eternalcardgame.com NDA Just got lifted, so I can talk about it now. Woo. Eternal is in a closed beta right now, but the NDA lift prooobbbably means we will be hitting Open Beta not too long from now. Essentially it is pretty similar to a free-to-play, digital Magic, though it includes a number of improvements and changes that make it better than a straight conversion of Magic would be. I am enjoying it immensely and really appreciate its strategic breadth and depth. It actually has a lot of top Magic pros on the design team, and the fact they have learned some good lessons from Magic is clear from the design and development. @kalasle is also playing, and may be able to provide some further thoughts.
Mana System: Similar to Magic. However specific mana requirements are instead threshold. So a 5 power with Time Time requirement, requires 5 total power (mana) with at least two Time power (mana) cards played. Combat is almost entirely like Magic's. There are counter-spells and Fast Spells. So yes interaction on the opponent's turn. However they can only be triggered at certain points, and counter-spells only work on actual spells. Weapons, Creatures, Curses, and the like are not impacted by them. (At this time.)
So it's like Hex then? Yeaaaaaah Sounds sweet, signed up waiting for key. Unrelated, got into the ES:L beta today (so did everyone). It's the grimdark hearthstone eveyone was waiting for... I guess?
Yeah. I got into it too. I don't even remember signing up. I haven't played Hex recently enough to say. I thought about it a few times, but I have gotten so used to the free to play model, that having to spend that much money to get a real deck seemed extremely unappetizing to me. Plus I have Eternal now, so who needs Hex? One thing that I think is cool is how effectively they exploit that this is a digital game. So they have keywords like "Echo" draw another copy of this card immediately after the first (which has interesting interactions with other cards of course), and the fact that weapons and units keep their stat modifiers even as they go through game states (going back to the hand or into the graveyard). It even has fun, asynchronous drafting. I have literally no reason to play Hearthstone ever again.
Looking forward to checking it out (signed up for it a little awhile ago). So many card games like products out now, but so many are just so-so.... Hex was meh. Solforge was fun for awhile, but they put all the counters to the legendaries in the rare slots so that was annoying, plus it gets a bit snowball. Scrolls died. Might and Magic one I should play more, but the mobile client is pretty hard to use, so I haven't played it as much as I would have.
Just going by what your saying this seems to essentially be Hex if it had a good free to play model.... not that thats a bad thing
I have been extremely impressed with it so far, but I am definitely interested in what you think considering your background and overall perspective.
People in the Beta who are familiar with Hex, Magic, and Eternal consider Hex to essentially be a Magic clone, but Eternal to be much more different. I am not sure I am convinced but I am willing to defer to their expertise.
I would NOT consider them experts. They are inanely biased- they're primaryily playing eternal aren't they? Therefore why would they admit their game is a clone? Thats not to say they're wrong, but I'd consider pretty much anyone other then them to be more of an expert.
True, but their perspective is more "expert" than mine, as I only played Hex briefly, a long time ago. I tried to check it out again recently, but I kept bugging out when I tried.
was watching it last night on twitch. i am so sick of magic/HS clones, though. Been playing that same game for 20 years, and the new copycats aren't offering anything compelling to play it rather than magic itself.
The fact that I can play it on my laptop or iPad and don't have to actually go to a game store is a big plus for me. I don't have a collection or any emotional attachment to Magic, and I appreciate the improvements and the fact that it is free to play.
I like the nutty mechanics Eternal includes, and can actually use by being a digital game. I think the resource system is a PoS, which suffers from all the bad parts of MtG without the exceptionalism that real resource manipulation can provide. It's like they took MtG's land idea, and then said "well, we want that, but we don't want to do anything too dangerous." The F2P model is smooth and fun. It'll be interesting to see where the game goes, but it's not about to steal my allegiance to Pox.
