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Even though the GIF is 8bits for storage purposes, once loaded into memory, the graphics data structure is likely still 24 or 32 bit.

I joined that Cartography forum so I could look at the pics in high res.. They're nice, but most of the ones I looked at don't really offer equal enough "Basic Land Terrain" zones.... Only one hit matching "Dominaria", and it sucked.
I've been looking around into some terrain building concepts like Huggy had linked to. I'd like to take a stab at building a world to support some of the concepts we're talking about.

I just love the idea of expanding the quest-mode to a full-blown Shandalar-like RPG! You guys are awesome! *thundering applause*

For me the most fun part of Forge is playing the Questmode. At the same time it's the part of the game that still can be expanded the most, mainly because it reminds me of good old Shandalar from way back in the day.
Because I don't know jack about programming all I can offer is a sort of "wish list" of features that would make the new adventure mode both as fun and as motivating as possible:

1. Stay close to the Magic Universe and metagame. We all know that MtG is really just a bit of cardboard, but thanks to the power of imagination it conjures up epic battles with daemons, dragons, gigantic beasts and everything else the fantasy genre has to offer. That is part of what makes the game fun. Plus the metagame of the players being dueling Über-wizards, not bound to any one plane of existence is as epic as you can get. Tap into this reserve of awesomeness that the planeswalker concept is.
Speaking of planeswalkers, over the last few years WotC has explored and expanded the mythology surrounding the planeswalkers both in terms of game play (the planeswalker cards) and beyond (books, comics, more on the whole multiverse idea). Wouldn't it be great to have an adventure as a planeswalker yourself? Traveling the multiverse and battling the powers that be? Hell yeah! Plus you could meet the other established planeswalkes, like Jace, Chandra or Garruk. Maybe you help them, work for them or fight with them. As long as it doesn't conflict with WotC's copyrights, of course.

2. Have a learning curve. Now I know that Forge is not meant as a tool for teaching MtG to newbies, but a learning curve is also a power curve. Ideally you would start off with few and only basic cards. Not terrible cards, but rather core-set cards, if you want the interesting cards you have to work for them. In term of game mechanics that would mean creating different cardpools for different game worlds. The starting world/plane/kingdom/city etc. would be offering the cards from Magic2010 and Magic2011. Combined with not too tough enemies it would allow players to create a first deck that is both basic and decent. The intricate stuff and complicated mechanics come later. The concept of having different cardpools is already an important part of Magic as a trading card game, just think of the different formats like block or standard. Every set and block is both build along certain themes and mechanics that create synergies. Including those in the new quest mode just seems natural. You want an artifact deck? Travel to Mirrodin and earn yourself some cards from the Mirrodin block!

3. Loot. Everybody loves loot. The core of many a RPG is the hunt for loot. It's both fun and motivating. So loot should come in different varieties and with differing predictabilities. One thing that I feel is missing from the Quest mode is the possibility to by some new pre-constructed decks. Because very single card you get is random getting the proper cards, let's say for a millstone type of deck, is purely a matter of luck. Getting together 4 copies of the cheap "Tome Scour" took me more than 100 games. Being able to earn or buy preconstructed decks, even if they are very weak, would not only eliminate the problem of having to amass a huge cardpool until you can build more specialized types of decks, it could also be an incentive to try out a new type of deck after earning a whole deck by finishing a quest.
Other loot besides cards is already a part of the Questmode: the pets, the lifepoints and the adventuring gear. There's no good reason to not expand on that part of the game. So more pets, more pet slots, more stuff and why not also as a quest reward?

4. Quests. From catching rats to slaying Gods. In the current version of Forge the themed quest battles are great fun. Theming the opposing decks just adds a lot of fun to the games. I would like to see more of that! Ideally story-driven multi-part quests with different routes to take. Also the quest rewards should reflect what you have just done. Searched an abandoned mine? You get some cards relating to crystals and gemstones, depending on the difficulty anything from crystal rod to one of the moxes. You just helped an evil cult to take over a city? Add some new black clerics to your decklist.

5. Special game modes and play conditions. To keep a game interesting it's nice if you can shake up the rules a little. Maybe some special conditions or restrictions in deckbuilding. So there a quest were you can only have green cards in your deck, or only single copies of cards, or at least 200 cards, or cards of every color etc. (essentially recreating some of the fun formats, like Singleton, EDH or Stairwell) There should also be a "Duel Mode", that cancels all your advantages and disadvantages to set the conditions of the classic MtG game: 20 life, no free mulligan and nothing on the board for you and your opponent. Just to keep that old MtG-feeling alive.
Or steal some ideas from the planechase cards and some permanent effects to a game, if you are in certain places or planes. Llanowar, for example, makes every creature on the battlefield a mana-producer. Unshakable effects like this (good or bad) mix up the gameplay, forces players to new tactics and can also add more flavor to the game.
For an extra level of awesome add some form of limited format (sealed, draft, etc.) to the quest-mode. I have no idea how, but would be tremendous fun. Plus you only get to keep the cards if you win. Now that would be an incentive to win.

About maps, I think the motherlode is here: http://www.profantasy.com/default.asp

The easiest way to start I think is to do the work by hand, rather than try to procedurally generate it. Take a hex grid, and fill in the colors by hand. For a block of red land for example, all the hexes would contain the letter R. Once that's done, an artiste can easily draw a pretty map on top.

Actually, that is precisely what I found. I started the download just before leaving the office.

It would be fun if the legendary creatures played EDH decks Would make feel them more special. Instead of 40 life, they would have whatever life the algorithm eventually assigns them, doubled.

So this is my basic idea of a map where all land areas are represented. Each color has 6 town icons.

That looks pretty darn cool.

I also like this map. The mountains in the middle are a nice addition.

Cool, yes I also like that one Rob What did you use to create it, CC3? I downloaded that one also a few days ago...

I've been playing around a bit with the "Shandalar" code.
Still haven't really started figuring out how to cut the map into sections, but at least the performance is slightly better, also the magic part is much snappier now (I can't tell the difference anymore between a regular Forge game and one started from within the map).

BTW, I was thinking a bit about the "random theme decks". Maybe we could achieve some results with the following system?

A theme deck is made from three parts (apart from lands): "engine", "fuel" and "chaff".

"Engine" are the cards that care about the theme. For example, in a deck with Goblin theme, Goblin King, Goblin Warchief or Boggart Shenanigans are engine cards since they care about Goblins.

"Fuel" are cards that belong to the theme. In the aforementioned Goblin deck, any Goblin card, including changelings, is "fuel".

"Chaff" is everything else.

I was thinking, for 60-card deck, having 10 chaff, 10 engine and 20 fuel.

Each theme would need a file that would list the engine and fuel cards for this theme. In case a card is both fuel and engine (such as Goblin King in Goblin deck), it can appear as either, and therefore has higher chance of being in the deck.

I like that... this way we get to play against opponents that have never the same deck, even though there's a definite theme.

Yes, the only problem is that the themes would be to defined manually and updated with new released cards. I could do that, if the files will be just simple texts...

There might also be a third part in the file, "exclusions", i.e. cards that will never appear in the deck, even as chaff (for example, the Karstoderm's deck would like to not play any artifacts at all).

(Sorry in advance for the wall of text. Also, we probably should move this into a new topic as it's beyond the scope of the Map play.)

You could easily punch these into a text file. As long as they were easy to parse by a computer. We use lots of colons (especially for keywords) as parsers, since they don't really show up in the cards; equal signs also make good parsers.

The important thing is that we decide on a format to use, and what keywords are available before any of the theme deck construction really happens.

The keywords I was originally thinking of were "base" and "filler" and hadn't really considered a middle tier. But that doesn't really matter as long as it's consistent.
Here would be a sample decklist based on your descriptors.

Exclude:Color=W:Color=G:Color=U:Type=Planeswalker
Engine:10:Goblin King:Warren Instigator:Mad Auntie:Goblin Chieftain:Boggart Harbinger
Fuel:16:Type=Goblin:Type=Changeling:Text=target Goblin:Text=a Goblin
Chaff:10:Type=Sorcery:Type=Instant
Basic:12:Produce=R:Produce=B
Land:12:Produce=R:Produce=B:Text=Goblin

The original selection pool will be generated from all cards available (that the AI knows how to play), that are not excluded. So in this case, it would be Red, Black and Colorless cards, with no Planeswalkers. Every card picked from any of the categories needs to be present in the main selection pool. In Engine, Fuel, and Chaff, lands would also be filtered out.
Now this could parse through the software and generate a deck with:

10 Engine cards based on the available cards names listed. Choices are pretty much random so who knows what you'll get.
10 Fuel Cards. Works the same as engine just with different set choices. Anything if the type is Goblin or Changeling, or the text says "target Goblin", or "a goblin" (like Champion a Goblin or Sacrifice a Goblin)
16 Chaff Cards. Again the same, just with different filter rules. This would just fill the deck with random instants and sorceries in the right colors.
12 Basic Lands that produce either R or B mana.
Plus another 12 lands that that produce R or B or have Goblin in it's rules text.
A max of 4 of each card (except Basic Lands or Relentless Rats) will be enforced throughout the card choices.

This is just how I picture the whole thing working. I haven't looked into the random deck generator as it is, but using the tools available with CardLists this seems like a feasible way for the whole thing to work.

I was sort of thinking we should put this up in the deck forum. Let the community figure out what cards should go together.

If the deck size is going to be scaleable, the numbers should be percentages.

The lists don't have to be colon separated on one line. It should be able to be parsed in groups of lines....
I don't know about letting just ANY goblin com to the party... some really suck. Likewise just any sorcery isn't going to help stay on theme. The card selection should be from a specific list, similar to the your Engine list.

The number of engine cards listed should be fewer than the number of card slots expected. On the other hand, the number of chaff cards listed could be double the number of card slots expected.

This was only a sample of what could be done. By no means was I declaring this is how it should be done.

Rob Cashwalker wrote:I was sort of thinking we should put this up in the deck forum. Let the community figure out what cards should go together.

For the actual deckbuilding, definitely. But for the format of how the decks will be built? That should be up to us since we need to code it. Once we hash out an acceptable format, we can let it loose for the community.

Rob Cashwalker wrote:If the deck size is going to be scaleable, the numbers should be percentages.

Both options are pretty easy to implement. Although, each individual deck scales up just by including larger numbers.

Rob Cashwalker wrote:The lists don't have to be colon separated on one line. It should be able to be parsed in groups of lines....

Of course they don't. It was mostly just a sample to show how it could work.

Rob Cashwalker wrote:I don't know about letting just ANY goblin com to the party... some really suck. Likewise just any sorcery isn't going to help stay on theme. The card selection should be from a specific list, similar to the your Engine list.
The number of engine cards listed should be fewer than the number of card slots expected. On the other hand, the number of chaff cards listed could be double the number of card slots expected.

I think you were overthinking my sample a little bit. I wasn't offering a deck to actually be made, just giving some examples of what could be done using different keywords.
Your card slot statement contradicts your use percentages for scalability statement above.