Implementing NEW stuff to Magarena

[rasdel]

K, it works fine now... it's weird i wrote the script in wordpad and the same happen to me with more than one card. If i copy and pasted directly from the txt (made in wordpad) to a new txt in notepad it didn't work. I had to post it in here (in a preview post) and the copying it into a new txt in notepad for them to work (WHAT UP WITH THAT!? XD)

Here are the new cards i've implement into Magarena.

Noble Panther > TESTED WORKS

Code: Select all

name=Noble Panther
url=http://magiccards.info/in/en/257.html
image=http://magiccards.info/scans/en/in/257.jpg
value=3
rarity=R
type=Creature
subtype=Cat
color=gw
converted=3
cost={1}{G}{W}
pt=3/3
ability=gains {1} first strike
timing=main

Serpentine Kavu> TESTED WORKS

Code: Select all

name=Serpentine Kavu
url=http://magiccards.info/in/en/211.html
image=http://magiccards.info/scans/en/in/211.jpg
value=3
rarity=C
type=Creature
subtype=Kavu
color=g
converted=5
cost={4}{G}
pt=4/4
ability=gains {R} haste
timing=fmain

Last but not least, i tried to implement Nomadic Elf, but it seems i am not writing the "ability code" right. Magarena seems to not being able to add {G} add mana any to the ability java.

Nomadic Elf> Not tested yet

Code: Select all

name=Nomadic Elf
url=http://magiccards.info/in/en/200.html
image=http://magiccards.info/scans/en/in/200.jpg
value=3
rarity=C
type=Creature
subtype=Elf Nomad
converted=2
cost={1}{G}
pt=2/2
ability={1}{G} add mana any
timing=main
mana_or_combat

That's six... well... 5 and 1/2. Hopefully i can make some more along the week.

Cheers

[pcastellazzi]

You have encoding problems. WordPad and Notepad for windows are not the best text editors. Specially for scripting. Notepad+ (http://notepad-plus-plus.org/) is very friendly and very popular with Windows users. It will save you lot of headaches.

[melvin]

Nomadic Elf would not work in Magarena as we don't have a concept of mana pool. Our system is similar to DotP in that you pay the mana cost after selecting the ability/spell, so it is not possible to activate a mana ability that requires its own mana cost.

[rasdel]

Oh, ok, that's good to know.

I guess Nomadic Elf is a NONO then. I guess i just got 5 cards done then.

I'll see if i can implement some others in this coming days. No promises since i am still getting a hang of what does Magarena support and what doesn't. But i must admit you guys have been a HUGE help and is nice to see a community like this where a helping hand is always there.

Cheers

[melvin]

Oh, ok, that's good to know.
I guess Nomadic Elf is a NONO then. I guess i just got 5 cards done then.
I'll see if i can implement some others in this coming days.

How do you chose which cards to add? I'm always wondering how to prioritize which cards to add to the game and would love to hear any suggestions/thoughts on how we can go about it. My own method is to gather statistics on card usage from decks from https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/ ... =dailydeck and prioritize on cards that have been featured more often, with a high weighting for cards appearing in more recent decks.

No promises since i am still getting a hang of what does Magarena support and what doesn't.

If it helps, Magarena is AI-centric, so most of our design choices are aimed at making the game easier for the AI to play, so that the AI is a decent challenge. So some of our current limitations actually reflect the limitations of the AI, e.g. no multiple targets, no mana pool, etc.

Probably good for us to create a list of things we don't support currently on the "card scripting" wiki page as well.

But i must admit you guys have been a HUGE help and is nice to see a community like this where a helping hand is always there.

We created the card script to reduce the amount of code in the project and in the hopes that interested players can use it to add cards they like. So far we have succeeded in the first objective and and now, for the first time, we will have player created cards in the upcoming release. This is exiting times.

[beholder]

Nice work rasdel!

I added the other card scripts you posted : http://code.google.com/p/magarena/sourc ... 0bef598ff2

Thanks and keep them coming

[rasdel]

How do you chose which cards to add? I'm always wondering how to prioritize which cards to add to the game and would love to hear any suggestions/thoughts on how we can go about it. My own method is to gather statistics on card usage from decks from https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/ ... =dailydeck and prioritize on cards that have been featured more often, with a high weighting for cards appearing in more recent decks.

Personally i've been making the cards i own ¬¬
XD... at least the ones that where not already in Magarena.

To be honest since i can't really "code" any card into the game... so i basically try to look "cannon fodder" some cards that are simple to script and will add to the overall Magarena Library... but i don't have any special method at all... completly random, but that is because of my own limitations.

Cheers

[elias]

I would want to see more customize-able sound effect possibilities, such as having distinct sound effects when loosing life, being poisoned, drawing a new card, start of players turn, start of computers turn, casting a creature, casting a sorcery, casting an instant, starting a new duel, adding a land, taking a mulligan, win the duel, lost the game, won the game, etc.

I also want to see music options in Magarena, maybe for starters such as a title screen track, menu track, playing a game track. I am sure we could compose something simple or find someone who can do it. Or get around using royalty free music. And/or let the user choose his/her own tracks.

I also want to see an effect when either the player or the computer loses life, for example the player/computer field can flash red. Just adding a 1x1 red.png that tiles over the player/computer field at 50% transparency for 1-2 seconds should do it.

[melvin]

Thanks for the suggestions! I think using sound is a nice way to help the player keep track of what is happening. Tracking this as https://code.google.com/p/magarena/issues/detail?id=375

In-game music, tracked as https://code.google.com/p/magarena/issues/detail?id=376

flash red when losing life, tracked as https://code.google.com/p/magarena/issues/detail?id=377

It is easier for us to manage requests on our issue tracker page as compared to the forum as it is easy to miss a new forum post in a long thread. New issues will automatically generate an email to the public dev mailing list, do consider posting directly to https://code.google.com/p/magarena/issues/list

[elias]

I read one of the issues on the google code page, the issue mentioned that it is difficult to follow what's going on during the duel, one reason being that you have to look in the lower left corner to see which phase it is and if it's the computer or the player's turn. One possible fix for this could be to have a text of the phase in each players/AI battlefield.

I have included a picture example of this, in the picture the AI is in the UPKEEP phase.

In case you think this will work I have also included a .zip with all the phase texts as .png files with a transparent backgrounds. Each text also has a drop shadow so the text should work on any kind of background.

This text might have to be scaled on netbooks somehow (usually they are limited to a x600 resolution rather than x768). Or there could be an option in Preferences to hide these phase texts.

[Aswan jaguar]

Personally I think how it is already implemented is enough,(unless somebody has a neck issue and can't see the left bottom corner. )

From my experience the problem most people have is that AI do things very fast at times and you need to open the papyrus button to read what AI had done and not which step you or the AI is on which can be seen of course on the left bottom corner.
Please if you decide to implement this function suggested by Elias make it customisable so if somebody wants it,to select it or not for others,thanks.

[elias]

Personally I think how it is already implemented is enough,(unless somebody has a neck issue and can't see the left bottom corner. )

From my experience the problem most people have is that AI do things very fast at times and you need to open the papyrus button to read what AI had done and not which step you or the AI is on which can be seen of course on the left bottom corner.
Please if you decide to implement this function suggested by Elias make it customisable so if somebody wants it,to select it or not for others,thanks.

I just give suggestions on how I think certain issues mentioned on the google code page could be solved, doesn't necessary mean that I give good solutions But as you mentioned I also think if new stuff affecting the GUI is added it is probably wise to make them optional for the player.

I also read this issue at google code mentioning what you said here (about the papyrus button and AI log). Maybe the right side of the screen could be utilized for this. For example such as moving the mouse pointer to the edge of right screen, sweeps out the log with a half-transparent background. I did attach some kind of example picture showing something like that with this reply. I guess the text would have to wrap (like in notepad). But maybe it would be convenient to see the log this way, you could also follow the log by leaving your mouse pointer at the right screen edge while the AI plays.

[Aswan jaguar]

Don't get me wrong by no means I wanted to criticize your suggestion.Suggestions,advice and feedback are always welcome for projects and this is how projects evolve,prosper solutions are found,etc.I just wanted to pinpoint the actual problem in my opinion and tell the great developers of this project no to forget that "customisable" makes everybody happy.

[elias]

Don't get me wrong by no means I wanted to criticize your suggestion.Suggestions,advice and feedback are always welcome for projects and this is how projects evolve,prosper solutions are found,etc.I just wanted to pinpoint the actual problem in my opinion and tell the great developers of this project no to forget that "customisable" makes everybody happy.

Don't worry about criticizing, how else can I know if the community has other views than me of my own ideas.

And this google code issue regarding the log messages was written 2011 so maybe we can figure out something to solve this. I do like that the GUI of Magarena is very clean with not so many boxes, texts and information. The focus is on the battlefield, that's why I prefer Magarena compared to many other MTG applications (and you don't have to confirm after every phase step ).

[melvin]

Thanks for starting this discussion on improving the battlefield UI to display the current phase as well as to show the past actions. Both are issues I've heard from players.

@elias: great looking mockups! I like the idea of displaying the phase along the side of the battlefield, we can use that to replace up/down arrow and the square box around the player avatar.

Having a slide out log is less jarring that the overlay window that pops out when you hover the log icon and it is easier to get to the right edge of the screen when the mouse is over the battlefield. One problem may be discoverability of this feature for new players, the other is that this feature is beyond my mediocre UI programming skills.

I'd like to propose another idea about how we could show the last few actions permanently on the screen. The idea is to use the empty space above the top of the stack. That is to display the last few items in the log from the top left to the top of the stack, most recent at the bottom. That way, when an effect goes off the top of the stack, it goes on the bottom of the log, which is just above the top of the stack. This allows us to better utilize the empty space on the left as the stack is normally quite small. If the stack grows, it will just temporarily shrink the size of the log.

What are your thoughts on this idea?