-+@ And I Love Your Company @+-

This is the weekend update as I end my Sunday. I wonder how people get to do all the boring facts of their lives and condense them into a blog... wait, I already do that with a boring subset of my life.

Anyways, I thought I'd do a spot check today to see where I am with CCG Workshop stuff. Two thirds of the month has gone past and I should at least have most of the things on my list done. Well, I didn't plan on taking up the Bronx Project at the beginning of the month and that has eaten into my time... so let's start with that first then.

Bronx project - it's the no frills version of a game I don't want to announce at the moment. It has all the basic draw card/play card/discard card already done and I did some work on it yesterday. I was suppose to put in the dice and markers today but life happened, so it'll be done sometime next week. I'm also waiting for Bug to load up the game onto the engine as alpha and to setup the directories on the server so that I can see that everything works on the engine. Anyways, it should go public beta by the end of the month.

Portable adventures is the other thing I have to "finish" up by the end of the month. All I need to do are the pass and the next buttons for the adventure phase. I don't know why I dread that but I do. The other 3 things - Linda, stuff card with rolls, stuff card with bonus CP is really optional I guess. It's a pity I'm a bit burnt out on the game. I really should get into it a bit more to get my enthusiasm up to code.

The MND update for this month was done early on. The 50 card Elder's Legacy custom is all on the engine and I think the text would be as final as they can get. I'll probably announce that the set is finished on the anniversary of CCGW in November. Art is already pouring in (OK, trickling) for Shadowsfall Promo, the in between filler between the sets. I'll have to start work on those ASAP to finalise text to get them to a phase I'd be comfortable with them. I should dedicate an evening to sit down and sort that out. I also need to sort out the Elder's Legacy Promo and then the Tainted Glimpses cards. Urgh, lots of work there, but the crucial bits for this month is done.

Hamlet and Kings were the other 2 games that were scheduled to get updates this month and I can say they are done. I'm quite happy with the Kings update, and well, the Hamlet one is OK I guess. Not many people play those games though which is a pity, but I guess expected. At the very least, they are getting updated.

Bowling has been pushed back a bit because of the Bronx Project. Hopefully, I can get the motivation to finish the game next month - I really need to get Portable Adventures out of the way there so that I can concentrate on this.

Go Fish had a few updates to include new cards and to remove some of the other cards. Gameplay wise, it hasn't changed. Maybe I should organise a tournament for this to see what sort of response it'd get. Or maybe not. Hmm...

Wildstorms automation and Triple Triad scanning can be moved back to next month. After all I did mark them as optional. That would mean the workload for next month would be a bit on the heavy side. I hope I don't have to worry about Portable Adventures then.

Seems like a few things would be moved to next month, I guess I'll have to move one of next month's mega games to the month after... That would probably be Hyborean Gates, and I might put HumAliens as "optional" for next month. We'll see. There's not much going on in the HumAliens world at the moment. The game is mediocre at best, but it does deserve a chance I guess.

I still haven't made any firm announcement on WS Legends Solitaire yet. I guess I'm waiting for at least 2 out fo the 4 games I have in development to go public, so that would means that October would be the earliest... but it'd probably be around November or so. The engine's anniversay seems to be a good target as any to make that announcement.

The situation with B5 seems to be a bit depressing at the moment as nobody seems to be playing. I think I'll stick to my November schedule - yes, you read right, November as in early November - to finalise the Vorlon cards, unless play picks up and there's a huge demand for me to do them early. Somehow I doubt it. B5 players can't seem to be able to organise themselves for a game. Some new guy, azuredarkness, asked us for our IMs and contacts, but I have yet to hear from him asking for a game. Doesn't seem to me that he's interested, or maybe Billy beat him black and blue with one of the crazy decks Billy has been known to make, and he lost interest. Who knows?

I'm still waiting for Bug to make Crypt public, if only to offset the loss of the games last month. I'm going to say it'll take a few months to make up in numbers for the loss of those 9 games and Crypt and the Bronx Project will help. Of course there are a large segment of the population (or maybe I'm deluding myself...) waiting for the launch of VTES, but since that would be on a separate server, I wonder if it's going to be worth counting it in the usual stable of games. I suppose I could, but we'll have to see how that sets up. Hopefully, for the beta stage of the testing anyways, it'd be on the engine proper and then it could migrate onto its own server once things are finished.

TRagedy asked me about his app to be a PL. I explained that Bug is usually swamped. He wants to do his own original game... and so do so many of the people out there I guess. At least he knows programming so that's good. He's also been asking about Frank's Zoo, and that's something I can't answer. I have no idea how far along the game is and Thomas seems to work in spurts at best. I doubt he'd be capable of finishing it, or to get it to a playable stage, in the next 3 months. According to the forums, he started it late March/early April, so with the 6 months deadline, he should have it finished by early November. Somehow I doubt that deadline would be met.

I've got a poll running on the forums asking for which game people think I should adapt next. Two games are currently tied on top spot. I'll leave it for another month or so to see how fares either game... or maybe a third game will claim top spot. It could happen.

I've been playing some LotR O as well, not much though. I think I'm happy with the new incarnation of the Hobbits Tales / Sauron Besiegers deck. It works rather well, especially against Ringwraiths, has been known to take down Gondor fortifications and pure Dwarves FP. Haven't tested it against a nice Rohan deck. Hmm... I wonder if I can make a good Rohan deck with the cards I've got... perhaps when I have more time.

And time is something you have very little of when you play this game on the engine... just make sure you have got the power of the gods.