The near future of Manalink 2.0 (or 3.0)

[Gargaroz]

I'm writing this because we're near the Innistrad release (almost 40 days) and, after the release and the usual insertion of 20/30 cards from the new expansion, we'll face a great problem.
I'm constantly fighting for getting more available slots in Costructed Version, replacing stuff I consider not anymore on par with the actual Power Level or not really interesting for EDH (and I know sometimes this makes some of you angry). But after the insertion of Innistrad, I'll really have to remove stuff I like or I consider worth to make room for the following expansion.
Since I don't really like this, I'll share with you my "vision" on where the future development of Manalink 2.0 should go. Of course, if someone will remove the 2000 card limit, all this topic will become obsolete, I hope so, but for now let's face reality.
So, I think we need to go to another "split" of Versions. I know that many of you enjoy doing sealed or booster draft on complete sets, so I'm not touching the Limited version. My proposal is making another Costructed version with a "slower" rotation rate that will be kept for Vintage \ Legacy and Modern Magic players.
The other Costructed version, on the other hand, will be reserved for Costructed / Standard, will have a more "faster" rotation rate (the one I'm actually doing, in fact) and, obviously, any card that is not reprinted for these two format will be subjected to overwriting. Yes, I meant the Power 9, old Doubles and similar stuff too.
The question is : do you prefer this to become the "standard" setting of Manalink 2.0 (2 Costructed Version and 1 Limited) or you'll rather have the "Standard / Extended" version released as a separate Mod, like I did for Golden Years ?
Moderators, plese "stick" this thread, as I really want to know the opinion of the community about it.

[Yggdrasil]

I still use the old My2000.exe coded by Jatill which allows the player to select his own 2000 cards.

If My2000.exe is updated again, the 2000 limit isn't a problem anymore : coders add cards in a pool, and each player select the 2000 he or she likes the more. And of course, we can still have some pre-determinate selections of cards (for limited, challenges, EDH, Golden Age...).

[Gargaroz]

My2000 has some issues, and ever its most skilled user (Orion) admit that he need to manually adjust the values on Magic.exe. If Jatill will to update and bugfix My2000, some problems would be solved.

[Stroggoii]

I think EDH will suffer a Standard/Extended split since now at least 5 cards a set are obviously designed for EDH, even a Vintage-Modern/Standard gives us this problem of either playing with the newest releases or the old time staples and a Vintage/Standard/EDH triad of versions sure seems like too much work and too many files to constantly download and make sure are working fine.

Maybe a Modern-to-Standard that keeps the best of pre-modern EDH staples, and a Legacy-to-Modern that gets updated with obvious eternal staples (things like Mental Misstep for example) from the coming expansions would be best.

[RanDomino]

I don't see the problem, there seem to be hundreds of cards that could still be cut. I mean, Wall of Dust? Really? Haunting Wind? I can't be the only one who's seeing these, am I?

[Gargaroz]

RanDomino, some cards in the Costructed version are to be kept in order to Challenges to be playable, like all these walls. And considering this, the hundreds of cards you mention are to be rounded very down.
Stroggoii, personally I'm a very hardcore fan of EDH / Commander, but the main priority of Costructed version is to remain "on par" with actual Costructed, so probably the Vintage / Legacy version is better suited to fit in the EDH "complete" version. And I found exciting the challenge of building an EDH deck with a card pool limited to the newest expansions. However, some "staples" could be kept, we'll see.

[RanDomino]

Okay, so how about split into a "complete" version that has the fun/good stuff and a "challenge" version that has the necessary jank? That would take care of the people who complain that they just want to play the formats and don't care about challenges. Maybe it would even be possible to lock a huge number of cards in the challenge version and have a very long progressive unlock metagame like Quest mode in Forge.

Also, I don't see the point of Limited mode. The card choices seem just as random as regular and it doesn't seem more functional (not that I've played it much; my copy was broken after install + patches even though my Constructed is working fine, and I don't want to risk breaking that).

I guess if I have a recommendation, it's to keep in mind that the AI is too pathetic to provide a real challenge, and this is always going to be a sandbox by its very nature, so don't worry too hard about making a game, if you follow my meaning. I think the best part about Manalink is smashing giant awesome creatures into each other and doing absurdly epic and creative things that I could never pull off in paper or MTGO, so... just get everything out of the way of that!

[Gargaroz]

RanDomino, my plans are exactly to leave the Challenge in the Vintage \ Legacy edition and free all the available space occupied by cards needed for challenges and older cards in the other edition.
The point of the Limited version is allowing players to play booster draft or sealed with complete sets. I was never a big fan of limited, so it's not my priority to develop / improve this side (if someone wants to do it, it's welcomed). But I'm not going to remove it either, as people enjoy it.
About your last argument, I agree, but I don't see your point : it's exactly what I'm trying to do. I know perfectly that the AI is dumb (but once we have the source code, we could improve that too), but it's still useful testing, let's say, PyroAscension vs Vampires and see how the deck plays.

[thedrigo]

I'm fine with Gargaroz's original plan. In my particular case, I already beat all the Challenges and that was the real fun part for me. As long as it's as user friendly as it is now, I'm fine with having a regularly-rotating "current" Standard/Constructed version and a "slower-rotating" Vintage/Legacy/Modern version that includes the Eternal Format tournament staples as new sets are released.
For all the amazing work Gargaroz and Jatill have already put into this thing, I'd already feel horrible asking for anything else. My only request would be to humbly ask if adding more challenges and more locked cards to keep us on our toes is possible/plausible.

[0rion79]

My2000 has some issues, and ever its most skilled user (Orion) admit that he need to manually adjust the values on Magic.exe.

Lol, "most skilled user" ) The Custom version is still going more than fine for me, except for Doran which is a small price to pay for stability.
I never use Constructed version, except for bug-testing the cards so, I really don't care about what you shall do to it: I'm just afraid that your changes will make the game ever more complicated to use.

I really have to agree with you: let's face realty and admit that there are very few chances to overcome the 2K cards limit and so other solutions have to be found.
I'm more than happy when you take good but obsolete cards as Shatter and replace it with their upgraded version (eg. Shattering Pulse); while I'm not when you have removed cards as Serra Angel that, for me, is just "different" from other cards and not obsolete.
Also, the constant upgrade of the Constructred version causes decks to become unstable: I have more than 400 decks in Custom and the several changes in Constructed would force me to waste a lot of time to make them playable each time.
So, I really hope that Jatill will upgrade My2000, especially removing the locks to hardcoded cards, allowing the editing of 1999 slot ( that is still good ) and adding some new options as "referesh art and CSV only", without touching the exe.

Also, a "deck importer" would be a great addition: a program that checks each deck in a folder and re-writes the ID number that associates each card to the CSV file in use. Incompatibile decks should be placed into a sub-directory, to be fixed by the player through the usual deck editor.

Sorry for the long answer!

[juzamjedi]

Vintage and Legacy share a bunch of playable cards. It seems fine to make a version for those formats into 1 executable.

Modern - I'm not sure what to think yet. I think the list of cards good enough for Modern, but not Legacy/Vintage is going to be pretty large. We can defer until after the first pro tour and see what happens. Maybe this needs to be its own executable too?

Standard - obviously needs to be its own separate entity, not much option there.

EDH - it doesn't really match any of the other sets very well. Vintage/Legacy matches the time period you could go back, but the mana costs of EDH spells are usually much higher than Legacy. I.e. Mental Misstep is terrible in EDH and so on. Maybe this gets its own executable too?

[Gargaroz]

Juzamjedi has more than a point, but I think that more than 2 Costructed version would be a nightmare to keep with. But if My2000 gets updated, this would be probably the best solution. I'll think over it.

[Stroggoii]

If I had to choose two formats, I'd go for Modern and EDH. Standard is easily accessible, and our AI just can't give us a real good vintage competitive experience since it just can't play the most fine-tuned decks.

[0rion79]

Excuse me, but one of the biggest reasons for which I love this game is the chance to use Vintage cards, which I have never used in real life because they are too expensive.
The best thing to do, imho, is to complete the Manalink 2.0 project and start a 2.5.
Playes will siply copy & paste their MtG folder into the same subdirectory but with a new name (eg. Magic - Modern). The new version will contain new cards as if it were a new official expansion block, which is incompatibile with the previous one.
Useless cards are immediately purged and each version will just share with the others the same DLL files, so that Custom users may still add cards from one version to another, even if the game is in different folders.

[stassy]

The issue still lie with hardcoded cards in the executable, they are not a bunch but will still mess up with any modern version...