Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #690: The Priority Problem

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

This podcast talks about why we can't easily meet every request.

I'm pulling away from the curb. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And I took my kids to school. Okay, today I'm going to discuss what I call the priority problem. Something that I deal with a lot on my blog and social media. And I want to walk through and sort of explain. It just is a reoccurring issue that comes up and I sort of want to walk through it. I thought this would be an interesting podcast topic. Okay, so one of the things that happens on social media, especially on my blog, is a player writes to me and says, I want Thing X. Thing X is really

important to me. In fact, of all the things you could do in the game, Thing X is the most important thing. And then, oftentimes, they'll write back and go, hey, just checking in again, I like Thing X. Why haven't you done Thing X yet? And it might be one person, it might be a bunch of people, but what happens is, early on,

it's sort of like, oh, I really would like this, and over time, as it doesn't happen, they start getting more upset. Like, why haven't you done such and such? It would have been a perfect opportunity here to do such and such. You could have done it right here. And the issue I want to talk about today is a little bit about sort of, the reason I call it the priority problem is, if something is the number one priority, and for the person or people talking to me, it's their number one priority. Well, if it's your

number one priority, you could find places to make it happen. You know, like if that's, if that's the most important thing that you needed to have happen, well, here's a place and here's a place. You look and find opportunities and then it's sort of like, this would have been the perfect place for this. Why didn't you do that? Here's the issue. It's a complex thing. That's why I'm spending my whole podcast on this.

Number one is what is a priority for the player is not necessarily a priority for us for a couple reasons. Number one is there's a lot of desires of the audience. It is not as if there's one thing the audience wants. There's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of things the audience wants. So one of our jobs is we're trying to make a lot of different people happy.

And part of doing that is looking for opportunities to do things that players want. And every set, I mean, there's no set that I make where I'm not trying to do something that players have asked for that we haven't done yet. I'm always looking for opportunities. Now that might be on a card by card level. You know, you haven't made this particular kind of commander. You haven't made this particular fact. It might be on a more theme level. And it might be bigger than that. But one of the things is when people ask, I want thing X, they have to understand that thing X

is in the conjunction of thing Y and thing Z. There's lots and lots of different desires out there. So first and foremost is the problem of, it is not as if, I know that when you ask for something, it is the most important thing. It's the thing that defines, like, for example, how you play Magic might be a certain way, and the kind of decks you like might be a certain thing. So it might be, oh, well, in my Magic experience, in the way that I play Magic, this is crucial. This is affecting me, and I play magic, this is crucial.

This is affecting me, and I would like to see this fixed. And it is not, one of the things I want to explain today is, it's not as if when someone says to that, that I don't listen, or I don't believe, or that I don't want to long-term try to see if we can solve the problem. But this idea that it is the most pressing thing for the player doesn't necessarily mean it's the most pressing thing for us. Because, like I said, there are so many other millions, not millions, hundreds and hundreds

of requests that we're dealing with. The other thing, by the way, is Wizards, I have my own priorities that I have to worry about. Yes, yes, yes, I want to make the players happy. I firmly believe that part of my job is doing things that...

I want you to buy magic, not because you feel forced to buy magic, but because you want to buy the game. That you're excited about what we're making. That you're interested in having fun playing it. That's my job, is to make you want to buy. And part of that is listening to the audience and doing things the audience wants. That's a big part of it. That's not the only part

of it. A lot of times we come up with the cool things that no one's asking for, but we think they're cool things. Just because no one's asking for it, you know, players tend to ask for things that they can think of. And there's a lot of things that we might do that no one would think to ask for because we've never done it before. You know, no one was asking me ask for because we've never done it before. You know, no one was asking me for double-faced cards before we made double-faced cards. No one was asking for hybrid mana before I made hybrid mana. No one was asking for split cards before we split it. You know, whenever we innovate and do something different, like, no one was asking for sagas before we made sagas. Like, pick anything that people really liked that was just

kind of different. People tend to ask for something that they can recognize that's not there, but things that are a little more out of the box tend not to get asked for. Sometimes they do, but usually they don't. So A, not only am I trying to do things that I know players are telling me they want, I also want to find and do things that I think players would like, even though they're not asking for it because they don't know to ask for it. Another big thing is there's lots of logistic issues and lots of, like, you all don't have to worry about how we do something, but we have to worry. So I'll give an example of a request and just go a little deep into understanding the concept of it.

So one of the real common requests when Thorn of Eldraine came out was, oh, the seven dwarves should have had seven different pieces of art. That would have been awesome. And first let me say, yeah, that would have been awesome. But what might seem awesome in a vacuum, like there's logistics.

Like on our end, okay, well, I mean, first off, we have to have thought of it. I don't know whether we thought of it or not. So part of it is, it might be a cool idea, but we didn't think of it, we didn't think of it. The second thing is, in the case of The Seven Dwarves, is, okay, so the way we do alternate art, we've occasionally, like, for example,

Unstable had alternate art. Thawne Empires. We've had a bunch of different sets over the years that have had more than one piece of art for a card. The way that works is, there's so many cards that will show up on a sheet. And then you can take the extra ones and you can print extra copies of the cards there.

and you can print extra copies of the cards there. Now, there are so many cards that appear on a sheet. And if you know ahead of time you want to do multiple arts, you can look to try to change the sheet. The problem with something like Unstable, I had a not normal amount of cards, which gave me a little bit more flexibility than normal. And part of the reason we had a not normal part of cards was so we could accommodate the additional art. Meaning it was baked into the way the set size and all the card choices we made was the idea that we're doing alternate art and stuff.

So we were able to accommodate it because we were able to bake that in. The problem with a standard legal set is it's more locked in. We have 101 commons, we have 53 uncommons, I'm sorry, we have 80 uncommons, we have 53 rares, we have 15 mythic rares. So one of the problems with the way we print commons is there are not seven copies between the common sheets. There are not seven copies between the common sheets. They're not seven copies of the card. And so what that means is if we wanted to do seven dwarves, meaning each one have their own art, we'd have to change our sheets. And for a standard legal set in which drafting is a big part of, like, that's a big ask. That is not a minimal ask. Like I said,

Unstable did some shenanigans ahead of time because we knew we wanted it, but we also, A, it was an Unstable legal set, and B, we did not have a normal set site, so it gave us a room to fit a little more than normal. And even if you go back to something like Fallen Empires, where we had additional art, that was just, well,

this is how many times the card appeared at the time on the sheets. Well, okay, each card that appears on the sheet, we can give a different piece of art. So, for example, let's say we wanted to have seven dwarves have seven pieces of art. That means we need to have the seven dwarves show up seven times. Okay, well, a couple things have to happen to make that happen.

Either we have to, well, the most likely thing we would do is we would just print more than the normal number of seven dwarves. So what that would mean is the seven dwarves would now show up more often than a common, a normal common, that it would show up at a higher frequency. And we have to replace that somewhere. Some cards that we're printing have to come off. So what that means is we'd have to choose some other cards and those commons would appear slightly less than average than the other commons.

Now, there are other factors, too, that I'm not getting into as far as we only get, for example, so many art. And so we have a certain amount of allocations toward art. And we have some flexibility so we can figure out where we want to do.

And the point is, if we want to get six extra pieces of art for the dwarves, yeah, we can do that, but it comes from somewhere. There's six other pieces of art used somewhere that we wouldn't have. Maybe we, you know, maybe we make a few less tokens or double up on the tokens so we can use the same token card. I mean, there's tricks

we do to sort of buy ourselves the art. But the idea of, oh, this would be cool, okay, yes, but there's a lot of logistical things that come into it. And so the idea is, we could come up with a cool idea, look and see what it would take to execute on the idea, and go,

oh, well, is it that cool an idea that it's all this problem? And sometimes, sometimes maybe it is, and sometimes it's like, eh, I don't think that's that awesome that the amount of impact it's going to have is worth that. So sometimes people ask for stuff, you know, like I said, when people ask for stuff, it falls into a couple different categories. Number one is, yes, we could do that, but we need to find the right time and place for it. I'll get to that in a second. Number two is, I don't know if we could do that. Maybe we could do that, but we need to find the right time and place for it. I'll get to that in a second. Number two is, I don't know if we could do that.

Maybe we could do that, but it would require the right environment to make it happen. You know, it's situational whether that could be. And number three is, logistically speaking, unlikely that that could happen. That is asking for something that is not normally how we do magic. And so without some significant change, it's hard to do. So for example, let's talk about all three of those categories. Okay, so the first category is something in which it's doable. You know, it's just a matter of finding the right time and place.

is it's just a matter of finding the right time and place. And the issue there is, even if you give us, say, I want to do thing X, and I go, yeah, we can do thing X, having the right set come along that is thing X could take a while. My example there is, in original Mirrodin, I created the energy mechanic. But it didn't fit.

We had to take it out. I'd made too much. It was overstuffed. We had to take it.. I'd made too much. It was overstuffed. We had to take it. We took the energy out. I liked the energy mechanic. I thought the energy mechanic was fun. It was good. It was flavorful.

I wanted to do it. So this is not just a random request from a player. This is I, in the act of making a magic set, found a mechanic, liked the mechanic, believed the players would like the mechanic, and wanted to find a home for it. So there's not as much, like, okay, that's about as good as you can ask of something, that the head designer is eager to find a home for this mechanic.

And, you know, because I thought it would be well-liked. It took me over a decade to find the right home. So what that means is, sometimes it's a great idea, but we still have to find the right home for it. Just because something is, this is cool, we have to find the right place. And there's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes. Like a lot of times when you look at something in the vacuum and go,

I really like thing X. This could have been thing X. Well, the thing that you're displacing, what is that thing? What was it doing? Did it have some role in the set? Is it part of a cycle? Is it something, you know, did play design make the card for the environment?

The idea that, well, you could have just eliminated this thing that I don't care about to put this thing I do care about. Well, maybe that thing you don't care about had a role or was doing something. Or maybe, you know, another big thing that we have to worry about is we have to build sets so that we think about what comes before them and what comes after them. So, for example, if I'm working on set F,

all our sets are codenamed alphabetically based on sports right now. Okay, well, what's in D and E? What's in G and H? You know g and h you know i have to care about what is before and after it so that i i want to make sure that i'm setting things up correctly and i want to make sure you know like so when i put out a set i want to make sure there's cards in the set that go into decks you already have built i also want to make sure that i'm making cards that one day um well i'm making cards that'll make you want to make new decks, and I'm making cards that maybe aren't perfect right now, but one day, based on the upcoming

stuff we're going to make, might really, you know, I'm laying in foundations for something, so later we can make something that will play well. And I mean, that is something that the average player, I mean, you guys, I mean, maybe when a the average player I mean you guys maybe when a set comes out you're aware of what came before it but you're not aware of what comes after it so there's a lot there so even if you give me a suggestion for something that fundamentally yeah

I'd like to do that and a lot of the suggestions are like that's a great idea another one that came up for a long time for example was a blue red legendary creature that cared about artifacts so um for commander obviously um and players were like oh oh you know we want this and we like it was a trying to find a place and a time for it um you know kaladesh came around and

we didn't have one and they were like what do you mean you know this is an artifact world and blue and red are the colors that play into artifacts and like how did you not make this and the answer was oh the slot does the red blue slot went to saheeli which was a planeswalker which thematically was playing in similar space it was a an art an artifact themed character that she was the face of the box but she sort of gobbled up our red blue slot and we didn't have a legendary creature you know and it's very easy to say oh well just instead

of Saheeli make that like she was the face of the box like she was a very important part of the ad campaign and you know like it's not just like oh instead of that now we eventually made it we made it when we got to Dominaria. We were very conscious with Joyra to make Joyra a really good blue and red artifact. I mean, she was historic, so it was more than just that.

But anyway, I know a lot of times when it seems like, oh, this seemed like the obvious thing. But just because it's something we want to do, just because it's something that we will find a place for eventually, there are a lot of factors going on. There are a lot of things we have to worry about. And I get it. I get it when your priority is this, and you're like, nothing else is important to me. Sure. Like, yes, this set would clearly do that because that's my number one priority. But it is not our number one priority.

Yes, we're trying to find places for it. Yes, we want to do things players want, but we need to find the right home for it. And as my energy story goes, look, it can take a while. And, and, and, remember, we work, or I work, years ahead of time. So, for example, let's say someone told me something and I thought it was an amazing idea and I wanted to put it into the very next set I got my hands on. That's still a two year wait. You know, there's still a gap there. So beyond that, like a lot of times I find it funny. Someone like asked me about something and they start getting

mad. They don't see it within the context of a couple of months. And I'm like, if I did it the second I saw your very first message, if the first message, I go, that's an amazing idea. I'm going to put it right in the set I'm working on right now. We are a long time from you ever seeing it. So like the idea that you ask me something and then get mad in a few months when it doesn't happen. I'm like, it couldn't even happen that fast if I wanted it to happen that fast. doesn't happen. I'm like, it couldn't even happen that fast if I wanted it to happen that fast.

Okay, second category is things that I don't know if they can work, but maybe in a very situational play. So an example there would be Vanilla Matters. We made a card in Future Sight that was Vanilla Matters.

The petroglyphs. The Muraganda petroglyphs. And the idea is it rewards you for having creatures that have no text on them. Now, I did an entire podcast on why Vanilla Matters is problematic. So you can go listen to that if you want the extensive answer. But the reality is, it is just, we are not going to make a magic set where we just put lots and lots of vanilla creatures in it. we are not going to make a magic set where we just put lots and lots of vanilla creatures in it. We put a few in, but vanilla creatures, I mean, for those that ever played Portal,

our intro game from way back in, we had made a game that was a lot of vanilla creatures. And it was fine as an intro game to teach people how to play, but, you know, if you're playing on a portal, you're like, okay, I'd like to do more than just attack or block. I mean, there's a lot, attack and blocking, there's a lot of nuance there. But anyway, in order to's a lot of nuance there. But, anyway,

in order to make a Vanilla Matters work, we would need an environment where there was a lot of extra things, not just Vanilla creatures, because there's only so many Vanilla creatures you can put in the set. We need, the set needs to have depth and replayability, and there's a lot of things.

A little bit of Vanilla helps us. A lot of Vanilla just causes us problems. It just sort of waters down the set because you get less themes and things if you have too many vanilla creatures. But could there come a day where it's a morph set because morphs

are faced on tutus that don't have any text on them. It's a morph set that has a strong token theme. Could there be a world that we make one day where the stars align and maybe Vanilla Matters could be, I doubt

it would be the major theme, but a sub-theme. Maybe. I'm not going to say it can never happen, but I will say, the reason it's in the second category is it is unlikely to happen without the stars aligning without now i keep in the back of my mind if i ever work on a set where it's like oh i have a morph token set and okay well i the here's something people have been asking for forever and it would make sense here you know there's definitely

times where i know people have asked for stuff or some some minority people have asked for stuff and I I just find the right environment that's the place where we can do that and you know I keep a list basically of what everybody asked for I know what what it is that players want I talk I mean the reason I'm on social media all the time and I answer all my

questions my blog is I want to hear from people I want to hear what they have to say and it is questions on my blog is, I want to hear from people. I want to hear what they have to say. And it is, there is a large volume of things. And like I said, this category, some things are

narrow. And I think when people ask for things, they don't always necessarily understand how narrow they are. It's a big difference between imagining something, because when you imagine something, you just imagine the perfect scenario. Well, we could have this, this, this, and this. But from the actual, when you're trying to make something, there are a lot of parameters we have to work under. trying to make something, there are a lot of parameters we have to work under.

Some parameters I explained to you guys, some are, you know, things that are important behind the scenes, but not really the kind of things we elucidate on, you know. There's just a lot of factors that go into making something. And so what I find sometimes when people ask for things, it's like, well, just do this. And the just do part is, yeah, but I can't. There's things I got to do that sort of contradict that. So the third thing is sometimes people ask for something that sort of contradicts something that's inherently to how we do things. to how we do things. And those requests are the hardest because now magic changes,

the pendulum swings. It is not as if there's not a lot of, there's flux in magic. So what today could be a no might tomorrow not be a no. And there are things that if you had asked me when I first started working on magic, almost 24 years ago, if you had said to me, okay, will you ever do Thing X?

I might go, no, Thing X, that's crazy. And now I look back and I go, maybe we would have done Thing X. There's a lot of things that we have done that I didn't think we would have done, you know, like looking back. So even the no's on some level are no for now. So like sort of the yes, yes is the maybes and the no's. The other thing sort of to keep in mind is we do a lot of market research. So there's a whole bunch of ways for us to collect information about our audience.

We obviously have sales data. We have digital data. So when people play on any of our digital, you know, Magic the Gathering Arena or Magic Online, we collect data from that. We have organized play data. So, um, we can, um, you know, look at what people are playing and how people are playing and what they're playing. Um, we have, uh, some other data from stores. We have data we can get from social media. There's different data scraping stuff you can do. We do surveys.

We do market research. We collect market research so we find our stuff from that. So we have a lot of data and a lot of stuff we're working with. And so a lot of times when players ask for something, like one of the things that I'm,

so let me talk a little bit about when I get information, what I'm looking for as far as, so the idea is somebody suggests something. I'm going to file that away. The real question is how I approach it. So the thing that I always try to figure out is, number one, how widespread, like, how many people want this?

How big a request is it? Is it this one person wants it? Is it a small group wants it? Is it, you know, a lot of players? The first thing I need to figure out when I get a request is, how universal is the request? The biggest way that I can figure it out is not by any one request. It's by, like I joke in R&D that my blog is sort of a barometer.

And that when something becomes an issue, the reason I know it's a big issue is not because one or two people ask. It's because many people ask. Now remember, like for example, sometime, sometimes soon as recording this and it might have already happened. Um, I'm about to pass half a million unanswered questions on my blog. So I think I've answered over a hundred thousand questions so far. Um, but even though I've answered over a hundred thousand questions, there's still like 500,000 questions that I haven't answered. Um, just cause I get a lot of questions. Um, so I get a lot of input and that, although I don't answer every question, I try, I try to read as many as I can. I don't always get to read every question

because the pure volume sometimes, uh, uh, eludes me being able to see it all, but I do read as many questions as I can. So even though I don't answer all the questions, I read a lot more questions than I answer. And I get a sense of what players are asking for. So now give it, let me give the caveat of my blog is not a great

example of the Magic base as a whole. It is a good sampling of the enfranchised Magic base. What I mean by that is enfranchised means players that are very active in the game and active in the community. The enfranchised crowd

is a small part of Magic. They're an important part of Magic. A, you guys buy a lot of cards, so you're a bigger representative than your size because you're the most adamant things. And from a social media standpoint, you are what they call the tastemakers.

You are the people that talk the loudest and really communicate stuff. And if you are excited, it gets the rest of the player base excited. There's a lot of trickle down from the enfranchised players. So for example, when we made Dominaria, one of the concerns that they had was we hadn't

been to Dominaria in like 13 years. And so the average player had never been in Dominaria. The average player plays like 10 years. So the average player had never been in Dominaria. And there was a lot of concern in the building that said, oh, no, I mean, I know we are excited by this, but are we making a world that most players go, I have no idea what that world is. And I said, no, no, no, here's what's going to happen. The enfranchised players have been playing longer. They do remember Dominaria. They will be excited by Return to Dominaria, and they are, through their excitement, are going to excite others around them and create what we call a halo effect, which is players will get excited, not because they themselves are excited, not that they remember Dominaria, but man, the Magic community will get excited not because they themselves are excited, not

because they remember Dominaria, but man, the Magic community is so excited, I should be excited! And it's exactly what happened. That's what I predicted would happen, exactly what happened, where the people that knew Dominaria and that were rightfully excited because they remember Dominaria created such a large excitement because they are the franchise players and they are the loudest voice of the community that it just got the whole community

excited because they're like, the people I turn to to look to who tell me what to think about magic, they're really excited. So you know what? I'm really excited. And that's why the franchise crowd is super super important. That's why I spend a lot of time talking to you guys.

Also, to be fair, you're the guys that talk to me. But there's a nice payoff there. Okay, so I've got to figure out about how, first off, how big of a desire is this? What portion of the audience is talking about this? How big a thing is it? The bigger the better. The more people want something, the higher the priority I'll give it.

Second thing has to do with how easy it is to do. Then this is the buckets. The yes, maybe, to no. Where is this on the spectrum, if you will? Instead of three buckets, maybe think of it as a spectrum. Where on the spectrum is it? Is this something that we, yeah, we need to find the right home for, but we could easily do. Or, ah, it's going to require some work.

Or, man, oh, man, oh, man, this is, I just don't see this happening. You know, where is it there? And the easier it is to do, you know, the more it is something we'd be likely to do, just the higher priority it has. That doesn't mean a bigger ask is not something that'll get on the list. It just means we got to find the home for it. And the harder it is to find the home for, you know, the more, like,

the lower it gets, you know, the more it gets to the end of the spectrum of, I don't think we'll do this, you know, or the harder it is to do. It just means, yeah, I'll look, I'll look around if I find it. But like Vanilla Matters is a great example of, will we ever do Vanilla Matters? Maybe. I just got to find the right set for it. And it's not that we'll never do it. And people ask me about it. It's not that I'm trying to say we'll never do it. But what I am saying is it requires

a very specific environment. Maybe one day we'll stumble across that. I'm trying to say we'll never do it. But what I am saying is it requires a very specific environment. Maybe one day we'll stumble across that. I'm not saying we won't. But I don't know that we will. And so that is another issue when I get requests is, you know, trying to prioritize it based on how likely is it a thing to be. Now, the other thing to notice, by the way, is another difference in the spectrum is the stuff on the yes side of the spectrum is,

look, a lot of sets can do this. This is the kind of thing that magic sets do. Where the stuff that gets more on the maybe to the no side of things is like, this is not normal magic. This requires things to be different. Okay, so let me talk about a different request and explain it against this thing. Okay, so one of talk about a different request and explain it against this

thing. Okay, so one of the requests I'm getting on my blog is people that want more non-humanoids. So, they want more non-humanoids and specifically the request is a world filled with non-humanoids.

That's the request. And basically what's been explained to me is there's people that they really, it's the not people that they connect to. And they'd be excited to see a world where it's more just, you know, not humans or human-like things. Now, we've done one non-human world,

which was Lorwyn slash Shadowmoor. Other than that, I think humans have showed up in every other world. One of the reasons that humans show up in so many worlds is because the players are human. And as science has shown, people are very, people connect to things that remind them of themselves. That's human nature. So, you know, we have a lot of different things we're trying to do. We have a lot of diversity issues and all sorts of stuff where we want to show a lot of people and let people see and recognize themselves.

So humans are important in that regard. And that they really make it more accessible. And we've done research on this. We've done research on this. You know, we've done research talking about what people like as far as human and humanoid and non-human. For example, we've done a lot of testing with our planeswalkers, because planeswalkers are very important to us. And what we've found is the farther away you get from non-human, the farther away you get from human,

the less likely the non-human, the farther away you get from human, the less likely the non-enfranchised players are. What that means is, if I'm coming to the game and I'm looking at your characters to see whether or not I'm going to play your game and get connected to your game, the more the main characters are

human, the more likely I'm going to go, yes, I like those characters. And the more they're not human, the more I go'm going to go, yes, I like those characters. And the more they're not human, the more I go, oh, what's that? Now, as you get into the enfranchised players, what we found is, as you get to know the characters, their popularity goes up. I will give two examples. When Lorwyn first came out and we tested the five Lorwyn planeswalkers, Ajani was a distant fifth, for those that care. I believe it went Jace, Chandra, Liliana. So Jace was the highest by a bit.

Chandra was up there, a little behind Jace, but up there. But very well. Liliana did well, just not as good as Jace or Chandra. Garrett did decently, and Ajani did poorly in their initial thing. But what we found is, as we slowly build up a relationship

with the audience with Ajani, and had the audience start to understand and learn who Ajani is, the enfranchised players have come to really love Ajani. So, non-humanoid characters, with time and attention, we can slowly build up some of that.

Note, Ajani is still humanoid. He's not non-human. So even then, we're working within the non-human space, the humanoid non-human, not the non-humanoid. So what we found is, and the other case is Tamiyo. Tamiyo originally tested very poorly. She's a moon folk. But as people got to know

Tamiyo and learn her as a character, she became more popular within the franchise crowd because they started to really care for the character. So what that means is we've made a conscious choice with our planeswalkers to... We do a lot of human planeswalkers, and we do a decent amount of humanoid planeswalkers.

We really haven't done a lot of non-humanoid planeswalkers. We've done a little bit. We've got two dragons. I do believe... I mean, the planeswalkers have to be sapient. So, I mean, I do believe one day we'll do a Sphinx or a Centaur. I mean, there's, there are other sapient races

that aren't exactly human shaped, although once again, like a Centaur has human qualities to it, but I do think as time goes on, you will see us doing more, I mean, we will eventually get to some more non-humanoid, but once again they'll be sapient. So they will be

probably races from fantasy that people can equate with something that is smart and such. So anyway, so I get this request for non- humanoid world.

Okay, well let me walk through and sort of figure out the priorities for that. Number one is how many people are asking for this? Oh, I actually have data on this because we've been spending a lot of time on both Planeswalkers and some on Legendary Characters understanding what players like and don't like. The reason we spend some time on legendary characters

is we have commanders of format. It's popular. We're trying to understand, you know, when we make legends, what makes people happy and not happy. What we've found with legendary creatures is because we make more of them, we have a little more realm to play around a little bit.

For example, there's a lot more legendary non-humans than there are planeswalkers. Part of that is the legendary creatures don't always have to carry the weight of story, where planeswalkers do. And the identity for them is a little bit different. The idea of

the planeswalkers is their point of view characters. The creatures, well, some of them can POV. We will write stories from POV of some of them. A lot of them also are just sort of, they play a role in the story.

And it's easier to say, oh, it's this famous Hydra or something. We're not asking you to identify with the Hydra. Not that some people can't identify with the Hydra. Some people can. So anyway, non-humanoid world. I'm like, okay. That is not something a lot of people are asking for.

And it actually contradicts something we know that a certain audience feels comfortable with. And so we want to make a mix. Now, if someone had said, I want more non-human cards or non-human legendary creatures, that is something that's easier to act on. We do make some of those. We could make more of those.

So the idea is, okay, it's not a giant ask. Not a lot of people are asking for this. It's a smaller group. But the people who want it really want it. They're very passionate about it. If you read my blog, we go back and forth all the time on the issue. Okay, so the priority as far as how many people want it. Okay, it's a lower priority because it's not a big ask from a lot of players.

It's an ask from a minority of players. But once again, that doesn't make it that important. It's just I will prioritize things higher if the larger group that wants it. I will prioritize things higher if the larger group that wants it. Meaning if a lot of players really like something, it's easier to, you know, I will search harder to find the home for it than if a small group likes it. Just because, you know, for example, if I realize that like a majority of Magic players want something, that's just something like, okay, I should spend more time finding the home for that.

Okay, the next thing is the logistics. Okay, so what does it mean to have a non-humanoid world? Well, that's a big ask. So let me explain why. First and foremost, there's the self-identification stuff. But beyond that, let's talk a little bit about just general logistics. So when we build a world, we have to build a style guide. And what that means is we have artists come in for usually about three to four weeks. And, you know, we give them information about the world.

And then they visually build the world. Oh, well, you know, we're trying to do things. Like, for example, I'll take Throne of Eldritch because that's the one that's out right now. Okay, we're going to do things, like, for example, I'll take Throne of Eldritch, because that's the one that's out right now. Okay, we're going to do an Arthurian slash fairy tale set. What does that mean? Well, before they got there, they had figured out the idea of the courts. Like, okay, we have five courts, and what do the inhabitants of each court look like? And what does the court itself look like?

And, you know, how do people dress for each of the courts? And how do they, what kind of weapons do we have? And then as we get into some of the fairy tale stuff, what do the fairies of this world look like? What do the giants look like? You have to start mapping out stuff because we have a look and feel. But there's a finite amount of material they can spend.

There's only so much they can do to build the world. So one of the ways we help them is not everything in the world is from them is not everything in the world is from scratch. Not everything in the world is, you've never seen this before. So the reason, for example, that humans beyond the self-identification issue, which is a separate issue, the other reason

that humans are very important to us from a logistical standpoint is the artists know how to draw humans. If I say to them, oh, it's a princess in the forest or something, for Throne of Eldraine, okay, well, you know what, I mean, maybe you have to look and figure out,

you know, what would the princess dress like here, or, you know, what do the woods look like? I mean, there might be a little bit of understanding something about the nature of the world, but you got, oh, it's a human. And one of the reasons, for example, we have a lot of humanoids that are similar to humans. You know, our elves, a lot of our elves are like humans but with pointy ears.

And, you know, we definitely have races that are like, the core aren't too far. I mean, they're white-skinned, but they're not too far from looking human. And then you have stuff like the Vidalican where, okay, they're stretching a little more. There's some human qualities of the Vidalcan, but they can have four arms and the shape of their head is a little different. You know, like, there is a range.

And one of the reasons that we have humans on our world is it makes it a lot, we have to build the world and it makes it a lot easier to have some shorthand. The other thing is

we understand what a world shaped for humans looks like. For example, let's say I'm building a house. I get a short house a lot. I understand what a door looks like for a human. Why? Because I'm a human and I interact with doors all the time.

But let's say we made a world that was non-humanoid creatures. And then, you know, we have to start, like, are we trying to make sapient things? Are we trying to and then you know we have to start like are we trying to make sapient things are we trying to make you know okay well you if you start taking away like base assumptions because you don't know things then you have to solve that and it becomes a lot more problems i'm going to have so another thing of having a sort of a non-humanoid world is what does it mean now once again i'm not saying this isn't something we could solve if we have the right world where it makes sense to do that. And part of the right world means

there's something about the world that is a known thing, so maybe it's not humans, but something else that's known enough that the artist gets, oh, I understand what we're doing here. I know what I need to do. So when I'm ranking the non-humanoid world,

hey, that is a big logistical ask. The other thing, by the way, also has to do with the scope of the ask. So for example, if you say, I want a non-humanoid creature. Very easy for us to do. We do that every set. I want a non-humanoid legendary creature. Okay.

Still doable. Requires a little bit of work to figure out in this world why is something famous enough that it's, you know, is it a beast that's famous or Hydra? I mean, what exactly is it? It's a doable thing. But, you know, it requires a little bit more work.

Next you say, I want a cycle of legendary non-humanoids. Next you say, I want a cycle of legendary non-humanoids. Okay, well now I've got to understand in the context of the world how exactly that is. And then if I say, okay, I want there to be a faction

and the entire faction's non-humanoid. Okay, well I've got to... You can keep making it bigger and bigger and the more scope you have to it, the more issues that come with it. So when someone says to me, I want a whole world of non-humanoids, what I'm saying is you are asking for a very large scope ask. And the larger the scope, just the harder it is to do. You know, I want a little tiny change, not so hard to do. I want to fundamentally change the essence of how you build something.

And what I'm asking would make it harder for you to do it in a way that requires extra resources or, you know. Once again, not that we wouldn't do it, but that is a big ask. And so, you know, the more unpopular the ask, the more difficult the ask, and the larger the scope of the ask, that just gets it more on the spectrum of it less likely to be made. Now, once again, I'm trying to stress again, there might be a cool idea that a minority of people really like that the right world comes around like, bam, okay, we're doing it. But

just because a small percentage of players want a world filled with non-humanoids, that doesn't mean it's easy or something that I immediately will do. And the other thing that's on my blog is a lot of times, I am trying to give the audience an appropriate gauge of the essence of the idea. And so sometimes what happens is someone will ask for something and they'll say, oh, I don't expect to do that. And what I'm trying to say is that's hard to do. That is, you know, some combination of unpopular, difficult, and large in scope.

And it's like, oh, okay, that's a harder thing to do. And what I'm trying to, I mean, I'm just trying to be honest with you of what the chances of something are. I never, like, one of my sayings in my blog is, I never say never. There's things I thought we would never do, and we did. So, you know, do I think we're going to do a Vanilla Matters set anytime soon? I don't.

Would we ever? Maybe. But I'll be honest, when I am in, like, when I talk about it, it is just a very big ask with a very big scope. And I'm not sure if the people asking for it understand that. I try to explain why it is. I try to sort of walk them through the nature of why it's so, so hard to do. But anyway. So that is the nature. That is when I talk about having the priority problem is my priorities,

the priorities of Wizards are based on factors over and above just what the players are asking for. Everything the players are asking for is something we think about. Oh, the other thing I didn't really get into is there is a little bit of problem of contradiction. Like, player A wants thing X and player B wants thing Y, and thing X and Y can't coexist, which means at best they can't be done in the same environment. Maybe they can't both ever be done. Maybe we have to choose one and not choose the other I didn't really get into that sometimes the ask, part of the logistics or the scope has to do with it's contradiction against

other things that players have been asking for and so one of the harder things that people ask for is don't do something is a much bigger ask because that implies that that thing isn't being done and normally there's people who are you know, when you say no humanoids and I have other people saying, hey, I want to see more racial

representation of where I'm from. Those are very contradictory that, you know, it's very hard to sort of expand stuff and do that at the same time. So it just that's where it tricky. Anyway, the whole goal of today's podcast is I want you to understand that when you are asking something, I get that it is your priority. I understand that it is something that is very important to you, the person asking me. I am not trying to belittle that it is a priority for you. What I'm trying to get you to understand and the whole point of today's podcast is what is your priority seldom is my priority. Partly because I'm asked for so many things from so many different players that even if I just said, okay, forget wizard's priorities, let's just talk about player priorities. If I take everything asked of players and I put them in order,

only hundreds and hundreds of asks, only one's on top. So even then, even just prioritizing only the player's requests, I have to prioritize them. And so all but one is not the top priority. And then laid on top of that is the priorities of wizards. So, I mean, when I talk about the priority problem, what I mean is I get it's your priority. And then laid on top of that is the priorities of Wizards. So, I mean, when I talk about the priority problem, what I mean is I get it's your priority. You have to

understand that it's most likely not my priority. And I am constantly looking for places to take what players want and put them in the sets. I do that. There's not a set that goes by where I don't find something that has been asked

to try to get it in and I'm not the only one you know set design, play design like all down the spectrum they're also trying to find opportunities they also are reading social media and talking to players and trying to understand what players want so and people come to me all the time hey we're doing thing X

you talk to the players in this area what were they like? And sometimes I sneak in questions to all of you. If you notice, I'm constantly asking questions on my blog. Now, to hide the ones that matter, I ask all sorts of questions. So not all of them in any one moment matter. Although, all the data of things I ask, the head-to-heads, every time I'm asking questions, I'm collecting data.

Even if that data is not immediately relevant, I read it and take it in mind for future. So that is the point of today's podcast, is I hear you. I hear you want something. I respect that you want something. I will look and try to find a place for that thing. But A, it is not always, I have to find the right place for it.

That can take time. B, there's a lot of requests and a lot of different desires out there. It can take a while because of that. And C, sometimes your priority is a lower priority for us for multiple reasons. And, you know, it might take forever. It might never happen. You know, that there's so many players asking for so many different things. I, all of them are not going to happen. You know, I try to, like I said, I try to do as many as I can.

I'm very conscious of being aware of what players are asking for. I am out there because I want to know. And if anything, this is not to say to you, please don't ask for things. I want you to ask for things. I want to know what it is that you, as a player, want. I want to know your priorities.

I'm just trying to say that me wanting to know your priorities doesn't make it my priority. It makes it something that I can then prioritize and figure out where and how to do it. But anyway, that's the real point of today's podcast is to get you to understand that I hear you. I never, and when I explain on my blog, by the way, why something is hard to do or why I'm skeptical that we'll do it, that doesn't even mean I don't stick it on the list as something maybe one day we could do if the stars align. It's just me trying to be honest. Like when I talk to the public, I want to sort of be upfront about, hey, that's a great idea. You know, yes, I think one day we'll do that. Or,

ooh, that's tricky. Maybe, but here's why it's tricky. You know, here's why Vanilla Matters is a really hard thing to do. I will record a better podcast about why it's a really hard thing to do. That doesn't mean if the stars align that I wouldn't be willing to do. I will record an entire podcast about why it's a really hard thing to do. That doesn't mean, if the stars align, that I wouldn't be willing to do it. But I need the right environment to do it. And with something like Vanilla Matters, it's just complex. Also, another thing to keep in mind, like with the Seven Dwarfs ask, is I know that we, I mean, well, I will talk about logistics from time to time. I mean, part of the goal

of my blog and this podcast and my article is I want to get you guys to have an understanding of some of our concerns and, but,

I don't get into all of our concerns. There are a lot of things that are not, you know, that are knee deep in the mud that just aren't particularly interesting,

but nonetheless are things that I have to care about. I and R&D have to care about. And I don't want, you know, I don't need you to concern yourself with collation or artist availability or art waves or digital execution or whatever. I mean, there's infinite issues that we have to deal with.

There's infinite things that we have to deal with. There's infinite things that we have to deal with. And I explain a lot of them. I don't explain all of them. Some of them are not the most exciting topics. But they are something I need to care about. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed today's podcast. My goal of it was to try to get you to understand and just answer the question of,

I've been asking this forever. Why haven't they done it? That might be why we haven't done it, is that I get it. I know you want it. I feel for you. When I can, I will try to make things happen that I know players want.

But I am trying to make a lot of players happy. Uh, and I have a lot of restrictions and a lot of logistics to deal with. So, um, the thing that might seem super obvious and how did we not do it there? There's reasons why we didn't do it there. Even if, um, even, even if you don't quite understand all the reasons, I mean, even if you don't quite understand all the reasons. I mean, not that you should. Some of them are not things that you know. But that is why the things you want,

that you've been asking forever, might not have happened yet. And that is, my friends, is a priority problem. So anyway, I'm just about to drive into work. I hope you guys enjoy. I've been trying to do a little bit more of these because I'm almost 700 podcasts in here. So I'm always looking for more material and I've done all the obvious things.

So one of the things I've been trying to do more podcasts on is topics that have come up like on my blog and stuff where people are talking about some issue. And this was a little more of a meta one than a specific topic. But one of the things that's very interesting

is it's a very normal dynamic where a player asks for something very nicely, very sweetly and then they ask and then as time goes on, they get more and more upset that it hasn't happened yet and like I said it's funny that often that time frame they get upset

like even if the very first time they said it, I'd done it, it wouldn't have been done yet because of our timeline. So I thank you all for giving me your suggestions. I thank you all for letting me know what makes magic better for you. I want to know those things. And in as many cases as I can, I will apply those where I can to deliver stuff that you guys want.

But this podcast is sort of why not everything is done right away. So I hope you guys, I hope this helps and hope this was an interesting podcast for you. But I am now at work. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.