Well, unless they make me a great offer they won't be able to hire me as I just recently started a new job and am fitting in quite nicely. Though there are definitely things that could be better about the in-game editor such as being able to see more cards at a glance (either by shrinking the cards so more will fit on the screen or by having a linked screen where you could view a larger portion and select from to "
Jump" to that selection in the Deck editing screen). As for features I would really like to see in deck editing/creation would be the ability to create a quick-reference sideboard (that could be accessed in-match by "Wish" cards and the like), search/filter by ability and/or keyword (this would make putting together theme decks easier, such as filter by Scavenge,
Lifelink, or Miracle). They probably don't want to allow for searching/filtering like that as it would not necessarily be as accessible for console users.
As for what I would like to see them do with this series:
- A Mana Pool. Then using auto-tap/manual tap could even be made an option with the default set to auto-tap. It's not like this is very difficult to code, it's just 6 variables that get cleared every step and only get added to if someone manually taps a mana source (this could be skipped for auto-tapping) and removed from (down to a minimum 0 then auto-tapping kicks in for any missing mana) when a spell is cast or mana is needed for an ability. The concept is not difficult and the mana pool could even be hidden from view on the UI if using "Simplified Mana".
- Open it up some for modders to have a sort-of sandbox area for playing with Magic. Even if they disallowed editing of the UI/Game Modes/Features, they could still allow us to easily add cards and use them in-game (and online if the other player has the same mods) as a test bed to try out different cards/decks. Then if a player really likes a deck or card they could even put in a link to purchase the card/deck physically or digital versions in Magic Online (opportunity for more revenue for them, they are already using DotP as an advertisement engine to get people playing the physical game). Even better is that they could make cards portable between games (have the engine recognize cards by a format version or something and be able to port it in so that only minor changes or updates would need to be made to adjust for additional features, at least for most cards).
- Listen to bug reports and actually fix the problems (many card bugs have been reported for different versions of the game, but most are ignored by the company and are fixed here on the forums, but we can't fix the engine bugs).
- Get rid of any non-Magic restrictions on cards (such as having to buy boosters to get the "premium" cards). If people want to pay for cards they will do so either physically or in Magic Online (they could even improve graphics/UI for Magic Online if they want to attract the DotP customer base). This would allow full deck building with any available cards (they could still use the campaign for unlocking cards/sets, such as beat Innistrad to get access to Innistrad cards, etc...) at up to 4x of each card (Magic restriction, or less depending on game mode such as Commander).
One of the big problems I see with where they are going with DotP is that they are artificially dumbing-down the game (when they don't need to), one of the draws for people to Magic is the deep game play, if they want simpler games there are many other alternatives out there. The lack of a mana pool is just dumb in my opinion, as I said before they can still simplify it by keeping in auto-tapping and mainly make use of it invisibly in the background (such as only showing items from the mana pool when there is more than
there and even then only showing the colours/types present in the pool).
One argument against making it open for modders is that the modders would then make all the cards/decks present in an expansion and offer it for free, but most of us try to avoid re-creating official cards because it is a waste of time and effort, if the game is good then people will buy the expansions so there is no point in us making a mod version. Even then they could make the expansions more worthwhile to players by including additional game modes (Archenemy, Commander, etc...) or features that aren't already present. If someone really wants something but refuses to pay for it, they will generally find a way to get it for free, so nothing is going to stop piracy, but if the company isn't going to listen to and cater to their customers (at least somewhat) they are only going to hurt themselves because they are going to lose customers.
I'm going to stop now as I had originally intended for this to be a short post and I got on a tangent/rant and turned it into a wall of text.