8 oldschool quest worlds, 252 opponents, 56 challenges!

[Agetian]

@ Xyx: One request, if possible: would it be possible for you to rename the deck titles and change the descriptions such that they do not include any special "accented" symbols (stuff like Lim-Dul, you know)? Forge can't visualize those and they show up as ugly squares. I actually spent several hours hunting for those when I integrated the original world pack, but unfortunately those accents are apparently back in the new pack (you must have used your original files instead of the ones that were integrated into the actual game when preparing the new world pack...). And also the dash should be a standard ASCII dash (e.g. in the end of descriptions before the name of whoever the line is attributed to - you're currently using some kind of a Unicode dash that, once again, will not show up correctly in Forge). I replaced that one before too but, once again, it's back in the new pack... Thanks in advance!

Oh, and one more idea: since you implemented "The End" as a dummy very hard opponent, this may actually backfire a bit for those who use the "Random Duel" button. Basically, as soon as they get to "The End", if they opt to continue playing and continue to use "Random Duel", they will basically get a free win (and, thus, a free booster pack or whatever) every time they get a random duel vs. a very hard opponent. Maybe it's better to implement "The End" as an actual very difficult opponent? Of course, it'll take time to come up with one for each world, but maybe it's a better option since defeating this opponent will mark an actual achievement (as opposed to it just being used as a placeholder), and a Random Duel option will then sometimes just repeat this very hard challenging opponent instead of giving the player a freebie?

- Agetian

[Xyx]

would it be possible for you to rename the deck titles and change the descriptions such that they do not include any special "accented" symbols (stuff like Lim-Dul, you know)?

Sure! I didn't realize it was that pervasive. I thought you only fixed two filenames. I'll be sure to use the files you fixed as a basis.

Forge can't visualize those and they show up as ugly squares.

I'm a little confused here because for me it all shows up just fine. Lim-Dûl, Gerda Äagesdotter, the em-dashes, everything. Apparently, that is not the same on every system, so I'll adjust for the lowest common denominator.

Incidentally, for me, README.TXT and LICENSE.TXT are giant walls of text without line breaks.

since you implemented "The End" as a dummy very hard opponent, this may actually backfire a bit for those who use the "Random Duel" button. Basically, as soon as they get to "The End", if they opt to continue playing and continue to use "Random Duel", they will basically get a free win (and, thus, a free booster pack or whatever) every time they get a random duel vs. a very hard opponent.

Ugh... I'll remove it, at least for now. I was spitballing and I guess this one didn't stick. I never even tried the "Random Duel" feature. What is its purpose?

Maybe it's better to implement "The End" as an actual very difficult opponent?

Maybe a challenge. I want to keep the duels honest but the challenges aren't designed to be fair, and they can easily be stacked against the player to make them "Very Hard". The only problem is I don't exactly understand when challenges show up. I know they just sort of "show up" after you win some duels (depending on the "Wins=" parameter of the challenge), but I'm not sure how their "Difficulty=" parameter factors into this. And when do they repeat? How many concurrent challenges can you have? How do I make the "The End" challenge show up at the right time? What if I gave it Wins=40 and you fail it? It would be terrible if you'd need another 40 wins before you get to try again. Anybody have any insights?

[Agetian]

Yeah, I was actually referring to the content of the deck files, not the file names themselves. I think whether a given symbol is visualized or not may depend on many factors, including, but not limited to, the used font, the system configuration, the operating system used etc. I guess it's best not to use them to avoid potential issues... Granted, personally I haven't yet seen these accented symbols visualized correctly on any of my current or previous dev systems (I used to use Win 7 in the past and I remember I had this issue, now I'm exclusively using Linux (a couple different flavors) and neither of the distros I use visualizes these symbols correctly either). It's probably some kind of configuration issue on my end but I'm not sure how to configure things to actually make these symbols show up, so... If anybody has any ideas, please let me know

Btw, I do remember I tweaked a couple file names in the past, but that was for another reason - those file names were too long and thus caused Java to issue a warning at compilation time that those files may not be extracted correctly from the .tar archive on systems without GNU tar (e.g. Mac OS X). Sadly, I don't remember what those files were named, but I think at least one of them was from Ice Age.

The "Random Duel" feature basically provides you with a random opponent from the difficulty level(s) currently available to you. So, for instance, if you have three opponents and you don't want to duel any of them, you can click Random Duel and it'll give you a random opponent instead (which may or may not be one of those present in your selection list, that is, it's completely random). If you have both "hard" and "very hard" difficulty available, then, as far as I can tell, Random Duel sometimes gives you a random "hard" opponent and sometimes gives you a random "very hard" opponent (which, in case of an empty placeholder, basically provides you with a chance to have a random match vs. a dummy opponent). I have a friend who sometimes plays a quest in a very specific way: he always uses Random Duel to choose a completely random opponent every time.

I'm not sure about challenges, to be honest. Challenges appear at a fixed rate (defined by the preferences) but are completely random, there's currently no way to control whether a certain challenge is guaranteed to appear at a certain fixed point in time. Also, not really sure about repeats - they seem to be random to me at the moment... This would most likely have to be modified in due time to allow for "fixed" challenges (as well as "persistent" challenges that do not disappear if you fail them). I'll prolly look into it eventually when I have a bit of spare time unless someone does it before I do.

- Agetian

[Agetian]

SVN r32033 (http://svn.slightlymagic.net/websvn/rev ... &peg=32033): I updated the Worlds to the 16/08 build. File names, accented symbols, etc. were corrected, "The End" (tier 4) was removed due to the reasons outlined before.

SVN r32034: Some more "odd symbol" corrections.

SVN r32025: Even more "odd symbol" corrections.

Please use the files merged into trunk as a reference for further updates to the quest worlds that were added to the official Forge builds. It's rather tedious to have to redo this every time.

As an aside, I believe I know why those accented symbols show up fine on your end and do not show up on mine. It looks like you're using some kind of a substandard encoding for the files (well, in the Windows world it's probably called "standard", but meh). At least it's certainly not UTF-8 (because I even get a warning in NetBeans when I try to open a file with those symbols saying that the file "can't be opened correctly in UTF-8"). Therefore, they are likely to show correctly on Windows systems but not show at all on anything else (Linux, MacOS, other forms of Unix, and whatever else Forge may potentially work on including Android). As an experiment, it would be interesting to convert all the original deck files from whatever encoding they're in to UTF-8 and see if they start showing up on all systems then (they're likely to show up correctly, e.g., on my Linux system and on my friend's Mac, but I have no idea about your Windows system - as I said, Windows likes to "do things its own way" and "use its own standards").

- Agetian

[Agetian]

SVN r32026: I implemented a way to have persistent challenges, in other words, challenges that do not disappear if a player loses them (thus, they can be retried until the player finally wins). This is done by adding the following line to the challenge deck metadata in the [quest] section:

Code: Select all

[quest]
Persistent=true


This may be a good way to implement "The End" as a final challenge.

SVN r32027: I implemented a way to display a custom win message once a player wins the challenge. This is achieved by adding a WinMessage line to the challenge deck metadata in the [quest] section:

Code: Select all

[quest]
WinMessage=Congratulations!\nYou have beaten the ultimate challenge!


I made the "Against All Odds" challenge the ultimate, persistent challenge with a custom win message. Please check "Against All Odds.dck" for an example of setting up persistence and a custom message.

- Agetian

[dingbat1]

I just wanted to thank you again for making these worlds and to encourage you to keep going. They're awesome.

[Marek14]

I just wanted to thank you again for making these worlds and to encourage you to keep going. They're awesome.

I think the proper punctuation is "It. Is. ON!"

[Agetian]

I just wanted to thank you again for making these worlds and to encourage you to keep going. They're awesome.

As one MLP fan to another, I can say these are awesome!

- Agetian

[Marek14]

As one MLP fan to another, I can say these are awesome!

- Agetian

Well, the templating could use some improvement. I'm also not sure whether a creature type "Pony" is needed, given that we already have "Horse" -- is that close to "Hound"/"Wolf" distinction or more like "Cat" where anything from housecat to a lion gets the same typing?

Though my greatest beef is with the flavor -- Rarity is generous to anyone, including complete strangers, so I believe her card might give benefits to everyone, like Zedruu the Greathearted; of course, "Generosity" gets interpreted a bit differently in the official MLP CCG, so it might not necessarily work that way.

Is anyone working on an AI version of that game, btw?

[lujo]

Hi,

mind if I spruce up "Sarpadia" a bit? Two years ago I left a project unfinished where I went to make the FE draft work like it's supposed to. It drafts rather well, and you need anything to recommend me this is the new thread where you can pick up the current drafting order (which is soon to be the new default I hope), and this is the lenghtly old thread to check out the analysis which lead to it.

And Fallen Empires wasn't a weak set at all.

The idea was to expand it a bit afterwards. Since you've made a Sarpadia, I was thinking of fixing up the core Fallen Empires pool a tiny bit (but insanely carefully and conservatively, probaby with just one or two cards per color) to make the draft and constructed even better.

[Xyx]

Please use the files merged into trunk as a reference for further updates to the quest worlds that were added to the official Forge builds. It's rather tedious to have to redo this every time.

I will. Sorry about that. I didn't realize there were more changes.

As an aside, I believe I know why those accented symbols show up fine on your end and do not show up on mine. It looks like you're using some kind of a substandard encoding for the files (well, in the Windows world it's probably called "standard", but meh). At least it's certainly not UTF-8 (because I even get a warning in NetBeans when I try to open a file with those symbols saying that the file "can't be opened correctly in UTF-8"). Therefore, they are likely to show correctly on Windows systems but not show at all on anything else (Linux, MacOS, other forms of Unix, and whatever else Forge may potentially work on including Android). As an experiment, it would be interesting to convert all the original deck files from whatever encoding they're in to UTF-8 and see if they start showing up on all systems then (they're likely to show up correctly, e.g., on my Linux system and on my friend's Mac, but I have no idea about your Windows system - as I said, Windows likes to "do things its own way" and "use its own standards").

Several of the files show up incorrectly in my Windows system's Notepad. Line breaks are all messed up. This not only includes various decks but also README.txt, so there's a good chance that a majority of users isn't able to properly read the readme.

SVN r32026: I implemented a way to have persistent challenges

Excellent! I will see what I can do.

I just wanted to thank you again for making these worlds and to encourage you to keep going. They're awesome.

Thanks! I'm not familiar with MLP, but shouldn't Rarity be rare instead of mythic?

mind if I spruce up "Sarpadia" a bit?

Well... if you mean adding cards that aren't in the official Fallen Empires set, then that would go directly against the whole classic oldschool thing I've been trying to do. I know these old sets are kinda wacky when it comes to Limited but I consider those peculiarities part of their charm and integral to the experience.

If you have suggestions for the quest opponent decks, then by all means! The Easy ones are supposed to be all about a certain flavor (usually a faction or area), the Medium ones try to showcase a theme or gimmick and the Hard ones just want to win. If you think any of that can be improved upon, then please do tell.

If you'd like to "fix" the Fallen Empires set, then perhaps you could build a "Fallen Empires II" and a "Sarpadia II".

[Agetian]

Umm regarding Windows Notepad - if it's still the same as I remember it from my Windows XP/Vista/7 days, it's actually not the best application to read text documents in (in general) I remember an effect very similar to what you're describing (line breaks messed up) in many .txt files I tried to open in Notepad that opened up very well in pretty much anything else on Windows (including Notepad++, Vim, Emacs, MS Office, LibreOffice, etc. etc.). I think it also has to do with the "my way or the highway" approach in a sense that Win is somewhat known for - to be precise, Notepad is apparently only compatible with the LF/CR (linebreak) style that is used on Windows and completely ignores the possibility of any alternative format (which is, by the way, understood correctly by pretty much any other application, including any other sane application on Windows, check to see if any other application shows README for you correctly - maybe even stock WordPad if this application is still alive, I *think* it actually behaved better than Notepad in this respect, amazingly enough ).

- Agetian

[lujo]

mind if I spruce up "Sarpadia" a bit?

Well... if you mean adding cards that aren't in the official Fallen Empires set, then that would go directly against the whole classic oldschool thing I've been trying to do. I know these old sets are kinda wacky when it comes to Limited but I consider those peculiarities part of their charm and integral to the experience.

Except Fallen Empires isn't the least bit wacky when it comes to limited.

There's maybe a handful of sets in all of MtG that draft better or that were designed with the same level of internal consistency. All the FE "peculiarities" come from a lot of cards not being implemented correctly and the drafting list being completely and insanely wrong (for reasons we nailed last time).

Ty for that list, though. I found my old notes, so there's a few things missing, but whats puzziling is that there seem to be things like Night Soil crashes that seem to have been fixed two years ago

[dingbat1]

mind if I spruce up "Sarpadia" a bit?

Well... if you mean adding cards that aren't in the official Fallen Empires set, then that would go directly against the whole classic oldschool thing I've been trying to do. I know these old sets are kinda wacky when it comes to Limited but I consider those peculiarities part of their charm and integral to the experience.

Except Fallen Empires isn't the least bit wacky when it comes to limited.

There's maybe a handful of sets in all of MtG that draft better or that were designed with the same level of internal consistency. All the FE "peculiarities" come from a lot of cards not being implemented correctly and the drafting list being completely and insanely wrong (for reasons we nailed last time).

Ty for that list, though. I found my old notes, so there's a few things missing, but whats puzziling is that there seem to be things like Night Soil crashes that seem to have been fixed two years ago

There is a common misperception about the old sets being broken, but as someone who played around that time, I can say that that's only true of Legends.

Alpha/Beta/Unlimited had some issues, predominantly with overpowered cards (i.e. the Power Nine), but altogether it's amazing how well it still holds up.

Arabian Nights was a neat alternative setting and for the most part plays pretty well.

Antiquities should be viewed as a true expansion in that it tried to really beef up artifacts. Every card either is or interacts with artifacts. That is both its strength and its weakness.

Legends... well, shit. This was a clusterfuck. There are a lot of awesome cards, a lot of useless cards, a lot of overpriced cards. And Wood Elemental. Pretty much half the set was near-useless (though, we didn't realize how much the elder dragons sucked until long after the set was unavailable), but there was enough great stuff to go around.
The only set that was actually bad/broken/unbalanced among the old ones, but damn if we didn't love those gold-colored cards.

The Dark and Fallen Empires suffer from not being powerful. There's nothing that can come close to touching a Shivan Dragon, Sengir Vampire, or Serra Angel. But on the other hand, it really made deck-building more fun. I still miss my all-goblin decks using Goblin Shrine, Goblin Caves, Goblin Warrens, and Goblin Lord (which was a Goblin!). Suddenly Lord of Atlantis was actually useful. These sets were fun to play, and fun to build, and really not broken at all. And don't get me started on cards like Maze of Ith and Preacher.

[dingbat1]

Note:
I've often tried figuring out how to divide the old sets into two blocks, because of my own penchant for preferring block-limited. However I divide it, the block with Legends is always crappy. The other sets are easy to work with.