I hear you on that, I played MTG way back in the day (right after Legends) I shudder to think how much money I spent on those cards. I forced myself to bail after Ice Age because it was just getting ridiculous. This is why I do love the self-contained CCGs like Ascension and Magic 2013 and shied away from the others because of the money sink issue. I thought that Assassin Creed CCG had interesting play mechanics but I didn't spend any RL money on that one. So I should be leery about potentially getting sucked into Sol Forge but this one seems to really want to drag me in!
Assassins Creed CCG was really really interesting Emos, probably the most unique ccg experience I've played in a long time, too bad it had quite a few connection issues etc. I personally am really enjoying this solforge update, I like being able to choose between the demo decks, and checking out the starter decks(don't own them, just looking over the cards included etc), the game looks to be moving in a really good direction. I'm already pre-ordered, so waiting on the beta, but I like what I'm seeing in the variance in the cards, and I'm really excited about the future.
You can, when the game comes out It will be F2P, in the same way that shadow era and spellcraft are. There will be an in game currency, you can gain by playing the game in various ways. There will be a store similar to other games where you can buy singles of specific cards for in game currency, and most likely booster packs and other things as well. I'm not 100% sure on how the system will work. They have said, you will be able to unlock all the cards without spending real $ (there might be variations of the cards, like animated cards, that have the same function but different art etc or special playmats/skins or maybe other things that you need to spend real $ on if you want them)
Statement: This is good. I am not very much into this kind of card game, even with the preview. Like the level-up mechanism, though, so I think I can give the full version a try.
According to StoneBlade's weekly stream on 8/6/13, the iPhone app is still in development and months away. http://www.twitch.tv/stoneblade
Pretty fun game so far. This might replace ascension for me when it comes out. I couldn't get through the tutorial or a quick play against a computer though. Every time I was about to win it would crash. Looks pretty great so far though if that's the only issue for a demo/preview build of the game.
Yeah the game is not working for me at all. I keep getting a pop up for daily rewards over and over. Then it keeps disconnecting and reconnecting. I spent $20 to unlock all the factions while in preview mode, I'm going to be seriously pissed if I don't still have them. Right now I can't tell because the game is working right, it's only letting me play with the starting deck. Hopefully they do a better job with Ascension.
They say there are no dumb questions but.. If they can fix the crashes an connection issues (which I have full faith they will as is evidenced by their other titles) it will be a great, fun, game. As it is now it is fun up until the crash.
What other titles? Ascension is made totally by Playdek. Ascension also has a very large online community and I have never experienced these types of connection issues and crashes with any of their games, ever. I really could care less about this game, I'm mostly concerned about the future of Ascension.
The UI is not exactly responsive, the app crashes pretty regularly, their servers seem extremely unstable and on top of that: The game itself feels SO shallow. I really hope they learn something (at least from a purely technical point of view) in the further process of making SolForge, so they don't screw up Ascension in the same way. By the way, is it just me or does the whole "card rarity" system make even the deck-construction part more shallow? I mean, there is no "cost" or "mana" in this game, so you can just play any card in any turn. So why wouldn't you just put the rarest cards you have into your deck (besides some reasonable "common" additions here and there... and assuming the designers know which cards are best and need to be rare)? Anyways, something positive: The AI seems better than in past versions (which isn't too surprising since even the hard one was basically a joke before).
"The exciting new trading card game (TCG) from the makers of Ascension: Deckbuilding Game and Magic: the Gathering. " I was referring to this. I guess I thought it meant they had a hand in it. Ascension is already fantastic. They isn't released another expansion IAP actually too I think? Or at least since I booted it last. I don't see why this game would have any effect on an already established and developed game. Why would Sol effect the future of ascension?
Okay, to clear things up: Stoneblade Entertainment was Gary Games before and made the (physical) card game Ascension. The iOS adaptation of Ascension was developed by Playdek (quite famous for their brilliant board game adaptations). Stoneblade now continues to release (physical) expansions for Ascension (some of which were again adapted by Playdek) and has also started a new (exclusively digital) franchise with SolForge. Stoneblade will move the digital version of Ascension "in-house" later this year, which means they will develop a new digital version of the game for iOS, Android, PC etc. Playdek's version of Ascension (including their online servers) will run through 2014 and then cease to exist.
