Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Questing Fun

I love MTG Forge’s new quest mode. You start out with a very limited card pool and you win more cards. Sometimes your initial card pool is very strong and I have won my next 10 matches without changing my deck. Although other times your original card pool is very weak and you have to cobble together a 3 or 4 color deck and hope to draw the correct mana.

The quest mode is great because it forces you to use cards that you normally wouldn’t use. I won a few games using Guiltfeeder which causes damaging according the number of cards in your opponent’s graveyard. In a way he is an overpriced at 4B for a 0/4 with fear, but against certain decks he is great.

When questing, you also really appreciate a 2 and 3 drop that has an extra ability. I had a great time stomping the computer with Shivan Wurm, a card that I have never used before. (A 7/7 trampler that costs 3RG but you have to return a red or green creature to your hand.)

The quest mode is also great because you have memorable game experiences. Just last night I won a game where the computer was up to 50 life points and I beat him down. Granted the computer should have won, but he didn’t, and I don’t feel bad for him. It was a great thrill to struggle against overwhelming odds against a more powerful deck and still win.

While the quest mode isn’t perfect and there could be more balancing issues, it is still great fun. (Maybe in the future I will add a “card shop” so you can buy cards, but then I also have to add money. And I can’t decide should the card shop sell singles or boosters or what. Do I really want to put a price on each card or should I just price cards by rarity?)

p.s.
The card art is a Japanese promo.

10 comments:

DCelso said...

I think that the better option is that you use € or $ like money and use any existing db prices card like "*.mwPrice" or other.
It do a very good experience closer to the reality.
Allowing that the user can be change the db prices easily.

Other option is that you do a system like shandalar, it was quite good.

DCelso said...

as to what to sell, sell boster is a fantastic idea.
And other thing that must be the shop for buying cards it that it must be buying to the middle real price of card and decrease his value depending of the number of cards availables on that moment. And can offer for sale purchased cards using a similar method.

DennisBergkamp said...

I think selling (cheaper) booster packs in addition to singles would be the best idea, but every single card would probably also need a price in that case.
Someone could probably generate a price list, or maybe Rob's MTGManager or your set editor could have this functionality added to facilitate this process.

willow said...

using real life prices wouldn't reflect the actual usefulness of the cards in Forge. For example ,a card that has a bug making it extremely powerful SHOULD be very expensive.

You can create such a system by having your own online price list (in the currency that you want, and unlike DCelso I wouldn't suggest real currencies because it drags you out of the heroic-fantasy universe and is too down-to-earth. Use gold coins instead). The initial price list can of course be inspired from the real prices. This price list is downloaded regularly by the game. Whenever someone buys a card in the shop, it gets a bit more expensive. Whenever someone sells it, it gets a bit cheaper. Then, for example when the player leaves the game, his/her file is synchronized back to the server.
This way, as several players use the system, it automatically updates with value that completely reflect the actual usefulness of the card, not in MTG, but in MTGForge.
So for example with a bug such as the Llanowar elves getting first strike and lifelink, the price of this card would naturally increase.
Of course this works only if there are lots of players using the system :D

DennisBergkamp said...

These are some good suggestions Willow!
By the way, it seems like my Llanowar Elves fluke has reached legendary status :)

Anonymous said...

I like the idea Willow posted! This would generate kind of a community-experience even if there is in fact no real community in playing MTG Forge, because it's singleplayer only. I would really support Willow's proposal!

Gando the Wandering Fool said...

Ive been rating the cards myself (on a scale of 1-10). I was hoping people would take my ratings and judge whether they are accurate and then use the adjusted ratings to formulate a kind of pricelist of sorts. I'm not sure I entirely like Willow's idea even though it has some merit because Id hate to have to stop playing one day, pick it up the next only to find that the needed disenchant is now 500 gold coins more expensive than the day before. Id much rather just have sets of boosters than a system like that. Plus it sounds awfully complex for something that would be hosted for free. (open source project and all.)

Luke said...

I don't really have anything new or useful to add to this specific discussion, but I really wanted to say that I LOVE this new version of MTGForge. The cardpool is great, it's very polished from the older versions, and the quest mode is lots of fun. *_* I'm your fan!

Gando the Wandering Fool said...

Yeah thats nice...a spam bot :/

Forge said...

Thanks Luke, I love complements.

How to add an "online experience" to MTG Forge without the usual online experience of human vs human? Interesting topic.