Magic Duels: Origins Announced

[thefiremind]

On the other hand, if their gameplan is to keep selling you cards on the same platform year after year, it's probably not going to be moddable, at least not easily.

I totally agree, that's why we (modders) are keeping on trying to make DotP2015 as much moddable as possible: first, it's possible that they keep the same file format (ZED has been quite difficult to open and we still can't create a compressed ZED ourselves, maybe they are happy with that?), and if not, at least we can keep adding cards to DotP2015. Of course, in the latter case, I would be sorry for those who care about 2HG, like you, but at least DotP2015 lets us (modders) make a card collection and leave to the players the fun of building their own decks in-game.

Anyway, the thing about Origins I'm the most satisfied with (if it keeps being true until release) is that players can still unlock cards against the AI. This is different from Hearthstone, where you are forced to compete against other players in order to gain currency, and doing it with a poor collection results in a lot of frustration which is detrimental for the fun of the game. I'd much rather complete my collection against the AI and then prove myself against real people when I can compete with them equally. (Besides I'm the least competitive person you've probably heard about, I dislike PvP in all kinds of games because it makes me feel nervous, so I would still play a lot against the AI even with a complete collection.)

[Xander9009]

(Besides I'm the least competitive person you've probably heard about, I dislike PvP in all kinds of games because it makes me feel nervous, so I would still play a lot against the AI even with a complete collection.)

I'm right there with you. All this time, and I still only play single-player in 2014. I only play multiplayer against my real life friends.

[GrovyleXShinyCelebi]

(Besides I'm the least competitive person you've probably heard about, I dislike PvP in all kinds of games because it makes me feel nervous, so I would still play a lot against the AI even with a complete collection.)

I'm right there with you. All this time, and I still only play single-player in 2014. I only play multiplayer against my real life friends.

That makes three of us! Multiplayer can be hard to find a game and everyone just uses the same cards and the same builds. Programmers and artists worked their butts off to makes the other 95% of Duels that no one cares about...

I haven't kept up with the free-to-play community, but how many F2P games out there are actually moddable? I've played mobile games like Plants vs. Zombies 2 where there are modded profiles that unlock everything in the game or provide cheats, but never have I heard of people actually adding new content to these types of games.

Even if this doesn't work out, there's always Forge

[Armodeus]

That makes me the fourth, and I'm still playing a 2014 modded version only (thanks to all of you modders!)

I play the game with my girl and we don't play to be competitive but to have fun. So I don't mind losing half the time. I also play the game against AI when making new decks for us to play.

I looking fowrd this new release and so far is looking much better than the ugly 2015 version. Hopefully It won't stop the modder's work so we can have a heavily modded "Magic Duels: Origins" version, with new cards and abilities.

[orlouge82]

Free-to-play is highly suspicious. They claim that they aren't locking anything behind a paywall, so what's the plan? Make unlocking cards a torturous grind so impatient players just drop dollars for the decks? As long as I can unlock cards in 2HG, I won't care. It's hell playing a bad deck alone for a card you'll never use, but everything is more fun with a friend.

If their plan is to keep building off of this release, then that is different. On one hand, maybe we could get a new yearly fun format. This year 2HG, next year Archenemy, Planechase after that, ect ect. On the other hand, if their gameplan is to keep selling you cards on the same platform year after year, it's probably not going to be moddable, at least not easily. I can see them not caring about an older DotP because you bought the game and the next release is different, so do what you want. But here, they need an incentive to get you to keep buying the add-ons and the easiest way to do that is new cards.

My eyebrows were also raised when they said free-to-play, but my thought is that they want this game to be as widely available as possible, since Wizards has stated time and time again that the Duels games have encouraged a huge influx of new players to start playing the paper game. This is definitely true with me: I got back into the paper game after an approximate 15 year hiatus thanks to DotP 2013.

We'll see just how serious they are about it, but I could definitely see it being a marketing ploy to get even more players to participate in Wizards primary cash cow: opening paper packs.

[thefiremind]

I just discovered that there will be a preview stream on this Twitch channel, starting in about 10 minutes from now. I'm going to watch it, if my connection assists me (most times it's bad on Twitch).

EDIT: I watched a part of it, because it ran pretty late, anyway here is the stream record, and here are the screenshots with all the cards from the collection.

Interesting cards, modding-wise (assuming modding will be possible, of course), aside from the double-faced Planeswalkers which are obviously the "bomb":

• Archangel of Tithes: it seems that effects like Ghostly Prison would finally be possible without approximations.
• Alhammarret, High Arbiter: in this case, choosing a name can actually be translated into choosing a card, but there's still hope for a better support for choosing card names.
• Battlefront Krushok: "can't be blocked by more than one creature" has always been missing as a characteristic, until now.
• I can't find it in the screenshots (maybe it was an AI-only card that I have seen during the stream), but I'm pretty sure that I saw a card with a "one or more times" trigger (like Sidisi, Brood Tyrant). While we found a working way to code it, maybe it will be easier in Origins.

Some other information you may want to know without having to find it in the stream:

• There's still no official release date for Steam (nothing surprising from Stainless, right? ). Rumors say it's on July 15th.
• 1 booster costs 150 coins. You get 5 coins for winning against easy AI, 10 for normal AI, 15 for hard AI (which is probably just our usual Planeswalker difficulty), 20 for winning against a player. Campaigns and quests award a bunch of coins, and finishing Gideon's campaign awards 3 free boosters (unfortunately it's not the same for the other campaigns). Each booster contains 6 cards. As in DotP2015, no redundancy (you only get cards you are missing).
• The much anticipated "randomized AI deck" that you can face in battle mode really seems nothing special. My guess is that the game chooses some cards randomly from the full collection and then "auto-completes" the deck as it would do by choosing "auto-complete" in the deck builder. It should be fun for long enough, though.

[sweetLu]

Per some news article that I can't find right now it is supposedly releasing today for iPad. Per reddit it is on the app store right now

[thefiremind]

Per some news article that I can't find right now it is supposedly releasing today for iPad. Per reddit it is on the app store right now

You're right, it's on the app store. I'm downloading it now, even if I don't have any Apple device, so that I can take a peek at the file format.

EDIT: They are still ZED files, but they probably changed something because spirolone's code can't open them, even the uncompressed ones (AUDIO_000 and MOVIES_000). I highly doubt that the difference is due to the files belonging to the iPad version.
If someone else is eager to take a look, all you need to do is to install iTunes, download "Magic Duels" from it, then rename the .ipa file to .zip (iTunes saves it in a sub-folder in My Documents\My Music even if it's not music) and see what's inside. You'll find the ZED files there. Or you can download the smallest of the ZED files, a new one called Shader_000, from here, but unfortunately it's an encrypted one so it probably won't help finding what changed (my upload speed is too slow to upload AUDIO_000 or MOVIES_000).

EDIT 2: I can confirm I can open AUDIO_000.ZED from Magic 2015 iPad version with spirolone's code, so they really changed something in the ZED file format that doesn't depend on the platform.

[sweetLu]

I was just watching that journalist's stream and he ultimated Liliana (sorry I don't know the full name of the new Liliana and I don't know if the autocard feature has been updated yet). He got an emblem on the battlefield in the enchantment section so it looks like we have a new card type that's not interactive with traditional filters.

My two biggest pet peeves with the game so far are no numerical display for hand size and no upkeep step. A few times he had to discard due to hand size buy you never knew how many cards were in his hand or how many he had to discard unless you counted them. And they keep adding cards where it is beneficial to interact in the upkeep step but they give us no upkeep step... I know it is an introductory product but come on...

Edit: I also saw Embermaw Hellion is in the card pool. We should now be all to do addition in damage math

[GrovyleXShinyCelebi]

Question to anyone who has Origins on iPad: do we have to go online to authenticate or play the game? In that, if we do try to mod it, is there a chance our account might be banned from the entire game even if we only go on single-player?

Also, is Two-Headed Giant playable only against the AI?

[Chakan]

Sucks that people with iPads and what not can play the game before PC players can. I always hate exclusive stuff like that. Game looks fun though, I heard there'll be a ton of variety when it comes to the decks you play against, I'm interested to see how that works. I wonder if it uses some sort of system to generate a deck? It'd make things fresh for me, since like a lot of people here, I only play against the AI. I'd be really disappointed if you can't do THG against the AI and play with a friend online...

[sweetLu]

I noticed the +1 on the Jace planeswalker has "until you next turn" so stainless may have added that functionality. Although they might have fixed it by removing 3p/4p ffa. I know they changed how you get into lobbies this year and didn't look like they supported 3+ player ffa. I could be wrong though.

I also heard 2hg let's you select who you are attacking as well

[Tejahn]

Battlefront Krushok

Well, I went ahead and downloaded it and I'm pushing through Gideon's story now since I'm sitting at work with nothing to do. It's awkward playing with the decks on one side and the personas on the other but it's been a great experience so far. Also, I dont see a graveyard or exile zone. Perhaps because this is the introduction. I'm curious to see if each card will feature its set symbol. I'll report on things after I play another story.

EDIT: Never mind regarding set symbos. I wonder why they refuse to use the different set symbols.

EDIT: As TFM pointed out, Battlefront Krushok is interesting.

Also, I noticed I was able to play an Instant after one of my three attacking creatures dealt damage. I don't think this is possible in the other games.

[Tejahn]

Firefiend Elemental

Fiery Impulse

Thankfully, the keyword Renown has its own badge. And Spell Mastery let's you know how many of the card types needed are in the invisible (off-screen) graveyard.

You can access the graveyard browser by clicking the icon in the top left corner.

[thefiremind]

Also, I noticed I was able to play an Instant after one of my three attacking creatures dealt damage. I don't think this is possible in the other games.

If that creature had first strike or double strike and the other creatures didn't, then it's no surprise.