-+@ It's Time to Party @+-

Yay! Paaaaaaarty!



Three different cards, Yukk's Feed the Dog, Hamlet's Ending cardback and YNDT's Skyscraper. It's a change though, but it's also apt for what I have been doing today. I spent quite a bit of time today, adding the YNDT and Hamlet infomation to the CCGW wiki. Why those 2? Well, because together with Yukk, they are the 3 Interactivities Ink games that I've adapted for CCGW.

The story actually began yesterday though, when Tomi asked for a slightly different format to the game box for Mythos. I played around with Doom's box and at the end of the day, Tomi was happy with the modifications I made. So that got applied to Doom and to Mythos as well. I see he has done Dark Ages after thatwith Dark Eden being blank. Of course, a change to the format means I had to go back to each and every page to add the necessary stuff. Not a lot of pages at the moment, but that will grow soon enough... at least I hope.

MND was the other page that I created yesterday and it was just a quick cut and copy from wikipedia for that though. Not too much infomation yet, but since these are easier to edit than webpages, hopefully, they'll get polished up to a good enough standard.

Talking about MND, I actually had a look at the tournament results today. It seems that some people are reporting their results on the forums, but not on the engine and vice versa, which means that there are now two different records of the tournament. It almost seems as if it's two tournaments running concurrently. Ack, I hope I don't have to clean up as well. Transition periods are tough though.

I actually did some game coding yesterday - can't mention the game here yet. Was going to do some Hyborian Gates, but realised that I didn't have the files here. Grrr... oh well.

Ed is still trying to figure out what's causing massive lag on the server. I thought it was an error in the collections script, but it turned out not to be so. Maybe it's just something random or maybe it's a hacker. Who knows? It's interesting though, because the lag can oft times disappear and then reappear for no reason. Perhaps the physical server is just being cranky?

And everyone else? I really have no idea though. It's the beginning of the year and there's a million things to be done. It's also a new year to make resolutions to complete a game you said you'll code 2 years ago. Perhaps that's why Aaron's been hanging out around the engine these days? Who knows... I have' also seen Craig online though, although he hasn't hung out on the engine for a while now. I guess he's gone on to other things.

-+@ Play It Again @+-

A refrence to Hamlet perhaps?



Art Credit:
Jade Yajo - Image by Raegan Walters, foreground by Nov, background by Lou Holsten
Black Wudge - Image by Jen Reed, background by Werner/Holmberg
Flist - Image by Beth Zyglowicz

Three more cards for Exodus Flight... some of these images are just amazing. I have got permission for them to use the images on gEngine and Exodus is clearly being marked as that, a gEngine set. The Insiider people are still supplying images for this although it has slowed down a bit as school has started. Ah well.

I haven't done much MND since the last post - mainly just prettying up a few things and getting things up to date, but that's the mundane stuff that adminstrators and the like do from time to time, not really important to mention, yet too important to not do. Or something like that.

I actually got into a game with Bobby Doktoraw today - he played Orwin Naroom swarm, I was playing Cald Control. Obviously his deck works a lot much better than mine. Cald only has a few control cards - Crushing Heat and Heat Lens comes to mind... not too bad for a burn region. The deck needs a Rayje's belt though... time for an edit.

I'm a bit concerned about the fact taht I'm losing interest in the game... but when I took a step back to analyze what was the issue, I realised that I'm actally tired of CCGs as a whole. I stopped playing gToons a while back... and I haven't really played much of any other games except for LotR, which I have already declared that I'm bored with already. The thing is, I need to stay sharp on MND since I'm actually designing cards for it. I haven't figured out if that's the cause of my lack of interest, or one of the causes, but nevertheless it's slightly on the alarming angle from my point of view...

Mitch is still losing his challenge games ... or mostly losing anyways. He's probably having a blast playing all his other decks, but is also a bit ... urm... affected... by the game losses. Oh well. Quite a bit of games is being played and Dan has posted summaries on the group blog almost on a daily basis of 4 games he's played over the weekend.

Meanwhile the custom cards site is getting hit rather constantly as well... over 100 hits last week alone, much to my surprise. Is it the TR cards? Or is it because of the RP cards? Or are my custom cards a draw? So far, some of the hits are from

NSW, Australia

Eugene, OR

Slough, England

Las Vegas, NV

Glasgow, Scotland

Miami, FL

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

QLD, Australia.

Copenhagen, Denmark

That's a rather large bag of hits, and not all of them from English speaking countries as well - Brazil and Denmark appear on that list. I'm still rather shellshock.

Away from MND though, I did spend the week polishing up Hamlet, since it's now in "Playing" status. Ed told me I didn't code in the script to update the hints, and when I checked I realised that he was right (as usual), so I had to do them chop chop chop... found a few other things that were missing as well and did them there and then... the good news is that I used new coding stuff I have barely used before (no Martin, not arrays) and I haven't lost the coding skills after 3 months of little to no coding. Also what was good is that the engine is so advanced now that it was relatively straight forward to code what I wanted. The bad thing (besides missing them out in the first place) is that the coding had to be done fast... well, thanks to the structure I gave it when I started coding it, I managed to do it rather quickly. Yippee.

Two novelty points for noticing that this blog entry is text justified. Yes, I have been lazy with it for a while now, but decided why not. Also, those who actually visit the blog on a browser will probably notice that I've removed a few links from the right. Yeah, things needs a change... I need a change... and I hope it's a change for a better.

-+@ 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.

-+@ And I Love Your Company @+-

This is the weekend update as I end my Sunday. I wonder how people get to do all the boring facts of their lives and condense them into a blog... wait, I already do that with a boring subset of my life.

Anyways, I thought I'd do a spot check today to see where I am with CCG Workshop stuff. Two thirds of the month has gone past and I should at least have most of the things on my list done. Well, I didn't plan on taking up the Bronx Project at the beginning of the month and that has eaten into my time... so let's start with that first then.

Bronx project - it's the no frills version of a game I don't want to announce at the moment. It has all the basic draw card/play card/discard card already done and I did some work on it yesterday. I was suppose to put in the dice and markers today but life happened, so it'll be done sometime next week. I'm also waiting for Bug to load up the game onto the engine as alpha and to setup the directories on the server so that I can see that everything works on the engine. Anyways, it should go public beta by the end of the month.

Portable adventures is the other thing I have to "finish" up by the end of the month. All I need to do are the pass and the next buttons for the adventure phase. I don't know why I dread that but I do. The other 3 things - Linda, stuff card with rolls, stuff card with bonus CP is really optional I guess. It's a pity I'm a bit burnt out on the game. I really should get into it a bit more to get my enthusiasm up to code.

The MND update for this month was done early on. The 50 card Elder's Legacy custom is all on the engine and I think the text would be as final as they can get. I'll probably announce that the set is finished on the anniversary of CCGW in November. Art is already pouring in (OK, trickling) for Shadowsfall Promo, the in between filler between the sets. I'll have to start work on those ASAP to finalise text to get them to a phase I'd be comfortable with them. I should dedicate an evening to sit down and sort that out. I also need to sort out the Elder's Legacy Promo and then the Tainted Glimpses cards. Urgh, lots of work there, but the crucial bits for this month is done.

Hamlet and Kings were the other 2 games that were scheduled to get updates this month and I can say they are done. I'm quite happy with the Kings update, and well, the Hamlet one is OK I guess. Not many people play those games though which is a pity, but I guess expected. At the very least, they are getting updated.

Bowling has been pushed back a bit because of the Bronx Project. Hopefully, I can get the motivation to finish the game next month - I really need to get Portable Adventures out of the way there so that I can concentrate on this.

Go Fish had a few updates to include new cards and to remove some of the other cards. Gameplay wise, it hasn't changed. Maybe I should organise a tournament for this to see what sort of response it'd get. Or maybe not. Hmm...

Wildstorms automation and Triple Triad scanning can be moved back to next month. After all I did mark them as optional. That would mean the workload for next month would be a bit on the heavy side. I hope I don't have to worry about Portable Adventures then.

Seems like a few things would be moved to next month, I guess I'll have to move one of next month's mega games to the month after... That would probably be Hyborean Gates, and I might put HumAliens as "optional" for next month. We'll see. There's not much going on in the HumAliens world at the moment. The game is mediocre at best, but it does deserve a chance I guess.

I still haven't made any firm announcement on WS Legends Solitaire yet. I guess I'm waiting for at least 2 out fo the 4 games I have in development to go public, so that would means that October would be the earliest... but it'd probably be around November or so. The engine's anniversay seems to be a good target as any to make that announcement.

The situation with B5 seems to be a bit depressing at the moment as nobody seems to be playing. I think I'll stick to my November schedule - yes, you read right, November as in early November - to finalise the Vorlon cards, unless play picks up and there's a huge demand for me to do them early. Somehow I doubt it. B5 players can't seem to be able to organise themselves for a game. Some new guy, azuredarkness, asked us for our IMs and contacts, but I have yet to hear from him asking for a game. Doesn't seem to me that he's interested, or maybe Billy beat him black and blue with one of the crazy decks Billy has been known to make, and he lost interest. Who knows?

I'm still waiting for Bug to make Crypt public, if only to offset the loss of the games last month. I'm going to say it'll take a few months to make up in numbers for the loss of those 9 games and Crypt and the Bronx Project will help. Of course there are a large segment of the population (or maybe I'm deluding myself...) waiting for the launch of VTES, but since that would be on a separate server, I wonder if it's going to be worth counting it in the usual stable of games. I suppose I could, but we'll have to see how that sets up. Hopefully, for the beta stage of the testing anyways, it'd be on the engine proper and then it could migrate onto its own server once things are finished.

TRagedy asked me about his app to be a PL. I explained that Bug is usually swamped. He wants to do his own original game... and so do so many of the people out there I guess. At least he knows programming so that's good. He's also been asking about Frank's Zoo, and that's something I can't answer. I have no idea how far along the game is and Thomas seems to work in spurts at best. I doubt he'd be capable of finishing it, or to get it to a playable stage, in the next 3 months. According to the forums, he started it late March/early April, so with the 6 months deadline, he should have it finished by early November. Somehow I doubt that deadline would be met.

I've got a poll running on the forums asking for which game people think I should adapt next. Two games are currently tied on top spot. I'll leave it for another month or so to see how fares either game... or maybe a third game will claim top spot. It could happen.

I've been playing some LotR O as well, not much though. I think I'm happy with the new incarnation of the Hobbits Tales / Sauron Besiegers deck. It works rather well, especially against Ringwraiths, has been known to take down Gondor fortifications and pure Dwarves FP. Haven't tested it against a nice Rohan deck. Hmm... I wonder if I can make a good Rohan deck with the cards I've got... perhaps when I have more time.

And time is something you have very little of when you play this game on the engine... just make sure you have got the power of the gods.

-+@ When Do Pieces of a Broken Heart Mend Again? @+-

Sometimes things bring me crashing down to earth again, which is good, because floating away with my head in the clouds tend to make me big headed.

Forums updates are still going on. A shadowrun card now graces the Test Forum. nipa has got 2 Doomtrooper cards as suggestions for the programming and tech help forums, which I hope he'll scan for me soon.

I updated Hamlet today - it's now hopefully a bit more clever in that it recognises when one is out of moves. That should make things easier to play (hopefully). I also added in the errata the Mike Young had on the webpage. It's funny how such a simple game can have an errata. Not many people have been playing it since jaegerpenguin disappeared from the engine. Oh well.

Martin updated Tower Siege today as well to include the brand new expansion. The cards are really really good to look at. It's a pity the game mechanics is a bit MTG-ish and it depends a bit too much on dice... it's more like a dice game than a card game. That's another game jaegerpenguin plays...

Thomas is finally trying to play MND, after he decried it as having no strategy and "not his game". I wonder what made him change his mind though. It might not be as complicated as Doomtrooper, with the upteen expansions or as complex to play as Babylon 5, or even as good in multiplayer as VTES or as balanced as Netrunner, but it did had a loyal following and there are still people who wish to play it.

Funny story in LotR O today - I said "Salut!" to someone with a french sounding name and the next thing I knew, he was talking to me in French. Well, I didn't have the heart to stop him though, so I just went along and pretended that I understood what he was saying... I got the gist of it more than anything else.

I said Hi to Mike Nickoloff today, and he seemed rather grumpy, or at least he wasn't very polite. Then he logged off. I wonder what that was all about. Anyways, that put me off working on PAD for today (which was why I worked on Hamlet instead and got quite a bit done there). Bug PM'ed me about PAD today - maybe a chaser or something and I do really have to get it polished up by the end of the month... or that's what I tell myself anyways.

Oh and Valyrian edition of A Game of Thrones is finally out. I'm contemplating buying a pack of starters just for the rules and if I get to like it maybe to get a box of boosters at a future date. The art isn't really my style - it does remind me of MTG - but if the mechanics are good, I guess I'm going to be a huge fan of that after LotR bites the dust... if LotR bites the dust.

There's still no word on the King Anthology from Decipher yet. Most of the news on the site is about the just released .hack expansion - I think it's Incursion - and the upcoming release of WARS. It's not giving nervous LotR players any confidence in the game, particularly coupled with what people have taken to be bad news about the next set - Shadows.

Have I mentioned that Bruce has asked me to update the "final" version of The Vorlons? That is not getting any priority till after Portable Adventures is done, or that's what I tell myself. Still it's nice to see people logging in to the engine if only to grab the images for the new cards... but they'll be a bit disappointed since those images are clipped and aren't really complete.

Bug has just announced the latest licensed game - Barons of Fyn. It's a game I really should try to get an interest in, but I just can't somehow. I guess I'm more interested in weird things like bowling and triple triad and old maid. Well, bowling for next month that's for sure. And no licensed game for me until after the year is out. Hopefully some kind soul will take over Barons of Fyn and adapt it ASAP so that I could play it on the engine.

Would you believe that there is already a game on the engine with Barons? Think outside the box... square... grid.