The previous developers used to be really helpful about providing information and data to our community projects as seen in this article: Meet Octal9 - mtgpq.info - Marvel Puzzle Quest
Why do they refuse to help us now? It is very obvious that the current dev team finds no value outside of YouTube videos and I think that’s really short-sighted.
I’d like to understand the reasoning behind it @Magic_PQ_Support_Team and @IceIX
This article was from 7 years ago. Octal stopped updating the database long before Webcore took over (Ikoria), and there was no substantive discussion on restarting it, which I believe was the impetus for the wiki. Why bring this up now, with framing the question that the current devs “now” “refuse” to help? In your interest of providing data, have you had any prior discussion of picking up where Octal left off? What evidence do you have that Webcore was even involved in this decision, or have actively rejected this approach? To be constructive, are you (or someone youv’e identified) offering your services to take on this responsibility?
I’m so glad you ask @TheDude1
You are correct that this article is very old and octal is no longer maintaining his old database. If you’ve noticed broken image links on the wiki, this is why.
We were able to coordinate a bit of a handover between octal9 and Larz70 but, without the help that Octal used to get from the devs, all cards must now be uploaded manually, individually by from screenshots Larz takes in game. If you are on a discord server that uses his card-lookup bot, you may have noticed that it sometimes falls behind with new releases.
In addition to the card lookup bot, Larz also has to manually upload the scores to his leaderboard—if you are on a discord bot and the rankings have seemed inaccurate recently it’s because he has been on holiday and unable to make time to do so.
All of this information—which is so helpful for us players—is crowdsourced from players. We have tried many times to open lines of communication with the current dev team. We have made impassioned arguments that the season leaderboard is a form of content creation. We can help them realize a long unfulfilled promise of seasonal leaderboards and more meaningful rankings but it would be so much easier with a little help and support.
For the last year @Magic_PQ_Support_Team has been incredibly clear; they are only interested in talking to people who make videos. Everyone else may as well be poop on their shoes.
Thank you Sarah, but these issues you’ve highlighted predate Webcore’s takeover from Oktagon.
Ikoria was the last database update, which was May 2020. The last I can find any reference to a seasonal leaderboard was this post, also from May 2020: MTGPQ Seasons? Discuss - #7 by Poppy99 - MtGPQ General Discussion - 505 Go! Official Forums Note that even then, Oktagon explicitly said it was not part of their plans to develop. This Reddit post’s timestamp (https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGPuzzleQuest/comments/ptohwn/i_created_a_website_for_mtgpq_coalitions/?rdt=42958 ) says Larz began his scoreboard 3 years ago (so sometime early 2022 at latest). Webcore didn’t take over until September 2023.
You’ve made crystal clear over many, many posts that you take serious issue with Webcore’s communication strategy, but this beef seems to be with Oktagon and is several years too late. I don’t understand why anyone would publicly demand that Webcore answer for a decision that wasn’t theirs, with technical functionality that likely wasn’t passed forward to them, and they’ve made no promises to develop on their own. If you want to continue repeatedly posting the same complaint that you’re being ignored when it’s more likely that their priorities just don’t match yours, have at it, but be fair and at least make the topic relevant and timely.
I think it’s very clever of you to spot this @TheDude1 because I feel like a lot of people struggle to see the connection. I see a lot of similarities with this last year’s communications levels from Webcore and the stop of in Oktagon’s communications when they check out of the game.
Do you find it unusual that behavior I disliked from the previous developers is also annoying me with the current team? As far as I am concerned, the end result is much the same no matter which studio name is on the title screen.
You did not indicate that you disliked this change from prior developers - your first post was framed as “previous developers used to do … Current developers refuse!” while completely omitting that the change was by the previous developers, and have nothing to do with the current. There is nothing for Webcore to rationalize to you because it was not their call to rescind and they have made no promises to pursue. And Oktagon was certainly not “checked out” in May 2020, slightly closer to when they took over from Hibernium (September 2017) than when they turned over to Webcore (September 2023).
Do I find this complaint unusual? In this context, yes, because of that glaring omission of the timeline. It reads as another gripe in the one-size-fits-all framework of “the devs only like Youtube creators” when that basis is completely irrelevant, except if the argument is that Webcore isn’t justifying their future development strategy to you directly.
Again, to your prior requests of using tangible data in discussion, who are you proposing would be the one(s) responsible for updating and maintaining a card database? As of right now, the wiki is only loosely maintained, with incomplete information and numerous pages left out-of-date. I would think this is a much easier process to maintain since it is crowdsourced, than a full database/website requiring specific technical skills. Also, how much visitation does the wiki get, so there is a sense of what the potential database usage actually is relative to the overall player base? And what is your proposed benefit for a seasonal leaderboard beyond a nice-to-know side quest?
Sorry it’s taken so long for me to respond @TheDude1 I was busy with organizing new players into active teams and other mundane administrative tasks. It’s not as glamorous as a youtube video but people seem to find value with my efforts nonetheless.
It’s difficult to tell exactly what your point is so please correct me if I’m wrong but your basic premise seems to be “who cares?” and I’m not sure how to explain why a seasonal leaderboard might be important to people. Shteev did a good job explaining why competition is important to him on a youtube video recently–perhaps that might be easier for you to digest? A lot of people seem to care very much about not only their own scores but how their scores compare to the scores of others and how the scores change from week to week.
Previously, the devs supplied Octal9 with the image files so that he could more easily upload them into his card catalogue and later into his wiki. When Octal retired from the game, Larz took over the card catalogue and a handful of people have attempted to keep the wiki up-to-date but we’ve lost a lot of long term players over the years and haven’t brought in enough new players to replace them. I don’t think this problem is isolated to the wiki team, it seems more of a game-wide trend.
Who cares, right? A lot of people seem to find it convenient to be able to look up cards in discord! Larz’s bot is active in many of the communities I visit, perhaps even in a community you visit too?
@TheDude1 the card database is actually quite far along and is up-to-date. I have a proof of concept web page that demonstrates its capability. It’s hosted out of my home computer through a free cloudflare account and it’s a decent way to search for cards.
Here is a sample query.
As long as the search parameter does not match hundreds of cards, it should return the results in a reasonable amount of time. And yes, this is just a few of the nerdy stuff I do involving MTGPQ, and no, I never got any help from the devs. In fairness, I got by without any help because I’m a pretty resourceful programmer, but I wouldn’t stop other people like Sarah, from complaining on my behalf ;p . Also, the card details are not 100% correct because the OCR I use is only 90-something % accurate, so I can use some help there.
As for coalition scores, I do silly stuff like a leaderboard of top 10 coalitions using Formula1 scoring rules.
On Discord, you can check how you rank against fellow players based on your recent coalition scores.
I asked WebCore if it’s possible to add a link to my coalition website in the game’s inbox to help new players find and join active coalitions. If you’re not in a coalition, you’ll see a message in the inbox encouraging you to join one. I don’t want to trigger Sarah, but no, you’ll only find links to YouTube there. I do like and watch those videos and subscribe to the content creators. Plus I’m fully supportive because I believe it’s a symbiotic relationship where the devs and the CCs benefit from each other. But we need to have other resources other than videos. Sometimes, I just want a list of decks that highlight Omni and don’t have time to watch dozens of videos on dozens of different Omni decks. Something like:
I suspect that Sarah made this post because she is feeling a little abandoned since I was gone for months with player scores no longer getting updated and the card bot going down with nobody there to start it back up. Don’t worry Sarah, I haven’t quit the game yet and will continue to support these MTGPQ resources I have built. Don’t feel bad if it seems like the devs no longer love us. I think they do. It’s just that the game is on life support and they are doing their darndest to keep the game code alive and kicking. Once they are successful, they will eventually turn their attention to us because a running game is useless with a zero player base. At least, that is my hope. Hang in there!
Larry
I think you’ve elided my point entirely, although I do have to give credit that you’re acknowledging the seasonal leaderboard proposal is a purely optional sidequest for a small subset of the player base. (And I’m not going to engage in semantics of what “small subset” means if you’re not going to provide a frame of what “a lot of people seem” means.) My point, as I was pretty detailed about, was the timing and framing of the complaint against Webcore “refusing” to help. There are plenty of things that have been worthy of criticism since their takeover, and much of that criticism I agree with, but this particular case is far afield from that.
This is getting to the core of the issue, I think. When Oktagon (not Webcore!) stopped providing the resources directly, the player base was larger. As that player base has shrank, it affected not just the number of people contributing to these community resources, but also the number of people interested in consuming these resources. So it’s confusing why this complaint is being laid at the feet of a different developer when the pool of people finding benefit five years later is smaller than when it was previously available. If there isn’t enough interest that can be rallied to help maintain a public wiki now, what priority should be given to develop optional tools for an even smaller audience? And again to the question that was never actually answered, why excoriate Webcore for it, when they had nothing to do with the original decision to remove them?
Separately, Larz, I have very much appreciated the dedication you’ve shown and do find your resources engaging. I understand the desire to have links to your webpage included in-app, but I cannot imagine how linking to user-owned websites/structures would be adopted from Webcore’s side. You’re right that only links to YouTube have been included, but that seems more like a security policy concern than any judgment on the content itself. I cannot recall any links that were not to (a) a website controlled by 505/D3Go/Oktagon/Webcore, or (b) YouTube/Facebook, where content is housed in a standardized framework. While I am speculating, it seems consistent with their general communication policy as aversion to outside structures, such as not hosting a Discord. If there are recent examples that contradict this, I certainly will stand corrected.
I’m not sure I understand your point @TheDude1 ? I bring this up with Webcore (which is not the same thing as blaming Webcore) because they are the ones currently in the drivers seat and are the ones who could currently help.
Do you think I should ask Hibernum or Oktagon for help instead?
@Sarah please don’t motte-and-bailey this. Your original post cast aspersions that Webcore was “refusing” to do something that Oktagon stopped doing five years ago, and demanded a response (by tagging IceIX of all people?!). It was not sent to the Q&A to get Webcore’s direct response, it was posted here as a grandstanding, accusatory call-out. You haven’t offered a constructive “here’s my proposal” approach, and while demanding Webcore take on extra out-of-game responsibilities for things that don’t have widespread support, you’re explicitly dodging the questions of “how should this be prioritized?” and “why now?”. Plus, you’ve now made several gratuitous, irrelevant cracks in this thread at “making Youtube videos” that have nothing to do with the argument of Webcore prioritizing developing technical tools.
If you’re still not getting it after all these posts, let me make my point crystal clear: you’re making arguments that are inane and read like you have a personal beef with Webcore because you’re not a YouTuber. Not everything is related to their communication strategy, and they certainly don’t owe you, me or anyone else here justification on development plans that they have nothing to do with and have never promised.
Ok. Well you are wrong @TheDude1
I have brought it up previously in Q&As but received no answer. Eventually I stopped waiting for an answer and posted here. I seem to have touched a nerve with you.
It’s funny that you think I have some sort of grudge against Webcore in particular—you must be new around here if you don’t recall me complaining about bad decisions made by the previous dev teams.
As for Webcore’s decision to cease all communications with anyone but their promoted YouTubers? I still think that was a mistake on their part and, while I am glad that they seem to have taken it seriously and made an effort to remedy the situation, I can’t help but feel that it’s too little too late.
We know all about me and my motivations (I’ve been irritatingly consistent over the years) so maybe you should tell us about you and your motivations? What is driving your over-emotional response in this situation? Frankly, you seem a bit unhinged in your responses.
I don’t see where I’ve ever called you inconsistent, @Sarah. I have questioned “why now?” in light of bringing this to the forums and tagging someone who hasn’t posted here in years. If anything, I believe your consistency has led you to over-apply one train of logic into questions where that logic is irrelevant. That was my motivation, to bring specific facts to a complaint lacking them, and avoid a misleading framing of the issue.
I’ll certainly acknowledge being incorrect on one part, my assertion that you have not previously submitted to the Q&A. Clearly if the devs did not want to respond, they would not actively post the question and say “no comment”, it would just get no response.
However, if the last known comment was that something was being discontinued, and repeated questions about reinstatement went unanswered, isn’t that your answer? If you’re confident in your inference about me over five posts that I’m “over-emotional”, shouldn’t your inference on five years of non-response be that these things aren’t coming back? If I may analogize, if my favorite TV show was actively announced as canceled five years ago, and I email the network repeatedly about it and get no response, and the active fanbase engaged with that show has been declining the whole time, would you presume that the appropriate next step be to publicly accuse the network of “refusing” to bring back the TV show?
(As an aside, if the charge is that I’m over-emotional and unhinged because I’m persistent about clarifying a timeline and facts for a specific claim about this game, it works both ways. Your own prior posts include instances where you link to further detail in the forums to challenge someone else’s point, then continued engaging with the person to press for an answer. Bonus points that you yourself requested that “if you have specific data that points to a premise being wrong then please do share it!”, which is what I did here in laying out the full context and timeline.)
You’ve mentioned time and again that the devs don’t communicate with you or respond to your ideas (“poop on their shoe” and all that). Nothing is stopping you from explaining your perspective in public here and now. As a dev, how would you prioritize out-of-game requests like these with in-game experience (including QoL), and what standard would you apply to what out-of-game-requests are significant enough? Does the shrinking player base factor into this prioritization?
All of that said, this back-and-forth has grown quite tedious. Again, I recognize your extreme consistency, especially that your view of what is beneficial to the game/player base is unlikely to change from a detailed post on the internet. I’ll cede this to a fundamental disagreement on what we’re owed from the devs, and go back to playing the game I’ve enjoyed for several years now.
Thanks for your interesting perspective @TheDude1 I’ll be sure and point to your toxic positivity when I cite my reasons for leaving the forums.
Luckily, I can get information about this game through the grapevine. Besides, I was only back here on the forum as a personal favor to Julie and I doubt that she cares anymore.
Peace out!