Updates on the way.
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Re: Updates on the way.
by Thesaguy » 17 Nov 2015, 21:40
Korath, I just wanted to say thanks so much for your work on this!!!
One of my all time favorite games and finally someone able to add new cards.
EDIT: Just saw the feature request section... Added below.
Is it possible to increase the cost of World-Artifacts (I think that's what they are called. The artifacts you can buy that give you certain abilities) cost by difficulty?
They should be much more expensive
Also a way to increase the amount of cards you can have. (Since there are so many now
)
Thanks.
One of my all time favorite games and finally someone able to add new cards.
EDIT: Just saw the feature request section... Added below.
Is it possible to increase the cost of World-Artifacts (I think that's what they are called. The artifacts you can buy that give you certain abilities) cost by difficulty?
They should be much more expensive
Also a way to increase the amount of cards you can have. (Since there are so many now
)Thanks.
Re: Updates on the way.
by Korath » 18 Nov 2015, 00:31
They're called worldmagics. (At least in the English version; I don't know what they became in the localized ones.)
My experience with them is that most are useless, or nearly so. Since each worldmagic you have gives 1 extra life to lieutenant enemies, the only one I consider worth purchasing is Sword of Resistance. Even without that, most don't seem to be worth the gold to me, let alone spending amulets to activate:
Slowing down the siege rate, once I finally figure out how to do that, will go a long ways toward lowering Sword of Resistance's ridiculous imbalance compared to the other powers, but just about all of the rest will still need serious redesign to be worth having, let alone paying more gold for.
Some things that might be worth spending gold to buy and amulets to activate:
Increasing the 500-owned-card limit: fairly easy, as far as Shandalar.exe is concerned. Getting Deckdll.dll to cooperate will be much more time-consuming. (See e.g. here for why it's so much harder to work with.)
My experience with them is that most are useless, or nearly so. Since each worldmagic you have gives 1 extra life to lieutenant enemies, the only one I consider worth purchasing is Sword of Resistance. Even without that, most don't seem to be worth the gold to me, let alone spending amulets to activate:
- Sword of Resistance: indispensable, of course.
- Quickening, Leap of Fate, and Ring of the Guardian: I haven't ever used these except for very poor substitutes for the Sword when you're out of white amulets to spend on it. I suppose the first two might be ok at the very start of the game to avoid creatures you know you'll lose against, if you can't afford to bribe them. (Or bribing is broken, as it is in NB1.)
- Haggler's Coin: Might be ok at the very start of the game, but probably not by the time you've gotten it.
- Tome of Enlightenment: Again, by the time you get this, you should have been able to build a good enough deck that you don't need to break the deckbuilding rules to win 90% or better of your duels. Plus, functional reprints like Fyndhorn Elves and so on have intruded into its design space; but even without those, I hadn't felt the need of taking advantage of it in Shandalar for many, many years.
- Sleight of Hand: I've used it four or five times, at most, in 20 years of playing this game on and off, when I had a dungeon treasure up for ante.
- Staff of Thunder: I don't think I've ever used it. (Except recently, when trying to test other things like card distribution for sale in towns.) Might have the same early-game use as Quickening and Leap of Fate.
- Conjurer's Will: I haven't ever used it.
- Dwarven Pick, Amulet of Swampwalk: Conveniences only.
- Fruit of Sustenance: Irrelevant by the time you get it, and takes a long time to pay for itself even at the current cost.
Slowing down the siege rate, once I finally figure out how to do that, will go a long ways toward lowering Sword of Resistance's ridiculous imbalance compared to the other powers, but just about all of the rest will still need serious redesign to be worth having, let alone paying more gold for.
Some things that might be worth spending gold to buy and amulets to activate:
- Get a free card or extra life in your next duel. Room for a couple variants here: a stray 1/1 creature to attack with; a Wall of Vines or similar to block with; a tapped basic land or such; an extra card in your hand and an effect card that increases your maximum hand size by 1 in your first turn; a random permanent from your deck starting on the bf like for dungeon duels.
- Haggler's Coin: In addition to its current effect:
- Decrease the gold or amulet cost of cards purchased in a Nomad's Bazaar or Diamond Mine lair or bought for amulets in a city, presupposing that those costs are increased; or
- Presupposing that you can only buy a limited number of cards in those two lairs, increasing that limit; or
- Presupposing that you get fewer free cards in addition to the enemy's ante when winning a duel, increase that amount.
- Decrease the gold or amulet cost of cards purchased in a Nomad's Bazaar or Diamond Mine lair or bought for amulets in a city, presupposing that those costs are increased; or
- Quickening: Last longer, perhaps, or be permanent with less of a speed increase. Maybe have both a small permanent speed increase and still be activateable. But it'd still only be a convenience at best.
- Staff of Thunder: Destroy all nearby enemies, not just the closest.
Increasing the 500-owned-card limit: fairly easy, as far as Shandalar.exe is concerned. Getting Deckdll.dll to cooperate will be much more time-consuming. (See e.g. here for why it's so much harder to work with.)
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Re: Updates on the way.
by Bog Wraith » 18 Nov 2015, 03:21
I always enjoy reading your thoughts on future design changes and your reasoning either for or against a particular area or card you are writing about.
For me, reading your rather lengthy & involved notes & thoughts for upcoming and newly released updates are as much fun & anticipated as playing with the game itself.
Just wanted you to know how much I appreciate the time & effort you put into writing these posts, all on top of the incredible work you have done to give all of us who adore this game, so much that we could never hope to repay you for!
Thank you, my friend.
For me, reading your rather lengthy & involved notes & thoughts for upcoming and newly released updates are as much fun & anticipated as playing with the game itself.
Just wanted you to know how much I appreciate the time & effort you put into writing these posts, all on top of the incredible work you have done to give all of us who adore this game, so much that we could never hope to repay you for!
Thank you, my friend.
'Twas in the bogs of Cannelbrae
My mate did meet an early grave
'Twas nothing left for us to save
In the peat-filled bogs of Cannelbrae.
My mate did meet an early grave
'Twas nothing left for us to save
In the peat-filled bogs of Cannelbrae.
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Re: Updates on the way.
by lujo » 18 Nov 2015, 03:43
If amulets aren't raining then you don't have Sword of Resistance available all the time, so there's some mileage to be had from Leap of Faith and Quickening, except that's pretty much all they are, poor man's variants. Whenever I avoided lairs on purpose they did come in handy.
The one that swaps antes is very important if you're playing against tough decks and amulets aren't raining, I hit it whenever I can try to not lose a rare if I lose. Also if you're not save-loading, ofc.
Swampwalk and Mountainwalk aren't really convenience as it's a pita that swamps and mountains even slow you down in the first place. It just slows down people in those two colors as opposed to anyone else.
Tome of Enlightment is essential if the initial ante mechanics are as-is for any card that gets screwed over by that (well, not any card, just ones that get screwed over specifically because the number of copies in a deck is important).
I've never used the swap-deck thing, but it does look appealing now that you can be playing against tough decks and might actually want to sideboard. Staff of Thunder is another one I've used more since you've ported in cards to make enemies stronger than in all the years previous combined. Now it actually means something.
One thing I'd advise against strongly is ways to add permanents to the match via a power (starting with stuff in play). I've had the opportunity to buy things to start with in Forge, and it messes things up enormously.
Way I see it, if swamps and mountains just didn't slow you down to a crawl, a bit more cards were available in the shops anyway, you could sideboard like you can IRL, cards didn't get removed from the initial deck due to ante and seiges were less frequent I wouldn't even miss worldmagics if they all went away. Most of them are there because you're saddled with restrictions you're not saddled with IRL, and amulets make for a fine card acquiring currency anyway.
The one that swaps antes is very important if you're playing against tough decks and amulets aren't raining, I hit it whenever I can try to not lose a rare if I lose. Also if you're not save-loading, ofc.
Swampwalk and Mountainwalk aren't really convenience as it's a pita that swamps and mountains even slow you down in the first place. It just slows down people in those two colors as opposed to anyone else.
Tome of Enlightment is essential if the initial ante mechanics are as-is for any card that gets screwed over by that (well, not any card, just ones that get screwed over specifically because the number of copies in a deck is important).
I've never used the swap-deck thing, but it does look appealing now that you can be playing against tough decks and might actually want to sideboard. Staff of Thunder is another one I've used more since you've ported in cards to make enemies stronger than in all the years previous combined. Now it actually means something.
One thing I'd advise against strongly is ways to add permanents to the match via a power (starting with stuff in play). I've had the opportunity to buy things to start with in Forge, and it messes things up enormously.
Way I see it, if swamps and mountains just didn't slow you down to a crawl, a bit more cards were available in the shops anyway, you could sideboard like you can IRL, cards didn't get removed from the initial deck due to ante and seiges were less frequent I wouldn't even miss worldmagics if they all went away. Most of them are there because you're saddled with restrictions you're not saddled with IRL, and amulets make for a fine card acquiring currency anyway.
---
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
Re: Updates on the way.
by Korath » 18 Nov 2015, 05:44
Still in brainstorming mode. (It would be really nice if someone besides me would join in, both on this and on new lair types. The learning curve is a lot more shallow for game design than programming.)
And ideally, we'd want the activated worldmagics to all be viable extra sinks for amulets, so you're not just spending them all on cards. A lot of the reason I see to play Shandalar instead of just Manalink - certainly the main reason I'm working on it - is that it plays out as a semi-limited format. The more cards you buy through the cardpicker, the more tempted you get to just build whichever netdeck splatters the AI most reliably, with the same 5% of the cardpool that you've already played constructed with hundreds of times before.
---
Oh, and since it's been more than a week since my last progress report, here's the cards I've done since then:
- I'd definitely want to buy a worldmagic that lets you own more than 500 cards, even late-game. (Well, especially late-game, I suppose.) Sort of fits as Tome of Enlightenment, but that's probably ok as-is.
- Sleight of Hand: Should just make it so you don't have an ante in that duel. I still wouldn't use it, but it might make an ok consolation prize for people who don't like ante.
- Require a worldmagic be owned before you can play with vanguard cards. Ideally, disable vanguard cards entirely before you own that worldmagic, so you can only start collecting them afterward.
- Staff of Thunder: destroy all enemies, not just all nearby ones as I suggested before (and not just the nearest, like how it currently works). This makes it even better than Sword of Resistance, since it'll end a siege and you get to stay where you are.
This reads awfully similar to "If you started with all the worldmagics for free, I wouldn't miss them if they all went away". Buy the landwalk worldmagics, and swamps and mountains won't slow you down. Buy Haggler's Coin, and more cards are available in the shops. Buy (and use) Conjurer's Will, and you can sideboard. Buy Tome of Enlightenment or Sleight of Hand, and you can play your Biovisionary deck with Pack Hunt instead of Clone. Buy Sword of Resistance, and you can make it to besieged cities before they fall.lujo wrote:Way I see it, if swamps and mountains just didn't slow you down to a crawl, a bit more cards were available in the shops anyway, you could sideboard like you can IRL, cards didn't get removed from the initial deck due to ante and seiges were less frequent I wouldn't even miss worldmagics if they all went away. Most of them are there because you're saddled with restrictions you're not saddled with IRL, and amulets make for a fine card acquiring currency anyway.
And ideally, we'd want the activated worldmagics to all be viable extra sinks for amulets, so you're not just spending them all on cards. A lot of the reason I see to play Shandalar instead of just Manalink - certainly the main reason I'm working on it - is that it plays out as a semi-limited format. The more cards you buy through the cardpicker, the more tempted you get to just build whichever netdeck splatters the AI most reliably, with the same 5% of the cardpool that you've already played constructed with hundreds of times before.
---
Oh, and since it's been more than a week since my last progress report, here's the cards I've done since then:
- within | Open
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Re: Updates on the way.
by jiansonz » 18 Nov 2015, 11:33
Here are my thoughts on the world magics:
Sword of Resistance: essential
Sleight of Hand: very, very useful. Not only to preserve valuable cards (although most restricted cards and such do not even find their way into my deck before I've won a copy from the creatures that can give you one) but also to avoid ante-ing the more important cards in the deck (i.e. I really don't want to miss this card in the deck against this particular opponent).
Leap of Fate: with a couple of blue ammies, it's a good substitute for the Sword, but it's also good for travelling to far-off parts of the map where enemies tend to attack few cities (depends a lot on where the castles are), places which take too long to walk to between sieges.
Quickening: sometimes useful, mainly when combining a defense of a city with an ongoing quest. More useful in the 'take over castles' late game, as the time between sieges starts to get really short as the castles fall.
Amulet of Swampwalk and Dwarven Pick: I like them a lot, and they are cheap.
Staff of Thunder: I use it often against the henchmen, or on 'last standing' guardians outside castles (where you can't bribe them). Don't want to risk messing up my planned castle assault deck, you know.
Conjurer's Will: I only use it in the endgame, but it's of great use there. When I lose in a castle, a city will immediately be under siege, but as long as I have CW, black amulets and extra copies (or decent equivalents) of the cards I lose in my castle attempts, I can keep doing several attempts before that city falls. If I had to go back to a city/town between castle attempts, I would not have been able to try as many times, or I'd simply had to temporarily abandon the endgame and go and defend the beseiged city instead.
Ring of Guardian: Not needed in the original game, but now (with the vastly improved enemy decks) I will most certainly buy it!
Fruit of Sustenance, Haggler's Coin: Earlier, I bought them once I had a good cushion of money, but I do not think I'll buy them now when I know how they affect the henchmen's life.
Tome of Enlightenment: Useless for me, since I always play 60 card decks with a max of 4 copies.
Sword of Resistance: essential
Sleight of Hand: very, very useful. Not only to preserve valuable cards (although most restricted cards and such do not even find their way into my deck before I've won a copy from the creatures that can give you one) but also to avoid ante-ing the more important cards in the deck (i.e. I really don't want to miss this card in the deck against this particular opponent).
Leap of Fate: with a couple of blue ammies, it's a good substitute for the Sword, but it's also good for travelling to far-off parts of the map where enemies tend to attack few cities (depends a lot on where the castles are), places which take too long to walk to between sieges.
Quickening: sometimes useful, mainly when combining a defense of a city with an ongoing quest. More useful in the 'take over castles' late game, as the time between sieges starts to get really short as the castles fall.
Amulet of Swampwalk and Dwarven Pick: I like them a lot, and they are cheap.
Staff of Thunder: I use it often against the henchmen, or on 'last standing' guardians outside castles (where you can't bribe them). Don't want to risk messing up my planned castle assault deck, you know.
Conjurer's Will: I only use it in the endgame, but it's of great use there. When I lose in a castle, a city will immediately be under siege, but as long as I have CW, black amulets and extra copies (or decent equivalents) of the cards I lose in my castle attempts, I can keep doing several attempts before that city falls. If I had to go back to a city/town between castle attempts, I would not have been able to try as many times, or I'd simply had to temporarily abandon the endgame and go and defend the beseiged city instead.
Ring of Guardian: Not needed in the original game, but now (with the vastly improved enemy decks) I will most certainly buy it!
Fruit of Sustenance, Haggler's Coin: Earlier, I bought them once I had a good cushion of money, but I do not think I'll buy them now when I know how they affect the henchmen's life.
Tome of Enlightenment: Useless for me, since I always play 60 card decks with a max of 4 copies.
Re: Updates on the way.
by lujo » 18 Nov 2015, 13:08
Oooh, some really good stuff in that batch! Is the Arcane "proper" or hacked? I think I remember you saying changing card subtypes was being a pain so big congrats if you managed to get it in. Lot's of spirits in the pool already, the more soulshift and arcane to play with them the better
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What I mean by "if swamps didn't slow you down you down", is that that worldmagic only seems good because someone made the black guy have a harder time for no good reason. Same for the miners pick. Why doesn't the white guy have to buy a world magic to move at normal speed through his natural terrain?
Same for most of them, or ones anyone could suggest. Why have a woldmagic which lets you swap decks? Because someone decided matches were going to be best-of-1 and you wouldn't have sideboards like you have in real life. I'd bet my grandma 101% of the people would prefer being able to, you know, sideboard normally and quite likely play best of 3.
Same for hypothetical "disables ante". Most folks would only mind ante because it removes a card initially, you give them a choice between having a worldmagic that costs them amulets to just play mtg like it's supposed to be played and a choice of having it on all the time, what do you think they'd choose? EDIT: And it mesess up the AI more than it messes up the player anyway.
If you made a worldmagic that made stuff cost fewer amulets, and the amulet costs were arranged to make sense, you'd just let the player tamper with that (and there's no real other way to actually balance card availability).
Shandalar has a big problem with the og designers tacking a game onto a game. The player and the enemies start with 10 life, in a game consisting of elements designed around having 20 life, that was actually a really stupid idea. Enemies start with stuff in play - an equivalent of that would be having a card in your deck which tutors for free out of the library. Various leylines are sort of like that, but wotc never printed creatures like that. It's a testament to how good a game MtG is that Shandalar managed to be as cool and beloved DESPITE what the designers and the AI did to the actual MtG in it.
From what I've seen from playing a lot of Forge quest (inspired by shandalar), it all works better if the game just lets you collect mtg cards and play mtg with 0 things tacked on. I suppose some people would think of Shandalar as a game of it's own, most people would just be looking for a mtg collecting and playing simulator with a nice graphical interface, a non-intrusive illusion of rpg-ness (as long as it's strictly an illusion and doesn't interfear with default mtg paramters like it does now) and old frames on all cards (that they also get to play with for no money). EDIT: And that last bit, old frames & oracle text on all card pictures, is pretty much the no.1 reason why picking Shandalar over Forge is something to consider, despite having to endure all the ghastly design screwups in it. That's where Forge loses hands down (and why I, for example, are even here). Not counting nostalgia and astral cards, but that's pretty minor all things considered. But that's why this thing would be downloaded despite Forge existing.
If you could disable sieges completely, made amulets just the currency for a finely tuned card acquisition mechanism, remove the manalink system entirely and balanced enemies according to how powerful their decks are, made duels work exactly like they do in RL (with only Wizards having life totals that aren't 20), undid reasons which make world magics seem good and then removed world magics alltogether it would actually be a much better game. If this sounds controversial - not my problem, it's actually true. EDIT: And if Shandalar ended up with a decent amulet-based card acquisition mechanism / finely tuned meta that would be another thing it would have over Forge.
I could still see leap of fate being useful for moving around, staff of thunder being useful for peeling off henchmen, and conjurers will being useful for chanigng what you risk losing (ante removing cards would be gone in this case). Everything else doesn't really have a sensible non-contrived reason for being there (or what makes them look necessary mangles MtG). They're not worth preserving, because most of them were a terrible idea in the first place.
Also - if the end-product ends up being something other than this that would be simply because the guy doing the coding personally said no. If someone else then went and did what I said there and put that up for download I'm pretty sure it would be much more widely appreciated. Not that we couldn't come up with ten or so more appropriate world magics even in that setting, necessarily, but ones that cost amulets would always compare badly to just using amulets to buy cards (unless you forced the player to do so like the Sword does now), and the static ones we currently got either just get you closer to what folks would expect from a MtG simulator anyway, are forced no-brainer options with no justifiable reason to exist at all (so we'd have to invent problems that getting them would solve), or would give you bonuses on top of what you actually need and those would need quite some thinking to get right.
Bad design has a low entry barrier. Anyone can come up with a misguided concept, especially if they think of an awful system like the shandalar world magic one as fine baseline to improve upon.
---
As for lairs - eh, what can you actually do with them? They give you cards or set you up for duels with stuff. Them letting you buy cards or amulets is unnecessary, questing for amulets and buying cards from cities is a pretty solid foundation for all the game needs outside of dueling. And everything else you could put into lairs either tampers with playing duels the way they're supposed to be played IRL or doesn't have anything to do with duels or acquiring cards so it's at beast tangential to what the game's about.
Safe, non-intrusive stuff would be
- Revealing a part of the map (info mode makes this sort of thing worthwhile, you can see what the town sells and what amulets it needs, what world magic it has).
- Dungeon info (it kind of rains if you just talk to people in cities anyway, but wth)
- Freeing a besieged city (from my point of view that whole thing is there just so there's a game on top of mtg, and thus a hassle, I could enjoy the game if seiges never happened at all)
- Teleporting you to a besieged city
- Teleporting you anywhere
- Setting both players lives to 20 in the next duel (zomg! you're "forced" to play a regular MtG match, oh noes!)
- Setting a "why don't you try this deck" in the next duel (could be fun)
- Setting mind control in the next duel (I'd much rather have this as a random lair-thing than on enemies, enemies tend to suck with random decks)
- Having you play enemies which don't appear in the game (provided that option gets unlocked)
- Spawns a dungeon
- Gives an evil wizard a life boost
- Resets all card stocks in all cities (In forge, the cards you can buy between matches refreshes after every match, works much better than what happens with city card stocks in Shandalar)
... I suppose I could think of plenty more...
---
What I mean by "if swamps didn't slow you down you down", is that that worldmagic only seems good because someone made the black guy have a harder time for no good reason. Same for the miners pick. Why doesn't the white guy have to buy a world magic to move at normal speed through his natural terrain?
Same for most of them, or ones anyone could suggest. Why have a woldmagic which lets you swap decks? Because someone decided matches were going to be best-of-1 and you wouldn't have sideboards like you have in real life. I'd bet my grandma 101% of the people would prefer being able to, you know, sideboard normally and quite likely play best of 3.
Same for hypothetical "disables ante". Most folks would only mind ante because it removes a card initially, you give them a choice between having a worldmagic that costs them amulets to just play mtg like it's supposed to be played and a choice of having it on all the time, what do you think they'd choose? EDIT: And it mesess up the AI more than it messes up the player anyway.
If you made a worldmagic that made stuff cost fewer amulets, and the amulet costs were arranged to make sense, you'd just let the player tamper with that (and there's no real other way to actually balance card availability).
Shandalar has a big problem with the og designers tacking a game onto a game. The player and the enemies start with 10 life, in a game consisting of elements designed around having 20 life, that was actually a really stupid idea. Enemies start with stuff in play - an equivalent of that would be having a card in your deck which tutors for free out of the library. Various leylines are sort of like that, but wotc never printed creatures like that. It's a testament to how good a game MtG is that Shandalar managed to be as cool and beloved DESPITE what the designers and the AI did to the actual MtG in it.
From what I've seen from playing a lot of Forge quest (inspired by shandalar), it all works better if the game just lets you collect mtg cards and play mtg with 0 things tacked on. I suppose some people would think of Shandalar as a game of it's own, most people would just be looking for a mtg collecting and playing simulator with a nice graphical interface, a non-intrusive illusion of rpg-ness (as long as it's strictly an illusion and doesn't interfear with default mtg paramters like it does now) and old frames on all cards (that they also get to play with for no money). EDIT: And that last bit, old frames & oracle text on all card pictures, is pretty much the no.1 reason why picking Shandalar over Forge is something to consider, despite having to endure all the ghastly design screwups in it. That's where Forge loses hands down (and why I, for example, are even here). Not counting nostalgia and astral cards, but that's pretty minor all things considered. But that's why this thing would be downloaded despite Forge existing.
If you could disable sieges completely, made amulets just the currency for a finely tuned card acquisition mechanism, remove the manalink system entirely and balanced enemies according to how powerful their decks are, made duels work exactly like they do in RL (with only Wizards having life totals that aren't 20), undid reasons which make world magics seem good and then removed world magics alltogether it would actually be a much better game. If this sounds controversial - not my problem, it's actually true. EDIT: And if Shandalar ended up with a decent amulet-based card acquisition mechanism / finely tuned meta that would be another thing it would have over Forge.
I could still see leap of fate being useful for moving around, staff of thunder being useful for peeling off henchmen, and conjurers will being useful for chanigng what you risk losing (ante removing cards would be gone in this case). Everything else doesn't really have a sensible non-contrived reason for being there (or what makes them look necessary mangles MtG). They're not worth preserving, because most of them were a terrible idea in the first place.
Also - if the end-product ends up being something other than this that would be simply because the guy doing the coding personally said no. If someone else then went and did what I said there and put that up for download I'm pretty sure it would be much more widely appreciated. Not that we couldn't come up with ten or so more appropriate world magics even in that setting, necessarily, but ones that cost amulets would always compare badly to just using amulets to buy cards (unless you forced the player to do so like the Sword does now), and the static ones we currently got either just get you closer to what folks would expect from a MtG simulator anyway, are forced no-brainer options with no justifiable reason to exist at all (so we'd have to invent problems that getting them would solve), or would give you bonuses on top of what you actually need and those would need quite some thinking to get right.
Bad design has a low entry barrier. Anyone can come up with a misguided concept, especially if they think of an awful system like the shandalar world magic one as fine baseline to improve upon.
---
As for lairs - eh, what can you actually do with them? They give you cards or set you up for duels with stuff. Them letting you buy cards or amulets is unnecessary, questing for amulets and buying cards from cities is a pretty solid foundation for all the game needs outside of dueling. And everything else you could put into lairs either tampers with playing duels the way they're supposed to be played IRL or doesn't have anything to do with duels or acquiring cards so it's at beast tangential to what the game's about.
Safe, non-intrusive stuff would be
- Revealing a part of the map (info mode makes this sort of thing worthwhile, you can see what the town sells and what amulets it needs, what world magic it has).
- Dungeon info (it kind of rains if you just talk to people in cities anyway, but wth)
- Freeing a besieged city (from my point of view that whole thing is there just so there's a game on top of mtg, and thus a hassle, I could enjoy the game if seiges never happened at all)
- Teleporting you to a besieged city
- Teleporting you anywhere
- Setting both players lives to 20 in the next duel (zomg! you're "forced" to play a regular MtG match, oh noes!)
- Setting a "why don't you try this deck" in the next duel (could be fun)
- Setting mind control in the next duel (I'd much rather have this as a random lair-thing than on enemies, enemies tend to suck with random decks)
- Having you play enemies which don't appear in the game (provided that option gets unlocked)
- Spawns a dungeon
- Gives an evil wizard a life boost
- Resets all card stocks in all cities (In forge, the cards you can buy between matches refreshes after every match, works much better than what happens with city card stocks in Shandalar)
... I suppose I could think of plenty more...
Last edited by lujo on 18 Nov 2015, 14:27, edited 1 time in total.
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My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
Re: Updates on the way.
by dingbat1 » 18 Nov 2015, 14:24
So, basically Manalink?lujo wrote:From what I've seen from playing a lot of Forge quest (inspired by shandalar), it all works better if the game just lets you collect mtg cards and play mtg with 0 things tacked on. I suppose some people would think of Shandalar as a game of it's own, most people would just be looking for a mtg collecting and playing simulator with a nice graphical interface, a non-intrusive illusion of rpg-ness (as long as it's strictly an illusion and doesn't interfear with default mtg paramters like it does now) and old frames on all cards (that they also get to play with for no money).
If you could disable sieges completely, made amulets just the currency for a finely tuned card acquisition mechanism, remove the manalink system entirely and balanced enemies according to how powerful their decks are, made duels work exactly like they do in RL (with only Wizards having life totals that aren't 20), undid reasons which make world magics seem good and then removed world magics alltogether it would actually be a much better game. If this sounds controversial - not my problem, it's actually true.
What makes Shandalar special is that it's not just a Magic simulator, but a full on RPG. You start with a low life total and a rather weak set of cards. Through questing you increase your life total and your card pool, until you're strong enough for the boss battles. Adding Vanguard cards would add to that RPG aspect immensely.
Some of the design changes make total sense from an RPG setting, such as making movement through mountains and swamps be slower, or battles being best of 1 battles. Just imagine playing, say, Fallout, and the next enemy you fight is "best of 3".
You also might not realize it, but, the state of Magic wasn't quite as refined back in 1997 as it is today; Ante was still considered a core part of the game (which most players didn't bother with), and cards/sets weren't as finely tuned as they are today. Back then, I'd occasionally play games with less, or more, life than 20, and it barely had an impact on anything other than the game time.
If all you want is a MTG collecting and playing simulator, then Manalink will serve the purpose nicely. It's a good playing simulator, and what you can do is create a random deck using any of the methods available in there, and then battle against random decks (there are literally thousands of decks you can download on this very website). Manalink still selects a card for Ante (even if it doesn't use Ante), so you can then choose to add or remove that card from your deck. (you may want to use a spreadsheet for tracking collections, or create a separate "deck" which has your entire collection. you can then load that "deck" whenever you want to build a new one, remove the cards you're not using, and Save As.
To me, Shandalar and Manalink are two entirely different beasts. If all I want is to play a duel, Manalink is a great playing simulator with a nice graphical interface. I often play draft or gauntlet or some such in there. Shandalar, on the other hand, is a more immersive experience, akin to an RPG, involving questing, limitations, etc.
I'm eagerly waiting for the day that there are sufficient cards in place for set/story based modding, such as only using Theros cards, with the "wizards" decks being built around Heliod, Thassa, Erebos, Purphoros and Nylea. Or a Tarkir mod built around the Clans. Innistrad could likewise be built around the 5 major beasts: Spirits, Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, Humans. Alara can be centered around the shards, etc. All of which can be done with little to no programming knowledge, as all it would take, at a minimum, is changing the ini file and building the appropriate decks, with maybe name changes and graphics for good measure.
(Not sure what to do about Ravnika's 10 guilds, though; I have an idea that may or may not be feasible, but I'm not going to bug Korath for that now)
Re: Updates on the way.
by lujo » 18 Nov 2015, 14:32
Um, NO.dingbat1 wrote:So, basically Manalink?
Acquiring cards IS an RPG. You start with a random bunch, you fight various enemies go through dungeons and you acquire more cards. There's a map, and towns and quests, there's the evil wizard life totals, and a nice grid of enemies you've defeated so far, and various other preparations to make assaulting their castle more easy / doable. Your deck / collection IS your character, you don't need stats other than that, and you certainly don't need is gimping basic game settings which allow your "character" to function properly. That's what the MtG noobs designing it didn't understand - you don't f**k around with starting life, or deckbuilding paramters and you don't need extraneous motivation to go around the map collecting cards and dueling monsters to take down the big bad. That's the engine, so to speak, which makes the whole thing work right. Fiddling with that is why so many things in Shandalar don't and even can't work right now.
What world magics are (mostly) is just random crap that gets in the way of what's basically a very addictive RPG, many of which interferes with the rules by which THAT rpg was designed in the first place. Most wm are bought because it's a no-brainer choice - guys made swamps unfairly slow to move through, who wouldn't buy the damned swampwalk thing? If there was one that made you move on plains normaly that one would be "useless"... because some guys decided plains don't have a penalty and swamps do. If some guys decided plains had a penalty - oh, then it's something you always buy, doooh. See the problem?
Need more? Black's signature thing is paying life for stuff. Most of those cards are actually balanced, there isn't even mediocre black card draw which doesn't cost life. But, err, you start with 10 life, sucks to be you. Oh, and you also need a world magic to move on your home terrain, sucks to be you. Oh, the white guy also has an instant-teleport to sieges, no penalty to move on his terrain and lifegain, because, you know, makes perfect sense. Sooooo many things about the way Shandalar was designed can be accurately described with that meme of a dog sitting at the computer with the caption "I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT WHAT I'M DOING", completely matter-of-factly.
And most wm aren't used because... they don't really have a good reason to be there at all. You can't sideboard and matches are best of 1, have a world magic to be able to... sideboard. Right. Let's never contemplate making matches best of 3 (so randomly being mana screwed doesn't necessarily mean someone lost with no fight) and sideboarding being a thing because... it would make a world magic nobody uses anyway pointless. There's a wm which lets you break normal deckbuilding rules... which you don't need if you just make mtg decks, and only really need occasionally because there's this mechanism which takes away a random card from your deck. But, err, if there wasn't this random card removal (like in RL) and you just wanted to play MtG by actual mtg rules in a mtg game than this thing is... pointless?
And I can see how trying to explain this to someone who doesn't get it is bound to get me into trouble. It looks like I'm trying to take something away, while what the problem is that most of it just gets in the way of stuff that's there allready
And I can't stress "guys who did this were misguided noobs" hard enough, but folks who aren't fully aware of just how noob they were would find it hard to believe (after all they made a game and I'm a dude on the internet and it's like, my opinion, man), despite the fact that it's pretty much common knowledge that the guys who did it all really WERE noobs, but it takes not being one to understand what the concequences of ther noobness were XD It's a rather BAD mtg rpg these guys made, it can still be a full-fledged rpg, except a good one instead. It's often said Shandalar is the best MtG game ever made - but that doesn't actually say anything about how bad Shandalar actually is compared to what an actually good MtG game could/should be. It wouldn't take that much making a better mtg game out of Shandalar - just consult some people who, as opposed to the og designers, actually understand mtg. Pay attention to what they're saying. Sorry about textwalling, it's pointless. You either see it immediately or you don't see it.
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My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
Re: Updates on the way.
by stassy » 18 Nov 2015, 16:14
So what's the difference with Shandalar and the Planeswalker version (and/or Hearthstone) in term of RPGness/gameplay outside duel ?
I didn't play them but I am interested in the game design wrapping the CCG ones...
I didn't play them but I am interested in the game design wrapping the CCG ones...
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Re: Updates on the way.
by lujo » 18 Nov 2015, 16:31
I haven't played the Planeswalker version. As far as I understand it has a limited card pool, and it's basically inferior to just playing Forge. I've played some heartstone, but that's also just a simplified mtg with more computer friendly cards effects (like astral cards in shandalar) with pretty colors in duel in in-deck builder. It's kind of between Pokemon and Mtg, much closer to MtG.
The thing that sets Shandalar apart (in any possible incarnation) from everything is the world map which gives a proper RPG feeling, having bossess you can pre-fight through their minnions (so it has an actual RPG structure, it's easy to recognize it as such, and we can actually make that whole thing work better and be more involving - that's the RPG meat and potatoes of Shandalar, or at leas a sensible designer would've made it so), and now the fact that you can play with properly marked expansion symbols, updated card types on the cards themselves and old frames (well, frames of your choice) on all cards. Forge > everything else out there, Heartstone has functional multiplayer and is an actual promotable game with simple rules and a polished accessible graphical interface, but Shandalar kicks Forges ass on graphics and actual RPG feel. The only problem there is that the tacked on mechanical RPG elements mess it all up - it's biggest strenght is that it fully captures the RPGness of just fighting dudes for cards, but it's biggest downisde is that a bunch of things in it just don't work with the core mechanic (playing MtG). The guys making it didn't realize they allready HAD an RPG and went on trying to tack an RPG onto an RPG which ended up like it ended up.
So collecting cards through dueling and questing with an animated and colorful map & enemies, visually represented dungeons, cool win/loss tracking, global quest (dealing with the evil wizards), and having the best visual representation of cards around in duels themselves beats everything else as far as enjoyment goes. It's what mtg was supposed to be, in a lot of ways it beats paper mtg straight up (Forge does have a lousy techies-proudly-say-it's-implemented-designers-have-brain-strokes-just-from-looking-at-it draft you don't pay money for which would be cool if someone competent actually went around fixing every set to be drafted right but I have only 1 life to give and I'm not doing that for a game which doesn't have old frames, updated card types and oracle text on everything, for actual technical reasons believe it or not. Oh, and Aswan Jaguar.).
The problem is that the og pool and the lack of understanding by the og designers made them think there's room / need for actual mechanical RPG elements that interfere with duels and deckbuilding. There isn't, ccg collection and dueling, when you have a cool rpg-ish open world map, quests, dungeons and bosses with their minions is all you really need, and everything you do that messes with duels themselves usually messes with what most of the cards were designed with in mind.
It's not that you couldn't have world magics, mind you. Just not most of these ones. Hagglers Coin is fair enough if the shop pool was functional - heck, if it meant you could instantly refresh the shop pool with it it would be even better. Leap of fate interacts with things other than duels so it's fine, the problem with it, quickening and the sword is that they overlap in function too much (and differ in power too much). Staff of Thunder is actually pretty good as long as the enemy use proper decks, except it and leap of fate also overlap in "escape from henchmen" function. Sword wouldn't be so much of a hassle if there were no manalinks and wizards taking over towns just cut you off from quests and amulet shops (and, well, made the wizards win if they get enough of them).
But they shouldn't be using amulets, that's the thing - amulets make fine, fine currency. Or amulets shouldn't be the currency but rather gold. World magics being there as a concept of a second RPG layer is a fine thing - as long as it doesn't prevent actual duels from being actual duels, with only dungeons and castles having special stuff going on. And as long as it's better thought out than the "black guy needs this to be on par with everyone else on his home terrain, lol".
Refreshing use of world magics for beating stuff in duels, in lairs or even towns would be a much better mechanic for how they work, with amulets as actual pick-a-card currency.
There's a million things you could do with them, really, just not the things they do now, and not anything that prevents the actual mtg being actual mtg, and everything that interferes with that otherwise being straightened out. It would still be shandalar, except one tweaked by non-noobs, and we'd all be praised as complete geniouses and probably get sued by wizards, oh and any techies involve would be showered in eternal glory because everyone always assumes it's them that did everything
The thing that sets Shandalar apart (in any possible incarnation) from everything is the world map which gives a proper RPG feeling, having bossess you can pre-fight through their minnions (so it has an actual RPG structure, it's easy to recognize it as such, and we can actually make that whole thing work better and be more involving - that's the RPG meat and potatoes of Shandalar, or at leas a sensible designer would've made it so), and now the fact that you can play with properly marked expansion symbols, updated card types on the cards themselves and old frames (well, frames of your choice) on all cards. Forge > everything else out there, Heartstone has functional multiplayer and is an actual promotable game with simple rules and a polished accessible graphical interface, but Shandalar kicks Forges ass on graphics and actual RPG feel. The only problem there is that the tacked on mechanical RPG elements mess it all up - it's biggest strenght is that it fully captures the RPGness of just fighting dudes for cards, but it's biggest downisde is that a bunch of things in it just don't work with the core mechanic (playing MtG). The guys making it didn't realize they allready HAD an RPG and went on trying to tack an RPG onto an RPG which ended up like it ended up.
So collecting cards through dueling and questing with an animated and colorful map & enemies, visually represented dungeons, cool win/loss tracking, global quest (dealing with the evil wizards), and having the best visual representation of cards around in duels themselves beats everything else as far as enjoyment goes. It's what mtg was supposed to be, in a lot of ways it beats paper mtg straight up (Forge does have a lousy techies-proudly-say-it's-implemented-designers-have-brain-strokes-just-from-looking-at-it draft you don't pay money for which would be cool if someone competent actually went around fixing every set to be drafted right but I have only 1 life to give and I'm not doing that for a game which doesn't have old frames, updated card types and oracle text on everything, for actual technical reasons believe it or not. Oh, and Aswan Jaguar.).
The problem is that the og pool and the lack of understanding by the og designers made them think there's room / need for actual mechanical RPG elements that interfere with duels and deckbuilding. There isn't, ccg collection and dueling, when you have a cool rpg-ish open world map, quests, dungeons and bosses with their minions is all you really need, and everything you do that messes with duels themselves usually messes with what most of the cards were designed with in mind.
It's not that you couldn't have world magics, mind you. Just not most of these ones. Hagglers Coin is fair enough if the shop pool was functional - heck, if it meant you could instantly refresh the shop pool with it it would be even better. Leap of fate interacts with things other than duels so it's fine, the problem with it, quickening and the sword is that they overlap in function too much (and differ in power too much). Staff of Thunder is actually pretty good as long as the enemy use proper decks, except it and leap of fate also overlap in "escape from henchmen" function. Sword wouldn't be so much of a hassle if there were no manalinks and wizards taking over towns just cut you off from quests and amulet shops (and, well, made the wizards win if they get enough of them).
But they shouldn't be using amulets, that's the thing - amulets make fine, fine currency. Or amulets shouldn't be the currency but rather gold. World magics being there as a concept of a second RPG layer is a fine thing - as long as it doesn't prevent actual duels from being actual duels, with only dungeons and castles having special stuff going on. And as long as it's better thought out than the "black guy needs this to be on par with everyone else on his home terrain, lol".
Refreshing use of world magics for beating stuff in duels, in lairs or even towns would be a much better mechanic for how they work, with amulets as actual pick-a-card currency.
There's a million things you could do with them, really, just not the things they do now, and not anything that prevents the actual mtg being actual mtg, and everything that interferes with that otherwise being straightened out. It would still be shandalar, except one tweaked by non-noobs, and we'd all be praised as complete geniouses and probably get sued by wizards, oh and any techies involve would be showered in eternal glory because everyone always assumes it's them that did everything
---
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
Re: Updates on the way.
by lujo » 18 Nov 2015, 18:14
Err, here's a sample design.doc type thing off the top of my head:
Assumes:
- Fixed life for everyone at at least 20 (wizards and henchmen excluded, enemy progression shows itself through the decks rather than life totals also solves a ton of current issues),
- no life increases / decreases between duels except in dungeons,
- no bonus cards in duels except in dungeons,
- no missing cards from AI or player decks before the duel starts
- mulligans
- say, best of 3 and sideboarding, because why not, one can dream
- Amulets are cardpicker currency, activated world magics refresh on a timer or as rewards from enemies/lairs/whatever (or through food or in whatever way).
- All terrain equally passable
- Slower seiges
- Deckbuilding rules always the standard rules. 4 card limit, restricted/treasure cards, whatever, all standard.
Worldmagics (not proofed for mechanical inconsistencies, just general direction, also not proofed for possibility of being coded):
Activated (but obviously not by using amulets):
- Increase the gold shop card pool passively, restock a pool on activation (Black)
- Random Teleport (Blue)
- Increase your movement, make enemies around you run away for the duration (Green, helps getting around and makes it easier to pick out an enemy you'd want to fight out of a cluster)
- Nuke all enemies, that's probably fine (Red)
- Teleport to an ongoing siege (no mana links so sieges just cut you off from sources of cards and quests, which IS the main progression for character devlopment, and also if you let too many fall wizards win so getting this thing is no rush but probably a good idea eventually)
Just passive (asuming these can be done ofc):
- Pick - Adds a chest of jewels to dungeons similar to the one in castles
- Dragonfly - Henchmen also ante cards. (Well, maybe something else, but it's not a bad idea to consider.).
- Fruit - Bonus starting life in dungeons (fighting capable enemies in dungeons with 20 lives on each would make you appreciate this one quite a bit)
- Book - Allows a wider pool of cards to show up as treasures in dungeons
- Money - Better rewards from dungeon dice (assuming these can be set, ofc)
- Cards - switch ante (not for keeping it in the deck, that's auto and let's also assume matches are best of 3, but as a safeguard for not losing stuff which is an actual thing with AI decks tweak to be actually functional for a change)
- Ring - boosts how many domes enemy dudes need to win. It's actually fine if mana taps aren't taking your life total away, you don't have to chase after every single one.
Did I forget any?
This for example can't be done quickly or right now - but that would make it a much better game with worldmap stuff interacting with worldmap stuff and collecting cards, and nothing interfearing with dueling in ways which break regular elements.
Activated stuff deals with the worldmap and economy, passives mostly deal with dungeons, nothing at all interferes with any mtg going on. Bonus thing is that collecting passive world magics also ties in with beefing up to fight bosses since they're also in dungeons. Particulars and execution issues aside - this would probably kick ass. And it even leaves sieges in, although that part is kinda wonky even here and would need additional consideration.
---
There's probably a few other things, and the whole AI bussiness, but we make this game mtg community goes nuts. We also probably get legal folks on our assess because we just made a too good mtg game, and err, a strictly better mtg game than the best mtg game ever, because we just took it and fixed it. And that's just an off-the top of my head thing, other folks probably have a few better ideas.
Assumes:
- Fixed life for everyone at at least 20 (wizards and henchmen excluded, enemy progression shows itself through the decks rather than life totals also solves a ton of current issues),
- no life increases / decreases between duels except in dungeons,
- no bonus cards in duels except in dungeons,
- no missing cards from AI or player decks before the duel starts
- mulligans
- say, best of 3 and sideboarding, because why not, one can dream
- Amulets are cardpicker currency, activated world magics refresh on a timer or as rewards from enemies/lairs/whatever (or through food or in whatever way).
- All terrain equally passable
- Slower seiges
- Deckbuilding rules always the standard rules. 4 card limit, restricted/treasure cards, whatever, all standard.
Worldmagics (not proofed for mechanical inconsistencies, just general direction, also not proofed for possibility of being coded):
Activated (but obviously not by using amulets):
- Increase the gold shop card pool passively, restock a pool on activation (Black)
- Random Teleport (Blue)
- Increase your movement, make enemies around you run away for the duration (Green, helps getting around and makes it easier to pick out an enemy you'd want to fight out of a cluster)
- Nuke all enemies, that's probably fine (Red)
- Teleport to an ongoing siege (no mana links so sieges just cut you off from sources of cards and quests, which IS the main progression for character devlopment, and also if you let too many fall wizards win so getting this thing is no rush but probably a good idea eventually)
Just passive (asuming these can be done ofc):
- Pick - Adds a chest of jewels to dungeons similar to the one in castles
- Dragonfly - Henchmen also ante cards. (Well, maybe something else, but it's not a bad idea to consider.).
- Fruit - Bonus starting life in dungeons (fighting capable enemies in dungeons with 20 lives on each would make you appreciate this one quite a bit)
- Book - Allows a wider pool of cards to show up as treasures in dungeons
- Money - Better rewards from dungeon dice (assuming these can be set, ofc)
- Cards - switch ante (not for keeping it in the deck, that's auto and let's also assume matches are best of 3, but as a safeguard for not losing stuff which is an actual thing with AI decks tweak to be actually functional for a change)
- Ring - boosts how many domes enemy dudes need to win. It's actually fine if mana taps aren't taking your life total away, you don't have to chase after every single one.
Did I forget any?
This for example can't be done quickly or right now - but that would make it a much better game with worldmap stuff interacting with worldmap stuff and collecting cards, and nothing interfearing with dueling in ways which break regular elements.
Activated stuff deals with the worldmap and economy, passives mostly deal with dungeons, nothing at all interferes with any mtg going on. Bonus thing is that collecting passive world magics also ties in with beefing up to fight bosses since they're also in dungeons. Particulars and execution issues aside - this would probably kick ass. And it even leaves sieges in, although that part is kinda wonky even here and would need additional consideration.
---
There's probably a few other things, and the whole AI bussiness, but we make this game mtg community goes nuts. We also probably get legal folks on our assess because we just made a too good mtg game, and err, a strictly better mtg game than the best mtg game ever, because we just took it and fixed it. And that's just an off-the top of my head thing, other folks probably have a few better ideas.
---
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
Re: Updates on the way.
by Korath » 18 Nov 2015, 19:47
I really think you'd be happier playing a different implementation. What you describe has so little in common with Shandalar that there's no reason to start from it as a base.
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Re: Updates on the way.
by lujo » 18 Nov 2015, 20:50
How, exactly, does what I describe not have enough in common with Shandalar? It is Shandalar with every obviously stupid design decision not there, and ones that cash in on Shandalar unique features put in their place. If it wasn't undoable, we could call up folks at wizards and ask them and they'd tell you "yes, this is actually more like what we had in mind when we commissioned the game, the guys that made it really messed up" or something along those lines if they gave a honest answer.
I'd be happy to make the game more like that myself. But I can't. Well, I hope the code gets cleaned up enough in the coming years so that I can somehow get it to be like that with help of someone who can code. But you can be sure that if there was a Shandalar like what I described, and one that was developed by someone who'd say what I describe doesn't have enough in common with Shandalar, the former would be a hit, and the later would leave most people wondering wth were they thinking. But I made a mistake in my life, and that's that I didn't learn how to code, so there we have it...
What is even the point of putting years of work into modding a game not to make it what it was supposed to be but wasn't, but instead make it as ridiculously flawed as it was only more so? The guy who made MtG or any of the guys who developed it over the years could've told you the same things I did, for all anyone knows here one of them is risking their job telling it right now.
But you know better, right? Because you can code and so you can say you won't code And don't waste precious time trying to prove, disprove or argue anything - it doesn't matter. Things get done if you decide things get done, doesn't matter who says what.
I'd be happy to make the game more like that myself. But I can't. Well, I hope the code gets cleaned up enough in the coming years so that I can somehow get it to be like that with help of someone who can code. But you can be sure that if there was a Shandalar like what I described, and one that was developed by someone who'd say what I describe doesn't have enough in common with Shandalar, the former would be a hit, and the later would leave most people wondering wth were they thinking. But I made a mistake in my life, and that's that I didn't learn how to code, so there we have it...
What is even the point of putting years of work into modding a game not to make it what it was supposed to be but wasn't, but instead make it as ridiculously flawed as it was only more so? The guy who made MtG or any of the guys who developed it over the years could've told you the same things I did, for all anyone knows here one of them is risking their job telling it right now.
But you know better, right? Because you can code and so you can say you won't code
And don't waste precious time trying to prove, disprove or argue anything - it doesn't matter. Things get done if you decide things get done, doesn't matter who says what.---
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
My Shandalar deck pack folder is avaliable here:Dropbox
Leave feedback on particular decks here: Google doc
Ask for instructions, give feedback and complaints here: Thread
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