RG still feels like a really weird color combination for a god of destiny. The green is fine, but isn't red the color of "F*** destiny, I do what I want"? As a concept, destiny feels much more WG imo.
I initially felt the same, but there could be an existentialist spin on "destiny" for red. As in, you can't control what happens to you, but you can choose what to do about it. Those who make their own choices not because of but despite destiny would be something like heroes.
While I have been trying to make a case for supporting the lore here, what really angers me is not that I'm not getting a novel that I'd 50% not read anyway.
Honestly this is what i don't get about your position. It sounds so nice but theorical. In practice things are really different. Wotc will see people complaining but not buying and they will say "screw this, we are out". I bet that 50% or even more of the people who complained about forsaken didn't even buy the book.
wotc salesmen are going to see these numbers and cancel it. You would do the same if it was your company. You think they should keep the novels going just to make you happy, even if you don't want to buy them?
Well, to use a theorical cliché: it's the principle of the thing!
I want them to write good novels. If they did, I might lean more into the Vorthos category. But the condition of the possibility for good novels is that there are, first, any novels.
I think you're right that, eventually, they will resume putting novels out. So the sky isn't falling. But it is a question of sooner rather than later. I think it's reasonable to conclude that giving voice to demand corresponds to a sooner response.
As you've noted, this whole process has happened before. And the lore for MTG has been suffering for a very, very long time. Meaning, MTG creative has been inconsistent in their output of a product, they've had to start and stop several times and still haven't fixed the problem. This kind of flailing indicates that they need some kind of input. So, following from that, we ought to be criticizing what they're getting wrong, to address the fundamental problems which haven't been fixed. In order to do that effectively and constructively, we need two things: to understand the problem as it actually is, as MikeyG states, and to engage in discourse which allows for this to be brought into greater clarity for all relevant parties (consumers and producers). The latter has been my focus as one of the pitfalls to this process are the discursive dead-ends that characterize a lot of threads here. In this case, an example could be something like "novels suck anyway, it's not worth discussing." I believe that if we do move forward in building more clarity, that has potential for being influential on discussions over a wider scope. In other words, we have to consciously choose to depart from the typical structure of these discussions, in which fans tend to cannibalize or invalidate one another, and instead do something like "build community." Easier said than done. My position is that we have to start from theory as a basis and incorporate practical considerations along the way.
It's true that if we go too far into purely destructive criticism, corporate could try to play it safe for longer, although there's a lot of potential for a negative feedback loop going that route. And if we shy away from criticism, we're guaranteed to get more of the same if not worse. So even if you don't personally share the same sentiments which, for example, Tiro has about Theros, it's possible to discuss the issue into a positive resolution. Everyone's passions vary, and people stating how they sincerely feel is actually foundational to maturity rather than disaffectation. That's what I feel is the remedy to "toxic fandom."
While I believe lore is important, I'm not really a Vorthos. I'm a goddamn Melvin. And if I can find more passion in my cold little Melvin heart for the lore than a self-proclaimed Vorthos, something profoundly wrong has gone with the world.
MikeyG, although we have points of disagreement you have been impeccably respectful about them.
You are both mistaken. You're not being purely descriptive; your posts also have normative content. The fact that you don't recognize that at best reflects on your muddy and lazy thinking.
I'm not sure I understand.
Is that irony?
I realize I'm getting a bit incensed. While I have been trying to make a case for supporting the lore here, what really angers me is not that I'm not getting a novel that I'd 50% not read anyway. It's the denial of the implicit positions that pragmatism commits the pragmatist to. Which is I guess a bizarre and abstract reason to get pissed off, but we all have our pet peeves.
You have absolutely been making excuses for that decision in this thread. I don't even know what point you possibly think you could be making by denying it. Perhaps you're just a compulsive liar? I don't appreciate your dishonesty.
No one's excusing anything, simply correctly identifying the reality of the situation.
This guy gets it
You can go ahead and cry like a little baby as much as you want. If you think this is what will help the Vorthos community, go ahead.
However don't get angry when other people are a little more mature.
You are both mistaken. You're not being purely descriptive; your posts also have normative content. The fact that you don't recognize that at best reflects on your muddy and lazy thinking.
And calling me a crybaby of all things just serves to prove me right about what you're saying. So thanks for making my argument for me.
I'd agree that it's important to understand WotC's point of view, but my concern is that this extends too much into making excuses for them.
It's not making excuses. It's just explaining something that already happened in the past. It's not the first time they discontinue the novels. In the end they always came back.
You have absolutely been making excuses for that decision in this thread. I don't even know what point you possibly think you could be making by denying it. Perhaps you're just a compulsive liar? I don't appreciate your dishonesty.
Additionally, you're really taking for granted that if you do nothing you'll eventually get your Vorthos itch scratched again. Therefore, everyone else should stop complaining. I find this attitude counterproductive.
I'd agree that it's important to understand WotC's point of view, but my concern is that this extends too much into making excuses for them.
Whether or not their decision to cut novels is a reasonable one rests on the underlying assumption about how we, the consumers, react to it. Essentially it's a gamble on how we're going to behave. And we have control over that.
So if we make excuses for them offering us up an inferior product, then they made a good business decision. But if we hold their feet to the fire and demand better, that they don't deliver us something skimped on quality, they'll have to adjust further. So I think we ought to be doing the latter in addition to the insights MikeyG and others have contributed.
Nerds on the internet gonna complain about their passions. Though I suppose if the melodrama reaches a certain height the next stage of the nerd dialectic is inevitably complaining about complaining.
My hope is that a consequence of all this is a swift resolution.
It seems pretty reasonable to me if your customers are unhappy with the quality of your product, you improve that product. Discontinuing it altogether, if it negatively affects the rest of what you're selling, will just make your customers unhappy with your other products.
They didn't before (novels were discontinued for 2 times, if my memory is right), they should now?
When they weren't writing novels they got vocal criticism from the Vorthoses that there should novels. My guess is that had something to do with them being produced again.
I would like to state again that deep lore enriches fan culture. When that declines, other IPs become more competitive.
I'm not sure what is being expected here. The entirety of the fanbase have to all learn correct rhetorical methods to criticize bisexual erasure on the internet? In 2019?
It seems pretty reasonable to me if your customers are unhappy with the quality of your product, you improve that product. Discontinuing it altogether, if it negatively affects the rest of what you're selling, will just make your customers unhappy with your other products.
So what, Theros just becomes a casualty? This resolution was anticipated for 6 years. Even if they double back and release lore for other sets it won’t be enough. I’ll speak for myself, although it goes without saying, that a novel for Theros is what I wanted most from MTG and it’s not happening, regardless of the future. It’ll never set things right for Theros or for me unless they release a proper book for it, even if it’s late.
It's an embarrassment for this huge company to allow a lapse to occur at all. And it seems to fit a trend of WotC becoming more and more disorganized. I'm feeling pessimistic about the next year of Magic sets at least.
For the record, I think it's worth pointing out what things aren't causing issues with the MTG storyline. Particularly if some people are liable to have misconceptions about causes to the issue in question. We should include this in an overall discussion where the actual causes to the issue are analyzed, with non-causes dismissed.
I'm inclined to agree what we're seeing with the storyline in Theros being a consequence to upheaval in the staffing. If I'm not mistaken, some years ago this same exact issue occurred, with a moratorium called in on any further MTG novels, with similar fan backlash. Novels eventually began to be produced again. So that suggests that this move could be just a temporary setback. The likelihood of it being temporary increases with the more noise fans make about it.
We could...but that would involve WotC hiring people based on merit and not solely on their gender and/or ethnicity to check a box for forced inclusivity and diversity.
Oh, come on dude. Don't start with that whole tirade here. Can you put your favourite toy away for just five minutes please?
Oh your right... i forgot that only WotC employees can say whatever they want on company time that has nothing to do with the game. But here on a free forum people cant voice concerns because it doesn’t agree with WotC.
I guess continuing to ignore it will totally make it go away...
I will say i surprised you didn’t just report me to the forum masters like they want you to.
Is it about that time for another giant, thread-derailing political argument to rear its ugly head on MTGS? Yes? No?
Ya think maybe your claim that diversity hires entails hiring for diversity strictly over merit is, I dunno, a stand-in for your more honest position that you just don't want diversity to exist at all? Oh you're right... I forgot the immutable law of nature that only white guys can be good writers.
Just out of curiosity, what's your explanation for when a bad MTG novel comes out which was written by a white guy? Like... most of them, even? Or is it just the case of the world working in mysterious ways?
Because WotS: Ravnica and WotS: Forsaken are bad quality for novels. They are coincidentally written by a white guy. It doesn't change the actual quality of the books if Greg Weisman was actually an african woman for example.
Yes, of course. But Jiyor's claim is that MTG creative is failing because of diversity hires. White guys who just happen to write low quality novels aren't diversity hires, so it seems pretty unlikely that diversity hires caused those white guys to write low quality novels. Some other explanation is needed, a better, more rational one than "diversity hires = low quality." And if we can garner such an explanation for all the bad content being output by white guy writers, the need for Jiyor's alternative explanation for the overall issue with quality becomes practically nonexistent.
I have to give it to you, I did not think that any of that needed to be explained.
There is also a thing known as a 'diversity quota' for a given work environment in order to appear inclusive instead of exclusive. Whether the work environment actually has this culture of diversity is a different matter entirely. This can have an unfortunate effect that a person might be hired based on the exterior appearance rather than the quality of their actual skills for the job. This can apply to any person, no matter what their race or gender is.
Sure. Any policy can sometimes come with unintended consequences. But I would question whether it is ever the case in practice that someone is really hired purely on the basis of their diversity qualifications in lieu of a host of hiring criteria.
We could...but that would involve WotC hiring people based on merit and not solely on their gender and/or ethnicity to check a box for forced inclusivity and diversity.
Oh, come on dude. Don't start with that whole tirade here. Can you put your favourite toy away for just five minutes please?
Oh your right... i forgot that only WotC employees can say whatever they want on company time that has nothing to do with the game. But here on a free forum people cant voice concerns because it doesn’t agree with WotC.
I guess continuing to ignore it will totally make it go away...
I will say i surprised you didn’t just report me to the forum masters like they want you to.
Is it about that time for another giant, thread-derailing political argument to rear its ugly head on MTGS? Yes? No?
Ya think maybe your claim that diversity hires entails hiring for diversity strictly over merit is, I dunno, a stand-in for your more honest position that you just don't want diversity to exist at all? Oh you're right... I forgot the immutable law of nature that only white guys can be good writers.
Just out of curiosity, what's your explanation for when a bad MTG novel comes out which was written by a white guy? Like... most of them, even? Or is it just the case of the world working in mysterious ways?
1) New content underway. Netflix. They can't afford any distractions. They won't have a bunch of chances to get it right..it has to land perfectly. So...no distractions. All eggs are in the Netflix basket, creative-speaking.
2) No one goes to the mothersite anymore. Of the number that might wander there, even fewer go there to read storyline content.
3) Now, given #2, why in the hell would anyone in charge of budgets want to keep funding this content? It is literally money down the tubes with zero return-on-investment. I mean..how much $ would you expect to make writing Magic Fan Fiction? How big an audience would you reasonably expect?)
4) Now ask those exact same question but replace 'Fan Faction' with 'Slick CGI Animated series hosted on Netflix'? I think you'd have some different answers in that case. So did they. That's why this is happening.
Note that if a more accessible medium like a tv series expands the MTG audience, it could create more demand for written content. If the demand became high enough, it might even push business decisions toward producing high quality written content. But that's in the long run.
In any case, even though a limited audience consumes the MTG written material, the existence of deep lore to the game has a more nebulous relationship to the quality of the product than the more easily measured metrics of direct profitability or viewership. It drives enthusiasm in the fandom, creates fans like Tiro who engage in lively discussion about the franchise, all because there's more to the product than the story told on the cards. Even when only a minority of a fandom takes interest in delving into the lore, there are ripple effects from that. You might not read a particular story itself, but it might get mentioned in a forum thread or you look up an intriguing character on the wiki. And if there's something there for you to read about, that character resonates with you more. So you continue to buy cards, spending your money on that versus something else. In a game like this, it's probably more of a minority of fans who are completely disinterested in the lore than the reverse. There are good reasons to continue to invest in it, even though the way it's been executed since forever is problematic.
I initially felt the same, but there could be an existentialist spin on "destiny" for red. As in, you can't control what happens to you, but you can choose what to do about it. Those who make their own choices not because of but despite destiny would be something like heroes.
Well, to use a theorical cliché: it's the principle of the thing!
I want them to write good novels. If they did, I might lean more into the Vorthos category. But the condition of the possibility for good novels is that there are, first, any novels.
I think you're right that, eventually, they will resume putting novels out. So the sky isn't falling. But it is a question of sooner rather than later. I think it's reasonable to conclude that giving voice to demand corresponds to a sooner response.
As you've noted, this whole process has happened before. And the lore for MTG has been suffering for a very, very long time. Meaning, MTG creative has been inconsistent in their output of a product, they've had to start and stop several times and still haven't fixed the problem. This kind of flailing indicates that they need some kind of input. So, following from that, we ought to be criticizing what they're getting wrong, to address the fundamental problems which haven't been fixed. In order to do that effectively and constructively, we need two things: to understand the problem as it actually is, as MikeyG states, and to engage in discourse which allows for this to be brought into greater clarity for all relevant parties (consumers and producers). The latter has been my focus as one of the pitfalls to this process are the discursive dead-ends that characterize a lot of threads here. In this case, an example could be something like "novels suck anyway, it's not worth discussing." I believe that if we do move forward in building more clarity, that has potential for being influential on discussions over a wider scope. In other words, we have to consciously choose to depart from the typical structure of these discussions, in which fans tend to cannibalize or invalidate one another, and instead do something like "build community." Easier said than done. My position is that we have to start from theory as a basis and incorporate practical considerations along the way.
It's true that if we go too far into purely destructive criticism, corporate could try to play it safe for longer, although there's a lot of potential for a negative feedback loop going that route. And if we shy away from criticism, we're guaranteed to get more of the same if not worse. So even if you don't personally share the same sentiments which, for example, Tiro has about Theros, it's possible to discuss the issue into a positive resolution. Everyone's passions vary, and people stating how they sincerely feel is actually foundational to maturity rather than disaffectation. That's what I feel is the remedy to "toxic fandom."
MikeyG, although we have points of disagreement you have been impeccably respectful about them.
Is that irony?
I realize I'm getting a bit incensed. While I have been trying to make a case for supporting the lore here, what really angers me is not that I'm not getting a novel that I'd 50% not read anyway. It's the denial of the implicit positions that pragmatism commits the pragmatist to. Which is I guess a bizarre and abstract reason to get pissed off, but we all have our pet peeves.
You are both mistaken. You're not being purely descriptive; your posts also have normative content. The fact that you don't recognize that at best reflects on your muddy and lazy thinking.
And calling me a crybaby of all things just serves to prove me right about what you're saying. So thanks for making my argument for me.
You have absolutely been making excuses for that decision in this thread. I don't even know what point you possibly think you could be making by denying it. Perhaps you're just a compulsive liar? I don't appreciate your dishonesty.
Additionally, you're really taking for granted that if you do nothing you'll eventually get your Vorthos itch scratched again. Therefore, everyone else should stop complaining. I find this attitude counterproductive.
Whether or not their decision to cut novels is a reasonable one rests on the underlying assumption about how we, the consumers, react to it. Essentially it's a gamble on how we're going to behave. And we have control over that.
So if we make excuses for them offering us up an inferior product, then they made a good business decision. But if we hold their feet to the fire and demand better, that they don't deliver us something skimped on quality, they'll have to adjust further. So I think we ought to be doing the latter in addition to the insights MikeyG and others have contributed.
My hope is that a consequence of all this is a swift resolution.
When they weren't writing novels they got vocal criticism from the Vorthoses that there should novels. My guess is that had something to do with them being produced again.
I would like to state again that deep lore enriches fan culture. When that declines, other IPs become more competitive.
It seems pretty reasonable to me if your customers are unhappy with the quality of your product, you improve that product. Discontinuing it altogether, if it negatively affects the rest of what you're selling, will just make your customers unhappy with your other products.
It's an embarrassment for this huge company to allow a lapse to occur at all. And it seems to fit a trend of WotC becoming more and more disorganized. I'm feeling pessimistic about the next year of Magic sets at least.
I'm inclined to agree what we're seeing with the storyline in Theros being a consequence to upheaval in the staffing. If I'm not mistaken, some years ago this same exact issue occurred, with a moratorium called in on any further MTG novels, with similar fan backlash. Novels eventually began to be produced again. So that suggests that this move could be just a temporary setback. The likelihood of it being temporary increases with the more noise fans make about it.
Yes, of course. But Jiyor's claim is that MTG creative is failing because of diversity hires. White guys who just happen to write low quality novels aren't diversity hires, so it seems pretty unlikely that diversity hires caused those white guys to write low quality novels. Some other explanation is needed, a better, more rational one than "diversity hires = low quality." And if we can garner such an explanation for all the bad content being output by white guy writers, the need for Jiyor's alternative explanation for the overall issue with quality becomes practically nonexistent.
I have to give it to you, I did not think that any of that needed to be explained.
Sure. Any policy can sometimes come with unintended consequences. But I would question whether it is ever the case in practice that someone is really hired purely on the basis of their diversity qualifications in lieu of a host of hiring criteria.
Is it about that time for another giant, thread-derailing political argument to rear its ugly head on MTGS? Yes? No?
Ya think maybe your claim that diversity hires entails hiring for diversity strictly over merit is, I dunno, a stand-in for your more honest position that you just don't want diversity to exist at all? Oh you're right... I forgot the immutable law of nature that only white guys can be good writers.
Just out of curiosity, what's your explanation for when a bad MTG novel comes out which was written by a white guy? Like... most of them, even? Or is it just the case of the world working in mysterious ways?
Note that if a more accessible medium like a tv series expands the MTG audience, it could create more demand for written content. If the demand became high enough, it might even push business decisions toward producing high quality written content. But that's in the long run.
In any case, even though a limited audience consumes the MTG written material, the existence of deep lore to the game has a more nebulous relationship to the quality of the product than the more easily measured metrics of direct profitability or viewership. It drives enthusiasm in the fandom, creates fans like Tiro who engage in lively discussion about the franchise, all because there's more to the product than the story told on the cards. Even when only a minority of a fandom takes interest in delving into the lore, there are ripple effects from that. You might not read a particular story itself, but it might get mentioned in a forum thread or you look up an intriguing character on the wiki. And if there's something there for you to read about, that character resonates with you more. So you continue to buy cards, spending your money on that versus something else. In a game like this, it's probably more of a minority of fans who are completely disinterested in the lore than the reverse. There are good reasons to continue to invest in it, even though the way it's been executed since forever is problematic.