I haven't started playing (yet)...I wanted to see if anyone here was playing and how the game was???
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. I can fuck better than anybody who can fuck faster, and I can fuck faster than anybody who can fuck better.
I've never played the "real" Magic card games, so I'm not the best resource for this. (The whole "booster pack" phenomenon has escaped me -- it's like deciding to play War, buying a starter deck of all 2's-through-8's, paying additional money to get more random 2's-through-8's and an occasional ten or queen, and coughing up big bucks or getting extremely lucky if you ever want to own an ace. Then you had to hope that the people you wanted to play with bought the same version of the deck that you did.)
But the only computer versions of Magic I've ever enjoyed were the old Microprose PC versions (MTG, Spells of the Ancients and Duels of the Planeswalkers). If you assembled the set of three versions, you had online play, surprisingly decent single-player capabilities (one-on-one, sealed-deck tournaments, and a wander-around adventure game with objectives and a time limit) and fixes for most of its bugs and quirks. You also had the entire available card catalog to play with, meaning that you could experiment with all sorts of deck designs without having to churn out major cash to get Black Lotuses or Moxes or such.
(Unfortunately, the adventure-game section is unplayable on my Athlon 1300 -- it moves like greased lightning, and the tech support people had no better response than "good luck." I tried CPUKiller (a slowdown app) with mixed results; moslo won't work because the app is Win32-native.)
I looked at the recent Encyclopedia CD-ROM, but passed on it when I found it had no single-player capabilities whatsoever. None of my friends play it, I'm not much for searching the net for some J. Random Bozo with a hacked deck to play against, and sometimes you just want to practice, y'know?
Magic: Online lost me as soon as I saw the phrase "purchase digital cards." All the joys of pay-through-the-nose-or-lose-constantly deck-building fun with inevitable hacking/cheating thrown in as an added bonus! Rapture.
"No society has managed to invest more time and energy in the perpetuation of the fiction that it is _moral, sane and wholesome_ than our current crop of _Modern Americans_." -- Frank Zappa
I agree vsp. I played Magic for awhile and really, really enjoyed it, but I eventually stopped because I couldn't find any cool people to play with. I found that most of the people who played were absolute Nazis about the game and would really look down on you if you were inexperienced or didn't have kick-ass cards. It's the same reason I avoid comic book stores: it's a culture that I don't enjoy because it's all about posturing and condesension. The always look at me like "Hey little yuppie man with your slacks and loafers! I scoff at you for not having a Sandman T-shirt! I deplore your puny collection of Spider-man and X-men comics! You have no right to enter this holy shrine of comic lore!" I think you get the idea.
"YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?" - The chilling words of the Shockmaster!
"Here comes Charles Benoit, and he's really mad.....Charles Benoit is here, and he's FUCKING CRAZY"- T.R. on the barbecued cat thread (it's too terrible to link)
THE AWESOME UNDERTAKER drives out - damn, how did those STEEL steps rise up onto their ends and out of the way of - hey wait, I see DUDES there! They must be soulless minions of Big Evil's Red Devil Underwood Deviled Ham Team Evil. What? - CRZ, back to his old antics
Originally posted by Parts UnknownI found that most of the people who played were absolute Nazis about the game and would really look down on you if you were inexperienced or didn't have kick-ass cards.
Yup. From what I've witnessed from afar, it seems to become a game of poring over the cards and rules to find just the right bending-the-spirit-of-the-rules-without-breaking-them combination that'll form a perfect deck, to where anyone who doesn't follow one of a handful of set strategies has no chance. Until the next revision comes out, of course, at which point everyone pores over the newest cards & changes and lather/rinse/repeats the process. There's not a whole lot of room for inefficient creativity.
The Microprose single-player adventure is nifty because it presents you with all sorts of opponents -- smart as a whip, dumb as a stump, big-critter fans, pick-em-to-death-with-little-cheap-guys fans, lotsa themed decks, with all colors and combinations represented. It makes you build more balanced decks, rather than carefully crafting a color-killer or style-killer that can get picked apart by everyone else. Pity that my P133 runs it very slowly, but my Ath1300 runs it way too quickly...
"No society has managed to invest more time and energy in the perpetuation of the fiction that it is _moral, sane and wholesome_ than our current crop of _Modern Americans_." -- Frank Zappa
The problem with magic was that they killed it off by introducing too many new cards. I remember playing at a time when I literally had seen every card. And nerd that I was I could probably name them all and recognize them all on sight. Then there were still only a number of set strategies, but just by buying a starter deck, you were sure to have at least one of them at your disposal.
Sadly, I haven't played seriously in about 3 or 4 years. Every now and then some friends will drag out the old ones, but that's it.
I still play Magic religiously, but I am not a Nazi about it. Like a few of you, I've had my fill of the "holier than thou, my deck can beat your deck, look at my cool cards" mentality. So, I have a few friends I play with for fun. That's what keeps my interest in the game alive. Winning is overrated anyway...
Are you ready for Mahkan-mania to run wild all over you?
I play Magic: The Gathering, and I like good decks. I'm also a bad loser (which, sadly, happens a lot if you look at my rating...). But there's no way in HELL that I'm starting my collection over online on my current budget.
The reason is simple, I betatested Magic: Online, and online drafting is like the sweetest form of crack in the world. You wouldn't believe how much fun drafting 7th Edition is. I'd be in debt in hours.
"Your solitude is welcome, welcome... Your attitude is welcome, welcome!"