Guskin! That was actually a good design article, stealthily hidden as an Organized Play announcement.
So good in fact, that you've earned 68 Amarsir points! Amarsir points give you a way to track your progress in pleasing Amarsir, and when you get to 240 points you will reach the next level and be able to keep earning Amarsir points!
Dave Guskin
Wordspitter: Level 1
Congratulations on your progress. I'm sure you are every bit as proud as I am of my 32 levels of Planeswalker points. And coming soon: Amarsir point achievements! You can earn achievements for writing different types of articles, namedropping smartass forumites in said articles, and using exclamation points in at least 60% of your sentences!
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.
Guskin! That was actually a good design article, stealthily hidden as an Organized Play announcement.
So good in fact, that you've earned 68 Amarsir points! Amarsir points give you a way to track your progress in pleasing Amarsir, and when you get to 240 points you will reach the next level and be able to keep earning Amarsir points!
Dave Guskin
Wordspitter: Level 1
Congratulations on your progress. I'm sure you are every bit as proud as I am of my 32 levels of Planeswalker points. And coming soon: Amarsir point achievements! You can earn achievements for writing different types of articles, namedropping smartass forumites in said articles, and using exclamation points in at least 60% of your sentences!
Amarsir unlocked an achievement: Satire Sorcerer.
I can't wait to see how many Amarsir Points I got for replying to an Amarsir post! Gotta level up, gotta level up, gotta level up...
Here's what I want from Planeswalker Points: I would like for the website not to automatically log me out whenever I'm inactive for 10 minutes. Planeswalker Points aren't sensitive financial data; there's no security risk to letting me stay logged in, and it would be really convenient to just be able to leave a tab open. Is there actually a reason that I shouldn't be able to stay logged in via cookies for as long as (for example) the Wizards forums (two weeks)?
This would really be convenient and doesn't seem like it would take a significant amount of work.
Two suggestions: have achievements for Judges as well as for pure players, and allow people to connect their Community account and their DCI number so that their achievements can be seen here too.
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
Not sure I understand why these are not retroactive, and the article didn't make even the slightest attempt to explain.
If I've already done those things and they've already been verified and recorded, the only personal goal it represents is getting the PWP system to recognize that achievement in icon form rather than in list form. That's not exactly compelling.
Yeah, I thought it was odd too that it wasn't retroactive. When I was looking at the descriptions for some of the achievements (particularly the Store Squire) I thought to myself "I'm sure I've done that already. sadface."
After reading the article, the 'secret' achievements seem odd to me. Most achievement systems are used not only as bragging rights with friends but as goals that increase replay value of said game. For instance, going for a PP Achievement is a reason to go to your local store more often, or try out more sanctioned formats. But if you can't set your sights on a particular achievement because the goal is hidden, its just some random thing you might trigger by accident. So it reduces the fun of that achievement, becuase you didn't put in any effort in order to get it.
The other thing I would like to point out is that the image that pops up when you click on an achievement is way too big to be readable on smaller/older screen resolutions. I've got a 1024x768 monitor and the description of the achievement is below the screen with no way of scrolling the pop-up 'window'. Even on the iphone you have to zoom way out to be able to see the description and by then its too small to read. Its annoying, because this is the only part of the Wizards site that doesn't work for my screen. Even the rest of the PP page displays just fine.
I would like to start a discussion about the ranking of the guilds.
At the moment the ranking is based purely on the total amount of Planeswalker Points earned by a guild's members. However, I can imagine another way of ranking that would also include the average point contribution of a guild's member. Check the following info.
Currently the guilds ranks are these:
Rank by Total Planeswalker Points
Rank
Guild
Guild points
Members
1
IZZET
80827
5364
2
AZORIUS
57726
3617
3
DIMIR
44076
2960
4
SIMIC
41909
2480
5
BOROS
26842
2035
6
GOLGARI
24965
2201
7
SELESNYA
21732
1733
8
ORZHOV
21098
1680
9
RAKDOS
18242
1391
10
GRUUL
12049
761
What if we rank the guilds by average point contribution? The ranking based purely on that is this:
Rank by Average Planeswalker Points per Member
Rank
Guild
Guild points
Members
Average
1
SIMIC
41909
2480
16,90
2
AZORIUS
57726
3617
15,96
3
GRUUL
12049
761
15,83
4
IZZET
80827
5364
15,07
5
DIMIR
44076
2960
14,89
6
BOROS
26842
2035
13,19
7
RAKDOS
18242
1391
13,11
8
ORZHOV
21098
1680
12,56
9
SELESNYA
21732
1733
12,54
10
GOLGARI
24965
2201
11,34
This shows that the most effective guild is Simic at the moment and while the Izzet do outnumber everyone else, this may be based just on the fact that this guild is "cool" :-) I can imagine that some people will soon leave the minor guilds (minor by points and members) and move to the bigger ones.
What are your feelings about this? Do you think that the current ranking system is "fair"? Is it good or bad that the minor guilds will have no chance to compete?
By the way, have you noticed that all top 4 guilds contain blue? Do you think that this implies something (like that the Magic players who use Internet are generally "blue-aligned" by color pie principles :-))?
Kicker Aggro (Invasion Block)
