-+@ Future Coin @+-

No coins, but definately the currency to the future of coding.



Continuing the series of fan made customs, this is Babylon 5. There have been 2 fan-made customs with a third somewhere in development. Anla'shok (as represented by Lenonn above) features heavily on the Minbari and their Rangers. The Vorlons (as represented by Kosh) basically makes a Vorlon deck almost playable, but the rules weren't made to add him as a Starting Ambassador so someone else has to be the starting ambassador. The Dying Races (as represented by G'Kar) have been 2 years in the making (it takes time to create perfection?) and will hopefully get playtested next year. It features the Centauri and the Narn and in development is one of my favourite card, Arranged Marriage.

So that makes it the 5th? Or is it the 6th? custom set I've shown this month. Doomtrooper, Mythos, Rage, MND, Wildstorms and Babylon 5. Yup 6. 7 if Call to Arms is included. All of those 6 are available to be played on gEngine of course. There's also the Doomtown and Shadowrun custom expansions, but I couldn't find cards for those, which is a pity. Unless someone wants to point me at the site with the Doomtown custom cards...

As expected, Tomi has started work on draughting and I have the proof below. (Side Note: this blog is written in standard my version of British English as opposed to American, thus I have decided to be consistant in my choice of spellings. Draught is the proper word for the American word "Draft", at least according to my dictionary.)



Makes me wanna play Apocalypse or even Paradise Lost draught eventhough I would have no idea what I'd be doing. heh. It also makes me wanna start coding draught into my games. Perhaps B5 draught might be in the works? Hmm...

Ed is busy fixing bugs... not only on Ludoholic where he's been hanging out lately but also for the VTES engine (and by extension, the main engine). He's been more vocal in the forums which is also another good thing. Makes me feel like I'm not alone to face the wolves in there. Hopefully he won't burn himself out this time but will enjoy the ride pushing the engine to the best it can possibly be.

I just checked out the VTES Online forums and it seems that Martin does have all the cards (or at least the scans) to those expansions that he will be adapting next year. Yay for that. Also apparently those are small expansions as well which is why he chose them. Speed is the key. 3 expansions a year was about what I did on adapting B5 as well, and while that was going on, there was a few games played every day. It only started to die when all the cards were added. I wonder why that was so...

Did I mentioned I played a Mega game of Ticket to Ride yesterday? It was my first Mega game and it is good. You can still depend on LA to NY or TransCanada from YVR to Montreal, but since there's a bonus of 15 points for the most tickets made, you really, really want to get that in addition to the longest route. Hence the wish to connect such short haul cities as Washington - Boston. In addition to the unfamiliarity of the game, it was difficult predicting where people were building towards in order to block them, so the game was basically a free for all build as much as you want where you want to. For a change, there wasn't any blocking, which is good.

Talking about boardgames, BGG gave out a free microbadge this year. I used it to get my Ludoholic microbadge so that I now have the 3 badges I was hoping to get. The other 2 are TtR and CCGW of course. Talking about boardgames, a plea to Carcassonne players out there. I need to get one of those as a Christmas (aka end-of-year) gift for someone. Does anyone have any suggestions which one to get?

-+@ The Forgotten King @+-

which is what these cards show...



What's this? Some religious CCG? Not really. Fractal is from the Israeli superpower group Unit Aleph while Sinbad is part of the Heaven's Fist Team. Both are from an unpopular run in the first volume of Stormwatch when it was written by Union's author and general WS editor. Mr. Majestic probably needs some introduction, eventhough he has crossed over into the Superman universe and has a few miniseries of his own. He was part of the WildCATs while the real team was away on Khera, then he got roped into Savant Guarde and I think he formed a group based around himself later on in the series. And the CCG? Wildstorms of course. The cards on the left and right are part of my Stormwatch expansion from the aforementioned unpopular run with the slew of characters. One of the more familiar characters introduced in that run is Swift, who survives in the Wildstorm universe of today.

The thing about the cards are the templates. They were horrible to produce due to the weird shapes, the weird background effects and the teleportation zzzzznnnnn effect around each character. I think I didn't do too badly, but I'm sure it can be done better, and today was only a first attempt at getting the templates right. I can still see where I used the clone stamp on the cards (urgh! that needs to be fixed) and the ice (cyan) shades on the Unit Aleph template needs to be toned down some. Hmm... some later time.

I haven't received any complaints about the Project Second Chance cards so far, so I take that as a good sign. I made a rather rude blog about why I think people won't use it, but in there there's also an appeal for people to embrace it because otherwise, it'd mark the end of MND custom cards as we know it on the engine. It remains to be seen if I'm successful. Somehow I doubt I will be, but I'm hoping my pessimism is misplaced.

Meanwhile, the votes are coming in for the images that are part of the polls I put up on the CCGW forums. There's no prize or anything, but I just wanna see what people think are good images and whether it'd be worth my salt to start paying those artists for artwork for future (aka AoD) custom expansions (because, if you have been keeping up with my blogs, I'm gonna be am short of MND artwork...). So far Eric Santana's Second Shadow and Jennifer Reed's Auriolis are both in the lead for Elder's Legacy and Shadowsfall Promo respectively by a respectable percentage. Tainted Glimpses meanwhile, which was supposed to have better images than either of those two is stuck without a clear winner in the polls. I have no idea how to interpret that. Anyways, the polls are at Elder's Legacy, Shadowsfall Promo and Tainted Glimpses.

I think I opened the Pandora's box by saying that drafts can be done on the engine if the PL implements it. I think it can be done, but it's going to be hairy to code for and it'll have to check for so many different things that it's not even gonna be funny. Hence the reason why they aren't done in the first place. Having said that PL-extraordinaire Tomi is probably considering doing some support if his forum post is any indication. I can't wait to see what he does.

Oh and then there's the issue of comprehension of the English language and WoW which I'm not even going to say too much because it'll just raise my blood pressure or something.

-+@ Worker Zombie @+-

Barhah!



3 more images from LotR TCG Rise of Saruman. Why did I post these 3 cards instead of say an original game or a fan-made expansion (not that difficult since today's blog is really about one of those and another of the other)? Take a closer look at the cards. Yes, that's right, that's Gondor's favourite Swede on a Rohan template... and not just any Rohan template but the Masterworks template. There's also one without the Masterworks template in Rohan's earthly red tones which was what caught my attention initially - it is weird to see Gorn in something other than his Gondor Star, and this is apparently the first of many cross-cultural cards over the next few expansions (if they get printed). Arwen is rumoured to be the next one to get the special treatment being templated on a Gondor card instead of the blue Elf card as is usual in Treachery and Deceit, the expansion after Rise of Saruman.

The Gandalf in that picture is also a little unique. Why is that so? Well, the card wasn't designed by Decipher. It was made by a player who goes by the name of Menace64 online and was one of the 6 cards that won the contest for the online game. It was tested online and the card was revised slightly and was promised to be included in either RoS or T&D. RoS it is and I'm sure the card designer is estatic about the card. Incidentally, I wonder how much did they copy from MND's and Rage's custom cards...

JC has just come through with the goods and the new Rage custom expansion War Council has been added to the online game. I've no doubt there's a whole lot (aka about a dozen or so) die-hard online Rage players downloading the cards and the images. I guess people just need to bug JC every once in a while to get things done or something. I dunno.

While I'm on that front though, Mr. Aidan Bowles has been given the keys of the kingdom and has been made a Project Lead. What does this means? Who knows? I definately don't. I noticed him with the gear in the chatroom today, and since he has the gear, it means I have to update like a million pages (actually about a dozen) all over the place. Ooooh, and I've got to give him forum access as well if he doesn't already have those. Oh well.

I haven't had the opportunity to talk with Martin regarding how busy he is with all the new VtESO cards that he's supposed to be adding in less than a month. I wonder if he even has all the images for all those cards. He's not appealing for any card image which makes me think he's got them all and he's probably about 80% done (or something like that). I guess the VtES players probably can't wait till next year.

And while on that topic, I was asked to update the VtES wiki, or at least the front page, to bring it in line with the CCGW main wiki. Blegh. As if everything should be cut and molded to look the same as everything else (** someone, aka Christoph, stole the templates from the main wiki and used it on the SWD wiki... I think that's so... passè - he didn't even bother disguising it or dressing it up differently... oh well... OK, having looking at it for a second time I do see that it is slightly different in terms of presentation...). Anyways, I updated the main page, but ensured that it was slightly different than the main site and I think I succeeded in giving it common features as the main wiki, yet a distinctively different look at the same time. The colours needs a bit of tweaking (I'm still getting used to this new monitor) to be legitable, but that's something someone else (aka Ed?) can do I guess.

There's also a new MND update today. Specifically, the Project Second Chance cards have all been added to the online game as promised in my MND blog. It's only 9 cards, but hopefully, it will revitalise the game somewhat especially these are cards that people don't even think about because they are so under the power curve. I still need to write a blog there about the new cards after this of the MND @ CCGW blog.

And thanks to everyone at Time magazine for voting me Time's Person of the Year. Well, not just me of course but everyone else who uses the internet to share content - all the bloggers and the podcast people and the YouTube people etc. Well, it's nice to know that I won something this year, if only as part of the faceless crowd! Barhah!

-+@ Alcolyte @+-

describes the person who did these cards...



That's Call to Arms by Derek Shields. Those images were drawn in paint. Yes, you heard me right, paint as in the paint in Windows. Wow. That's his home-made CCG that he has put in a lot of effort... and like a few years worth of Sundays and public holidays. The effort really shows in the cards. I think they are exceptional, especially for something done in paint. Just look at the icons for starters and notice how detail those are. And the images really make me go Wow, especially when I know that they were done in MS Paint.

And that's part of the custom cards... well, this really isn't custom... it's more original cards. Hopefully in one of the next few blog, I'd be showcasing Barathaum cards, unless I find something else that's exciting.

The news on the VteSO site is that next year is shaping up to be a nice year for the VteS players. January will see a new expansion... Black Hand or something like that hit the VteS engine and 3 months later, Martin has pledge to get the full 3rd Edition out online. Wow. 3rd Edition. If it's as crazy as I think it is, Martin is going to be busy early next year. But wait, that's not all, 3 months later in July, another VteS expansion will be added online. This one is I think one of the recent ones, Kindred Most Wanted. I think that's also the one that has Werewolves and stuff ala Rage. Sounds like a good year for them. I also edited the CCGW wiki for VteS to bring it up to date.

That's now been announced on the main site as well. I had to create a new ad for VteSO as I was getting bored of the 2 other VteS ads. The new ad is specifically for VteSO though since it makes use of the VteSO logo and part of the VteSO website. It looks a bit weird there, but I'll let it slide a bit.

The thing about Mark's games is that there's always an ad. Since Ed has decided to start "blogging" his progress on GRfOS, I thought it deserves a mention on the main page. What I didn't realise is how great Mark's ad is. Well, the CCG Workshop main page is where it can be seen, so don't take my word for it. And yes, Ed's blog is on the Ludoholic forums. There's only one entry and it's pretty basic at the moment, but I'm sure it'd improve over time... if he remembers to post to it.

I have a sneaky suspicion that something is going on in Finland. What's up Scooby Doo? A doomed Revival did you say? No? Oh well. I'm sure someone will get wind of it sooner or later. Probably not me... you won't hear about it here first.

-+@ Phoenix @+-

A rise from the grave?



This is the link I got the images from. Few people would know I made a LSH update for WS a few years back (OK, more than a decade ago). Now to actually see these cards... well what can a fanboy say? It's a pity that I gave up on the title (and indeed all comics) ever since "threeboot", but to finally see the LSH on a CCG is awesome. Nevermind that these are VS cards instead of WS cards. Well, I guess this will be on my shopping list for next year (and my Christmas wish list for this year!) if only to collect the cards. I do know how to play VS, but I don't really wanna keep up with the game though (way too expensive!)

Later today, or tomorrow if you're not in the Western Hemisphere, is the 2nd attempt for the Final Twilight players to create CCG Workshop Saturdays. 3 players showed up last week and one game was played. Hopefully more people will turn up today to play. I added some words to the News section of the frontpage in an attempt to raise some awareness. I hope people do turn up to play, particularly with some cards that are only Online exclusives.

I'm still in the midst of wrapping and decorations and stuff. Urgh, festive seasons can be such a huge time waster particularly when there are things I really wanna do. Like adapt Barathaum. Or clip AvP. Or colour three more Final Twilight cards. Or update the MND website. Hmm... my other website probably needs an update as well. Maybe next year.

I did find the time to template 4 cards for MND yesterday. Even with those though, I'm still below the 50 cards needed to officially announce the start of AoD. I'm not even thinking about AE at this point in time. It will probably get thrown out the window, I think. I have no idea. Only time will tell I guess as to what will happen to AE.

Ed seems to be stuck with GRfOS as stated on the forum. That a pity though because he was doing so well speed wise with the first two games. I guess all the craziness that goes with the festive season doesn't help him as well with respect to adapting games. Oh well, there's probably no hurry anyways... and on the bright side, next year will shape up to be a good year with all the ground work that has been laid this year.

The Shadowfist tournament has apparently ended. I wonder who won since no announcements has been made. Hmm... I know the Rage tournament is still running and Will/Supes seems to be in the lead. The end of this month is gonna shape up to be interesting for sure.

-+@ Dark Angel @+-

which describes the 3 images shown below of course.



Art by Whyrl/Strom. That's 75% of the cards for A Cure for all Seasons Promo expansion. Yup, it's a small expansion of 4 cards. The text is up for comments at the custom card forum - links on the left unless you are downloading this with the feeds. This is the Promo expansion for Exodus Flight and like Exodus Flight, it highlights the RP element even more than the usual card. Poor Daniel made a comment which got partially shot down on the forum, but what he said was partially good. I guess he just needs to learn about the story-telling aspect of these cards in addition to the gaming part of it. After all, the story, the artwork as well as the card-game is integral to the mythos of the game.

Talking about Mythos if you wanna support the science blog with Cthulhu as a mascot (pictured left below), you can go and vote for uh... Pharyngula or however that is spelt for the best Science blog.



His closest competitor is the Bad Astronomer though (banner shown upper right). Their blogs have been funny reads over the last few days as the war of words heat up and it's gotten a bit partisan. And that's my cyberspace community service for this blog.

I don't think I'll touch Barathaum this year after all. Sucks and all I know, but since I'm not being the grinch this year, my time is spent sniping ebay auctions, hand-crafting gifts and teaching newly-weds how to bast a turkey for thier new husbands (or something). Yeah, so Barathaum is gonna take a back-seat after all. Bummer. I really wanted to get it up this year as well, but oh well, there's always next year (unless Ed doesn't die of a paper cut while playing with his brand new board games... then the engine goes down a few months after that, I'd guess).

I wonder if Ed has had time to work on Grave Robbers these few days. I get the impression that the silence means he's busy at work on it and we might get a surprise beta before the end of the year. Then again, he could be busy with all the festivities and stuff, so I have no idea. It's not as if he has a blog or he posts updates regularly... or does he?

The server acted up over the weekend and it got so bad that it had to be rebooted by Monday. I got a number of PM asking me to fix it for them, but I didn't want to disturb anything in case there was something there Ed wants to see. It was a memory error after all and it got rebooted. Wow, the number of games over the weekend must have been a mighty amount to have caused a memory error.

JC dropped by the forum over the weekend to make some announcements. I have no idea if anything is done, but at least he's back. Hopefully, he'd be updating the Rage stuff soon. Talking about Frenchmen, I had a nice chat with Martin over the weekend too regarding ... nothing in particular. Sad but true. It was just good to catch-up. The other French PL was last seen updating Shadowfist. I don't think he's in the tournament though.

I think the Shadowfist tournament is going rather well, but I think it's dying down some. I know the Rage tournament is dying down quite a bit because people are getting busy for the holidays. Sad, but true, but winter seems to be the season for fur lovers.

The forum game that Aidan has been trying to organise isn't going ahead after all. That's a pity. I was looking forward to sate my bloodlust by lynching fellow players. Oh well, it's not to be so. Maybe next year. Who know what next year might bring?

-+@ Starlit Fairy @+-

which brought me news about Stargate, of course...



Nope, not MND customs as promised, but this isn't a normal blog as well. That will resume after this post.

This is a copy and paste from the Gateworld page:

The game will ship to stores in February 2007, with 60-card starter decks ($10.99 each) and 11-card booster packs ($3.49 each). The series includes more than 200 collectable cards for a mission-based game, featuring favorite characters and technology from the Stargate universe.

Game play will involve four traits tied to each member of the original SG-1 team, with starter decks available for each: Ingenuity (Jack O'Neill), Science (Samantha Carter), Combat (Teal'c), and Culture (Daniel Jackson). Collectors can pick from one of these starter decks for their favorite character, with decks including four special, all-foil character cards.

Booster packs include cards specific to additional characters, obstacles, adversaries, and gear. Each store display of booster cards will include one ultra-rare foil card -- with six different ultra-rare cards in the series.

Here's the series description from Paizo.com:

In this mission-based collectible card game set in SCI FI Channel's hit series Stargate SG-1, players seek to successfully complete seven missions (or accumulate the greatest number of mission points) to achieve victory. Thwart your opponents with "obstacles," "antagonists," "disease," and the most ruthless of the Goa'uld System Lords, while simultaneously sending your undaunted Stargate team of explorers into the vast unknown. This series is introduced in four 60-card theme decks (Jack O'Neill "Ingenuity Starter"; Samantha Carter "Science Starter"; Teal'C "Combat Starter"; and Daniel Jackson "Culture Starter") offered in 8-count displays, and 11-card supplemental boosters packed in 36-count displays.

Future expansions of the game will include both SG-1 and Atlantis. According to Comic Images, MGM will support future tournament play in addition to the game's retail presence.

You can tell I'm excited about this.

-+@ Vampire Illusionist @+-

or more accurately Werewolf Illustrationist...



Art Credit as stated on cards, but I'll explain why I chose these 3 cards out of 50 or so cards. Gremlins in the filing cabinet was funny and that piece is one of Fenris' (HC O'Neil's) best work in the set. Why is it filed under P though? I have no idea. The veil is by MND-fan artist Beth Zyglowicz - you see her images since they form the bulk of the RPG converted to CCG MND cards in EF, and in the future FH. I recognised the image when browsing through the card because her pencils are so unique.

Ira Martin goes under the name of Todd Traf on the engine and I have talked about him before. This image is my favourite yet. Notice the texture on each individual brick on the background. That must have taken ages to draw. Obviously this is done in the real world and not on a computer. If it was done on a computer though, the window would probably have a reflective sheen on it and stuff. I'm too lazy to provide a link, but there's a link in the Rage CCGW forums to view all the cards.

So that's the 3rd custom CCG that I'm showcasing in my blog this month. The next entry would probably be the images from the A Cure for all Seasons Promo expansion for MND to make it a 4th. Or maybe Barathaum. But that's not a fan-made custom expansion, that's an original indie game. Hmm...

Nothing much to say on Barathaum. No work done on it yet other than cleaning up the wiki and making sure everything is there. The server is setup for the game, but I haven't asked for the database to link to it, because I don't have a file to link to. Maybe I'll start to work on it this weekend since I think I have the time for it then.

I have been busy with MND today though, working with 3 different expansions. We are still commenting on the Exodus Flight cards and I'm still incorporating the comments into the cards. I wish that was more tedious, but there aren't that many people commenting anyways. Well, I guess they will only "comment" (aka complain) when it get online and it gets used against them. Oh well. I finished draughting out the Universal cards for EF today too. That wasn't easy. Universal cards are becomming more and more difficult to design these days thanks to the huge cardlist and the potential interaction of cards. I hope they aren't too powerful. It's still private though, the region will only be made public next month with the yet-to-be-draughted Weave cards.

Two other things I finished today are the Project Second Chance Base Set cards of which there are only 8, and the 4 cards from the A Cure for all Seasons Promo expansion. I expected more cards for P2C Base, but only 8 were selected. That might even be reduced by 1 to 7 cards. It's scheduled to be added to the engine this month though. In lieu of the 3rd region for EF this month, I have made public the cards from Cure instead. It's a bit late, but I guess it's better late than never. Daniel has had a once-over look at the cards and have provided some comments, and I have tweaked the cards some more after that, but there are points which I'm still not very happy with on the cards. I might continue to tweak them over time. Cure goes online in March for playtesting.

Now all I have to finish are the Weave cards for EF, and then I can start hunting for images for AoD. With only 30-odd cards and not that many images left to be found, I wonder if the expansion is even going ahead. I need 50 before allowing card text design to start. Maybe I would have to resort to actually paying for commissioned images. Urgh, I'm going to burn a hole in my pocket I think.

Note to self: remember to do a write up on P2C. I need to blog about it on the MND @ CCGW blog to get people to think twice about the cards. I mean, if I created a custom card called "A Brub" that has the text "alternate Brub" and a recoloured image of a Brub with a very similar power, people will have no qualms playing with it. Yet when I do the same thing with P2C people aren't too comfortable with that idea. Oh well. I guess I just have to spell it out for people.

I actually wrote as "Novelty Nostalgia, CCG Workshop Project Lead" to CCP and FFG today, requesting permission to adapt Eve and Call of Cthulhu CCGs on the engine. I wonder if I'll get any replies from either of them. I would be surprise if I hear from them today. Still, miracles have happened, and I hope both of them will say it's OK to adapt their games.

OK, I just confirmed that Titan: the Arena isn't coming back to the main gEngine. Whether it'll appear elsewhere in a real-time format I have no idea as of yet, but I guess I'll announce it here after I announce it on the main site and stuff. Or maybe not. It's confusing even to me what's happening there.

Before I forget and my apologies in advance for being uncouth: but if you have been reading my blog this year and you wish to give me something for Christmas (or whatever end of year holiday you celebrate... although Sinterklaas and Deepavali is over...), drop me a line between now and the end of the year on the blog in the comments section - that's all I'm asking for. Thanks.

-+@ Rally Squad @+-

Is that what the Scoobies are?



Nope, not the Scooby Doo ECG cards, but these are from the fan made expansion for Mythos. I like these cards, they are well made and they are funny too. Hopefully they'll get on gEngine with a release event like a tournament? Nyaah... according to Alex, all he wants to do is to get on and play and not much else.

Not much going on the engine at the moment - the Rage and Shadowfist tournaments are still running but both are going up to the end of the month. I'm not involved in either though so I have no idea how things are going, but there's quite a bit of traffic on the Rage forums and I'm sure the Fist mailing list is probably busy as well. Only goes to show that someone organising a tournament or two can spice things up.

I went to the Ludoholic forums today and was surprised to find that Capitol has gone Now Playing. Wow. I think Ed is really really really excited about it. He's taken 6 years of experience (and abuse?) working on the engine and translated that into a really great job on Ludoholic. There's a steady stream of gamers there and I think it's about time I said adieu to the site for a while (at least until he starts adapting something interesting like YNDT or something). I added an announcement to the main page of CCGW stating that Capitol has gone Now Playing, but I wonder if that will excite anyone there.

What has been exciting is that Barathaum is getting all its info up and running on the wiki even before the game starts adaptation. Wow. Between the creator and myself, we have gotten the page up and the rules up, and since that is open source, hopefully people will drop in to correct spelling mistakes and grammar and what not. It's the first game that I'm using the wiki as my source material as well... well, in as far as the rules and general infomation is concerned. That reminds me, I need to ensure that the board is mentioned in the rules somewhere as well. The example of play that I read is not there too... hmm...

I finally moved over the Paradwyn and Underneath cards to the public viewing forum for player comments - forgot to do that earlier in the month. Worked a bit on the Universal cards, but wasn't too keen on them for the time being so rather than script subpar cards, I decided to leave them for another day. I helped Mr. Burke out on his cards as well. The solutions aren't perfect and playtesting is definately needed for the new versions of the two TW cards. That's getting there... slowly.

I created a rather nasty Evil Men archery deck today with a pure Hobbit flipside. It is doing rather well against the poor casual player as I'm taking out their fellowship with my archers while my hobbits cancel the skirmishes, discards the minions and just run and run and run. I didn't think it was such a good deck, but I haven't faced top level decks - Smeagollum and Castamir for example - yet. At least I'm enjoying the games. Can't say the same for my opponents though... poor them.

I played my first Mega game of Ticket to Ride today... online that is. I can't start the 1910 games because I don't have the software for it, but some other player did and it took me ages getting on. It was new, exciting and difficult as people were blocking each other trying to get to where they though they needed to go. I didn't win the game, but it was fun building from Washington to Atlanta, for example, to claim the 4 points.

-+@ Grand Library @+-

Or at least I seem to be showcasing a different CCG everyday...



Nope, not Chaotic cards as I thought I'd do today. Instead these are Doomtrooper cards from the latest just finished (roughly 2 months ago) expansion Armageddon. V Tribe and this expansion are the only 2 not to be present on gEngine and probably won't be there for a while, at least not until Tomi fixes his technical problems at home. Ah well, it'll be a good break for him.

And what's the deal about those Chaotic cards? Well, I only found a jpg of one of them online, the rest are hidden in a flash thingie and I was lazy to do a screencapture, yadda yadda, so it isn't there because I don't have the images. That's the short story. However, while looking for the cards, I came across the official site which promises that physical cards can be translated into the online realm as well because each card will have a unique code. That's a new gimmick I guess... and it's stated to start in January next year.

While searching for Chaotic cards though, I came across a fan made CCG for Britney Spears. Urgh. I can just imagine the cards "Oops, I did it again", "K-fed" and perhaps the latest version, "Fed-Ex". I had a look at the images and thought for a split second that I should used them instead of chaotic, but I don't think I wanna inflict that on the readers of this blog. Anyways, the site is at chaotic but be warned, you might go blind or something.

Ed came to me in a huff and a puff and told me that my last blog was erraneous. Well, not in such big words, but more or less there. I never did realised that he added a notepad feature into ludoholic over time and I apologize to any readers who may have been mislead by my last blog. There is a notepad feature that I never realised and never used, although I should have... it would have been easier for me than to remember all the sequence of things that I wanted to do. Oh well.

Apparently there's a new Rage expansion that's coming up and people are wondering if JC will be up to getting it onto gEngine on time. I have no idea what JC has been doing recently, but he was rather crestfallen when Ed sorta stopped the development of VS. I wonder if he's giving the Rage players any troubles? I have no idea, but he doesn't seem as fervent now though, for some weird reason. Mayhaps he's tired of the whole thing? Who knows?

I just had a look at the new art. There's 4 by Ira Martin who goes by the name of Todd Traff (or something like that) on the engine. I've been watching his artwork and I wonder if he'd do a piece or two for some of the other CCGs out there. Yes I'm still looking for art for the next MND expansion! I like what HC O'Neill did for the latest Rage expansion. I think I might copy that when I get the time.

I pointed the creator of Barathaum to the wiki and tried to get him to do stuff there, like copy the rules onto the wiki for one. I'm a bit tired of the PDF that's posted online though and there seems to be so many different version of the rules that I lost track of what was what. Well, he said he'll get on to it today his time, which will probably be tomorrow my time. I hope he makes an attempt at it... and he does a good job.

-+@ Chameleon Fairy @+-

New Month, same old CCG though for the title... and that card is just so gay...



Lord of the Rings cards and these are from the next set Rise of Saruman. It got approved late last week so 2 cards have been spoilt - Saruman and the Ring. Of course I have to find a third for this blog so I picked up a fan made card with the spoilt text of another card - a throne, which will be one of the "featured" possession in the set. Saruman is the featured minion with not just one or two or three, but 4 different versions of him in the expansion, which makes sense; after all the expansion is named after him. The cards will be spoilt one a week every Friday. Sadly, it won't be printed in time for Christmas which is a pity, but hopefully it'd be printed early next year.

I have no idea if this expansion will even go online. We are still waiting for the last expansion, eventhough that was only a 6 card expansion. Sony's taking over of WA has really messed up WA and if anyone wants to start and make up ground by taking over WA's share of the pie, this would probably be a good time to start. I have been playing a bit more often though and made an Elf deck yesterday with the twins. It's mid level, but it's interesting playing elves... for the first time. I think I've played out the decktype though.

The sad thing about LotR is that there are only 7 fellowship cultures (and 5 shadow ones). Each culture seems to have 2 strategies at the most making 14 possible playable fellowship decks.
That seems a small number though. The numbers are a little bit higher due to "rainbow" fellowships and dual-race decks, but only Hunters, Eowyn-Elves get to see some play although I saw a rather interesting Gondor/Gandalf fp today.

I've had quite a bit of time recently because the 4-player Urland game finally finished with Ed as the winner. I made a mistake early in the game with a misclick and picked the wrong gene. Oh well, blame it on human error. I'm glad Ed won though not because he coded the game but because he really played well. Everyone else made mistakes. One thing I desperately wished was present on the game interface was a notepad where I could jot down which were the chips that I passed on and what my next few moves are going to be. Relying on memory, sometimes for a few days isn't the nicest thing to be doing.

The only other thing of significance today was that a playtest report was posted for the latest MND expansion that have been added to gEngine for playtest. The DJ cards are, as feared, vastly overpowered, but with comments and playtesting, they are being knocked down a few pegs. I think I have the best playtesting team at this point in time on the engine for the cards... and thanks to the effort started last year, a good team of card developers as well.

There's apparently a new expansion of Doomtrooper to be added... probably in the beginning of the year... and Scooby Doo for Mythos as well. Doo and Doom as I call them. As for Barathaum though, this week is shaping up to be another busy week so I doubt any progress will be made. Perhaps over the weekend, if I can squeeze in the time, the excitement, enthusiasm and effort, I might get it done. Or perhaps not - I have no idea how the rest of this week will go much less of the weekend.

I was looking through a new CCG for next year based on the Fox programme Chaotic. I'm not sure I like it. Is it me or are CCGs getting more and more gimmicky these days? I've posted about Dino Duel where you get cards from an arcade machine... now apparently there's cards that give you codes to enter at a website to do things. Granted, that's not new - Digimon probably had something similar, and perhaps Bionicle as well, but still. Why cut out the game stores and stuff? I have no idea. I'll probably grab the images for the next blog update unless I actually do some work on Barathaum, in which case, it'd be that instead.