.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
War of the Spark was original thought of to have 2 set, it was cut to one when they switched from two sets in a block to no blocks. I also wonder if some stuff from forsaken(Dovins death, Liliana getting rid of the chain veil ect) where left over the storyline parts they had to cut.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
|| 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 ||
No that basically fits the timeline. War of the spark the novel came out in april but they probably saw the issues with earlier drafts before that. The wildered quest was already being worked on, but work on the theros content was probably in preliminary stages. They've retooled what they got into excerpts for this website and have decided that the plotline of theros isn't as critical. It's a returning plane so we already kinda know its deal, and the whole crux is just following up on a plot beat they set up years ago. Elspeth escapes being dead and kills Heliod and goes back to, idk, reliving trauma throughout the multiverse. Ashiok is sinister. Ikoria they're going to have to redouble efforts on just bc it's a new plane.
Current EDH Decks:
Dakkon Blackblade 2WUUB
3 Sets
3 Sets worth of story articles
3 Novels (yes even the Djano's Gathering Storm)
A 4-issue comic series featuring the aftermath with Chandra's PoV.
Also Eldraine maybe new, but we didn't get anything except a 23k word Planeswalker's guide to Innistrad over its three sets when it was a brand new plane.
I guess there is a hole in your logic. As if its so clear cut and dry, why would they not want story articles to promote their own game? The weekly advertisements that are short stories?
But hey your the one defending that its fine the state this is in.
I could even argue you are not even a Vorthos-type person so you are not really caring about any of this. While the Vorthos are actually being vocal about the sorry state.
And you're comparing a block from eight years ago to a set from this year? Things changed since then. And then changed again.
As for the state of things honestly don't see it as that big a deal. If people are complaining about things it makes sense that they would stop doing them. People got what they voted for.
Ah yes the most mocked crescendo in MTG's history. Not even Onslaught or Timespiral can hold a candle to it.
A character coming back from the dead is no biggie for you? In a story world where death tends to be permanent? WOW! Why don't we just resurrect all the dead characters if a character coming back from death is no biggie right? As that is what you are saying.
Why yes, because Theros Beyond Death isn't getting more lore-related content than Innistrad which is the last known time there was no comics, no novels, no story articles.
They asked for less trash writing, not no writing.