Schedule for Finishing New Version of Set

Where the Virtual Boyz plan their latest capers
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Frodo
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As Jambo has pointed out, Worlds is coming up fast, and we're trying to get a new version these card texts up before then.

At first, I had though there would be time for one more GCCG tourney, and one more round of text-correction, but now I don't see how that's possible, because we would want the Worlds-legal texts up at least one month before Worlds. Still, this lack of another quick update is not necessarily a bad thing.

I think we are about done with just about every card now, save TNAA and HAEO (still waiting on Mark's rulings) and maybe Plotting Ruin. We should start redoing the GCCG XML and image files immediately, as well as the print PDF. Marcos, Jambo, Thorsten, and anyone else who can help--are we ready?

Frodo
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Yep, I can do the xml and am happy to proof read and work with Marcos to get the images done (if he can put up with my comments ;)).
marcos
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i don't have that much time as before but i can do an effort and work with those images :)

sure, no problem
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Thorsten the Traveller
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anything I can do with my limited computer skills I'll gladly contribute.

btw. did we agree on Witch-king unleashed finally? I'll look it up.

btw. I printed version 0.8 once, and it was not same size as a normal card, but a bit smaller...

btw. I once asked Joe if we could use a Dutch template for hazards, since many people agree that that slightly lighter colour makes for the coolest hazards. However, I know most games are played online nowadays, I still love to play with actual cards :wink:

btw. Did someone notice that more than half (26 out of 50) of the cards are rare? Do we have a liking for rares, are rares less useful generally, or is it just coincidence? (because of the unleashed/fair travels cards for example). If, if if, there are developments in the future that resemble SWccg, you can expect a run on certain rares (nazgul abroad anyone?)
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Frodo
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I forgot about WKU; it's posted now under "Post Tournament Card Corrections."
btw. I printed version 0.8 once, and it was not same size as a normal card, but a bit smaller...
Ugh. The whole thing? Are you sure your Adobe Reader software, when you went to print, did not automatically select "zoom" or "shrink" or some option that would make it smaller?

It is true that many cards are rare. Honestly, this is only because some of the most amazing cards, title and theme-wise, are rare (like The Nazgul Are Abroad). Yes, there has already been a "run" on rares--at Worlds 2007, I traded for 4 Eyes of Sauron, which nobody wanted!!

Frodo
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Thorsten the Traveller
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What is the verdict on Fair travels in FD? There was talk about not duplicable per turn, or per comp? There was talk about reserving it for whole different purpose, like cancelling rivers or lost in FD?

about printing: I have no clue. It was somewhere last year, I don't recall altering Reader settings, but it was at work so perhaps somebody else in some strange way did. If you say it works out fine, I'm reassured, just that it would be a waste if the 'master copy' is somehow too small. If everybody plays online, at least once somebody should try and print it :wink: , but I suppose you did last year at worlds.

I mentioned the renewed popularity of some rares also because we must realise that, however small, as team involved in designing you have a power that comes with knowing/determining which cards will be more powerful. abuse it wisely :wink:
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Frodo
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I just did a retest of Virtual Card PDF printing.

The printing sizes match up exactly, with the small exception of all minion resources, which are about one millimeter too wide. There's no easy way to fix this without redoing the card template, because the inner card proportions are fine (text box size), it's just that the black border is slightly too big.

I'm guessing this wasn't your issue though; probably page scaling had been adjusted.

Frodo
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Thorsten the Traveller
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I just printed the official 0.95 set at a professional copy shop, in stead of my printer at work here which might not be correctly callibrated, but I find the boxes are still too small about 1mm! I specifically asked to use no scaling :? It might not seem much, but it's annoying. If it were too big that's no problem, but too small...

working with the word file for the set though, I find that there are differences in sizes, hazards/mininon resource are bigger than hero, for example. I don't know who originally scanned the boxes, but is it possible to give the correct size of a box in pts.?

lastly, with a bit of reorganizing it should be possible to reduce the 50 cards to 4 sheets in stead of 5 (in fact for my Arda I printed 52 cards on 3 sheets, moreover if we'd organize the uniques and non uniques that might save another print, but I agree it must be presentable). I know most of you guys only play online, but some of us actually try this stuff out in real life :wink:
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Frodo
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I just checked the Word file and PDF file for hero resources, FW res, min res, and hazards.

All template boxes are exactly the same width!

HOWEVER, the full boxes themselves differ in size if you include the black borders. This was a glitch that I could not correct, because the original templates I used had black borders of various widths, and it would have been a pain in the ass to change all of them. But I don't see why this makes a difference; when you are cutting the cards you simply trim the black borders until they fit the card; usually you trim the black border an extra amount anyway (if you have a BB original) to make sure the paper doesn't stick out.

When we finally recreate this set using the full card images themselves, rather than just text boxes, of course we should be as precise as possible. It would also be nice if by that time we get somebody started on a project of recreating new super high-quality templates for the cards so that when we create cards in the future, we can type the new texts in and import the pictures at the standard sizes. This would create beautiful cards with very readable text, at such high quality that they could even be blown into posters, or (more importantly) printed out to look even more gorgeous than the latter real sets of MECCG.

Frodo
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Thorsten the Traveller
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maybe the guy who printed it did not disable the scaling though I asked him, because the printer will scale it and thus cramp the three boxes a bit. If so, we should explicitly mention this I suppose.

Printing a full card sounds cool, I hope someone has a real good scanner, I recently tried to scan the 5 wizards for Arda purposes, and found that good scanning requires professional equipment, digital enhancement afterwards is too tricky, you never know how the printer handles it anyway, so there's quality loss in two steps...
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
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