Draft Development in ML 3.0

[xdmo4]

Hi, I am new to manalink 3.0 but I used to play with the old shandalar. I have some problems when I try to draft using the manalink 3.0 version that CirothUngol uploaded on mediafile. After picking the cards that I want I can´t edit my deck because there is no option to it, and so the game proceeds with all the cards that I have picked and without lands... Any idea to solve this problem?

I also would like to understand better how can I draft with the recent sets... I downloaded all the files foolosopher uploaded and .dck files but I can´t make it work... If i copy them to the game folder when i try to play all the text disappear and I am unable to select the cards our start a match.

I would really appreciate some help since I love draft.

[CirothUngol]

I just checked and Draft seems to (kinda) work in Manalink 3.0. Check this link to make sure you're doing it right.

As now, Rotisserie is being disabled.

This is from a few posts back (about 2 months ago). It seems to indicate that Draft is unfinished and not expected to work properly.

[xdmo4]

Thanks CirothUngol...

I tried again and draft works, the only problem I have now is when I try with custom sets.

I followed the instruction written in the link you posted. changed the sets.txt file and now is possible to select the "new" set from the menu, but when I start the draft the cards do not correspond with the ones that are in the custom set that I created... If I try to run Singleton this message appears "Not enough coded cards to enforce rarity" Is any way to run singleton ignoring rarities? Or any other alternative?
It would be awesome to draft with recent cards.

[CirothUngol]

I'm not a developer or anything, but I'm quite certain the official answer is:
"Draft does not yet work in Manalink 3.0"

...hence the "Development" in the title of this thread. See, Manalink just went through a HUGE change. Breaking the 2,000 card limit has opened some big doors for development... and there's a few that have been slammed shut as well.

Draft was developed by Jatill in 2009, and there's a chance it was only intended to work with no more than 2,000 individual cards. Foolosopher started this thread after Manalink 3.0 was released to keep us apprised of his attempts to fix the issues with Draft... but there has been no announcement that he has, so we must assume that he has not.

...but when I start the draft the cards do not correspond with the ones that are in the custom set that I created.

Did you create the Custom Sets with the same version of Manalink that you're attempting to draft them on? The CardID numbers change from version to version. I've used the PlayDeck Analyser to rebuild the standard DraftSets and Expansions. You can try them, but like I said... I think Draft is kinda broken.

[Aswan jaguar]

Foolosopher I hope you will find sometime to fix what has changed when those card_ids shifted position (causing problems to draft) and make draft work again.Unfortunately I didn't have time to test when you released singleton and 6-8 players version or custom sets.I tried to en-corporate the changes new ids and new sets to your work it seemed not to be so difficult (for a coder probably it isn't)but I am not able to do it.

[foolosopher]

Hi guys, long time no see and sorry for disappearing. I hope you 'll have me back.
I took a quick look and the draft.c has been clobbered a bit, but checked and until the update of 2012-03-10_v2-Dark Ascension,
the draft is working (except rotisserie). In the next versions the number of expansions is extracted incorrectly
"
read_rarities expansions = 137
read_rarities expansion_size = 52
read_rarities count=12685
"
and this sets off the rarity check and breaks the draft, although the number of cards is correct. So there are probably two cases
1. The rarity.dat is not formed correctly
2. The magic_updater passes the wrong value to number of expansions

So could you check these, and I 'll come back to see if something more is wrong.

[Aswan jaguar]

@foolosopher the expansion.h has changed by 2 numbers from the beginning so all sets moved 2 numbers as Promo Expansion has gone first and the numbering begins from 1 instead of 0 that it was before.

...and of course welcome back really nice to see you again.

[foolosopher]

Thanks for the info AJ.
Did some more testing and found out, that the number of expansions is extracted correctly until the 2012-05-27_Avacyn_Machinery_V2 update.
From the 2012-07-15_v3-Kamigawa stories
read_rarities expansions jumps to 137.

vagtest.txt

(5.16 KiB) Downloaded 282 times

Also from what little I saw, the use of a single Draftsets file, instead of it being a folder including the sets file, where additional sets are declared, is causing issues, maybe the transition is not ready yet.
Anyway, if someone else has taken over draft and is planning for some changes, please let me know, else give me a few days.
And for those who want to play draft you can use the 2012-03-10_v2-Dark Ascension update (2012-04-10-sensei_vanilla_masques_v2 seems to work too), but don't forget to also convert your decks using Playdeck analyser.

[Aswan jaguar]

None has taken over draft's development it's were you left it so whenever you are ready please do step forward.
Also please put more info about what is needed for some elements of draft you made,to work like draft-v17-singleton-numplayers-clean.C does it have to be renamed to draft.C and overwrite it to work?
Another question is did you make the change Jatill mentioned to make custom sets work?I tried to replaced that sentence but....I better stick to testing

[foolosopher]

So now I see, who has been tampering with the code! and didn't do his homework. Did you send the changed file to Gargaroz to include in the next updates?
I wonder how did you manage to compile it?
Anyway, like I told you, give me a few days to test it against the September update...

[Aswan jaguar]

No I meant I was fooling around with my file nothing was changed or send to Gargaroz don't worry at least by me.
I thought it was just a simple text change oops!

[foolosopher]

OK, read some info on the updates and it seems that the problems are caused by the changes in the .csv files.
2012-04-10-sensei_vanilla_masques_v2: there was a shift in the new rarities columns because of the PROMO set. This is breaking the game when you select to play with the LIMITED_EDITION_ALPHA set, because in essence it can't find any cards. If fou choose to play with the other sets it should play, but cards will be wrong because of the shifted column. Fixable.
2012-07-15-Kamigawa stories_v3: This is where the big problem is. In this update there were 8 new columns inserted (the legality per game type) between DB8 and new rarities columns.
The problem is the magic updater puts into the rarity.dat some of those columns so the draft breaks (unless you also updated the magic updater). I see two options here
1)Someone updates the magic updater to put the correct columns into the rarity.dat
2)I 'll try to read the rarity after the newly inserted columns.

Anyone also nows if there is a limit on how many columns are passed into the rarity.dat?

[Aswan jaguar]

I don't know if this is helpful is an answer of Mok to a question you did to him.

Mok said:
Just keep in mind that csv file is no longer directly accessed by the game so it might not be available for any scanning. Columns with expansions are available in rarity.dat. The file is simple (4 bytes with number of cards, 4 bytes with number of expansions and then rarity data). Each expansion takes 3 bits so each card occupies (number of expansions*3+7)/8 bytes of data. Possible values for 3 bits: 0 = nothing, 1 = common, 2 = uncommon, 3 = rare, 4 = mythic, 5 = land, 6 = special, 7 = (unused).

Edit I realised you asked about columns not expansions but it is not likely Mok made it support future expansions but not enough columns for them right?

[foolosopher]

In essence columns represent expansions, but with the insertion of new columns the alignment between the .csv - rarity.dat and the reading of rarity is broken. The way this is structured, should be expandable, but we need the code of the manalink updater, I hope Gargaroz has it. Otherwise the available expansions for draft will be limited to the number of columns/expansions the updater can support. At least, until we find a workaround for it.

So Gargaroz, could you shed any light to those questions?

[foolosopher]

Hello again,
Attached you can find a fix for the draft, for 2012-09-16_M13_v3 update. In the zip are included the updated:
- ManalinkEh.dll, which you can directly install (replace the previous one)
- draft.c, with a few fixes to read the proper bits from the rarity.dat , only needed for developer(s)

I see that the draft code was reverted to a few stages back. Gargaroz, tell me if you have some plan on draft, I can help for some time, promise I won't disappear without notice.