The only thing I know for sure is that, if things were otherwise, I'd be spending my weekend playing Block Constructed dailies in my gaming time. Instead, I'm playing Yoshi's Woolly World on my Wii U and The WItcher 3 on my PS4.
No, I'm not quitting the game, and I know this is anecdotal evidence, but I can't find it feasible that eliminating these options here will lead to a more successful program.
The online income is, in fact, much bigger than 25%. In 2007, Worth Wollpert talked about it being from 30 to 50% of their revenue, as you can see here: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/818/818114p1.html
Also, the big flaw in your assumption is that starting from scratch would double the money they're getting, when it's pretty feasible that a large percentage of the player base wouldn't follow suit. Not only that, their reputation would be pretty much ruined (and they care about their reputation - just take a look at the reserved list, which is by their own admission a scourge in the game that exists only to honor a promise WotC as a company made twenty years ago).
The competition in the gaming space is enormous right now, they just cannot afford to pull something like that, not isn't there any rational reason to even want to do so.
"they must have to do some kind of extra coding, because when Origins came out, none of the new cards were tribal-legal in their respective tribes when making a LTW deck."
Faulty conclusion (most likely). None of the non-tribal Origins cards were legal either, if I recall. The better conclusion is that WotC has to add each new set by name to the Legacy Tribal card pool for format legality purposes, probably just like they have to do with each new Legacy set. For example, in the v3 client, when you sought to do a format legality check, it would list each set by name for sets legal in their respective formats, Legacy and Legacy Tribal Wars included. They just forgot to add Origins to the LTW set database, moaning that it's too hard to keep all of this straight when it's really not.
they must have to do some kind of extra coding, because when Origins came out, none of the new cards were tribal-legal in their respective tribes when making a LTW deck. AJ and I mentioned it on a few podcasts before WoTC corrected it.
This means two things: They are at least partially truthful in their assessment that TWars requires more resources, but it also has pointed out their actual code for the game is pretty bunk. For most games, this cardset programming SHOULD be an easy situation because most of the work is being done, exactly as you said "they already have to make sure every non-Goblin new card doesn't interact with Goblin Warchief."
It just shows a larger problem that the current program is so wonkily put together with code that coding new cards for Tribal legality isn't an easy thing to do.
For arguments sake, if they remade their online product, it would be more in the form of the "Magic Duels - Origins", a standard only format (since most players play only standard, right?); why bother with modern, legacy or vintage, since standard is where WotC makes all their money- from the sales of packs.
Whatever, the precise size of the online income vs the paper income isnt important as long as we at least agree that online income isnt bigger than 20-25 percent of the full cake.
And besides, even if that goose egg picture is correct that doesnt mean that wotc cant make a new goose which is what I am implying.
Sure they will loose some customers, but they will gain almost as many (that has to buy all the things all over again).
MtG resembles gambling to some degree. Winning means something, if some of the best (mtgo-)players leave the game then that isnt so very bad for wotc, because they understand that that will up the win percentage for newer players abit, which means more of the newbies will stick.
It is possible to be very close to be a free player in mtgo paid games (ca 1 percent of players ? maybe less). Getting rid of them (as long as they arent named Brian Kibler or Luis Vargas or Paulo Vitor) means more money for wotc !
From the top of my head I would definitely add Soldiers to the list, since you can create a very strong SB with them. You have strong hosers against various flavours of combo (Thalia, Aegis of the Gods), decks that rely on a graveyard (Anafenza, the Foremost, Dryad Militant) and red decks (Kor Firewalker). Basically you can create a "real sideboard" with Humans and Soldiers, but not so much with other tribes (unless I missed some).
Knights are also very strong post SB (they are all about protection), but they are not on the level of Humans and Soldiers.
I enjoyed this immensely and wish I'd read it when it came out instead almost 2 days later. That first deck looks like a ton of fun, and your remarks about targeting with Horobi reminded me of a similar quest I had to make willbender slightly playable.
I am quite aware of the cynicism displayed regularly by corps across the world. However, what you are talking about makes no sense from a business stand point. Not for WOTC and not for Hasbro. I believe they call that killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
I think you, and many others, are underestimating how cynical companies like wotc are/can be.
If such a change that I described happened we would simply see statements like;
"- we simply weren't prepared for what the market demanded and as such made a turnaround with our digital department to build things from the ground up again. Yadiyadida......."
It's like they talk about themselves in 3d person and don't see that they are lying through their teeth in every 3d sentence they publish.
You are making a huge stretch there. According to several hard to impeach sources, MTGO is making loads of money for WOTC and thus their stockholder Hasbro. I don't see how gutting it completely makes them MORE money. They don't have the core competency to make a better client or they would have already and they won't start again from scratch so soon after the last from scratch client coming out of beta (just last year.) That's why it seems tin foil hattish and just raging.
Though right now I am feeling the rage too, I have not lost my rationality because of it.
I totally don't understand this line: "To keep Tribal Wars on the client, Wizards would have to go through every new set and identify the tribe for every creature." Umm, don't they have to do that anyways for every creature card anyways? How is that extra work? For example, they already have to make sure every non-Goblin new card doesn't interact with Goblin Warchief.
they don't consider commander a format that will ever be monetized into events or leagues. Lee Sharpe personally said that to me, when I was directly tweeting him about my dismay in not being able to buy a commander deck in the mtgo store.. Duel commander is just commander, so don't expect a commander league. :(
Austerity rarely works out as intended. Greece vs EU for example. MTGO might not be a ghost ship (or turning into one) but they are biting off the hand that fed them and alienating a good portion of the casual player base to save nickles and dimes. Ridiculous reasoning imho.
Such sideboarding rule would additionally incentivize people to use specific strong tribes (for example, having access to 15 additional humans would provide various answers compared to lots of other tribes, even strong ones).
I am against Tribal SB-ing in general, but even more against the rule that says that you can only SB cards of your tribe. It would just make certain powerful tribes much more powerful. IMO it is best to just leave things as they are (regarding sideboarding), and maybe have some special event once or twice a year, but not on a monthly basis.
That's exactly why the sideboard was not allowed on Tribal Wars to begin with.
But as I wrote last week, after we know for sure the filter is not coming back, we will be able to do some stuff: change the old DCI ban list (finally), reinstate Changelings (finally!), and also experiment with a sideboard, but possibly only within a specific subformat, which might be one of the Regular events+sideboard.
And my idea for it, it's exactly what romellos said below: only cards allowed in a tribal sideboard are creatures from your tribe. That could still help after game 1, even just as a change of overall strategy, and may even cause less played creatures to see some play, because this way you can bring along more than the usual 5 or 6.
The only thing I know for sure is that, if things were otherwise, I'd be spending my weekend playing Block Constructed dailies in my gaming time. Instead, I'm playing Yoshi's Woolly World on my Wii U and The WItcher 3 on my PS4.
No, I'm not quitting the game, and I know this is anecdotal evidence, but I can't find it feasible that eliminating these options here will lead to a more successful program.
The online income is, in fact, much bigger than 25%. In 2007, Worth Wollpert talked about it being from 30 to 50% of their revenue, as you can see here: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/818/818114p1.html
Also, the big flaw in your assumption is that starting from scratch would double the money they're getting, when it's pretty feasible that a large percentage of the player base wouldn't follow suit. Not only that, their reputation would be pretty much ruined (and they care about their reputation - just take a look at the reserved list, which is by their own admission a scourge in the game that exists only to honor a promise WotC as a company made twenty years ago).
The competition in the gaming space is enormous right now, they just cannot afford to pull something like that, not isn't there any rational reason to even want to do so.
"they must have to do some kind of extra coding, because when Origins came out, none of the new cards were tribal-legal in their respective tribes when making a LTW deck."
Faulty conclusion (most likely). None of the non-tribal Origins cards were legal either, if I recall. The better conclusion is that WotC has to add each new set by name to the Legacy Tribal card pool for format legality purposes, probably just like they have to do with each new Legacy set. For example, in the v3 client, when you sought to do a format legality check, it would list each set by name for sets legal in their respective formats, Legacy and Legacy Tribal Wars included. They just forgot to add Origins to the LTW set database, moaning that it's too hard to keep all of this straight when it's really not.
they must have to do some kind of extra coding, because when Origins came out, none of the new cards were tribal-legal in their respective tribes when making a LTW deck. AJ and I mentioned it on a few podcasts before WoTC corrected it.
This means two things: They are at least partially truthful in their assessment that TWars requires more resources, but it also has pointed out their actual code for the game is pretty bunk. For most games, this cardset programming SHOULD be an easy situation because most of the work is being done, exactly as you said "they already have to make sure every non-Goblin new card doesn't interact with Goblin Warchief."
It just shows a larger problem that the current program is so wonkily put together with code that coding new cards for Tribal legality isn't an easy thing to do.
For arguments sake, if they remade their online product, it would be more in the form of the "Magic Duels - Origins", a standard only format (since most players play only standard, right?); why bother with modern, legacy or vintage, since standard is where WotC makes all their money- from the sales of packs.
Yeah, being able to pick the right protection to whatever you're facing is a bit of a concern.
Whatever, the precise size of the online income vs the paper income isnt important as long as we at least agree that online income isnt bigger than 20-25 percent of the full cake.
And besides, even if that goose egg picture is correct that doesnt mean that wotc cant make a new goose which is what I am implying.
Sure they will loose some customers, but they will gain almost as many (that has to buy all the things all over again).
MtG resembles gambling to some degree. Winning means something, if some of the best (mtgo-)players leave the game then that isnt so very bad for wotc, because they understand that that will up the win percentage for newer players abit, which means more of the newbies will stick.
It is possible to be very close to be a free player in mtgo paid games (ca 1 percent of players ? maybe less). Getting rid of them (as long as they arent named Brian Kibler or Luis Vargas or Paulo Vitor) means more money for wotc !
That means you and me Paul.
From the top of my head I would definitely add Soldiers to the list, since you can create a very strong SB with them. You have strong hosers against various flavours of combo (Thalia, Aegis of the Gods), decks that rely on a graveyard (Anafenza, the Foremost, Dryad Militant) and red decks (Kor Firewalker). Basically you can create a "real sideboard" with Humans and Soldiers, but not so much with other tribes (unless I missed some).
Knights are also very strong post SB (they are all about protection), but they are not on the level of Humans and Soldiers.
That is true (maybe not so much for Goblin). We could prevent Human, Elf and Goblin to have a sideboard even in the special event.
I'm not the one making wild claims here. Show us where your claim has some merit. Otherwise it's just hysterical gas to me.
You show me the source/info that proves me wrong.
That is actually false. At least according to the quarterly reports to Hasbro's stockholders. Not sure where you are getting your info from.
I enjoyed this immensely and wish I'd read it when it came out instead almost 2 days later. That first deck looks like a ton of fun, and your remarks about targeting with Horobi reminded me of a similar quest I had to make willbender slightly playable.
Income from MtgO is less than 5 percent.
Income from Paper > 95 percent.
Geese and golden eggs don't exist in this frame.
I am quite aware of the cynicism displayed regularly by corps across the world. However, what you are talking about makes no sense from a business stand point. Not for WOTC and not for Hasbro. I believe they call that killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
I think you, and many others, are underestimating how cynical companies like wotc are/can be.
If such a change that I described happened we would simply see statements like;
"- we simply weren't prepared for what the market demanded and as such made a turnaround with our digital department to build things from the ground up again. Yadiyadida......."
It's like they talk about themselves in 3d person and don't see that they are lying through their teeth in every 3d sentence they publish.
You are making a huge stretch there. According to several hard to impeach sources, MTGO is making loads of money for WOTC and thus their stockholder Hasbro. I don't see how gutting it completely makes them MORE money. They don't have the core competency to make a better client or they would have already and they won't start again from scratch so soon after the last from scratch client coming out of beta (just last year.) That's why it seems tin foil hattish and just raging.
Though right now I am feeling the rage too, I have not lost my rationality because of it.
Why is it tin foil to suggest something that makes wotc more money ?
I totally don't understand this line: "To keep Tribal Wars on the client, Wizards would have to go through every new set and identify the tribe for every creature." Umm, don't they have to do that anyways for every creature card anyways? How is that extra work? For example, they already have to make sure every non-Goblin new card doesn't interact with Goblin Warchief.
They could monetize duel commander queues. It's got such a huge following.
they don't consider commander a format that will ever be monetized into events or leagues. Lee Sharpe personally said that to me, when I was directly tweeting him about my dismay in not being able to buy a commander deck in the mtgo store.. Duel commander is just commander, so don't expect a commander league. :(
Austerity rarely works out as intended. Greece vs EU for example. MTGO might not be a ghost ship (or turning into one) but they are biting off the hand that fed them and alienating a good portion of the casual player base to save nickles and dimes. Ridiculous reasoning imho.
Such sideboarding rule would additionally incentivize people to use specific strong tribes (for example, having access to 15 additional humans would provide various answers compared to lots of other tribes, even strong ones).
I am against Tribal SB-ing in general, but even more against the rule that says that you can only SB cards of your tribe. It would just make certain powerful tribes much more powerful. IMO it is best to just leave things as they are (regarding sideboarding), and maybe have some special event once or twice a year, but not on a monthly basis.
Did someone make a Tribal clan yet?
If not, I'll make one as long as I'm not in the clan by myself
That's exactly why the sideboard was not allowed on Tribal Wars to begin with.
But as I wrote last week, after we know for sure the filter is not coming back, we will be able to do some stuff: change the old DCI ban list (finally), reinstate Changelings (finally!), and also experiment with a sideboard, but possibly only within a specific subformat, which might be one of the Regular events+sideboard.
And my idea for it, it's exactly what romellos said below: only cards allowed in a tribal sideboard are creatures from your tribe. That could still help after game 1, even just as a change of overall strategy, and may even cause less played creatures to see some play, because this way you can bring along more than the usual 5 or 6.