Shandalar - Feature Requests

I guess the first 2 are very hard or time consuming to impelement:
If we can have first the picture of the card without it's text or name we could ask:
1a - which is the correct card's name?
1b & the opposite show a cards name and then ask which of the following cardarts belongs to that card.

2- which is the correct rules text of the card?

3- Even more crazy ask for the flavor text?

4- ask for artist?

At least original cards had these info (rules text,artist,flavour text=quote) in Master.csv

[Korath]

Showing an image, then asking which of the following four or five or eight or whatever card names matches it, will be somewhat difficult, but worth the effort, I think. The reverse - choosing between different images - would be significantly harder.

For #2 (and #3, which is more dubious), I think the way to go is, again, show the rules text, then ask which of the following cards has it.

#4 can't be done; we don't have artist information for any of our imagery, or else I'd be displaying it on fullcard images. And I'd've added a bunch of cards from Unglued/Unhinged that depend on artist name to Manalink, too.

Korath wrote:
#4 can't be done; we don't have artist information for any of our imagery, or else I'd be displaying it on fullcard images. And I'd've added a bunch of cards from Unglued/Unhinged that depend on artist name to Manalink, too.

In case you don't know original game showed artist names in the full card art that shows on the left when you put the mouse over a card. showed artist names = illus."name"

As I have told you info artist for the first 860 cards as they appear in Manalink.csv (till Zephyr Falcon) appear in Master.csv which has also the same card order(it has artist names for the rest cards appearing there after Zephyr Falcon for astral cards,tokens and more with a place holder name "Vlad Impaler" for artwork that was not made at the time).

With that being said even the original game didn't load artist names from Master.csv as I changed a couple of names in it but they didn't change in game,moreover in game artwork for astral cards have correct/other artist name than the "Vlad Impaler" which is in Master.csv

Also in case you don't know in original game you could select cards by artist in deckbuilder.Artist button was removed when the 2000 limit was removed and possibly renamed:
viewtopic.php?f=85&t=6031&p=78660&hilit=artist#p78644

[Korath]

We only have the artist information for the first versions of the artwork of those cards. And we can't even be certain, without careful doublechecking, that the first image listed for each of those cards still corresponds to the originally-credited artist.

It's really not workable without a stupid amount of effort at this point. Believe me, I'd like to have this information to display on the cards, and furthermore have each version of the artwork display with the corresponding expansion symbol; but it's just not practical.

And that's setting aside the fact that the game internally only supports a limited set of artists; it doesn't store an arbitrary string, but instead an index into a hardcoded list of names, so we can't even use the previously-existing infrastructure:

Code: Select all

dgk@Dirge:0/cygdrive/g/mtg/Manalink 3.0/pristine$ objdump -s Shandalar.exe --start-address=0x584f08 --stop-address=0x585258

Shandalar.exe:     file format pei-i386

Contents of section .data:
 584f08 556e636f 6d6d6f6e 00000000 4e6f6e65  Uncommon....None
 584f18 00000000 416d7920 57656265 72000000  ....Amy Weber...
 584f28 416e6469 20527573 75000000 416e736f  Andi Rusu...Anso
 584f38 6e204d61 64646f63 6b730000 416e7468  n Maddocks..Anth
 584f48 6f6e7920 57617465 72730000 42726961  ony Waters..Bria
 584f58 6e20536e 6f646479 00000000 4272796f  n Snoddy....Bryo
 584f68 6e205761 636b7769 747a0000 43687269  n Wackwitz..Chri
 584f78 73746f70 68657220 52757368 00000000  stopher Rush....
 584f88 436f726e 656c6975 73204272 75646900  Cornelius Brudi.
 584f98 44616d65 6f6e2057 696c6c69 63680000  Dameon Willich..
 584fa8 44616e20 4672617a 69657200 44616e69  Dan Frazier.Dani
 584fb8 656c2047 656c6f6e 00000000 44656e6e  el Gelon....Denn
 584fc8 69732044 65747769 6c6c6572 00000000  is Detwiller....
 584fd8 446f7567 6c617320 5368756c 65720000  Douglas Shuler..
 584fe8 44726577 20547563 6b657200 45647761  Drew Tucker.Edwa
 584ff8 72642042 65617264 b8204a72 2e000000  rd Beard. Jr....
 585008 46617920 4a6f6e65 73000000 4672616e  Fay Jones...Fran
 585018 6b204672 617a6965 72000000 4861726f  k Frazier...Haro
 585028 6c64204d 634e6569 6c6c0000 48656174  ld McNeill..Heat
 585038 68657220 48756473 6f6e0000 4a656666  her Hudson..Jeff
 585048 20412e20 4d656e67 65730000 4a657370   A. Menges..Jesp
 585058 6572204d 7972666f 72730000 4a756c69  er Myrfors..Juli
 585068 65204261 726f6800 4a757374 696e2048  e Baroh.Justin H
 585078 616d7074 6f6e0000 4b616a61 20262050  ampton..Kaja & P
 585088 68696c20 466f676c 696f0000 4b616a61  hil Foglio..Kaja
 585098 20466f67 6c696f00 4b656e20 4d657965   Foglio.Ken Meye
 5850a8 72204a72 2e000000 4b657273 74696e20  r Jr....Kerstin
 5850b8 4b616d61 6e000000 4b657620 42726f63  Kaman...Kev Broc
 5850c8 6b736368 6d696474 00000000 4b726973  kschmidt....Kris
 5850d8 74656e20 42697368 6f700000 4c697a20  ten Bishop..Liz
 5850e8 44616e66 6f727468 00000000 4d617267  Danforth....Marg
 5850f8 61726574 204f7267 616e2d4b 65616e00  aret Organ-Kean.
 585108 4d61726b 20506f6f 6c650000 4d61726b  Mark Poole..Mark
 585118 20546564 696e0000 4d656c69 73736120   Tedin..Melissa
 585128 42656e73 6f6e0000 4d696368 61656c20  Benson..Michael
 585138 5768656c 616e0000 4d696b65 204b696d  Whelan..Mike Kim
 585148 626c6500 4e69636f 6c61204c 656f6e61  ble.Nicola Leona
 585158 72640000 4ee84ee8 2054686f 6d617300  rd..N.N. Thomas.
 585168 50617420 4d6f7272 69737365 79000000  Pat Morrissey...
 585178 50657465 2056656e 74657273 00000000  Pete Venters....
 585188 5068696c 20466f67 6c696f00 5175696e  Phil Foglio.Quin
 585198 746f6e20 486f6f76 65720000 52616e64  ton Hoover..Rand
 5851a8 79204173 706c756e 642d4661 69746800  y Asplund-Faith.
 5851b8 52696368 61726420 4b616e65 2d466572  Richard Kane-Fer
 5851c8 6775736f 6e000000 52696368 61726420  guson...Richard
 5851d8 54686f6d 61730000 526f6220 416c6578  Thomas..Rob Alex
 5851e8 616e6465 72000000 526f6e20 5370656e  ander...Ron Spen
 5851f8 63657200 53616e64 72612045 76657269  cer.Sandra Everi
 585208 6e676861 6d000000 53636f74 74204b69  ngham...Scott Ki
 585218 72736368 6e657200 53757361 6e205661  rschner.Susan Va
 585228 6e204361 6d700000 546f6d20 57e46e65  n Camp..Tom W.ne
 585238 72737472 616e6400 556e6b6e 6f776e00  rstrand.Unknown.
 585248 4e6f6e65 00000000 42616e64 696e6700  None....Banding.

But that part's comparatively minor.

If someone wants to exhaustively audit the images in CardArtManalink/ against Oracle and compile an accurate list of artists (and preferably expansions), and work with Sonic so it stays up-to-date, I'd be ecstatic to make use of the data. But that someone won't be me.