Worldwake Maker Speaks!

by Bill Stark | posted at 2010-02-05 01:46:00
tagged: WOTC, MTG, Magic, Wizards, Wizards of the Coast, Magic the Gathering, Worldwake, WWK, Interview, Ken Nagle

 

R&D designer/developer Ken Nagle

(image copyright Wizards of the Coast)

 

 

For those who have met him, Ken Nagle is truly a Magic fanboy. A Wizards R&D member who can play all the angles, as a casual player, alternative format fan, and having competed on the Pro Tour, Ken was a Great Designer Search finalist, ultimately earning himself a full time position making Magic cards for a living. Since that time he has been applauded for his innovative take on Magic cards and his ability to design cards for players on the Pro Tour and those who are not. Worldwake marked his first set as the lead designer, and we sat down to chat with him by phone following the Prerelease this past weekend.

 

Bill: I think the first question on a lot of people's minds is how did you feel when you were told you were going to be lead designer on Worldwake, your first set as lead design?

 

Ken: Well, I was told I was going to lead a set by Mark Rosewater. It was a little early to give me a lead design position, but he said it was kind of a sink or swim, throw you in the water kind of thing. To see if you drown? So of course I was happy and ecstatic, but also very mortified that I was going to screw the game up beyond recognition. When I started working on Magic in general in the first place, I was just scared that everything I was going to do would wreck SOMETHING.

 

But since Mark Rosewater was on the team, kind of making sure that I actually didn't screw anything up too badly, I was covered.

 

Bill: So you had sort of a mentor in Rosewater?

 

Ken: A little bit, sure. Mark was very powerful at deciding there was too much of this or too little of that. How much multikicker is enough multikicker? How much landfall is enough landfall? Things like that, stuff that I have no idea. I'm more into just making cool cards, knowing about rarity distributions and what you need to make draft archetypes work.

 

Bill: Now when you say it was a little early for you to be lead design, you're referring to your career at Wizards? What do you mean exactly?

 

Ken: It just means how many other projects that I had been working on, that shipped, at Wizards of the Coast before they let someone take the reins of lead design.

 

Bill: Now that the set has gone all the way through production and has been released to the public, how do you feel the process went for your first time? Do you feel it was successful? Did you feel you learned things? What's your overall take on how things went?

 

Ken: I'm very proud of the work I did, that my team did and everyone else. I think I probably over did it. I probably over thought everything. I was thinking about Worldwake on the bus for five months straight, whenever I had free time. My brain was constantly thinking about it. "What was I going to do with this card slot?" "Would players like this particular card?" or "Is there a card I shouldn't be making?" things like that. It consumed all of my thought power for a very long amount of time.

 

I'm glad that it's released. Mark had a joke about Worldwake, "The cards are real, you aren't punked."

 

Bill: Do you feel that players' reactions are sort of true to that statement? That they're sort of shocked at some of the stuff that's been printed?

 

Ken: Yeah. One thing that's weird is that Worldwake is a full year old to me. It is old news, I guess. When I see player reactions to things like, especially the mythics in Worldwake which I worked very hard on, I get to see "Yeah, they are really splashy." Omnath, Locus of Mana is a very splashy card. The splashiness wears off on you after a full year, so it's nice to see that yeah, they ARE splashy. So it's nice to see that kind of reaction. It's kind of vindication? I'm not really sure what it is, just a job well done. You actually make the product for the player, you're not making Worldwake to prove how smart I am or that it was easy for me to make cards. You make it to make a better game, so players will play the game and hopefully that will make a better product that give us better sales and stock quota that makes this a good business.

 

Bill: Right. Would you say that you feel overall that the set was successful in your view? Or do you feel there were things that you fought for that you didn't end up getting?

 

Ken: I guess it's a very artistic thing, making a Magic set. Like a painting, or sculpture, or doing a movie. You could certainly sit there and endlessly tweak every little thing, but at some point you have to have pencils down. There are some things I would change from Worldwake than they are as printed. I guess you want some examples?

 

I suppose Mordant Dragon is an example. You can put firebreathing on a Dragon, or you can put firebreathing that's WORSE than what we normally put on a Dragon and it [the Dragon] will be less appealing because it looks like it has "bad" firebreathing, instead of "good" firebreathing. So that's an example of a card where I think if you just take the firebreathing off Mordant Dragon, you actually get a more appealing card. There are a specific number of players who look at cards with such scrutiny, like "It has 'bad' firebreathing,'" that would be enough for people to dismiss it. That's just one example.

 

Bill: You're saying that by having a card that's "good," and adding an ability for free that is not as powerful as similar like abilities, players value that card lower than they would if that ability wasn't on there? Is that what you're saying?

 

Ken: Yeah, it's called "poop text." That's what we call it. A great example is this Lorwyn rare, Wort, Boggart Auntie. She's a black and red legendary Goblin that returns a Goblin from your graveyard to your hand on your upkeep. She used to also have 4BR, sacrifice a red Goblin, sacrifice a black Goblin, sacrifice a Mountain, sacrifice a Swamp: return her from your graveyard to the battlefield. It used to have that ability, and it just reads like the most worst deal ever. But it is upside, it's not like you HAVE to do it. But it reads like such a terrible, terrible ability that the actual card just looks and feels worse.

 

So I think not all the poop text was cut from all the Worldwake cards.

 

Bill: Now were you able to gunsling this past weekend?

 

Ken: I was. I was in Denver with Scott Marshall, gunslinging alongside Conley Woods.

 

Bill: Tell us what it was like to interact with players playing with this product you had such a hand in creating for the first time.

 

Ken: The venue was actually totally smashed and overflowing, so I lost my gunslinging table for the first two hours. At some point we got our table back. At the Prerelease, no one has any Worldwake cards, so people got out of their flights and FINALLY I got to play against people with Worldwake cards. I got to play against their Sealed decks and stuff. It was nice that they were casting their cards, and people were multikicking their stuff up, just like I thought they would. I got to sign a bunch of cards too. When I play some card and they beat me with it, I have some cards that I designed in Worldwake and I'll actually sign cards for them if they want me to. That was nice to sign a bunch of cards.

 

Bill: Were there player reactions to cards that you saw that you weren't expecting or were different than what you were expecting?

 

Ken: So people really liked Terrastodon a lot more than I thought. It's a card I made, and I don't think many people in R&D liked it. It reads like this weird guy that goes Elephant on things and it's not actually something that you see often on cards. Like, blow up a thing make a guy. But it has downside on them and downside on you. Conley talked about how it was pretty cool in his Magic Christmasland Lotus Cobra deck. Stuff like that.

 

Bill: Most readers at home have never had their hand in developing or designing a Magic set. You're on the design side, for viewers those are the people who actually come up with the cards. The development team then takes the set from you and makes sure it's fair for competitive play. What's it like handing the set off to them?

 

Ken: So I actually do have development work. I've been on development teams, I was just on the M11 development team, for example. So I can speak a little bit about development. The line is quite blurry between design and development. It's all art and science all together. There's a lot of art in development and science in design. My lead developer was Mike Turian and I had some goals, like I said. It was important that multikicker was a mechanic that people enjoyed. I thought it was very important that people had man lands that people wanted to attack with, so we poured some sauce on them. I thought it was very important to make some good green cards. I'm a very big fan of green cards, so if people are playing with Leatherback Baloth, I don't see how Magic could be worse off. Mike Turian is a big fan of green cards, so we were particularly nice to green cards in Worldwake.

 

Mike Turian's very understanding. He can take my top line goals of a set, and basically hold to them. Of course he changes and kills tons of cards. A lot of my Trap cards were killed, except Stone Idol Trap, so I had to redo tons of cards based on development changes. But he was very good to work with, he was a nice lead developer. As I said, it was quite nicely developed.

 

Bill: Let's say it's five years from now, the Magic community is looking back on Worldwake, its impact, things like that. What are the things you hope we'll be able to say five years down the road?

 

Ken: I actually put this in my handoff to Turian. I said "What will players think?" I say "Darksteel" or anything like that, what do we remember? The name of the set is "World…Wake" so obviously the biggest thing you should remember is that it had those awesome man lands in it. That was the first thing. I also wanted there to be cool multikicker cards. That's why we pushed Comet Storm a whole lot, we even made it a mythic.

 

Those are the two biggest things that I said. We make so many cards, more than a card a day, so that the human brain can't remember them all. So when you get little bit-size thoughts about Darksteel, you think about Darksteel things like Darksteel Colossus. My top line goals for Worldwake? I wanted there to be man lands and multikicker. Five years from now, players' memories will be having fond memories of Worldwake.

 

Bill: So you've got your first lead design down. It's been relatively well received by the public. How do you feel about your prospects as a lead designer now? Will you be taking on more lead design projects down the road? Are there things you're already working on?

 

Ken: I'm currently the lead designer of Archenemy, which we'll release to the public this summer. That's all done, I'm very excited for that. I think we executed the product better than Planechase as far as how multiplayer, social gamers will enjoy this product. Fingers crossed, I'm really anticipating Archenemy coming out. I'm also currently lead designing "Action" from "Lights, Camera, Action" block. So I'm working hard on that as we speak.

 

Then I believe I have other lead design positions coming up. I was the lead designer for the Mo expansion for Duel Masters. I am the lead designer for an upcoming Duel Masters set that hasn't started design yet. You can tell me what type of good job or poor job I'm doing, but I am getting lead positions for products, so…

 

Bill: It clearly sounds like the people in charge think you're doing a good job?

 

Ken: Yeah, they throw it to me to the point where it's like "Okay, we have decided that your schedule will change like this so that you can lead this other project." They're trying to give me too much work. But I'm happy working there. I have a degree in computer science, a master's, and I programmed computers for six or some years. This is more fun than that, so I'm more than happy to keep doing it full time. Well, more than full time. I basically take whatever they'll throw at me.

 

Bill: Any closing thoughts or comments for readers at home?

 

Ken: I hope you enjoy Worldwake. I worked very hard on it. I tried the very best I can, and I work very hard to make the game awesome for all you players. You can drop me emails, I read all my emails, and just keep playing! And thanks a lot.

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