A Tip Of The Hat To Snacko!

[Bog Wraith]

All of the programmers, especially for harry & jatill are owed a great deal of gratitude for all that they have done to break ManaLink WIDE open. Their contribution, devotion and effort is something all of us who refuse to let this old game die can never hope to convey enough in how much we appreciate their dedication to and love of, the game that they themselves share with us.

I also want to recognize the valuable and much appreciated contributions from people like Fran, Mathy, Orion79, GMZombie & EviL_CLonE, just to name a few. I know I probably forgot to mention others, but your efforts are as much appreciated! With the incredible addition of jatill's in depth tutorials, he has helped to bring many of you current & future coders into the fray.

Thanks from all of us jatill!

With all this said, Huggy & I want to acknowledge the contributions of someone who has proven to all of us who've known him through his prior work here at the SlightlyMagic forums (that Goblin Hero has so graciously provided us with!) with just what an amazing resource and font of knowledge & skill he has, and shares with all of us here.

That person is Snacko!

Snacko's skill and devotion saved a program that many of us in the MWS community love and that is Nate's great app which is now know as Arcane!

Snacko has shown his willingness to help and offer counsel to others here who have ongoing projects that are part of our family of MTG apps and projects at this site.

When the old ManaLink site went down, I got in touch with Fran the very next day to see if he had email contacts to any of our members so we could inform them of this site and get them signed up so we could keep the tremendous momentum ManaLink had going. Some like Harry were members here already, but most of you found your way here relatively quickly and the project hasn't skipped a beat!

I knew that this would be a great home for us, even better then the old place. I thank Gunner for the home he gave us, but this place is more suited for ManaLink. Frankly, it's a blessing that the old site crashed because we are now in a better place with more talented people then ever before to help with the game we all love.

And for me & Huggy, no one more exemplifies that "Mental Resource" and willingness to get involved with this then Snacko.

I want to point out one specific area that highlights what I mean.
It has to do with his work with our most beloved Shandalar!
He is experimenting, testing and working toward incorporating all that has come from Mok's time and forward into Shandalar.


His post the other day shows just how important his contributions are already, even at this early stage:

I got some cards coded but it seems I need to edit Cards1.dat for them to show up ingame stay tuned.
Here's and example how cards can be coded to be ManaLink and Shandalar compatible at the same time!

I'm no programmer, but I do know that that last sentence could be potentially the breakthrough we've been waiting for!


Here also are some thoughts that Huggy conveyed to me that I want to share with all of you.

He's really kicking ass and taking names on this project. I don't think he's been thanked properly for the contributions he made to the Advanced Code Development thread either. It appears his suggestions there are shooting this project into a whole new gear. From implementing his suggestions, in a week you've gone from having to write long strings of low level code, to writing just a few readable lines that do the same thing. NTM his looking at the Shandalar code which until now had been (I think, I could be wrong) untouched. You guys should send him a cake or something.

He is also responsible for getting allot of the info posted up and formatted in the wiki as well!

So let me close with thanking all of you for reading this and for all your great contributions.

Jatill & Harry's continued drive and determination to this endeavor, frankly, astounds me!
Guys, we can't thank you two enough!

I caution my optimism about Shandalar as it is not a certainty that it will work.
But I am very hopeful and encouraged by what has happened here in just a short 2 weeks!

If all you incredibly talented folks will work together, occasionally having to put your ego's aside with no ill feelings, I am convinced of one thing without doubt...

Our beloved game, both Shandalar & ManaLink, will become more than anything MicroProse themselves could have envisioned that their great game would have become.

Somewhere, some of the original programmers of this game are smiling!

[gmzombie]

I agree with BOg all the way. thank you for all of your help. im no programmer by any means but I like to try and get involved as much as I can. I have been involved with the manalink since the early version of 2.0 and have been here ever since. im happy that peeps have taken over where Mok left off. but in short thanks to all that have contributed.

[HarryPitfall]

One step at time... for example, today, I made my first 6 options card with some AI on it...
I notice that cards1.dat too on shandalar, and notice that have some similarities, I believe that there is some extra columns to put then on dungeons... or 'rarity' to find then on wilderness....
I didn't add shandalar support on editor at all... 'cause the cards refuses to show even when you code/add then (at least, for me).
Someday, he will step on shandalar.exe and will make new cards, dungeons, tips on then... (I want to make 'quests', like castles, but they are special dungeons with a boss and great rewards!)