Magic The Gathering Online Full PC Game

Magic The Gathering Online for PC Screenshots

Magic The Gathering Online Full PC Game Overview

Magic The Gathering Online Download Free Full Game (MTGO) or Magic Online is a direct video game adaptation of Magic: The Gathering, utilizing the concept of a virtual economy in order to preserve the collectible aspect of the card game.[1] It is played through an Internet service operated by Wizards of the Coast, which went «live» on 24 June 2002.[2] Users can play the game or trade cards with other users. It is only officially available for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

As of February 2007, Magic Online has over 300,000 registered accounts;[3] this does not represent the true number of players, since people are allowed to register multiple accounts. At different times during the day and night, Magic Online hosts on average 2,000-4,000 simultaneously logged in accounts.[citation needed] According to Worth Wollpert in 2007, Magic Online is «somewhere between 30% to 50% of the total Magic business.»

Gameplay

Magic Online is played as an electronic analogue to the physical card game. Digital artwork reproduces the look of the paper card game, and users interact with their cards to play with them on a virtual tabletop. Each game is hosted by the Magic Online servers, which apply a rules engine to enforce proper play. The logic for handling card interactions is provided by Perl scripts. Though the rules set as a whole is largely accurate and works well, it occasionally suffers from bugs.[5]

Players can set up or join casual games of their choice for free in several rooms within the Constructed Open Play area. Currently the casual game rooms are as follows: Just Starting Out, a room for players who are new to the game and are not looking for a tough duel. Games in this room are limited to the Standard format to restrict the power of the cards being used. Just For Fun, a room designed for players to play fun, casual decks against one another. This is the most populated room and has no restrictions on what format a player can host a game in. Getting Serious, this room is provided as a step up from the Just For Fun room, but it is usually unoccupied. Tournament Practice is the most competitive room in the Constructed Open Play area, it is where the most serious players go to test their best decks before entering them into a Constructed event. Magic The Gathering Online Free Download.

In addition to free casual play, official competitive tournaments take place around the clock. Tournament play includes 8-man constructed events (in a variety of formats), limited sealed deck and drafts (generally using the most recently released expansions), as well as larger tournaments that take place according to a regular schedule. Entering events requires an investment of sealed packs and/or event tickets, with winners being rewarded with additional product.[citation needed]

Up until Version 3, League play was another method of competitive play. These month-long events were sealed deck tournaments of 256 players that allowed for intermittent play over a period of 4 weeks at the pace the player desired.[6] After 6 years, Leagues are scheduled to return sometime during the first half of 2015, according to Chris Kiritz in an article on the official Magic Online website.[7]

Development

Leaping Lizard Software initially approached Wizards of the Coast with an offer to create an online version of Magic: The Gathering. WotC was skeptical about whether such a system could actually be implemented.[citation needed] LLS then created a tech demo to prove to WotC that an online collectible card game could work.[citation needed] WotC was sufficiently convinced and contracted LLS to develop the service, which was then known as Magic Online with Digital Objects (MODO).[citation needed] Initially, the idea of charging for virtual goods, as opposed to a subscription model with unlimited access, was greeted with skepticism.[citation needed] Additionally, concerns were floated over how solid the server and trading code would be.[8] After a period of beta-testing, the game became available to the general public in June 2002. The name was changed from MODO to its final commercial title: Magic The Gathering Online Free Download PC Game.

In 2003, the Magic: The Gathering Invitational was held online for the first time. It was played on Magic Online each year from then on until 2007, when the Invitational was moved back offline.

Version 2.0

In 2003, Wizards of the Coast decided to relieve Leaping Lizard of the responsibility of maintaining Magic Online, and took on updating it themselves with in-house programmers.[citation needed] The first showing of the new team was to be the online release of 8th Edition in July 2003, which was ambitiously scheduled to coincide with the paper release. The goal was to release version 2 of the software with new functionality and implement the changes in rules that 8th Edition had brought.[citation needed] Version 2 was released on schedule, but the servers constantly crashed, and rules mistakes and other bugs were numerous. The game went into no-pay mode while temporary beta servers were opened to allow players to practice playing in for-pay formats.

As a concession for these issues, Wizards planned to throw «Chuck's Virtual Party,» a weekend of free tournaments after the problems settled down.[citation needed] Unfortunately, it turned out that each user took up more memory in version 2 than the lightweight design of version 1.[9] The result was that the servers crashed again under the strain.

In retrospect, some have merely chalked the decision to remove Leaping Lizard up to hubris.[10] Others, however, point to certain intractabilities in later maintenance that suggest that Leaping Lizard had not delivered a very extensible program that, by nature, was too monolithic and hard to improve. Wizards of the Coast has said that "Leaping Lizard's 2.5 interface and backend are not scalable like we need it to be. It wasn't written with the goal of ten thousand users in mind, it was written thinking a couple thousand.[4]" According to the developers, there was a hard limit of 4,400 players in version 2.5.[4] Regardless, Wizards decided that version 2.0 was not worth supporting indefinitely. They decided to maintain version 2.0 in the background, but to start a new development team to rebuild Magic Online from the ground up. The labors of this new project would be called Magic Online version 3.

The version 2 platform was shut down on April 9, 2008, in preparation of the version 3 launch. Magic The Gathering Online Download Torrent.

Version 3.0

Magic Online version 3 was planned to feature an updated interface and expanded in-game guidance.[12] It was also designed so it can run on multiple servers rather than one master server. The release date slipped several times; it was originally intended to be released in late 2006, and then "the first or second quarter of 2007.[13]" External beta testing began on February 19, 2007, with the Phase 2 beta opening on March 9. In this phase, MTGO 3.0 was offered for testing to members of the FilePlanet website. In August 2007, version 3 began open beta testing, and was released April 22, 2008. On June 26, 2014, version 3 was replaced by version 4.

Version 4.0

Magic Online version 4 opened to the public in wide beta on September 4, 2012.[14] Both version 3 and version 4 ran simultaneously, with players having an option to play on either platform, until June 26, 2014. On July 16, 2014 version 4 became the sole client for Magic The Gathering Online for PC.