[Magic Legends]And.... It's dead. Shutting down Oct. 31st.

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Krishnath
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Post by Krishnath » 2 years ago



Can't say I'm surprised considering what they delivered (a terrible Diablo clone) was very different from what they promised when they originally announced it (An MMORPG where you could play as a planeswalker).

Bad press is a killer, don't promise things you aren't going to deliver.
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Post by plushpenguin » 2 years ago

Well that didn't last long...

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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Somewhat surprising for it to be shut down so quickly - I'd heard it was just so-so, but assumed they were going to spend time polishing it until it's in a workable state. Guess press was bad enough that they just gave up instead.

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Post by Sporegorger_Dragon » 2 years ago

I think it was too much of a money sink. When they realized there was no guarantee that the game would be a surefire smash-hit and there was no guaranteed return on their investment, I guess they didn't want to sink any more money into it.
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Post by Krishnath » 2 years ago

Sporegorger_Dragon wrote:
2 years ago
I think it was too much of a money sink. When they realized there was no guarantee that the game would be a surefire smash-hit and there was no guaranteed return on their investment, I guess they didn't want to sink any more money into it.
I think it would have been more of a success if they had actually delivered what they originally promised, or you know, not lied to begin with. When they said they were developing an MMO based on MTG, I was actually interested, and I *loathe* MMO's. Then when they revealed what it actually was and got massive pushback for it not being what they promised, they actually went back and edited the original press release and said "see, we didn't promise an MMO", people got even angrier. The project was on life support as soon as they released it, and it was not going to be saved. The sheer dishonesty from the developer is what killed it.
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Post by Shabbaman » 2 years ago

I suspect they'll reskin it as some Avengers game.
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 2 years ago

The wording of this announcement is dully corporate and simulatenously very silly. "We couldn't have gotten this far without you!" Lolwut, your game didn't even succesfully survive beta testing, how far exactly do you think you got? Were your initial expectations really so cynical as to expect this game to last LESS than the flash it in the pan it became?

I swear, these copypasta press releases are really starting to wear on me. You can find the same pseudo-emotional %$#%$#% rhetoric reiterated nearly everywhere now, regardless of industry, country, or company. There's a set of stock sentences for expressing success and another for failure, and the sheer repitition and lack of genuine expression reduces them all to hollow drivel in the minds of audiences. Maybe actually write something meaningful instead of recycling the same tired PR lines ad nauseum?

Edit: on the bright side, this abomination dies on my birthday so I guess that's my present from the universe this year.
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Post by ilovesaprolings » 2 years ago

Everyone is happy because the game got a lot of hate for... reasons(?), but that just mean we'll need to wait 5-10 years for another try at a mtg videogame

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Post by Krishnath » 2 years ago

ilovesaprolings wrote:
2 years ago
Everyone is happy because the game got a lot of hate for... reasons(?), but that just mean we'll need to wait 5-10 years for another try at a mtg videogame
It got a lot of hate because it was not what was originally promised, and then they tried to cover it up by editing the original press release, not realizing or caring that it had been copied hundreds if not thousands of times already, and that there had been made dozens of articles about it already by gaming blogs and gaming publications all over the world, and people were very excited about what they had promised: An MTG based MMO.

Had they been honest about what type of game they were making (A Diablo clone) from the start, people wouldn't have been angry, and it would likely have been more successful.
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Post by ilovesaprolings » 2 years ago

Krishnath wrote:
2 years ago
It got a lot of hate because it was not what was originally promised, and then they tried to cover it up by editing the original press release, not realizing or caring that it had been copied hundreds if not thousands of times already, and that there had been made dozens of articles about it already by gaming blogs and gaming publications all over the world, and people were very excited about what they had promised: An MTG based MMO.

Had they been honest about what type of game they were making (A Diablo clone) from the start, people wouldn't have been angry, and it would likely have been more successful.
And so? If they delivered a MMO, everyone would have called it a wow clone.

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Post by Krishnath » 2 years ago

ilovesaprolings wrote:
2 years ago
Krishnath wrote:
2 years ago
It got a lot of hate because it was not what was originally promised, and then they tried to cover it up by editing the original press release, not realizing or caring that it had been copied hundreds if not thousands of times already, and that there had been made dozens of articles about it already by gaming blogs and gaming publications all over the world, and people were very excited about what they had promised: An MTG based MMO.

Had they been honest about what type of game they were making (A Diablo clone) from the start, people wouldn't have been angry, and it would likely have been more successful.
And so? If they delivered a MMO, everyone would have called it a wow clone.
And every FPS is a Doom clone. It's more a category descriptor than anything else. People aren't complaining because it is the type of game it is. They are complaining because it is not what was originally promised.
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Post by Legend » 2 years ago

WotC NEVER should have made up the word "planeswalker". It's a stupid ass word with no meaning. NOBODY wants to be a pLaNEsWaLkeR. We want to be Wizards, Warriors, Rogues, Clerics, Sorcerers, Soldiers, and such. "Planeswalker" doesn't grab or engage the imagination.
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Post by Krishnath » 2 years ago

Legend wrote:
2 years ago
WotC NEVER should have made up the word "planeswalker". It's a stupid ass word with no meaning. NOBODY wants to be a pLaNEsWaLkeR. We want to be Wizards, Warriors, Rogues, Clerics, Sorcerers, Soldiers, and such. "Planeswalker" doesn't grab or engage the imagination.
Planeswalker was already a term prior to MTG, and WotC did not come up with it. It was a term used in D&D when it was owned by TSR to denote someone who traveled the planes. WotC simply coopted it when they created MTG because it wasn't copyrighted.
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Post by Legend » 2 years ago

Krishnath wrote:
2 years ago
Legend wrote:
2 years ago
WotC NEVER should have made up the word "planeswalker". It's a stupid ass word with no meaning. NOBODY wants to be a pLaNEsWaLkeR. We want to be Wizards, Warriors, Rogues, Clerics, Sorcerers, Soldiers, and such. "Planeswalker" doesn't grab or engage the imagination.
Planeswalker was already a term prior to MTG, and WotC did not come up with it. It was a term used in D&D when it was owned by TSR to denote someone who traveled the planes. WotC simply coopted it when they created MTG because it wasn't copyrighted.
Im aware, having played Planescapes extensively back in the day. It's still a stupid meaningless word to outsiders. Also, it was "planewalker" not "planeswalker", the former of which is better IMO.
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Post by motleyslayer » 2 years ago

I'm not surprised at all, game was very negatively received. Which is a shame because I feel like there could be space for a game like it. Legends just seemed awful

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Post by AvalonAurora » 2 years ago

Honestly, what we got wasn't the best way to go about things. They could have done some seriously cool things with a magic video game that isn't a card game.

For a Diablo-esque thing, here is something along the lines of how I'd have suggested they do it:

You don't have cards or decks, nor any sort of randomness related to such.

You pick a character (or maybe build one) that determines your affinities for different types of magic and what you can learn, including a primary color and a secondary color (still uses the color system).

You have mana bars related to the color(s) you have on your character, rather than lands like the card game. Inspired by the lands, your character progression for increasing the amount of mana you have on each bar is caused by exploring maps that share a color you have affinity for. So a green/red planeswalker would get a section added to their appropriate mana bar if they explored most of a map of a forest or mountain area. Maps for things that aren't your primary colors instead add to a generic 'colorless' mana bar once explored completely (you don't get them for only exploring most of it like your color affinities).

As you encounter creatures you are strong enough to summon, different characters can gain them as summons in different ways. Perhaps one has to kill them with a certain type of attack. Another has to befriend them somehow. Another has to survive certain attacks from them and then touch them. Another has to cast a ritual on their corpse without being interrupted. You can only claim a creature as a new summon if your appropriate color(s) of mana are strong enough for it, so as you progress through the game you can get stronger summons. There are two types of summons, ones that stick around at the cost of your mana bar not recovering their cost while they remain alive, and ones that you can spam out as special attacks that disappear after a certain amount of time and performing certain patterns of behavior. The first type you have a limit to how many you can have out at once based on your total mana reserves of appropriate color(s), and they follow you around and try to protect you. An artificer character can gain new summons by learning schematics, either by taking apart ones they are skilled enough to understand and analyzing them, or buying the schematics, or inventing ones by doing research once you reach certain levels of ability.

There are also spells, you can only learn spells appropriate to your affinities and colors, and you can learn them in various ways, you can buy or find as loot books or scrolls in various shops on different planes, or if you have a lot more of the right colors of mana than you need to cast them, you can sometimes encounter natural phenomena that turn into spells once observed, and you can also get tutored in various spells by appropriate NPCs either for quest rewards or for paying them and things like that. You can set different spells to different buttons and upgrade your spells of various types as you progress and get more mana to be able to afford stronger spells.

Spells come in three forms, 'instants' which you can cast with single clicks or button presses or the like and fire off at will as long as you have the mana for them. 'Sorceries' which you select from a menu of all your known ones and take time to cast but tend to have big effects. And 'enchantments' that apply a lasting effect either to you, one of your long lasting summons, or an area, and have a long cast time and are selected from a menu like the sorceries, but you don't get mana back while they are still up similar to summons.

Your character can also planeswalk to different planes, which drains away your current mana and cancels all your current spells. Planeswalking is a ritual of sorts similar to sorceries and enchantments to perform, but keyed to a standard button that must always be an option even if you re-map keys, one of them still needs to be planeswalking. Once you planeswalk, you'll either head to a random plane if you don't select a plane quickly, or head to a plane you've visited before in an area you've explored most of the map of if you choose the plane quickly.

The game has an assortment of maps on different canon MTG planes, and perhaps some original planes for the game, most of them including a full suite of basic land types at the very least.

But it also has procedurally generated random maps of procedurally generated planes with their own threats and loot and themes and such for endless playability.

Your character is in their weakest state usually just after a planeswalk, since their mana bars are at zero and all their permanent summons and enchantments are inactive, and they have to wait for their mana to regenerate in order to cast their permanent summons and enchantments or even have enough mana for stronger sorceries.

Of course, one thing that is still good after a planeswalk is your gear, worn artifacts and the like, so gathering loot and upgrading your armor and tools/weapons is an important consideration for safely visiting stronger new planes.

Planes have a sort of 'mana level' to them, which indicates their rough threat level. Random planes will generally be selected from ones at your 'level' or lower based on your total mana reserves you've built up by exploring different planes. Higher mana level planes have better monsters and loot and such, and exploring their lands gives larger numbers to your mana bars than exploring lands on lower 'mana level' planes, but they also have higher prices in shops and greater amounts and power levels of threats.

Each pre-made character has their own story arc across the existing manually designed planes in the game, and there is a shared generic storyline between all the characters across the pre-made planes in the game, if there is a custom character they only get the shared storyline and maybe some mana color(s) appropriate sections on each pre-made plane.

Procedurally generated planes serve as more random dungeon type places or areas to gather random loot from and the like between parts of the main story or for after you've completed the story and are just having fun with your character.

DLC can add new pre-generated planes or extra areas of the map to existing pre-made planes and more storyline content to such things, like new quests and such, add new pre-made characters and their appropriate loot tables and spells and such, add new loot and spells and such for all characters, add continuations to the main storyline for stronger characters, etc.

---

For an MMORPG:

You start out by picking a class and race and colors. Some classes can only select certain colors.

You gain XP for leveling by exploring and filling out maps, and get XP bonuses for filling out maps of the right color(s) for your character, but you don't gain all your abilities by leveling, only some of the mere basics. You get abilities to put on your bars by going through class quests on various planes. Your class will often have different 'versions' on different planes based on the local culture that focus on different aspects of your abilities that you can access. You don't need a fully filled out ability bar for your level to be viable.

Enemies are found at level ranges appropriate to the local 'mana level' of a region you are in, and you can tell if an area is too strong for your current character.

Summons are pets that follow you around and try to help you automatically, even in large groups that are managed by a simple AI and can be given limited sets of commands. They serve similar purposes to damage mitigation and tanks for the most part, having relatively weak attacks but they'll generally try to block enemies from reaching you. You can spam them to slowly beat level appropriate dungeons solo.

New planes, new areas to existing planes, and new quests and stuff are added with each expansion, but even the initial game release has multiple planes you can visit.

The main storyline implies that only the main character and a limited group of 'friends' (people who join you in dungeon ques and boss battles and such) are planeswalkers, but that the vast majority of other adventurers (including most other players when they aren't in an instance with you where it is implied they are planeswalkers by the story) aren't planeswalkers, as planeswalkers are relatively rare. Some major NPCs are also planeswalkers, but the game avoids heavy involvement in the card game's characters or major planes likely to suffer changes in the card game's storylines, although some of the card game's characters might get the occasional cameo appearance, usually just hinted at or related to things that happened in the past or people some of the NPCs you meet might have met in the past.

The game has significant crafting and gathering components and non-combat sub-classes related to such and an in-game marketplace setup.

When you sell items, you sell them on the plane you are currently on, and many raw materials often sell better on other planes where those things are less abundant. You have to have access to black market type stuff to sell items that don't exist normally on the plane you are on. Even if the main combat classes have versions on every plane, not all the crafting classes have versions on every plane.

You can get 'guidebook' materials that help you find things like class quests and key areas on new planes from a major planeswalker NPC who is part of Tamiyo's story circle and occasionally mentions other characters in that group like Tamiyo and Ajani, forming various 'planeswalker guides' to various planes and such in-game.

New races and planes and new abilities for different classes are added regularly with expansions alongside new chunks of main story and various sidequests and such.

Game is designed from the start to allow for flying and swimming as traversal options, and you can gain the ability to breathe water or fly later on through various quests or class abilities, and some races come by default with water breathing or flight, such as merfolk. Trying to go out of areas on planes that the game developers have already designed gets your character randomly attacked by a powerful monster like a wurm or a dragon or a demon or something and planeswalking away in a panic and winding up in a safe area on a different plane, to make it easier for the developers to add new map areas to existing planes later on without ret-conning or the like and keep map areas reasonably limited for people on weaker machines and to take it easy on the servers and such.

Game is primarily PvE, due to difficulty of balancing summons and various character builds.

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Post by clariwench » 2 years ago

Legend wrote:
2 years ago
WotC NEVER should have made up the word "planeswalker". It's a stupid ass word with no meaning. NOBODY wants to be a pLaNEsWaLkeR. We want to be Wizards, Warriors, Rogues, Clerics, Sorcerers, Soldiers, and such. "Planeswalker" doesn't grab or engage the imagination.
I want to be a planeswalker and couldn't possibly care less about those other boring terms.
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