Collectible Card Game Headquarters

Internet search, word of mouth, or what?

I found Forge from an Abe Sargent article.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/18006_The_Kitchen_Table_302_An_MTG_Forge_Quest.html
Wow. It has been almost 4 years now.

In 2011 soon after I at last had a chance to play with a real deck, I became excited with the idea of collecting as many cards as possilble. So I rushed to buy a couple boxes each week, that turned out to sink my money too fast. To minimize expenses I found a foreign reseller who could send me boxes for about $90 each (while local retailers in Moscow sold them at $150+), but even that was not enough. Then I found on my shelves piles of useless commons, uncommons and even rares I've purchased for more money than they are actually worth now, so it turned out that buying and opening boxes is not worth it.

I started looking for a way to play magic without actually buying that many cards. There were some booster opening simulators, Forge, Mage, Wagic, MagArena.
Wagic was interesting, but too hard to play from keyboard (it didn't support mouse at that moment). Mage was too complicated to play (I could not set up even a match vs AI). Magarena also had some issues, I don't even remember which ones.
Forge quest mode was extactly the experience I was looking for.

I first discovered an app named "Card Warrior 2" and downloaded it from the http://mac.softpedia.com/ web site. The game seemed very familiar as I had played MtG in the early years at the local gaming store.

The card names in Card Warrior 2 had been changed in the hopes of avoiding cr problems but I did recognize the mechanics.

I believe that Card Warrior 2 came with some docs that lead me to Rares blog site. Rares blog site lead me to this forum and to the Forge app itself.

I sometimes wish that I could find a build from 2009 to see how much the game has changed.

Corwin72 wrote:I sometimes wish that I could find a build from 2009 to see how much the game has changed.

I heard you like old versions of Forge...
http://mtgrares.blogspot.ru/2009/11/new-version.html

I had played Shandalar a lot both when the game was first released. And again in the early 2000s. In the early months of 2010, I went in search of something out there that was similar to Shandalar, but didn't have the restrictions of card DB that the Manalink project had. This landed me at Rares blog, and onto the forums.

After few months of complaining about certain things, and requesting crazy features that never would be implemented, I decided to use my software skillset to just add the cards I wanted and ended up restructuring a lot of repetitious code, and inconsistent class structures. Feel free to blame me for the base AF system, Cost structure, and a fair amount of the Scripting system.

A Friend introduced me to Magic 10 years ago.. even though it was first out in my high school and early college years, I never gave it any attention.. even though I dabbled in some D&D and Star Wars RPG.

I found Forge April 2008, I believe. I was looking for a way to play Magic as a form of solitaire. Tried every app that was available at the time, played a bit on the free trials of Magic Online.

It was ugly, mostly text-only. No battlefield graphics, hover-pic only. It had maybe 500-something cards.

But ... It ... Worked! It satisfied that itch.

As I played though, I found I wanted more cards... I noticed that Vanilla and French Vanilla creature cards didn't need any programming change... so I compiled a list of missing cards (100+) and emailed them to Rares.
I noticed one of the land-walks was implemented, but not another, so I looked into the code, and found it was really easy to just tweak it to add the others, so sent Rares some code in email and all the new creatures it would open up...
Then I started to get curious in the code and found that there were some cards implemented with code copied from the other cards that do precisely the same effect, just with the numbers changed (+1/+1 vs +2/+2).. so I provided code that would read the variable part from special keywords in the card text.

By September 2008, I had bombarded Rares with enough code to support 800+ new cards. And he was losing interest, pushed the project into the Open Source domain and gave us the reins here on slightlymagic.

I found this forum after digging up my old Shandalar game and trying to get it to work. Once here I tried some of the other programs listed and stuck with forge.A few bug reports later I checked out the source from the brand spanking new(I think, I don't fully remember and now I feel old) google code repository and started tinkering.

I don't remember the exact path I took, but I had recently made the switch to Linux, largely for ideological reasons. The old Microprose game was one of the only pieces of Windows software that I missed, and I was trying to find a way to get it to work under WINE, or a suitable replacement. I'm guessing that a Google search somewhere in there led me here.

I got really hooked when I found out I could actually do more than passively "consume" the game by scripting cards. I came in at just the right time, when the scripting system had grown to allow triggers and there were hundreds of easily scriptable cards left up for grabs.

I had played in high school when MTG first came out, and it has kind of stuck in my mind since then. I could never get Shandalar working with WINE (I hear ya, Zirbert) and I started googling around for MTG implementations that did work. I played with ManaLink for a while, but although the interface was gorgeous, it wasn't as engaging. Forge quest mode was really what I was looking for, and even though the UI was much rougher, I felt that Forge had much greater potential. I got involved in dev due to the joy of helping create the game that I'd like to play : )

Corwin72 wrote:I sometimes wish that I could find a build from 2009 to see how much the game has changed.

 
I see that MediaFire has deleted my archives. Oh well. I updated the A blast from the past topic. It now includes a copy of Forge dated 10-15-2008 and this is the oldest version that I have.

I also have a link to the Card Warrior 2 archive and this is from 01-05-2008.

I was introduced to Magic in '98. We had a very small play group and by 2001 most of us had moved away or started working or started college, so we struggled to find time and eventually lost touch. I still bought the occasional pack because I loved the artwork and was still intrigued by the game. A few years later (early 2009 I think) I decided to see if I could find a way to play against an AI player and stumbled across Rares' blog. I followed religiously and eventually discovered the real hub here. I just lurked for quite a long time, eventually signing up to request a card (the scripting system was just starting to roll out, although still the keyword based format). At some point I saw an opportunity to get more involved and created the pet art, and from there I wanted to get Tempest and Stronghold fleshed out seeing as that's where I started in paper magic. So I slowly started scripting (I think a potentially painful time for Sloth and everyone else that was adding all the parameters I needed and checked my scripts). The final step was finally getting the source code and learning some basic java so I could make minor additions, generally to isValid in Card.java. Been a constant hobby since.

I also started playing MtG with Tempest and Stronghold when a good friend of mine brought a couple of decks back from GenCon. For a long time, I only played paper, until I was buying some cards and packs from a gaming shop, the cashier there told me about MtG Interactive Encyclopaedia. So I promptly went on Ebay and $80 bucks later (Yeah, I know I got gypped, but I got into a bidding war and I was desperate) I played magic on the computer for the first time. Then when it was no longer supported, I found other websites that had unofficial patches for it. It was through them that I found Magic Workstation and GoblinHero's databases, which led me to slightlymagic. One day, there was a link I had never noticed before. "Want to play magic against the computer with rules enforcement?" And the rest, as they say, is history.

For the major plot points, my story is almost identical to Hellfish's but I'll add a few individual details....

Stage 1: I have had the original CDs for the old Microprose game ever since it was new. The bad part: the game only contained very old cards and couldn't run (or more specifically, couldn't install) on any post-Win9x OS. I have an old Pentium III Windows 98 box mainly for the sole purpose of being able to play that game!

Stage 2: I get the Microprose MtG install & run on a VM. Not an easy task and it doesn't run perfectly (it gets 'stuck' every now and then) but it's the best computerized single-player adaption I know of. The good part: I can finally get rid of that old dusty P3 box. The bad part: The game doesn't run smoothly on a VM, and I'm still stuck with those ancient cards.

Stage 3: Googling the web for any patches (official or unofficial) or just about anything to add to the Microprose game, I first come across mtgrares' blog, and then this site. I discover Manalink. The good part: Manalink allows me to play the Microprose game on a modern computer without any silly virtual machines, and there are thousands of new cards! The bad part: The only game mode that works decently in the current ML3 is Constructed - which, unfortunately happens to be my least favorite mode for playing against the computer (except perhaps for testing a real Constructed deck). The Sealed Deck Mode works erratically at best. Shandalar has been removed into a separate game, and although there are several nice improvements, the lack of new cards in Shandalar was a showstopper for me. And to add insult to injury, Manalink has those 'locked' cards that you need to 'unlock' by completing challenges - until you do, they will be locked even in the Limited Mode!
I quickly lost interest in Manalink because of this, although I played the separate Shandalar game for a while and had a good time (my Blue starting pool had The Hive and Sunken City...I soon found Alchor's Tomb, and lots of fun with a Sunken City or two and multiple blue Wasp tokens. Not something I'd ever attempt in Constructed play! But it did work ok against the early Shandalar enemies).

Stage 4: Even though I love the Microprose UI (the most intuitive so far, and graphically very impressive), I don't want to play Constructed against a computer. Especially not single Constructed matches.
But wait, there's more...
The site has info on several unofficial MtG adaptions that allow you to play Sealed Deck against the computer. And they have lots more implemented cards than Shandalar!
I tried them all, and guess which one I liked the best...

I've been playing Magic on and off since the days of Revised and The Dark. Like Corwin, I also found Forge from that Abe Sargent article.