Magic Duels: Origins Announced

[counterspell15]

Great! I will try downloading in my early morning. What are your first impressions?

[Chakan]

I'm downloading it right now, but people are reporting crashes and disconnections from the server. Not a good start, it seems.

Shouldn't be too much of a shock... That's how video games are made these days. The big wigs want the game out ASAP so they can make money right away, regardless if the shipped product is good enough or not. Tons of games are released broken and are fixed later if you're lucky.

[thefiremind]

Chances are this crack will also unlock all the cards for me and will be more friendlier to mod (if we ever find the encryption key to the ZED files... )

Original Steam games can't even be run through a debugger, Steam prevents that (there are workarounds but they are way too advanced for my skills). I hope it will be possible with ALI213 version. I'll probably need to wait for spirolone or merdok anyway, though.

What are your first impressions?

Good... when the server is up.

[Chakan]

I can't even play, my girlfriend and I get an "Unknown Error" upon startup.

[thefiremind]

OK, so here's my experience, blatantly copied from the post I wrote at the NGA forums: after some server downtime, I finally got to play. I finished Gideon's campaign without problems, then built a UR deck through the wizard (just wanted to see how it works) and crushed the Easy AI. After that, the daily quest appeared, so I switched to a BG deck (always through the wizard in order to make the daily quest work). I used it to beat Medium and Hard AI and I managed to do that quite easily (last opponent was using big fliers, luckily my Jagged-Scar Archers took them down ). Lastly, I completed all the skill quests that weren't presented to me earlier. I bought all the boosters that I could. No Planeswalkers found, for now. That's all for tonight, I'll play again tomorrow, probably starting another campaign.

[GrovyleXShinyCelebi]

It seems like without a connection to the Duels server I cannot progress in the story mode, in both the official Steam release and ALI213's "crack"... I didn't even get all the cards unlocked in the crack (just the starter pack). Bummer...

EDIT: I'm gonna try and see if spirolone's Encode-Decode and hex-editing the profile so I unlock all the cards works for MDO. It probably won't but it never hurts to try right? By the way, can anyone tell me if there's a way to run a file with an Excel macro (i.e. Encode-Decode) without Microsoft Excel (i.e. with another program)? I switched computers and my new computer only has Excel starter which has macros disabled, and installing Excel again will be a huge hassle...

[merdok]

I am currently pretty busy but when i have some time then i will see if i can port the WAD signature check disabler to Magic Duels. Can somebody confirm that the new game still loads WAD files? Just try to copy a signed official WAD from Magic 2014 directory into the Magic Duels directory, boot the game and see what happens

[sweetLu]

I just noticed the AI has Oppressive Rays. It looks like we'll have better control over activated ability costs. They just need to fix the bug for paying to attack

[GrovyleXShinyCelebi]

[quote="merdok"]I am currently pretty busy but when i have some time then i will see if i can port the WAD signature check disabler to Magic Duels. Can somebody confirm that the new game still loads WAD files? Just try to copy a signed official WAD from Magic 2014 directory into the Magic Duels directory, boot the game and see what happens :

I slapped in a WAD with five cards: Armament Corps, Bear's Companion, Mardu Roughrider, Sultai Soothsayer, and Warden of the Eye. Game boots up as normal, didn't notice any change in loading times. None of the creatures showed up in the card collection.

Anything else that can be tried?

[thefiremind]

I just noticed the AI has Oppressive Rays. It looks like we'll have better control over activated ability costs. They just need to fix the bug for paying to attack

The only time I had to attack into an Archangel of Tithes, I used my Jagged-Scar Archers to take care of it before attacking: better safe than sorry.

I'm doing Nissa's campaign right now and the AI summoned an Eldrazi Spawn! Could it mean we can finally define an arbitrary cost for mana abilities instead of just tapping?

[merdok]

I slapped in a WAD with five cards: Armament Corps, Bear's Companion, Mardu Roughrider, Sultai Soothsayer, and Warden of the Eye. Game boots up as normal, didn't notice any change in loading times. None of the creatures showed up in the card collection.

Anything else that can be tried?

Thanks, but you need to put a original signed WAD, not a custom one. A custom one will for obvious reason not be loaded

[GrovyleXShinyCelebi]

I slapped in a WAD with five cards: Armament Corps, Bear's Companion, Mardu Roughrider, Sultai Soothsayer, and Warden of the Eye. Game boots up as normal, didn't notice any change in loading times. None of the creatures showed up in the card collection.

Anything else that can be tried?

Thanks, but you need to put a original signed WAD, not a custom one. A custom one will for obvious reason not be loaded

Ah, I'm so stupid

I don't have DOTP 2014 on my new PC, so unfortunately I can't test any official WADs... By the way, how exactly would we know if the game successfully loaded the WAD files?

[merdok]

Ah, I'm so stupid

I don't have DOTP 2014 on my new PC, so unfortunately I can't test any official WADs... By the way, how exactly would we know if the game successfully loaded the WAD files?

In 2015 there were glitches in the Card Collection, the decks from 2014 were available and the personas was available too. This things where the indication that the game loads the WAD file.

[kvy]

Is there any kind of anti cheat in the new duels? I'm debating using cheatengine to skip campaign fights by setting opponents life totals to zero as I did in dotp2015 to unlock everything, but the new always online system makes me nervous. Does anybody know if its possible to get a game ban?

[sweetLu]

I'm doing Nissa's campaign right now and the AI summoned an Eldrazi Spawn! Could it mean we can finally define an arbitrary cost for mana abilities instead of just tapping?

I'm in the last part of Liliana's campaign and in her deck you have a Leechridden Swamp . The possibilities...

Edit - on second thought I don't know why I thought that was a big deal. We've already seen Rogue's Passage and the thopter land