Ok, did Wizards steal Shadowborn Apostle from a mod here? Or

[Shadowcran]

Shadowborn Apostle is a creature I recall in a 2013 deck and, since I don't know all of the umpteen thousand cards in magic, I thought it a copy from a card. The card makes good sense, is fun, without being overpowered one bit.

But there's no printing outside of M14 that exists of it...so It stands to reason they got it from a modder.

[RiiakShiNal]

As far as I know it was created in M14 not taken from here. You can see several M14 cards in DotP 2013 mods (once they were spoiled then some modders started creating them for DotP 2013 while waiting for DotP 2014). This is true of some of the new slivers too.

[Shadowcran]

Thank you for clearing that up. There's just so many that I've seen in mods here that I haven't seen in DoTP before and I own every copy. And I downloaded a LOT of decks from here so I've seen them.

I was thinking they hired a modder or two, taking a page from Bethesda's book. Many modders on Oblivion were hired for Skyrim. Also, the game seems more 'streamline" like what the modders here did to 2013. Yes, there are gripers around about the game but I've noticed they're all new players who don't know jack about what DoTP is about. 'waaah, I didn't get great cards in my sealed!"...Building a deck with what you have(I got blah cards too, which excites me more than if I got all mythics or something)is the key to deckbuilding...finding combos on your own, etc.

*my cards were blah in sealed, but many have marvelous chemistry with one another

Also, in case I haven't before, thank you for the mods YOU provided. You have no idea the amount of free time you and others have occupied. I'm disabled and have oodles of it.

I'd better get back to unlocking the Dimir deck. Don't let jerks fool you, once you start unlocking this deck, it has great cards and chemistry. Found it on about the 7th unlock.

[RiiakShiNal]

Now, it is possible that WotC and/or Stainless is aware of us and what we are doing and they might even have someone watching this forum for good ideas. However, since most of what we are doing here is creating cards that already exist I think it is quite doubtful that they are going to take things from here wholesale.

So some of the complaints may get heard and acted upon, while others are completely ignored (like the "I didn't get great cards in my sealed!" complaint). Of course they are seem to try and prevent modding from becoming big with their games (limits to how many deck configurations can be saved, limiting the sealed deck pool to only 150 cards, etc...). Other limits are due to multiplayer architecture limits (cards and standard decks must be the same to operate properly online, etc...) and not related to modding. It also seems like they are protecting more of their code and configs with each version as if they are trying to stop the modding of their game.

[Shadowcran]

Modding is the key to the shelflife a game lasting over a brief time, as most do. Over a million players were still into Oblivion years after it's release. Same people pleased with the modding there bought Skyrim as well.

So it's hard to understand why some companies discourage when encouraging seems to breed success and consumer loyalty. I've read up on this quite a bit but the reason eludes me. Perhaps they equate it with hacking.

Hacking, on the other hand, is just plain wrong in any game with a multiplayer as you end up cheating real people. Players don't hack in to create, but to basically cheat. However, I do understand the lack of morality of those doing it.

Every game I can recall has "cheat codes" or "easter eggs". Over time, this has caused players to expect it and think it no moral problem to hack into a game.

Don't get me wrong, if a player goes in and improves a cruddy menu, or game or loading speed, or other technical matters, then that's fine. Hacking in to make sure you draw the exact same "winning" hand every time is just wrong.

As to the deckbuilder menu, MTG should have borrowed Crieger, a developer for MTG Tactics, from SOE. His deckbuilder menu is the best I've seen and it's stuck in a game that's obviously destined to be abandoned soon.(SOE is totally to blame for this, not it's developers)

I've played that for 2 years and most of us have lost hope they'll even add anything more to it.

Screenname in Tactics is HasimerFenring

[RiiakShiNal]

Well, for MtG the answer to why they want to prevent modding is fairly obvious: Money. If they allow modding then people are going to be less likely to purchase their "expansions" which generally only add more cards and decks (engine updates go out to everyone so that online multiplayer still works). Also if you look at the history of DotP the last 3 games have been within about 1 year of each other with the main aim of getting people to buy the new game when it comes out.

We're trying to extend the life of these games, but I imagine that is counter to what WotC and Stainless want. If you look at DotP 2010 modding the game was relatively easy once you unpacked the wads. All the LUA scripts were plain text, much of the front end was defined in XML files that we had access to and could change. We could define all the card frames we wanted, we could save any number of deck configurations. Though we also had other limitations due to it being the first cut of the engine (no granting of abilities, no delayed triggers, etc...). Though instead of giving modders more power with each version, they've been locking each version down more than the last (though it obviously hasn't been completely locked down). Also with each version we learn more and develop better tools.

They probably also don't want DotP to compete with MtG Online where they can make money off of individual booster and card sales.