UI roadmap - discussion of recent and future changes

[drdev]

Now that I've supported for switching between different views in ItemManagers, I might like to attempt something I've considered for some time which is to support using Forge to track and manage your physical (or maybe even MTGO) card collection.

The idea is we'd create a new "Owned" column for Catalog CardManagers that could be displayed between the Favorite column and the Name column and maybe offer the same inline +/- buttons as the "Quantity" column in Deck CardManagers. I'd then add a new Binder/Collection view which would layout cards in a binder like format similar to how MTGO v3 does (which they sadly scrapped for v4), with a clickable Favorite icon and a Owned numeric input below each card.

I could then add a numeric filter to show only cards you own X or more of, or something similar, allowing you to build decks from your personal collection as well as track your personal collection.

Owned counts would be tracked in the Card Preferences file along with favorites, so they wouldn't be tied directly to the Card objects. We could even support saving and loading more than one collection, and perhaps treat each Quest inventory as its own collection that could be loaded into the Constructed Deck Editor.

Has anyone thought of doing this before, and does it interest anyone now? I have other things I might do first, but I thought I'd throw this idea out there to see if it has weight.

Thanks.
-Dan

[Agetian]

@ drdev: Sounds like a very interesting idea, at least for those of Forge fans who seriously take and consider the collectible aspect of MTG! Would be interesting to see this come to fruition!

- Agetian

[moomarc]

It is something I've seen requested more than once, so go for it when you have time. One extension to the idea is maybe being able to use your own collection for a starting quest pool and win boosters are only selected from modern

[Max mtg]

Do you need "language" and "collector's number" properties added to PaperCard?
I think of implementing them, they could be useful for collection handling.

From the usability POV I suggest that player is allowed to edit amount of IRL (or MTGO) owned cards only from a dedicated screen (to prevent adding too much controls to deckbuilder or quest inventory browsing screens)

[drdev]

A discussion in the beta release thread got me thinking that it could be really cool, in addition to supporting tracking of your physical/MTGO collection, to simulate real world Magic and MTGO by having your very own Forge collection that could be built up over time.

My idea is to introduce the concept of profiles to Forge. By default, everyone would auto-login with the default "God" profile that has access to all cards in Forge. However, users could then create one or more additional profiles to switch between, with each profile having a Magic card collection that could be built up over time using techniques that mimic paper and MTGO, i.e. cracking packs, buying singles, trading, playing limited events, and placing in constructed events.

When setting up a profile, you'd choose the following:

• A username
• A start date between 1993 and today, which would determine what cards are available (and at what cost) in the "store" and what AI traders would have in their binders
• A starting balance and daily, weekly, or monthly allowance of "money" which would be used to buy individual packs, booster boxes, precons, and singles from the "store" to add the cards to your collection
• A speed that determines how many days pass for your profile each day in real life

Once you establish your profile, the speed and allowance would combine to determine when you get more money to spend on cards and event entry fees, while the speed and start date would combine to determine when new sets become available in the store, AI trade binders, and event options, and potentially when cards from older sets rotate out or get more valuable. For anyone who started playing Magic more recently, it'd be a chance to pretend you started playing at the very beginning, and for those who left the game for awhile and came back (maybe because of Forge), it'd be a chance to pretend you kept playing.

When buying booster packs, you could crack them immediately to add the contents to your collection, or use the packs to participate in a booster draft, where all your picks are added to your collection (although we also could support rare drafting where all rares are picked separate based on how you do).

Once cards are in your collection, you would be able to build decks using those cards, along with proxys for any cards you don't own. You could trade cards between different non-God profiles you've created (where you control both sides of the trade) or with AI traders that have binders of randomly generated cards in available sets. You could also sell cards back to the store for "money".

You could use decks you've built to enter constructed events where you could win packs or "money", or play casual games/matches where you could optionally wager an ante card or a certain amount of "money" on the outcome of the game/match. Obviously decks containing proxys would only be allowed to be played in casual games with no wager.

I realize this idea is pretty grand in scope, but I think it could be really cool for those who want to hold onto the collectible feel of paper Magic and MTGO without spending a dime (of real money). I look at it as something akin to real life Quest mode. Or maybe Second Life - Forge style.

Another thought I have is, while this whole idea might prove a challenge to integrate into the existing Forge application, it could be really cool to work into the design of the Android game I want to get going. Games like Tiny Tower which I've played show that mobile games where you earn "money" over time which you can then do stuff with are really fun, and I could see a game of that sort for Magic being a blast.

What do you think?

Thanks.
-Dan

[Agetian]

@ drdev: This sounds absolutely epic! If this is ever implemented at least in part, I think Forge will become about twice as awesome for collectible MTG fans as it is!

- Agetian

[Max mtg]

I think those profiles should sooner or later match logins on Forge Online. It would be better to develop with that in mind for easy intergration.

If we resist the temptation of selling ingame goods for real money, there's a small change WotC lawers won't come.

[drdev]

I think those profiles should sooner or later match logins on Forge Online. It would be better to develop with that in mind for easy intergration.

If we resist the temptation of selling ingame goods for real money, there's a small change WotC lawers won't come.

I had that thought too. I was thinking it could be cool to have servers for different Magic "eras" where everyone had access to same card pool. You could party like it's 1999!

To keep things balanced, we could also have everyone on the server have the same allowance too. To play with a custom allowance or start date you'd have to make an offline profile to play against AI.

If course we'd still have "God" servers where everyone had access to all the cards.

On that note, what kind of server architecture were you envisioning, Max? Even if we make everything completely free, we still need to be careful about them shutting us down for stealing MTGO customers.

[Max mtg]

If course we'd still have "God" servers where everyone had access to all the cards.

On that note, what kind of server architecture were you envisioning, Max? Even if we make everything completely free, we still need to be careful about them shutting us down for stealing MTGO customers.

I like the idea of offline profiles. Same is true for dedicated servers without restrictions.

Originally I thought of the same architecture as traditional games without central server have: any gui client may run a server (or a dedicated application without gui), no central Forge server exists, except maybe for one to be used to announce a list of public lobbies run by other players.

When assets are introduced, there begins madness: to prevent cheating the profiles have to be stored on server... a single point of failure.

The temptation to restrain from RMT is too big: players will ask us to sell cooldowns, they will create multiple profiles and merge assets from several accounts (if those are given just based on time) ... I've never thought of a centralized server yet.

[drdev]

The main concern with one or more centralized servers is it becoming too threatening or easy to shutdown by WoTC. Otherwise, that would probably be the way to go.

You brought up valid concerns about manipulation of the auto-collection build up over time. What we could do to combat that is build "fair-trade" enforcement into the system that prevents gifting of cards or completing trades where the difference in value between what's given and what's received exceeds a certain amount. Doing something like that would have the added benefit of preventing more experienced players from ripping off newer players. Plus, given that we'd need to design AI for trading and running the store, we'd have to create a system like that anyway.

[friarsol]

The temptation to restrain from RMT is too big: players will ask us to sell cooldowns, they will create multiple profiles and merge assets from several accounts (if those are given just based on time) ... I've never thought of a centralized server yet.

Yea.. uhh.. let's not do that. I'm sure Wizards is fully aware of us, and just by talking semi-seriously about things like that (RMT? Are you joking? I can't even tell?) will bring the hammer down. Allowing users to keep track of their own collection offline, is just sort of a real life extension of Quest Mode, but synchronizing online profiles to do similar things feels... wrong to me, and not in the vision of what Forge has been in the last 4 years I've been here.

"Career Mode" seems just like an alternate Quest Mode, some different restrictions, different in-game accrual, and more mirroring FNMs up to PTQs is a neat idea (I certainly had a similar one when I first showed up at Forge). But "Online Career Mode" with dedicated servers and even the potential for microtransactions, should be avoided. You want to make money for your hobby programming? Make your own app and try to hit it big in an app store.

[Xitax]

Please, nothing that requires a central server, ever. Never, ever, ever.

[Agetian]

Yes, I have to agree here that mirroring/emulating MTGO functionality by extending this feature into a centralized online server type of thing is not a good idea, that is probably one of the most likely things that will have the project shut down in a jiffy.

When I first heard the functionality mentioned I thought it would be kind of a like a Quest mode extension (like "Career mode", or whatever), with the ability to manage your collection offline and start your "career path" in a quest-like fashion with cards from different eras or from your personal collection - all that sounds epic and would be a nice contribution to the current functionality that Forge has.

However, the more we [even hypothetically try to] turn Forge into an online server application for matchmaking and tournaments and the more it starts to resemble MTGO that way, the more we are going down the path where WotC will pretty much unquestionably shut the project down - even if we do it for free it's going to be a good competition to MTGO already, and if people start selling stuff on it that'll be an immediate shutdown for an obvious reason.

So yeah, please let's not move too far away from the goals that Forge was and is pursuing. And knowing we are only tolerated as a fan project that does not harm commercial MTG and potentially helps boost its popularity somewhat (hopefully), let's try to stay realistic here so that we do not outwear our welcome (WotC was known to have sudden splashes of fan MTG project shutdown in the past, remember). As far as online play is concerned, I'd be pretty happy to simply have basic online multiplayer support like Magarena, MAGE, and BotArena do. Those three projects have not been shutdown yet for having an option to play online like that. As far as something bigger goes and especially anything that involves a "central server" with restrictions and online transactions, I'd have to downvote that idea as well...

- Agetian

[Max mtg]

Summarizing: any RMT is a direct way to get contacted by IP owners. It's like becoming a pirate WoW server. Noone likes this option.
Wizards' modo client has a flaw: they wrote it on .net and thus it runs on Windows only, so they could be potentially interested in buying and adopting a cross-platform client for their server, bringing the whole team to US, pay them $150k... But that is not a realistic scenario anyway.

Central server: also disapproved, though I believe it could be really helpful for matchmaking (i.e. track wins/losses/statistics but no assets) - so if a server is taken down player loses only rating that was kept there. On the other hand bitcoin and similar currencies manage somehow to track wallets' balances without a central server.

Career mode: good as long as it doesn't give advantage over other players in online era. If it does, a reliable storage is needed to prevent cheating... and a strong will (or lack of access to that storage) not to sell any ingame goodies.

Track cards owned IRL / MTGO: perfect idea, noone objects. (still I'm unsure how to input all those 20k cards I have into an application)

[friarsol]

Thanks for recapping Max. I just got nervous that this was picking up steam in a direction that seemed ill suited for our fate. I'd think that an Online Career Mode is interesting, but solving the problem of preventing cheating is a huge task that would force us into a position we don't really want to be in.