How did everyone find forge?

[lugaru]

My friend Tom got me into Magic... he is a big collector, gets at least of a box of each new set. That said when I met him his collection was all packed into crates (except for some choice decks) so we did a lot of emulated gaming via Magic Workshop. Since I was constantly keeping up with that program and looking for newer and better ones, I got into forge.

While I play lot of tabletop MTG, it is the decks and skills I get from Forge that makes my friends hate me. For like $15 to $20 I buy the cards to build a deck I created in forge and beat my friends in ways they have never been beat before. Seriously I get to build and test so many weird decks, it is the only MTG related software I boot at least once a week.

Now with the advent of alternate modes (plane-chase, arch enemy, vanguard and eventually commander) and hopefully "remote players" I really cannot think of a more exciting mtg related project to follow.

One last thing... my friend Tom nearly pooped his pants when I surprised him by translating about 30% of a custom set he built some years back into forge. He was playing against a deck I told him was "really challenging" and then some of his cards showed up and he was like

[Sloth]

I think i was searching for a remake or patches for Shandalar when i found this side and tested ManaLink and then Wagic and Forge.

When i decided i wanted to contribute to Forge, i first scripted tons of cards. Then i produced some ugly buggy duplicate code to extend the scripting possibilities. Eventually i shifted towards improving Forge instead of making a mess of the code.

[timmermac]

I've been playing Magic off and on since around Thanksgiving of '94. Bought a whole ton of cards, then had to dump my collection due to financial concerns. I also had the Microprose game. Almost three years ago, I started looking online for a way to play Magic against the computer with more cards than the Microprose game allowed, and I came upon this site. The rest is history.

[Corwin72]

It is amazing how much the Microprose game comes up. I loved that game. I get the yearly mtg game on steam but I really miss the ability to play with all the new cards with my own terrible decks.

[friarsol]

It is amazing how much the Microprose game comes up. I loved that game. I get the yearly mtg game on steam but I really miss the ability to play with all the new cards with my own terrible decks.

I don't think it's that surprising. Sid Meier is a masterful game desinger. And if you were playing Magic at the right time, it was all over any of the appropriate magazines/budding internet coverage.

[PowerClaws]

I was first introduced to magic at my high school, where i played Yu-Gi-Oh, one of my friends gave me a deck, i think it was white, and since ive gotten into the game, ive never looked back. (i find it to be a much more balanced gameplay)
The next time i visited my granfather, he gave me a copy of the microprose magic game, one day i went on the web looking for updates or anything of the sort, and stumbled across mtgrares blog page, since then... i can play magic to my hearts content.

[EmeraldTiger]

An online friend told me about Forge and one of the other MTG applications. I tried the other one first, and it was okay. The other one didn't support some of the cards I wanted to use. So, I decided to see what Forge was like. I am quite pleased with it. I have told people who I know, of which play MTG, about Forge. I will continue to let others know about this Excellent MTG application.

[walloficecream]

I tried really hard to find any discussion concerning making Microprose's Shandalar work on 21st century computers.

This lead me to DOSBox which I downloaded. This lead me to piracy sites which I had to ignore (piracy is wrong everyone) in order to get a copy of Shandalar. Trying to find something not by Microprose brought me to the fanmade Shandalar 2009 edition. By researching what Shandalar 2009 was so I could think about downloading it led me to slightlymagic. After seeing a slightlymagic message board with an awesome number of posts, I tried Forge out, as it seemed like the most cared for program on slightlymagic.

[moomarc]

I tried really hard to find any discussion concerning making Microprose's Shandalar work on 21st century computers.

This lead me to DOSBox which I downloaded. This lead me to piracy sites which I had to ignore (piracy is wrong everyone) in order to get a copy of Shandalar. Trying to find something not by Microprose brought me to the fanmade Shandalar 2009 edition. By researching what Shandalar 2009 was so I could think about downloading it led me to slightlymagic. After seeing a slightlymagic message board with an awesome number of posts, I tried Forge out, as it seemed like the most cared for program on slightlymagic.

And that just goes to show how vital a good post count is Seriously though, glad you found your way here. You'll find us to be a generally genial crowd. Happy Forging!

[mtgrares]

Forge's improvements have been astounding and the community of deck builders and helpers is amazing.

Cool discovery stories. I found Shandalar while downloading old PC games and was impressed how fun it was. At first I was just playing constructed but after that wore off I randomly tried sealed deck and was hooked. Even though those early sets weren't very balanced (I usually had to play red), it was incredibly fun. Sealed deck hooked me and I wanted to play it more often, so Forge was born. It took me at least 3 false starts to get the code decently working and at first I just had card names on the battlefield and not the card pictures. (Card pictures were displayed but only on the right in the "card detail" panel.)

Early on I had to make a decision about the AI, was it going to be fast and dumb or slow and smart? I didn't know how to right a smart AI, so I decided on fast and dumb. Even now I find the AI very satisfying although I wish it was smarter when attacking or blocking.

While I play lot of tabletop MTG, it is the decks and skills I get from Forge that makes my friends hate me.

I always hoped that Forge would help people improve their skills.