-+@ Reflection @+-

Is this another one of those CCGs with one word cards?



Art Credits:
Nocturn Jip by Strom
Rot Weebo by Werner with backgrounds by Nov
Rattle Uban by Holmberg/Gillette with background by Holmberg

That's 3 from Twilight War... I did manage to template two cards yesterday so I'm left with 12 more to go (6 Nar, 5 d'Resh and one Universal). Twilight war is coming along nicely though, and it's scehdule to enter into playtest sometime in the middle of 2006 which means there's about a year or so to get everything together. So far so good.

I've also been doing quite a number of card templating for Dreamstorm - the results of which can be seen on the Custom Cards forums and on Insiider. Dreamstorm has much better images than eXodus though, and it's rather nice to be working on them. Also, because of the large quantity of acceptable quality images from Dreamstorm, I've decided that any "spill over" won't be in Exodus Flight - the set that will be rewritten for the CCG - but will instead be in the next converted RP set Fallen Hour (named after Chimefall). Exodus Flight will probably be in the region of about 12 - 15 cards per region and will be between 150 to 200 cards. Anything extra after that falls into Fallen Hour.

I have also decided that, if the custom cards will last into 2007, the Invaders are going to get cards as a new region. The Invaders set though will probably take over the Ancient of Days set and that custom set now has the working name, and most probably final name, of Ancient Enemy. The two Invaders cards have been templated and more cards will probably wing its way into that set. I'm going to maintain that set at 100 cards, but the breakdown will, change due to the inclusion of the new region.

Double Jeopardy's second contest is coming along... 3 entries so far and some of them are good. I'm going to guess that people are going to have a hard time thinking about cards for the Stuff Twins, but in about two weeks or so, they'll probably make up their minds and post up something interesting. At the moment, I know who I'll be picking as the winner, but it's still early days.

BobbyDoc and Freigabe has been busy testing decks and playing a large number of games online - those are the two people who has never heard about the game until they joined the engine and are now the 2 most fanatical players on the engine. I see custom cards filling up their decks which means it's a good thing that some of the custom cards are being played with.

Other MND news doesn't look good. It's already July and there's no announcement about the cartoon. I'm going to say that it's probably a write-off at this point, particularly so many years after the last release of VotS. I doubt that even TR will be able to rescue the game at this point in time. That's the for the CCG though. The cartoon, if marketed correctly, and is well written, drawn and produced can probably garner a big following. Even then though, the CCG isn't guaranteed to survive by riding on the coattails.

I have been playing quite a bit of LotR online over the weekend. I've been playing mostly with the Isengard deceived wizards/Uruks with my choking non-solo Smeagol. It's not tournament level, it's just fun. The other deck that I have been tweaking with are the Ring-bound Hobbits with a Besieger flipside. I was talking to Kenneth Ellingsen the other day and it seems the only two shadow sides that are dependable are Cosairs and Forest Naz. Ah well. He also said he's been buying his cards online, but on the flip side, he's winning at least $100 a month with the tournaments so financially it's not eating into him. Then again, he is a good player.

Engine-wise, I haven't done much. The forums had a revamp today, and a few other minor admin stuff was carried out. The BOT though is probably a bit full by now... someone will probably have to spend some time answering those questions. There's also been 2 new Shepherds, one of them still hasn't signed up for her 3 weekly tours. Hmm...

I had a playtest of Quartet last Friday. I couldn't believe how dodgy it was. Definately needed a lot of changes to get it working the way it should. I still haven't loaded the new version.. it needs to be tested online in 2 player mode and I haven't gotten around to that yet. Will probably need to get to it at some point.

I've also started a stats thing for all the CCGs ever produced. More here (or somewhere) when I get the results I guess. It's just a for fun thing that's totally pointless at the moment.

And for other people? Martin is still busy on VTES, nipa has been slowly upgrading his games, and I think Doomtrooper might get an extra expansion in the next week or two... maybe. The next version of the engine is being developed, so 162 should be on the way maybe today, maybe in 2 months time - who knows?

I actually played a game of B5 the other day. Forgot that the deck can't win with the new Vorlon rules so it was a rather pointless game for me. The other players though, were a bit afraid of each other, so I was leading at 13 power or something like that. Could probably get to 19 quickly, but that's all I could do. Someone did crash out though - it's a hints error of some sort - so that's something I'll need to look into as well.