The Past, Present, and Possible Future of Magic Duel

When I started this project …what was it….not so many years ago… I had just a vague image of how to create a self-supporting system of such complexity. It was more of a combination of passion, curiosity and total devotion to one concept. As I saw how things actually work in a LIVING system, I understood that this had nothing to do with a pre-planned game concept. The strings that control the game are now very, very delicate and are almost completely out of the programming part.

With the new knowledge I accumulated on the way, I understood how I could make things different and more dynamic…but now I have to stick with the current system and add just the things that are allowed “by the system”.

If you’ve read this far, you deserve a bit of an insight into MagicDuel’s latest technology.
I am known for writing long posts, some of you have no patience to read them but those that do understand something more.

Let’s imagine for a while, if I was to create the MagicDuel world from scratch, what I would keep and what I would change from the current MagicDuel world as you know it.

[Issue: Storyline Vs Live Adventure]
One of the things that I would change is the story. The adventure log is too exclusive and is not covering all the things that could be covered. The storyline, as in the chapters written by Ady, is not..I am sorry to say…obsolete. It’s still the driving concept of the role-playing, but the abrupt end of the missing chapter 3 makes it confusing and disappointing.
I initially wanted to expand the story indefinitely, many chapters and branches. I then realised that this has to be done by one man and that man could have different concepts to me at some points, and also that man would have a limit to the amount of work he can do. Ady started to “crash” when the idea of chapter 4 came in…. So that is not an efficient way to force someone to write let’s say 10 chapters… and even so that would have a limit.

[Solution: Factions and Radical Change]
To solve this I have to entirely change the importance of the start-up story, players can’t count on it as the main story if it leaves them without an end and without any clues. So MP2 appeared, as a level BEFORE the current story. The game play has to change to put the focus on what the players do, not on a predefined story. The predefined story should be a legend, a main guide as it is NOW, but now there is no connection between the storyline and what the players actually do.
The quest page becomes obsolete very fast and should be replaced with RPC quests and/or an interactive story, written live, same as adventure log but with branches, written by many people. This in turn brings up a lot of more issues, like inconsistency.
This change is currently in progress with the MP2/Illusions/Factions.

[Issue: Fighting, Creatures Overpowered]
Surprisingly that’s not something that can be solved the usual way, by changing stats. That’s part of the “MagicDuel high-tech”. The changes involve a dynamic system that will shift focus from fighting to role-play and back. I already have made some big changes without you, the players, noticing it 😀
The fighting interface as you know it now it’s currently just a front face of the octopus that is spreading behind it. You fight now for stats, cool, grinding, what can I say? I don’t like it, but most do….. the new system will reveal some surprises…
Imagine what if when you get over 3000 attack, your fighting interface will change into something else, or if you get regeneration over 100 (just as low) your fighting interface will change to a healer interface. These changes are already in development but I still have to observe the current evolution of the realm to understand how such changes could be presented without too big a shock.