Valve announces Artifact, finally jumps into virtual collectible card gaming

Agreed. I would ignore this completely except for Garfield’s name being attached.

Coincidentally I was reading his “characteristics of games” book last night. A good read and perhaps the most accurately titled book ever. Thats what it is, a list of characteristics of games :)

This is the first description I’ve seen of the actual gameplay, with some extra details about the economy (Valve will sell packs, and you’ll be able to buy and sell cards on the marketplace):

It sounds very complex, and the inclusion of a secondary market (no dusting your cards for nothing) makes it sound like they intend to compete with Magic more than Hearthstone.

OMG those monetization details are on fleek, girlfriend!

Best quote from the article:

Mmmhmm.

So, Monster Monpiece, a Vita game mostly notable for having you rub anime girls to get their clothes a come off (read: a typical Vita game), actually had a fairly clever (if simplistic) vs Tower Defence mechanic, where you placed cards in various lanes, and they advanced each turn. The description of the gameplay here sounds like a much more developed version of that core mechanic.

There is so much gaming being journalismed in that article I can hardly even.

Like Dota 2, Artifact is a game that cannot be “solved,” and it was built from the ground up to ensure all the choices you make in game are interesting.

I wonder it’s “undeniably fun” or if the textures are “crisp.”

(man, throwing rocks is super fun now I’ve long since abandoned that particular glass house!)

Yeah, it’s not a great article, but the last third-to-half is a pretty honest attempt at describing gameplay that he wasn’t allowed to record or take notes on.

I’ve never stopped throwing rocks. I’m not very good at this career.

I want this thing to head into beta like right now. Or I want to make some friends at Valve. Something. I have no idea how this game is going to turn out, but everything I read about it gives me a need in my bones to see how it works.

Why doesn’t RPS let you click screenshots? It’s like caveman times there. Can’t see any detail in those tiny embedded pictures.

Has there been any word yet on if this is PvP only or if it will include PvE? The game sounds really interesting but I have zero interest in playing PvP against asshats.

Why would you assume it’s just against asshats? The game is supposed to emulate a Dota match and oh I hear it now

In mobas, it’s not the people on the other team you need to worry about. Since this is 1v1 it shouldn’t be a big deal. I can’t imagine chat being more complicated than hearthstone, which has just a preset number of comments.

And a squelch command so you don’t have to see any of it.

Having said which, Hearthstone post-game “friend” requests are my favourite thing.

Ah, it’s fun to remember the last time Valve was going to release a game type that had a lot of market saturation already, and everyone said how much of a failure it was going to be.

I predict this will be huge, for the same reasons I thought the last thing was going to be huge. 1. Valve is actually really good at making games. 2. People are more than ready to leave Hearthstone for something new, if they haven’t already left it out of burnout or frustration. 3. Valves sheer number of eyes they can get on something at release almost in and of itself guarantees success, at least initially.

Taking all paypal bets.

What a weird way to announce a release date. Glad it is coming soon though.

Insert a Dingus-esque “Nice!”

This article explains the $20 buy-in cost and touches on the DOTA 2 similarities.

It’s also coming to mobile devices in 2019, which means I’ll be left behind before it hits my system of choice.

I’m not interested in a 3-lane system since Elder Scrolls: Legends already bounced off me with its 2-lane game, and Gwent has all but removed the importance of 3 separate rows. But I’ll have to see the game in action to decide if it’s worth buying.