Also Chuck's Virtual Party was not a celebration of V2, it was apology and glad that the V2 release problems were over. The CVP was the real kicker into disaster. I was one of the only people to actually get a CVP PE that finished. (Was in like the second one or something.)
Honestly? It's kind of like all of those, which is why it was so hard to classify it.
You have day to day maintenance, like say, Civilization et al. Telling peasants to work, assigning them to certain 'chores' etc.
Then you have the armies. You build and configure the troops as you want them and go on quests.
Then, in the quests you deploy the troops you've configured and thell them what to do. Attack enemies and buildings, take over buildings (by not attacking them) and move them about.
What keeps you from just buying stuff and running rampant? Levels. Both your level and your troops' levels. Your level determines how many troops you can have in battle. The higher end troops (like Dragons) take more CP to deploy. So even if you have a dragon, you still need the levels to deploy it to the field. Also, you cannot just buy a level 5 soldier, or what have you, as they devolve once traded. This keeps the 'buy the best and stomp the newbs' from happening, at least, as much as any game can hope to accomplish.
And that's just the basics. Not going into strategy or city planning or anything else. Definitely give the free game a try and follow the tutorials and see what it's like.
I like your idea of spending 1000 bucks, stick with that.
As for the game, it has RTS elements mixed in with MMO mixed in with CCG’s. The game is many things because as gamers we saw many things we liked about many different games and wanted a game that encompassed it all.
At the core, you own a city and a stack of cards that represent various troops. You organize these troops into units which when fielded against other players or while questing on the game map come to life and move around as in an RTS game. So for example you would select your archers and tell them to attack your opponents dragon, then select your knights and tell them to attack his catapult, then cast a heal spell on the archers because the dragon just used his breath weapon on them. All this happens in real time, when you tell your archers to attack, they run across the field and shoot arrows, no turn by turn play here.
The great thing about SAGA is that unlike other RTS games, the world is perpetual, which means after your archers slay the dragon they gain experience, if you find a bow, they can equip it. So in future battles you may have level 3 archers with a bow of frost.
We love MMO games such as World of Warcraft, because after a play session you feel like you’ve accomplished something because your toon gained XP. Same thing in SAGA. Although unlike WoW you don’t need to play 8 hours a day. You can log in and do some quests, play with the market, assign your peasants to build a farm and log out having had an enjoyable experience for 30 minutes. Because we use a CCG model instead of a monthly fee, you don’t need to feel as if you should be logging in every day to get your moneys worth.
What are u talking about? I'm sure everyone playing now has gotten over the fact how bad v2 became with server downs every now and then and every other nonsense we have come to live with. Sure it's bad but hey.. We still play the game and we live with it. Nobody was happy with anything back then and nobody is happy the way it is now. Every other person under the sun can point out unsatisfaction with mtgo and their fingers won't be able to keep count. At least they did something worth being thankful for. =) (btw, I am still waiting for the dumb trophy function to work)
Also sorry abt the wow thing. I don't play wow so I messed that up. I heard from somebody when the planeswalkers came out. I suppose I got the wrong info from way back then.
i didn't quite get the gist of it out of the review.. (i'ma gonna re-read relevant sections again...nope still don't quite understand)
is the game play like a Real Time Stragegy game (you have deployed troops you highlight said troops click them on an area to go attack) or is it more arcade-like (like for example, you have an attack button and you hit that with some troops) or is it completely off hands ( you tell your troops attack nearest city or something like that)
so then, how do the "card" aspect of this all play out>?... is it hands on? (like in MTG you have a library of a certain amount of cards you draw cards at random you play spells with priority and the like) or are they basically like you buy a "booster of cards" and its a lot like D&D minis or something like that where you just add more troops and the like to your "collection" but they don't play an active role in the actual game other than depicting a troop unit or something.
i ask because I don't quite see the simularities between.. besides what fun is doing teh quests when I could just go to sagatraders spend 1000 bucks get all the best troops/stuff at level 1 and start whomping on newbs in the proverbial new players casual room.
Thank you for the kind worlds. We’re very proud of how far we have come since Beta and are looking forward to the road ahead. If you played the game during Beta you’ve probably experienced half of what SAGA is today.
Erik is right about the scope of Saga. This is what happens when you don’t have a large publisher. There is no one here to tell us not to put in every feature we’ve ever wanted into SAGA. I for example absolutely love sealed deck tournaments, they are a good way to pit quick thinking skill against players on an absolutely even battle field. For this reason sealed deck tournaments will be the next feature implemented into Saga.
Our designer is a PvP nut. He’s always wanted a world conflict system where guilds could use their combined strength to battle for territory. So that feature too went on the time table. In addition while we hate to admit it, we don’t have all the great ideas. Many more features have and are being implemented thanks to player suggestions.
As Eric mentioned, Saga is free to try, although the free version does lock out any feature that would pollute our economy such as trading your cards away after making 1000 free accounts. We don’t have a monthly fee because like MTGO we believe that if you actually own the product we don’t have a right to charge you a fee to play with it.
The one thing I would like to recommend to people who download our game is PLAY COOPERATIVE QUESTS. I really can’t recommend this enough. I think it was 2 months before I was forced into playing a quest with a guild mate and I have to say, I’ve never had so much fun. SAGA is the only RTS to date that I’ve played that allows me to go through the story line quests in cooperation with a friend. To “start” to experience the full scope of SAGA I recommend you start by doing some quests with another player.
I played Saga in the Beta until level 10. It didn't take that much time to have fun, and the more I put into it the more I liked it. I touched on the PvP aspect towards the end and it gave it a more real feeling rather than just playing against a computer opponent. Another thing you didn't mention is that when your troops die, you have another resource that can get by winning battles or praying called God Favor which is used to revive your troops. So, you don't lose them permanently when they die in battle.
The hardest thing I found was being able to get troops that I wanted through the marketplace as the specifics wern't always there and I didn't just want to bust boosters to get them. I am glad www.sagatraders.com is open now.
I also liked the guild aspect, as you get bonuses for your guildmates doing well in battles.
Definitely check out the free version if you haven't already.
I actually didn't mention that in the article, not because it's unimportant (because it's pretty cool), but because there's just so much going on in that world that it's hard to know where to draw the line. The persistant growth is really neat and will add a bit of a draw to keep players coming back into the world to check on the status (which can also be done from their webpage, actually).
The game is fun on a lot of levels and sure seems to be poised for future growth and excitement. I don't know where it will end up exactly, but there's a lot to be done there.
I played a bit of SAGA in the beta and had a blast laughing at the Magic Faction quests lol. The game seems really solid and im lookin forward to playing it a bit more when I get some free time...
Oh, unless im a dummy and missed it, ya forgot to mention that the town you build is persistant and will build even though your logged out, but building can take up to several hours on certain structures.
You must not ever read my posts on the WOTC message boards. I give WOTC a harder time than most people. Feel free to write an article yourself that covers all aspect of MTGO.
it is strange how you missed to mention the total disaster that was version 2. Chuck's party was held because of that. And WOTC handed a lot of free cool stuff just to soften the blow that was v.2 to anyone playing MTGO at the moment.
Considering the fainboyness of this web site owners it is no surprice to me anyway.
I stopped reading after I saw how your article is praise to the "good" WOTC. doh
How does WOTC own rights to the WoW Tcg? I thought it was made by UDE. Other than that, very nice history, a very interesting read from someone who played casually until around Kamigawa.
Liked the article, it was entertaining and makes me want to try a league sometime soon.
I've done a lot of MMM drafts and the number one thing I've learned is that Kithkin are king. I usually make the finals, and 9 out of 10 times either me or my opponent are kithkin - and whoever is wins. The likelihood of getting multiples really favors the white weenie deck that feeds off the synergy, and your removal in white is better than the rest of the removal in the set.
Of course, this could result in Kithkin being overdrafted at your table, although because all your key cards are common you can still come out with a great deck.
King, Your points are all valid and make perfect sense. With regards to Standard, I feel the format will speed up somewhat with the release of Morningtide (and the advent of Bannerets, the B, W, and R ones can help promote strong aggressive decks). It is to that point that I advocated Disperse as a tool where sometimes you want to bounce a threat or perhaps a Prismatic Lens. I understand there are analogs, but a card with such utile text should not go uncommented on. I see Negate filling an important role, but after further examination of Standard, I may have been over-zealous in my assessment of the card. Again, I was assessing the Changeling on my belief that Standard will speed up with the new set. If this is the case, I think a 5 mana 4/4 might be better than a 6 mana 4/4, regardless of added benefits. Returning to Disperse, I can certainly think of times I would want it other than the one listed. While Echoing Truth right be a strong answer in the format, there are times and metagames where you will want to only bounce one permanent. At these times, Disperse will be a potent tool.
Again, I think you make valid points and agree with you on certain points. I should have researched the formats a bit more before hand, but still believe that if Standard speeds up (as I predict), then some of my cards for that format review may be applicable.
Spikeboym, I generally like your reviews but I believe that your promotion of Negate and (especially) Disperse for Standard shows a lack of understanding of that PDC format. Standard PDC lacks a single non-creature, non-land card worth bouncing, so I can see no conceivable reason to play Disperse in that format rather than Snapback, Unsummon, Whirlpool Whelm, or Boomerang (as the situation requires).
By the same token, Negate is a comparatively poor counterspell in Standard. Standard's biggest threats are mostly creatures (particularly creatures that are nearly impossible to handle in combat)... and those that aren't creatures tend to flash back or storm and make one-for-one counterspells look a little silly. Furthermore, Standard PDC has creatures filling many pseudo-spell roles -- just look at Mulldrifter. These considerations place Rune Snag, Faerie Trickery, and Remove Soul firmly above Negate in Standard PDC, so Negate is sideboard material at best there (though it may be good in Classic PDC).
Quick addendum: I also agree with our Anonymous friend that Game-Trail Changeling isn't that good in Standard. I see it mainly as a 1-of in Aurochs Herd decks, since it's an Aurochs. One minor selling point you missed is how it takes a free ride on opposing Sliver abilities, but if some Sliver deck is getting stalled by a 5-drop then it was likely to lose anyway.
Your reviews for Classic and even Future Extended are generally stronger, but I again have to question Disperse... PDC is not a format big on Artifacts and Enchantments for Disperse to hit, and the case of wanting to bounce only *opposing* enchantments (say, Pillory of the Sleepless) in a Future Extended mirror match, and thus preferring Disperse over Echoing Truth, is too narrow a corner case to justify running this card. Such a narrow selling-point must be weighed against the fact that every format has at least the threat of Sprout Swarm or Empty the Warrens, among many other considerations favoring other, better bounce spells. I would never under any circumstances even consider Disperse for my maindeck or sideboard in any current PDC format.
well its glad to have you back writing and around the PDC scene in general. Good review, the only thing I personally disagree with is the Game-Trail Changeling. True it only costs 5 but right now green has access to Auroch Herd at 6. For one extra mana it always you to chain threats together which I feel is more benficial than a single changeling. I could be wrong but I think herd will still be the green fattie of choice.
Oh dear, I really had a few laughs up, while reading your article. Love the cheasy photoshopping. Keep it up - we need a breath of fresh air in between all the serious strategy article.
If you were from Denmark, I'd offer you a column on the newssite i'm editor of. Bravo =)
Nine times out of ten, when non-Pros share their limited thoughts, I skim the article. But that was an entertaining read with a nice repeated theme. I'm also a sucker for cheap photoshop jokes.
I'm not the best person to give advice on MMM draft, but you NEED to draft along class lines. Draft decks featuring green stuff, or elementals will probably not cut it.
Also Chuck's Virtual Party was not a celebration of V2, it was apology and glad that the V2 release problems were over. The CVP was the real kicker into disaster. I was one of the only people to actually get a CVP PE that finished. (Was in like the second one or something.)
Two issues noticed:
Trophy case was not around at V1, it came with V2 and never worked.
Also the reduction to 5 basic avatars did not occur when V1 launched, but happened some time after.
Honestly? It's kind of like all of those, which is why it was so hard to classify it.
You have day to day maintenance, like say, Civilization et al. Telling peasants to work, assigning them to certain 'chores' etc.
Then you have the armies. You build and configure the troops as you want them and go on quests.
Then, in the quests you deploy the troops you've configured and thell them what to do. Attack enemies and buildings, take over buildings (by not attacking them) and move them about.
What keeps you from just buying stuff and running rampant? Levels. Both your level and your troops' levels. Your level determines how many troops you can have in battle. The higher end troops (like Dragons) take more CP to deploy. So even if you have a dragon, you still need the levels to deploy it to the field. Also, you cannot just buy a level 5 soldier, or what have you, as they devolve once traded. This keeps the 'buy the best and stomp the newbs' from happening, at least, as much as any game can hope to accomplish.
And that's just the basics. Not going into strategy or city planning or anything else. Definitely give the free game a try and follow the tutorials and see what it's like.
I like your idea of spending 1000 bucks, stick with that.
As for the game, it has RTS elements mixed in with MMO mixed in with CCG’s. The game is many things because as gamers we saw many things we liked about many different games and wanted a game that encompassed it all.
At the core, you own a city and a stack of cards that represent various troops. You organize these troops into units which when fielded against other players or while questing on the game map come to life and move around as in an RTS game. So for example you would select your archers and tell them to attack your opponents dragon, then select your knights and tell them to attack his catapult, then cast a heal spell on the archers because the dragon just used his breath weapon on them. All this happens in real time, when you tell your archers to attack, they run across the field and shoot arrows, no turn by turn play here.
The great thing about SAGA is that unlike other RTS games, the world is perpetual, which means after your archers slay the dragon they gain experience, if you find a bow, they can equip it. So in future battles you may have level 3 archers with a bow of frost.
We love MMO games such as World of Warcraft, because after a play session you feel like you’ve accomplished something because your toon gained XP. Same thing in SAGA. Although unlike WoW you don’t need to play 8 hours a day. You can log in and do some quests, play with the market, assign your peasants to build a farm and log out having had an enjoyable experience for 30 minutes. Because we use a CCG model instead of a monthly fee, you don’t need to feel as if you should be logging in every day to get your moneys worth.
Does that clear things up a little?
-Slava
Marketing Director
Silverlode Interactive
What are u talking about? I'm sure everyone playing now has gotten over the fact how bad v2 became with server downs every now and then and every other nonsense we have come to live with. Sure it's bad but hey.. We still play the game and we live with it. Nobody was happy with anything back then and nobody is happy the way it is now. Every other person under the sun can point out unsatisfaction with mtgo and their fingers won't be able to keep count. At least they did something worth being thankful for. =) (btw, I am still waiting for the dumb trophy function to work)
Also sorry abt the wow thing. I don't play wow so I messed that up. I heard from somebody when the planeswalkers came out. I suppose I got the wrong info from way back then.
thnx to all for the support too =)
i didn't quite get the gist of it out of the review.. (i'ma gonna re-read relevant sections again...nope still don't quite understand)
is the game play like a Real Time Stragegy game (you have deployed troops you highlight said troops click them on an area to go attack) or is it more arcade-like (like for example, you have an attack button and you hit that with some troops) or is it completely off hands ( you tell your troops attack nearest city or something like that)
so then, how do the "card" aspect of this all play out>?... is it hands on? (like in MTG you have a library of a certain amount of cards you draw cards at random you play spells with priority and the like) or are they basically like you buy a "booster of cards" and its a lot like D&D minis or something like that where you just add more troops and the like to your "collection" but they don't play an active role in the actual game other than depicting a troop unit or something.
i ask because I don't quite see the simularities between.. besides what fun is doing teh quests when I could just go to sagatraders spend 1000 bucks get all the best troops/stuff at level 1 and start whomping on newbs in the proverbial new players casual room.
Hey guys,
Thank you for the kind worlds. We’re very proud of how far we have come since Beta and are looking forward to the road ahead. If you played the game during Beta you’ve probably experienced half of what SAGA is today.
Erik is right about the scope of Saga. This is what happens when you don’t have a large publisher. There is no one here to tell us not to put in every feature we’ve ever wanted into SAGA. I for example absolutely love sealed deck tournaments, they are a good way to pit quick thinking skill against players on an absolutely even battle field. For this reason sealed deck tournaments will be the next feature implemented into Saga.
Our designer is a PvP nut. He’s always wanted a world conflict system where guilds could use their combined strength to battle for territory. So that feature too went on the time table. In addition while we hate to admit it, we don’t have all the great ideas. Many more features have and are being implemented thanks to player suggestions.
As Eric mentioned, Saga is free to try, although the free version does lock out any feature that would pollute our economy such as trading your cards away after making 1000 free accounts. We don’t have a monthly fee because like MTGO we believe that if you actually own the product we don’t have a right to charge you a fee to play with it.
The one thing I would like to recommend to people who download our game is PLAY COOPERATIVE QUESTS. I really can’t recommend this enough. I think it was 2 months before I was forced into playing a quest with a guild mate and I have to say, I’ve never had so much fun. SAGA is the only RTS to date that I’ve played that allows me to go through the story line quests in cooperation with a friend. To “start” to experience the full scope of SAGA I recommend you start by doing some quests with another player.
Great Review Hammy,
I played Saga in the Beta until level 10. It didn't take that much time to have fun, and the more I put into it the more I liked it. I touched on the PvP aspect towards the end and it gave it a more real feeling rather than just playing against a computer opponent. Another thing you didn't mention is that when your troops die, you have another resource that can get by winning battles or praying called God Favor which is used to revive your troops. So, you don't lose them permanently when they die in battle.
The hardest thing I found was being able to get troops that I wanted through the marketplace as the specifics wern't always there and I didn't just want to bust boosters to get them. I am glad www.sagatraders.com is open now.
I also liked the guild aspect, as you get bonuses for your guildmates doing well in battles.
Definitely check out the free version if you haven't already.
I actually didn't mention that in the article, not because it's unimportant (because it's pretty cool), but because there's just so much going on in that world that it's hard to know where to draw the line. The persistant growth is really neat and will add a bit of a draw to keep players coming back into the world to check on the status (which can also be done from their webpage, actually).
The game is fun on a lot of levels and sure seems to be poised for future growth and excitement. I don't know where it will end up exactly, but there's a lot to be done there.
~Erik
great job on the review hamtastic!
I played a bit of SAGA in the beta and had a blast laughing at the Magic Faction quests lol. The game seems really solid and im lookin forward to playing it a bit more when I get some free time...
Oh, unless im a dummy and missed it, ya forgot to mention that the town you build is persistant and will build even though your logged out, but building can take up to several hours on certain structures.
You must not ever read my posts on the WOTC message boards. I give WOTC a harder time than most people. Feel free to write an article yourself that covers all aspect of MTGO.
it is strange how you missed to mention the total disaster that was version 2. Chuck's party was held because of that. And WOTC handed a lot of free cool stuff just to soften the blow that was v.2 to anyone playing MTGO at the moment.
Considering the fainboyness of this web site owners it is no surprice to me anyway.
I stopped reading after I saw how your article is praise to the "good" WOTC. doh
Always great i would also like to see ham jones std
Definitely a good article, thank you for publishing this. As an OCD history guy this is the type of thing I really enjoy!
~Erik
How does WOTC own rights to the WoW Tcg? I thought it was made by UDE. Other than that, very nice history, a very interesting read from someone who played casually until around Kamigawa.
Love this article!
Nice memory Tarmotog.
Very nice article good to see a history of how things have been.
Liked the article, it was entertaining and makes me want to try a league sometime soon.
I've done a lot of MMM drafts and the number one thing I've learned is that Kithkin are king. I usually make the finals, and 9 out of 10 times either me or my opponent are kithkin - and whoever is wins. The likelihood of getting multiples really favors the white weenie deck that feeds off the synergy, and your removal in white is better than the rest of the removal in the set.
Of course, this could result in Kithkin being overdrafted at your table, although because all your key cards are common you can still come out with a great deck.
Keep up the good work!
I've been asked about where the Classic Quarter is. If anyone wants to look, check out www.classicquarter.com!
Nice interview
King,
Your points are all valid and make perfect sense. With regards to Standard, I feel the format will speed up somewhat with the release of Morningtide (and the advent of Bannerets, the B, W, and R ones can help promote strong aggressive decks). It is to that point that I advocated Disperse as a tool where sometimes you want to bounce a threat or perhaps a Prismatic Lens. I understand there are analogs, but a card with such utile text should not go uncommented on.
I see Negate filling an important role, but after further examination of Standard, I may have been over-zealous in my assessment of the card.
Again, I was assessing the Changeling on my belief that Standard will speed up with the new set. If this is the case, I think a 5 mana 4/4 might be better than a 6 mana 4/4, regardless of added benefits.
Returning to Disperse, I can certainly think of times I would want it other than the one listed. While Echoing Truth right be a strong answer in the format, there are times and metagames where you will want to only bounce one permanent. At these times, Disperse will be a potent tool.
Again, I think you make valid points and agree with you on certain points. I should have researched the formats a bit more before hand, but still believe that if Standard speeds up (as I predict), then some of my cards for that format review may be applicable.
-Alex
Spikeboym, I generally like your reviews but I believe that your promotion of Negate and (especially) Disperse for Standard shows a lack of understanding of that PDC format. Standard PDC lacks a single non-creature, non-land card worth bouncing, so I can see no conceivable reason to play Disperse in that format rather than Snapback, Unsummon, Whirlpool Whelm, or Boomerang (as the situation requires).
By the same token, Negate is a comparatively poor counterspell in Standard. Standard's biggest threats are mostly creatures (particularly creatures that are nearly impossible to handle in combat)... and those that aren't creatures tend to flash back or storm and make one-for-one counterspells look a little silly. Furthermore, Standard PDC has creatures filling many pseudo-spell roles -- just look at Mulldrifter. These considerations place Rune Snag, Faerie Trickery, and Remove Soul firmly above Negate in Standard PDC, so Negate is sideboard material at best there (though it may be good in Classic PDC).
Quick addendum: I also agree with our Anonymous friend that Game-Trail Changeling isn't that good in Standard. I see it mainly as a 1-of in Aurochs Herd decks, since it's an Aurochs. One minor selling point you missed is how it takes a free ride on opposing Sliver abilities, but if some Sliver deck is getting stalled by a 5-drop then it was likely to lose anyway.
Your reviews for Classic and even Future Extended are generally stronger, but I again have to question Disperse... PDC is not a format big on Artifacts and Enchantments for Disperse to hit, and the case of wanting to bounce only *opposing* enchantments (say, Pillory of the Sleepless) in a Future Extended mirror match, and thus preferring Disperse over Echoing Truth, is too narrow a corner case to justify running this card. Such a narrow selling-point must be weighed against the fact that every format has at least the threat of Sprout Swarm or Empty the Warrens, among many other considerations favoring other, better bounce spells. I would never under any circumstances even consider Disperse for my maindeck or sideboard in any current PDC format.
well its glad to have you back writing and around the PDC scene in general. Good review, the only thing I personally disagree with is the Game-Trail Changeling. True it only costs 5 but right now green has access to Auroch Herd at 6. For one extra mana it always you to chain threats together which I feel is more benficial than a single changeling. I could be wrong but I think herd will still be the green fattie of choice.
Oh dear, I really had a few laughs up, while reading your article. Love the cheasy photoshopping. Keep it up - we need a breath of fresh air in between all the serious strategy article.
If you were from Denmark, I'd offer you a column on the newssite i'm editor of. Bravo =)
Nine times out of ten, when non-Pros share their limited thoughts, I skim the article. But that was an entertaining read with a nice repeated theme. I'm also a sucker for cheap photoshop jokes.
I'm not the best person to give advice on MMM draft, but you NEED to draft along class lines. Draft decks featuring green stuff, or elementals will probably not cut it.