Forge version 1.5.24

[Chris H.]

Tentative target release date: Friday August 15 2014.

[drdev]

I just finished committing some fixes and enhancements for gauntlets in the desktop game.

• Add column to Load Gauntlet screen to display your deck for the gauntlet
• Fix so your deck is saved with a gauntlet when starting a quick gauntlet
• Instead of crashing, prompt user to select a deck if attempting to load a gauntlet that doesn't have one saved
• Make it so Last Activity column isn't cut off
• Make it so double-clicking a gauntlet on the Load Gauntlet screen will launch it
• Support renaming gauntlets
• Support sorting gauntlets (and quests) case insensitive

Let me know if you have any issues with the new behavior.

Thanks.
-Dan

[drdev]

I finally got around to investigating the loading overlay for the desktop game, something I've been meaning to do for awhile. I've fixed it so the logo displays properly and gave the overlay a little transparency similar to what I did for the mobile game.

Let me know if you think I should tweak anything.

Thanks.
-Dan

[drdev]

Another thing I've fixing this release is the End Turn button. From CHANGES.txt:

- Improved auto-yield support -
Pressing "End Turn" now properly skips your attack phase and doesn't get cancelled automatically if a spell or ability is put on the stack. You will still be given a chance to declare blockers if your opponent attacks, but after that the rest of your opponent's turn will now be skipped properly
To alleviate pressing this accidentally, as long as you're auto-yielding this way, you'll be able to press Escape or the Cancel button to cancel the auto-yield and be given the chance to act again. Phases with stops and spells/abilities resolving will be given a slight delay to allow you to see what's going on and give you the chance to regain control by cancelling the yield.

Please let me know if you have any concerns about this change. I feel it much better captures the essence of what that button is for, and being able to cancel it prevents you from being locked out of an entire turn from a misclick.

If someone thinks it's necessary, I will add a setting to tweak the End Turn behavior to stop when new things are put on the stack if desired. Just let me know.

Also, a heads up that as part of this (though not done yet), I'm planning to add support for auto-yielding to individual abilities on the stack. Let me know if you have any thoughts on how you'd like that done.

At this time, I'm just planning to add three new right-click options while such an ability is on the stack. One to auto-yield for the current turn, one to auto-yield for the current game, and one to auto-yield always (where the card and ability will be stored in the CardPreferences file to be saved between games and Forge sessions). For cards with an auto-yield set up, you'll be able to right-click to remove the auto-yield. I'll also add a menu item to the Game menu to allow you to view all active yields and remove any you don't want anymore. I'm also going to add an item to that menu to temporarily disable all ability auto-yields without removing them in case you just want to gain more control for a critical stage of a game without messing up all your configured yields.

This design is based off my own experience with MTGO and the shortcomings of its auto-yield system. That said, I'm certainly open to additional ideas.

Thanks.
-Dan

[elcnesh]

In r27031, I added support for cards changing text (like Trait Doctoring). It works by changing all occurrences of the specified word in all ability parameter values, which works in everything I've tried testing (which is quite a lot). It fails with some hardcoded cards (like Omnath, Locus of Mana), which I'll investigate and try to fix in the near future.

It shouldn't affect cards that haven't any of these effects applied to them, but I changed quite a bit of code, so I'll keep my eyes open for any bugs this change causes.

[timmermac]

Never mind... Looked at the SVN log... Can't wait until either a new snapshot or 1.5.24 comes out for Magical Hack. bwahahahahahaha

[Chris H.]

Never mind... Looked at the SVN log... Can't wait until either a new snapshot or 1.5.24 comes out for Magical Hack. bwahahahahahaha

 
New snapshot is available:

forge-gui-desktop-1.5.24-20140811.212006-3.tar.bz2

forge-gui-desktop-1.5.24-20140811.212006-3-osx.tar.bz2

[Marek14]

In r27031, I added support for cards changing text (like Trait Doctoring). It works by changing all occurrences of the specified word in all ability parameter values, which works in everything I've tried testing (which is quite a lot). It fails with some hardcoded cards (like Omnath, Locus of Mana), which I'll investigate and try to fix in the near future.

It shouldn't affect cards that haven't any of these effects applied to them, but I changed quite a bit of code, so I'll keep my eyes open for any bugs this change causes.

Some questions:
1. Does this work with multiple changing effects? For example:
Take Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Use Sleight of Mind, changing black to red -> Akroma will have two instances of protection from red. Then another Sleight of Mind changes red to green and Akroma should now have two instances of protection from green.
Does it correctly resolve combinations of temporary and permanent changes?
2. Does this have exceptions for things that should NOT be affected? Things like:
Fear - should have black hardcoded
Soulshift - should always affect Spirits even if the card is modified by Artificial Evolution
Protection from all colors - it's a shorthand for "protection from white, protection from blue, protection from black, protection from red, protection from green", using some tricks you can use Cephalid Snitch to eliminate just some of the protections, but since it doesn't actually use the color words, it's not affected.
Living weapon - the color and creature type of the token are hardcoded and can't be changed.
3. Does this also modify the type line? This is important for Hack effects and Artificial Evolution.
4. Do these effects work correctly with tokens? There are two main interactions, one is changing color of future tokens, second is changing their creature type with Artificial Evolution, which can also change their name if no name is specified. Will this cause Forge to find wrong image for them or no image at all?
5. Are the abilities that trigger/are activated "locked in", unaffected by further text changes to the originating card?
6. Swirl the Mists has some special interactions that don't occur for other text-changing cards since it affects spells even during casting. Once you start casting a spell, it moves onto stack, and Swirl the Mists can affect it. For example, Force of Will's alternate cost will be affected (if Swirl the Mists set to "green" is on the battlefield, its alternative cost will require exiling a green card from hand).
7. I know there was something strange about rules interactions between Swirl the Mists and Ulasht, the Hate Seed, I was told that its "as enters the battlefield" ability is not affected by Swirl the Mists, but I didn't really understand why or whether that also works for other text-changing abilities.
8. Are the text changes visible in the card text? Specifically, is there anything pointing them out? Shandalar made the replaced words all in CAPITALS so they's attract attention, but it could be also possible to add a line to card description per every change.

[Fizanko]

using r27034, i was about to report that when i click on "End Turn" , the phases inside of a turn complete automatically noticably much slower than before.

But i just saw the post of drdev in that thread, is it linked to that new functionality or is there really an unintended slowdown of the End Turn fuction ?

[drdev]

using r27034, i was about to report that when i click on "End Turn" , the phases inside of a turn complete automatically noticably much slower than before.

But i just saw the post of drdev in that thread, is it linked to that new functionality or is there really an unintended slowdown of the End Turn fuction ?

I added a 200ms delay for phases you have stops on, which is what AI vs. AI playback does. I can take that out easily if people don't like it. The main reason I added it was so you'd have the ability to cancel ending the turn now that I added support for that.

[friarsol]

I added a 200ms delay for phases you have stops on, which is what AI vs. AI playback does. I can take that out easily if people don't like it. The main reason I added it was so you'd have the ability to cancel ending the turn now that I added support for that.

I don't think it should be taken out, if people don't like the small delay, we should be able to add a preference for how long each phase stops while in this mode.

[Fizanko]

Yes, some kind of option would be useful for those that would tweak the delay.
Taking out the delay now that the End Turn does not stop on the attack phase would indeed give no real way to interrupt the automatic phases in case someone clicked by mistake on "End Turn"

[elcnesh]

Some questions:
1. Does this work with multiple changing effects? For example:
Take Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Use Sleight of Mind, changing black to red -> Akroma will have two instances of protection from red. Then another Sleight of Mind changes red to green and Akroma should now have two instances of protection from green.
Does it correctly resolve combinations of temporary and permanent changes?

Yup, it should. I added some logic to handle this kind of changes.

2. Does this have exceptions for things that should NOT be affected? Things like:
Fear - should have black hardcoded
Soulshift - should always affect Spirits even if the card is modified by Artificial Evolution
Protection from all colors - it's a shorthand for "protection from white, protection from blue, protection from black, protection from red, protection from green", using some tricks you can use Cephalid Snitch to eliminate just some of the protections, but since it doesn't actually use the color words, it's not affected.
Living weapon - the color and creature type of the token are hardcoded and can't be changed.

I'll check these, as I already found something that isn't working. Thanks!

3. Does this also modify the type line? This is important for Hack effects and Artificial Evolution.

Yup.

4. Do these effects work correctly with tokens? There are two main interactions, one is changing color of future tokens, second is changing their creature type with Artificial Evolution, which can also change their name if no name is specified. Will this cause Forge to find wrong image for them or no image at all?

Both work.

5. Are the abilities that trigger/are activated "locked in", unaffected by further text changes to the originating card?

Hmm, I tested this, but now I immediately find a counter-example. I'll investigate.

6. Swirl the Mists has some special interactions that don't occur for other text-changing cards since it affects spells even during casting. Once you start casting a spell, it moves onto stack, and Swirl the Mists can affect it. For example, Force of Will's alternate cost will be affected (if Swirl the Mists set to "green" is on the battlefield, its alternative cost will require exiling a green card from hand).

Works for targeting, but not yet for costs. Something to do with the order in which Forge applies things. Will fix.

7. I know there was something strange about rules interactions between Swirl the Mists and Ulasht, the Hate Seed, I was told that its "as enters the battlefield" ability is not affected by Swirl the Mists, but I didn't really understand why or whether that also works for other text-changing abilities.

If you cast Ulasht from the command zone, it'll check the counters as a replacement effect to entering the battlefield, so it won't be affected by Swirl the Mists. If it enters from the stack, I can't think of any reason why Swirl the Mists wouldn't affect it.

8. Are the text changes visible in the card text? Specifically, is there anything pointing them out? Shandalar made the replaced words all in CAPITALS so they's attract attention, but it could be also possible to add a line to card description per every change.

Yes, although they're now just replaced in the card window. I'll add some markup like strikethrough so you know exactly what happened.

[Hellfish]

Elcnesh: A specific problem I had when I was working on text replacement (the reason I moved to "objectifying" keywords", which I've been forced to temporarily drop *again* ) was that abilities not intrinsic to the card (Not in it's actual rules text) should not have their text changed. IE, if Abbey Gargoyles gains redundant Protection from Red from Crimson Acolyte and a text replacement effect later changes Red to Blue for the gargoyles, it should have both Protection from Red AND Protection from Blue. Is that handled?

Otherwise, nice job!

[Marek14]

If you cast Ulasht from the command zone, it'll check the counters as a replacement effect to entering the battlefield, so it won't be affected by Swirl the Mists. If it enters from the stack, I can't think of any reason why Swirl the Mists wouldn't affect it.

Well, if you cast it from command zone, it also enters from the stack.

Here's my relevant thread at MTGSalvation: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magi ... -the-mists

The relevant part:

Actually, the text-changing effect of Swirl the Mists won't affect enters-the-battlefield replacement effects at all. For the Ulasht example, even though the text-changing effect is applied to Ulasht both while Ulasht is a spell on the stack and while Ulasht is on the battlefield, it won't affect the colors of creatures Ulasht's replacement effect looks for. That's because, when making the determination of how to apply Ulasht's replacement effect, the game checks how it would look on the battlefield, and the continuous effect of Swirl the Mists isn't any of the things it takes into account when doing that, so the effect still checks the number of red and the number of green creatures.

Not entirely sure whether this is true.