Role of Chaos Channels in Chaos Realm

[drake178]

For 5 Magic realms concept it seem to inspired from "Master of Five Magic" which is in magic by number series written by Lyndon Hardy which also the same inspiration for magic the gathering too.

It is extremely unlikely for two individuals to get inspiration from a third that deviates from the original by this magnitude, yet shares this level of detail in the derived works. No. The five realms in MoM most certainly were not inspired directly by the book, but rather the card game. It could be the other way around, but I doubt it.

[Intaka]

Let me try to clear the air a bit with some factual information from the people who did design MoM and MtG:

Just as an aside about the impossibility of two things happening simultaneously, I think this is a relevant bit of science:

https://onlyzoology.com/why-does-converg...ion-occur/

Similar things happening at the same time is a byproduct of growth under similar ecosystems.

Also, we could just take Steve Barcia's word for it, the lead designer of Simtex that released Master of Magic in 1993.

https://youtu.be/tYygJsS0zZs (Interview with Steve, question at 7:06 about how were the spells created in MoM)

Separate development for Magic the Gathering from Richard Garfield started in 1982 (according to him) inspired through the game Cosmic Encounter, and also released in 1993.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar...2013-03-12

[Intaka]

There is no way that two things which required years to develop, and were released simultanously without previous exposure to each other, created each other. I personally blame the ancient greeks and their Fire, Earth, Air, Water thing. They are the ones who really designed both things.

A quick google says we should all be thanking Empedocles, a greek contemporary of Aristotle who liived in some happening town called Arkagas in Sicily. A rich born man with the time to write 5000 lines in verse describing the nature of all things, both spiritual and physical. We can assume he didn't have Netflix, I think.

[jhsidi]

Thanks for the video. I have to admit I laughed when I heard his answer. I was expecting some deep interesting dive into sources but... nope.

"Never really thought about it... we just cranked them out."

Well, some of the original spells definitely had that "random crap we chucked in" feel to them.

[drake178]

As far as I know, Master of Magic was released in 1994. Master of Orion in 1993. Magic the Gathering in 1993. According to the interview, work on MoM began two weeks after the release of MoO. According to the interview, the spells came from "having played a lot of role-playing games", which is evading the answer. MoM's actual development took less than a year based on this information. Also, I believe game design is art, not science, which means the theory of converging evolution simply doesn't apply.

Fun facts: Simtex is based in Austin, Texas. Magic: the Gathering was first demonstrated to the public at the Origins Game Fair which, in 1993, was held at Fort Worth, Texas - a 3-4 hr drive. One of the companies that started the Origins Game Fair was Avalon Hill, which Steve was a big fan of, to the extent that Simtex re-created one of their board games, which was also published by Avalon Hill (this is touched on in the video as well). MoM was published by MicroProse who, coincidentally, also acquired the license to make an MtG game through their merger with Spectrum HoloByte in 1993 - and they made one too, although only by 1997.

EDIT: thanks for the video though

[drake178]

Oh, and for the record, that 2MB help file he's talking about in the video? Less than 10% of it is actual help text.

[namad]

<p>Uh, master of magic came out a year after magic the gathering, and honestly, it always seemed to be directly copying it's color pie.... also, chaos has a lot of buffs for regular units, but the general theme of those buffs is that they don't keep the chaos units alive, but rather make it easier for those chaos units to cause death. Very fitting.</p>