[HN Gopher] Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield on 35 ...
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Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield on 35 years of making
games
Author : atomlib
Score : 96 points
Date : 2020-03-23 08:46 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dicebreaker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dicebreaker.com)
| tobrien6 wrote:
| It's too bad Valve didn't properly support or listen to players
| of Garfield's digital card game Artifact (which he developed for
| Valve). It was a huge leap forward in digital card games,
| involving high-level strategic play not present in Magic. The
| 3-lane system inspired by DOTA and the Initiative system were
| great innovations in the genre.
| dmoy wrote:
| Three lane strategy card games in that genre existed for quite
| awhile. There was a somewhat popular series called Dixie from
| the 90s which did civil war battles using three lanes (and I
| assume other Tom Dalgliesh games did similar).
|
| I always assumed DotA/etc got that idea from elsewhere, but of
| course I have no idea.
| vosper wrote:
| It appears that Artifact is not dead:
|
| > "We ran an experiment, we got a negative result, and now we
| need to see if we've learned anything from that, so let's try
| again. And that's what [the Artifact team] have been doing and
| that's what they're getting ready to release. Based on the
| reaction to it, what was wrong with the product? How did we get
| there? Let's fix those things and take another run at it."
|
| https://www.pcgamer.com/a-surprise-message-from-valve-hints-...
| Revery wrote:
| It is dead in the sense that it failed miserably on release,
| has very few active players, and the upcoming changes have
| been reported as being called Artifact 2.0 internally
| urda wrote:
| https://playartifact.com/news/1821083382556531528
|
| Valve is working on it still.
| softwarejosh wrote:
| the high complexity is exactly why I and many other players did
| not play. compared to hearthstone and mtg the game mechanics
| felt forced and over complicated, not fun at all. I REALLY
| wanted to like it too.
| dx87 wrote:
| And it's funny, because in this article he says that he
| doesn't like making digital card games because they end up
| being overly complicated, but that's exactly what he designed
| Artifact as, and even bragged about how it was going to be
| the most complex card game people ever played.
| dx87 wrote:
| Valve listened to Garfield, who was telling them that the
| players not liking it were wrong because he had data to show
| that the game was fine. He treated players like computers and
| ignored that the game had a lot of feelsbad mechanics, but he
| ignored the feedback because statistically it was very
| balanced, therefore he thought the players shouldn't dislike
| it. A Star Wars TCG he made failed for the same reason, but
| apparently he didn't learn.
| ericcholis wrote:
| The Star Wars TCG failed so spectacularly and the original
| CCG from decipher is still going today....despite not having
| a release in almost 20 years.
| danbolt wrote:
| Agreed! I think it kind of goes to show that a game often
| needs a nice cocktail of interesting game state changes (eg:
| "mechanics") mixed with nice feelings. Audiences vary in how
| they like the two (eg: Chess compared to Mario Kart), but the
| right fit is really important to a successful product.
|
| Valve had a nice way of describing "player acknowledgement"
| [1][2] for cosmetic things like bullet holes or lighting
| affecting our lizard brains. On the other hand, a close
| friend of mine really enjoys the "Star Wars: Rebellion" board
| game. [3] The decisions and mechanics gives the sense of
| excitement he feels when he watches a Star Wars movie.
|
| I don't blame Garfield for making the kinds of games he likes
| though. His clout probably helps makes new trails for other
| ideas to take shape and be improved on.
|
| [1] https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131815/the_cabal_v
| alv...
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/Td_PGkfIdIQ?t=1634
|
| [3] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/187645/star-wars-
| rebelli...
| tobrien6 wrote:
| The feelsbad mechanics (like random creep placement) could be
| accounted for and the randomness mitigated, but it was highly
| skill-based and thus frustrating for beginners. The fact that
| the same guy won almost all the tournaments in the beta shows
| how skill-based the game was. Closer to Chess than to Magic
| in some ways, despite the elements of randomness. I think
| Garfield was right, but there were very real concerns about
| the player experience that still needed to be addressed. It
| also needed frequent new card releases imo.
| Ntrails wrote:
| There was a great Mark Rosewater blog ages and ages ago about
| how important it was for him to look holistically at a
| mechanic/theme/set/whatever and ask the most important
| question - is it _fun_.
|
| Obviously different things are fun for different people, but
| some large segment of players need to find a thing fun or it
| shouldn't go in. Regardless of any other consideration
| (elegance, purity, cleverness etc etc)
| airstrike wrote:
| I still have old Magic 2013 iOS app in my OG iPad and it's one of
| the most fun things I can do in my spare time. I've probably
| spent more hours than I should playing this game over the course
| of the last ~20 years but I still can't get enough of it...
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magic-2013/id502588466
| k__ wrote:
| I started playing MtG multiple times and hung on for 1-2 years
| until I needed a pause, haha.
|
| It always felt like "an old game" to me, even when I started the
| first time in 1996.
|
| I'm still a bit sad that I sold my cards from that time for 30EUR
| at eBay.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| One of the things that made me stop playing MtG is that WotC
| bought TSR and they killed Spellfire. I do understand that it
| wasn't raking PSEURY=$ like MtG was, but still I loved Spellfire,
| I still keep all my cards in dossiers in plastic sleeves and
| taking good care of them.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| WoTC effectively killing Netrunner made me sad too. It was a
| really fun game.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| Yeah. The new NESI cards look great, but my local community
| dried up shortly after official FFG support ended.
| JonathanMerklin wrote:
| alasdair_ might be referring to WotC's lack of support for
| the 1996 Netrunner. One major expansion that really did fix
| a lot of things, then the poorly-distributed Classic (which
| had mechanics that showed great promise; facedown runner
| cards could have been a huge boon for bluffing complexity
| on that end of the board), and that was pretty much it.
| onefuncman wrote:
| That was 1997, you hold a pretty serious grudge...?
| airstrike wrote:
| This is both really funny and really true.
|
| I remember being incredibly upset that all my friends were
| abandoning Spellfire to play MtG - I ultimately realized the
| latter was the better (more complex, strategic) of the two
| games, but playing 3v3 Spellfire games was absolute chaotic
| fun and I don't think MtG was ever able to be _as much_
| casual fun as that, despite also being very good
| masona wrote:
| Garfield, and M:tG in general, has been a huge inspiration for me
| over the years. Magic is such a creative system of constraints,
| story, card complexity, competitive ecosystems, strategy and
| metagaming. It also allows a really personal approach to
| deckbuilding, play style and fun in general. Not to mention the
| financial aspect of the secondary market, which is an entire
| field in and of itself... A lot of the lessons learned from
| studying the game's strategy have helped me cultivate new mental
| models in my approach to problem solving.
|
| At one point I even took a career break and designed a game, like
| Garfield says, that I wanted to play that couldn't find. The game
| is called Sin Rummy - a variant on Rummy based on Gandhi's seven
| social sins. It was tough to develop, design and produce but I
| was able to use a lot of intuition from playing Magic all those
| years to balance it. My starting design constraints: a complex
| game with tons of replayability that would be easy to pick up and
| learn, all printed within a single deck of cards. I was super
| happy with the end result (even if the Kickstarter didn't go
| nuclear as I had hoped) and still play it all the time. If anyone
| wants a copy, send me your address (email is on the site in my
| profile) and I'll mail it to you.
| big_chungus wrote:
| I just re-discovered MTG a week or two ago. I was wondering with
| a few friends what we could do to socialize, and as none of us
| are big video game guys, we decided to try playing via
| Cockatrice. I was able to quickly set up a server and get
| everyone playing; lots of fun. In case any Cockatrice developer
| sees this, thank you!
| beefman wrote:
| Garfield is the great-great grandson of President Garfield (known
| for his novel proof the Pythagorean theorem, as well as his
| purported ability to write with both hands simultaneously... in
| different languages).
|
| Also, his great uncle supposedly invented the paper clip.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| I just discovered Nvidia's cloud gaming platform [1] as a way to
| play MTG Arena on a Mac. Works great, without having to partition
| my already thin hardrive...
|
| Limited booster drafts are one of my favorite things to play
| since forever ago. Finally found a way after a bunch of years
| (had tried Cockatrice, etc..)
|
| [1] https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/
| doubleunplussed wrote:
| I play on Linux using Lutris. Worked out of the box, is pretty
| great.
| ncfausti wrote:
| There's a large story/case study on Garfield in the book Game
| Design Workshop. Great resource for anyone interested in
| designing new games.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Workshop-Playcentric-Inno...
| prepend wrote:
| I learned Usenet and www to buy and sell magic cards in the 90s.
| My first web site was to sell magic cards and selling my
| collection let me buy a car to drive to proper startups with W2s.
|
| In fact, I think the reason why I sought out the internet at
| college in 1994 was because a friend said any magic card could be
| bought online for $5.
|
| It's interesting how the early magic community was so focused on
| the net.
| smcg wrote:
| Big fan of Garfield and his games in general, but shout out to
| SpyNet which is fun and underrated.
| dangoor wrote:
| I backed his new game Half Truth (made with Ken Jennings of
| Jeopardy fame) and it arrived just before social distancing
| kicked in. It's a fun take on a trivia game, because it's set up
| so that it's not so much of a binary "do you know it or not". You
| can definitely use some strategy in how you play. Of course,
| folks who _do_ know a lot of trivia will still win. It 's just
| that other players can still make progress, too.
| airstrike wrote:
| Don't mean to hijack the thread, but since virtually all of us
| are in quarantine, I thought this might be an opportune time to
| ask for recommendations on family-friendly (think 3
| generations...) board games to play while stuck at home. I really
| don't want to play Scrabble, Monopoly, Risk, Game of Life or
| Clue... but have no idea if I should go with Jaws: The Game,
| Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride
|
| EDIT: Thank you all for the great responses!
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| Shut Up and Sit Down is a good resource for this sort of thing.
| https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/15-great-games-to-fi...
|
| If you'd like far more information than you need to know,
| https://boardgamegeek.com/ is the definitive online board game
| community.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Depending on the age groups, my family has had fun with the
| following various games: Settlers of Catan
| Carcassonne Clash of the Cards Codebreakers
| (Mastermind) Codenames Cards against
| humanity Chess Gin Rummy Dice
| games (10k, etc) Dominoes and variations
| woodrowbarlow wrote:
| codenames (especially the pictures variant) is _always_
| popular, with almost everyone. period. they're quick 10-15
| minute games, and you can usually go about 3-4 games in a
| session before people's interest starts to wane. the rules
| can fit into about three sentences. lots of team
| collaboration.
|
| not a lot of game theory or strategy or tactics involved,
| it's all wordplay. which is nice for multi-generational
| family game night. i've even played with people who don't
| speak a lot of english (with a bit of translating back and
| forth) and we all had a blast.
|
| best with 5-7 people, though; 3 minimum but it's not very fun
| unless you have at least 5.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Settlers of Catan and Ticket To Ride are both good intros to
| so-called European style board games, that tend to lack player-
| elimination and track win progress abstractly in terms Victory
| Points rather than money or army strength.
|
| Play time of either of the two is 60-90 minutes, Catan seats 4
| and TTR seats 5.
|
| Of the two, I prefer TTR, and if you can find it I recommend
| Ticket To Ride: Europe over the original American one as it has
| nicer full size cards, adds a nice friendly track-sharing
| "station" rule that can get you out of a jam, and has a random-
| chance "tunnel" rule that can add a bit of excitement to your
| turn if you succeed or fail to dig a tunnel.
|
| I also suggest watching play-throughs or reviews on YouTube.
| Geek and Sundry has Tabletop playthroughs with Will Wheaton,
| and Shut Up And Sit Down has reviews done by a British group.
| danbolt wrote:
| Modern Art is a lot of fun, and it helps kids learn about value
| being a product of the situation around it in some ways.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Hanabi is another good one (there's online versions and a bunch
| of fun theory)
| Revery wrote:
| I've had great success introducing my family to Sagrada. We
| have a high variance of skill levels and it still keeps
| everyone well entertained.
|
| For a party style game, I'd recommend "A Fake Artist Goes to
| New York"
| masona wrote:
| I've found that quick games are way more popular with my kids -
| easy to set up and take down. Games like Coup, Love Letter, and
| Exploding Kittens only take a moment to get ready so you can
| get in a few rounds before dinner.
| throwaway5466 wrote:
| Slightly off-topic, but if you're in quarantine and wondering how
| to play _wondorous_ games of Magic, say no more:
|
| https://cockatrice.github.io/
|
| http://xmage.de/
|
| (the latter is way more buggy but has actual rule enforcement,
| the first is very polished but you have to do everything by hand
| as though it were a physical board game)
| hosteur wrote:
| Are any of these better than Forge?
| fredoliveira wrote:
| For people who are interested in playing MTG, their "new"
| windows game (MTG Arena) is a pretty decent, modern client,
| that lets you play for free. Supposedly it is coming to the mac
| soon, and rumor has it that iOS and Android are planned, but
| based on how the UI has evolved recently, I wouldn't hold out
| hope for that.
| dublinben wrote:
| There's also https://untap.in/ - fair warning that the
| mechanics of the game are up to you, just like with paper
| cards.
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