MTGForge 05/17 (unofficial BETA) version

[mtgrares]

Okay, I've just finished (40 wins) the quest on Very Hard for the third time (using the last release, from May 3rd) and I thought I'd pass on my impressions.

Well I wasn't sure if anyone played on hard or very hard mode. I figured someone, somewhere would like but it is nice hearing from feedback. Chris has done a great job adding and sorting the AI decks into levels. And I just guessed how many easy, medium, hard AI decks you should face. Also I had to guess when each level of difficulty should receive new cards. I'm glad the hard AI decks made you sweat, Chris is doing his job, lol. I just play quest on easy and medium myself.

[Rob Cashwalker]

Dennis, great job. I hated doing all of the little fixes which are very important but very annoying.

Just wait till you see what Dennis and I are trying to cook up now... hopefully we can say goodbye to the 900K CardFactory....

[Vecc]

Updates fast and true, this is how MTGForge rolls. Great job everyone, no wonder this project is a success with such staff & community.

Also, special thanks to Dennis & Chris for the cool new cards and QuestData - even though fixing all the bugs and developing the program/AI itself is the core of the game, it's all the great content we get that keeps Forge steaming. Also, my apologies to Chris for having left him 'short-handed' right on the QD update week.

I've played this last version on Quest Mode for a while, some 40~ matches. It seems really good so far - things can get challenging but you never feel like being cheated on by being put against a steamroller of a deck early on (even tho' I do feel cheated on by that "thinking" issue. Where are all the judges when you're not accidentally flipping cards during shuffling?). And later on, with all the cards available to get from booster packs, you can keep playing for a great deal of time for cool new additions to your decks/tools to make new, close-to-unfair decks. (even if it isn't really needed)

I only wish Rares' latest code for Quest Mode/Boosters had come out for this version - it looks so damn nice.

[GandoTheBard]

I'd like to point out that .Rar is not a native compression format for windows Vista. It is rather annoying to have to hunt down a suitable non-malware third party client to unzip rar files. Just thought I'd mention this since I have this shiny new pc with Vista.

[Huggybaby]

Use 7zip, it works great for unraring rar's and it's certainly not malware.

[GandoTheBard]

Yeah that is what I resorted to, but my point remains. Zip is universal for windows and mac machines, Rar isn't.

[Rob Cashwalker]

RAR makes smaller files. And "native format" is BS. Because a zip file shows up as a folder in explorer, I get people attempting to run EXE's from inside zip files, and wondering why they don't run right.... Because the auxillary files are still zipped. Windows doesn't map the compressed files to other applications, just explorer. Talk about malware....

I've got WinRAR, and I use it for all archives, including ISO images. If you know where to look, you can get it, and it's not malware.

[GandoTheBard]

RAR makes smaller files. And "native format" is BS. Because a zip file shows up as a folder in explorer, I get people attempting to run EXE's from inside zip files, and wondering why they don't run right.... Because the auxillary files are still zipped. Windows doesn't map the compressed files to other applications, just explorer. Talk about malware....

I've got WinRAR, and I use it for all archives, including ISO images. If you know where to look, you can get it, and it's not malware.

It is not free either. Unless you consider stealing free.
WinRar is ok as tools good but I think 7zip is better. As far as trying to run an executable inside a compressed file? lol. I wasn't saying WinRar was malware itself but I am wary of sites purporting to carry it. Anyway I tend to trust Sourceforge.net so open source is probably the best solution. I guess my irritation stems more from the fact that HALF the files are zipped and half are Rarred and when I got this new machine suddenly I didn't have a way to open rar files. (Because I guess I was using a trial version of Winrar and didn't realize it was shareware. (Bad thief am I.) Anyway I'm not sure I'd go so far as to malign Windows as being Malware as that would imply intentional sabotage and I think we can be certain that none of the bugs Microsoft produces are intended features.

[Chris H.]

My Mac handles zip and I believe several other formats via the Finder without additional software. I installed Stuffit Expander to handle the several other non-native formats. Stuffit Expander used to be the only thing on the Mac that people used for archives back in the old days.

In todays world, Mac only archives tend to be released as a dmg file. Double click on it and it expands into a disk image.

[Rob Cashwalker]

To post MTGForge on this forum requires a file smaller than 2 MB. Zip can't do it with all the stuff we've got in there now. So either we start posting multi-part zips, use RAR, or I've offered to host the files on my free web account. I don't like mediafire and other commercialized download hosts....

The zip as folder feature is the worst offender of Microsoft "bundling". It's useful... but confusing for folks how don't know any better. They should have implemented it in the file system, not as an explorer hack.

WinRAR never stops working... sure it'll nag you each time it runs, but WinZip stops working outright now.

[Chris H.]

To post MTGForge on this forum requires a file smaller than 2 MB.

This is a major point. I guess that at this time we have little choice but to go with RAR. There are a few files left that we could consider removing from the beta distribution, but we are getting to a point of diminishing returns.

Anyone who has owned a Mac for more than just a coupe of years will likely have Stuffit Expander installed and it will handle RAR archives without any problems. I have not investigated to see if the Mac can handle RAR without the Stuffit Expander addition.

Zip can't do it with all the stuff we've got in there now. So either we start posting multi-part zips, use RAR, or I've offered to host the files on my free web account. I don't like mediafire and other commercialized download hosts....

The zip as folder feature is the worst offender of Microsoft "bundling". It's useful... but confusing for folks how don't know any better. They should have implemented it in the file system, not as an explorer hack.

I'm sorry to hear about the challenges with zip on windows. Apple added zip as an OS feature with OS X. Prior to OS X we were stuck with whatever utility we could find, and new users did not know where to turn to find the appropriate software.

[Rob Cashwalker]

BTW, I just wanted to point out that the 2 MB limit is a limit of either PHP in general, or the current PHP configuration. This is besides the 1 MB total upload quota limit that users have by default. And also, a limit of 3 files per post.

Anyway, we've also discussed the possibility of leaving the source as a separate download. The JAR file format is actually a Zip file, so it's as small as it can be considering the size of the source code.

[Huggybaby]

All those limits are due to the current configuration. I could change the upload limit, but Goblin Hero had it low for a reason. As I've said before, it's not in your best interest to use the forum as your primary file storage device; you don't want one point of failure to threaten all your work.

About the winrar nag screen: I almost never see it, because I always use the right click menu to compress and extract files, and for some reason it never pops up then.

[mtgrares]

I have WinRar, it came registered with my computer, but I mostly use 7zip(Windows freeware) for rar files because I just unpack them in a directory. I think mediafire.com works good enough, yes it has pop-ups, but I can download blazingly fast without having to wait 30 seconds like some other sites.

p.s.
For fun I search mediafire.com with google to find random music, it really is like a treasure hunt, you never know what you will find.

[Rob Cashwalker]

I'll PM any of our project memebers FTP credentials to the free webhost. No pop ups, no waiting.