-+@ 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!