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2 years ago ::
Nov 28, 2010 - 7:07PM
#81
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2004
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… and then, the squirrels came.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 28, 2010 - 9:16PM
#82
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Date Joined:
Feb 18, 2008
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^ I guess you dislike the majority of designers in R&D because Ken didn't act alone.
Technically, DrJones has not answered your question yet. And the statement you questioned was a quote of a statement written by goblinrecruiter, who isn't even in this discussion.
Both faisjdas and I answered your question because Ken Nagle has acquired a notoriety as a designer and you asked for examples. This does not mean we dislike Ken Nagle as a designer.
What i'm saying is, if you don't like the kind of designer Ken is, that's fine. But don't call him a bad designer because he designs cards you don't like.
Your statement above is perfectly true. Ken Nagle likes to design griefer cards that I don't care for, but he appears to be a good designer and contributes greatly to designing aspects of the sets that I like. I am glad he is on the design team.
Nevertheless, I can also understand DrJones' wish for a designer who designs more cards to his or her taste. All eight candidates are good choices, so how we favor each one's submissions depends mostly on our tastes. I presume Wizards of the Coast has some more exact needs that they will measure the candidates against.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 28, 2010 - 10:00PM
#83
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2004
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Sorry, i just have a problem with people mixing up personality with skill. (i.e. people who you don't like can be qualified at thier job.)
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On a different note, submissions should be in. So now i'm going to snoop on what people submitted.
… and then, the squirrels came.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 29, 2010 - 2:03AM
#84
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Sorry, i just have a problem with people mixing up personality with skill. (i.e. people who you don't like can be qualified at thier job.)
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On a different note, submissions should be in. So now i'm going to snoop on what people submitted.
The problem I think is that for some Ken has become the embodiment of the direction magic is going in, the direction they don't like. The 'dumbing-down', the 'appealing to the yu-gi-oh crowd', 'red-zone matters magic'. The 'magic isn't for me anymore' crowd.
In the GDS comments Ken frequently bashed too complex cards (with comments like the advanced calculus thingy)
Now not to say they're wrong, likely magic isn't for them anymore indeed. But just like you say, just because they don't like it doesn't mean its bad for magic, bad design.
What i'm saying is, if you don't like the kind of designer Ken is, that's fine. But don't call him a bad designer because he designs cards you don't like.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 29, 2010 - 5:34AM
#85
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Date Joined:
Feb 28, 2002
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I'll clarify some points.
1. GDS1 was a fiasco because the best designer of the bunch that went to Renton was Ken, but the winner of the show was Alexis, who since then has been doing Magic Online related work and some R&D, but not design. In the contest, Alexis kept submitting unworkable cards and cards that had already been done by wizards without taking care to look up gatherer beforehand, but she got an enormous public support for being a girl and claiming that hiring her would showcase that women play magic (how this turned up to be was a great example of kharmic justice). This time, though, there is only one winner, so repeating the same mistakes means that we will not even get a Ken this time.
2. If you read all GDS1's entries, you'll see that Ken wasn't a good designer either. He kept submitting round after round "über-johnny cards" on purpose, which is WotC's jargon for "super narrow and purposeless card nobody would play except for the challenge of doing so". Since he works at Wizards, he also has made great decisions such as including Didgeridoo in Masters Edition 2 (and probably Wood Elemental in Masters Edition 4). Just reading R&D columns about changes he makes to cards and sets gives you an idea of how he is the bane of tournament players.
3. Though all the above is true, working for WotC for many years has make them skilled enough to create reasonable cards. Criticism on candidates is thus about saving time for WotC. Better to have a designer that can do reasonable cards from day one than one that takes four years of training on unrelated work to do the same task.
4. While it's true that I want a designer that designs the cards of my taste to win the GDS, it's also true that the percentage of people that enjoy über-johnny cards is incredibly small, so attempting to dismiss my argument as subjective is unwise.
And that's all that I have to say about the GDS1.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 29, 2010 - 6:24AM
#86
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Date Joined:
Feb 28, 2002
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This is not an issue of the judges taking down the enchantment theme of his first submission, it's a problem of having a faulty concept from the beginning; faulty concepts lead to endless backtracking.
Having read your Reimaginations page, I believe that you have a faulty understanding of Devon Rule's concept.
I have read your feedback and respect your opinion based in my very raw and terrible writing proper of a sleep-deprived amateurish man. At the end, the beauty of engineering is that a faulty design will fail regardless of opinions. If I'm wrong, we'll be able to see it in a few months. 
I liked the gold counters and said so from the beginning on the Wiki. On the other hand, I was more wary about the Mercenary mechanic. But Mr. Rule was right, because the judges liked that, too. And it is helping unify the mechanics across the colors, because Utopia appears to be converging on creature cooperation in all colors.
Here I have to point out from info I know that Devon's vision had gold counters ONLY in black. And even after contributor's pressure, he wasn't going to use them in this second submission, either, even though it's crystal clear he has to. While you are doing a wonderful job that will reflect in the quality of the submitted work, the contributor's team is doing what correcting lens do to the eyes of a myopic person.
And now let me paste the following diagram from engineering and business schools:
As you can see, the cost of fixing a defect in a system raises exponentially the longer it takes to detect it during development. Conceptual mistakes that aren't noticed until the file is handled to R&D are therefore disastrous, which is why I believe that a person able to make conceptual mistakes of the caliber of having five totally disjoint colors in a set (with 14 different mechanics, as I was able to see from his design skeleton) should be avoided at all costs.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 29, 2010 - 5:38PM
#87
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2004
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Well both Devon and Shawn have a problem with not including thier main mechanics in thier submissions (Shawn didn't include blight, and Devon didn't include gold).
But, we don't know what the judges will harp on this time. It might not matter until later on.
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On the GDS in general, it's sad when you don't get actual competition until near the end of it. (and even then it's a bit lackluster).
Of course i'd like to see more diverse challanges. And i would like to see designers forced to act alone.
… and then, the squirrels came.
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