HQ PICS DOWNLOADS and Status List (MTG)

[Huggybaby]

I understand now. And so, I have to make a difficult judgment. And my judgment is as follows:

The HQ Pics Project is a documentation effort. The purpose of the HQ Pics Project has always been to represent the cards as they were printed. The way they looked is the first part, and the way they were spelled is the second. Both those aspects are fixed in time and not subject to change. The way they look and the names we give are always supposed to show what was actually on the card.

Sometimes sets were printed clearly with saturated colors. Sometimes the cards were fuzzy with washed out colors. We never tried to fix that, but instead tried to mirror that accurately.

And although I have always tried to ensure that this set of pics serves game players from a usability standpoint, the greater goal is to reflect the cards as they were printed, and the names should represent what was printed.

So, I'm not going to change the HQ Pics standard to make it easier for smaller databases. Blame inconsistencies on WOTC, not me.

From my standpoint, the pics come first, and databases should adjust, not the other way around. The way the cards were printed is fixed in time and will never change. I won't be put in the position of changing this huge collection every time WOTC makes some small change in their Gatherer database. The cards have a past, and we will reflect that accurately.

That said, I have always only had two goals. The first is to document these cards. The second is to make them easily usable by as many people as possible, and that has always been the case.

To reach the second goal, I expect to have software that will move and rename the pics to suit as many clients as is possible. This software is not only possible, but is in the works. If this renaming software ever sees the light of day, then any number of clients that use these small up-to-date databases (the "Oracle text from the latest Gatherer listings" as you put it) will be perfectly supported, without the names of the pics in this collection ever having to change at all.

[skibulk]

Just to cite a same-card example, An-Havva Township from Homelands has both a capital and lowercase "H" in its name. Although similar, the capital h differs from the lowercase h in the width and height of the arch.

[Nyth]

So that's the capital H in that font... Makes sense.

As for the lower case o and t in Will-o'-the-Wisp, that should be as printed and then reflected in the databases. To put it mildly, just as every other language translates back to the English Oracle name and wording, the "English" cards also need to translate back into English Oracle name and wording.

[Ark]

The official name for any card is always the English Oracle name (not the English Printed name), which matters mostly for judges and deckchecks, etc, but if you're going by Printed name, I assume that if you release scans from other languages, you'd do Will-o'-the-Wisp as Feu follet.full.jpg for French and 鬼火.full.jpg for Japanese, right?

It's not a big deal to me, since I only download these once, and correct all the file names that don't match the Oracle name at that time. I don't have to ever redownload old sets or anything now.

[Huggybaby]

I'm not EVEN thinking about foreign languages right now.

I think before we used the English names though. Heck, my keyboard doesn't make Chinese characters.

[Ark]

With Windows 2000+ I'm pretty sure you just install the IME from control panel, and you can type in any language. That, or hold ALT and press numbers until you get the right one
Or you can just copy/paste from Gatherer, like I did...

[skibulk]

Still, I think this is a tremendous amount of additional work for Huggybaby. I'd think real-foreign-naming should be supported through the renaming scripts instead?

Also, if we're going for accuracy to the english name, How are you treating "AEther" and accented characters like in "El-Hajjaj"?

[Huggybaby]

I'm using "Ae". It's a compromise for sure, but we agreed on that a long time ago.

I do agree that real-foreign-naming should be supported through the renaming scripts.

[Sloth]

And although I have always tried to ensure that this set of pics serves game players from a usability standpoint, the greater goal is to reflect the cards as they were printed, and the names should represent what was printed.

Then don't forget to name AErathi Berserker "rathi Berserker".

[Huggybaby]

Thanks, will do.

[Qanadhar]

I understand now. And so, I have to make a difficult judgment. And my judgment is as follows:

The HQ Pics Project is a documentation effort. The purpose of the HQ Pics Project has always been to represent the cards as they were printed. The way they looked is the first part, and the way they were spelled is the second. Both those aspects are fixed in time and not subject to change. The way they look and the names we give are always supposed to show what was actually on the card.

Sometimes sets were printed clearly with saturated colors. Sometimes the cards were fuzzy with washed out colors. We never tried to fix that, but instead tried to mirror that accurately.

And although I have always tried to ensure that this set of pics serves game players from a usability standpoint, the greater goal is to reflect the cards as they were printed, and the names should represent what was printed.

So, I'm not going to change the HQ Pics standard to make it easier for smaller databases. Blame inconsistencies on WOTC, not me.

From my standpoint, the pics come first, and databases should adjust, not the other way around. The way the cards were printed is fixed in time and will never change. I won't be put in the position of changing this huge collection every time WOTC makes some small change in their Gatherer database. The cards have a past, and we will reflect that accurately.

That said, I have always only had two goals. The first is to document these cards. The second is to make them easily usable by as many people as possible, and that has always been the case.

To reach the second goal, I expect to have software that will move and rename the pics to suit as many clients as is possible. This software is not only possible, but is in the works. If this renaming software ever sees the light of day, then any number of clients that use these small up-to-date databases (the "Oracle text from the latest Gatherer listings" as you put it) will be perfectly supported, without the names of the pics in this collection ever having to change at all.

With the forthcoming renaming tool, this decision makes sense in the context of the project and allows seeding/sync-seeding into the future without tampering with the torrents, which in turn will allow the files to be available to the most users.

Thanks for all the hard work Huggybaby and others.

[Taercennx]

My apologies if this is the wrong place to ask this, but I am mostly blind at this time, so I may have missed it.

I am having issues downloading the zip files for the HQ scans for MWS. Mediafire constantly gives the "broken download" message.

I am using Windows 7 and Google Chrome for my browser, in case there may be a issue there, I don't know.

Thanks for your time. Possible directions if this is not the right area for this would also be appreciated.

[Huggybaby]

You're in the right place...

A lot of those links probably are broken. Try here: http://mtgathering.ru/hqpics

[Taercennx]

You are awesome. These work perfectly. And they respond to my mouseover program that reads them out to me.

To edit: They do download eventually, but my wife is saying that they are slow to start downloading.

[Huggybaby]

Glad I could help!

I don't notice any slow starting problems, but that site does limit you to two simultaneous downloads.