Why A25 gameplay changes

[Muratus del Mur]

The situation is like this...

over the years, the companies that built browser-based games invested insane amounts of money into advertising certain types of games. Also, development focused on fine-tuning those games for maximum addiction. Games are in general a money making factory, literally nobody ares about any other aspect other than the business aspect.

I started and plan to continue MD totally disregarding the business aspect of it.

 

Sadly, nowadays, players are used to think less and just fit within predefined gameplay patterns, they are all, regardless of their IQ level, unconsciously trained consumers that fit well planned behaviour patters. You don't even realize it..but nowadays it is "natural" for anyone to look for resources to build stuff, and attack other monsters for "near to lose" fights that you win anyhow, just to get a level up, that will make you do the same repetitive stuff just with an other zero added to the same stats. It is so natural that you can't even imagine it might be possible any other way...lol.

 

Creativity in game play is basically extinct..or almost extinct ..you can still find it hidden in the variations..but core concepts are all the same everywhere. Just a single core concept if it changes, people need to start thinking more, and need to go outside their safety zone ..this is exciting but not relaxing. MD is BASED on entirely new concepts...so its target audience is increasingly low.

 

There is no way i can change that, the world as we know it goes that direction entirely...not just games...everything tends to be trained to be a much easier to control consuming mechanism, with predictable people. Americans where at some point legendary for being the most predictable and controllable consumers in existance, but this happens now to everyone almost.

 

examples:

Place a contact phone in the upper right corner of a shop, and USA sales will increase by a clear percentage, because they where trained to like that.

Make psychological prices like 1,99 and will sell better than 2.00

Use happy colors to mark things that cost real money

Use more or less than 3 resource types in a RTS game, and you will lose important number of players, because they are all used to manage 3 resource types, believe it or not.

Ask a player to be creative, and you will make his brain consume a lot more power, causing a better experience but more effort, and you will lose a significant number of less creative players..that is bad for economy but good for community.

Money in game is best asked when you already won something single-player related, or when you lose something in multiplayer related gameplay.

I could go on and on with examples....these things i know...they are however not applied in MD because md is my baby not my business.

 

To survive, MD needs to disguise itself into a more friendly and relaxing casual game, where everything is clear and fun to do, at first. Initial addiction levels will increase, old time personality filters will vanish from sight (just from sight)..and MD will start to seem a lot more commercial to the first comers.

 

Because of its current depth/size md can sacrifice a large ammount of the assets it has (locations, concepts, artworks, features) , to become friendlier ..but its current depth will ensure that it will still remain insanely deep and will respect certain concepts.

 

Some marketing concepts will never be integrated, and this will deprive md of more than 50% of its potential growth. However we are not struggling here to grow, we are fighting to survive with minimum damage.

 

You might wonder how i decide what concepts i change in favor of growth and what concepts i keep and why.

Its complicated, yet simple :)

 

The one thing i want to respect most is to give the chance to anyone regardless of age or financial possibilities to become part of this community with equal influence potential like anyone else. As long a 13y old can become king of a land without paying anything ever (for example), then md is in my view fine in keeping this balance between paying and non paying members.

 

My target is and always was, to bring together people of various cultures, ages, talents and habbits, and to offer them a place where a well defined fragment of who they are (their player/character), can evolve and confront other real people... and through that it can learn, change and evolve. My benefit is very selfish,..i do it just for myself :P ..just so i can learn more about myself, same as you do. Learning about you helps me discover myself. I offer you something , you give me back pieces of who i am, thats my trade...

I find joy in learning and experimenting with such things, my life has a purpose when i confront issues in md that require my skills to be solved. I learned to write and to draw, so i could be of more use in md development... i have fun doing this, same as you have playing it.
 

This is something of far more value than any money or fame.

That is why i fight to keep the playerbase of md as "honest" and clean as possible and not taint it with outside powers such as money. This doesn't mean i do not need money to survive, or that i do not enjoy it if i have it. I am actually hoping, and consider it one of the "business" targets of A25 changes, to make md profitable so i can focus my time just on it, because now i need to work for others to pay my bills, and this is a terrible waste of time, instead of finishing my second book and to make md better, i lose precious time fixing bugs and coding scripts for others..not fun...you agree with me i guess.

 

 

 

 

 

[Junior]

well the title was misleading to an extent but I just would like to say thank you for taking the time and actually explaining your thoughts and the direction you wish to grow your child into. I believe this to be better than simply stating A25 will do this without telling us the war plan behind it, simply wantwd to express my gratitude to your post.

[Sasha Lilias]

My target is and always was, to bring together people of various cultures, ages, talents and habbits, and to offer them a place where a well defined fragment of who they are (their player/character), can evolve and confront other real people... and through that it can learn, change and evolve. My benefit is very selfish,..i do it just for myself :P ..just so i can learn more about myself, same as you do. Learning about you helps me discover myself. I offer you something , you give me back pieces of who i am, thats my trade...

I find joy in learning and experimenting with such things, my life has a purpose when i confront issues in md that require my skills to be solved. I learned to write and to draw, so i could be of more use in md development... i have fun doing this, same as you have playing it.

 

And this is what I love about Magicduel.

 

Although it is only an online game and most of us have never met face to face or seen each , we are a community. A real community. We feel all the emotions for and experience many of the same problems with each other as we would in real life. The difference is though...we have no stereotypes to add a face to. Whether you're rich, poor, white, black, gay or straight...in Magicduel we are all the same! This allows us to have fun, socialise and learn without having the hate. Yes, we may all argue and squabble in Magicduel...but that's nothing compared to the "real life" hate that consumes the society we live in. It's one of the main thing that makes this game so unique.

 

In a sense, we're just one big, extremely dysfunctional and argumentative, family.

 

This may be completely off target and whatever...but that's something I've been waiting to see that said by someone and I can't be happier. This is what MD is for me and so long as there is a community there'll be me. (Bad luck people.) :))  :))

 

~Sasha

Edited December 24, 2014 by Sasha Lilias

[Eagle Eye]

I agree Mur of what you said above. Im speechless because its true. Magicduel become popular soon the financial also needed. Comon sense.
Thank you Mur

[Muratus del Mur]

A common feature of A25 will be easy to follow quests with idiot proof tasks. Spoilers will be common, in fact the most of the gameplay will be based on walkthroughs. This will make things really easy, but the way i will combine them it will keep them interesting even so.

 

After a long period of evolving in a pseudo hierarchy, the player that is already hooked in the daily activities, will start to discover more creative ways to entertain. The current quest creating will be an occupation only for the smartest of you :)

 

You will see hanges that at first might look too different from how md is, but keep in mind that the main core of concepts will remain unaltered, i am changing just its skin.

 

Patience filters such as the 24h waiting in the story, will be removed but in their place other ways to reward patience will be in place...so if something vanishes, its probably disimulated in an other place.

[Aeoshattr]

I am personally happy to see things get moving and change. Whether changing for the better or not, I can't say right now.

 

My only question so far, is:

Will the vets be able to somehow experience the new intro/tutorial/story mode? Or do we have to create alts for that?

[Chewett]

Will the vets be able to somehow experience the new intro/tutorial/story mode? Or do we have to create alts for that?

It was planned as a quest, so it would just be another quest that you would do. The tutorial aspect of it would be that you are strongly recommended to do it, possibly even forced. But it will be a quest you can compete wherever you are.

[Ungod]

More casual is better for me :p

 

Ok, what I wanted to say is that the reason I'm still checking the forum and moving around in MD is a promise that this game makes - that a player can add content to the world. This is something most games don't offer - you interact with the game world, but rarely add anything. I'm not here for the artwork (which is lovely), the things I can learn, the social interactions - all these are nice and interesting, but what I like is the possibility of adding your stuff. So, as long as you keep this side open to new ideas, I think that death is not an option h3h3.

[Muratus del Mur]

All current players will be able to go through the new beginning if they want to, without using alts.

(and as chew said)

[Koshu Farsight]

All current players will be able to go through the new beginning if they want to, without using alts.

(and as chew said)

Being afraid of sounding too eloquent, I would like to add that we may be all going into a new beginning.

Between this, and the "legacy" documentation, we are setting new bases (and perhaps an increase in numbers) for the MD playerbase.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Koshu Farsight

[Fang Archbane]

Were ready, the Community is strong and the Leader is fearless ^-^

This has been needed for a while, full support.

Ill help raise the next troublesome generation if we can get them in. Lets do this x3