Using videochat programs with special effects to play mage wars?

[Sailor Vulcan]

Has anyone tried using skype or something like it with something like manycam to play mage wars against someone over the internet using their actual physical cards? If you could just overlay the image of the board that your opponent sees on top of your own so you can see both your cards and theirs, and use some sort of mask effect to protect online anonymity, we could start playing face to face mage wars games over the internet!

I have found octgn severely lacking in face to face interaction, and it's become a lot less fun for me as a result. I didn't realize this until I went to origins, but face-to-face interaction makes a whole world of difference in fun-levels. But at the same time I value privacy and want to have anonymity maintained so that more players can feel comfortable playing mage wars even against opponents they do not know.

I'm worried doing this will split the octgn community, but I also think it might really help the online mage wars community grow, which is something we desperately need, and in many ways it will be more enjoyable to play online this way. Mac users like my sister would finally be able to play online without mad computer skillz.

What do you think?

[C Savy]

My friend and I use facetime. We aim the camera at our boards and make rolls in line of sight of the camera. Takes us forever because we each build the board as it plays out. We don't care too much about that since we are drinking beer and need to read all the cards anyway because we are new.

[Sailor Vulcan]

My friend and I use facetime. We aim the camera at our boards and make rolls in line of sight of the camera. Takes us forever because we each build the board as it plays out. We don't care too much about that since we are drinking beer and need to read all the cards anyway because we are new.

I was thinking of somehow overlaying the image of what you're seeing on your arena with the image of what your opponent is seeing on their arena. I just realized screen sharing probably won't work, since you would still have to look at the board directly to move cards around.

I'm starting to think there's no sufficiently inexpensive way to play mage wars with the real physical cards in real life but still anonymously against an opponent over the Internet. I mean, you could probably try something with augmented reality goggles, like the oculus rift, but that's really expensive.

[V10lentray]

I posted a while back about playing over Skype, and no one seemed interested. I have 2 copies of every expansion and 4 core sets so I could easily manage running a game via skype.

[sIKE]

I am going to go the other way, why not use OCTGN and use Skype to give you that social edge? I can't count how many times I've played Half-Life/WoW/LOTR while on headsets with multiple friends or going further back chained 3-Way phone calls (hows that for old school?)

[ACG]

I am going to go the other way, why not use OCTGN and use Skype to give you that social edge?

I have done exactly this. It works very well.

[runatyr]

What's the best way to find someone to use OCTGN and say skype or google hangouts to talk so I can learn my way around OCTGN for Mage wars?

[Puddnhead]

What's the best way to find someone to use OCTGN and say skype or google hangouts to talk so I can learn my way around OCTGN for Mage wars?

Tell us what time you are free and we can see if anyone will be around to show you the ropes.  I am in the US Midwest and run on Central time.  I am capable of walking you through some stuff starting at about 8pm CDT on most nights.  It really helps me to have something scheduled ahead of time and I would happy to use Skype.

I know that Schwenkgott is in Germany and on OCTGN a great deal.  Maybe his times are better for you.  I'm not sure if he uses voice chat for anything.