The future of incantus.net (and Incantus)

[MageKing17]

Incantus (the person) recently contacted me and told me that, due to the apparent lack of interest in Incantus (the program (which I blame on myself, due to never having the time to finally push v0.7.1c out (which I will do, eventually!))), he won't be renewing his Dreamhost account. As a result, the web editor, in all of its incarnations, will be going down permanently in about a month. I'm going to see about running the server software on my own webspace, but I don't know if that will be possible, feasible, and that I will have the time to do so. As a result, I recommend against using the web editors, since they probably won't be around much longer. I'm going to try to redownload the database if anybody uploads a card and I happen to be watching at the time, but I do not recommend anybody do so.

Incantus is not dying; as long as I am alive and have the source, I will make sure Incantus v0.7.1c and, hopefully, v0.8.x see the light of day as more than preview executables, and if I can do anything about it, the web editor will return on a different server.

EDIT: Check this out!

[Huggybaby]

Please contact Goblin Hero about using his server to host the editor.

[MageKing17]

Please contact Goblin Hero about using his server to host the editor.

I'd like to see if I can run it on my own webspace, first. If that turns out not to be the case, I'll totally send Goblin Hero a PM.

[Incantus]

Incantus (the person) recently contacted me and told me that, due to the apparent lack of interest in Incantus

It wasn't the lack of interest in Incantus, but the fact that I haven't had any time in the last year to do anything with Incantus (except the UI updates) and the dreamhost account I was using for the webeditor was becoming too expensive to maintain. Incidentally, it should be possible to run it on google app engine with a few changes to the db backend.

The lack of interest seems to be mainly due to the fact that people would rather have an AI playing version of Magic (well, that and since the 2 people who worked on the code are too busy, the lack of updates to the rules support). Anyway, I still like to drop in on this site to see how the other projects are progressing. It seems like most have built a nice active community! I think that's great for independent computer magic, and am sad that I'm no longer a part of this exciting group.

Incantus

[gumgod]

Hope this project doesn't die. I really like the idea of having a program that actually enforces the rules properly.

[MageKing17]

Hope this project doesn't die. I really like the idea of having a program that actually enforces the rules properly.

I just finished installing Django on my webspace. Expect to see a link to the webeditor's new home soon-ish.

Just have to find where the latest website backup I made went, so I can use the most up-to-date oracle parser and things...

[Ricochet]

I'm very sry to read this...
I had been away for almost a year(work, as everybody else), despite all the problems this is still the best mtg rules enforcement project ive seen, UI is very friendly, the game is fluid(no need to be clicking to make every single step thousands of times).
I did try to help adding cards and would like to do that again(and anoy MK with my "almost working" code for the cards), but as i don't realy know anything about coding that's the best i can do.
Shortening...
even thoug we don't show up much in the forums we still love Incantus(the game).
Keep up the great work MK, Incantus(the guy) and whoever is willing to help the project go on.
P.S. i have a cards list i believe i got in june let me know if it would be helpful.

[MageKing17]

I'm very sry to read this...
I had been away for almost a year(work, as everybody else), despite all the problems this is still the best mtg rules enforcement project ive seen, UI is very friendly, the game is fluid(no need to be clicking to make every single step thousands of times).
I did try to help adding cards and would like to do that again(and anoy MK with my "almost working" code for the cards), but as i don't realy know anything about coding that's the best i can do.
Shortening...
even thoug we don't show up much in the forums we still love Incantus(the game).
Keep up the great work MK, Incantus(the guy) and whoever is willing to help the project go on.

Thank you for the support; just knowing there are people out there who still care about Incantus can help with motivating me enough to find time to work on it.

I actually tried to get the webeditor working on my own webspace, but Django started acting wierd and being totally unhelpful; I think I may have broken something and need to reinstall, but I just haven't had time to troubleshoot it. Knowing that there's still at least one person out there who would use it besides me may just be the push I need to do some coding this weekend.

P.S. i have a cards list i believe i got in june let me know if it would be helpful.

I actually have a much newer one from November, but thanks for the offer.

EDIT: This is relevant, methinks.

[juzamjedi]

...
The lack of interest seems to be mainly due to the fact that people would rather have an AI playing version of Magic (well, that and since the 2 people who worked on the code are too busy, the lack of updates to the rules support). Anyway, I still like to drop in on this site to see how the other projects are progressing. It seems like most have built a nice active community! I think that's great for independent computer magic, and am sad that I'm no longer a part of this exciting group.

FWIW, I was a pretty active card tester until the major non-backwards-compatible change to the card code happened a couple years ago. Incantus was very nice UI and rules engine, but for me personally it was really sad to see all those card files become useless (it was over 5000 at the time, IIRC)

[MageKing17]

...
The lack of interest seems to be mainly due to the fact that people would rather have an AI playing version of Magic (well, that and since the 2 people who worked on the code are too busy, the lack of updates to the rules support). Anyway, I still like to drop in on this site to see how the other projects are progressing. It seems like most have built a nice active community! I think that's great for independent computer magic, and am sad that I'm no longer a part of this exciting group.

FWIW, I was a pretty active card tester until the major non-backwards-compatible change to the card code happened a couple years ago. Incantus was very nice UI and rules engine, but for me personally it was really sad to see all those card files become useless (it was over 5000 at the time, IIRC)

You know, 99% of those cards were really easy to convert to the "new" format. 50% of the time when I was having trouble with a card, I would pop over to the old database and find someone else had already figured out the hard part; the only thing you had to watch out for was there being an easier way to do it with new engine features.

In fact, the only cards from the old database not possible to implement in the "new" format (and the reason I keep putting that in quotes is because, from a card code perspective, there were really very few differences) were the ones that technically weren't actually working in the old engine, either. Things like cost-reduction spells (the hackish solution they used was imprecise, and would work even less well with later engine changes), or Exotic Orchard (I seem to recall somebody--The Scientist, I think--making a barebones version that performed rudimentary text-parsing of your opponent's lands... which is simultaneously the worst and best way to implement that card).

Anyway, I'm currently in the process of adding cards to the new database and updating the engine whenever I notice a bug or something missing. At the moment, I still need to update to the newest subtype list, but apart from that, I don't think anything pressing needs added to v0.7.1c... just needs tested, which is what you guys do best. Actually, I was going to try re-adding all the cards from the last database by hand, so I could correct as many errors as possible, but then I realized that there were over two thousand cards in the last database download, and doing all those by hand would take forever. I've decided to write a script to add cards to the database automatically, based on the last download I made, but without overwriting the corrected cards I've already added. Could be a bit tricky, but hey, easier than adding 2000 cards by hand, no?