Pem’s Tech Blog

Augury Owl.  When Augury Owl enters the battlefield, scry 3.

Game Play Comments:

When October 1 of 2010 hits, the standard constructed format (my opinion at the time of writing this is – by far the best and most important constructed format) will be only 5 sets (Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, Magic 2011, and Scars of Mirrodin).  Based on the most recent releases (2010 Jul 17, 2010 Oct 2, 2011 Feb 5, 2011 Apr 23, 2011 Jul 16, 2011 Oct 1), there are 5 sets released per year (between Oct 1 to the next Oct 1), and the oldest sets get rotated out (in this case, Magic 2010 and the 3 prior sets) once a year on Oct 1.  I ran into Augury Owl in a standard constructed deck, since it’s in the Magic 2011 set, and I really liked the flavor / feel of the card.

As for actually using Augury Owl, for a converted mana cost of 2, the scry 3 is good, and fly is good.  However, I tend to compare Augury Owl to Wall of Omens.  In general, I don’t like 1/1 attack as much as as Wall of Omen’s 0/4.  In general, I like draw 1 better than scry 3.  Another comparison would be Preordain, which lets you scry 3 and draw 1.  That said, Augury Owl may work better in a certain kind of deck, where the scry 3 and/or fly are particularly useful.  Or in addition to Preordain and/or Wall of Omen.

Augury
1. the art or practice of an augur; divination.
2. the rite or ceremony of an augur.
3. an omen, token, or indication.

Augur
–noun
1. one of a group of ancient Roman officials charged with observing and interpreting omens for guidance in public affairs.
2. soothsayer; prophet.

–verb (used with object)
3. to divine or predict, as from omens; prognosticate.
4. to serve as an omen or promise of; foreshadow; betoken: Mounting sales augur a profitable year.

–verb (used without object)
5. to conjecture from signs or omens; predict.
6. to be a sign; bode: The movement of troops augurs ill for the peace of the area.

Scry
to divine, esp by crystal gazing

Descry:
1. to see (something unclear or distant) by looking carefully; discern; espy: The lookout descried land.
2. to discover; perceive; detect.

Vocabulary Comments:

I like the Augury Owl because he/she is wise and can see the future.  I like to think of the Augury Owl staring closely at my deck, like a crystal ball, to see the top 3 cards (or to fly ahead to descry what’s coming).  The Augury Owl is an augur, and he/she can augur what the next cards will be.

However, the Augury Owl doesn’t just see the future, he/she affects the future (since you can rearrange the 3 cards on the top or bottom of your deck).  In this way, the Augury Owl is an augury of me drawing the cards I need for the current game scenario (and of me using these cards in the near future of the current game).

I’ve seen scry called short for descry, but scry also has the connotation of looking into a crystal ball.  While the connotation to descry is more general, looking carefully to discern and perceive.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/08/29 (Sunday, August 29, 2010) :: Games, magic vocab, tcg :: No Comments »

What I love about this talk (and the TED talks in general) is the general visionary idea.  Hours spent on gaming could have stronger real life productivity benefit, beyond just “having fun”.  I’m definitely not in what seems to be a fairly popular (and sometimes narrow-minded and/or extremist) camp that wants the sole purpose of any game to be “fun”.

Just using the word “fun” instead of “enjoyment” sounds limiting.  A lot of my favorite games tend to be more strategy-driven or thought-provoking.  Fun has a connotation that can suggest inane simplistic thoughtless enjoyment (ie, mirth and amusement).  I worry that “fun” can have a connotation of cheap senseless silly amusement.  To some extent, I am all for that kind of fun – I just don’t think it’s required for a game to be great.  I also like games that have a more serious feel.

I liked some of the Nintendo DS and iPod touch games, just because they were innovative, and had some great touch screen interfaces (yes fun was important here).  I like Bioshock because of its feel and experience, the gameplay strategy, the storyline and visuals, and especially the integration of some ideology / philosophy debate.  I like Magic the Gathering because the game is heavy on math (statistics), creative problem solving, a focus on planning and development (of decks and gameplay strategies) outside of the actual game matches, and learning how the different card rules work (though often I think the details should be more intuitive) (I was also excited to see some vocab words – and I’d love to see more).

Some examples of game ideas that have more practical benefit are…  Edutainment games.  Training simulations.  Games like McGonigal references, that focus on real world problem solving and edutainment.  Games that focus on solving more specific problems, such as the FoldIt protein folding game.

But one thing I’d personally like to see a lot more of, is just more educational content in regular non-edutainment games.  Two great examples are (Vocabulary words in Magic the Gathering) and (ideology / philosophical ideas and debates in Bioshock).  This can at least solve real world problems indirectly, by having people be more educated (and more capable of intelligent thinking and problem solving).

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/08/19 (Thursday, August 19, 2010) :: Games :: No Comments »

This is a long-winded post that gives background to how it came to be that I am now planning to make blog posts that showcase GRE (SAT, GMAT, etc) words found in cards from Magic the Gathering.

I’ve always (I think even before high school) spent a lot of time outside of work and classes doing software development hobby projects, various autodidact (self-education) study (reading etc) mostly related to computer science (computers / technology / science / engineering / math, hardware, software, game development), philosophy / logic, and games (and game development).

Right now I’m trying to put some focus on learning vocabulary.  The original reason for this was simply for the GRE test.  But with my personality, I can easily end up in danger of getting lost in the joy of learning and analysis and projects, to the point where the original motivation (ie, productivity / goal) could become less important.

I’m also trying to make up for years of neglect based on kind of a negative about the questionable usefulness of having 10 or 20 synonyms for the same concept.

My distaste was never against practical useful technical terms, such as for Computer Science (or Philosophy, or Games) and to express academic ideas (concepts, science, algorithms, etc).

My complaint was that a lot of the words found on the GRE seem deprecated, redundant, useless, and almost never used in real conversation (or writing) – except when someone is just being pedantic / bombastic, or maybe artistic / poetic in style.  This could be worthwhile for a language specialist or historian, to better understand archaic texts (such as Shakespeare or Edgar Allan Poe).  But for people who aren’t specialized in language (or history), if you run into an antiquated (or just less commonly used) word, then it’s fine to just use context clues, or quickly look it up on your iOS dictionary app or FireFox ctrl+e dictionary search engine.  If you’re not a language specialist, then what’s the point in wasting brain cells on rote memorization of redundant words that don’t express new concepts, when those brain cells could be used for more useful (and/or interesting) knowledge?

Despite my initially negative attitude, I’ve since considered the other side.  For one thing, having more synonyms gives us more options to create technical terms (conceptual terms / academic terms).

Also, having additional words (or idioms, phrases, acronyms, titles, organization names, brand names, etc) can be useful to reference a concept in a more specific sense – with nuance and connotation.

Many of these synonyms could potentially expand our minds, because you can say (and write and think) more concisely and precisely – this allows you to be more laconic (so that you can express much in few words).

For example, extirpate and deracinate are both synonyms for uproot.  But the nuance to extirpate is destroy, exterminate, remove and totally do away with (so uproot to get rid of & destroy).  The nuance to deracinate is to isolate or alienate someone from a native or customary environment or culture (so you are uprooting them away from their familiar environment).

If words like extirpate and deracinate were more commonly used (and no one confused the nuances), then we could be more laconic, and allow more complex ideas (and thoughts) to be communicated more specifically with fewer words, and consciously chosen nuance / connotation.

The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Mark Twain

In George Orwell’s 1984, Newspeak is used to do the opposite – reducing the number of words in the English language and thus reducing the expressiveness (and individuality or rebelliousness) of the government’s subjects.

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.  From Ludwig Wittgenstein’s one book (Logico-Tractatus Philosophicus).  The intended meaning is that only sentences that refer to something that we are capable of perceiving in the real world have meaning.  But on a similar train of thought (which is the way I’ve seen the quote misused), our minds are limited by (or expanded by) the tools we have to express our thoughts (which includes words).

Another specific example is how having more words can help us reduce the amount that we conflate distinct concepts.  Consider the GNU phrase “free as in freedom” vs “free as in beer” (unrestraint vs liberty vs costless, etc).  This sort of thing happens frequently, where someone gets confused or obstinately follows a specious argument, because he/she is conflating two distinct concepts.  Having more words can help us to better construct (or deconstruct) a line of reasoning, such as to more easily recognize when someone is conflating two different ideas.

Since this blog post is already longer than I’d like, I’ll get to the point.  I recently got into Magic: the Gathering.  There’s a lot to love about Magic, but for now I will avoid that tangent, and get to the point.

Part of any great fantasy game is its feel, such as how the game mechanics interact with visual art and writing (in other words – words).  Magic cards use color themes that correlate to the game mechanic (Black, White, Red, Green, Blue).  Each card has a card name, and many of the cards include flavor text (italics text that adds to the feel of the card, but does not affect the game mechanics).

I noticed that in these card names and flavor text, and even in some of the game rules, there are GRE words (GRE and other standardized tests).  So my plan is to post some Magic cards that use GRE words.  My initial favorite is the Augury Owl – but I’ll save that for my next post.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/08/15 (Sunday, August 15, 2010) :: Games, magic vocab, tcg :: No Comments »

I sent this email as feedback about Magic the Gathering Online.  The background is that most of the cards only cost around $0.02 to $1.00.  But there are some in the $3 to $9 range, and even a few that are $10 to $80 – and I think this specific detail ruins the game.  There are so many other ways they could bring in income, besides this dubious and harmful strategy of making a few specific cards so rare that they resell for such obscene prices.

…

overpriced overpowered online cards ruins mtgo

Here are some ideas for what to do instead of having ($80 Jace the Mind Sculptor online virtual cards) and ($22 Vengevine online virtual cards):

1) Lower the cost of the online virtual cards to 50% of the physical printed cards.  Instead of $3.99 for a Worldquake booster pack, make it $1.99 (or $1.98).

1b) Or, give players the option to buy a physical-virtual packs for 150% the physical price (such as $6 for a Worldquake booster pack).  But what if I instead of paying $12 for a physical starter deck, I could pay $18 for a physical starter deck and an online copy of the cards?  Or $12 for the physical deck, $6 for the online deck, and $15 for the physical-virtual deck.  I realize the details could be more complicated.

1c) Make it a lot easier to redeem virtual cards to physical cards.  At the moment I’m planning only to play Standard format, so it would be nice if I could at least redeem all my old cards for physical copies.

2) Reduce the scarcity of super-rare physical and viritual Magic cards.  $360 for 4 copies of Jace the Mind Sculptor is obscene.  Even $88 for 4 copies of Vengevine is pretty obscene.  And if I want to collect both a virtual and physical deck, then it’s $720 for 8 copies of Jace the Mind Sculptor.  $720 every 12 months would be $60/mo.  I’m not even against paying more than $60/mo for virutal + physical Magic cards + related merchandise + tournaments.  But this is $60/mo (ie, $720 for 1 year) for just Jace the Mind Sculptor cards!  It’s obscene.  Magic shouldn’t be about who spent the most money on their deck.  It should be about deck design and honest good-sport strategy, fun, art, etc.  Why not explore other ways to increase revenue – ie, methods that don’t hurt the game?

3) Increase the scarcity of other cards to make up some of the cost difference.

4) Charge a little more for tournaments and events, directly, or indirectly such as food.  Or promo material, deck matts, t-shirts, food, etc.

5) There’s a World of Warcraft Mt Dew.  Why not make a deal for some Magic-branded Mt Dew, or other drink (Brain Toniq?).  Sell magic branded stuff that isn’t Magic cards.  Posters, action figures, official tokens and life counter dice.

6) Require anyone who uses a dice or coin flip to use a specific certified Magic die or coin – this is also an anti-cheat, and you should require them to flip a specific way (such as roll the dice in a cup, rather than in your hand).  Require people to use an electronic card shuffler, and sell them at the event for anyone who doesn’t already have one.  Worried about damaging player’s cards?  Don’t worry, because in this new world of Magic, no single card is worth more than $5, so bending a few cards is not a big deal, even if it didn’t happen, though it shouldn’t.

6) Sell print publications.  Print magazines with very well organized rules details, and lists of the cards (just like you have for the gatherer card database, but a physically printed visual spoiler magazine, organized by card color and mana color, then sorted by coverted mana cost).  Or an iPad app (both an iPad game, and an iPad interface to resources like the gatherer card database, maybe even integrated with software to help create deck lists).

7) A more radical idea would be to just charge a monthly fee ($10/mo or $50/mo) for access to 4 (untradeable?) copies of every card, for Magic Online.

Some people might take Magic-branded stuff as consumerism.  But if they are educated and think about it rationally, it’s so much better than ruining the actual game with overpriced overpowered $80 Jace the Mind Sculptor cards.  And a lot of it could be marketed as "support the Magic community" – because that’s really what the idea is.

For me personally, I’d much rather pay $20 for a Magic T-Shirt, $10 for a Magic art poster, buy $3 Magic-branded Mt Dew throwback instead of $3 regular Mt Dew throwback, etc…  Than be faced with the choice – do I really want to pay $360 for 4 Jace the Mind Sculptors.  Frankly, No, I am not going to.  And in the end, there is so much competition out there, that I really don’t have to.  I can play chess, or Go, or YuGiOh, or Warhammer, or D&D, or Poker, or video games, or go out to dinner and watch a 3d IMAX movie, or a million other things.  None of your customers (ie, the Magic community) are really hostages.  I want the Magic to survive and thrive and grow.  But in the long-term, I really think that these $80 Jace the Mind Sculptor cards are a big turn-off, are hurting the game, hurting the Magic community, and damaging the game’s long-term profits and potential customer base.  In the end, I totally realize that, economic viability as a company, is what Wizards needs to keep Magic alive and thriving.  So please think long-term and stop it with the $80 Jace cards.

Thank You for listening,

Peter Mowry ("Pem")

www.mepem.com

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/08/08 (Sunday, August 8, 2010) :: Games, tcg :: No Comments »

On Martingale:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system)
* http://wizardofodds.com/gambling/bettingsystems.html

1) In a true random memoryless game, any betting strategy can not improve the odds.  A 50/50 coin flip is still just a 50/50 coin flip, no matter what your bets.  The previous coin flip does not affect the next coin flip.

2) If you flipped a coin 9 times and it was heads all 9 times, what are the odds of the 10th flip being heads?  The only thing going on here with someone who says it’s 0.5^9, is that they misunderstood the question.  (ie, silly language trick gimmick)

3) Okay, I guess the "intuitive" part of why one should expect Martingale to work is…  If you did literally have infinite bank roll, then you would eventually break the streak.

Might be interesting to think through why exactly both "3)" and "1)" are true.

*** wrote this post since friend mentioned it during Vegas trip

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/08/17 (Monday, August 17, 2009) :: Games :: No Comments »