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2 years ago ::
Jun 20, 2011 - 5:26PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2008
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This thread is for discussion of this week's Serious Fun, which goes live Tuesday morning on magicthegathering.com.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 20, 2011 - 10:19PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Apr 16, 2007
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I tried the first Duels game on Xbox with several friends and, in many ways, loved it. The Challenge mode especially.
I then went so far as to purchase the game and all expansions...only to find that, while the trial version worked without a problem on my laptop, it didn't work! I looked up the reason and found that it was an arbitrary hardware check...and that many, many others had been locked out of the game for the same reason...and it has yet to be addressed to this day.
I held my breath with anticipation for Duels 2012...and it sounds like, once again, the PC version is simply riddled with issues that any decent developer would've ironed out before release.
I really want to own/pay/play these games...but I can justify the expenditure on something that simply doesn't work.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 20, 2011 - 10:25PM
#3
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I would love to play DotP, but since Wizards doesn't seem to have a large enough Unix demographic, I'm out. If there were a Mac version or if it ran in WINE, I'd be quite happy to buy and play it, but alas neither of those things is true. Of course, a native Linux version would be nice too, but I'm guessing that demographic is even smaller than the Mac one :P.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 20, 2011 - 10:30PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Aug 29, 2006
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I have a Mac, and own no gaming consoles. Trying to run Duels in an emulator has been enough of a deterrent that I haven't bothered to get Duels.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 20, 2011 - 10:51PM
#5
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I haven't had any problems with Duels 2012 on PC, although on PS3 the life total is so small that it's almost impossible to read, and I have a very large TV. DotP 1 worked very well on the PS3, but I had a major problem with the 360 version, in that several months after downloading it I wasn't able to play it any more because it insisted it was the trial demo. As far as the structure of the D12 program, though, I fully enjoyed it. My only gripes are that the early challenges are far too easy, the first opponent in campaign is far too difficult, and the final boss uses a deck that isn't VINTAGE legal (it runs four Mox Sapphire  s, and probably multiple Tinker  s). That guy got out a turn 3 Darksteel Colossus  four times before I beat him!
"We will all be purified in Wurm.
What is good will be used to heal Wurm, or grow Wurm, or to fuel Wurm's path. What is vile will be extruded, and we will be free of it forever."
--Prophet of the Cult of Wurm
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2 years ago ::
Jun 20, 2011 - 11:08PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2004
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Hi.
Just a friendly reminder.
Formal taxonomic nomenclature gives us a few options.
When referring to the genus name for an organism, we may use something like Tyrannosaurus. In this sense, the human genus is Homo.
When referring to the species name for an organism, we may do so by tacking it on at the end, in a form similar to Chinese/Japanese names: Tyrannosaurus rex. "Rex" here refers to a smaller group than Tyrannosaurus, as there may be more than one species in Tyrannosaurus. In the same sense we get Homo sapiens, and Homo erectus, and Homo neanderthalensis, etc. Note that the second word is always lowercase, the first uppercase.
But we may also wish to abbreviate these terms, as sometimes the names can get pretty long. Did you know there was an amphipod (a type of shrimp) named Rhodophthalmokytodermogammarus? One of the longest genus names we've got. That's a lot to have to say when you have to say it a lot, so it gets shortened and we use just an abbreviation with the species name at the end. Hence, T. rex, or H. sapiens, or R. cinnamomeus. See, wasn't that easy? Note that despite appearing after a period, the species word is not uppercase. This has a lot more to do with the difference between periods and full stops that American has no distinction for, as well as the function of using internal periods in writing ... such as three in a row.
What we do NOT do is use hyphens in place of periods to show abbreviations. The genus and the species names are separate and unfusable, unlike you own last name when you get married, or if your descent may warrant it. We thus don't use T-rex because it's not a brand name, a product to sell, a single object being condensed. There is a company named Trex, and another named Terex, but they are not genus names with species stuck on the end. Hence, you never see H-sapiens. (If you did, you should slap that man.)
These names are always italicized, because it's "cool." It sets them off in the written line and brings attention, such as when I use precise emphasis. It also separates the formal from the vulgar in terms of language, and we do the same when transcribing foreign words or phrases.
Thank you.
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
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2 years ago ::
Jun 20, 2011 - 11:51PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Nov 29, 2007
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Last week also featured the release of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, something that I wasted no time in picking it up through Steam and PlayStation Network. I've been enjoying a slightly different way to play Magic and I'm curious if you, too, have jumped into the digital foray.
*poll missing a very obvious option*
Have you jumped into the digital foray? I don't think you have.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 21, 2011 - 1:14AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2003
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Those pull numbers are kind of sad. It suggests Latest Developments gets about six or seven times as many readers.
As for the T-rex/T. rex thing goes, I'm pretty sure most everyone uses the hyphen there. Perhaps the R isn't capitalised by everyone, but I think you're going to have a hard time convincing people to start using the scientifically correct terminology.
Also, the game description was more fun to read than most other column types. This is what Serious Fun is about, after all. I just wish it didn't sound so much like a door-to-door salesman.
Zindaras' meta is like a fossil, ancient and its secrets yet to be uncovered. Only men of yore, long dead, knew of it.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 21, 2011 - 1:33AM
#9
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- Warm, wet and squishy inside
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Commander is a boring format, I'll be glad when the site gives up on it. I picked up the original Duels of the Planeswalkers when it was on sale on Steam. I forget the details. I think I shot myself in the foot by accidentally also buying all the premium content (the useless stuff you can unlock), although I crunched a bunch of numbers and determined that the difference was very small. I wasn't clear exactly what it was that I was buying, and I thought it was additional content and not just garbage. The game itself was alright. I picked it up because I wanted to play some Magic, but had nobody handy to play with and I can't justify spending real money on digital cards to play on MODO. I looked at the demo for Magic 2012, and it was alright but not compelling enough to justify buying when my money is as tight as it is. I'll probably keep an eye on it and pick it up on sale. I rarely pay full price for any game I don't know with quite a bit of confidence I'm going to be playing to death.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 21, 2011 - 5:58AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2009
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Moving away from the console/hyphenation wars...
I bought the original DotP mainly because a) it was on sale and b) co-op games are good. Competitive play is all well and good, but if the people who want to play together are at wildly different skill levels there's a lot to be said for the good clean fun of teaming up to clobber that silly computer.
Then I found out that you can't play co-op without a second controller, presumably because it was a console port, so I've been playing with a joystick. It's a bit awkward, but it works well enough. Which tends to sum up DotP for me, honestly. Pretty much every part of it is a bit awkward (every time it helpfully taps my mana for me so as to prevent me from playing my spells is a fresh irritation) but it's cheap and it fills a niche that is far from crowded.
Which sounds a bit like damning with faint praise, but good enough is good enough, and I'm sure I'll end up getting the new edition at some point.
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