Talking about Forge?

[bevryde]

Hi,

I am not sure if it's good to talk about Forge. WOTC create software themselves and even their digital cards are all about money. Forge OTOH, does not have artificial (technically completely useless) restrictions, it's a classical application. So as a beginner you absolutely will have less understanding for the business model of wotc and barely understand why you'd have to pay real money for digital assets in the dotp or mtgo games.
Additionally I think I don't have to mention how utterly [beep] their software is.

I see people rarely talk about Forge (e.g. in Steam Fora) and I wonder why this is the case. I don't do it. But should I? I'd happily do it, because as for single player, Forge is lightyears beyond the dotp games. Maybe harder to set up with cards and decks in the beginning, but then...

What do you think? Talk about Forge? Or don't?

I ask also because companies with easy to copy business models fight very hard on the intellectual properties front. I'm thinking about the card scanning going on here.

[drdev]

A few years back, the creator of Forge received a couple Cease and Desist letters. That was back when it was called MTG Forge, so the "MTG" part was removed, but we are all a bit cautious about advertising it.

On top of that, Wizards has shown they're not afraid to come after popular Magic alternatives like Cockatrice, regardless of what that does to their online community image. The more secretive this project is online, the less likely they'll make another attempt to shut it down.

That said, I totally relate to your feelings on this. I would love to share Forge, and especially the mobile app I created, with the online magic community that currently is suffering from a lack of playable software options thanks to MTGO V4 and DOTP 2015, both of which are frankly a step backwards from their previous versions.

I've actually contemplated approaching Wizards to endorse Forge as a way to improve their image with the community and buy them time to fix MTGO. I've also contemplated approaching them with an offer to build a better MTGO user interface with help from the community. I just need to be sure that pursuing either of these ideas won't land Forge in hot water.

So I guess, at least for the time being, try to resist posting about Forge on public sites, blogs, or forums, but please share it with your friends via any other medium you can.

[rikimbo]

Here's what I think:

As drdev pointed out, WotC is aware of the existence Forge (and other such projects). The first action that WotC takes towards these is to issue a warning / cease-and-desist to any apps that are distributing copyrighted material. Forge no longer does this, since all of those assets are downloaded elsewhere. This means that if WotC wants to shut down Forge, they will have to do so with a different claim.

Based on how WotC approached their grievance with Hex, they will probably come after Forge if they can make a claim that Forge is directly causing a loss in revenue for them.

Currently, though:
- Forge does not threaten MtGO mainly because there is no multiplayer support.
- Forge does not seriously threaten the DotP series because those games are targeted towards introductory-level players, and (despite DotP's other flaws) it is still *much* easier for a new player to pick up playing DotP than it is to get someone started on Forge.

So until either of those two things changes, I don't think WotC will take further serious action against Forge. That said... discussing Forge on the Steam forums could pull players away from DotP and over to here. So maybe I'd just be careful about *where* we discuss Forge.

[bevryde]

OK guys, I completely understand the situation, and I kind of expected it.

[Rob Cashwalker]

A while back, Abe Sargent on Star City Games wrote an article publicizing Forge's existence.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/mult ... Quest.html

After this article, we expected WotC to come down on us. Never happened. We did get a bunch of new players though.

Magic Set Editor distributes blank card frames and provides a means for fans to create their own cards (or proxies) and should have been shut down.. and then we see the articles on Wizards' site using images clearly made with MSE.