-+@ Roll of Thunder @+-

I almost titled this post Moment of Respite, but Roll of Thunder was more appropriate since I get to talk about... Bowling. Don't you just love it when a CCG has enough cards that provide good titles for every appropriate occasion? Hallmark should learn a thing or two from CCG card creators.

Well, there isn't that much to talk about bowling. Was brainstorming about AIs and how to make stuff interesting and all that... it's gonna turn out to feel less like a bowling game and more like a real game IMO... well, that is if I get to code it that way. I scractched the surface but then decided that I really didn't have the time tonight to do anything meaningful, so I stopped after tweaking a few minor things in the gML.

What I did spend my time on tonight was a MND update, which was to put in the new SP card Therra, now renamed Fiergo (after Brian Duron, aka Durango) into the game. And while I was at it, I changed out the in game font to the actual font that 2i uses for the cards so that well... it will look good... if only the engine gets to handle it properly. Something to complain to Ed about anyways... and with the help of nipa, I just did that on the forums.

I axed a shepherd today because he hasn't shown up for his last 3 tours. I wonder why people sign up to get free games when they can't even make it for their tours. Oh well, gone is gone I guess. Really...

I also posted some really thought provoking (read trolls) on Insiider today. One of the post flamed 2i for the false hopes that they impart to the players which when those hopes don't materialise causes said player to lose hope, not only in 2i, but in the entire game. I don't think that is helping the game. I also flamed Drakk for his weirdly posted reply which seemed to be an attempted correction that might badly affect the status of the game if implemented. I don't know though... his English is at a rather weird level and I don't think he was fully awake when he posted that.

And as to LotR, remember when I said I was waiting for the shoe to finally drop on my first set? Well, decipher has decided not to just drop the other shoe, but it seems they are trying to drop an entire herd of cows. What am I talking about? I'm talking about their decision to ban, not one card, not 10 cards, not one set, but 3 entire sets or one whole block in February. Sure, they hide it under the guise of "rotation" but even their press release admits that it's mass banning of three entire sets, and I quote:

"Additionally, this change will immediately reduce the number of individual cards on the X-list. Rather than remembering a list of 30 cards, it will now be seven cards and all cards from The Fellowship of the Ring, Mines of Moria, and Realms of the Elf-lords, which are easily identifiable by their collector number."

The X-list, of course, is the list of banned cards. You can read the full article here.

Martin and I discussed VS system today. He tends towards games that are very MTG in look/feel while I don't really go towards that sort fo game. I guess VSS is a good compromise in between... a bit more MTG-flavoure that I would like though. The game is a bit predictable IMO, and that's what Martin seems to like. He doesn't like too many variables 4 turns into the future, which is something I seem to thrive on. I guess that's why I prefer the games that I do and he prefers the games that he does.

Tomi and I are hashing about the styles of coding... and I think I've sort of summarise it as nipa-school and Martin-school and both of these are diametrically opposed to each other. I lean towards the nipa-school with some exceptions... attachment being one where I prefer the Martin-school. I think I would say I'm rather centrist. The people Martin's mentoring, naturally leans towards his school of coding. So with that in mind...

<-- nipa-school Martin-school -->
nipa - Ricochet - Novelty - Bruce - Martin
Talking about Martin, he's really into VTES testing now and he's got his alpha playtest team working with him. I guess people are just excited that VTES is going online. Tomi has decided to do Duel of Ages after ToJH, which is apparently ready for beta, once Ed gets on to that sometime ... I have no idea when. Otherwise, things are still moving slowly... the bottleneck being Ed IMO, but hey, that guy has got his fingers stuck in too many pies.

Talking about Ed, he seems to think that I favour automated tournament support. Not true. I'd rather have no tournament support at this point in time since none of it is supported properly. Priority for tournament support should be after, not before, fixing the save/resume game defect, after, not before fixing the rankings, and after, not before adding collections. Automated support should be something way down the line... in the future, not a "now" thing. But what do I know?