Magic The Gathering Interview
found this on the web. Bout died laughing.
Kamigawa Sensation: Unauthorized WotC Employee Interview
By: Wollo - July 13, 2004
Months before Champions of Kamigawa is released, MiseTings has been able to get a member of R&D (who must, for obvious reasons, remain anonymous) to give us an interview and let us in on a few details about what we can expect when CHK finally hits the shelves later this year.
Q: Thank you for giving this interview. May I ask why you take the risk to lose your job for this?
A: There's someone in R&D I don't like. I'll try to make it look like he's given this interview so he gets thrown out.
Q: Nice plan. But it won't work now that you've told us about it.
A: Er...
Q: Maybe I should get to the first question: Why the Japanese setting?
A: For one thing, we're running out out ideas here. For another thing, you may remember that the popularity of manga comics, games and stuff reached its peak a couple of years ago. Of course, everyone at WotC knew they would have to respond. And they did. By now, of course, the manga hype has subsided a little, but you know how far ahead we plan - the development schedule prevented a quicker reaction.
Q: So Kamigawa is basically a response to a trend that has already passed?
A: Yep. When we noticed manga was going downhill again, it was too late to change things back. We're pretty confident it'll sell well enough anyway, but the appeal to new players, especially kids, that we had hoped for will probably not be there.
Q: Any new mechanics in there?
A: Sure. There's "Sex Appeal" and "Divinity". And we're revisiting Echo.
Q: Wait a moment. "Sex Appeal"?
A: Yes. You remember how everyone was upset about us introducing Human as a creature type? As it turns out, people don't really care about it now that it's done. So we've decided to go one step further and introduce the creature types "Man" and "Woman". What Sex Appeal does is basically protection from the other sex. A "Man" creature with Sex Appeal can't be blocked by "Woman" creatures, for one thing. The idea is that you wouldn't want to hurt someone of the opposite sex who has sex appeal. Secondly, a creature with Sex Appeal can't be the target of naughty abilities of creatures of the other sex. Only nice abilities can target it.
Q: Naughty abilities? Nice abilities? That sounds like a rules nightmare.
A: Not all that much. I mean, there are abilities where it's hard to tell, like giving a creature +1/-1 or something like that. But we'll release a concise list of all abilities ever printed that tells you whether it's a nice one or a naughty one.
Q: How long is that list?
A: Couple pages, I guess. I haven't seen it myself. For all I know, it's not even finished yet.
Q: Wow. I thought you have a rules team checking the cards. How could they ever allow this?
A: They were all on sick leave after 5th Dawn.
Q: Well, we should move on, I guess. What's with Divinity?
A: Protection from everything plus indestructible plus a "can't be removed from game" clause, really.
Q: Not very innovative.
A: Was that a question?
Q: No, a comment. But let me change it to a question: "Divinity" is not very innovative, is it?
A: No, it's not. But it only appears on two cards, and only in one set. So anything more innovative than that would've been sort of wasted.
Q: You mean there's a keyword for an effect that exists only on two cards?
A: Sure, why not? Look at Scry - it's only on seven or eight cards, if I recall correctly. Nobody complained.
Q: Yes, but two?
A: Can we move on now? I haven't got forever.
Q: Alright, then. Any further innovative effects or mechanics?
A: Well, the Man/Woman thing allows for a lot of interesting interaction. We've made sure that nearly every creature in the block is either "Man" or "Woman". Only a few are neuters.
Q: Is that a creature type, too?
A: Ha ha. Very funny.
Q: Sorry. Let's talk about the manga thing. How is this reflected?
A: The illustrations, mainly. A few card effects, too. Like there's a green instant that gives a creature +1000/+1000. But there aren't too many of these.
Q: +1000/+1000? You're not serious about that, right?
A: Look, can you stop that? Every time I say something, you repeat it as a question. Yes, I am serious. The card exists.
Q: OK, then. Manga illustrations aren't a specialty of most of the illustrators you usually employ. Who did all the images?
A: You're right. Not a single card was illustrated by one the usual painters. But I'm afraid I can't tell you who did any of the Kamigawa stuff. We didn't assign individual pieces to individual artists. Instead the whole bunch was given to the CCMP Corporation and we have no control over who did the individual pieces.
Q: What's CCMP stand for?
A: Cheap Cheap Manga Painters. They're situated somewhere abroad. Not Japan, but it must be somewhere around there I guess. We saved about 80% of what we usually pay for the art we commission.
Q: And did the art turn out well?
A: Yes, mostly. Quite a lot of nudity, but that's ok, as it fits well with the Man/Woman theme.
Q: But Magic is supposed to appeal to a rather young audience. Aren't you afraid that a Man/Woman theme and nudity require a more mature audience?
A: On the opposite. No grownup would go off at the sight of a scantily clad manga chick. It's kids between 12 and 15 who are keen on this stuff. And we deliver. And we sorted out the most explicit pieces.
Q: What happened to them?
A: They were distributed fairly among all R&D members for personal use.
Q: Personal use?
A: Personal use.
Q: How else did diving into this foreign culture change the card design process?
A: Honestly, not all that much.. Most of us don't know the first thing about Japanese culture, and reading up seemed a bit tiresome. So we did a set like we always do and relied on the creative guys to make sure the background stuff would fit. That's an issue where the whole manga thing was an advantage, by the way. The creative writers have a few books chuck full of eastern sayings. They took them, attributed them to someone else, and had their flavor text.
Q: You didn't bother to find out anything about the Japanese culture for this block?
A: Look, this is really getting tiresome. Stop asking stuff I've just said.
Q: You mean you're tired of me asking questions like this one?
A: Right. That's enough. I'm out of here.
Q: I had no more questions anyway. Thanks for the interview. Any last word to our readers?
A: Keep buying.
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