-+@ You Want Some of This? @+-

Let's start the ball rolling with this...



Well, it's not MND that's for sure... and wait... it's not Black Riders as well...actually I finally got my box of Shadows that's not online and those were 3 of the foils I got from the box. I actually got 2 of the One Ring foiled. Hmm... not a good box I think. I've yet to sort the cards, but I know I saw a Witch King, one Goblin Horde but no Salt of the Shire. That card is going to be hard to come by. I'll need to sort the cards out and stuff, but being the first set in a block, I'm sure I'll be rather needy at the end of the day.

I also got the 2 starters and a booster box of Beyblade cheap with my Shadows. Those haven't been opened yet, but hopefully will be soon... and of course I still have the WotC Star Wars starter cards to open. When it rains it pours, or so they say. Urgh, this is like a tropical storm and a tsunami all at once. I hope it lets up soon, but somehow I doubt it.

I actually found a place to play Triple Triad online today. And it's a busy place too with quite a large number of people logged in while I was there. I'm actually rather surprised by it since it wasn't that busy the last time I checked... about 18 months ago. Oh well. I guess they are moving ahead. They've got custom cards and such. Sounds interesting though and I doubt CCGW will be able to compete with them. Oh well.

Insiider being up has been a good thing. It's still going slow due to the double hacking and I think people are staying away, particularly the non-RP types. That's a pity though, it had such good promise for non-RP. The RP types are moving as well it seems, to a different site. That would probably reduce the traffic on Insiider but quite a bit, but we'll see how that goes.

I did work on one MND card today - Nick finally did some colours for me on the Bograth Shadow magi and he did them much faster than I would have done. Darius isn't gonna be too happy with the art since it isn't MND-style, but this one is specifically drawn for Shadowsfall Promo so we'll see what he says about that. Well, if he can get me better artwork, I won't mind... really...



I haven't been working on Bowling though, more because of the fact that I really really have limited time at the moment to do anything. I really wish I can get it over and done with so that I can move on to Hyborean Gates and Firestorm, but I somehow doubt that I can do that until the end of February. Oh well.

During the day, there were a number of people who logged in, said hello and probably left in frustration because they didn't know what to do next. Once upon a time, Tomi and/or myself would have been there to guide them through the game downloads, but no longer. Now that we can't minimise the engine, it's a bit risky to run from work so it's not being up and running much these days. I did come across this gem of a conversation just as I was writing this:


[Hermball] Hullo?
*** Hermball has moved to the Magi-Nation Duel room
*** Hermball has entered from the Magi-Nation Duel room
[Hermball] Helloooooo.... Echo, echo, echo
[Hermball] Echo........
*** Hermball has moved to the Star Wars (Decipher) room
*** Hermball has entered from the Star Wars (Decipher) room
[Hermball] hello
[Hermball] hello?
*** gNet: Hello and welcome to CCG Workshop. I can answer some of your questions if they are phrased correctly. Direct a question to me with a gNet: in front of it, eg, gNet: How do I do this?
[Hermball] ahh... there the gnet
[Hermball] gNet: How do I download cards?
*** gNet: I do not know the answer to that question, but I have stored it away so an answer can be created for it.
[Hermball] Sigh...
[Hermball] gNet: how do I do this? download
*** gNet: I do not know the answer to that question, but I have stored it away so an answer can be created for it.
[Hermball] grrr
[Hermball] gNet: how do I get card pictures?
*** gNet: I do not know the answer to that question, but I have stored it away so an answer can be created for it.
[Hermball] hmmm.... could be here for a while
[Hermball] gNet: how do I resume a download?
*** gNet: I do not know the answer to that question, but I have stored it away so an answer can be created for it.
[Hermball] gNet: What do you know?
*** gNet: I am the CCG Workshop chatroom bot. I can answer some of your questions if they are phrased correctly. Direct a question to me with a gNet: in front of it, eg, gNet: How do I select a game?
[Hermball] gNet: How do I select a game?
*** gNet: Frist, press the SELECT button at the top to open the Select Game slider. Choose the game's type from the Tabs at the bottom (eg. CCG, Card, etc.). Then click on a game's icon and read the description for cost & status info.
Press NEXT at the bottom, choose the game version (if applicable), and set your skill level.
Press NEXT again, to load the game and its essential images onto your PC. After the images finish loading, you will be moved to that game's chatroom. (Unchecking the box at the bottom prevents this.) Most games have additional images, which are not required for play. These may be manually downloaded before or during a game.
[Hermball] AHA!... closer
[Hermball] gNet: How do I manually download images?
*** gNet: I do not know the answer to that question, but I have stored it away so an answer can be created for it.
[Hermball] *screams*
[Hermball] gNet: *
*** gNet: I do not know the answer to that question, but I have stored it away so an answer can be created for it.
[Hermball] gNet: How do I download images?
*** gNet: To download images for a selected game, use "Tools -> Image Downloader" from the menu. Then with the Control & Shift keys, select the image names and press the "Reload" button (or just press "Grab All"--this skips any images already on your PC). As images are downloaded, they will also be rotated. This may cause your CPU to spike & the chatroom to slow down.
Alternately, images may be downloaded, one by one, during a game from the Hand display or the Spyglass.
You do not need to have all the images downloaded to play the game. However, it will greatly assist your game if you do have the images.
Note that some CCG's have over 1000 images, which will take a long time on a dialup connection. So, most games' images are available on a CD: http://www.ccgworkshop.com/store.jsp


He finally managed to do it after all those trial and errors. Yay for him. I really have got to get the bot working properly as well... this is one case where the BOT actually helps. It would be nice if there was a message advertising about the BOT (which can be disabled if one wishes) on entry - this way new players get to find out about the BOT and buttons and stuff. But I guess that will be a pipe dream for some time to come.