Here is the first one in the PC gaming world. It is also the answer to a question that’s been brewing in the minds of fantasy role-playing game consumers for some time. It has officially been discovered by the world’s most popular card game of the RPG niche, is not yet on computers. Three college students tried to create the infrastructure for an MTG app, only to get stomped. These future professionals learned PC Motherboards, as of 2019, can’t handle Magic: The Gathering.
Gaming motherboards can’t process all the variables
Source: Tales of the Aggronaut
According to BallerStatus.com, the three students who tried to create the programming formula to make this gaming app happen are from the United States the United Kingdom. Alex Churchill, Stella Biderman, and Austin Herrick teamed together. All three are currently submerged in University studies with majors in the fields related to gaming and computers.
The road to finding results from their studies was not easy. The research team had to learn the game and its thousands of cards. There are approximately 15,400 unique playing cards in the collection. Therefore each card a ‘competitor 1’ can play, the reply of ‘competitor 2’ could be 1 of 15.4k options. Not only this, some cards in the deck are used to effect or cast a spell on other cards, which makes the variable actions even greater.
To make MTG happen on a computer, the formula a computer reads is all math. The PC gaming motherboard must run through all 15.4k card options in a split second, then, it is important to know it’s effects on all the other cards. If there is a spell being cast, it can multiply the variable possibilities by a lot more. The research team believes the total ‘possible plays’ are so numerous, not even a computer can make the best final decision. To do so without delaying the game to a point, consumers would not want to play, isn’t yet possible.
These factors make the game unstable for the digital world as of now. “Magic: The Gathering” is also much based around the idea of ‘collecting’ cards and building your deck. If on a computer, how would players do so? Perhaps it could lead to a real-time hunt with your phone, kind of like Pokemon Go? After collected on foot, you then play online? A lot of questions would have to be answered beyond even just the variables of plays the computer has to choose from.
World’s Most Complex Game
These findings from the three University students also made the team aware of another thing. MTG is the most complex game in the world, they believe. The unfathomable number of actions that can happen in a round of this role-playing game is a first. Not only does it stomp the pc gaming motherboard but it also seems to allude ‘math’ as well.
For now, fans of the RPG will have to continue stacking decks and carrying sets to play. Good old fashioned face to face play in a social circle that is standing by physically.
Watch the video below to see a live game of “Magic: The Gathering” being played, along with a ‘how to play’ tutorial for those wanting to learn. Over 2-billion cards have been printed worldwide. Millions of people play worldwide.
