Sorry about not responding to your respective PMs. The question of "why aren't there more cards?" has been heard, but unfortunately I don't have an answer for you as far as design decisions. At least not right now. If I get one, I'll post it here. I've been passing on feedback like this, and it's clear a good portion of players were bummed about the promotional codes only providing extra cards to the original 10 and 5 expansion decks. I've been passing on a steady stream of community feedback to the design team about it.
Sean Gibbons Community Coordinator Magic Online & Duels of the Planeswalkers Twitter: @SeanGibbons Official MTGO Twitter: @MagicOnline
Sorry about not responding to your respective PMs. The question of "why aren't there more cards?" has been heard, but unfortunately I don't have an answer for you as far as design decisions. At least not right now. If I get one, I'll post it here. I've been passing on feedback like this, and it's clear a good portion of players were bummed about the promotional codes only providing extra cards to the original 10 and 5 expansion decks. I've been passing on a steady stream of community feedback to the design team about it.
Not your fault, but thanks for this anyway...why you're here, can I ask what YOU think of the new decks? And if you can confirm the dimir leak?
The secod question I doubt you can answer anyway, but the first...i'm just curious, since that does appear to be the simic emblem on your avi...
I'm both orderly and rational. I value control, information, and order. I love structure and hierarchy, and will actively use whatever power or knowledge I have to maintain it. At best, I am lawful and insightful; at worst, I am bureaucratic and tyrannical.
That's fair. I'm assuming since you've come to this conclusion that you know the exact composition of my PM then? You know, the intent behind it, whether you agree with what was said and all that?
Going off the vast majority of your posts on the subject (and the fact he didn't think the content was worth a reply), I think we can make a reasonably accurate assesment.
Considering you would be completely and utterly incorrect on all counts, I don't think said assessment would be reasonable or accurate. So there's that...
Sorry about not responding to your respective PMs. The question of "why aren't there more cards?" has been heard, but unfortunately I don't have an answer for you as far as design decisions. At least not right now. If I get one, I'll post it here. I've been passing on feedback like this, and it's clear a good portion of players were bummed about the promotional codes only providing extra cards to the original 10 and 5 expansion decks. I've been passing on a steady stream of community feedback to the design team about it.
To me, there seems to be a few different groups of people:
1. People that didn't buy the deck pack and won't buy the future deck pack, mostly due to the decks lacking 10 cards that other decks have. 2. People that will buy the deck packs for 2013, just so that way they have all the decks possible. These people may or may not be willing to purchase future DotP games though given the various fiascos regarding community support and design choices (I fit in this group for the record). 3. People that may or may not buy the deck packs, not entirely due to the lack of the 10 cards, but are still looking forward to the 2014 version.
A lot of people are in group 1, and it's not just people on this forum, but on other forums as well. Last year, I strongly defended the concept of deck packs. It's still a good value ($1.50 per deck) and the deck packs were released within a month of each other. I see many people saying they don't want to buy the deck packs due to the lack of 10 cards, and I'm not inclined to try and persuade them otherwise.
The good news, there is a fix for this, but if you want to build a reputation of community support, this needs to be fixed for DotP 2013, and not just a lesson for the design team to learn from and carry forward into DotP 2014. The fix is simple, add 10 cards to each of the deck pack decks, and you can do this all at once by including the cards for each deck in with the final deck pack that is to be released. These cards don't even need to be promo cards, and you don't need fancy unlock codes for them, you could make them just like the normal unlockable cards. To make things simpler, they could just be 10 cards that are already programmed into the game.
I guarantee that if you do this, many complaints about this incident will dissappear. And if you really want to go out of your way to increase community support, get the community involved on the selection of these other 10 cards, either by making topics to collect ideas, or delegate 1 community member to pick the 10 cards for each deck (pending final approval from Wizards/Steam of course), or you delegate 1 person to each different deck.
Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 deck builds and analysis: http://megamaster125.angelfire.com/dotp2013/
Another one of my websites: http://megamaster125.angelfire.com/rationalchristianity/
You forgot a fourth group: People who bought and like the deck packs and are also looking forward to DotP 2014. I'm in this group. All of your options made it seem that everyone was disappointed in the deck packs, sorry if I misunderstood though. I like both of the new decks better than the five expansion decks, even with less cards in them.
Sorry about not responding to your respective PMs. The question of "why aren't there more cards?" has been heard, but unfortunately I don't have an answer for you as far as design decisions. At least not right now. If I get one, I'll post it here. I've been passing on feedback like this, and it's clear a good portion of players were bummed about the promotional codes only providing extra cards to the original 10 and 5 expansion decks. I've been passing on a steady stream of community feedback to the design team about it.
To me, there seems to be a few different groups of people:
1. People that didn't buy the deck pack and won't buy the future deck pack, mostly due to the decks lacking 10 cards that other decks have. 2. People that will buy the deck packs for 2013, just so that way they have all the decks possible. These people may or may not be willing to purchase future DotP games though given the various fiascos regarding community support and design choices (I fit in this group for the record). 3. People that may or may not buy the deck packs, not entirely due to the lack of the 10 cards, but are still looking forward to the 2014 version.
A lot of people are in group 1, and it's not just people on this forum, but on other forums as well. Last year, I strongly defended the concept of deck packs. It's still a good value ($1.50 per deck) and the deck packs were released within a month of each other. I see many people saying they don't want to buy the deck packs due to the lack of 10 cards, and I'm not inclined to try and persuade them otherwise.
The good news, there is a fix for this, but if you want to build a reputation of community support, this needs to be fixed for DotP 2013, and not just a lesson for the design team to learn from and carry forward into DotP 2014. The fix is simple, add 10 cards to each of the deck pack decks, and you can do this all at once by including the cards for each deck in with the final deck pack that is to be released. These cards don't even need to be promo cards, and you don't need fancy unlock codes for them, you could make them just like the normal unlockable cards. To make things simpler, they could just be 10 cards that are already programmed into the game.
I guarantee that if you do this, many complaints about this incident will dissappear. And if you really want to go out of your way to increase community support, get the community involved on the selection of these other 10 cards, either by making topics to collect ideas, or delegate 1 community member to pick the 10 cards for each deck (pending final approval from Wizards/Steam of course), or you delegate 1 person to each different deck.
At first, I was gonna say "Come on, stop whining" when reading the first section of your message, because, honestly, the effect of 10 cards missing is far, far from beeing as bad as you make it sound. But then, I read the second portion, and yes, this, I can agree with : that would be ideal, and a great way to support the community.
@Sean : Thanks for the reply, and please, try to ensure that they understand that we want continuity with the way they're handling the decks : Same "power level" was done perfectly this time, but they kinda screwed up on the decks having the same amount of cards & customizability.
You forgot a fourth group: People who bought and like the deck packs and are also looking forward to DotP 2014. I'm in this group. All of your options made it seem that everyone was disappointed in the deck packs, sorry if I misunderstood though. I like both of the new decks better than the five expansion decks, even with less cards in them.
Well, the third group is people that may or may not have bought the deck pack and are looking forward to 2014. I do enjoy the deck pack we got, but only to a certain extent. The U/G deck is kinda dull to play after a while, because it's mostly just throwing down creatures. Fables can get fun and crazy, but otherwise, it's a pretty straightforward gameplay style. Act of War I've had fun with, especially the more controling build. Both decks I feel do need a little boost though to be on par with the other decks.
Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 deck builds and analysis: http://megamaster125.angelfire.com/dotp2013/
Another one of my websites: http://megamaster125.angelfire.com/rationalchristianity/
You know what? Just for fun, here's the "whiny" PM I sent Sean on Friday:
First off, I'd like to know if you think it's even remotely possible that with enough incentive we could have the devlopers/whatevers of the game to release a special card pack including 10 extra cards for the remaining/forthcoming 6 decks(a la the promos of the other 15 decks). An outcry on these forums had the Serra Ascendant changed, so I'm hoping that with enough support etc. we can have these cards added to the game (with a dollar value attached if necessary).
If that's so, I would like for you to create a thread asking people what cards they want added to these decks. Everyone should contribute, whether they agree with the decks being shorted, whether they want to buy the decks, whether they agree there wshould be cards added, etc. EVERYONE must be encouraged to contribute because if the cards are indeed added, whether people get them/buy them/agree with them, they will most certainly be playing against them.
Everyone should suggest what cards they feel should be in the decks or want to see in the decks, and EVERY card and then the "final" list (which would ultimately be up to the designers should they be involved) should also be critiqued to maintain game balance.
Ultimately the reason for this is that the game was obviously fully tested and the decks balanced prior to release so if developers were to add more cards, they would ostensibly be untested. This community plays the game -- a ton -- and should be qualified to give a decent enough blueprint that the card lists would only need minor tweaks at best to fit into the current meta.
The only caveat is that we only have 2 (3) decklists, so the remaining decks will have to be discussed as their lists are made public. Which, I don't know if you think each deck should have it's own thread or just pile it all into one. It's whatever would be easiest to maintain I suppose. That would be your call....
So...What do you think?
Word for word, copied out of my sent box. Sean can confrim this if he feels so inclined.
As to the obvious question "Why don't you make the thread yourself?", well the secondary reason is that there are those who would make this thread more about the person who made it, rather than the topic itself. Going by what we've seen, I think that's a reasonably accurate assessment (also, I passed this idea by another member of the community 2 weeks ago who can confirm that this was my concern long before now, if he feels so inclined).
The primary reason for asking Sean is simply that more people would contribute and take it seriously if a Wizards Rep made the thread. Surely he would have more credability than anyone else. I don't know if my message was simply filed away, or was victim of a mass deletion or was added to a very long to-get-to list, but I still don't know if this is worth trying or not. I didn't get a response.
You know what? Just for fun, here's the "whiny" PM I sent Sean on Friday:
First off, I'd like to know if you think it's even remotely possible that with enough incentive we could have the devlopers/whatevers of the game to release a special card pack including 10 extra cards for the remaining/forthcoming 6 decks(a la the promos of the other 15 decks). An outcry on these forums had the Serra Ascendant changed, so I'm hoping that with enough support etc. we can have these cards added to the game (with a dollar value attached if necessary).
If that's so, I would like for you to create a thread asking people what cards they want added to these decks. Everyone should contribute, whether they agree with the decks being shorted, whether they want to buy the decks, whether they agree there wshould be cards added, etc. EVERYONE must be encouraged to contribute because if the cards are indeed added, whether people get them/buy them/agree with them, they will most certainly be playing against them.
Everyone should suggest what cards they feel should be in the decks or want to see in the decks, and EVERY card and then the "final" list (which would ultimately be up to the designers should they be involved) should also be critiqued to maintain game balance.
Ultimately the reason for this is that the game was obviously fully tested and the decks balanced prior to release so if developers were to add more cards, they would ostensibly be untested. This community plays the game -- a ton -- and should be qualified to give a decent enough blueprint that the card lists would only need minor tweaks at best to fit into the current meta.
The only caveat is that we only have 2 (3) decklists, so the remaining decks will have to be discussed as their lists are made public. Which, I don't know if you think each deck should have it's own thread or just pile it all into one. It's whatever would be easiest to maintain I suppose. That would be your call....
So...What do you think?
Word for word, copied out of my sent box. Sean can confrim this if he feels so inclined.
As to the obvious question "Why don't you make the thread yourself?", well the secondary reason is that there are those who would make this thread more about the person who made it, rather than the topic itself. Going by what we've seen, I think that's a reasonably accurate assessment (also, I passed this idea by another member of the community 2 weeks ago who can confirm that this was my concern long before now, if he feels so inclined).
The primary reason for asking Sean is simply that more people would contribute and take it seriously if a Wizards Rep made the thread. Surely he would have more credability than anyone else. I don't know if my message was simply filed away, or was victim of a mass deletion or was added to a very long to-get-to list, but I still don't know if this is worth trying or not. I didn't get a response.
So yeah.... There's that as well.
I do appreciate you messaging me, Splattercat. Since you posted your message for everyone, I'd might as well post the reply I intended to send you as I catch up with my direct messages (there is a long Holiday weekend about to start, so again, my apologies if some remain unanswered).
While I have passed on your request for an additional deck pack (which I saw requested by a number of people with the news about the promo cards), I wouldn't want to personally make a thread that would set that expectation for anyone. I know there currently aren't plans to make a deck pack of that nature for Duels 2013, and the last thing I want to do is set a bar for petitions or threads with the promise of a new release at the end when ultimately there are a lot of internal and external factors involved in planning these kinds of things where the Duels team is concerned.
You guys are totally free to discuss what cards you'd like to see in future Duels content. Go ahead and make a thread for it (I personally love reading that kind of speculation, and I always make sure the WotC R&D team gets a link).
Sean Gibbons Community Coordinator Magic Online & Duels of the Planeswalkers Twitter: @SeanGibbons Official MTGO Twitter: @MagicOnline
Am I the only one that doesn't mind that the new decks only have 30 extra cards? Yeah, I thought it was strange when I noticed, and that could have been 10 interesting cards for each of the new decks, but really it just means I have 10 fewer cards that I will not be playing.
