Magic: Legends Devs' First Week's Focus Includes Performance, Monetization, And Endgame

How's Magic: Legends doing? Some good and some not-as-good, according to Executive Producer Steve Ricossa, who wrote up a post over the weekend to talk about the first week of *cough* open beta. Performance issues take top billing -- not an uncommon issue for an online game early in its life cycle -- and the team at Cryptic Studios has already made two updates to improve client performance.

Monetization is also a topic of, shall we say, fervent discussion among players, and Ricossa addressed that as well. The Dimir Assassin class and Nightveil Stalker spell will be unlocked at level 50 of the battle pass rather than being exclusively available via random packs.

As for the currency exchange, something that players thought was the result of some price-fixing by Cryptic, Ricossa explained that yes, some Aether -- one million, in fact -- was "seeded" into the bank by Cryptic at launch. That was so that players could immediately use it to exchange Zen for Aether, and the exchange rate that was set was the result of data gathered during closed alphas. As the game progresses, the Aether exchange will only be fueled by funds supplied by the community.

Other major points Ricossa brought up included tutorial length -- it's going to be shorter, and you'll be introduced to advanced concepts earlier -- and the always-contentious-in-any-MMO notion of "endgame." As he put it, "The full depth of the Realm system may have been understated in the Realm blogs we had on the run up to launch." Your Realm is the major source of your progression, and while that was enumerated in blog posts, I personally think that, along with many other concepts, needs to be emphasized more strongly in the game so that you're not relying in info from a months-old post that you either didn't read or (like me) have mostly forgotten about.

Ricossa plans on a large build for the game around mid-April to address many of the game's basic issues, such as polish, stability, and quality-of-life improvements. He described it as "one of many future builds" that will improve the game -- which you'd hope would be the case for any online title.