-+@ Not So Fast! @+-

Still from the same CCG...



Art Credits:
Nahara's Staff: Holmberg/Gillette/Werner
Mystic Rain: Holmberg/Nov
Dune Wudge: Holmberg/Vega/Nov

That's 3 for Twilight War, and I must say, I'm a bit surprised at the quality of the images there, even if they are "just" manips. The Mystic rain was an experiment with the rain effect, and it seems a bit weird there, but it works... barely. The dune wudge was the bigger surprise. I never realised I could get dust storms that easily by manipulating a number of things. All in all a pretty good set of cards.

So that means I'm down to 7 cards to go for TW, 1 for Universal, 2 for d'Resh and 4 for Nar. It shouldn't be really long now before all the 100 images for the set is finished and people can start scripting the text of the cards. That would be good to go.

Exodus Flight has also been getting a few more cards from both eXodus and Dreamstorm. I have been playing around with the images for those cards there too. Cald and Naroom joins Core in getting all 12 cards completed - the set is rather far along, with more than half of the 150 cards getting an image (actual count = 109 out of 150). The text though, would have to be rewritten for the CCG, but that's something that would be done after TW.

I'm already pushing images and unused cards to the next two sets, Ancient Enemy (AE) and Fallen Hour (FH) - the former would focus on the Invaders, hence the name, and the latter is the spillover from the RP cards from eXodus and Dreamstorm, together with the cards from Chimefall. Both these are slated for 2007 for playtesting though. It's a bit weird to be almost 15 months in advance.

Meanwhile the 3rd DJ contest has just kicked off and there are already 3 entries by 2 persons for it. Those entries look rather good I must say, although I hope there'll be more entries before the deadline in over two weeks time. This one is a departure though, in the sense that these 2 magi are dual, but of the same region. It should be easier to design for me thinks.

The other contest that is still going on is the Malovis challenge. I think 5 or 6 games have been played so far and Mitch has only won 2 of them. Hmmm... that's an interesting statistic. Nothing new is happening in terms of deck building - Mitch is trying out his experimental decks, but he's getting creamed by the people using really good decks against him. Poor Mitch.

Help Hurricane Katrina Victims

Donate to the American Red Cross
(or call 1 800 HELP NOW in the US)
That's the first public service announcement on my blog. You can donate online by clicking on the link. LotRO is organising a tournament where all the proceeds will go to help the victims too - I just got a newsletter regarding that yesterday. I'm sure they aren't the only one.

I was talking to Michael Anthony yesterday regarding MODO. Apparently with the new release, they are doing crazy things there. 256 player lightning leagues for 52 online packs as the top prize. Not even any cash there (unlike LotRO), and there are people playing there. Wha! Man, those MODO players are sure crazy.



Art Credits:
Rainbow Lens by Beth Zyglowicz
Cloud Seed by Scott Montgomery
Flame Shield by Jeffry Ransom with edits and backgrounds by myself.

Oh why not? I have like oodles of custom MND cards that's yet to be posted. Those 3 relics are from EF. I actually edited the Flame Shield, along with three other relics to get them looking better for EF. The EF page is up to date with all the EF cards. Actually, that's the thing. The custom cards page has been getting a lot more hits these days. I wonder why.

I have been trying to get Bruce back into the game of making a B5 expansion. There isn't much interest in it though, or so it seems. Dying Races is the name of the expansion and the Centauri and Narns are what it's supposedly all about. There's now talk of more NA, Mu-Tai and Nightwatch, not to mention mercs as well. I wonder how it'll go. I suggested that the remaining First Ones also get cards, although perhaps not as Characters, for that might make them too powerful, but otherwise, who knows?

B5 also got updated yesterday to Now Playing, along with a few bugfixes. It still needs major automation upgrades, but since it's playable and stuff, I guess it's no big deal. Borders and Hamlet were the two other games that got upgraded to Now Playing on gEngine yesterday along with B5, so that's 3 games that's gone into the big time, if it can be called the big time.

Everyone else seems to be scrambling around to get their games to Now Playing. Martin was working on Abduction earlier, with claims of robustness. Somehow that just sounds wrong when talking about an abduction. Tomi and Logan are also busy getting their games up to Now Playing as well, although it's a bit more complex than just renaming the status. Doomtrooper also had a new update with deck legality checking before the start of the game. That's something that every game will now (probably) take on.

The new engine is also up now, so it's time to see what new changes has been wrought. I think beta games are now free, something that I support and I think it's a bit long overdue. Beta games are those with bugs and errors and should be free so that people will play them and help test out the game. That will also probably be the time people play those games. After the game goes Now Playing and it actually costs money to play, people stop playing them. But the change will probably be welcomed by players who now have to pay for their games (over 5 a month) suddenly discovering that the game is free since it's still in beta.

I wonder if there are any bugs in it. The last version of the engine had a rather nasty bug and a rather minor one. There were changes to the hints which was one that I suggested, and now I find that it's biting me. Sad but true. Hamlet depends very much on the hints on the cards and since it doesn't report the true status, I wonder if it's still playable. Oh well. No big deal there though as nobody plays it anyways. Hopefully it'll get fixed in the next build.

The WW update also went up today. I wonder if this means it'll see public playing near the middle of the month as the 3 months beta period is up then. I suspect they'll probably extend it to the end of the month, they being WW. That would be an interesting development anyways. There aren't that many people braying at the doors, although I wonder how impressed/disappointed they will be when they finally see the finished product. Only time will tell.

I did the monthly stats yesterday. The engine is still getting played, although the status of VTES seems a bit poor, but I'm going to guess that's because of the limited pool of beta players. Hopefully things will go on the upswing once it goes public (or will it? Who knows?) I still have to update the plates post... that's something I haven't done. And I just realised that Ed has changed the codes for some of the games so the Codes that we all use for our signatures needs an update as well. Yeesh! That can wait though.