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3 years ago ::
May 21, 2010 - 11:53AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2008
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This thread is for discussion of this week's Making Magic, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.
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3 years ago ::
May 23, 2010 - 9:09PM
#2
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Date Joined:
May 18, 2002
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At any time during that rambling mess, did MaRo actually discuss Rebound? It seems like all Rosewater does in the article is quote Tinsman, then go off on some tenuously-related tangent.
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3 years ago ::
May 23, 2010 - 9:30PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2004
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I have to disagree with MaRo here - if my choices were one topic or 2001 topics, I'd go with the 2001. It's true that sifting through that list takes some extra effort, but not *much* extra effort, and the ability to take your article to the next level by having added things to talk about is useful, as long as you're not under some weird compulsion to try to address everyone of those topics. (Now, being that MaRo is a twitchy intuitive-holistic thinker, maybe he does have that compulsion, but if so he's unusual in that respect and I'm a little tired of him pretending that his goofball tendencies equal basic human nature. I'm probably more like him than most folks, but even I'm not that bad.)
Quick example with a lower value than 2000: You have the following choices.
1. Write about the Eldrazi.
2. Write about the Eldrazi, possibly with reference to levelers, totem armor, rebound, Eldrazi Spawn, kicker and multikicker, the creative connection to Zendikar, cards which make you reveal a high-CMC card from an out-of-play zone, the "colorless matters" subtheme seen on about three ROE cards, the continuation of Merfolk and Vampire tribes, or how ROE was designed to play well by itself in Limited.
The two choices both give you ways to write about the Eldrazi, but the second spells out all the other things about the set which you might use to highlight the Eldrazi; as long as your list still has "Eldrazi" at the top, it is always better for the list to be longer than shorter. At worst, you just ignore the rest of the list after you hit a wall where you need to stop reading it; it was still better that you had the option.
My New Phyrexia Writing CreditsMy M12 Writing CreditsAs far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing.
--Aaron Forsythe's Random Card Comment on Kei Takahashi 
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3 years ago ::
May 23, 2010 - 10:14PM
#4
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"Be aware that market research is not the ultimate answer to what players like. Market research doesn't tell us what you enjoy as much as it tells us what you all believe you enjoy. While more often than not these two overlap, occasionally they don't. Sometimes we have to deliver what you need rather than what you want, but that's really a topic for its own column."
This is a brilliant and absolutely accurate statement that I certianly hope Mark will follow up in the future. This is something psychologists learned a long time ago--that just because someone "thinks" that they think or act in a certain way, doesn't mean that they do. Numerous experiments have shown that people actually aren't very good at knowing their own behavior and thoughts. They adjust their own feelings and attitudes in response to expectations, moral systems, and other conflicting psychological qualities.
This is often evident to me when I read the forums. People routinely complain about certain aspects of the game, not thinking that, despite their own perceptions, it may be that the choices R&D are making are actually valuable to the overall health of the game. Sometimes the problem is that people act like only their own opinion matters, not that of the majority of players. Other times, though, people complain about something change that, upon closer inspection, actually gives people exactly what they want.
It would be interesting for MaRo to talk about this, but I think it would be nearly impossible to do--most people would probably just find such an article to be condescending (e.g., "Who does Rosewater think he is, telling us what we really like or don't like!").
All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. These are the rooms of ruin where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one.
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3 years ago ::
May 23, 2010 - 11:15PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2006
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I agree Qwyrxian, that's always an interesting topic but a touchy one. I've liked saying for a while that it's a designer's job to listen to the users, but to understand the issues better than they do.
That said, the other end of that rainbow also has two sides. (OK I'm coming up short on a metaphor here, let it go.) Yes, what players want isn't necessarily what they say they want. But what customers buy isn't necessarily what they want either, so much as what they think they want. So the game is to listen to what customers say they want, sell them what they think they want, and have a final product that delivers at least enough of what they actually want to not disrupt the cycle.
Furthermore, a smart enough developer (as I belive Wizards is) can manipulate the inputs to achieve a sort of Nash equilibrium to make everyone just content enough to maximize buying. For example, despite Maro's claims (probably true in some cases) of pack-ripping customers who live for Mythics, there's a lot of negative sentiment over the Mythic Rare existence and design approach. I could probably make a case that the net effect on customer sentiment is negative. But it's not so negative that it drives people away, and the existence of Mythics encourages more packs being opened from those who buy. If everyone dissatisfied with Mythics was willing to sit out the sets that annoy them, either as an organized boycott or just a personal abstention, that could effect change. But instead so many of us go "Jace is $100 already? That's ridiculous. Anyway here's my $400."
That's the column we'd never hear. Giving customers just enough of what they want so they'll stick around. (Potential name: "Stalemate is Enough") Maybe that's not even the game Maro is playing, but I know some of the Wizards folks are savvy enough to know what they're doing.
edit: Anyway, I actually liked the column. A good tale of data-driven trend optimization always brings a tear to my eye.
Free MTGO Tournaments you should be playing: Pauper (all commons) - Tuesday Nights, prizes by MTGOTraders Peasant (Pauper + 5 uncommons, with paper rarity) - Sunday Nights, prizes by MTGOTraders Silverblack (Modern-era Commons and Uncommons - Most Wednesday nights, prizes by MTGO Bazaar Heirloom ("Cheap" cards only, e.g. rares under 20 cents) - Sunday afternoons, sponsored by MTGOTraders Check the superbly-made Gatherling site for more. Other games you should try: Spectromancer - Online card game by Richard Garfield, available cheap on Steam. DC Universe Online - action-based MMO. Free to play. Surprised me how well designed it is. Simunomics - Free-to-play economy simulation game.
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3 years ago ::
May 23, 2010 - 11:43PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Nov 29, 2007
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Don't they usually just run the previous week's column on holidays? Isn't this column going to, in fact, rebound?
You beat me to it. How did Maro miss this opportunity? "I promise not to write another rebound article next week." - "Join me next week when I don't write another article because it's a holiday! Yay!"
That market reasearch thing is so true. I can't reiterate it any better than the previous two posters did. That was best point Maro made in the article.
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3 years ago ::
May 24, 2010 - 12:08AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2006
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"market research" can also be skewed based on where they are getting the information from. Internet surveys are great but they could be skewed towards Online players or a certain player type. Also surveys that came out of fat packs are nice but competitive players generally don't buy that kind of product. There are times when Mark talks about Market Research where I just find the results unbelieveable (like when he said x spells are too complicated for many players so they won't print them as commons). Also the numbers can be pretty biased sometimes based on the person interpreting them. Yet another reason to only trust the research so far. Still it is a little bit cocky to say "we know better than you do about what you want".
Don't be too smart to have fun
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3 years ago ::
May 24, 2010 - 12:40AM
#8
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There are times when Mark talks about Market Research where I just find the results unbelieveable (like when he said x spells are too complicated for many players so they won't print them as commons).
Believe it, unfortunately. As an RQ&A regular, I can confirm that X spells are a significant source of confusion. It's not necessarily that they can't grasp the concept of an X spell--the basic idea is usually clear. It's just that there's a bunch of baggage that comes along for the ride--what's their converted mana cost? How do they work with cost-reducers? What happens when you cast it without paying the mana cost?
And let's not even get into XX spells.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real.
--Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
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3 years ago ::
May 24, 2010 - 2:51AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2004
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It's not necessarily that they can't grasp the concept of an X spell--the basic idea is usually clear. It's just that there's a bunch of baggage that comes along for the ride--what's their converted mana cost? How do they work with cost-reducers? What happens when you cast it without paying the mana cost?
All three of those have straighforward answers which could be easily learned, IF WIZARDS BOTHERED. When they don't print X-spells at common, and don't distribute a legible basic rulebook discussing how they work and answering all these questions in plain english, and don't reinforce the point through columns - then of course noobs aren't going to know. But if you actually told them a few times, it would sink in.
My New Phyrexia Writing CreditsMy M12 Writing CreditsAs far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing.
--Aaron Forsythe's Random Card Comment on Kei Takahashi
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3 years ago ::
May 24, 2010 - 4:57AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2004
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At any time during that rambling mess, did MaRo actually discuss Rebound? It seems like all Rosewater does in the article is quote Tinsman, then go off on some tenuously-related tangent.
I think that's pretty much what he said he'd do. There's not much to say about the design of rebound specifically, so he talks about the things the design team had in mind, which are all sensible things to bear in mind when designing a mechanic or a card or a set.
What I'm intrigued by is that, despite giving the impression he was only making tautologous statements about Scars of Mirrodin, he actually did tell us more than we've been told before (and I'm sure this was deliberate). 1), the scars aren't on the metal world's surface the way I'd assumed, but rather "something is making things have scars" - i.e. things, plural, are being scarred by something. 2), he confirmed that there would be a returning mechanic (but not necessarily a keyword mechanic) in SoM.
These two taken together make me thing that SoM may in fact bring back -1/-1 counters.
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