-+@ Storn Storm @+-

What can I say? When it rains, it pours...



Three more cards previewed on the Custom Card Forum. Artists are from left - Goodman, Werner and Holsten. These are some of the probably cards for Twilight War. Well, I'm thinking about it anyways. Was also thinking of names for a few future sets. I like "Ancient of Days" which sounds a bit grand, but things like "Time after Time" or "Time between Times" fals flat somehow. Also, was mulling the possibility of making some of the RP cards into a custom set... the working name for that is currently "Exodus Flight".

Tournament wise, Mitch was the first person to qualify by playing his 8 games. His 8th game was a win against Pirategirl... I didn't realised he blogged it yesterday at http://ccgwmnd.blogspot.com blog. It's a good read and one of the first blogs to get 2 comments there. Quite a few people are reading that blog too, and I'm a bit surprised to see that.

Otherwise, it has been a quiet day on the engine mostly... there was a period where there were only 2 people on the engine. Good Friday must be taking its toll or something I guess. I've been busily updating the games for the new engine. Go Fish desperately needed that update, and while I was there, I couldn't resist updating the "optional extra". WSS1 also needed an update - I pondered going text only as DoomTown did, then I pondered going for a better scan, but when I saw how perfect the new system is, I retained everything and just let it go as it is. Also added the first three cards of the second "custom" "expansion" - WSS2. This set departed from the WSS1 format (since WS was an established game by then), but it had many of the basics of WSS1 on the cards and I thought it'd be nice to give the characters appropriate stats and add them to WSS1. So that's being done. WildCATs were the 3 cards today. Stormwatch is next. I considered doing some HumAliens today, but decided that they can be left for a rainy day.

'Twas a busy day for the forums and the engine in general in terms of admin work. Obviously, the end of the month is coming up so there's a lot to prepare for. Also, it's beginning to sink into everyone's head that I'm the forum guy, so I'm getting requests to do stuff - minor stuff that I don't really mind doing. Like putting up vacancy signs for some of the games. That has been a good thing, as not one, not two but three of them have been taken up. The ghosts seems pleased with that as well.

What has been done? Tomi decided to start work on Heresy today, after Kev said he'll do the spoiler, so between them, I think we'll get Heresy out sometime this year. I doubt anyone will play it, but I hope to be surprised. Whether it'll be a "no-frills" adaptation (Martin isn't using "no fries" anymore, so I don't get to tease him about that anymore), I have no idea.

Martin himself has been a busy bee, and he's finally added upkeep tracking to Doomtown. Sometimes nagging works. Othertimes, we just all have to gang up on Martin and make him realise that there are things we want in a game. He's also got MECCG and VTES all kitted out with bells and whistles it seems... one of these days I really have to give MECCG a twirl.

Alex's tour today went rather well in my books. 3 people showed up, not the half dozen that used to show up, but it's a start. Hopefully he can build on that. I did tell him all about the new tools at his disposals - calendars and tour notifications and news notifications. Hopefully he'll make better use of them in future since he thinks he'll need them.

Julien's Shadowfist update has been grabbing the headlines... well, only because I put it up as news in the FPN and WGO. Jean-Claude has also been busy getting his games ready, particularly the Rage update before the March moot. Well, moot coincides with Good Friday this year... I guess the werewolves, moon worshippers, nature worshippers and Christians will all celebrate that day.

Tony and Timmie were both having troubles uploading stuff to the server. Timmie got Christoph to do the deed. Sometimes it's nice having a slave, er... junior Project Lead, to do stuff you him. And as for Tony, all I could do is direct him to Ed and hope for the best.

Ed has been, besides busy giving out his ToJH tours, busy also in fixing the bugs that are cropping up on the engine. Sure, these are small and little things here and there, but they do stack up and I'm sure they take a lot of time to find out and fix. Quite a few people has been impressed with the new engine so far. Praise doesn't go to me, but to Ed.

The big news though is that we have a new PL. RevCAJohnson will be starting work on Galactic Empires with help from Kev. Gray told me on the chatroom that it's almost like going back to school with all the amount of stuff he'll have to learn to get the game up and out of the way. I think he has an original game that he wants to adapt for the engine as well.

Well, at least Aaron has one leg up in that aspect - Martin did most of the Sim City scans and completed them yesterday. Now it's just up to Aaron to clip them and to incorporate them into the game. No easy job there I guess. I don't envy him though, I've got to do the same thing to Terminator and Hyborean Gates soon.

And since we've gone full circle back to my games, I've got to really get moving if I'm to complete what I said I'll do this month. B5 and WS hasn't even been updated yet and those really do need an update. I think I'll push B5 back a month to next month. WS though should be getting an update before the month is up, hopefully.

Talking about B5, I played a game today with a relative newbie. Not that I'm an expert or anything. It was fun. Faced an experienced player with a vorlon deck and it was difficult not being able to use my voting cards because Kosh was out. Nevertheless, since no one was playing with a Crusade pile, I was able to bully my way with that and win with the conflicts that only Crusade characters can participate in. I had so much fun playing, I didn't even realised I could win until it was pointed out to me that I could win. Heh. I really have to build more B5 decks that suits my playing style.

Also played a couple of LotR games today. Solo smeagol seems to still be very much played. I've been using Besieger swarms to deal with that though, althuogh evil men & archery would do equally well there. Dwarves and Gandalf seems to be everyone's choice of fellowship these days, I haven't seen Noble Leaders for a while. Fighting Elves and Rohan still see some play. And starter deck Hobbits are everywhere. Some days, I feel so bad when I beat those starter deck hobbit players with my decks.

-+@ Alley Oop! @+-

Eeek! The new engine got set loose early. I don't think it's ready for it yet, but now that it's out, I think it's time for me to hide under a rock. I would hate all the negative comments and hate mail that would be coming my way over the next few weeks about the stuff people are not going to like. Oh well, such is life, I suppose.

No Bowling today, but I did manage to get FastBreak up to scratch for the new engine. That was an easy task since FastBreak is relatively new... well, relatively being the key word there. Compared to some of the games out there, FastBreak is old, and is almost at the level of AvP's "low tech".

The other game I updated today was WSS1. That was a bit more problematic because that is such an old game. You can't teach an old dog new tricks or so the saying goes, well, I just did that to WSS1 while getting it to work with the new build. I've cut down the cardlist by half - only the cardbacks will show in the deck editor. However, in play, the card fronts will be shown. Something rather easy to do these days, but it's a trick that wasn't readily available in the days when WSS1 was created. I'm getting excited about WSS1 though and the new WSS2 expansion. I should do that while I'm on full steam. Also, WSS1 could do with an AI... maybe...

The other 2 games which had updates for the new engine are WS and B5, both of which are really really old games. AvP(vT), despite being as low tech as it is, surprisingly didn't need an update for the new version of the engine. It only goes to show how the age of a game can affect compatibility with future versions of the engine, although having said that, MND, which is like one of the oldest games still available on the engine didn't really need an update for the new engine. That's because MND had a huge overhaul about a year ago in how things are handled and that has proved a rather effective update at modernising the game.

Tomi is still working on DoA, AFAIK and that's a good thing. I can't wait to play that game. I also tried my first game of ToJH today... it's really not my game, although the mechanics are good and is in the PAD ballpark. TWG actually does good games and I think Firestorm would be awesome to code for.

VTES players are "going to town" playing the game - the average number of games played per day has gone up a staggering amount. I haven't seen any red stars yet though, so I doubt anyone is actually paying to play it. The engine, being (sorta) as unstable as it is now, isn't really going to make playing it nice and smooth, so we shall see how many red stars actually turn up for those at the end of next month. It's free for all this week anyways, so people can play as much as they want this week... and take advantage of that they have with over half of the games played over the last 2 days being VTES.

Apparently JC's The Tournament is ready for beta testing. That is a good sign I think. He has been spending lots of time on his games, using stuff learnt in one game and applying it to all the others. It's interesting to watch his coding skills develop as time goes by. One thing he could do more is learn some of the other games out there... particularly the "flagship" games of the triumvirate + 1: nipa's DoomTrooper, Martin's DoomTown, RR's Shadowrum and Babylon 5. It also won't hurt if he took a look at Yahtzee, Tower Siege, Crypt, YNDT and Reversi to see all the cool stuff all those games contains.

The BOT needs a huge overhaul for the new engine. I'm already dreading the task of doing that. I have done some of the more obvious changes, but obviously, things like the FAQ needs to be updated for the BOT to point to, and that hasn't yet been done. Also, the game compensation system is now broken since we aren't on game allowances anymore but on tokens, so nobody will be able to get back their games until that is fixed.

And as for shepherds, well, let's just say that quite a number of them are on vacation, so that's a huge relief most of the time. I just wish some of them will sign up on the forums so that I could add them to the Shepherds' Pasture. Oh well.

And talking about the forums, it seems awash in traffic these days, not only from the VTES players but also from a number of other people. It's interesting though. TechHelp is probably one of the busier forums as everyone seems to be having problems it seems. Heh.

I signed up to Battle Trolls or something like that last week. Haven't played it yet, and it doesn't seem to be as exciting as gToons. Oh well. gToons wise, I've got a new deck with GL and Aquaman and have removed the chicken and Courage's parents. It actually works rather well, and actually beat two decks that has jawbreakers in them. Ay Caramba!

Haven't played LotR yet, although I should finish my 5 games for this week in League soon-ish. Hmm... I wonder if I can even remember how to play. Oh well.