[quote]
Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic Studios’ new RPG will allow fans of the game to fully immerse themselves in the Multiverse, the rich fantasy world in which Magic: The Gathering takes place.
“It’s Magic: The Gathering like you’ve never experienced before,” said Bryan Huang, CEO of Perfect World Entertainment. “We are ecstatic about the direction of the game Cryptic has been shaping. It’s always been a dream of ours to bring Magic’s Planeswalkers to a modern RPG.”[/quote]
Coming to PC and consoles. Is it an MMO or not? Not much else to say past the PR yet.
I played that so much. SO very much. Not sure they can recreate that with all the Magic and CCG games that have come since, but I would be onboard if they could get close.
In the meantime you should really check out Hex. It’s not that, but it’s the closest thing I’ve seen in modern times (and better in a number of ways, IMO).
I will be curious to see what this Magic thing turns into.
What @wilykat said. It was amazing. It’s really fun to start with a shitty little deck and actually adventure and get new cards as loot and build your deck, but in an RPG/story telling system. That’s what I hope this new game will be, where the combat was actually Magic duels with cards, but in between you wandered around and explored. My fear is this will be some sort of MMO (it’s the guys that make the Neverwinter MMO) where you run around in third person popping abilities on cooldown. :(
It wasn’t balanced real well and the AI could be awful at times, but it was still a lot of fun. I haven’t tried it myself, but I think https://www.slightlymagic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=17183&start=15 might get you most of the knowledge you need to find a download and run the player-modded version (they’re still updating it).
I think the coolest fan update to the Microprose original is the bit where you can play with just random card packs and improvise your strategy depending on what you get.
I’m tentatively interested, regardless of whether it’s an MMO version of Shandalar or a Magic-themed MMORPG, but I’m not sure it’s going to be executed well enough to make it worth playing in either case.
Part of the issue with a modern version of Shandalar is that Magic itself is a radically different game these days. The power level of noncreature spells is significantly lower overall in 2017 than it was back then, while the power level of creatures has gone way up (such that it actually, y’know, exists), and several major mechanics present in the PC game, like ante and mana burn (and cards that take advantage of the existence of those mechanics), haven’t existed in the real game for a long time. This doesn’t mean a game in the style of Shandalar is impossible, or even all that difficult, but by necessity, it’d have a completely different feel from the 1997 original, even before accounting for the transition from a single-player game to an MMO.
The issue with a more traditional MMORPG based on Magic is simply that the themes and mechanics of the card game might not translate well to a real-time RPG. In particular, the concept of each color of mana being capable of different things is difficult enough to balance in a PvP card game, let alone to try to translate into a class system for an RPG, and that’s not something you can really skirt around and still be able to call it a Magic game.
Yeah, for instance, I’m not even remotely interested in playing this game with current magic cards. I know it’s still a good game and blah blah, but I just don’t care about the new cards, art style, game style or substance at all. It has become what I hated - 8 internet decks that everyone plays.
I can’t speak for your other concerns, but every single game in existence that features pre-game loadout customization of any sort has the netdecking issue, so it’s not really fair to call out Magic in particular for it.
It’s confirmed to be an MMORPG. Adjust expectations massively downwards. Unless somehow they mean they’re emulating Hex’s approach to MMO-as-TCG (which seems very unlikely, and isn’t very MMOish).
