Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sailor Vulcan on March 16, 2016, 08:35:48 AM
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About how many Mage Wars Academy players are there? I've noticed that there's seems to be less than ten Academy players on OCTGN, and it seems like they don't even have six different custom decks between them combined. Academy has been out since early December last year, or since last summer if you count the prerelease. Granted, I didn't get into Arena until a full year after its release, so maybe this is normal, I don't know.
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Academy is by its nature a much more casual game than Arena. The people who play on OCTGN I would consider a bit more invested in a particular game than your average gamer. That might be some of what's going on.
Also, I think you'll find more players for Academy after some time has passed just as you've said AND the player base will grow as more mages and expansions are added to Academy. Which is hopefully soon. I'm waiting for a GAMA trade show announcement from Arcane Wonders with some juicy details, but I haven't seen it yet.
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i bought academy but haven't played yet, and i'm not sure i will...
i like long and complex games (and you didn't convince me that it's fast as much complex as arena :) ) and have no time to play very often, so...i use it as an expansion for arena!
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Academy is by its nature a much more casual game than Arena. The people who play on OCTGN I would consider a bit more invested in a particular game than your average gamer. That might be some of what's going on.
Also, I think you'll find more players for Academy after some time has passed just as you've said AND the player base will grow as more mages and expansions are added to Academy. Which is hopefully soon. I'm waiting for a GAMA trade show announcement from Arcane Wonders with some juicy details, but I haven't seen it yet.
I wouldn't say it's that much more casual. It's about as casual as most CCGs are. Mage Wars Academy does have quite a decent amount of complexity, but it's certainly less complex than Arena.
Yeah, waiting until more Academy expansions come out is starting to seem to be the common response, now that I think about it. Are people still under the impression that the Academy core set doesn't have enough cards to support a fun healthy and diverse metagame? Because if so, they're totally wrong about that. I've already made six different probably-viable Academy decks and counting, five wizards and one beastmaster. But it seems like everybody is prepared to never play Academy in a core set only meta. It's such a shame.
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I still don't understand how people are playing Academy on OCTGN with only the Arena rule set being supported. I am sure you can work around it though.....
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It really doesn't matter. The only changes are for multiple attacks during 1 round and skipping first and last quick cast phase.
Academy on OCTGN would be much better if you could generate 1 giant zone map. Other than that most mechanics are ok.
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It really doesn't matter. The only changes are for multiple attacks during 1 round and skipping first and last quick cast phase.
Academy on OCTGN would be much better if you could generate 1 giant zone map. Other than that most mechanics are ok.
Don't forget that Academy has no planning phase.
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I just started to play on OCTGN Again :)
With almost no live games in the last couple of months :'( im Arena starved :o
I prefer Arena, Domination both 1vs1 and team games over Academy.
I don´t think that will change much with the new expansions.
Give me a couple of months and id be willing to trade 1 Arena game for 1-3 Academy games vs you ;D
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:D
+1 here ,
For initiation in France , it is more easy to taking academie , Magewars is not a game who like the traveling ... (too long, easy to forget markers or dice ) ;
there are no abassador in france and i must make the promotion with my games .
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i bought academy but haven't played yet, and i'm not sure i will...
i like long and complex games (and you didn't convince me that it's fast as much complex as arena :) ) and have no time to play very often, so...i use it as an expansion for arena!
+1 except I don't use Academy cards at all. Too much emphasis on low level spells used by younger mages and In-Zone combat. We enjoy Arena style for the movement and distance elements that it brings to the battle. Without a large arena the multilayered Conjuration spells dont make much sense. I am hoping to get a core set of players ready for multiplayer Domination play since I think that will help demonstrate the game experience to groups of players faster.
When I am teaching new players they all agree that Academy feels too much like other games in the market. For them they see Arena as having a uniqueness with the board and movement elements that make it more interesting to play. However, they also all agree that they needed someone to walk through the rules and game play with them in order to learn the game. So the learning curve is higher but the rewards are also higher.
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i bought academy but haven't played yet, and i'm not sure i will...
i like long and complex games (and you didn't convince me that it's fast as much complex as arena :) ) and have no time to play very often, so...i use it as an expansion for arena!
+1 except I don't use Academy cards at all. Too much emphasis on low level spells used by younger mages and In-Zone combat. We enjoy Arena style for the movement and distance elements that it brings to the battle. Without a large arena the multilayered Conjuration spells dont make much sense. I am hoping to get a core set of players ready for multiplayer Domination play since I think that will help demonstrate the game experience to groups of players faster.
When I am teaching new players they all agree that Academy feels too much like other games in the market. For them they see Arena as having a uniqueness with the board and movement elements that make it more interesting to play. However, they also all agree that they needed someone to walk through the rules and game play with them in order to learn the game. So the learning curve is higher but the rewards are also higher.
How many people have you taught Academy to and what games were they comparing it to?
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How many people have you taught Academy to and what games were they comparing it to?
I've taught Academy to 4 players and Arena-Apprentice Mode to 40 players since August of last year. When teaching Arena I always talk about the available expansions including Academy and discuss the differences with Academy and Battlegrounds: Domination. I only have feedback from about a handful of players, but it always is along the lines that Academy is too similar (or familiar) to other games. However, they don't specify which games they are comparing against. The other players have not commented either way. When I do hear from new players, the distinguishing point always includes the unique movement around a board and the element that range adds to casting spells and making attacks across a board that they find fun about Arena. Perhaps it is just the visual appeal of a physical environment that has creatures and spells moving and interacting within it.
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But are there any plans for an Academy module or other sort of plugin for the Mage Wars family on OCTGN?
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How many people have you taught Academy to and what games were they comparing it to?
I've taught Academy to 4 players and Arena-Apprentice Mode to 40 players since August of last year. When teaching Arena I always talk about the available expansions including Academy and discuss the differences with Academy and Battlegrounds: Domination. I only have feedback from about a handful of players, but it always is along the lines that Academy is too similar (or familiar) to other games. However, they don't specify which games they are comparing against. The other players have not commented either way. When I do hear from new players, the distinguishing point always includes the unique movement around a board and the element that range adds to casting spells and making attacks across a board that they find fun about Arena. Perhaps it is just the visual appeal of a physical environment that has creatures and spells moving and interacting within it.
So you've only taught four Academy players, but you've taught forty Arena. Did you already have this opinion of Academy before you taught it to anyone? Because it's pretty hard to teach a game to people if you don't actually like it. And if those four people were already Arena players, then they're even more likely to get entirely the wrong impression of Academy.
When I first got into Academy, I thought that the decks autobuild and that coming up with deck ideas is like a word search. However, whenever I used those autobuilt decks on OCTGN I was clobbered by people who had built better decks.
I strongly suspect that the reason that my decks were autobuilding at first was because I knew enough about Mage Wars cards in general to build a deck, but I did not know enough about Academy gameplay to build a good deck in Academy. I had no experience in Academy and I didn't know what worked and what didn't. So I built my first couple decks like any experienced Arena player who was new to Academy would. I thought I knew what I was doing. I didn't.
My advice to Arena players who find themselves turned off by Academy after one or two games: give it another chance. Practice a bit more with the preconstructed decks to get a better grasp of the gameplay before you start building custom decks. And then once you start building custom decks, test them against more experienced Academy players.
Speaking as both an Arena player and an a Academy player, I consider Academy to be just as good as Arena. They both have their merits and I love both of them. To be honest, I am actually starting to prefer Academy slightly more than Arena, although Arena isn't that far behind.
I wish that the official advertisement for Academy didn't make it sound like moving from Academy to Arena was an "upgrade". Because it's no more of an upgrade than moving from Arena to Academy, and it only perpetuates the myth that Academy is watered-down Arena.
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Oh wow duplicate posts sorry. I kept getting error messages when I tried to post.
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I only have feedback from about a handful of players, but it always is along the lines that Academy is too similar (or familiar) to other games.
I'm not surprised. Having more feedback would be good, though.
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i bought academy but haven't played yet, and i'm not sure i will...
i like long and complex games (and you didn't convince me that it's fast as much complex as arena :) ) and have no time to play very often, so...i use it as an expansion for arena!
+1 except I don't use Academy cards at all. Too much emphasis on low level spells used by younger mages and In-Zone combat. We enjoy Arena style for the movement and distance elements that it brings to the battle. Without a large arena the multilayered Conjuration spells dont make much sense. I am hoping to get a core set of players ready for multiplayer Domination play since I think that will help demonstrate the game experience to groups of players faster.
When I am teaching new players they all agree that Academy feels too much like other games in the market. For them they see Arena as having a uniqueness with the board and movement elements that make it more interesting to play. However, they also all agree that they needed someone to walk through the rules and game play with them in order to learn the game. So the learning curve is higher but the rewards are also higher.
How many people have you taught Academy to and what games were they comparing it to?
I realize this question was posed to another person, but I have to say in my short experience with Academy, I would say it's not only appropriately named, but does exactly what it's intended to do: introduce new players to the Mage Wars IP. I've only had Academy for about a month now. In that time, I've taught the game to four individuals. After just a few games, all four people were like, "So, when are you going to show me the big version." After playing Arena, they don't really have an interest in Academy. So it appears, Academy will be my go to source for introducing Arena.
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Yes there are plans to extend the module....
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something's bugged about this thread...
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How many people have you taught Academy to and what games were they comparing it to?
I've taught Academy to 4 players and Arena-Apprentice Mode to 40 players since August of last year. When teaching Arena I always talk about the available expansions including Academy and discuss the differences with Academy and Battlegrounds: Domination. I only have feedback from about a handful of players, but it always is along the lines that Academy is too similar (or familiar) to other games. However, they don't specify which games they are comparing against. The other players have not commented either way. When I do hear from new players, the distinguishing point always includes the unique movement around a board and the element that range adds to casting spells and making attacks across a board that they find fun about Arena. Perhaps it is just the visual appeal of a physical environment that has creatures and spells moving and interacting within it.
So you've only taught four Academy players, but you've taught forty Arena. Did you already have this opinion of Academy before you taught it to anyone? Because it's pretty hard to teach a game to people if you don't actually like it. And if those four people were already Arena players, then they're even more likely to get entirely the wrong impression of Academy.
Your numbers are correct. I misspoke earlier in my statement about "all players". I should have added "all players that have commented".
Arena was out years before Academy and I have played it since the beginnin. So I did understand the fact that the game play is different before teaching anyone.
I agree that passion for something is very helpful when teaching. Arena is my preference so when I create events to teach the game, I will follow my passion. However, if someone walks up to me at a convention and wants to learn Academy, then I have a copy available to teach or we will use the version they may just have bought. In the last event that I ran I had 5 new players learn Arena and they all agreed it was fun, but they would not have learned it without someone to walk through the rules and "coach" them. I see a strong link between ambassadors and growing a community of players.
Perhaps we should add a "Find an Ambassador" feature to the Mage Wars site. You enter your zip code and it provides contact information for players to locate their nearest ambassador.
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Perhaps we should add a "Find an Ambassador" feature to the Mage Wars site. You enter your zip code and it provides contact information for players to locate their nearest ambassador.
Personally, I think that is a great idea. To add to that, current ambassadors could answer questions to those of us interested in becoming an ambassador. I love this game enough that I would consider becoming an ambassador for my area if there isn't one already. I just don't know how much of a time commitment it is. But I love the idea of building a community of Mage Wars players in my area.
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Perhaps we should add a "Find an Ambassador" feature to the Mage Wars site. You enter your zip code and it provides contact information for players to locate their nearest ambassador.
Personally, I think that is a great idea. To add to that, current ambassadors could answer questions to those of us interested in becoming an ambassador. I love this game enough that I would consider becoming an ambassador for my area if there isn't one already. I just don't know how much of a time commitment it is. But I love the idea of building a community of Mage Wars players in my area.
Hi Ravepig. I am happy to talk about my experience as an ambassador. Just send me a PM with your contact info.
I imagine each of the ambassadors devotes a different amount of time based on our schedules. There are many ways to start - big or small - depending on your interest and experience.