She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

The Thin Line Between Love and Hate With Magic Online

by Jeff Zandi

More than a month after Darksteel cards became available to excited Magic players everywhere, the Magic Online team announced that Darksteel would be available for Magic Online on Monday, March 2. Expectant players logged on to Magic Online with their mouths watering and their credit cards ready. Darksteel had finally come to Magic Online. Sort of. As with previous releases of new cards on Magic Online, there are some problems, to say the least. Thus continues the lengthy love/hate relationship between Magic players and Magic Online. I would like to look at what’s been happening since Darksteel was added last week with a view towards Magic Online as a whole. There really is no use in simply complaining about system failures and downtime, that would be far too easy. I’m more interested in looking at Magic Online from a higher perspective, which means taking the good along with the bad. In many ways, the history of Magic Online is like a retelling of the early days of Magic: The Gathering when it was first printed and distributed ten years ago.

Anyone who has been playing Magic Online for more than a few months knows that you can expect problems whenever a new set is added to the online game. Darksteel would be no exception. Last Monday, we were promised Darksteel, and we got it. Sort of. On the promised date of March 2nd, you could officially go to the Online Store and purchase Darksteel product, and you could open it and presumably play with it in casual constructed decks, but you could not play with Darksteel in any booster drafts or sealed deck leagues. Two days later, on March 4, the queues opened for Mirrodin/Darksteel Release Leagues. Both required a Mirrodin tournament pack and two tickets, but one required two Darksteel booster packs while the other required three Darksteel packs. A few hours after the first Darksteel leagues were open, the system went down, and things haven’t been the same since. It was like this: one day you can play Magic Online and the next day you can’t. If you are passionate about playing Magic Online, repeated service failures can really bring you down. There’s a way you can tell who the passionate players are in Magic Online, they’re the ones who want to play Magic on their computers SO BADLY that they are willing to pay actual money for the right to have infrequent access to a virtual card collection and a system where they have no power. Wizards of the Coast holds all the cards, even the virtual ones. This reminds me of the last time I was in a relationship like this. Back in school, there was this girl. She would break up with me, I’d cry and I’d get over it and I’d SWEAR that I wouldn’t be there for her the next time she called. Of course, she would call and want to get back together and I’d fall for her all over again. Love is like that. Today, the girl giving me all the heartbreak is Magic Online.

DANIEL MYERS DRAWS THE SHORT STRAW

Daniel Myers writes a weekly column on MagicTheGathering.com each week titled, informatively enough, “Inside Magic Online”. Besides writing about MODO each week (a lot of us still like to call Magic Online MODO) Daniel Myers carries the official title of Magic Online Communications Manager. As such, Mr. Myers may have actually found a job at Wizards of the Coast that I would NOT trade a kidney for. Apparently WOTC needed SOMEONE to take this job. Evidently, Mr. Myers drew the short straw. His job is to tell us what’s going on with Magic Online. When things are going well, Daniel is the harbinger of all things new and exciting about MODO. When things are going badly, Daniel is the classic messenger that we’re not supposed to kill, the guy on the podium giving us the bad news each day. And since last week, there has been plenty of bad news. Sometimes the bad news was in an article on the front page of MagicTheGathering.com, more often you had to look in the part of the message boards devoted to the continual Soap Opera that is Magic Online. Just look at the headlines on the articles from Myers throughout the past week.

March 4, 9:00pm This Morning’s Crashes

March 4, 10:46pm This Morning’s Crashes: Update

March 5, 1:58am Please Read: Emergency Changes to Magic Online

March 8, 9:38pm Change in Plans: Please Read

(sub heading)     Downtime Coverage Continues

(sub heading)     No Column This Week

March 9              UPDATE: Planning to Switch to Live Server Today

Of course, information is important even when the news isn’t good. There can be no doubt that Daniel Myers is doing a good job of giving the Magic community information about MODO’s status in a timely way. But bad news is still bad news, and there has been no small amount of it dealing with Magic Online since last week. At this moment (Thursday night, March 11, 2004) Magic Online is up. You can trade cards. You can play casual games. You cannot draft or play in leagues. Today’s news is that the leagues that were in place when the trouble started last week, including Darksteel leagues, will be discontinued. Players in these leagues will be allowed to keep the cards they opened and the product used for these leagues will be replaced for each player. This is a nice policy, and seems more than fair. Players are warned that it could take the rest of the month for the product returns to be finished. Personally, I’ll believe it when I receive my product.

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

Magic cards are a commodity. When there are more buyers than the current supply can satisfy, the commodity goes up in value. Most people think this system is a good one. It’s called free enterprise. I remember when Ice Age came out many years ago, the first expansion set to come out in sealed decks (you kids call ‘em Tournament Packs here in the twenty-first century). When Ice Age hit the streets, it was quickly clear that there was not enough product to meet demand. Booster pack and starter deck prices shot up all over the place. Today, there is a similar problem with Magic Online. Basically, the more people that want to participate with the online game at the same time, the more resources that are needed by the people supporting the technical architecture behind the scenes. In theory, Magic Online should be a limitless marketplace where an ever-growing body of players can draw upon an infinite supply of virtual products that can always meet a growing demand. Unfortunately, virtual Magic has a lot of literal limitations. Unlike other massively multiplayer online games, Magic Online supports its many thousands of players on a single server (more like a set of servers, but lets not GO THERE, computer experts of the world!). With a single server environment, there is bound to be a limit to the computer resources that can be enjoyed by those using the system. Supply and demand was the name of the game in 1993, when Magic: the Gathering’s ten million Beta edition cards sold out faster than anyone could have ever predicted. Supply and demand is still the name of the game. Too many people want to play Magic Online for the amount of resources currently being provided by Wizards of the Coast. Who loses when supply gets tight? Everybody. For the past week, Magic Online sales must have fallen off the chart, not to mention the hurt feelings of consumers who have been inconvenienced. It’s obvious how players get hurt. We want our game back.

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

I have always believed that new expansions are introduced in Magic way too often. Sometimes I compare new sets of cards to new recordings by your favorite musical artist. If your favorite singer or band puts out one major musical release in a year, you are generally more than happy. If you like movies, then you must have loved seeing the three Lord of the Rings movies released in successive years. No three year wait between films like the Star Wars franchise. The guys at Wizards prefers to release three new sets of Magic cards each and every year. Expandable card game? Expensive card game. In my opinion, it is simply way too many cards way too often. I used to be afraid that WOTC research and development would simply run out of ideas. To the contrary, Wizards seems to have found a way to pace their development very evenly. WOTC has found a pattern for turning out three sets a year that has been very successful. Success includes WOTC making lots of money. Fair enough. Now along comes Magic Online, and suddenly Wizards of the Coast has another cash cow that is very popular with players. Now the guys at WOTC have a new problem. Rapid deployment of card sets at a rate of three a year is hard to do in cardboard, and apparently even harder for the online game. In the long run, Wizards of the Coast may have to decide whether or not something has to give.

WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

What should we do? Should the Magic Online community simply be sweet, kind and understanding, knowing that the technical crew behind Magic Online are working as hard as possible to give us back the rich online gaming experience that we love? Should we be angry and take action against Magic Online, possibly by vowing to give up the expensive online game? If you are truly in love, you don’t really have a choice. When the old girlfriend calls you, you’re going to pick up where you left off, even though she has broken your heart many times in the past.

As always, I’d love to hear what YOU think!

Jeff Zandi

Texas Guildmages

Level II DCI Judge

jeffzandi@thoughtcastle.com

Zanman on Magic Online