I’ve been a long time Magic The Gathering player and took to playing Magic Online back in 2003 shortly after the release of version “two-dot-doh!” At the time it was the perfect solution for someone like myself who enjoyed playing Magic but didn’t have the time nor the desire to join my fellow goons at the local comic store for a few casual games of Magic.

Before we dive into a review of Magic Online v3.0, I think a little history of Magic Online from the release of version 2.0 is in order to even fully appreciate WHY Version 3 was brought into existence.

Wizards Of The Coast announced in 2003 that they would be bringing Magic Online in house and it seemed that this could only mean good things for the online community because Wizards would have more more hands on involvement in the Magic Online development. This blew up in their face when Magic Online Version 2.0 was rushed out the door to coincide with the release of Eighth Edition. There were many defects in the client as well as server stability issues which eventually lead Wizards to admit that Version 2.0 was a failure and something drastic needed to be done. In early 2006 Wizards Of The Coast announced that Magic Online III (3.0) was in the works and it had an initial release date of late 2006. Obviously this date slipped many times as Version 3.0 eventually saw the light of day in early April 2008. Why did things take so long? It’s not entirely clear but Magic Online’s current Brand Manager Worth Wollpert has said that the people who made the original design and development decisions for Magic The Gathering Online Version 3.0 were no longer with Wizards Of The Coast, so asking questions of “why was this done over that” or “why did it take so long” will perhaps never be answered.

Anyways, this brings us to today! As I said before, I’ve been playing Magic Online now for the better part of five years and felt that I’d be in a good position to give the new client a once over. The version I’m currently using is Magic Online v3.0.8.2. The new Magic Online client has several notable changes under the hood which I felt were worth mentioning. These changes are:

• DirectX rendering for all objects and animations in game
• Built using the Microsoft .NET Framework
• Includes a 3D Rendering Engine for Avatars

I was actually very pleased that the original powers that be decided to roll with a managed language for a game client. I would say that I aids in development.. but after a three year delay, who really knows! Some could argue that this opens the client up to security issues but it appears that Wizards has taken the proper steps to secure the byte code including obfuscation and relying on server side authentication for all client interaction.

I’ll admit right now that I am a member and lurker of the Magic Online forum over at Wizards Of The Coast, so I’m aware of the current community ‘feedback’ regarding the new client. I think that users on these forums have some excellent feedback and Wizards has been very active with the user community in listening to discovered defects as well as feedback regarding possible changes to the functionality of the user interface. So my hat goes off to the staff at Wizards for making the effort

The client itself when first started is very visually pleasing. The textures used for the window borders and login screen look stunning at the default resolution of 1024×768. What happens if you run at a higher resolution or even a different aspect ratio using a wide screen monitor? Well, things start getting a little messy. Textures are just stretched when you increase the window size (especially on a wide screen), so ‘window wide’ textures such as the top of the menu look distorted and pixelated.

Once inside the client you’ll be pleased to see that Wizards has integrated the previously separate online store now into the client no longer requiring you to navigate to a website in a browser to purchase your online products. This is a welcome change and in my opinion finally unifies Magic Online as a complete online replacement for your local hobby store.

The first item that also sticks out is the ‘dock’ which is located on the right hand side of the client. For better or worse, this replaces the previously used ‘tabs’ that were located at the top of the Magic Online client as well as any minimized windows you might have had, such as PM windows or chat rooms. It allows you to tab through these items now in a single area. You’re also not restricted to the dock and you can ‘float’ these windows anywhere you would like on the screen. A lot of complaints have been filed on the forums about the new ‘vertical chat’ format that caused by the small horizontal space available for text in the dock. There are several work-arounds for this but unfortunately it seems to be the way things are for now.

Gameplay itself hasn’t changed much. One of the biggest complaint from users is the ‘wasted space’ caused by the new game layout. To this, I suggest everyone check out their Game Play Settings (Menu -> Settings -> Game Play) and try one of the new “Game Table Design” options that are provided. As of the writing of this review the options are “Mana Wheel”, “Big Card” and “Compact”. I’m a fan of the compact view because if I float the Chat Window and hide the dock, I’m able to have a sizable playing area.

Did I run into issues while writing this review? Not really. Design issues, of course. But the client itself remained stable and the server has remained online for the most part since launch. There was a single crash since the release of Version 3 but the issues was identified on the back end and resolved. As for design issues, I’m sure you can venture over to the Magic Online forums to read a few users opinions on several of the design decisions made by the powers that be.

I have a few suggestions on the UI which might make for a better user experience:

The Dock – I think it’s a great idea, but was poorly executed. It could be made so much better by changing it a little bit:

1. If I float a Window, let me minimize it. Although I’m a friendly guy, I like having a wide screen chat during a game but I’m not always interested in what my opponent has to say. Re-docking it means I have to keep re-floating and resizing it.
2. If I click on a tab, don’t reorder them to make it the 1st in the list. This drove me up the wall because every time I clicked on a tab, I’d lose the order of where the other tabs were. Imagine if Firefox or Internet Explorer did this

Casual Rooms – Make selecting a game easier and less like a mouse accuracy test Even filtering by “Waiting” and trying to jump into a game before it disappears or moves is very difficult.

Avatars – For the love of god, please allow models with more polys The previous DOS Magic games from Microprose had better 3D models. I would have almost preferred ‘card art’ quality 2D avatars over these already dated specimens. I’m trying not to be too critical of this but I did almost spit out my Pepsi when I saw that my Royal Assassin avatar now looks like this:

Marketplace – I’m not saying the current incarnation of the Magic Online marketplace will kill the secondary market, but it will make it harder for users to find one another to make trades. Things like the classifides sorting alphabetically will lead to a flood of new bots/traders with user names such as “..TRADING BOT” or “.BUY HERE” in order to get in the top listings. Wizards needs to re-think this design in order to help their product maintain it’s ‘value’.

All suggestions aside, Magic Online 3 is a ‘work in progress’ and is bound to improve with each week that passes. Casual Play still works fine and they’re spawning draft queues now if that’s your bag. I suspect that Premier Events will be online soon and Worth Wollpert said Leagues would be online within a month or so.

So, the quick hits are:

Pros

• Casual Play (both single and multi-player) is still there
• Client and Server seem to both be stable
• Store functionality built into the client

Cons

• Still missing a LOT of features (Leagues, Redemption, New Accounts, Trial Server)
• User Interface still a work in progress, but getting better
• 3D Avatars are laughable to say the least

The down and dirty of it is that if you played Magic Online before, you had your reasons and those reasons probably weren’t because you were in love with the User Interface Like many other users, I wasn’t swept off my feet by Magic Online 3 but it still meets my needs as a player. I hope that as a CONSUMER, Wizards continues to try and improve my experience as a player in order to coax more of my hard earned money from my pockets

Cheers!