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  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by AmberFade View Post
    Thats not the only tutor in MTG tho, it has a wide range of seek cards (tutors). One of them is Tinker, a card so broken that tournaments restricted the use of it back when I played. You could search for an 11/11 creature turn 3 with it and play it at no cost.

    So yeah compared to that SE seek is a joke.
    So just what are you saying? You mentioned tinker is obviously broken. Can seek and play a card on turn 3, so can vigilant wisp, might not be a 11/11 indestructible, but one of many allies each with a different effect, it's perfect for picking the right card at the right time. Let's say using tinker turn 3 gets you a win turn 5, I'm guessing making it unblockable. Using wisp turn 3 often nets a turn 7-8 win. So I'd say the end result of a win is the same. Looks obvious to me.

    If it was more limited I might not have a problem. Mimic for example is kind of like seek. But mimic has 3 restrictions, 1) ability card, 2) cost 3 or less, 3) in a graveyard. Very limited, I can't just put the cards to mimic in my deck I also have to get them in the grave before I can use it. Wisp is just too simple, easy to pull off, and effective(because you get exactly what you want, early and often). Mimic doesn't hang around for multiple turns attacking allies and seeking cards with SE, it limits your turn by costing cc then goes away.
    Last edited by Dvsklown; 12-24-2017 at 09:49 PM.

  2. #12
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    a turn 7 or 8 win, means you have a good deck and you played it well. doenst mean wisp won it for you. wisp doesnt do much of anything by itself. how many cards did you have to burn through to get that turn 7 or 8 win?

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by BlastMan View Post
    a turn 7 or 8 win, means you have a good deck and you played it well. doenst mean wisp won it for you. wisp doesnt do much of anything by itself. how many cards did you have to burn through to get that turn 7 or 8 win?
    It would be a win because wisp started the game off with an appropriate seek to gain and keep board, the damage acceleration happens fast with that homunculus deck. Early control early win with 2cc ally. It's a well built deck that can seek the exact card it lacks, instead of drawing it naturally. Takes away the random factor when 90% of the deck is seekable.
    Last edited by Dvsklown; 12-25-2017 at 02:13 AM.

  4. #14
    Senior Member Jao's Avatar
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    broken promises are what broke the camel's back. this game had a very loyal player base 2-3 years ago. broken promises by Kyle disenchanted many of these players (many from A1). most of A1's ancients have since left the game.

    with so many games and other distractions online, you can't hope to recover from a mass exodus with further broken promises.

    idk how to ramp up player base again except to sell the game to a bigger studio, with a bigger budget for proper promotion and distribution. Steam is a good idea. but games that are not ready to distribute on that platform die when they are launched unpreparedly.

    the game can be saved. but it needs a new owner, because clearly it has been mismanaged. and nothing will changed until management has been replaced.

    i feel like i'm watching the same show, commenting on the same things over and over again. Alteil, Ederon...

    the managers of these games were warned by their playerbase over and over of what was working and what wasn't. those warnings fell on deaf ears.
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  5. #15
    Senior Member Maldazar's Avatar
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    Well, to be fair, the game HAS just been sold, Kyle is not the owner anymore, the Shadow Token owners are technicly the owners now and there is a board of directors as a management team. But I do agree that probably this game for a proper launch on steam and to actualy get a new player base needs some big investments.

    Basicly imho the entire UI needs to be redone, the game basicly remade from scratch, with people behind it that have good understanding of UI, it should feel totaly intuitive to play/use, and even now, after years of playing this game I still make mistakes because of UI (for example dragging a unit like DMT to attack when it has been buffed while I wanted to use ability), sure, you can say that it's my mistake... BUT I should not be forced to think about stuff like that, it's tiring to have to remember that, if DMT got buffed (so he actualy has attack) his 'drag' becomes attack and not ability like it was the turn before, when he wasn't buffed... Please, I don't want to think about how to use the game UI, I want to use it without thinking and be able to use my thinking on the gameplay itself..

    Also, it needs to look more apealing, the art of the game is good, but underused because of an old/bad background, huge chunks of the space not being used at all and stuff like that... In the current state, this game will die.. It doesn't need more cards, more cards only keep current players interested, but current players are not enough anymore, we need NEW players, and they don't care about new cards, because for them all cards are 'new'.
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  6. #16
    Senior Member tolerance's Avatar
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    I’m getting to agree on the UI part, well if the dev can’t revamp it, commissions a 3rd party to get it done

  7. #17
    Chat Mod Kip thorp's Avatar
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    I see your po8nts guys, but this argument is as old as the wait for DP cards to be released, However many years ago that was.
    Yes the player base is loyal, and every year just enough players become loyal to keep the game, guilds and community alive and kicking.

    Honestly , it’s a card game, I don’t want a bunch of animation and goofy art just filling up space, I mean how long did we have placeholder art for SF cards? Quite a while, but the fun was still there and the debates over the art choices were quite funny. I think the UI is fine, although I’m pretty sick of the Dipolmat or Troll telling crap I’ve known for a long time, they need an off button!

    Honestly we are less than a year from when Kyle sold or at least game control to the Board, in that time we have seen, 2 sets of campaign cards, a campaign for solo players or just new guys w pretty cool rewards and an AI that isn’t totally stupid. That in itself is a vast improvement.

    I get what y’all mean w the multitude of other games and distractions out there, but anything on the net faces that. I’ve seen a few card games come and go, maybe their owners were on,y in it fir the cash, so they maxed out players , collected profits and closed the game. ShadowEra is different, it’s built by one guy, kinda, Kyle, it was build with a community around a pretty darn cool game. It’s stayed around because the game is very good, it’s players get involved and help build it and now a few of those players are helping run it.... that’s insane based on what other net companies do w apps.

    Can it be improved to thrive, yes, yes ,yes.
    But ShadowEra is the Basni tree of the CTCG world, it grows slowly and cared for lovingly by its keepers, To produce the most beautiful long lived game.
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  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Killtrend View Post
    Or better yet, stop printing physical cards and balance the whole pool digitally. This game cannot, ever, compete with the top TCGs and like I said years ago going physical will ruin it.
    This. Quite some time ago, I said the same thing. Advantage of digital game is that you can balance any old card on the fly as new ones are released. Going physical completely ruined that concept. But I was down-voted to oblivion. Since then, unfortunately, I moved to other CCG games, the ones that are truly digital (no Hearthstone though). I come back here and there for nostalgia reasons.
    Last edited by lynx c.; 01-22-2018 at 08:29 AM.

  9. #19
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    I'd like to jump into the deep-end of this discussion because I find it very interesting how the players and developers can have this open and frank discussion that borders on game play and business development. I am a complete new player to this game and genre, so my views may be completely off base, but my background is business and investments so may be somewhat relevant and provide a different perspective to this great conversation.

    From the numbers that have been put out, this game is extremely top heavy, with just over 6,000 paying users versus 4.7 million accounts created. Sure, many of those accounts were quick trials, duplicate accounts, etc. and would never be paying customers. But, if 20% of registered users footed the entire revenue base, it would be just $3 per user versus nearly $450 per paying user. It's clearly a battle of premium product versus mass market. Apple is the only luxury/premium mass product really ever developed, so you can't have both.

    The question becomes, I think (again, my inexperience in this game and space may be way off), what's better for the viability of the game and the business: mass market or premium, super loyal users? In other words, can 6,000 people sustain this game in the long-run or can you find 6,000 additional super fans of the game willing to pony up $450 for it. In the physical world there is at least some return on investment since you can sell the cards. No such thing exists in this digital world (it could, but it doesn't).

    Now, having a massively larger user base would create additional expenses such as server farms, support, account management, etc. But, it would make the game a thriving entity. Currently, the game seems to be based more around accumulation of cards--buy the most cards, win the matches--until you get to the upper levels where player decks are fairly comparable and skill matters. Is there a way to make this game more mass market appealing. If 20% of the registered accounts played the game, that would be almost 1 million people that think so. In addition, they would probably invite their friends to play and grow the pie--potentially.

    So, to me the question becomes: do you keep it premium or make it more mass appeal. The marketing is all around the mass appeal of the game and how it's truly free to play. The reality is, that only gets you so far until you have to decide to sink a bunch of money in or move on. And, how do you shift the business model to mass appeal without the huge, and real risk, of losing your existing revenue base. I don't have the answer to that.

    Some ideas would be to make the decks significantly cheaper so new players could easily get into the game without the huge disadvantage. If you could get the whole collection for a few bucks, would you grow your pie of users immensely. Just for discussion, let's say you enter the game and you can get the entire card collection for $2.99 or $3 and new series will come out for $1. So, if you started today, you get everything for $3. If you start later in the year, you'll get everything up to that point for $3. Then, you just add new sets when they come out, but new users can always get right up to par for the initial cost. Perhaps, you could have premium packs for slightly more money (skins, in essence) with sparkly borders, or what not for a slightly premium price, but with no game-play advantage. You could also offer a whole collection of card back skins or hero skins, special hero cards, etc. Imagine, many different versions of heroes that could be purchased, along with playmats, etc.

    Other ideas would be to implement loads of tournaments, ranked tournaments for all levels of play, etc. You could perhaps create a real trading market (obviously made more difficult with everyone having all the cards), where people could buy and sell their cards and SE takes a commission (like Valve does with CS:GO). The cards would likely have to be differentiated by their designs/skins (front and/or back)--a common pack for the $3 so you can play anything, but you can buy/earn/win other skins through game play, tournaments, etc.

    Right now the company is surviving on 0.12% of it's user base. That's a hard road to travel. With a larger active user base, you could then have a robust environment for e-sports (probably on a smaller, more niche SE-style scale), advertising, etc. The current environment seems to be heavily geared toward this 0.12% with the tournaments, Meltdown prize pools and everything favoring the more experienced players with better, stronger well-financed cards, which is a turn off to the average and new player base. When a new player sees that there are great prize pools for Meltdown, oh, but only for the top 100, they quickly realize they likely have no chance.

    Could you grow your loyal base from 0.12% to 5% or 250,000 users that spend a few bucks per year on the game? Could ideas be picked from the likes of Overwatch, CS:GO, Dota, etc. Stat-trackers on your heroes, for instance, show how many victories you have with that card (premium upgrade, of course). Perhaps you have a mix of premium skins that can be won/earned/bought and then additional premium upgrades that are only earned with XP. For example, you have a premium Eldawan card and as you win with Eldawan and accumulate XP (Eldawan specific XP), the Eldawan card might get additional decorations added to it or a base that holds it or something (incentive to keep playing that card).

    Anyway, all ideas to drive usage of the game (build your character skins, stats, an active trading market for skins, card backs, playmats, etc, tournaments, rankings, leagues perhaps, etc.). Another thought as a transition idea would be to have a minimal entry price (free for one deck, $3 for all the base decks with no premium cards, and then premium cards for the time being). Then offer ranked game filters such as amateur and Pro??. In the amateur matches, no premium cards, so a total level playing field. This could help in a transition to a different pricing model.

    It's hard to know how all the numbers currently shake out without seeing the details. But, at the high level and from the public data, it seems like this is a game that is played by few and trialed by many. Maybe the business model would work better flipped over if you believe this game could truly become a game for hundreds of thousands rather than just hundreds of regular users.

    I'm not saying it would be easy and without risk. But, it may be worth considering or discussing. Obviously this kind of decision is made even more difficult by the current valuation attributed to the business (although only on paper given the low liquidity). That's understandable for sure, but I thought I would throw out some food for thought, just to see where it goes. Business models are very challenging to change. Many software companies went through (and still going through) painful transitions from licensing sales/revenue to recurring subscription sales. But, those that successfully transitioned are thriving now and have much higher valuations.

    Cheers and good luck.

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