CardGameGeek - MECCG DB/Deckbuilding

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CardGameGeek
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Hello everyone,

First of all a note for the CoE: If you feel this is not related and think it's just shameless advertising (hint: it's only partially the truth :wink: ), feel free to remove the post. I have no intention to aggressively spamming or anything, I just hope this is something useful for the community around here.


As I have hinted in the past, I am in the process of developing a website related to the "dead" CCG/TCG world, and I choose to start with MECCG along another game.
I am opening this just to CoE and a small Facebook group I use to visit. It's in it's early stage, so Bug and UX issues are bound to be found, but that's what I am looking, feedback, a lot of them :)

From the card pricing, the DB, deckbuilding and everything in between.

In this article you can read more about the reasons behind this project and the future of it, not to mention the many ways in which you can help me(bare with my English).

Let me add that, if anyone have the will and the time to write articles about MECCG, Guides, Deckbuilding tips, Let's Play/Unboxing videos, News about tourney or whatever, I am more than happy to host their work on my website and we can talk how we can help each other, just shoot me a PM.

Here's the link to the main site and a direct link to the [-me_eye-] MECCG part of it.

Hope you guys will find it a good starting point.
You can always find my MECCG Haves and Wants here.
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In love with MECCG since 1995
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the JabberwocK
Ex Council Chairman
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Thanks for your polite and considerate post. Much appreciated.

I think what you have put together is simply fantastic! I have been working to try to get an image database up and running for the CoE website, so I am going to send you a PM with more details and questions regarding this.

One quick question/suggestion: Is there a way to quickly search for a card by name? I see you have all of the Sort/Filter options down the left side, but if someone wants to do a quick search for a specific card to view it, that should be easy to do. Perhaps it is there and I just overlooked it?

Thanks and well done!
CardGameGeek
Posts: 65
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:18 pm
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Thanks for your kind words.

Re Filter:

The first thing at the top of the filters is a search field specifically for what you are looking for, card name.

All the checkboxes below allow you to search what you write in such field as well eg you can search all cards that have the word Orc in the auto attack field, or in the card text, or simply in the title.

So yeah, you just missed it ;)

For all other stuff, I replied by PM.

Really looking forward to more feedback from any of you!

Please help :)
You can always find my MECCG Haves and Wants here.
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In love with MECCG since 1995
thorondor
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always good to see another MECCG project in WWW. and in this case it is even useful and well done ;-) thanks!
especially looking forward for when the peronal trading lists will be open to the public. i see great potential to use this as a trading platform - which would be very appreciated among the community.
CardGameGeek
Posts: 65
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Thank you, really glad of your guys feedback so far.

Actually you can already share your personal Collection/Wishlist/Tradelist.
You just need to register, fill up your list, and then share the Collection/Wishlist/Tradelist URL wherever you want, it's simple as that.

The Trading feature that will come with time will allow for trading to be organized directly on the website, with a searching feature that shows who have, if any, cards you are looking for or who need cards you are looking to give.
Almost very likely I will add a notification system, personalizable, that will alert if anything you are looking for is added into another people Tradelist.

It just takes time and money... a lot of both, and I have none of them in abundance, unluckily :( ...

By the way, if you visit the website feel free to randomly click on a couple of banners ;) It will help, not much, but better than anything.

Also given that we are under Xmas holidays, if you need to buy anything from eBay or Amazon, if, before shopping, you go through one of the links in this page, you'll definitely help a lot. It's a normal affiliation system, at your end it won't change anything, but I will get a small % of what you spend that will go directly into the Website development.

These are both 2 free ways of helping me out in growing and improving that cost a few extra seconds of your life... Just saying ;)

I will also soon open a Patreon Campaign, for those out there that really believe in this project and want to help more.
You can always find my MECCG Haves and Wants here.
Proud owner of cardgamegeek.com

In love with MECCG since 1995
CorumMc
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 24, 2013 3:58 am

The MECCG page is great, really nice work.

Is there a way to set a default state of filters to your account when logged in? I don't play virtual or with the dream cards so would only be interested in reading the traditional sets and would need to single them out each time I wanted to scroll through them.

An option to add might be the ability to Exclude rather than Include in a particular filter (so I can select one option to remove rather than add all the rest except the one?) Or maybe add a set of grouped filters (ICE sets, Dream Cards, ICE Rewrties, etc).

Your image files are a bit larger (420x590) than what displays at the 'zoom' level. Is it possible to make that detail page image clickable as well, to display the image by itself at full size? Some of us old guys have bad eyes. :)

None of this is meant to belittle what you've done. Simply wondering what else might be available.
CardGameGeek
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Thanks Corum.
Is there a way to set a default state of filters to your account when logged in? I don't play virtual or with the dream cards so would only be interested in reading the traditional sets and would need to single them out each time I wanted to scroll through them.

An option to add might be the ability to Exclude rather than Include in a particular filter (so I can select one option to remove rather than add all the rest except the one?) Or maybe add a set of grouped filters (ICE sets, Dream Cards, ICE Rewrties, etc).
Your comment is totally on point.
Given that most of the games that I added/going to add have communities that produce Virtual sets, this is something circling in my mind for a while now.

Lot of player and collectors are not interested at all in virtual sets and in fact my idea is to add a small section with 2 Checkbox, selected by default, but allowing to filter at once Standard and Virtual sets.

It's indeed one of the many small UX improvements I am going to add, other being:
- A Back to the top button
- A reset filter button

I am also looking into having Searches modifying the URL, to make them sharable and added to Favorites in this case.
I am not doing, at least for the time being , a set of saved Filters, unless I get very many feedback about it, given the time and money required for a "minor" improvement.
Your image files are a bit larger (420x590) than what displays at the 'zoom' level. Is it possible to make that detail page image clickable as well, to display the image by itself at full size? Some of us old guys have bad eyes. :)
Currently, the file size haven't been optimized. What I can suggest you, in case you need to, is to right click on the card image and Open Image in a new tab. This should allow you to see the card at it's full size. That said, on the left of each cards there's its text. That should be bigger regardless ;)
Not going to double zooming to avoid issue, for now, but probably will do.
Among the many things I have to do is to scan every card and produce the HQ version of it. Just waiting to complete my collection (recently got all Challenge decks and now just missing a bunch of Promos and AS R1) and then I will start Scan like there's no tomorrow ;)

Hopefully in time, if I can get the cards, or someone that want to help with scans, I would like to add cards in other languages as well, but only if I can provide the images.
None of this is meant to belittle what you've done. Simply wondering what else might be available.
No offense taken :) This is EXACTLY what I am looking for, suggestion and Tips on UX improvement, Bug found etc. Constructive Criticism in this phase are way more important than compliments.

Thanks again
You can always find my MECCG Haves and Wants here.
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In love with MECCG since 1995
CCG Collector
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I don't really have anything to offer in return, but feel free to link to any of the MECCG videos on my YouTube channel if you want content for your site. For now, I think it's mostly (if not entirely) booster openings, but I am working on a series of video tutorials that should go up over the next year.

Regardless of that, though, the site looks great. You clearly put a lot of work into it, and it shows.
Middle Earth and other CCG unboxings, booster openings, and guides: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCCGCollector
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the JabberwocK
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CardGameGeek wrote: ↑Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:14 pm Re Filter:

The first thing at the top of the filters is a search field specifically for what you are looking for, card name.

All the checkboxes below allow you to search what you write in such field as well eg you can search all cards that have the word Orc in the auto attack field, or in the card text, or simply in the title.

So yeah, you just missed it ;)
Sorry! I see it now, thanks! Again, fantastic work! I've only had the chance to briefly look at it so far, but I will most certainly take a closer look in the future when time permits and provide some additional feedback.
CardGameGeek
Posts: 65
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:18 pm
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CCG Collector wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:39 pm I don't really have anything to offer in return, but feel free to link to any of the MECCG videos on my YouTube channel if you want content for your site. For now, I think it's mostly (if not entirely) booster openings, but I am working on a series of video tutorials that should go up over the next year.

Regardless of that, though, the site looks great. You clearly put a lot of work into it, and it shows.
Thank you for allowing me to use your contents and sorry for the late answer but been a crazy time...

Booster opening is a great start to keep the content fresh, but if you are going to do video tutorials and let's play video, that would be definitely HUGE! :D

Also, if you are ok with it, would be great if in your videos description, just the ones related to MECCG and VTES for now obviously, you could link back to my website. Something like "Find more info on the game at..." etc. Make the line that better fit your style and your thoughts on CGG and I would be super happy. The worse case scenario will help indexing CGG from a SEO standpoint 8)
Again, only if you want and are ok with it.
the Jabberwock wrote:Sorry! I see it now, thanks! Again, fantastic work! I've only had the chance to briefly look at it so far, but I will most certainly take a closer look in the future when time permits and provide some additional feedback.
Glad you found it and thanks for your words.

For anyone, in case you didn't notice, to relieve the pain of manually entry every card in your collection, in the Cards page, right above the All Cards tab, there's a small icon on the left that allow for import/export of your Collection/tradelist/wishlist (Note: you need to be on one of these 3 tabs to see it)
There's also a example csv to better understand the format, but it should not be difficult to put together if you have them listed on Excel or Google Sheet.
In case you have any question or issue I am here to help.

Would be great to have your Wishlist/Tradelist listed as easily as :
My Wants
My Haves


Hope you will enjoy!
You can always find my MECCG Haves and Wants here.
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In love with MECCG since 1995
Theskyscreams
Posts: 44
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:01 pm

I really like this idea
Great work!
Kjeld
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:40 pm

A couple of suggestions to improve the deck building feature.

In addition to an easy-to-find toggle to turn "off" virtual/DC sets, it would be nice to have an alignment filter near the top: minion, hero, neutral (for hazards), dual, stage, other. Right now, for example, if I search for magic rings, I get both the hero and minion versions, which is a bit annoying because rare is the situation where I would be looking for rings from both alignments for a deck.

For deck-building purposes, it would also be ideal if the current deck list (e.g. in column/list format) displayed on one edge of the screen. I find the setup in RingsDB (http://ringsdb.com/) to be very intuitive and easy to use for the LotR LCG -- anything you can do to make the deck building on your site work more like RingsDB would be great, IMO.
CardGameGeek
Posts: 65
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Kjeld wrote: ↑Tue Dec 19, 2017 9:25 pm A couple of suggestions to improve the deck building feature.

In addition to an easy-to-find toggle to turn "off" virtual/DC sets, it would be nice to have an alignment filter near the top: minion, hero, neutral (for hazards), dual, stage, other. Right now, for example, if I search for magic rings, I get both the hero and minion versions, which is a bit annoying because rare is the situation where I would be looking for rings from both alignments for a deck.

For deck-building purposes, it would also be ideal if the current deck list (e.g. in column/list format) displayed on one edge of the screen. I find the setup in RingsDB (http://ringsdb.com/) to be very intuitive and easy to use for the LotR LCG -- anything you can do to make the deck building on your site work more like RingsDB would be great, IMO.
Thanks for your feedback Kjeld!

Re Filter:

Actually in the Type Filter you can just add the Various Hero - Site, Hero - Resources, etc.
I understand that it might be a bit longer to manually select the type.
You totally have a point and will look forward to edit the DB and add this easier filtering.

Re Deck Visual:

I am Looking forward to add a similar visualization of the deck, as you propose, directly from the deck list, and show the current visual approach when someone want to see more about the deck.
Unluckily it is a bit costly, I have other UX improvement already queued and so I am in need to wait a bit to gather some more money :cry:

At this regard, it would be of real great help, as previously mention if any of you guys, when buying from Amazon or eBay could use the affiliation links found here.
It's a really small effort on your side but would help me a ton in making faster progression with the website, specially if everyone do it!
Also clicking on banner help, but much much less ;)
Hopefully the Patreon Campaign will raise some interest when ready...

On another note, as a call to action to everyone of you reading me here, there's any reason you haven't actively used the website for managing your have/wants so far? Asking to understand which may be the key factor in this, assuming they are related to the website and not other reason like the lack of time (I hear you :) )
You can always find my MECCG Haves and Wants here.
Proud owner of cardgamegeek.com

In love with MECCG since 1995
CardGameGeek
Posts: 65
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:18 pm
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Just a quick update:

After a short call with the responsible for the DC sets I had to remove, temporarily, all Virtual/DC/RW sets from the website.
I have to work out a few fixing to comply with their requirements and then they'll hopefully be back for view and deckbuilding
You can always find my MECCG Haves and Wants here.
Proud owner of cardgamegeek.com

In love with MECCG since 1995
Lake Town Geezer
Posts: 163
Joined: Wed Oct 02, 2013 12:09 pm

Great web site.

Would like to see something on the different language sets/cards/promos.
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