DotP 2014: Potential Community Wad

[Xander9009]

Initial post updated and (hopefully) better organized. There's a question for anyone that cares and some current plans listed.

[MC Brodie]

Initial post updated and (hopefully) better organized. There's a question for anyone that cares and some current plans listed.

For art you might want to look at the program KrazyTheFox made for forge. I'll link it below. It used MTGImage to get the art which I think uses CCGHQ images first then low res images from the Gatherer. I think you can also pull crops off the bat so you won't need to do any manipulation.

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14626

[Xander9009]

I don't think I'll need the tool, but MTGImage.com looks very promising. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to provide a way to know if the downloaded file is high quality or low quality. That basically means I can't properly check that without simply keeping track of it, but that's not too difficult. Either way, thank you. I'm integrating that site now to see how it works out.

[Xander9009]

Art wad has been updated to include all images up to and including Journey into Nyx.

The I'll be working on a way to properly sync the loose files soon. I can't guarantee anything, but I'll do my best to have it ready and usable as soon as possible. This will mean you get updates much quicker, but it may not work well for multi-player. Once I have that ready, my goal will just be more cards. I'll focus mostly on cards I've already done in the requests thread. After that, I'll continue trying to focus on cards that haven't been done, yet. If a particular modder with cards already available asks, I would be more than willing to make anything they have in their mod available within the community mod.

[Xander9009]

I've got a bit of a dilemma. I'm working on making the loose file syncer. However, I can only think of three ways to manage this.

The first way is this: Every hour, I query Google Drive to tell me all the changes that have been to my drive, and if those changes were in the loose wad directory, put the relevant information (file path, date/time modified, whether it was deleted or changed, and the ID needed to download it) into a file. That file would be shared by Google Drive so it's available on people's systems (whether locally or via temporarily downloading doesn't matter). Then, each person would have the syncing utility running, and that utility would check this file. Any changed file whose modification date is newer than the last time the utility checked would be redownloaded using the ID provided and placed into the directory given or else deleted if that's what was done. I've already done all the hard bits. The file listing those details is ready to go, and it'll keep a list of all changes made within the last 30 days (technically, it goes by a guestimated 720 hours). So, everything from my end is pretty much ready to go. It'll check every hour and add any relevant changes to the file while removing any that are newly past the 720 hour mark. Pros: Requires only one file to be synced, the list of new files. It's already mostly working. Best performance from those using the syncing tool because it only looks at files that are relevant and ignores everything else.

The second way is this: I have a utility running on my end that monitors the loose file directory and compares it to another dummy directory. If it finds a file in the loose directory without a counterpart in the dummy directory, it makes a new file in the dummy directory with the same name, but whose only contents are the ID needed to download the file. Then, others would sync this entire dummy directory onto their systems. The utility would do the same thing as the one on my end, except instead of making a dummy file, it would download the real file from the information it gets in the dummy file. It would also need to check for large differences between files' modification dates (not difficult, but not accurate). Pros: requires many files to be synced, but all files take up virtually no space.

The third way: Sync the entire loose files directory (which may or may not include Art; currently doesn't). Utility on user's end periodically scans for files in the drive folder without a counterpart or with a different modification date (again, not difficult, but not particularly accurate) and copies any new files into the game directory. Pros: Nothing is required on my end to make sure the system continues to work. Nothing needs to access the Google Drive database. That means there are SO MANY fewer ways things can go wrong. 99% of the necessary work is done (this is exactly how the current syncing tool works), so making it 100% ready to go would be a matter of a couple of hours (probably a half hour, but I'd rather give myself extra time than not enough).

Does anyone have an opinion on this. The last one is probably the best because it has virtually no way of screwing up and making people redownload huge numbers of files or anything. However, it also requires that there be two copies of every single file. Even if Google change how their back-end works (which isn't actually very likely), everything would work 100% the same. If I have to access it, however, that's not necessarily the case.

Because of some problems, the only good way to do it from my end is the last one I listed. With that in mind, the syncing utility is pretty much done, but there are currently no cards. I'll try and get the cards that I coded previously put back into it if I can find the code (mostly in the formal requests thread).

[Xander9009]

Main post updated.

• Art wad is complete and files are properly named.
• Loose file directory syncing utility is now available.
• Updated installation instructions.
• Sync utilities (both versions) are now available through Google Drive. Both now use ini files instead of txt files for settings, and this file will be created automatically.
• Updated "Future" section to reflect what I'm working on.
• Added "Links" section. It is simply a conglomeration of all the other links.
• Generally cleaned up everything. I think it looks a lot tidier.

So, I've got a question about tokens. How should they be named? I'm about a third of the way through a utility to automate token creation (including the different pictures), but I need to know how we want to refer to them. What I'm thinking is that the file's name will be the following:

Code: Select all

TOKEN_{CARDNAME}_{POWER_TOUGHNESS_}{COLOR_}{ABILITYINITIALS_}_CW_{#}

CARDNAME is just the the CARDNAME field in the card. Power and toughness "*" is replaced with S. Color is how it already works. Ability initials are concatenated. A flying, trample, haste creature would get "FHT_" (alphabetical order). The token GOLD would get "S_" for 'special'. # is 1 for the first token with that name and will increment from there.

The only issue I can foresee is that the file's name will not simple be a concatenation of [CARDNAME][MID]. I'm hoping that wouldn't cause any issues, but I haven't tested it. If I go this route, then creating a token would always be simple and you'd never need to look it up. It would be a standard form which would make it easy. The only thing that would require being looked up is if you wanted to use one with a different picture. In that case, you'd have to see if there are multiple versions, and if so, how many.

Another question about them: Does anyone know of a list of all of the tokens? I've got Magic Card's Extras but it only goes back so far. I've also got Planeswalker's Libraries tokens list but it's incomplete as well. I can't seem to find one that lists every token without repeating a lot of them. I'm currently in the process of grabbing them set by set from gatherer (just by searching for cards that make tokens). But there are a lot of sets and this isn't a very good way to go about it. MTGJson doesn't include tokens. CCGHQ has them all, I think, but that's still a... slow way to code them.

[Xander9009]

Art wad is now up-to-date with MTGImage.com at version 5.5.1 (well, technically, 5.5.0 since 5.5.1 wasn't something which affected the art wad). It was lagging behind because when I performed the final steps in preparing it for long-term monitoring, I moved it to a folder where it was less likely to be accidentally deleted or altered. However, the shortcut in my start-up folder was still pointing to the old location, and as such, I got no messages informing me of updates. My bad. It should remain up-to-date with MTGImage.com from now on, possibly lagging a day or so behind because the art wad is freaking massive and it takes forever to upload.

Tokens have been put on hold until either someone tells me they want them or I get back to modding DotP. I go back and forth between this and Skyrim, and I'm currently working on Skyrim, but I'm also getting a bit bored with it, so I might return later this month. If someone wants the tokens completed and added to the community wad, let me know, and I'll make it a modding priority.

EDIT: In other news, thanks to MTGImage.com, I now have a way to get the name/set of each token since I can list the cards, and only tokens do not have crops.

[migookman]

I am working on coding 'Carrion' which requires a token: TOKEN_{INSECT}_{0_1_}{BLACK_}{_}_CW_{#} . I'm not sure what to put in the # area.

[migookman]

That should be: TOKEN_INSECT_0_1_B_CW#

[Xander9009]

1. It's not an ID or anything like that. It's 1, unless 1 is taken, then it's 2, and so on. So, just use TOKEN_INSECT_0_1_CW_1. Any cards with that name will be the same regardless of the last number; they'll just have alternate artwork. Note that I haven't made the tokens yet. I've been meaning to get them done, but it took longer than I expected to find a complete list of tokens because one didn't exist so I had to make it by processing every single card that exists (because the method in the last post failed miserably). That's done, and I've got the complete list of abilities that create tokens, but now there are a few hundred and I have to go through most of them by hand. I'll add this one now, though.

Note: If you end up making tokens, you can the extra tags if you want, but I'm not planning to add them to tokens because of how simple they are. Feel free to create the tokens if you want to; just name them properly (and ask if you aren't sure).

[Xander9009]

Alright, I managed a method of producing all 232 tokens that can be done automatically. I only have 3 problems. Because of these problems, the tokens are not yet included, but are fully coded (except for those listed below).

1. There are 20 others that have to be done by hand. Not terrible, but annoying.
2. Riiak's Deck Builder throws an error because the MultiverseIDs have T at the beginning. Unfortunately, I don't know if the Deck Builder is just being cautious or if there's a definite issue with this (Riiak, any insight?).
3. There are no images. This produced all of the code for all 232 tokens, but nowhere in the process was there a way to connect the code to the images I have, of which there are only 80. If someone has an idea how to connect these more easily, that would be fantastic. There are only 252 tokens, but many also have multiple images.

[RiiakShiNal]

Multiverse IDs are defined as a 32-bit integer (I don't know if it is signed or not, but I am assuming it is) as such if there is a letter in it or it is too large then technically it is problematic. However, the game does not read or care about the Multiverse ID so it really doesn't matter. If future versions care about the Multiverse ID then it will be a different story.

[Xander9009]

Okay, thank you. In that case, I'll probably just ignore it for now, since your program gives the option to only show severe errors, so it doesn't actually prevent users from seeing problems. However, I'll probably switch to simply using a very large number in the future. The largest MID is only 6 digits. 32 bits is plenty of room

[RiiakShiNal]

Okay, thank you. In that case, I'll probably just ignore it for now, since your program gives the option to only show severe errors, so it doesn't actually prevent users from seeing problems. However, I'll probably switch to simply using a very large number in the future. The largest MID is only 6 digits. 32 bits is plenty of room

Yeah, with 32 bits if signed you can go from -2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647 or if unsigned it should be possible to go from 0 to +4,294,967,295. My best guess is that it is signed as most databases use signed integers (and Gatherer makes use of a database). So free reign on 7-9 digit numbers and can make use of low end 10 digit numbers.

[Xander9009]

Yeah, I was planning to go with 2 billion. I had to look up the size of a signed 32 bit int (I don't know these things off the top of my head), but once I realized it had a max of 10 digits and MultiverseIDs are only 6, that's... absurdly large compared to what I need. I think I'll go ahead and switch those just to avoid the error. I'd prefer it with the letter, but it doesn't really matter. Better to change it now before anything is actually using the tokens. Thanks for the info