Feature Requests Thread

[Resonantg]

If we get the program to an advanced enough point, a 'map quest' style would be good. Sort of similar to what microprose did, but not as advanced. You would follow the trails to where you duel for control of territory that gives you bonuses similar to the bazzar, so the more territory you conquer the more neat things you pick up.

It's an idea to consider.

[Aethir]

It would be cool if you could make the cards a little bigger that are in the hands and on the field so I wouldn't have to mouse over them to see their stats and abilities every time.

And have you thought about implementing online play?

[DennisBergkamp]

It would be cool if you could make the cards a little bigger that are in the hands and on the field so I wouldn't have to mouse over them to see their stats and abilities every time.

And have you thought about implementing online play?

EDIT: this is probably still not large enough though to be able to read the actual card text... I could perhaps add a "Huge" option which shows even larger cards (but this option would only be feasible for large monitors).

[Kersed]

I would like to allow players to have a sideboard up to a maximum of 15 cards for each deck. During battles in games 2 and 3 out of the 3 game matches, the player should be able to swap cards from the sideboard into the main deck. But i guess the main reason i want the sideboard is to add cards like Spawnsire of Ulamog and Burning Wish

Sideboarding would be awesome. I keep wanting to throw Kor Firewalker into my UW Control decks but he's a dead draw unless you're playing against red obviously.

[Rob Cashwalker]

I've been thinking a lot about sideboard support.. I tried twice to work with the GUI screens we have and tried to roll my own with the visual editor plugin for eclipse. I just don't know enough about how to redesign them to change their inherent functionality. Obviously it should be similar to how the Deck Editor and the Card Shop are obviously based on the same original source.

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Request:
Some crashes are caught and the input prompt in the upper left indicates such. The game can't continue, so the only option is to close the window. This brings up the Win Lose screen, telling me I lost.
But I didn't lose!

In one-off games it doesn't matter much. But the quest mode games can be quite competitive-feeling, right?

So, if the crash was caught, I'm sure some sort of flag could be stored. Then, the window close code checks the flag, and when it calls the Win Lose screen, the game loss isn't counted? (no change in current standing)

[freestorageaccount]

I know this is a bit of a picky interface quibble rather than a feature request, but attacking with tokens that have vigilance and tapping lands for mana outside of a "Pay Mana Cost" prompt (and perhaps a few similar situations) are a bit difficult in that the actual sprite rather than the pile has to be clicked for the desired effect. Doing this can be tricky as higher objects cover a substantial portion of lower ones, and for the vigilance example the tokens don't even turn sideways to help. Would it be possible for the behaviour in these cases to match the normal one? (If Treachery changes as a result and cancelling while untapping lands isn't already allowed, please be sure to add this capability in case (1) Treachery was somehow used without any lands in play or (2) you're afraid of Copperhoof Vorrac.)

[Beached As]

I've been thinking a lot about sideboard support.. I tried twice to work with the GUI screens we have and tried to roll my own with the visual editor plugin for eclipse. I just don't know enough about how to redesign them to change their inherent functionality. Obviously it should be similar to how the Deck Editor and the Card Shop are obviously based on the same original source.

Hmm, which visual editor do you have Rob and where did you get it? I don't mind having a go at making a sideboard

[Rob Cashwalker]

If you haven't found it yet, it's going to feel real {homer}"DOH!"{/homer}

http://www.eclipse.org/vep/

It doesn't render any of our existing GUIs, however. There may be something stupid I'm missing, or something simple to modify in the code. I think it uses some special comments....

Also, it defaults to the BorderLayout manager... it's real tricky to put buttons and such where you want. I couldn't get two grids to arrange to the top and bottom, without switching to the dot grid. (layout manager set to null) I guess I'm biased towards VB-style behavior.

My theory on how the sideboard should work is that in any current Deck Editor screen, the user selects all cards for both the deck and sideboard and saves the deck. (unless add another table to the existing screen) A button or menu item on the deck editor screen opens the Sideboard Editor screen. (basically the same layout as the deck editor)
The deck is presented on top, and cards from that are moved to the bottom table for the sideboard. The Deck object already has two CardLists, one for the deck and one for the sideboard, so the Save functionality should be straight forward.
For sideboarding during the game, a button is added to the Win Lose screen, which opens the sideboard editor. One caveat, is that the original starting deck needs to be reset between matches... so maybe a backup CardList in the Deck object?

[Resonantg]

From a usability point of view, the one thing I constantly have happen is that sometimes the program lags, and I click the button a second time and then third and suddenly I've fast forwarded through three step and have essentially forfeited my turn.

To that end I may suggest the following improvements to stop this problem.

1. Separate the "end of computer's turn" accept button to a pop up window that is not in the same place.

2. A different color for each stage of the turn. Green for upkeep, blue for playing cards, red for combat, white for end of turn/clean up.

3. A separate 'sound event' ability for each section, not just tapping mana. You just have to put the sound event there, and then let people download their own special sounds to customize their Forge on their own. That would not add too much size to the program I think, but would make for some flexiblity. I'm just picturing some of my Warner Bros. cartoon sounds in effect. Could be fun.

[Chris H.]

3. A separate 'sound event' ability for each section, not just tapping mana. You just have to put the sound event there, and then let people download their own special sounds to customize their Forge on their own. That would not add too much size to the program I think, but would make for some flexiblity. I'm just picturing some of my Warner Bros. cartoon sounds in effect. Could be fun.

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We had some java heap problems with sounds along with the addition of HQ pics. We are now a little leery of adding more sounds.

[Resonantg]

I may not be understanding what java heap problems are, but I was thinking about like in windows, you can go to the sound board and put sounds to events. But if that's not possible in Java without great danger of other issues, that is something that can wait, for sure. I'd rather have a clean running game.

[Chris H.]

I do not understand it very well myself. We added a tapping sound and HQ pics at about the same time. People started to see the error window pop up stating that there was a java heap error. People were not happy.

There are different ways to reference the memory which holds the sound files. Some of these will release the memory needed by the sound file when the sound is not playing. At some point someone with more experience than I may develop a strong desire to address this sound issue and implement them correctly.

Until then there are other areas of the project that will keep us busy. Like Magic 2011 and quest mode.

[freestorageaccount]

I just thought of a potentially neat addition along the lines of an "entire card collection, plus or minus some land" boss, and it's really simple and only two words (well, actually 42 if you count the ones before it): highlander quest!

[freestorageaccount]

Damn, tough crowd.

I just want to point out that should we get an ultimate quest boss, he should have a reasonably large deck as Arzakon did (but not nearly as bad for those of you who have beaten Shandalar). No matter how many lives the Private Domain opponent is given, Glimpse the Unthinkable hits him like Lightning Bolt does in a normal game. Cheap alternate wins should also be disallowed, though it would be very nearly impossible to find and rule out those involving more than one card such as Grindstone and Painter's Servant, or Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and Curiosity. (Of course, the Shandalar programmers didn't need to worry about this since there were few of these exceptional cases at the time and they possessed and exercised the power not to implement cards just because they were "too difficult". )

[Almost_Clever]

Damn, tough crowd.

I just want to point out that should we get an ultimate quest boss, he should have a reasonably large deck as Arzakon did (but not nearly as bad for those of you who have beaten Shandalar). No matter how many lives the Private Domain opponent is given, Glimpse the Unthinkable hits him like Lightning Bolt does in a normal game. Cheap alternate wins should also be disallowed, though it would be very nearly impossible to find and rule out those involving more than one card such as Grindstone and Painter's Servant, or Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and Curiosity. (Of course, the Shandalar programmers didn't need to worry about this since there were few of these exceptional cases at the time and they possessed and exercised the power not to implement cards just because they were "too difficult". )

Of course, the game didn't realize you had won if you decked or poisoned the final boss in Shandalar. You got the same ending graphics and message that you would have if you had lost. I don't know if it were an oversight or a deliberate move on the part of the programmers, but they pretty much disallowed cheap wins.