Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:46, 28 June 2004

There risks being too many expansions listed on this page making it unwieldy. Perhaps it would be better as a sidebar or linked to a separate page.

fvincent 15:43, Nov 28, 2003 (UTC)

I think this article in general is becoming unwieldy. It seems every topic is getting expanded sans temperance. Some summarizing and splitting up of the article is called for IMO. At least the stuff on tournament play and DCI (etc.) could be split off into Duelists' Convocation International or some such. Also, there really shouldn't be more than handful of external links -- some of them seem to be adverts. --Mrwojo 18:55, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

With the single possible exception of FindMagicCards.com, none of the external links are sites associated with selling Magic cards (well, the official sites don't count, since we definitely want those up there). The external links present are probably the largest, most linked, and most useful Magic sites on the Net; I don't think those really pose a problem. I am surprised, though, that we do not yet have an article for the DCI. --Lowellian 19:08, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

StarCityGames.com is also a site that sells Magic cards. However, it is one of the most important strategy sites on the Net, with articles contributed by many pro players, and it was even tagged by Wizards of the Coast to do the official coverage for the 2003 Type I Championships. So I think the link should stay there. --Lowellian 19:46, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, yes I agree. I was a bit cranky yesterday. I don't think there's a problem, just need to make sure that poor external links don't dilute the important ones. For a different reason, the only one I think could go at this point is that direct link to Wizards.com because there are already two official MTG links that take you to WotC and we've got our own page for WotC. Not a big deal though. --Mrwojo 15:05, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree about the WotC link, which I've removed. --Lowellian 18:55, Dec 17, 2003 (UTC)

I took the plunge and actually created new pages for the base sets and expansions. I also took the DCI, made it its own page and moved all tourney info there. I hope people find this makes the page more manageable.

fvincent 21:56, Mar 5, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for polishing the edits, Lowellian. And good idea about merging the set lists.

fvincent 06:52, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)

Card Photos

Just a warning: The Magic card images posted (6 magic cards from various editions) may fall under copyright. I say "may" because I don't know for sure. Mike Church 15:15, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

They do fall under copyright, but historically the copyright holders have been lenient in allowing websites to use images of cards; most of the popular strategy and vendor websites (Star City, Brainburst, Find Magic Cards, Anycraze) post full images of thousands of individual cards, and I cannot recall a single case where Hasbro or Wizards asked a site to take their images down. Six cards should be alright. Andrewlevine 17:03, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

thats interesting because I added a picture of a black lotus on this page a few months ago and some paranoid pedian complained and took it down. Vroman 19:58, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Don't know if I like the pictures posted, mostly because they don't show the card borders. I may come back and edit, be nice to show a selection of cards (Alpha, 8th edition, Unglued, etc.). -- Netoholic 21:46, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Mike Church

I removed this section:

One outspoken critic of Magic, a designer named Mike Church (known for the card game Ambition), disagrees. Church, who referred to Magic in 2003 as a "money-spending contest dressed up as a fantasy game", described mana-screw as a "gaping flaw in the design of ... that should've been fixed in the first day of playtesting". As he quipped, "mana-screw makes a whole 20 minutes of play not fun, and that's just bad design. How hard is it to have two piles, one for land, and one for spells, and let the player choose which to draw from?" However, critics of Church have pointed out that, according to a blog post, he admits to not having played Magic since 1998, and therefore should be discounted as a credible voice in the contemporary Magic-playing community.

This was written by anonymous user 137.22.4.102, who is (thought likely to be, by User: Andrewlevine)* Mike Church (see page history on Community card poker, which he edited from the same IP range). It is silly for the article to refer to "one outspoken critic of Magic" whom 99.9999% of the people who play Magic have never heard of, as if he were somebody well-known for his critiques. It should be self-evident why Church extensively quoting himself is not appropriate here. He has designed a few games which are still well under the radar of people in the gaming comunity, and I hope he does not take it the wrong way when I say that he is not (yet?) famous enough to warrant quoting himself the way he did.

If anyone should be quoted on why mana-screw is a design flaw, it should be Zvi Mowshowitz, who is a very well-known critic of Magic's fundamental design from within the game's own community, and who is very well-known and respected among Magic players. I will see if I can dig up a few quotes from him on the subject. Andrewlevine 03:45, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

(*parenthetical added by another user)

137.22 is the IP range of Carleton College, actually. So, yes, there is a high probability that the modification came from someone in Carleton. Do you have any idea how many students at this school use Misplaced Pages??? Probably hundreds.

If you had actually read that paragraph when removing it, you would have seen that it, in fact, attacked me by saying that my not having played since '98 makes me not a credible voice on the subject. In fact, it was a relatively pro-Magic selection, all said. I read that piece (this page is on my watchlist) myself and was going to remove parts of it, particularly the part that called me "not a credible voice".

I'm going to restore at least some of that content, though I'll keep your objections in mind. Mike Church 06:54, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The fact that the earlier edit came from your college's IP range and was not necessarily your own words has been noted.

I would like to request that you stop adding your own commentary to the article. I read what you wrote about self-promotion on your user page, and while I agree with it when applied to the outside world, it is not appropriate in Misplaced Pages.

And of course I "actually read" every word in the pargraph that I (and Isomorphic after me) removed, including the criticism. The whole point is that, by your own admission, you have not played the game in about six years (and it shows in your edits, like the one that stated that Timetwister was necessary to compete in Type I). As an analogy, if someone adds to the article genetic engineering a paragraph that begins "Noted genetic engineering critic Jeremy Rifkin has claimed...", this attribution is valid, because everyone working in that field of study, and the related ethical debate, has heard of Rifkin. If I were to insist on adding "Rifkin's claims have been rebuffed by Andrew Levine, who has argued...", then that makes no sense, becuase I am a nobody who is relatively uninformed on the subject. Andrewlevine 08:22, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm decidedly not a nobody in the field of game design who's relatively uninformed on the subject. However, your point that I'm relatively uninformed on Magic as it is now stands and is well-taken. It seems that WotC has taken steps (for example, the expanding the mulligan) to improve their game dramatically (I still think-- no, know, because it is a fact--that the patent is a f*kin' swindle, but that's another story) and it's unfair for one like me, who is not informed on those developments, to comment except without further research. I won't reintroduce the comment if it's deleted. Mike Church 08:32, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I never said that you were "a nobody in the field of game design", as you clearly aren't; just someone uninformed about Magic. I am glad that we have gotten this issue resolved. (And I agree with you about the patent.) Andrewlevine 08:37, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Could www.Magic-League.com be added to the "Playing Magic on the Internet-section" and/or to the related links section? E-League actually hasn't got a ratings system anymore. We also run some tournaments with Magic Workstation, another online play application. But it is still in beta stages. Koen 20:29, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Question about the patent: I added a graf about the WotC suit against Nintendo. The suit had the potential to determine the validity of the patent, but it was settled early. I'm not enough involved in CCG's to know whether there have been any other suits. If no other suits have been filed, or if every suit filed has been settled or is still in an early enough stage that there's been no ruling on that issue, then it would be accurate for us to add, "The validity of this controversial patent has never been ruled on by a court." If that statement is correct, it would be useful information to add to the discussion of the patent. Given my limited knowledge of the field, the best I could do was to allude to the issue by noting that patents issued by the Patent Office are subject to judicial review. JamesMLane 04:53, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Someone I know (who's big into CCGs, and recently asked me to join an open-source CCG project; since it would be open-source it wouldn't run afoul of the patent) said that Decipher Games beat them on the patent issue. However, I couldn't stir it up myself. Most companies that do CCGs just buckle and pay royalties, since it's significantly less costly than a legal fight. WotC are essentially thugs ruling by fear, on this issue.

There's no way the patent would stand if basic logic were applied. What they've patented essentially boils down to:

• Modular play (i.e. there exists a large set of game components of which each player uses a subset, and players have a personal stake in which subset they choose) using collectible (physical or electronic) items.

• The "tap" mechanic. That is, any mechanic used to indicate that an object's powers have been temporarily used, at least involving rotation of the card to a new orientation. (I'm pretty sure a mechanic such as shading the "card", in an online version, would skirt around the patent).

• The system by which cards are partitioned into a set of randomized game components (library), a set at a player's disposal (hand), and a set that is public knowledge and affects the game (in play, graveyard).

Not a single one of these things did Garfield or WotC invent. Historical fact shows that much of what's now protected was low-hanging fruit that actually predated Magic by decades: LARPs use modular play with collectible items; tap-like mechanics existed in pre-Magic RPGs; finally, many traditional card games used "libraries" (not by that name) and "hands". At any rate, even the CCG genre itself was not invented by Garfield or WotC; Magic simply popularized the genre.

Wizards should definitely have control of their art, rules text, basic game structure, flavor text, and some of the items unequivocally of their own invention (i.e. "Weatherlight" and the name "Lhurgoyf") but not a whole genre. There's not a chance the patent could stand in any reasonable court. However, challenging WotC would be pretty damn expensive, and few companies can afford the risk. If you don't have enough HP and STR to spear the fucker, you pay the troll to cross the bridge. Mike Church 10:24, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Moved from article: The decision to patent an entire genre of game was highly controversial. While none would argue that the company should own the rights to Magic's particular rules, art, flavor text, game structure, and other copyrightable materials, the patent covers many game mechanics that neither Garfield nor Wizards invented, but which had not been patented before. Some of these game mechanics (modular play using collectible items, physical manipulation of objects to indicate temporary "tap"ping of their powers) predated Magic by decades in other game genres and are still therein used, unchallenged by Wizards. However, all who own collectible card games pay a royalty based upon this patent. While the patent's scope would likely be dramatically reduced if it were used in a lawsuit, the costs of such a legal challenge would by far exceed the royalty rates. In this sense, Wizards uses the patent to exact tributes, ruling by fear.

Kai Budde

The description next to the Kai Budde link doesn't seem to follow NPOV, although I don't know (which is why I am not removing it myself). I don't follow the tournament scene. Whatever happened to Jon Finkel? - RealGrouchy 00:33, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)