I don't know the portion either, but yes, it would be informative, because it would show how many non-tourney people would be affected by tourney rule changes. And thus how big the percentage of players this "worry" had been.
I'll just repeat that I'm talking about a categorical difference here. We don't know what percentage of players were affected by these changes, and the answer would vary depending on the extent to which something counts as affecting. But none of that matters as far as the qualitative difference is concerned. Because quantitative comparisons are virtually impossible here, I don't view them as being worth talking about.
There had been rule changes, but none really that affected the game play as a whole or cards as a whole.
I wish I still had a 4th Edition rulebook to make comparisons between 4th Edition rules and 5th Edition rules. But yes, there really were rules changes that affected the game. The 6th Edition changes were (basically) done all at once, which made them stand out a lot.
The first three game changes were implemented way within the first half-year maybe of the game's existance - the player base was still "small" and people were feeling out the game. By the time 6th ed rules came along, the game had been around for 6-ish years - the player base was much bigger and people had "settled" into a way of playing.
That's another difference between the early changes and the later ones. It's not one I was including in my interpretation. Maybe it should have been...
I do think it's a distinction, but how does it affect player disputation of game changes? What I mean is, the common element for these things is controversy or "outrage." Did the players complaining about changes while people were still feeling out the game have a better or worse case than players that were complaining when things were more settled? There are several possible interpretations for this. One could claim that if the players were complaining about the changes in the very early days, they didn't view themselves as uncertainly exploring the possibilities of a new game, still feeling it out. Or, conversely, one could claim that if players were complaining about changes in the very early days, they were being irrational, treating existing parts of the game as more established than they had a right to expect, what with how new the game was.
And I'll re-emphasize - the first three technically affected tourney players only, while 6th ed rule changes affected *everyone*, tourney and non-tourney alike. So yes, because the 6th ed rules affected a much larger player base as a whole, I'm going to term it "huge".
Wait, what? I'm afraid I don't see how the 4-card rule technically only affects tournament players, while 6th Edition rules changes affect everyone. That's extremely contrary to my experience. I was playing at the time of the 6th Edition rules changes. Essentially all of the players I knew were familiar with the 4-card rule (although they would not have known when the rule was established). And only a minority of them had heard of the stack, or batches, or LIFO, or whatever. It was too technical for them to care about. While I wouldn't go so far as to claim that all of those players were 100% unaffected by 6th Edition rules changes (after all, the rules changes informed the development of new cards, even for players that were ignorant of the rules changes), most decks these kids were building would function in exactly the same ways they always had. So the effect wasn't
that big of a deal (it would have mattered for players that, say, built decks around artifact-tapping, which I did see, but mostly games still worked the way they always had). But the 4-card rule affected everyone's deckbuilding.
Ah, true, but he doesn't use it in the intro to set it up, but rather in four individual examples. So is "worry" synonomous with "controversy" or is "controversy" just specific to the four examples?
I was thinking about doing this anyway, so I'll do it now. If the full "article is apparently too much, here...
1: "The player response was loud and
upset."
2: "Players were again
up in arms."
3: "The public reply to this news dwarfed any
complaint that came before it." "In the history of Magic announcements, this was the one that I think had the largest
outcry — which is impressive when you see some of the
controversies to come."
4: "The players
made such a stink that Wizards decided to stop producing mechanically unique cards outside of booster packs."
5: "The newer players who got the old cards were happy, but the older players who already had them
were not."
6: "Some players cheered the announcements but many others who were hoping the cards would be reprinted, to allow them to get some,
booed."
7: "While some players were excited by these new cards, others
became freaked out."
8: "Others, though,
hated it. Magic cards were already a challenge to collect. Why make it harder? Others didn't like how the premium cards looked and felt that
Magic was making a change it didn't need. The premiums went on to become rather popular, although they still have their
detractors to this day."
9: "It fundamentally changed the way the game was played and many of the established players
didn't like it one bit. They had spent years learning the game and weren't happy to have to relearn numerous aspects. After the introduction of Standard, I believe this change created the loudest
outcry from the public."
10: "The public reacted to
the news of Magic Online very skeptically. The plan to sell digital cards just like paper cards, and at the same price, seemed ludicrous. That's not how video games work. Some argued it would never work, while others feared it would keep players from playing in stores. The Internet was full of people explaining how it could never work and how they wouldn't ever play it. Eleven years later, it's still going strong."
11: "This change had a huge impact on how the cards looked and many players
objected to the shift. They felt the new layout had less of a fantasy feel and moved the game away from its roots. This was another
very loud outcry with many words written both in articles and on message boards."
12: "
Eighth Edition brought not one, but two
controversies." "Numerous players found the reminder text
offensive, as they saw it as yet another example of R&D catering to new players."
13: "Some players were excited by this new addition but other players
were unhappy. They
disliked that the new cards would be harder to get than other card types that each had cards in all — at the time — three rarities. They
disliked that they required you playing creatures. They
disliked that they were not that easy to understand."
14: " Many players
hated the idea of a new harder-to-collect rarity, even if it made other rarities easier to collect." "...but it is still a
hot-button topic."
15: "While this was a good thing for newer players, some of the established players
weren't so happy with the change."
16: "The reaction wasn't quite as strong as the last big rules change with Six Edition but it was
vocal, nonetheless."
17: "New World Order led to an
outcry from some players..."
18: "Some players felt the Magic back was a hard-and-fast rule that could never be broken, so the idea of cards without one
upset them greatly."
19: "The
outcry was fast and loud, coming from many of the top names of the Pro Tour, who
claimed the changes were detrimental to the entire organized play system."
20: "The latest
controversy happened just earlier this year, when the contents of
Magic 2014 were announced." "The mechanical change
was disliked, as many felt it contradicted the hive-mind feel of the Slivers. The new look
was disliked because it was felt to be too much of a departure from what some believed was one of the most unique and iconic creatures in Magic."
The essence of controversy, as Rosewater is applying the word, is disputation. Whenever he mentions controversy, the idea is that WotC made some change, and some portion of the playerbase complained about it. It's pretty common in list-like articles for a writer to use synonyms for the same concept, so as not to sound too repetitive. If he said, "X change happened and players complained about it" twenty times in succession, that would make for a dull read. Instead he uses variations on the same concept, like "freaked out" and "objected to the shift." These different words for the same concept can also add connotations. When he writes, "the outcry was loud and fast" he emphasizes the immediacy and extent of the complaining. And when he merely uses phrases like, "were unhappy" the item doesn't seem like it was quite as controversial as the other ones. But all twenty of his listed items invoke the same concept of players challenging a new development in the game.
That's pretty clear, right?
