Curse

Zinger314 · Aug 21, 2008, 06:51 PM // 18:51

(Or goes back, depending on your perspective. Semantics, semantics.)

WotC article

Quote:

I wanted to take a moment to introduce Mike Gills, our new Community Outreach Manger. Mike will be working as the Community Manager for MtGO as well as Magic the Gathering and other brands as needed. In addition to the duties already in place, the Community Outreach Manager position will now also focus on tournament support.

I, Solice, will be transferring over as the Community Outreach Manager for Dungeons and Dragons, DDI and other brands as needed.
Mike “Gamer Zer0” Lescault has moved on to pursue opportunities outside of Wizards of the Coast.

Now without further ado, here’s Mike Gills!

Hi all. Now that I will be working closely with Solice I’d like to take the time to introduce myself.

After 20+ years of playing 50+ RPGs, MTG since Fallen Empires, and hundreds of video, war, and board games I was clearly a lifestyle gamer. I also had many years of customer support and design experience from working at such diverse companies as Gamestop, Electronic Arts, and Walt Disney World. This, along with some good networking skills, enabled me to begin my career here at WOTC back in 1999.

I started out as an assistant manager in game support, answering detailed questions about 7 card combos for Classic Magic (6th edition) and other Wizard’s games. Once the Pokemon TCG came to WOTC, I moved over to Organized Play where I was known as Master Trainer Mike, the Community and Tournament Manager for it. After 3 years of Pika-fun, I stayed in OP designing various programs for the Harry Potter TCG, D&D minis, Duelmasters, and Avalon Hill games.

I spent my previous last years (2003-2005) at Wizard’s creating the Delegate Program and managing all our fan support programs such as MPR, D-MAX, and the RPGA email newsletters.

I was recruited at the end of 2005 by ArenaNet, the company that makes Guild Wars, to create their organized play programs for them. After two fun years with them I came back to WOTC at the start of 2008 to be the Digital Games Program Manager.

I’ve spent the last few months working with Scott Larabee to take over the event design and management for MOL as well as working closely with the web team on several discontinued (*cough…Gleemax…*cough) initiatives.

Now, as one of the new Community Outreach Managers, I am excited to continue working with all of the various OP, Brand, Marketing, and Web teams here to provide quality Community and Tournament support for Magic Online and other WOTC products.

I look forward to listening to what you all have to say while helping develop Magic Online to become one of the most sparkly online doodads of all time.

Magic: the Gathering Online is basically the only online game I play now that I'm in college, btw.

I hadn't heard of a replacement for Mike Gillis, though.

DreamWind · Aug 21, 2008, 07:07 PM // 19:07

He moves from one company that doesn't know how to run an online game to another. Perfect fit!

Dr Strangelove · Aug 21, 2008, 07:11 PM // 19:11

Magic is the basis for half the RPGs on the market right now, D&D being responsible for the other half.

pigdestroyer · Aug 21, 2008, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Mike Gillis is a good person, he was really nice and helpful during the celestial tournament. Best of luck for him.

slowerpoke · Aug 21, 2008, 07:36 PM // 19:36

who is Mike Gillis?

Spazzer · Aug 21, 2008, 07:49 PM // 19:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

Magic is the basis for half the RPGs on the market right now, D&D being responsible for the other half.

I have not seen this large denomination of magic-inspired games. That was the quality that originally made me love Guild Wars, and I'd love to play one of these other games.

RedNova88 · Aug 21, 2008, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Your opinion is not fact, don't treat it as such. You disliking it doesn't simply make it inferior just because you deem it so, use a little bit of your brain.

Honestly I was expecting some kind of drama thread like "oh noes anet is splitting up!" or some other crap like that. Best of luck to Mike, hope everything goes well for him.

Oh and to those thinking about flaming MTG, you might want to lock your doors and windows first.

RockmanHero · Aug 21, 2008, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Magic is tons of fun, but you had better have a lot of money to burn. Making a really good deck can get majorly expensive.

BenjZee · Aug 21, 2008, 08:24 PM // 20:24

umm party? Gaile had one...
ha

kidding

Big_Iron · Aug 21, 2008, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Just curious and not intended to be a flame, but why do we care?

Aera Lure · Aug 21, 2008, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Not sure we do. I wish him luck though.

M:tG is why I came to play Guild Wars, hoping for a skill system that had qualities of M:tG. In the long run, not really sure it did. GW needs more skills actually actively usable and better balance, but Guild Wars is of course still a great game. M:tG, well, I loved M:tG. I just fell out of playing when most of my friends and family folded up with it. Never played it online, having had everything card-based.

Aera Lure · Aug 21, 2008, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by drago34

. On topic, GW hasn't been nearly as competitive as it should have been or could have been imho. Maybe with someone else doing the job GW2 will have the chance and take advantage of what GW didn't.

Balance. More skill variety. If they ever sort out how to accomplish that, GW would be back on track. GW PvP was great during Prophecies.

ThunderStruck · Aug 21, 2008, 09:48 PM // 21:48

I used to play MTG... and even just staying in the Type II rotation for Friday Night Magic and low-end tournaments was expensive. I sold all my cards... and there is no way in hell I'm buying "packs" of virtual cards for MTG online.

/end rant I had 3 years ago.

Stockholm · Aug 21, 2008, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aera Lure

Balance. More skill variety. If they ever sort out how to accomplish that, GW would be back on track. GW PvP was great during Prophecies.

Balance and Izzy? Talk about a contradiction.

Striken7 · Aug 21, 2008, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aera Lure

Balance. More skill variety. If they ever sort out how to accomplish that, GW would be back on track. GW PvP was great during Prophecies.

And yet there was even less skill variety?

Skill variety does not make a good PvP game; how many different ways to kill a person are there in Counterstrike?

Balance is needed yes (CS and other FPS's have near perfect balance), but all this talk about skill variety only leads towards the opposite of balance. That's why GW failed as a competitive game, there are too many skills which make it impossible to balance.

That's also why is don't think MtG is a good "PvP" game. If you don't spend lots of money (aka grind) to get the right stack cards (aka skills) out of thousands, you are on a completely un-level playing field. Basing GW on a MtG-style combat system was what turned out to be a fatal flaw for PvP.

around · Aug 21, 2008, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Great thing about GW was that you didn't have a incredibly limited amount of skills at the beginning and then have to pay for random packs of skills, or pay through the nose for chase elites.

I wonder how much Eviscerate would be worth it this happened.

tyrant rex · Aug 21, 2008, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Striken7

That's also why is don't think MtG is a good "PvP" game. If you don't spend lots of money (aka grind) to get the right stack cards (aka skills) out of thousands, .

what? unlocking skills in gw is incredibly easy wrong comparison what they should have learned from mtg is that a stack of the same overpowered card is bad thats why those power 9 cards are limited to 1 per deck or w/e where as in gw you can stack your "power 9 skills" like a bunch of searing flames for sf spike or a buncha smiters for smiter shit 1 on its own isnt that bad but a stack of em is

Sleeper Service · Aug 21, 2008, 10:35 PM // 22:35

MTG online is all good and well but theres a free version.

http://www.magicworkstation.com/

and the comment about "you have to spend lots of money" to be good at mtg...no, just no. outside tourneys you can print cards, you can play common decks... MTG is the prime example of where knowing the rules, your cards and the meta (REAL meta not "carebear spoonfed lets change the way skills work every week cause players boohoo Izzy meta") > cash.

now if you want to be a "pro" player, then the same applies except you buy the cards one by one (no its not that expensive).

where MTG gets you is that it hits the "gotta catch em all" nerve. it also plays on that gambling side a lot of us have (oooh maybe this booster will have that tasty double land...) but if you play smart then its peanuts.

Its a shame Gleemax failed so hard, i was really looking forward to playing some of the table top games on my pc, Gameplay > Graphics and all that.

Snow Bunny · Aug 21, 2008, 10:45 PM // 22:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeper Service

and the comment about "you have to spend lots of money" to be good at mtg...no, just no. outside tourneys you can print cards, you can play common decks... MTG is the prime example of where knowing the rules, your cards and the meta (REAL meta not "carebear spoonfed lets change the way skills work every week cause players boohoo Izzy meta") > cash.

now if you want to be a "pro" player, then the same applies except you buy the cards one by one (no its not that expensive)..

Have you ever played magic to win?

Ravagers, Decree of justice, Wake, Dkstl Colossus, Angel, Mirari were all pretty expensive.

Birds, Sac Lands, and other cards still remain pretty expensive.

And the p9 is expensive and pretty much required for high tournament play. There are enough cards in the $50+ region to make it expensive.

I remember making a Red/Blue reanimator deck with tinkerer, a red mirrodin control deck, and a twiddle desire deck and it costing me substantial amounts of cash,.

around · Aug 21, 2008, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

Have you ever played magic to win?

Ravagers, Decree of justice, Wake, Dkstl Colossus, Angel, Mirari were all pretty expensive.

Birds, Sac Lands, and other cards still remain pretty expensive.

And the p9 is expensive and pretty much required for high tournament play. There are enough cards in the $50+ region to make it expensive.

I remember making a Red/Blue reanimator deck with tinkerer, a red mirrodin control deck, and a twiddle desire deck and it costing me substantial amounts of cash,.

What gets me though is that currently, the best deck in the format (UB Faeries) is so ridiculously over-the-top expensive it's unbelievable. Every singe card that makes it good is rare.