Re: HQ PICS DOWNLOADS and Status List (MTG)
Posted: 21 Aug 2013, 02:05
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.
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.