2 Days until Heat Death!

[Michelle Wong]

This game "Hex: Shards of Fate" has two days left until it gets shut down...forever.

Enjoy the remaining two days. This game was actually excellent. It is a shame they copied MTG too much and can't afford the licence fees. If only they made it a little more different from MTG.

[Caxton]

that had nothing to do with the game at all. You need to educate yourself before sounding like an #&(@!

[Michelle Wong]

Oh, yes it did! You think the game is commercially viable after paying the licence renewal fees to keep it alive? Shows what a fool you are then. Think again!

[Caxton]

LOL, DUMB@$$ read the developer story from the developer on the wesbite then go eat your shoe.

[Michelle Wong]

@ Caxton: There's not enough people to justify the renewal fees. Read between the lines!

[Michelle Wong]

@Caxton: You don't even need to read between the lines. The Oct 2020 Sunset announcement links directly to the MTG Lawsuit Settlement. The following is a direct quote, in the context of informing us that they are required to shut down the game on 31 Dec 2020:

"For more information please see this link: https://www.hextcg.com/press-release-settlement/"

Please have the decency to admit that you were totally wrong.

HEX devs should NOT have copied MTG so closely. Come up with more original ideas like everyone else (for example Abrakam's Faeria, or Valve's Artifact, or Legends of Runeterra etc. None of those devs were sued by WotC.

[giftedfox]

Well with the copyright lawsuit against magic the gathering really shows that this shut down is very possible part of their past agreement has finally ended this game. Even though they did copy very closely to MTG, I believe this game died because they mistreated their fan base for way too long. They lied about their Kickstarter promises. The F2P is very short and forces players to pay big bucks (more than one person put in over 500 dollars and still get difficulty spiked).

With what the developers have said from their website, I am not sure I can fully relay on that with all the issues in these last 6 years.

[Michelle Wong]

@ Giftedfox: I like your comments. That may be true about mistreatment of fans, but do you agree that it would have been very difficult for them to make a decent profit when they had to pay an annual licence fee for WotC? We don't know what the figure was, but WotC would not have settled for something cheap, that's for sure, especially when they went to the huge expense of launching a lawsuit.

I think it's also fair to say that out of all the TCGs/CCGs out there, no other came as close to copying MTG as Hex. They really pushed the boundaries, didn't they.

On a tangential topic, I'm amazed that the devs of the card game "Eternal" were not sued by Blizzard for the Hearthstone copy.

[DEFIANCE is Back !!]

Yeah something isn't right because most of the'other' card games I ever played on steam all followed the same basic concept,

I don't see how these guys could get sued but not all the other ones,

unless the other ones were such 'inexpensive' indie productions that MTGC didn't see them as a thread to begin with.

Maybe these guys should've just had 'energy' resource cards that 'amplify' how much energy you get, from an automatic '1 per turn' at all times.

So that eliminates the copying of the resource energy mechanics which might've freed them from any licensing.

[aonezu]

mtg is so weak they can't do a better game then hex.

[Michelle Wong]

Originally posted by akaineko:

mtg is so weak they can't do a better game then hex.

Oh come on, really? Hex borrowed so much from MTG, it's a bit odd to state that the imitation spinoff is better than the original. Not impossible, I'll accept that, just odd and surprising to me that you could say that Hex is a "better game" than MTG.

[DEFIANCE is Back !!]

Michelle that's a bit out of character for you to say lol, don't you think Hex is better?

It has fundamental mechanics that 'real paper' games can't have, and the ambiance is far superior in Hex.

That said, what Hex can't 'beat', is the sit-down and play in real life feeling MTG has, had.

I think that alone makes them so different they can't be compared,

but mechanics wise they're so the same there's no real way to say which is 'better' or not, too much the same, other than aesthetic preferences etc

[Michelle Wong]

Hi Celendrin,

I definitely do not believe that Hex is better than MtG, and I don't think it's even close.

There are so many reasons for my opinion, but the top 6 are:

1. A vastly larger card pool in MTG. Vastly larger due to 28 years of history.

2. MTG has a paper equivalent which I play with friends (kitchen table only). Hex does not.

3. MTG has more singleton formats (Brawl, Commander, Canadian Highlander). I love singleton because I like lots of variety from game to game. Not a fan of 3 or 4 copies of the same card in a deck.

4. The UI in Hex felt cumbersome and "clunky" to me. Whereas in MTG Arena, it is so smooth. (Magic Online is also clunky, I'd accept that criticism. But the same cannot be said of Arena).

5. I didn't like the way coloured shards in Hex worked as a "threshold", rather than as mana which drains each turn. Why? Because Hex took MTG's main weakness (land/non-land RNG) and amplified the problem even further by creating coloured threshold "mana" and regular "mana", each type of shard which had to be put in the deck.

6. Nothing beats the fun of casting Birds of Paradise on Turn 1, or Swords to Plowshares for one white mana, or Wrath of God for 4 mana. There was no card in Hex that felt so much fun to cast. Those cards remind me of Lt Commander Data in Star Trek Generations (the movie), when he stated that he just loves scanning for lifeforms, but he can't explain why he finds it so much fun. A link to the scene I am referring to is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWBmaKk32fE

Hex's main advantage was the atmosphere of the game, it was more engaging/spooky/interesting than the atmosphere in MTG. That's the only area where Hex surpassed MTG in my opinion.

[DEFIANCE is Back !!]

Hey Michelle (lol out of curiousity are you actually a girl? lol sorry it's just that might be a bit weird to call someone a girl name if they're not, either way cool),

yeah I mean, sure like mentioned the paper thing is unique to mtg but that's not something Hex could do anything about, it shouldn't be involved in any comparisons to the pc game.

(I'll go by your numbers),

1 - interestingly this is why I -don't- like mtg much anymore, the huge amount of cards (and the way they keep trying to 'squeeze' more money out of mtg) means the cards are just ridiculous now,

like seriously ridiculous.

I'm a HUGE fan of simplicity, to me playing with some warriors that span from 1 attack to 5 (meaning a warrior card from 1 to 5) is far more fun than the strange crazy weird stool-y stuff like " when this dies it goes to the graveyard but comes back with wings unless there's an artifact in play then it goes to a second heaven and comes back with another card which you then play but not right away on the other phase if you have x amount of this and that' etc like omg insert-expletive-here lol seriously?

Mtg got way off base a long time ago for me, using the pc version as an example I think it was 2013 (maybe 2014 at most) that I really enjoyed,

because stuff was simple and understandable, with enough 'twist' for some very good unique cards that made fun to get that special 'rush' feeling of getting that powerful card or making that cool play,

mtg now is just obscene lol. And they still squeeze it to death lol.

I mean it's like, well hate to say this due to political correctness, but like certain people that pile on layers of make-up trying to be good-looking long after their natural inherent beauty left.

If that wasn't enough, it wasn't even touched on how bad overpowered cards can be which only certain players have, i.e. a new magic player is forced to get the 'best' cards to try to keep up with over-rated strange whacky cards in order to be viable.

It's just too much hence I loved Hex's 'brand new' simplicity.

That's not to say I didn't, and don't, love certain mechanics in magic.

The way I see it is Hex could've eventually had all the 'cool' cards magic has, given enough time to grow,

and likewise Hex would've had the same problem mtg has now, with too many cards, had it been given enough time to grow, lol.

So while you're right for your preference 'currently' mtg is 'better', it none-the-less (I think) is a relative thing, to time, how many cards magic has is just a reflection of the time it's been 'out', not that it's actually a 'better' game, if you get what I mean.

2 - yeah I mentioned that lol, but you need to compare the pc aspect of the two, since obviously Hex doesn't have the paper component.

3 - I have no idea about that, what's good about mtg being 'paper' is people just do whatever they want with the games, change it up how they see fit.

But again it's not fair to compare Hex to that, it's on pc so it has to be judged on that. No idea what the game types are who knows given enough time Hex could've added more types maybe

4 - Interesting as you iknow I played Hex before it's shut-down, and recently I installed Magic 2015 cause I wanted some of that 'card game' feel again while running videos,

I loved Hex's format etc, it seemed a bit 'long-winded' (as if they had too many clicks necessary to pass turns), but I enjoyed it a lot more due to the ambiance it had,

2015 was stale, boring and I had to stop playing because I felt like I was in a hospital room.

Basically whatever format it has to me it dragged on more than Hex, even though technically it might've actually played 'faster'.
Lol not sure I'm making any sense but basically Hex's format I found more fun.

5 - Magic has some great card mechanics, I love Green's 'trample' ability and the general premise of buildinng up a huge 'army' of beastly creatures (green deck stuff) and 'over-running' the opponent.

Hex didn't seem to have that, but I"m not sure because I didn't play it enough.
I don't hide the fact I was, am, -Extremely- disappointed in Hex's lack of 'tough meaty beastly masculine' type cards,

I consider it one of it's main draw-backs, whereas mtg had the 'green' deck, specifically played to 'grow' and get strong and powerful, to really give you a sense of satisfaction when you 'win' overwhelmingly,

Hex seemed anemic and way to full of fruity 'rabbit' cards and stuff like that.

Interestingly I didn't hold it against Hex though because I thought I just didn't play enough to 'know' if it had cards like that or not, I don't know.

I consider it one of those 'give it enough time it would've added it' type things.

But I hear you about certain mechanics, lol.

6- I don't understand what you mean by thresholds (because I suck relative to you guys and don't have the experience lol),

one thing though, I do love the 'gem-y' aspect of the cards.


Like you said, Hex's main advantage was it's ambiance, for sure.

That's exactly why I liked it more because cards come and go, but the ambiance is either there or it isn't.

Obvoiusly I wish the best parts of each would come together for the 'ideal' game, but for what it was I think Hex played an important part in the card game market,

because it gave an 'rpg-ish' feel to what's usually a bunch of geeky people trying to out-do each other with cheesy over-powered cards.

It's almost like Hex brought in a powerful 'feminine' force to the male dominated 'card' gaming market.

When you see some of those cool quests and how well thought out the story was it really does seem that way (feminine aspect of the psyche and the players 'growth' during his adventures),

magic is so stale and pointless in the story department it hurts, lol.

I think perhaps we could all agree Hex was 'superior' as a solo type 'rpg-ish' game a player could play to get a sense of magic, adventure, and some cool card playing.

Magic obviously dominates for sheer card mechanics, number of cards and general pvp aspect.

lol they would've made a good husband and wife,

: P

lol

(good discussion as always good stuff)

[aonezu]

Originally posted by Michelle Wong:

Originally posted by akaineko:

mtg is so weak they can't do a better game then hex.

Oh come on, really? Hex borrowed so much from MTG, it's a bit odd to state that the imitation spinoff is better than the original. Not impossible, I'll accept that, just odd and surprising to me that you could say that Hex is a "better game" than MTG.

yea really and i m not the one who said that. mtg said that because you don't sue somone who don't threat you're business as all the dozen cardgame out there.

[☭ Little King Trashmouth ★]

glad I never paid a penny for this game.