Is Mage wars about to fade out?

[fas723]

So... Mage Wars Academy, then...

But that is a different game, not as fun, and what I think has not a potetial for a big audience like Arena.

[exid]

 
what a depressive topic!
 

i don't play often (job, music band, kids,etc.) but MW is my basis game and each game is 4-5 hours + 6-8 hours building. i like to create a new spellbook for each game, and it becomes harder to find new ideas after a year with no new mages (i bought FiF late).
i also have the problem that MW isn't dying in europa: it never really was born!

i'm looking forward to play P&S, but it didn't come in 2015, will it arrive in 2016? 2017?...
and after that, will we have to wait 2-3 years for the next 2-mages expension? (i buy academy and battleground to help me wait, but it's no exciting material to me)

but... what would be worse is a bad expension every 3 months!
so i hope AW isn't bankrouting in the next 30 years, and in this time we will have 5 or 6 beautifull expensions!
 

[Biblofilter]

I think were are doing fine in Copenhagen, Denmark 

This Saturday were going to celebrate our 2 year uninterrupted monthly Mage Wars day!

After getting heavy price support from Arcane Wonders  at our yearly tournament we got a few new very interested players.

Still it can be hard to find time to play with work, school/uni and now it looks like we getting a few days of summer.

I don´t really need more expansions to keep the game fresh - but then again I've been playing chess and bridge for years. Id like to play more Mage Wars than I do - but Im going for a 3 weeks Mage Wars vacation in July/august, so hopefully ill get some games in there. ( 5 games/day like in North Carolina will be hard to beat)

[wtcannonjr]

I don´t really need more expansions to keep the game fresh - but then again I've been playing chess and bridge for years. Id like to play more Mage Wars than I do - but Im going for a 3 weeks Mage Wars vacation in July/august, so hopefully ill get some games in there. ( 5 games/day like in North Carolina will be hard to beat)

If you are anywhere near Sevens Springs, Pennsylvania in the July 23 - 31 time frame  stop by the World Boardgaming Championships for some Mage Wars play. I will be running a second year Mage Wars Arena tournament, plus multiplayer Battlegrounds,  and open play for all 9 days. http://www.boardgamers.org/#wbc

[Drefan]

I'd say no from my own experience with the game.
Sure the releases might feel too slow for some people but I started playing two years ago and I've had a lot to dig my teeth into.
There has yet to be a release in 2016, but we got Academy and Domination from last half of 2015. We also have Paladin vs Siren and other academy sets coming, hopefully, this year.

Maybe the number of people that play on Octagon actively has declined, or just the people you used to play with.

I still don't have any major issue when it comes to playing against other people via the client. Sometimes you'll be able to play a lot of games, and sometimes you're struggling to find someone to play with.
Every time there's an online tournament like Thunderdome or ADMW, I see a surge in activity. So I guess the best thing for Mage Wars Online play would be to have more tournaments, perhaps one for every quarter of the year.

When it comes to playing locally it's all about location I think. We have a group here in Umeå, Sweden that tries to get together at least once every week, or every other week.
The group used to be a bit bigger, but the people who still play are very active. And we feel that the more we play the game the more fun we have. We're still only playing Arena, we've not really touched Academy or Domination. We mainly used those two for the cards

So, there's still a lot to do with what we've been given and more fun decks to try out, but I feel that MW is one of those games that if you do not play it regularly, it becomes a bit boring. And this is mainly due to not remembering rules or getting out of touch with how to build new and funny books. I've noticed that the less active people in our group tend to always come with the same decks, or slightly modified decks because they lack the time and vision to create brand new decks. So they stick with what they know while the rest of us move on to another kind of meta

[Brian VanAlstyne]

Another delay with the two Academy sets is going to be another issue. The fact that they can't get stuff out on a semi-consistent basis to allow for more replayability and changes in playstyle is a real problem. It's going to be another full year without anything being released after what seemed like a year or more between Forged in Fire and Domination/Academy. And the last major mages were released what, 3-4 years ago now...that's a problem.

[Laddinfance]

Paladin vs Siren is going to be this year. Right now it's looking like the official release will be in October sometime.

Academy Priestess is going to release at the end of June, with Warlock following the next month. Tony should have tighter dates sometime next week.

We've got a lot more spoilers coming and he and I have been talking about getting those rolled out. But right now, I have a preview for today, and I'll get to working on it so you can all have a spoiler for the weekend.

[Ganpot]

and after that, will we have to wait 2-3 years for the next 2-mages expension?

This is the question that really scares me.  Having a single 3 year gap between new Arena mages (which tend to offer more  comprehensive playstyle changes and opportunities than other expansions) is really bad, but it is recoverable.  Once the schedule picks up again, players will hopefully come flooding back.  But if this release schedule is already the new normal and players are expected to wait that long for the next set, then IMO the game is doomed (as in, a mere handful of people will be playing it by that point). 

So I don't want to (just) hear that PvS is finally releasing this year.  What I actually want to hear is that the next set is releasing 6-12 months after that (and isn't going to be delayed).  I won't pretend to know the reasons behind the slow recent schedule, and quite frankly I don't particularly care at this point (harsh but true).  Whatever the reason, FIX IT.  Short of nuclear apocalypse or Cthulhu rising from the sea, it should never be allowed to happen again.  A ton of people (including myself) originally became excited about this game at least partially because of the promise of expanding variety.  People on the forums had a lot of fun imagining new mage archetypes and cards.  Deckbuilding is the best part of the game for many people.  For the last couple years, all of these people have become frustrated and bored with the game. 

You can tell how serious I am about this topic because I actually prevented myself from making a really stupid pun in the preceding sentence.  And those are my absolute favorite types of puns!

[Jedah]

Laddinfance,

Thank you so much for alllllll the hours, the days and weekends playing magewars. I feel bad reading your post.  beeing somewhat impacient for new expansions. I can't imagion how much work it would be to create a new expansion.

All i can say is that you could definatly see these comments as one of the greatest compliments. People enjoy the game so much that that crave new content. They want to keep playing.

i for one am super hyped about the upcoming expansions! And even if there weren't going to be any expansions released, i have seen the future of my gaming closet in 20 years containing a old and almost used up version off magewars. Teaching my daughter the rules 

[Laddinfance]

Laddinfance,

Thank you so much for alllllll the hours, the days and weekends playing magewars. I feel bad reading your post.  beeing somewhat impacient for new expansions. I can't imagion how much work it would be to create a new expansion.

All i can say is that you could definatly see these comments as one of the greatest compliments. People enjoy the game so much that that crave new content. They want to keep playing.

i for one am super hyped about the upcoming expansions! And even if there weren't going to be any expansions released, i have seen the future of my gaming closet in 20 years containing a old and almost used up version off magewars. Teaching my daughter the rules 

Don't feel bad. The last thing I ever want is for my post to make people feel bad. Now at the same time I always strive to be as honest as possible.

I'm hoping this week as I start to spoil PVS that you guys will see what we've been working on, and as I get to show you what we have been doing, I'll start focusing on what we will do. It's a exciting time for Mage Wars. I know there is a lot on the line, so to speak. Right now I could say, "of course we'll get it done with no delays", but in the end what I say on that matter doesn't have an impact. Getting the next set out will.

So for now, I'm taking a moment to enjoy sharing PVS with all of you, but then It's back to work. I owe you all another set.

[Erebus]

I'm hoping to start spending a regular amount of time checking the forums and playing the game again. For me, this game is very much still alive, especially with PvS on its way. I expect you may see a few other students become more active during the summer.

[Mystery]

First I have to say that I also would like to see expansions more regulary. But there will be a bunch of cards coming. With LG, Priestess academy, Warlock Academy and PvS also do come quite many.

Also from Playtesting I can tell you that the larger the overall spell base gets the harder testing and balance gets. Also there are different things to consider also. And a big point is spellbook size and building and that to really identify if a strat/deck and cards are too weak or too good need a large sample size and to judge on a (competive ) level and balance in general you really need to build full spellbooks. Cause it really makes a difference on seing the influence on cards on the amount of enchantment removals, creatures and also equipment removal. Just 90 points book, or shortly built ones won't do it. Secondly you need to play against lots of other decks...
And you also have to check the cards in Domination

Now to some other points: Mainly talking my experience on OCTGN: Domination hardly people play and if I ask often comes: havent played, have no deck, dont know the rules. And it is a rather complex thing to exploit too. Also team games. I wouldnt cosider myself playing extremly much, but on octgn and offline without playtesting i have like 230 games. But I havent played so many possible decks yet and on every mage with the current card pool are still possibilities.
If I look at 90% of the decks they have a huge development potential yet, exploit that, playing a new deck every game is not using the full potential of the game. (I never play the same deck twice for a long time and even now probably change, but I play it again soon after). The decks play differently against other mages, other strats etc.

Try domination

Arcane duels made a lot of videos over the tournament, those are very valuable show a lot and in the latest time there are lots of new decks.

"the scene in europe isn't dying, there never was one" The german speeking part is growing a lot, the last Thunderdome G was a real boost for the community. There was a game every week for each player, double elemination and Schwenkgott did cast and record all those games. It also had decks posted after and written summary by the players and some strat insight. This is really huge for the community and keeps all focused and interessted. Of course for the short time it is time consuming, but you really get a large value out of it.

Generally from what I see of octgn players havent yet exploit the game at this state. Of course I myself currently also play less as i desperatly wait for Priestess/warlock to include those cards in my decks.

sailor sad no games on octgn surprise him, powlichs 4 quicksand/domination surprised me, and as I had extremly good results using fellela curse builds it also seems to surprise a lot. The thing is if you are not surprised you should be able to built a deck that can beat all assuming you play slightly better level.

Lastly someone sad there are no decks posted: I see so many more of the same decks posted with then a discussion. I posted all decks from Thunderdome G here (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=16570.0) noone responed, its not that there isn't something available....

It is cool that AW gets something out soon, but I feel most of us havent exploit the full extent or even most of the game yet

[Tyrnan]

Now to some other points: Mainly talking my experience on OCTGN: Domination hardly people play and if I ask often comes: havent played, have no deck, dont know the rules. And it is a rather complex thing to exploit too. Also team games. I wouldnt cosider myself playing extremly much, but on octgn and offline without playtesting i have like 230 games. But I havent played so many possible decks yet and on every mage with the current card pool are still possibilities.
If I look at 90% of the decks they have a huge development potential yet, exploit that, playing a new deck every game is not using the full potential of the game. (I never play the same deck twice for a long time and even now probably change, but I play it again soon after). The decks play differently against other mages, other strats etc.

Good to hear this from you Mystery. I always have the feeling that there are so many potential (competitive) decks that I didn't play yet and that I easily could keep playing with the current card pool for quite a while and still discover something new. As I don't get to play as much (since mid 2014 I played around 50 matches on and offline) I thought this is the reason. But reading that even a player like yourself still hasn't explored everything to explore underlines how extremely deep this game already is!
I personally do not have the impression that mage wars is fading out, especially not here in germany. But also this forums are still quite active, with every other day something new to discuss.
So thanks for sharing your thoughts making a big point in showing that mage wars is alive and kicking

[Boocheck]

"the scene in europe isn't dying, there never was one" The german speeking part is growing a lot, the last Thunderdome G was a real boost for the community. There was a game every week for each player, double elemination and Schwenkgott did cast and record all those games.

I need to say, that Europe is not a state, its a continent. Each state has its own specifics, game board traditions and culture and mostly because of language barier, there is a problem to convert people into mage wars. Mage wars cannot be considered as a fast card game similar to MtG, GoT etc. It takes much more learning time, preparation time and produce much more gaming time. I bet that French players have this problem, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Polish, Czech, Slovak... If i rembember corectly, only Germany has its own language mutation of mage wars, right? 

I hope that during this or next year, there will be academy translation for Czech (and Slovak because our languages are similar) and after that, Mage Wars Arena.

I am from Czech and i can proudly say, that we have a scene. Yes, small one but if you compare total population of germany to ours, i think on % we are pretty even

I deeply respect Schwenn for his work and also you Mystery. I bet that just because of you two and similar people, Germany have such a great scene. I hope that in next 5 years, things will change greatly as more and more board games are seen as something cool instead of nerdish and this will produce more players in Europe.

PvS will kick ass!

[Tyrnan]

As Kaarin pointed out, there will also be a polish version planned for november this year! http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=16843.0

Does anyone know of other localization efforts in other countries?