Suggesting New Virtual Cards to the Designers

Frodo
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Suggesting New Virtual Cards to the Designers

Are we looking for suggestions? Absolutely. But keep in mind we are not aiming to create vast amounts of Virtual Cards; if the first set goes well, there is not likely to be more than one small new set every few years. Most ideas suggested to us will not be used directly, however, we will examine what strategies people seem to want and try to combine the most important ideas together. And even if your idea isn’t used, it can still be fun to put it on display!

So, the best way to make suggestions to us is to open a NEW TOPIC with the card title and the mark (V) after the card title, or the word (Virtual). Then, in addition to giving the text, please explain how you see the card working, such as strategies it will enhance or hinder, etc. This way the designers don’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out what kinds of decks would benefit from the ability the card grants.

Finally, if you are interested in helping with development, just let the moderator of the group running the project (in this case, "Frodo", aka Joe Bisz) know. For each of the "showcase" forums there is a semi-private "development" forum.
Last edited by Frodo on Mon Jan 05, 2009 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ringbearer
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Is there a limit on which cards to use? Are there certain cards that probably will never be virtualised?
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zarathustra
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Well, it seems to me there's two (sometimes competing) reasons to pick a card to virtualize:

(1) You have a cool idea in mind, then fit a card title to it.
(2) You think a card is underpowered, so you make a cooler version of it.

Of course, if you can do both at once, that's the best route :D
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Frodo
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There's a few little things to keep in mind too, like card rarity. For instance, originally we had the card Roots of the Earth (V) called "Crowned with Storm," but I realized Crowned only occurred once in a Balrog set, and Roots occurs twice, and since most people would put at least two copies of Roots in their deck it would be a lot more challenging if the card was "Crowned."

I would say Lidless Eye rares, Against the Shadow rare 1's, and Balrog once-per-set rares are things to be careful about, unless you are making a unique virtual card.

-Frodo
Leon
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I like the virtual cards and am happily incorporating them in my decks. I also appreciate the process and the team behind developing this set of cards. The thing I am wondering about is whether you might want to turn the unofficial errata to a similar usable format. As it stands unofficial errata will not be used in tournaments.

Part of the problem here is that there do not seem to be enough people interested or a fixed group behind it like with the virtual cards. Getting 10 votes seems the weaker procedure to me compared to the suggestion, discussion, adjustment, feedback loop you guys are working with. Still, I agree with most the UEPs and am hoping they can at some point be included in tournaments.

At some points the UEPs and virtual programs are working towards similar goals, like more ringwraith involvement with the home site UEPs and the Unleashed virtual cards. Unfortunately, this is not coordinated from one point. Could you perhaps think about using a selection of UEPs at tournaments where virtual cards are allowed? Some use of the discussion for UEPs would be great and I think the virtual card tournaments, where new stuff is already happening and being tested, could be a fit place.
Vastor Peredhil
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Hi Leon, hi the rest

sorry but you didn't pay attention, because all accepted UEP where and are used in the Dream card deck/tourneys (for all the events I held in the last 3 years I believe). So far just no one ever created the super moving ringwraith deck for this format.

That is one reason why dream cards and Virtuals do not mix to good since some UEP do exactly what the Virtual does (most times the Unleashed are even better then the UEP)

The near future will decide which format will be the most played/liked by the community.

Since mixing dream cards, UEPs & Virtuals is just too much even for me, since most cards choosen for virtualization can be awesome or needed in dream cards events, so I rather create a new dream card that does what the virtual card does as new cards new abilities in easier for me to keeop track off

anyway

I like all the stuff, even Joe's new ARDA card texts add something to the game which with just the normal cards is boring to me.

btw, Joe do you have a list of all text changes to the cards you have used for the ARDA games

mfg Nicolai
Leon
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Thank you for the reaction Nicolai. I know that the UEPs are used for dreamcard events. I was mainly asking the virtual designers if they would use some of that. In my opinion, the virtual cards will probably see a lot more use than dream cards, mainly because it is a very small set.
marcos
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Leon wrote:...mainly because it is a very small set.
yet ;)
Vastor Peredhil
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Well that is the point I have been hinting at...

how many more cards do you guys want or have to virtualize...

until all crappy cards have a usefull version, already there are some card that became virtuals which are good in the right deck (Tower Raided & FotIs) so to say and in my mind didn't need virtualization...

anyway there are about over 700-1000 dream cards floating around on the internet in all kinds of languages...

I would say about 560-600 where either done by me or erratad by me and for the most they are playtested

so are we going full out virtulizing or not or do we need both to keep the game we love alive and kicking?

mfg Nicolai
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Bandobras Took
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I actually feel that all three things are good for keeping the game alive and kicking so long as they remain separate projects.

Which isn't to say that a tournament organizer can't decide to combine all three.

But it becomes difficult to progress in any one of these three areas if you have to drag the other two along, so to speak. Strictly from a design standpoint, more gets done when a project is self-contained.

Personally, I don't see Virtual Cards growing anywhere near as large as a dreamcard effort. Of necessity, Virtual Cards are limited by the cards already printed, and further limited by the general guideline of Virtualizing marginal or less-used cards.

As far as the UEPs, they are by nature spontaneous. I've posted them whenever I thought of a good one (and even then most get shot down :)), but because they are spontaneous, there are going be slow points.

While there is some overlap between certain UEPs, Virtual Cards, and Dream Cards, that overlap is currently and is likely to remain easy to handle by any event organizer. Trying to combine all three is like trying to cram three separate ideas on to single card -- we've tried that once or twice with Virtual Cards and it just seemed to bog things down.
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Nerdmeetsyou
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On the other hand:
The dream cards aliante people... because there are so many of them at first.... and there are so many themes... that arent worked out properly....
For example... I think there is just to many different dream card sets from Vastor existing at the moment...

maybe you should focus on one of them, and perfect it... instead of creating a new one each half year...!!!

So it is easier to keep track of whats going on!

I even think that we are doing tooo many V-cards in the first edition...!!!
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Thorsten the Traveller
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ICE made about 1500 cards in 4 years, you mean to say we can't make 50 in 10 years time?
If there is no interest in reading/memorizing, most of all exploring! 50 cards, there is no interest at all; so no use flogging a dead horse....

as for cross-breeding, I agree up to a point with what's been said, though I think that both V-section and dreamers can consider addopting ideas of one another of course, without just adopting the whole set of ideas, and I personally wouldn't mind playing with most UEP's in V tourneys, there are just a few that are not good in the mix (actually, too good), or have become obsolete because of V cards (most notably the nazgul strat. UEP's). For DCGO we already play with them.

Mixing DCGO with Virtuals would not be clever. But, there's no need for it, since dreamcards have unlimited potential :)
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Leon
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I did not mean to start a discussion about dreamcards. My aim was to ask the virtual designers whether they would adopt UEPs for their tournaments or a selection thereof. It does not seem too much work to me to filter out the UEPs that are obsolete or overpowered with virtuals, as Thorsten says, and try to use the rest with virtuals.
Vastor Peredhil
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@Bodermaster

[quote]On the other hand:
The dream cards aliante people... because there are so many of them at first.... and there are so many themes... that arent worked out properly....
For example... I think there is just to many different dream card sets from Vastor existing at the moment...
quote]

wait a minute here :evil:

As I am creating dream cards for some years it just seems so that I put out like a hundert of them within the last couple of years,


So far only 550 dream cards are done since 1998 so it is 55 per year, that is 0,15 per day

well they tend to have more text then the normal cards, but that actually is due to prevent cheezy play, no loop howl exist, that weren' corrected yars ago, so you wouldn't even be aware of that.

Still it seems a lot to learn for many players, but ICE's rate of card production was way higher at the peak of the this game.

Learning new aligments is still harder then learning new just new cards, so start simple, to be able to play at a DC event one just needs to incluede only 18-21 cards depending on deck size (more if you have 10 characters and a 40 card sideboard)

this is not hard to do, but even if you still do not feel able to do that, go to GCCG an try out just the Firstborn set.

@different sets:

there are 11 expansion/sets I am working on right now.

this number seems high, but most sets will only contain 40/80/ or 120 cards at the most (the Northern Waste my 1st set, being an exclusion to this rule).
I could work with less themes/set, but I actually split them up, for the better understanding and better handling of these themes:

best example is the Great Wyrms/ Durin's Folk theme, both sets play in mostly the same regions, and where designed to best be played vs eachother, but for easier understanding of the set I split the theme up into 2 sets, each focusing on one type of avatar Dragon-lord or Dwarf-lord.

Another example are the Fellowship, Two Towers and Return of the King sets. All 3 will have between 40-64 cards an could be combined into one bigger set of course. These sets only introduce cards which where kind of missing from these parts/sections of the LotR; so I could just add these cards here and there to other sets, as it was done with Farmer Maggot from MEAS or Strider from MEBA, but I wanted to do it better then ICE did before.


Everyone who ever got into dream cards will realize how cool, balanced and non-cheezy these cards are, which was the intend of doing the way they are

mfg Nicolai
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Thorsten the Traveller
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let's keep it about the UEP's then (understand your emotion Nico, but this is not the place :wink: )

when it comes to using UEP's in virtual tourneys, there are few things to consider.
-is it not too confusing to adopt only half a list of UEP's? what would this do to the power (if any) of UEP's?
-since UEP project is ongoing, it would mean constant evaluation. Though admittedly, ongoing seems a big word for it, there's not much going on lately, this is a consideration.
-UEP's have a different mechanism, they work via the ballot, not via informal agreement in the committee of wise men, so does this mean we should vote on each UEP being used?
-many people have doubts already about disturbing the fine balance in meccg with virtuals, so should we add to that by introducing other new rules, possibly giving rise to more suspicion of upsetting the balance?
:arrow: the bottom line of course is, for who is this intended? we want big cheering crowd, or have fun in our own little environment?

my personal opinion:
*meccg is confusing and overwhelming, I've learned to live with it, and so have most players, the harsh truth is, that it takes dedication and real appreciation to play this game.
*constant evaluation isn't a problem for me.
*I don't mind voting, but I think most UEP's are pretty self-evident, there's only a few we must discuss.
*the big cheering crowd isn't there, we'll have to slowly very slowly win their hearts, and if we don't enjoy it meanwhile, we'll never get there for sure. So, while it is important to make reliable decisions and not make drastic changes, nothing we do is set in stone: let's give it a try.
*Moreover, using UEP's in a virtuals tourney might prove to give some boost to UEP acceptance, which I'd cheer. For some reason some monkeys still think it's fair that a Balrog may play 3 minders, let's do something about that.
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
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