What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

Greetings, all. I have gotten permission to interview via e-mail two of the higher-ups of Magic Online; however, when I do an interview, I interview for the Magic community itself. Within guidelines below, please tell me what you yourself would like to know about Magic Online, and please try to be detailed. Generic Questions do not allow the interviewer to easily shape a 'good' question from them as a long and involved one.

The Guidelines are:

1. No 'get ____ to sign this' style questions. This is an E-MAILED interview.
2. No questions about 'Why do you want us to pay for virtual cards, i prefr paper for my money.' This debate is one for those who DO pay for virtual cards, not for the developers of said virtual cards.
3. No asking for free cards. There's always one or two morons who will atttempt this.


Easy, right?

Don't dissappoint me, please, Tingers!

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

What obstacles remain in the way of doing simultaneous releases of sets both off- and online?

(if the answer to this question is actually commonly known to everyone except me, then disregard, obviously)

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

1) Do you ever plan on supporting Team Limited formats? If so, when? If not, why not?

(they have the code to be able to run team drafts and team sealed, they just don't ever have tournaments set up for it.)

2)Do you plan on doing anything to address IPA price inflation when Extended rotates? Do you think this will be a drain on the number of people who actually play Extended online versus your estimates when the decision to match up online and offline extended was made?

(online pernicious deeds are presently worth about $65 each and rising. no lies.)

3) Ever consider changing the prize structure of Premium tournaments so that it isn't automatically more profitable to enter an 8-man queue?

(kudos to them, by the way, for all the 2x tournaments they've done recently.)

4) reiterate whatever question you already asked about simultaneous set release. they need to answer this'un.

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

The only question I'd want asked is: Have you considered a proxy program? (i.e. allowing players to play in specific games with proxies of cards they do not own) What are the barriers to implementing such a system, and if you have considered it, what sort of timeframe are we talking here?

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

Would you consider implementing more "poor man's casual" formats like PDC (Pauper Deck Challenge, all commons format) or Peasant (all common, X UCs)?

Following this - How do you value monetary revenue compared to "community value"? Would implementing a "commons only" format hurt your income?

Could you imagine implementing a Java-based browser plugin for MTGO (with decreased funtionality, if need be)?

Is what little IPA present on MTGO enough to warrant a flourishing MTGO Extended metagame, especially concerning the synch betwenn on/offline Extended in 2006 (I think)?

IF you think it isn't, what are the options for adressing this isssue? Reprinting key cards, printing functionally equal cards (maybe in another color) or doing an online Chronicles of some sort or what else?

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

Do you have any numbers to support that simultaneous set-releases would seriously undermine paper-magic sales? If not, then what is the basis for your "official stance" on making online players second-class citizens, unable to 'discover' the set at the same time as the rest of the world?

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

Given the big time gap between paper magic and digital magic releases, why are there still huge bugs in certain cards at release time; i.e. fatespinner?

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

I believe it's because they need that much time to program the new cards. Not to say this couldn't probably be fixed by adding more programmers, which would probably in turn increase sales and make up any increased expenses. Maybe theorgg can turn that into a question somehow.

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

Do you have any intention of incorporating the Power 9 into MTGO, and if you do, will they be redeemable in real life, and get foil-legit versions of them?

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

They release paper cards every four months. They release online cards every four months. If they were understaffed in this sense, the online cards would get further and further out of step. They aren't lacking manpower - it's just that their cycle is about a month later than paper. Maybe R+D don't let them know what the cards are until too close to the deadline, but I doubt it. Apart from a small amount of 'catchup' time (say about 2 man-months in temporary programmers), there would be no overhead to producing the cards in sync. I think it must be policy.

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

Yah, I'm thinking they want to make sure the online format doesn't overshadow paper, but I don't think they have to be worried.

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

You're thinking about it the wrong way. They aren't working on new cards year round. They probably only get the finalized cards a few weeks to a month or two before the prerelease, and it really may take them that long to program the new cards.

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

I agree.

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

Reading helps.

Re: What would YOU like to ask the heads of Magic Online?
 

They'll (or they COULD) get finalised cards when they go to the printers (can't get more final than that), and they've stated before that that normally happens about four months before... wait, I'm not going to assert that without backup... ah, here we go... no, make that EIGHT MONTHS before they're released (Fifth Dawn was sent to the printers at "around the time" Mirrodin was being released). There's no reason they can't give the programmers the cards at this point, short of internal politics/non-disclosure concerns.

Hey, you should ask that - how long do the programmers get to sort them out? Fatespinner shouldn't take eight months to code.