# of cards in the game (and the scary calcs that follow)

[Demongod]

And all I see is you kicking out a bunch of new players before they ever began. For someone thinking about profits, you're doing far more damage to the game with that uncompromising attitude than anyone else here.

[fargone]

Haha,

I don't even play top meta files (though I have the cards for it) because I like ppl to feel they have a chance - you are simply barking up the wrong tree there.

You have made your points clear on too many occasions - you are simply a whinger.

Oh... I have to add here - you have not been declared the spokesperson for new players. You also seem to have this fantasy that the people you complain about (paying players) did not start out as free players, and therefore, we don't know what you are talking about. Please... read my signature at the bottom of my post.

[ANIMEniac]

Demongod, have you tried any other similar games?

From what i recall, you have to buy some kind of starter for YGO. And you even have to pay for each game you play. And each game you pay to play, you get a bit of cards. So it comes down to having to pay to get cards.

It just seems that sometimes people expect too much out of something to make it "more fun". Sure, everyone would love getting the cards more easily, but as stated, they run hard statistics to keep it at a pace they feel is acceptable as a business. Too easy too soon and you have people not spending down a certain time line and the company starts to bleed unless it can gain more player base. The market is very unstable now, and the CCG niche isn't a big area of opportunity. Community is small, so you can not expect such big changes yet.

I'll give you a nice example of why "too much" can destroy a game. WoW
Great game with amazing ideas for MMOs and game play. However, the game has been reduced to "child's play" status due to the numerous outcries of whinners to make it easier. Rewards for hard effort (and a bit of luck) have been dwindled to almost nothing due to the massive "hand-outs".

I agree with quite a bit of fargone's points.

Come play for free and expect to be limited in someways compared to the people who decide to pay. The early stages of the game isn't that bad. You get a pretty nice set of cards by 20. The starters are a very solid base, which makes up for a huge portion of the decks seen in folrart. All the extra cards i've seen people spend $100+ each set to get...maybe use like a couple. It is mostly extra fluff. You get a chance to build some unique strats to play, but it doesn't usually mean instant wins (i should emphasize USUALLY). My free account is a gowen starter, a starter from the very beginning of the game. The new starter outclasses it. But let me tell you, with just a few cards and knowing the game, i've beat a good number of the new stuff and some high level players.

Again, the core of what you need is given and you gain plenty early on. The rest is up to you if you want to spend mroe time or a little $$$. Don't expect to be handed too much extra as a free player. There's already so many events giving away what used to be exclusive/elusive point cards. Be happy the game doesn't severely limit free players like many other "free" games (like what sets you have access to or how many deck slots you get or even exp gimp).

[garcia1000]

Maybe for Gowen or Refess true you can just add mercenary and ball of flame and be 90% of the way to a competitive deck, or add lapierre and guardian and do well

how about Lawtia? lol
Or Falkow?

[neviscus]

for falkow you can add some more witchs or wizard archer of regus, she is not bad, return is 1*, eagle soldier, meaning of failure, sea claw, enormous frog, even frostbow archer. These are all 1*'s and they are all good in there own way.

like merc and ball of flame, meaning of failure, return, even eagle soldier can work in most falkow starter variants

[Demongod]

Demongod, have you tried any other similar games?

From what i recall, you have to buy some kind of starter for YGO. And you even have to pay for each game you play. And each game you pay to play, you get a bit of cards. So it comes down to having to pay to get cards.

It just seems that sometimes people expect too much out of something to make it "more fun". Sure, everyone would love getting the cards more easily, but as stated, they run hard statistics to keep it at a pace they feel is acceptable as a business. Too easy too soon and you have people not spending down a certain time line and the company starts to bleed unless it can gain more player base. The market is very unstable now, and the CCG niche isn't a big area of opportunity. Community is small, so you can not expect such big changes yet.

I'll give you a nice example of why "too much" can destroy a game. WoW
Great game with amazing ideas for MMOs and game play. However, the game has been reduced to "child's play" status due to the numerous outcries of whinners to make it easier. Rewards for hard effort (and a bit of luck) have been dwindled to almost nothing due to the massive "hand-outs".

I agree with quite a bit of fargone's points.

Come play for free and expect to be limited in someways compared to the people who decide to pay. The early stages of the game isn't that bad. You get a pretty nice set of cards by 20. The starters are a very solid base, which makes up for a huge portion of the decks seen in folrart. All the extra cards i've seen people spend $100+ each set to get...maybe use like a couple. It is mostly extra fluff. You get a chance to build some unique strats to play, but it doesn't usually mean instant wins (i should emphasize USUALLY). My free account is a gowen starter, a starter from the very beginning of the game. The new starter outclasses it. But let me tell you, with just a few cards and knowing the game, i've beat a good number of the new stuff and some high level players.

Again, the core of what you need is given and you gain plenty early on. The rest is up to you if you want to spend mroe time or a little $$$. Don't expect to be handed too much extra as a free player. There's already so many events giving away what used to be exclusive/elusive point cards. Be happy the game doesn't severely limit free players like many other "free" games (like what sets you have access to or how many deck slots you get or even exp gimp).

First, your WoW analogy is a poor one IMO. WoW is extremely successful, and by extremely I mean that it's now the standard for all MMOs. What's the key to blizz's success, IMO? Inclusiveness. Is the game deep enough for the biggest experts to play in sold out Korean stadiums (LMAO, I know)? Yes. However, you see lots of players playing it casually. One of my friends plays Warcraft 3 specifically for DotA. As you can see, with a one-time game purchase (and maybe not even, if you have a friend willing to loan you a CD key), you can get tons upon tons of hours of fun.

As I said, I'm personally not complaining about my own situation too much...yet. Right now, I just got to level 15 and don't want to go into Folrart at all until the weekly payouts are done because I was 1-9 after my first week and got up to like 40-29 by the end of this second one, meaning I stand to collect 50 gran and don't want to lose a bunch of that by facing paid players yet.

However, the entire precedent of "you're going to suck until you shell out massively" just doesn't at all sit well with me. At all. And it never will. I don't believe in exclusivity clubs. I believe in "if you have the skills to compete, you have the skills to compete", without any barriers to entry. And especially considering how tiny Alteil's community is, I see no reason to erect such stifling barriers to entry to begin with.

As you may or may not know, I found out about this game from the forums at sirlin.net, (http://forums.sirlin.net). On that site, there is a massive philosophy in that the very wettest behind the ears newbie loads up and plays the very same game as the most hardcore playing-to-win expert does. At the same skill level? Of course not. However, and let's just take Street Fighter 2, as it's David Sirlin's favorite example, a newbie's Ryu is not going to be any different in the game than Daigo Umehara's Ryu. It'll still be the same Ryu inside the game's code, with the same damage, recovery frames, and so on.

Right now, in Alteil, the game is not the same for everyone. Some people have far greater amounts of (and far better) cards than the new players.

But for instance, let's take the current Gowen starter. I can give you a Gowen starter that's IMO far, *far* better.

First of all, take out Revolver Knight, Dual Magic Sword Wielder, and Gaia Anaconda. Replace with 3 mercenaries.
Take out fire tornado. Replace with Ball of Flame. (This is actually a decrease in rarity, for a 3-star, Fire Tornado is just that bad)
Take out devouring lizard. Replace with Heierrat Revolver Bladesman
Take out lightning archers. Replace with Alraunes.
Take out archer scouts. Replace with Heierrat Mages.

That's just to show you how much better the Gowen starter can be with 1 and 2 stars. If you would buy a playset of EX5 Gowen packs, you could really do well right off the bat here. Instead, we have things like devouring lizard, which doesn't at all fit with the hit-em-hard-and-fast theme, along with lightning archer, archer scout (what exactly would she be building the mana to, anyway?), and one-of units that we can't at all make use of.

And honestly I wonder...why wasn't the Gowen starter equipped with those cards? But that's another point altogether.

Edit: also, I have played M:tG before. I quit when they literally banhammered the aggro deck. I started playing in Odyssey and liked blue-green madness because it was brainless to play and cheap to assemble, and then in Mirrodin, when I still played on Apprentice, I liked playing Affinity, for similar reasons. The deck consisted mainly of commons, hit hard, hit fast, and generally was a blast to play because rather than slowly whittling your opponent down by taking slow control of the game, you just pounded the stuffing out of him.

But then WotC started releasing Mythic Rares and generally, the game got expensive. So, I quit. And I don't regret it for a moment.

[garcia1000]

Mage knight is almost compulsory if you do the modded falkow starter which have lots of wizard kingdom units
Bog wyvern or similar win condition also needed, maybe rasam+time stop but she is ***

owl sage is very helpful also
I agree most of the other are rarity 1 only

Lawtia best option is to delete starter cards and build from scratch

[InigoMontoya]

And honestly I wonder...why wasn't the Gowen starter equipped with those cards? But that's another point altogether.

I do think it is time for the starters to be updated, I'll give you that!

My hope is the recent file submission contest for starters will serve as the templates for the next starter sets.

http://www.alteil.com/forum/index.php?f ... =viewtopic

[Demongod]

I wonder when another one of those events will happen. I'd like to try my hand at it.

[InigoMontoya]

I wonder when another one of those events will happen. I'd like to try my hand at it.

"Arakis' Quest events will be announced on Mondays, and will last for two weeks. Then there will be 1 week for judging, and the winner will be announced. After that there will be at least a one week break before the next contest."

From: http://www.alteil.com/index.php/arakis-quest