Computer TCG's (Trading Card Games), especially Might and Magic Duel of Champions
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
in Off-Topic
Hey, it's me again, trying to start another discussion about TCG's. So far, I've found that I am such a minority here on the BG forums in enjoying these TCG games, that the whole genre doesn't seem to exist here. I've gotten just a very few response posts to my attempts to start discussions here.
I just posted this over at Celestial Heavens. I thought I'd post it here as well, just in case I can connect with some other lonely "voice crying in the wilderness" about enjoying these card games and all the art, music, sound design, and lore that goes with them, and maybe get some insight.
This whole copied-over post will make the most sense to anyone else who loves HoMM and MM (Heroes of Might and Magic and Might and Magic):
QUOTE FROM MY CELESTIAL HEAVENS POST:
Hey, I was looking for info on story lore about Masfar, "Father of Titans" from MMDoC, and I can't find any.
Usually, I can find any answer imaginable about the MM universe from the experts here.
However, I wonder, can anybody tell me whether there's a reference to Masfar in Homm 5, 6, or 7?
Does the Homm and MM community in general reject everything about the card game as having anything to do with the franchcise, and thus, ignore it completely?
Am I the only MM fan here who also loves the card game?
If not, could we have some kind of discussion about the lore behind the cards? Did they just make up the big hero names like "Masfar, Morgan, Cassandra, Ariana, Seria, etc., etc." from thin air? Or do any of the names and cards we see in the TCG have referents in the known world of Homm 5-7?
Thanks. smile
BTW - I kind of wonder if Arcomage might have played into the recent popularity of TCG's like MMDoC, Hearthstone, or Summoners' Legion?
I guess MTG was the grandaddy of them all, which likely inspired Arcomage, but with Arcomage, you got in-game currency wealth building rewards - which in turn, could have inspired the entire ftp CTG model that started with - actually, which one did start the whole trend? Was it MMDoC? I know that came before Hearthstone.
MTG was of course the forerunner of all fantasy card playing and collecting, but, afik, it never had an ftp in-game currency reward before MMDoC, and in fact, now MTG is about to release an ftp online version in July of this year. (2015), which, I think is clearly a response to the success of Hearthstone.
However, didn't Arcomage predate every CTG except MTG?
What do you guys think? Now that I've gotten into the card games, the whole history and culture of CTG's, and their tie-in with the MM franchise, is fascinating me.
And, again, who the heck are the heroes on the hero cards?
_________________
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke, "Clarke's Third Law".
I just posted this over at Celestial Heavens. I thought I'd post it here as well, just in case I can connect with some other lonely "voice crying in the wilderness" about enjoying these card games and all the art, music, sound design, and lore that goes with them, and maybe get some insight.
This whole copied-over post will make the most sense to anyone else who loves HoMM and MM (Heroes of Might and Magic and Might and Magic):
QUOTE FROM MY CELESTIAL HEAVENS POST:
Hey, I was looking for info on story lore about Masfar, "Father of Titans" from MMDoC, and I can't find any.
Usually, I can find any answer imaginable about the MM universe from the experts here.
However, I wonder, can anybody tell me whether there's a reference to Masfar in Homm 5, 6, or 7?
Does the Homm and MM community in general reject everything about the card game as having anything to do with the franchcise, and thus, ignore it completely?
Am I the only MM fan here who also loves the card game?
If not, could we have some kind of discussion about the lore behind the cards? Did they just make up the big hero names like "Masfar, Morgan, Cassandra, Ariana, Seria, etc., etc." from thin air? Or do any of the names and cards we see in the TCG have referents in the known world of Homm 5-7?
Thanks. smile
BTW - I kind of wonder if Arcomage might have played into the recent popularity of TCG's like MMDoC, Hearthstone, or Summoners' Legion?
I guess MTG was the grandaddy of them all, which likely inspired Arcomage, but with Arcomage, you got in-game currency wealth building rewards - which in turn, could have inspired the entire ftp CTG model that started with - actually, which one did start the whole trend? Was it MMDoC? I know that came before Hearthstone.
MTG was of course the forerunner of all fantasy card playing and collecting, but, afik, it never had an ftp in-game currency reward before MMDoC, and in fact, now MTG is about to release an ftp online version in July of this year. (2015), which, I think is clearly a response to the success of Hearthstone.
However, didn't Arcomage predate every CTG except MTG?
What do you guys think? Now that I've gotten into the card games, the whole history and culture of CTG's, and their tie-in with the MM franchise, is fascinating me.
And, again, who the heck are the heroes on the hero cards?
_________________
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke, "Clarke's Third Law".
0
Comments
Anyway, on-topic:
I play Magic: The Gathering on a semi-casual level. I play on Friday nights when I can at my favorite card shop, and I usually do fairly well--usually a split win/loss ratio. Like most things fantasy and geeky, you can blame my mother for sparking my interest.
Aside from Magic, I've also played Pokemon and Yugioh! but... I don't play either of those anymore. The biggest reason being that the Pokemon cards have gotten so over-powered that they had to change the rules on Potion (instead of healing 10 HP on a pokemon, it heals 30). I mean. Wut. So I guess all my old cards are useless?
Yugioh! started out pretty good, but since it's translated from Japanese to English, the advanced rules on the cards are so hard to decipher. Where Magic has rule words like "Flying" and "Defender" and "When this card dies, you gain three life"--you know, EASY things to understand--Yugioh! has this:
Fiend/Spirit
ATK 200/ DEF 100
This card cannot be special summoned. This card returns to the owner's hand during the End Phase of the turn that it is Normal Summoned, Flipped Summoned, or flipped face-up. When this card inflicts Battle Damage to your opponent's Life Points, your opponent skips his/her next Draw Phase.
I mean, okay, I understand what the card does, but it is SUCH A LABOR to read. The font on the cards is so small because they have to squeeze this giant text on a small block of the card, and the gratuitous capitalization is an eyesore.
And the thing about Yugioh! is that, they have to word their abilities so intricately and carefully because otherwise, the players will find loopholes to exploit. We're talking Turn-One Wins. The ban list changes every few months to balance the broken meta-game, and as such, prices on cards are constantly fluctuating. It's a pain to keep up with.
Do you have a link for the FTP Magic Online information? o.o
http://magic.wizards.com/en/magic-gathering
In case you miss the "learn more" button there, that links to this:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/content/magic-duels
The announcement is heading their main website currently. There's been a new edition of MTG online since about 2007, and you can get most of them on Steam for around $10 each. The 2015 version is widely considered a disappointment, though. I watched the previews and review videos, and I didn't much like what I saw - the colors were too bland, the art work and print on the cards was very small and hard to read, and the music was uninspired. The art and music are part of what hooked me into the CTG's I play.
It's interesting - as much as I've gotten into CTG's, the one I still haven't played is Magic:The Gathering, which I suppose is the grandaddy of them all. However, it's not just the card-playing that I like, it's the wealth building of in-game currency that turns me on to it, and that's the dimension that MTG has been missing. It looks like with this new "Magic Duels" version, they're going to finally get on the bandwagon with the in-game economy and rewards system of the FTP's. I'm very much looking forward to trying it.
I think it all might be inspired in part by Piers Anthony's "Phaze/Proton" series of novels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprentice_Adept
It's pretty interesting and deep stuff if you've never read Piers Anthony. He can be kind of an acquired taste, though, because of his use of puns and wordplay in his fantasy, which can suddenly dip into some pretty dark psychological and religious real life themes, explored through graphic metaphor. I recommend not only Apprentice Adept, but also the Xanth novels and Incarnations of Immortality.
EDIT: Oh, also, all of Anne MacCaffrey's Pern novels follow the fantasy/sci-fi crossover trope. I remember reading The Dragonriders of Pern as a young man, and being absolutely floored and delighted when the medieval, fantasy society with telpathic dragonriders I had been introduced to, started to convert into a discovery of lost ancient science and technology.