It is 2019 - What do we know?

[Kelanen]

As I've said before, it would be the easiest thing to just put together the Arena stats cards for Elementalist and Monk and ship those two cards as bonuses in another product.

Elementalist and Monk as is, no matter what their stat cards give them unless its 180 point spellbooks and 70 health, would not be playable in a competitive meta as they don't have the card base to be a full mage.

Monk would need a lot more support for sure. Elementalist, I think could be as simple as just printing an Arena stat card, using much the same abilities as Academy. It wouldn't be the best mage, but it would hardly be the worst either.

yeah, i see them, but only interested in new arena mages, no one play academy in my country.

Necromancer is very weak for Arena, and Monk is useless.

[iNano78]

Necromancer is very weak for Arena, and Monk is useless.

Existing Arena Necromancer is great. Are you saying there are no useful cards (from an Arena perspective) in the Academy Necromancer expansion? And same for Monk? Or are you saying that if you took the Academy mage cards for these mages and just upped the life, channeling and spell book points, they'd be inferior to virtually every existing Arena mage?

[Kelanen]

Existing Arena Necromancer is great.

Agreed, Arena Necromancer is very much top tier.   Around the top of that tier even.

Are you saying there are no useful cards (from an Arena perspective) in the Academy Necromancer expansion? And same for Monk?

The former, although Necromancer has some mediocre, but not great cards, whilst Monk is a complete non-purchase for Arena.

[iNano78]

Existing Arena Necromancer is great.

Agreed, Arena Necromancer is very much top tier.   Around the top of that tier even.

Are you saying there are no useful cards (from an Arena perspective) in the Academy Necromancer expansion? And same for Monk?

The former, although Necromancer has some mediocre, but not great cards, whilst Monk is a complete non-purchase for Arena.

Hmmm, in that case, I wonder if dismal sales of Academy Monk (compared to other Academy expansions) will signal to Arcane Wonders that the only reason Academy expansions sell is because Arena players buy it to satiate their desire for more Arena-compatible cards... or if they'll take the lack of Monk sales to mean Academy is dead and they should give up on Mage Wars completely...

[Kelanen]

No insider knowledge, but I predict that the giving up on it decision was taken long ago. These releases are just using up playtesting and artwork already generated. You might see an LG2, just to print the rest of the promos already out there, and maybe mage cards for Elemntalist and Monk.

I'm very sceptical that there will be another Mage Wars release after that though. AW generates more profit for less effort in traditional boardgames, and it's a business after all.

[ThisIsDeutch]

These releases are just using up playtesting and artwork already generated.

So then by that logic, we should be getting the Alt Forcemaster vs Wizard expansion artwork we were shown years ago. But of course nothing will come of it, because Arcane Wonders is done with Mage Wars Arena.

AW generates more proft fir less effort in traditional boardgames, and it's a business after all.

I was really disappointed in their earlier games like Speechless, which were just poorly thought out. Onimata and Sherriff of Nottingham have been quite interesting and fun to play, and so if they continue in that path with the occasional hiccup of bland games, then they will do fine in the long run.

[wtcannonjr]

I just saw this announcement on BGG for the upcoming release of Academy Necromancer. See the second bullet point and the link to a BGG game page for the expansion.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/86610/new-game-round-mechs-circuses-fireworks-and-magnet

[kayofkayos]

From Mage Wars' facebook:

"We love the enthusiasm our Arena fans have, and have a lot of things planned for the future. However, our company policy is to not announce projects until they are set in our schedule.

In the past we announced items still in concept / design ideas, far before they were ready for public. We will not do the same. We hope you'll all follow along as news about the upcoming launches is shared."

[Karadox]

More From Mage Wars' facebook:

"Arcane Wonders Jakub, we are not announcing products until they are on our schedule. Previously we received a lot of negative feedback because we mentioned ideas/concepts.

We now have a company-wide policy to not announce new products until they are on the schedule to be released. At this time we have no Arena products on our schedule."


Was there really such a negative feedback?

I think worse than a few negative feedbacks, is that people think that arena is dead?

I can only speak for myself but it would be much better to know what is planned and could come.

[Kelanen]

Was there really such a negative feedback?

To be fair to AW, yes there was because they'd announce a product for 'end of the year', and it wouldn't appear for another couple of years. In fact some products announced 5 years ago still haven't materialised, and likely never will (eg: Archmage).

I agree with them, they should only announce a product when it has a fairly firm market date. If it slips a couple of months no-one will complain, but in the past they seemed to announce ideas, rather than products, and they slipped by years, or even never materialised.

That said, I think this policy is being used as a smokescreen here. They could certainly announce that they will/won't be creating more Arena specific products or not. Then again again - my belief is that they won't make more, and commercially it's better for them to say nothing, than say that. So read into the lack of announcements what you will...

[Karadox]

I am still waiting but one thing is clear for me, if there should be no more relases for Mage Wars Arena I would denidiver never again buy another product from AW.  As a consumer I do not want to be fooled.

[ThisIsDeutch]

From Mage Wars' facebook:

"We love the enthusiasm our Arena fans have, and have a lot of things planned for the future. However, our company policy is to not announce projects until they are set in our schedule.

This is what they've been saying for years- I don't understand why this is news to anyone here

In the past we announced items still in concept / design ideas, far before they were ready for public. We will not do the same. We hope you'll all follow along as news about the upcoming launches is shared."

Pardon my language, but this is a crock load of shit. They will never release the sets they promised years ago, because they don't have the resources to do it. Getting a refined Conquest of Kilimanjaro, or the Alternate Forcemaster vs Witch expansion for that matter, is a pipe dream. Arena will feed "words" to gullible Arena players, just so that their playerbase doesn't dump the company in a frenzy.

Was there really such a negative feedback?

To be fair to AW, yes there was because they'd announce a product for 'end of the year', and it wouldn't appear for another couple of years. In fact some products announced 5 years ago still haven't materialised, and likely never will (eg: Archmage).

It's not the consumer's fault that Arcane Wonders didn't know how to plan its releases. If you say that your product will be made at the end of the year, but you deliver it a few years later, it means that you have 0 organization nor planning. Either that, or they had no idea what they were doing, just hoping to build hype around their product.

[Kelanen]

It's not the consumer's fault that Arcane Wonders didn't know how to plan its releases. If you say that your product will be made at the end of the year, but you deliver it a few years later, it means that you have 0 organization nor planning. Either that, or they had no idea what they were doing, just hoping to build hype around their product.

Totally agreed. I was just responding to a question, confirming that yes they did get a lot of negative feedback for this before. Because they screwed up a lot. And frankly they've got a lot worse, not better over the last 5-6 years...

[Arkdeniz]

Well, as far as I am concerned the game is not dead yet. I am in fact teaching it to another new player today.

Maybe he'll like it, maybe he won't, but we have to keep working to build the base.

[ThisIsDeutch]

Maybe he'll like it, maybe he won't, but we have to keep working to build the base.

I know that I am a depressing fool who never shuts up about how Mage Wars is losing steam, but we've been saying for years how great it would be to get new people to play the game, but this never happens: a lot of board gamers don't hang on to 1 game like this community does, and so we are stuck with the same community members we've had for years now; these are the only people willing to organize tournaments and events concerning Mage Wars Arena.

Mage Wars Arena development is dead, and so there isn't anything that is encouraging players to keep a long term interest in this game. It doesn't matter how many "optimizations" or "spell books" that you can create with the cards we already have, what matters is that the developers release content that changes the formula of gameplay and makes it interesting again. Since that is never going to happen (let's be honest, Academy is not a substitute for Arena gameplay), the only remaining members of the community are those care about this game ,who are loyal to the game and can't stand to see it die off the way it is now.

In 5 years time, this forum will be gone and the community will be divided into a couple of groups of 5-10 people each spread around North America and Europe. There is no future for Mage Wars.