I work for an entity with approximately $14 billion in expenditures this fiscal year. Not a Fortune 500
I hear you. I had to build my own Excel spreadsheet tools to pull relevant data when and how I want them because the existing databases (yes, plural) are such patch jobs.
The real beauty is we started our upgrade probably... five years ago (give or take a year and ramp up) and we're only about half way through. Even better it's live and no one can find the source code to finish the remaining portion for the project. All of the people from the beginning of the project retired.
So I get to sit here and decide whether I want to craft new queries or use Perl to massage the UI data into something useful.
Good luck on your project
Note that my comments in no way shape or form is intended to give WotC an excuse on their crockery. I'm of the firm opinion that WotC discarding the DCI and not porting the data to the new architecture is either lazy or a cost cutting measure or both. Neither of which is excusable.
whats so difficult about merging it? couldn't they just have a field that asks for dci number when you create/update an account - that's pretty basic isn't it?
i mean its a minor thing, but it definitely feels like another in the many small missteps that alienate players and disconnect the company further from them, especially veteran players.
It may be a "minor" thing on the surface but underneath the hood, it's possible that the DCI database is horribly complex. When the original database was born, it very likely had a very small number of tables with a limited amount of interaction across them. But I guarantee that as the years went by, the original developers probably left. New developers came in. Time marched on and some pointy haired boss told those later developers to add a new feature or start tracking something else. They probably looked at the code and the table structure, looked at the clock, and said, "screw it, I'll just add a new table with some new keys and call it done." And that's exactly what they did. Added a new feature without ever actually touching the old code or old database. Then someone else came along looked at those tables , query strings and old code with orders to add a new feature. So instead of changing the table which would likely break old code, they added another table, or two, or three then added more code. Then some feature was obsoleted and that table sat disused but never dropped because dropping that table would break code somewhere else.
So twenty years later, you have a database with dozens upon dozens upon dozens of tables, half of which the programmer has no idea what they're for or why they're there with so much legacy code that they just write they're own functions to do their own thing because they have no idea what a similarly named function actually does and they don't have the time to figure it out because the boss said they have to produce the code by Monday 9AM and it's already 2AM. Oh, and don't forget that they have to fix an entire block of code they wrote 3 years ago on a whim because they read all about refactoring in "Code Complete" Chapter 24 but completely ignored all the commenting requirements because they thought they would never forget what they wrote at 2AM.
So yeah, there are times that a simple box that allows a specific entry can be extremely convoluted and far more complex that it seems on the surface.
This is cute, but it is nonsense.
We can still query the database successfully, even through the customer-facing web API. That means WotC can still query its database on the backend. Therefore they can still extract data from it to populate the new architecture with legacy customer data.
(I teach database design and I right now in the private sector I am transferring legacy content to a new database architecture)
You assume all businesses maintain ideal database architecture and content? You also assume that their existing programmers can actually untangle what previous programmers actually did? It must be nice but such ideals do not exist whole hog across all companies. It's something to always strive for, sure. But it's hardly a reality for everyone.
whats so difficult about merging it? couldn't they just have a field that asks for dci number when you create/update an account - that's pretty basic isn't it?
i mean its a minor thing, but it definitely feels like another in the many small missteps that alienate players and disconnect the company further from them, especially veteran players.
It may be a "minor" thing on the surface but underneath the hood, it's possible that the DCI database is horribly complex. When the original database was born, it very likely had a very small number of tables with a limited amount of interaction across them. But I guarantee that as the years went by, the original developers probably left. New developers came in. Time marched on and some pointy haired boss told those later developers to add a new feature or start tracking something else. They probably looked at the code and the table structure, looked at the clock, and said, "screw it, I'll just add a new table with some new keys and call it done." And that's exactly what they did. Added a new feature without ever actually touching the old code or old database. Then someone else came along looked at those tables , query strings and old code with orders to add a new feature. So instead of changing the table which would likely break old code, they added another table, or two, or three then added more code. Then some feature was obsoleted and that table sat disused but never dropped because dropping that table would break code somewhere else.
So twenty years later, you have a database with dozens upon dozens upon dozens of tables, half of which the programmer has no idea what they're for or why they're there with so much legacy code that they just write they're own functions to do their own thing because they have no idea what a similarly named function actually does and they don't have the time to figure it out because the boss said they have to produce the code by Monday 9AM and it's already 2AM. Oh, and don't forget that they have to fix an entire block of code they wrote 3 years ago on a whim because they read all about refactoring in "Code Complete" Chapter 24 but completely ignored all the commenting requirements because they thought they would never forget what they wrote at 2AM.
So yeah, there are times that a simple box that allows a specific entry can be extremely convoluted and far more complex that it seems on the surface.
Anyone have experience with trying to shuffle a cube that's all in top loaders? Is there any automatic shuffler that could help the process?
Had a friend that used to use top loaders way back in the day for his deck. Back when a top Type II deck was less than $500.
Easy answer, there is no easy way to shuffle a deck in top loaders. Top loaders aren't generally meant to be handled in that way so you're not going to see any solution for shuffling them. He had to break his deck part into smaller clumps and shuffle them that way. So instead of taking clusters of say... 40 cards, you would have to take clusters of 30 or even 20 and shuffle.
Hard answer, the problem is so unqiue that it requires a unique solution. It can likely be done using a microcontroller (eg Arduino) and taking some cues from the LEGO guys. But that's time and knowledge you'll need to expend for it.
The real reason why Wizards of the Coast is doing this is because In-Store Play at Local Game Stores (LGSs) are now prohibited due to COVID-19.
Yeah... I'm going to have to call that out as false. Catalyst? Maybe. But the real reason? No.
It was bound to happen. If not now, then sometime in the next few years.
I'm going to agree with some of the other posters, this is a lazy move on WotC's part. To be honest, I was puzzled as to why Arena didn't utilize the DCI for registration when it first came out. Then it hit me while working on my own company database. The DCI database is probably so old and so kludged together that no one at Wizards really understands how it works anymore. How long ago was the DCI number introduced? About 20 years? How many admins worked on it and how many features were added during that time?
So the Arena guys probably came on board and, due to some combination of inexperience and hard headedness, decided to build the Arena player database from scratch. Or it could have been managements plan the entire time. Either way, management probably decided the cost of maintaining or exporting the old database to a new system wasn't worth the cost so they decided to drop the tables.
Changing databases isn't easy or cheap but it is always doable, it's just a matter of how much money anyone wants to throw at it.
The problem with mail deliveries is that the U.S. Government is privatizing the Postal Service by making it harder for brick and mortar retailers (which are now a non-essential business due to the pandemic) from staying in business while empowering big online retailers like Amazon which have the ability to offer lower prices and higher efficiency. In other words the U.S. Government is using the pandemic to give big online retailers like Amazon an economic advantage over brick and mortar retailers who were already on life support. They were hit pretty badly due to the 2008 Financial Crisis and now with the current Recession along with using the pandemic for one-sided financial gain is the ultimate death sentence.
You do understand the USPS has programs in place for small businesses? They're not completely left in the cold in terms of shipping costs. The reason why Amazon can trounce any other business smaller than itself is pure volume. Amazon sends out more packages each second than every single LGS can absolutely hope to ship, even if we count all of an LGS in store sales for the month as shipments, for an entire month before the pandemic. Amazon doesn't need the help of the USPS giving them a discount to edge out anyone. Amazon simply demands it because a single penny saved on mailing equates to billions in savings each year. Exact same reason why Wal*Mart tried to cut out the banks and issue their own credit cards.
In any case, the whole privatizing the USPS has been an argument for decades. Long before Trump came along. Here's the thing most people fail to mention. The POTUS and the appointed Board of Governors have no authority to privatize or sell of portions of the USPS, not matter how loud any president jumps and shouts. The USPS was established in 1792 by Congress and reorganized to be corporation-like in 1970, again an act of congress. Despite the weird pseudo-private nature of the USPS already, if anyone wants to privatize it further, it would take another act of congress to do so. This is the same congress that worked to impeach Trump. Do you really think they're going to do something Trump actually wants?
Did you, though? Wizards made it patently clear that their decision to postpone the physical set was to help ensure the health and wellbeing of everybody in the supply chain, from distribution and shipping centers to retailers and consumers. The pandemic has yet to peak in most states (if any), so for them to encourage people to quit self-isolation - even just for a quick stop at the LGS - would be selfish at best, and life threatening at worst. And that's assuming many local games stores haven't already shuttered, which would lead to a further disproportion of benefits upon release.
Wizards isn't hoarding, they're certainly not profiting from the delay, and absolutely no good can come of pushing them into a rushed product release here. The absence of overpriced cardboard is easily the least disruptive event in most people's lives right now.
You're punishing a 70 year old franchise for a disease that most people will forget in less than 5 years? Sad....
Forgotten, like the Spanish Flu? Like SARS? The friends and family members of the 32,000+ people who have died to coronavirus in the U.S. so far, I'm sure they'll have forgotten. I guess there's no point in being overly sensitive at the expense of a 70 year old fictional lizard monster.
Absolutely. Keep in mind that my post isn't about minimizing those who have died or their relatives. 2009 flu saw about 12,500 deaths in the U.S. but their deaths aren't any less than COVID-19. This is about how this gesture from WotC isn't what it's cracked up to be.
Think about this. The vast majority of the people sqawking about a Godzilla Corona card having some bizarre relationship to COVID-19 are just stirring the pot. Just like the bizarre relationship with thr beer.
The general populous have extremely short term memories over even large events and in five years, give or take, something else will hit the radar and most people will only have the vaguest memory.
The fact that a game that just happened to have a card of the same unrelated name as the disease is, and will be, completely irrelevant, even amongst those that directly experienced this pandemic five years from now. A lot of people cite 1918 but they do so only because of the media. Two years ago, how many people do you think were even aware of the 1918 flu much less cared about it?
I think a far better and meaningful gesture would have been to create a Secret Lair Godzilla (even with the new name) and actually donated all the profits to the Red Cross. Players and detractors would absolutely eat that up.
Feel free to come back to this post in five years and prove me wrong.
Why is there panic there’s gonna be thousands available from websites who sell magic cards
Because the Japanese boosters for Ikoria actually have a chance to contain these cards like the stained-glass planeswalker cards from War of the Spark. Meanwhile those in other languages only get a single one as a box topper.
Nevermind unscruplous stores, there is literally a limited won't be printed again version called "Spacegodzilla, Corona Death" instead of "Spacegodzilla, Void Invader" as it will only be in the first printing. This singular card is already for sale on websites like Ebay or TCGPlayer for anywhere between $50 (non-foil) to 1000$ (foil).
There is a rumor floating around that WotC is actually recalling these cards. No idea where it's coming from. The only source I could find was on Reddit.
The whole subbing out one title for another is a weak move on WotC's part. Godzilla is what? Almost 70 years old? You're punishing a 70 year old franchise for a disease that most people will forget in less than 5 years? Sad....
Why is there panic there’s gonna be thousands available from websites who sell magic cards
It's the expectation and confusion I think. If WotC had spotted their mistake much earlier it probably wouldn't be an issue (if it's even an issue now).
I have no interest in the Godzilla cards. I have my own personal opinions for both the Godzilla and Collector packs. Like I mentioned earlier, I can, however, appreciate that people do care about these cards and some were likely hoping to crack these packs for the chance to get these cards.
Personally, I think this might not work out very well. Nevermind unscrupulous stores just taking the cards and selling them online, you have the added problem that I rarely ever see anyone buy 3+ collector packs at once at my LGS. So how does the LGS determine who gets the card if three people buy a pack each? A lottery? Roll a 3D? I know one LGS isn't a good metric but I can't imagine my LGS having these problems exclusively.
I'm searching for a source (leisurely, no real rush for me. I hate to admit I find this humorous.) but rumor mill has it that there are recommendations to the effect of, a random card to be given for every third pack purchased or a pack for every twelve.
Due to the expense of the collectors packs, I know very few people willing, or able, to buy three packs a go. So I guess save up at least $60 to buy three at a time? At least you'll be guaranteed one of the Japanese cards.
Bummer for those looking forward to those three card. I personally dislike the Godzilla cards for my own reasons but I do appreciate that people want them. There isn't much to say about it so here is the full release as stated by WotC.
Due to an unfortunate internal error, the three Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths Japanese-language exclusive Godzilla Series Monster cards will only be found in Japanese Draft and Collector Boosters and as Japanese box toppers. They will not be found in English or French Collector Boosters.
This exclusion from non-Japanese Collector Boosters was not intended, and, as a result, our communications leading up to the release of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths contained incorrect information that we have since corrected. As printed, any English or French Collector Boosters will not have an opportunity to contain any of the cards numbered 385, 386, or 387, seen here:
We know that the prospect of finding one of these special cards in a Collector Booster is a large part of the excitement for many, and we are deeply sorry for this error.
Since the mistake was discovered only recently, we were not able to reprint the product with the affected cards. Instead, we'll be printing and distributing copies of the cards to stores in the near future to make up for the error.
If you are purchasing English or French Collector Boosters from a local game store, they should be able to provide some number of additional copies of these cards at no charge. If you've made a preorder or plan to purchase, please check with your store first.
If for some reason this isn't possible, please contact Wizards of the Coast customer support for more information.
Wizards of the Coast strives for high quality and consistency in our products, and we regret that we did not live up to those standards this time.
According to the announcement on 2020/04/02 there are only 15 of the English series, 3 Japanese-only cards plus the non-foil Buy-A-Box promo to make up one of the 37 you an find in the collector packs.
Then I managed to confuse the "19" I had in my head as the number of English box toppers with the total number (15 + 3 Japanese + Buy-A-Box)!
.... except on Tuesdays when you can find Japanese cards in English packs and vice versa unless you receive a foil card in slot 14 then you have a 1 in a potato chance of pulling a stretched border Kaiju alternate art if and only if you pull from an Korean pack where you will receive a 1986 Topps Bill Buckner or a foiled pog. But then ...................
Is anyone else getting sick of having to keep track of all these different versions, jeesh.
You forgot to mention if you buy a collector's booster on a full moon there's a 1/64 chance to have a flipped version of a card that can only unflip under moonmist. If you live in Romania there is a 1/500 chance one of your mutated exclusive cards is a vampire, and it will never be in the same box as a flipped card. There will be an exchange program to mail in 'culturally inappropriate' named cards for 'void invader' ones if you don't feel like selling them for an absurd amount on the secondary market, aka the secret lair.
Are you kidding?? Topps is garbage. It needs to be a 1963 Fleer Maury Wills if they have any hopes at all of selling those Korean packs.
I hear you. I had to build my own Excel spreadsheet tools to pull relevant data when and how I want them because the existing databases (yes, plural) are such patch jobs.
The real beauty is we started our upgrade probably... five years ago (give or take a year and ramp up) and we're only about half way through. Even better it's live and no one can find the source code to finish the remaining portion for the project. All of the people from the beginning of the project retired.
So I get to sit here and decide whether I want to craft new queries or use Perl to massage the UI data into something useful.
Good luck on your project
Note that my comments in no way shape or form is intended to give WotC an excuse on their crockery. I'm of the firm opinion that WotC discarding the DCI and not porting the data to the new architecture is either lazy or a cost cutting measure or both. Neither of which is excusable.
You assume all businesses maintain ideal database architecture and content? You also assume that their existing programmers can actually untangle what previous programmers actually did? It must be nice but such ideals do not exist whole hog across all companies. It's something to always strive for, sure. But it's hardly a reality for everyone.
It may be a "minor" thing on the surface but underneath the hood, it's possible that the DCI database is horribly complex. When the original database was born, it very likely had a very small number of tables with a limited amount of interaction across them. But I guarantee that as the years went by, the original developers probably left. New developers came in. Time marched on and some pointy haired boss told those later developers to add a new feature or start tracking something else. They probably looked at the code and the table structure, looked at the clock, and said, "screw it, I'll just add a new table with some new keys and call it done." And that's exactly what they did. Added a new feature without ever actually touching the old code or old database. Then someone else came along looked at those tables , query strings and old code with orders to add a new feature. So instead of changing the table which would likely break old code, they added another table, or two, or three then added more code. Then some feature was obsoleted and that table sat disused but never dropped because dropping that table would break code somewhere else.
So twenty years later, you have a database with dozens upon dozens upon dozens of tables, half of which the programmer has no idea what they're for or why they're there with so much legacy code that they just write they're own functions to do their own thing because they have no idea what a similarly named function actually does and they don't have the time to figure it out because the boss said they have to produce the code by Monday 9AM and it's already 2AM. Oh, and don't forget that they have to fix an entire block of code they wrote 3 years ago on a whim because they read all about refactoring in "Code Complete" Chapter 24 but completely ignored all the commenting requirements because they thought they would never forget what they wrote at 2AM.
So yeah, there are times that a simple box that allows a specific entry can be extremely convoluted and far more complex that it seems on the surface.
Had a friend that used to use top loaders way back in the day for his deck. Back when a top Type II deck was less than $500.
Easy answer, there is no easy way to shuffle a deck in top loaders. Top loaders aren't generally meant to be handled in that way so you're not going to see any solution for shuffling them. He had to break his deck part into smaller clumps and shuffle them that way. So instead of taking clusters of say... 40 cards, you would have to take clusters of 30 or even 20 and shuffle.
Hard answer, the problem is so unqiue that it requires a unique solution. It can likely be done using a microcontroller (eg Arduino) and taking some cues from the LEGO guys. But that's time and knowledge you'll need to expend for it.
Yeah... I'm going to have to call that out as false. Catalyst? Maybe. But the real reason? No.
It was bound to happen. If not now, then sometime in the next few years.
I'm going to agree with some of the other posters, this is a lazy move on WotC's part. To be honest, I was puzzled as to why Arena didn't utilize the DCI for registration when it first came out. Then it hit me while working on my own company database. The DCI database is probably so old and so kludged together that no one at Wizards really understands how it works anymore. How long ago was the DCI number introduced? About 20 years? How many admins worked on it and how many features were added during that time?
So the Arena guys probably came on board and, due to some combination of inexperience and hard headedness, decided to build the Arena player database from scratch. Or it could have been managements plan the entire time. Either way, management probably decided the cost of maintaining or exporting the old database to a new system wasn't worth the cost so they decided to drop the tables.
Changing databases isn't easy or cheap but it is always doable, it's just a matter of how much money anyone wants to throw at it.
Got it...
Did it go by a different name? I had to Google it as well. Could've sworn it was called something else.
You do understand the USPS has programs in place for small businesses? They're not completely left in the cold in terms of shipping costs. The reason why Amazon can trounce any other business smaller than itself is pure volume. Amazon sends out more packages each second than every single LGS can absolutely hope to ship, even if we count all of an LGS in store sales for the month as shipments, for an entire month before the pandemic. Amazon doesn't need the help of the USPS giving them a discount to edge out anyone. Amazon simply demands it because a single penny saved on mailing equates to billions in savings each year. Exact same reason why Wal*Mart tried to cut out the banks and issue their own credit cards.
In any case, the whole privatizing the USPS has been an argument for decades. Long before Trump came along. Here's the thing most people fail to mention. The POTUS and the appointed Board of Governors have no authority to privatize or sell of portions of the USPS, not matter how loud any president jumps and shouts. The USPS was established in 1792 by Congress and reorganized to be corporation-like in 1970, again an act of congress. Despite the weird pseudo-private nature of the USPS already, if anyone wants to privatize it further, it would take another act of congress to do so. This is the same congress that worked to impeach Trump. Do you really think they're going to do something Trump actually wants?
Absolutely. Keep in mind that my post isn't about minimizing those who have died or their relatives. 2009 flu saw about 12,500 deaths in the U.S. but their deaths aren't any less than COVID-19. This is about how this gesture from WotC isn't what it's cracked up to be.
Think about this. The vast majority of the people sqawking about a Godzilla Corona card having some bizarre relationship to COVID-19 are just stirring the pot. Just like the bizarre relationship with thr beer.
The general populous have extremely short term memories over even large events and in five years, give or take, something else will hit the radar and most people will only have the vaguest memory.
The fact that a game that just happened to have a card of the same unrelated name as the disease is, and will be, completely irrelevant, even amongst those that directly experienced this pandemic five years from now. A lot of people cite 1918 but they do so only because of the media. Two years ago, how many people do you think were even aware of the 1918 flu much less cared about it?
I think a far better and meaningful gesture would have been to create a Secret Lair Godzilla (even with the new name) and actually donated all the profits to the Red Cross. Players and detractors would absolutely eat that up.
Feel free to come back to this post in five years and prove me wrong.
There is a rumor floating around that WotC is actually recalling these cards. No idea where it's coming from. The only source I could find was on Reddit.
The whole subbing out one title for another is a weak move on WotC's part. Godzilla is what? Almost 70 years old? You're punishing a 70 year old franchise for a disease that most people will forget in less than 5 years? Sad....
It's the expectation and confusion I think. If WotC had spotted their mistake much earlier it probably wouldn't be an issue (if it's even an issue now).
I have no interest in the Godzilla cards. I have my own personal opinions for both the Godzilla and Collector packs. Like I mentioned earlier, I can, however, appreciate that people do care about these cards and some were likely hoping to crack these packs for the chance to get these cards.
Personally, I think this might not work out very well. Nevermind unscrupulous stores just taking the cards and selling them online, you have the added problem that I rarely ever see anyone buy 3+ collector packs at once at my LGS. So how does the LGS determine who gets the card if three people buy a pack each? A lottery? Roll a 3D? I know one LGS isn't a good metric but I can't imagine my LGS having these problems exclusively.
hate toadmit I find this humorous.) but rumor mill has it that there are recommendations to the effect of, a random card to be given for every third pack purchased or a pack for every twelve.Due to the expense of the collectors packs, I know very few people willing, or able, to buy three packs a go. So I guess save up at least $60 to buy three at a time? At least you'll be guaranteed one of the Japanese cards.
Bummer for those looking forward to those three card. I personally dislike the Godzilla cards for my own reasons but I do appreciate that people want them. There isn't much to say about it so here is the full release as stated by WotC.
Throw everything you thought out the window. Looks like Wizards forgot to include the Japenese exclusives in the Collector boosters
I'm not going to lie, I'm laughing.
Are you kidding?? Topps is garbage. It needs to be a 1963 Fleer Maury Wills if they have any hopes at all of selling those Korean packs.