Magic Online

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Simmo

Guest
The Magic online client is a free download, and you get a free 8th Edition standard deck. If you subscribe (a one of fee on $9.99) you get access to rooms other than the training room, and a voucher for $9.99 to redeem in the Magic Store. This will get you some expansion card sets at no extra cost. To continue buying online cards the expansion decks cost from $2.99 - $9.99, and you have a large selection to choose from. The client has the facility to constuct and test decks, and can handle most game types. If you set up a game there are a few options to limit cards ie standard 8th Edition only

The biggest pain I have found is /tell "wanna trade" all the damn time from people when your logged in. I'm sure you can ignore them somehow. I don't realy know much about other clients

The 9th Edition deck is due out on the 29th August, and subscribers will get that free when its released.

I would also be up for a ladder system of some kind..

It's a pain I know as the more money you spend the better your deck will be, but i can't see a way around having anything less complicated than a standard deck.

The other thing the MTG client allows is the formation of Clans, leagues etc, with ClanChat as well
 
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Gottaa

Full Member
The idea of playing when the first few turns decide the game doesn't appeal as much, but I'm not sure that can be changed if it's a case of people constucting a deck from an open list, but there we go. To me a good game of Magic is best when it lasts a while, but in fully constructed desks that was never how things turned out.

Do you know if these clients let you play a multi-player game, as in say 3+ players and so would also allow a rainbow game ?

I got magic workstation and apprentice installed and hope to give Byzah a game over the weekend on both, but I'd guess the workstation version will be the one we'd use and set up a ladder (and perhaps even setup a ClanUK team) on the MWS site :)

Edit : We can try out the Magic Online client as well but while a one off fee isn't too bad, having to pay a lump to buy decks isn't really what I want to get into. I like the idea of things being more limited so it not being power deck vs. power deck but not the idea of having to pay too much for that.

P.S Simmo I'm guessing you use the Magic client already ? If so can it handle rainbow games ?
 
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Simmo

Guest
I am using the Magic Client and it can't (I dont think ) handle rainbow games. I also agree Gottaa I really don't want to start thowing money at this, as it can easily get out of hand.

To be honest the MTG client looks dated and is very 'clunky', so would be happy to move away from it. I pressume the other clients just use the *.dec files as well?

Edit :Strange as it may seem if you download the Magic client, never registered or paid $9.99, and played in the training rooms (it's just a name) you would get a standard 8th Edition sealed unique Deck without any extra cards. So it would be a level playing field at least....
 
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Gottaa

Full Member
Not sure, I know the other clients though can't (legaly) use the graphical images so they could well look slighlt worse as they don't have the card images.

That said I've get to get the demo version and see what it looks like, but I'll check over the weekend the three choices.

And I'm termpted to knock something up quickly to in effect get a complete list of cards per edition and just randomly generating a deck (which is 90 cards when you buy them isn't it ?). There certainly has to be some kind of way of limiting us slightly without having to pay for it (and perhaps some method of getting the expansion packs as well, so we could perhaps make our own system of limited decks/cards but still have any trading we may want) ?
 
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Simmo

Guest
Strange as it may seem if you download the Magic client, never registered or paid $9.99, and played in the training rooms (it's just a name) you would get a standard 8th Edition sealed unique Deck without any extra cards. So it would be a level playing field at least, but you couldn't take your deck any further without paying $9.99
 
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Gottaa

Full Member
Well played a few games over the weekend with Balerien with some of the clients in question, and here's what I think so far.

Wizards Magic Client:
Almost a 400Mb download
Clunky feeling UI
Uses the original card graphics
Play area seems rather limited
Automatic placing of cards when you play them
Restricted play style, all very clunky feeling when playing, although probably a very good client when someone hasn't played before
Limited to 5 pre-built decks unless you pay it seems

Apprentice:
10Mb download
No card graphics, just the text (and card colour)
Large play area with tooltips on cards
Slightly limited view of cards in your hard (you can read the card name, and the text on the card and it's type but for example for a creature you can't see it's x/y attack/health)
Fully open UI, you basically set which phase you are on (but can do anything in any phase) and then end turn to hand control onto the other player.
Use what seems to be any card you want, and there is a sealed deck generator (something I'd suggest we use in the ladder games)
No adverts anywhere that I could see
Free, 100% free, don't even need to register

MWS Client :
15 Mb download (from memory)
Needs alot of setting up (which we didn't manage)
It is as tree said something which will need more setting up
Once it is setup the play area and sealed deck generator looks like it would be good
You can import graphics for the cards (not sure how), the one deck I did try to import it gave me not the cards I expected and totally wierd descriptions (talking about walls and towers)
Looked like both the deck editing client and play client have adverts on them (which might disappear if you register (Tree, does that change it ?)
I think a 9.99 dollar registration fee, but not sure exactly what that buys you, although it does seem that you could register with this and find random players on-line with this, which Apprentice can't do
Can't offer much more on this as didn't get it running properly :(

So unless people can add more info about these things (and I'd like a little more time to try the MWS client with it actually working), at the moment I'd suggest the Apprentice client with say 120 cards from the 9th edition set and 2 booster packs of your choice. Then with those make a deck you want to play with and were off (Any hints on cards which shouldn't be allowed are welcome).
 
B

Balerien

Phear the BBQ
A quick note to back up Gottaa's review.

I agree that Apprentice was trhe best of the ones we played. Basically it is a way of representing the game on the computer, all the rules etc need to be enforced by the players, as it will literally let you do anything at any time (You can Draw in ther Combat phase, lay any cards at any time). I think this is a good thing though as it promotes discussion, and lets you re-learn the game very quickly.

The lack of card graphics is a slight limitation, but its a small price to pay for the huge playing area, being able to set up cards exactly how you wanty them, and having a completely free play style.

MWS does bear more exploration, perhaps with some advice from Treebeard? It looks smooth, but I too was confused by talk of Towers, Walls and Dungeons....it may be that this is their own veersion, and you need to import "official" terms and cards?
 
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Gottaa

Full Member
Ohh one thing I forgot to add. I'd suggest when we play we setup an account on skype (voice over IP) and it's alot easier then saying "It's your go" or "ohhh how does that work ?" etc, etc.

Assuming people are up for this I'm happy to talk people through setting up Skype (it's free) and if people want to get into Magic but don't know anything really about it I'm also happy (as I'm sure others are) to have a few starting games with people and talk them through the game and how it works.
 
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Gottaa

Full Member
skype = better quality, hopefully less of a hurdle for people who may not like the idea of Teamspeak, no need to set up channels, add people, etc, etc.

That and last time I was in TS it went all glitchy and crashed, Skype doesn't do that either :)
 
Zed

Zed

Rogue Chimp
You can also have upto 4 people in a conference with Skype iirc. Im thinking of installing it on my home comp anyways.

As for apprentice : long time since i played M:TG but if someone wants to run me through a game or two ill join d'ladder.
 
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Gottaa

Full Member
Ohhh only thing I need to add:

For apprentice you need to unblock port 4747 (which windows does a little popup for), and if you are using a router you need to forward that port to your computer (at least I think you do, well we did and it worked :))

I'd suggest we maybe have some casual games to start and get the ball rolling (happy to play any time Zed) and then I'll set up a ladder game. The Apprentice game logs can be saved and so in the case of confusion, or someone thinking someone used a card wrong or anything like that we can check it up.

It's also worth nothing the on-line rules can be downloaded in PDF format (which Balerien did and I need to find out where he got them) so things can be looked up while playing, for example new abilities, enchantments and stuff like that (We didn't really decide if we were using enchantmants right but if players agree and have fun that is the main thing)
 
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Gottaa

Full Member
Ohhh one more to try before we settle on Apprentice (although I'm happy to play using Apprentice now until I can try this one more)

http://magictable.do.sapo.pt/indexeng.htm

Played around a bit on this now, looks okay but some problems, including no card descriptions at all :eek:

Another one we'll avoid I think
 
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Entropy

Entropy

Full Member
If you're limited to 4 people on skype, ts might be a lot easier - it's pretty simple to set up.

And re the Magic clients, I thought the MWS client was by the far the best, as it enabled you to import all of the graphics for the cards including the flavour txt (a big part of MTG imo). Anyway, it's pretty easy, if you just follow the instructions. The only hurdle I came across is when you download the exe file that imports graphics for cards, you need to set it to run in Win 9X compatibility mode. Apart from that it was easy sailing (btw, I was confused by talk of towers/dungeons etc too - I assumed it was a more basic version of magic...when I followed the instructions, those cards seemed to disappear and were replaced by conventional cards).
 
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Gottaa

Full Member
Apprentice for the moment I think is simple, does everything we need and for people just starting out is an easy choice. Maybe with more play we'll want the MWS client but there didn't seem to be anything there which Apprentice doesn't do. The graphics by my understand can be imported but in theory make it illegal as the card graphics are copyrighted (the art on them anyway).

I could well be wrong, going to make a new thread though about the ladder, and assuming no-one minds I'll run it and keep it all updated, until the ladder is up and running though I'd say we have some casual games and people can see what they think ?

And I'd still suggest Skype, all the clients I've seen only seem to support 1vs1 play so a limit of 4 people at once on skype isn't to bad.

Edit: Going to try and get a MWS client up and running later today and if anyone wants to do the same (or already has it setup) and is up for showing me how it works can give it a spin. But for starting off Apprentice seems much easier, although maybe a backed up copy of someone else's MWS client would save everyone else the hassle :) (lazy mode)
 
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