The future of Mage Wars

[EricTheGreat12]

I think we all agree, Mage Wars is such a good game it deserves much more.

Yes !!

This topic pops up about once a year and it always gets super dour and "hate on AW"ish. For real. Aaron was a wonderful guy but he obviously found something better and moved on. Tony is doing a job but literally half of aarons job was dealing with us. He was super industrious and went above and beyond a lot of the time. Now i cant really speak fot AW but the product is good. The game is fun. I play it often and constantly see new stuff, even with older cards. Just cuz you dont like the academy/arena interactions doesn't mean they arent viable expa sions to the game. I see the new warlord stuff about half the time i play. I know the forcemaster stuff is getting use too. I see firestream now more than i see flameblast. The new holy shit is all over Rhett place, who doesnt run cure? Or remove curse? Glancing blow? Sangine thirst? The game got bigger like 3 times this last year and all i hear is bitching! How many mages and expansions do you want in a year? 2? 4? Not to mention AW isnt that huge. Its not like this is fantasy flight or plaid hat for crying out loud. And as for the quiet forums? These are player generated forums! If you dont say things on them, nothing shows up! Arcane duels and keechjen work very hard on there own time to provide the online content we enjoy so much, Silverclawgrizzly and myself try to keep write ups on mages and cards around for folks to discuss, Sharkey does all the programming for octgn basically by himself (with help from puddnhead and possibly others) puddnhead logs on  evry Tuesday to play and record games with new ideas or fun concepts for us all to enjoy. Bottom line is there are folks doing the work, ans if you think something is lacking or .missing or just something you'd like to see that's not out there? MAKE IT YOURSELF! record that match with your best book! Post that new siren idea. Show us that fancy card interaction you came accross. Want a more active forum base? Be more active. I ask at the end of every "Card of the" episode if theres something you want to hear about. 2 people have asked me. 2. So at the end of the day they are all working for our entertainment and then about once a year folks show up here to throw the rotten tomatos of "AW sucks, this game is dying". Its a shame really.

So then why do you think people ask this so often? Do you see it as a brand doing well when somebody has to ask every once in a while whether or not this brand & company is still alive and working on future projects?

This forum is to discuss the game, on ideas that can be positive and negative. Not every post has to be on a certain card or about a certain mage. If you are tired of seeing posts like this, maybe you could ask Arcane Wonders to help this conversation out, so we can understand what is going on in the development cycle.

If you think I am throwing rotten tomatoes and that I hate everything and everyone, then why isn’t the community alive and thriving? Does the state of this forum reassure you of what is to come for Mage Wars ?

if you want activity make it yourself, else jump into another game with community if you dont want to work for it,or another game with releases every month, or more

So I should be the excuse for Arcane Wonder's poor planning? I could reply to every thread on this forum, it wouldn't change the basic idea that this community is diminishing, and that it has become more quiet as time goes on. Again I ask you: If you think I am throwing rotten tomatoes and that I hate everything and everyone, then why isn’t the community alive and thriving? Does the state of this forum reassure you of what is to come for Mage Wars ?

I am involved in other forums for other games, I am even participating in a forum for a game that's been dead for 11 years. Ironically, that forum is more active than this one.

[Karadox]

You say it you self...

"better try to help out however you can"

If you see this as an attack, you do not understand the meaning of criticism, and suggestions for improvement.

I think I also make my contribution, even if he does not seem so big in the custom card area of the forum.

[farkas1]

Alright I'm all for making the game better for the community bigger or keeping it alive.   Instead of complaining and arguing what are some steps that we can do as a community to keep it going? 

 Here are some examples that I have heard/ seen that we the players and fans can contribute to and/or keep doing. 

Keep running games in your local community.
Keep playing games on OCTGN
Keep making fan made ideas for the game or content to support the game. 
Start a tournament online or locally. 
Post on the forums and stay active. 

As far addressing Bryan or AW I propose someone write a letter stating our concerns and everybody from past and present sign it so that we could be heard.  I don't want to be in charge of this letter but I do ask it will be respectful and polite in our grievances.  This will A) look more professional and B) be something we can all support hopefully and not carry a negative division in our community.   This may take a few edits for everyone to agree on but if written this way it should help. 

I may not agree on everything said here but I do know many of you have valid points and concerns.  Many of you have created awesome content and/ or have been active on these forums for a very long time.
I'm sure many of this things AW is aware of it but maybe not.  We should not assume anything. 

Hope this helps.

[EricTheGreat12]

Alright I'm all for making the game better for the community bigger or keeping it alive.   Instead of complaining and arguing what are some steps that we can do as a community to keep it going? 

 Here are some examples that I have heard/ seen that we the players and fans can contribute to and/or keep doing. 

Keep running games in your local community.
Keep playing games on OCTGN
Keep making fan made ideas for the game or content to support the game. 
Start a tournament online or locally. 
Post on the forums and stay active. 

As far addressing Bryan or AW I propose someone write a letter stating our concerns and everybody from past and present sign it so that we could be heard.  I don't want to be in charge of this letter but I do ask it will be respectful and polite in our grievances.  This will A) look more professional and B) be something we can all support hopefully and not carry a negative division in our community.   This may take a few edits for everyone to agree on but if written this way it should help. 

I may not agree on everything said here but I do know many of you have valid points and concerns.  Many of you have created awesome content and/ or have been active on these forums for a very long time.
I'm sure many of this things AW is aware of it but maybe not.  We should not assume anything. 

Hope this helps.

Seriously, it does help. Thank you 

I will start trying out OCTGN, but Montreal is unfortunately not a very popular board-game centered area * 

* Nevermind, MAC seems to no longer be supported

[Kelanen]

Bryan and AW are aware of these issues, very aware - they just don't have the resources to do anything with it. It looks no different from a Playtester perspective I assure you.

One thing that I think is an issue (this is my opinion, not inside knowledge) is that when launched AW had one product - MW Arena. They now have 10 different products, on the same or lower staff - that's not 10 expansions - that doesn't include MW expansions, they have 10 different products, of which Arena and Academy are just two (and Battlegrounds/Domination isn't one, because it's not counted as a separate product). 80% of their portfolio is utterly unrelated to MW, whilst we of course are just MW fans and looking at this little slice of a bigger pie from their perspective - but of course, that slice used to be the whole pie.

Another issue from my perspective is the focus is very much on Academy, not Area, and Academy is of only very limited help to Arena. It does something, but not enough. AW believes Academy is the right focus from a marketing perspective right now, and from a business perspective (smaller sets, higher profit, more casual and thus wider audience) I think they are probably right. Sadly. It's very galling, that given the resources AW has to work with, they probably are making the right commercial decisions for the company. Which is to let Arena languish with occasional love. It missed the boat (not sure it was ever possible in truth) on a big ticket partnership 5-6 years back, and it is where it is.

I don't believe there is any harm in calling a spade a spade however, and talking about things - that's what forums are for. As long as everyone is respectful to each other and AW, and they are being.

Online play via OCTGN may be increasingly the way forward - it certainly seems to be a healthy playing community there than in person. Personally though I don't play online, and I don't test online, I don't play Battlegrounds, and I don't play Academy - I play Arena, face to face and with real cards, which is what I'll continue to do as long as I have opponents. They are still there, but we are more niche playgroups now in the UK. The US seems to be doing better than before I think, but Europe has fallen hard.

[zot]

it is very well known it is so much more cost effective to retain current customers than to acquire new ones.

[Karadox]

What would the community look like today if academy were first produced?

[Sailor Vulcan]

What would the community look like today if academy were first produced?

I had the same thought before. I think the community probably would be bigger if Academy had been made before Arena. People might have seen Arena as Academy taken up to 11, rather than seeing Academy as Arena lite.

The other problem I see is that Arena was marketed as being for both cardgamers and minis gamers, when it probably would have appealed more to minis gamers than card gamers. To be honest, I think Mage Wars Arena could in theory have gone the minis route full stop, by replacing all the cards with minis and putting all the card text in the rule book instead. It would have basically been the same game, except a lot harder to learn and a lot more expensive.

I think maybe Arena should have been targeted towards a demographic of minis players who wanted to try something less expensive after being burnt out on collectible minis games. Academy is the game they should have targeted towards the card gamer demographic originally, NOT Arena. When I tell people about Arena I tell them that it's basically a minis game that uses cards instead of minis. None of that "combines the best aspects of card games and..." bs.

I can't help noticing also that the way they marketed Arena and Academy is a bit off the mark and maybe even a bit misleading. Mage Wars overall is an extremely modular fantasy combat system. You can basically have any sort of awesome mage duel you want with it. And yet they marketed Arena as "the customizable strategy game of dueling mages" which doesn't at all focus on what is unique and good about Arena or even about Mage Wars itself. It is an extremely generic description that doesn't say anything about what makes Mage Wars stand apart from other magical dueling game franchises.

And as for Academy, they ended up marketing it as "the stand-alone game set in the Mage Wars Universe". This description is entirely unhelpful because 1. There's barely any story material available in the Mage Wars universe, so basically no one, and especially no potential new player, knows or cares about it taking place in the Mage Wars Universe, and 2. All games are considered standalone by default unless people have reason to believe otherwise. If it's really stand-alone then you shouldn't need to actually say that because players will be able to see it for themselves. So saying that it's stand-alone is unhelpful at best and makes people think you're trying to make them think it's more stand-alone than it is at worst.



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[Borg]

I used to be pretty active on this forum and have been a member since day 1 - literally, august 4 2012 - but this is my first post in 7 months.

I started playing Magic again several months ago and was amazed and exstatic when I found out how many fantastic cards and mechanics had been released since I left long ago.
I'm having a blast building decks again. Just the sheer possibilities and variety is incredible. Looking back on MW now - it looks like every MW book is 50% identical. No variation.
If you want to destroy an equipment in MW you have 1 or 2 viable cards.
In Magic there are at least twenty ways to take out artifacts and they all are better or worse depending on what deck you're running.

I realise some of you will not like to read this and it somehow pains me to say this as well but there is a serious lack of variety in MW ( due to the lack of releases and content ).
I didn't see or realise this either as long as I was having MW as my main hobby but now that I've picked up Magic again there's no denying how much better this game has become over the years.

I'm sure one day I'll pick up MW again though, but at this point I find Magic Deckbuilding & playing an absolute treat.

Just in case anyone's interested to check them out, here are my decks I've released so far. I have literally 50 more decks in the works
https://deckstats.net/decks/51702/?lng=en

Sayonara.

[exid]

As far addressing Bryan or AW I propose someone write a letter stating our concerns and everybody from past and present sign it so that we could be heard.  I don't want to be in charge of this letter but I do ask it will be respectful and polite in our grievances.  This will A) look more professional and B) be something we can all support hopefully and not carry a negative division in our community.   This may take a few edits for everyone to agree on but if written this way it should help. 

I would sign the letter.

Another issue from my perspective is the focus is very much on Academy, not Area, and Academy is of only very limited help to Arena. It does something, but not enough. AW believes Academy is the right focus from a marketing perspective right now, and from a business perspective (smaller sets, higher profit, more causal and thus wider audience) I think they are probably right. Sadly. It's very galling, that given the resources AW has to work with, they probably are making the right commercial decisions for the company. Which is to let Arena languish with occasional love. It missed the boat (not sure it was ever possible in truth) on a big ticket partnership 5-6 years back, and it is where it is.

that's a very sad point of view... but I'm affraid it's right.
Arena will never be a best seller: to complicate, to long. We can't reproach AW to want to make monney! I don't like academy (to simple, to short), but I'm sure it has more chance to sell than arena.
We allready have enough cards to create a lot of fun spellbooks, but I hope they'll continue to edit new sets every 2 or 3 years to arouse the interest and give me the plesure of a few more games.

[Karadox]

I real realy like to play Arena its the Best game.
Mage Wars Arena is always my first choice.

Academy, I think I would mostly choose to play magic the gathering instead.
Its not just to simpel, 40 spellbook points is just not enough for my taste 120 is just right.

I understand the decision to establish academy first, but for us who like arena, should at least once a year, something like Lost Grimoire appear. It could also contain spells that expand the tactics of academy for leverl 6 arena mages.
For the new mage sets, take all the time you need.

[Sailor Vulcan]

As far addressing Bryan or AW I propose someone write a letter stating our concerns and everybody from past and present sign it so that we could be heard.  I don't want to be in charge of this letter but I do ask it will be respectful and polite in our grievances.  This will A) look more professional and B) be something we can all support hopefully and not carry a negative division in our community.   This may take a few edits for everyone to agree on but if written this way it should help. 

I would sign the letter.

Another issue from my perspective is the focus is very much on Academy, not Area, and Academy is of only very limited help to Arena. It does something, but not enough. AW believes Academy is the right focus from a marketing perspective right now, and from a business perspective (smaller sets, higher profit, more causal and thus wider audience) I think they are probably right. Sadly. It's very galling, that given the resources AW has to work with, they probably are making the right commercial decisions for the company. Which is to let Arena languish with occasional love. It missed the boat (not sure it was ever possible in truth) on a big ticket partnership 5-6 years back, and it is where it is.

that's a very sad point of view... but I'm affraid it's right.
Arena will never be a best seller: to complicate, to long. We can't reproach AW to want to make monney! I don't like academy (to simple, to short), but I'm sure it has more chance to sell than arena.
We allready have enough cards to create a lot of fun spellbooks, but I hope they'll continue to edit new sets every 2 or 3 years to arouse the interest and give me the plesure of a few more games.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but there are minis games that are just as long and complex as mage wars arena which have been a lot more successful, right?

As for writing a letter, that is pointless. They probably are already aware that the forums have been getting less active and the game less popular. I'm pretty sure they still pay attention to what their customers say on their forums, and if they don't why would you expect them to respond to a letter?

Mage Wars isn't dead, and it isn't necessarily dying per se. At least not yet, I think. But the online community has become kind of a ghost town, and I think the majority of the active players have either left or become significantly less active over time.

[exid]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but there are minis games that are just as long and complex as mage wars arena which have been a lot more successful, right?

for sure, but minis players often love the mini (paint it, admire it, put it near theire bed,...), the same game withe paper cards doesn't target the same players.

[Karadox]

I understand the decision to establish academy first, but for us "old" arena players, should at least once a year, something like lost grimoire appear.
It could also contain spells that expand the tactics of academy mages for leverl 6 arena mages.

For the new mage sets, take all the time you need.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but there are minis games that are just as long and complex as mage wars arena which have been a lot more successful, right?

for sure, but minis players often love the mini (paint it, admire it, put it near theire bed,...), the same game withe paper cards doesn't target the same players.

I find it a bit strange and kind of annoying that people here seem to be ignoring almost everything I've said in this thread so far. I feel like I've raised a lot of valid points and put a lot of thought into my responses, and then people start talking about tomato throwing. I had to send a pm asking if the tomato throwing comment applied to any of what I wrote in this thread and I was told it didn't.

You are acting like this is an entirely new point that I just raised, but it isn't. Scroll up or look at earlier pages in this thread and you will see that I already said that they should have targeted arena towards a demographic of *minis players who were burnt out on collectible minis games and wanted to try something less expensive*. As for the painting minis thing, Arcane wonders probably should have allowed custom-mage art cards, or at least mage art cards that can be colored in, as well as a greater variety of card sleeves. Releasing more spellbook binders and other merchandise that can be used to customize one's collection such as the status boards was a step in the right direction I think.
And not all minis gamers are in it for the painting. Some just want to play.