Online item veto
May 1st 2008 01:22
The internet is the future, and the future is now. My generation does everything from shopping to dating online, so why not playing Magic too? Before you guys flood me with indignant comments about how Magic’s ancestor, Dungeons and Dragons, was at least a social activity that forced you to interact in person (even if said person was pretending to be the elf warrior of Galindror), let me point out that some people now play Dungeons and Dragons online too.
That’s not the problem I have with Magic Online, to be honest. It’s that it takes the “collectible” and “card” out of “collectible card game.” It’s just like playing with proxies – some Vintage tournaments allow them to get around the problem of card availability (and some of my friends do so because they're too cheap to buy common cards from recent sets), but there’s no way to make them look like real cards, and they always stick out like a sore thumb when you put them in a deck with real cards. I always thought Magic Online was a fancy term for being cheap or playing with proxies.
Sure, you have to buy the virtual cards, and they have authentic art and game text; you can even get premium cards. On the other hand, the art is even smaller than on actual cards, and looks pixellated on many monitors. The game text is also in a really hideous font.
Some people, though, say they have no other way to play Magic, either because of living in a remote area, or living in a town or city where there are no other players (there are fewer and fewer of those, at least in America), or don’t have access to a suitable store or place to play for some reason. I’m sympathetic to that – playing Magic is a lot of fun, after all. And recently I’ve begun to see the appeal in not having to interact face-to-face with a certain grade of player. At Friday Night Magic a couple of weeks ago, I encountered someone who refused to even take his cards out of his backpack until enough people showed up for the event to be sanctioned, another who loudly proclaimed to the room that he “don’t play for fun,” and yet another who was so busy sulking he wouldn’t have shaken my hand after I won had I not stuck it in his face so he couldn’t stand up. If these guys are really representative of our player base these days, jack me in and let the green code rain down on me.
That’s not the problem I have with Magic Online, to be honest. It’s that it takes the “collectible” and “card” out of “collectible card game.” It’s just like playing with proxies – some Vintage tournaments allow them to get around the problem of card availability (and some of my friends do so because they're too cheap to buy common cards from recent sets), but there’s no way to make them look like real cards, and they always stick out like a sore thumb when you put them in a deck with real cards. I always thought Magic Online was a fancy term for being cheap or playing with proxies.
A fake card with good art is still a fake card
Sure, you have to buy the virtual cards, and they have authentic art and game text; you can even get premium cards. On the other hand, the art is even smaller than on actual cards, and looks pixellated on many monitors. The game text is also in a really hideous font.
Hello, eyestrain
Some people, though, say they have no other way to play Magic, either because of living in a remote area, or living in a town or city where there are no other players (there are fewer and fewer of those, at least in America), or don’t have access to a suitable store or place to play for some reason. I’m sympathetic to that – playing Magic is a lot of fun, after all. And recently I’ve begun to see the appeal in not having to interact face-to-face with a certain grade of player. At Friday Night Magic a couple of weeks ago, I encountered someone who refused to even take his cards out of his backpack until enough people showed up for the event to be sanctioned, another who loudly proclaimed to the room that he “don’t play for fun,” and yet another who was so busy sulking he wouldn’t have shaken my hand after I won had I not stuck it in his face so he couldn’t stand up. If these guys are really representative of our player base these days, jack me in and let the green code rain down on me.
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