The time limit thing and game play is going to be a community issue, a solution that will be generally positive and promote incentives to play quickly is needed.

Quote from: Thessial on July 19, 2013, 06:01:36 PM

Quote from: Fentum on July 19, 2013, 04:46:07 PM

Is there some way in which loyal and stalwart existing owners of the game can get updated cards? I can see ALL SORTS of chaos occurring here, and I don't want marker pen on my cards...

That would be nice.

Greetings to all!

To answer the question, producing cards as a small single print run is beyond the budget. We are gamers after all and our salaries don't yet equal that of sports stars. However, we feel your pain. So here are our solutions to get accurate reprints out to you the dedicated many.

We have decided to make sure that reprints of the cards will appear in the next Expansion that has a Mage capable of benefiting from them. To be a little more clear, not Druid Vs. Necromancer, but an Expansion that we are looking at for the 2014 season. Now I have less patience than most and that just doesn't satisfy me fully. So...

We are going to post printable PDFs of the 3 modified cards in the Downloads section of our website later tonight. This will at least keep people from having to mark up their existing cards.

Hope this helps and thank you very much for supporting Mage Wars!

John

Hi John,

Thanks for the information. It is nice to have PDFs but I never use sleeves. I am still a bit worried as it seems as though the replacements may come out in dribs and drabs 'in the next expansion that has a Mage capable of benefitting from them'. Two things...

 Firstly, ALL mages can benefit from them.

Secondly, the issue isn't MAGE benefit, it is GAME OWNER benefit.

If you can't just send out replacement cards for free (I wonder how many games have actually been sold so far, and what would the actual cost be?) How about you put max copies of each errata card, 4 or 6, into the next expansion as a free add on? Or even just a couple of each? I know all about print costs and so on, but I also know that doing remarkable things for your customer base drives long term loyalty.

The precedent would be Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear. They included a free couple sheets of proper high quality counters in the second expansion, Price of Honour, to replace slightly modified counters from the original game. They garnered much kudos for this on the boards.

I love this Mage Wars game. I will keep playing it. It's all about the love, not the commerce.

Me thinks the production of the next xpac is locked or in the motion, so that's why it won't be in the next?

I am more concerned with the implications.

Yep, law of unintended consequences, that's smack you. In the face strong.

IMO if y'all can't do free ones, then print 4-6 copies in next expansion, or let us buy some online?

The biggest concern is total time of the event. When you are at a show or renting a hall you are limited to the time allotted by the venue. For example the Gencon finals will be a 24 person 5 round Swiss we have 6 hours to work with including deck reg.


How long should the rounds be?

I think a 90 min model is needed per game to deal with top end, but include time limits during plans. Honestly if you condition players that: ok guys, this game can take a while and to respect a full game and not have ppl turtle the tie condition then at this level of play (the top tier, tier 1) then you have X time in planning (my suggestion is 60seconds) to get your 2 cards and be ready.

Yes, that's not casual friendly, but a tier 1 tournament isn't meant to be casual tournament.

Also that above is the stick ( of a carrot and stick methodology) let's also like in soccer, i believe, do this: wins = 4pts, ties = 1pt and losses = 0. Why? To encourage playing to win. If ties are so common make them negligible, and make wins so good that 2 wins in a 5 thing swice will get you to next day. And don't make losses super bad such that ppl will want to prevent a loss and not risk a loss to get a win.  Scenario: hmm I'm almost out of time I
 4 ties and in this game if I get a win I'll almost surely get to the next day,  I'll be aggresive and go for that win, and so might my opponent.  This will encourage ppl to play fast because they want wins so that they can advance.

Thoughts shadow?

I think any sort of time limit will make the game imbalanced for us less experienced players. Some playstyles take more thinking to use than others, and with less experienced players this might give the rush strategies more of an advantage. I think a time limit might not be the best idea. I know that time for a tournament isn't infinite, but let's not forget that Mage Wars was designed to be a relatively long game--usually over an hour for just one.

My idea is to break up tournaments a bit. Depending on the number of people who preregister for a tournament, make more than one tournament, and then have the winners either be invited to face each other in another tournament later, or just have them be the winners of their respective tournaments.

Having tournaments for multiple formats of play and having an attendance cap for each one might work better for this. Anyone left over can play against anyone they want who isn't in another tournament, and the ones with the highest win percentages get prizes (with a minimum number of games, depending on the total tournament time). However, they'd only be able to play against each of the "leftover" participants once.

So you would have to register for an event ahead of time, and then if there are any open spots still left after the event starts, then people could come and register onsite.

While this might not work if the game becomes insanely popular, I don't know if there's a better alternative, since time limits for organized play in Mage Wars would probably suck. That's part of the problem with Mage Wars being such a long game, I think.

That's the point, tournaments are to test for the best, if you can't do it then you aren't the best. That's why casuals of other tcgs don't play in major league level tournaments, and why cons also run armature level tournaments.

Instead of a 75-90min limit, how about a rule that limits the planning phase? After reading posts, and from teaching others how to play, this seems like the part of the game that takes the longest in a turn.

The question is how long is too short? Is 30sec too short, likely. What about 60sec, this seems reasonable for someone that is experienced and played several times, but would be rough on newer players. So that leaves 90-120sec planning, is this too much time? 

The answer will be based on how skilled or experienced the players are, which then begs the thought of leagues or levels.

Solution: multiple or just more than one tournament.

At a con: solution 1 (think Yugioh tv show) where during the week days prior, everyone signs up on the first day, and based on the number of players and days in the con, everyone is given 2 chips and only those with Y number of chips may enter into the top 4-8-16, on the final day. This style would benefit from a semi honor system where the staff wouldn't have to run rounds. Downside is no one will want to play well known players, but with a wagering system of (ok, I'll play you, but I'll only put up 1 chip if you put up 2). One way to keep things fair is that all games must be played in play area, etc).

Solution 2: run 2 leagues. Where the "pro" league has better rewards/perks and sets planning stages to 60 seconds(or whichever is play tested best) and an "armature" one with longer planning stages.

Also maybe leave 30, 45, or 60 second sand timers on tables for taking turns or deciding on moves.

Otherwise there is a problem If you can't play a turtle strat against an aggro and it take 3hrs.

Two draws doesn't seem very promising from a time standpoint, especially if matches are taking 3 hours (that seems totally excessive, honestly).  Is the intention for comp play to have a standard time limit or will it fluctuate?  This distinction is pretty important because time limits affect the viability of certain ways of playing the game, and thus balance.

And that's the $250k question.