drafting area: renaming it

Development of our card database & card dev. tool. Used as the Gatherer & to empower the community to create new cards. Lead dev: Knitter
Locked
User avatar
snowdrop
developer
Posts:798
Joined:Mon Feb 01, 2010 15:25
Location:Sweden
Contact:
drafting area: renaming it

Post by snowdrop » Tue Sep 21, 2010 21:50

"Draft" is a popular format in many CCG:s. Calling the dev. part of the software "drafting area" might lead to some confusion and give the wrong impression that the players can actually draft cards in there, which they can't in the sense the word is used among CCG players.

Thus, for that reason alone, I think it might be a better idea to rename the draft area to something else that can't be target for that type of confusion, and to avoid the word "draft" altogether unless of course such a function was coded into the software as well (see link above of one such example).

Best case scenario is a straight forward short and good sounding name. I.e. "Sandbox".
User avatar
Ravenchild
developer
Posts:131
Joined:Sat Sep 04, 2010 19:21
Location:Germany

Re: drafting area: renaming it

Post by Ravenchild » Sat Oct 09, 2010 06:22

The http://www.ccgdecks.com/ website seems to be broken. A lot of links redirect me to the start page. Could you please explain what "drafting" means?

Cardscape should allow all registered users to design a new card. A draft is a card in the drafting/development area that has not been discussed yet and it's therefore still possible for the creator of the card to revise the card in-place instead of creating a new draft. (Minor changes are still possible after the drafting stage).
User avatar
snowdrop
developer
Posts:798
Joined:Mon Feb 01, 2010 15:25
Location:Sweden
Contact:

Re: drafting area: renaming it

Post by snowdrop » Sat Oct 09, 2010 09:06

From the MtG site about their officially sanctioned formats:

'
What is Booster Draft?

Have a group of friends who want to enjoy playing a format together? Booster Draft is exactly the format you're looking for! Instead of just opening your cards and building a deck, you and the other players at the table (four to eight total) have to draft the cards for your decks.

At the start of a Booster Draft, each player opens a booster pack and picks the card he or she wants from it. (You can't see the cards that the other players draft.) Then each player passes the rest of the pack to his or her left. You pick up the pack that was passed to you, select a card, and pass the rest to your left. This process continues until all the cards have been drafted. Next, each player opens a second pack, but this time, you pass the pack to your right. After all those cards are drafted, you open the third pack and pass to the left again.

Here's a diagram of the process of passing the packs:

Pack 1
Image


Pack 2

Image

Once all the packs have been drafted, players build decks from the cards they selected, adding as many basic lands (Plains, Islands, Swamps, Mountains, and Forests) to their decks as they like. Each deck must have at least 40 cards.

Each pair of players then plays a match, which consists of the best two out of three games. In the next round, the winners play against other winners (and the losers against the losers, if you like). The player who wins all three rounds—or all three matches—is the winner. It's a great way to spend a few hours with your buddies.
With other words, "a draft" and "to draft" means to play a format in the given ccg where you build a deck from a limited cardpool that was somehow both randomly and non-randomly acquired by the players in an equal and just manner.

In all my years I have never ever heard anyone mention the name "booster draft". Instead, all players say just "draft".

To be fair to WotC there is indeed different kinds of drafts. In the example above they used un-opened booster packs. (Btw this format/function is supported in some of the software that will be used to play WT). They do so because that is when the format generates most money to WotC ;) In theory however, nothing prohibits players from drafting from "tournament packs" or "pre cons" or whatever as long as they know which cards belongs to who etc if they care.

Drafting as a CCG format is general, and not only used by WotC (although maybe it was WotC that invented it?), it's usually popular in communities that meet and play/evolve around the local game store. Often such stores will do something like this: Set a date for the draft, have a draft event at least after every new expansion, charge 20 - 30 € for the event, and in that price there's a soda, maybe a special card and x booster packs included (from which all others also will draft). Usually at these events the winner of the tournament will also get a special and rare card.

On one point I actually do agree with WotC: Drafting is indeed a fun format to play. :) What I don't like is it that it costs plenty every time to do it if it's done as they want ;) Luckily for us there are hundreds of solutions for that when it comes to WT, so we will also support drafting.

In any case and to not bore you with more text: Draft area and to draft will probably lead the thoughts of most players to drafting as described by me in this thread. It's a word that's associated with a particular and common format among ccg:s. Thus, we should find another word for the drafting area and drafting process you write about. (Personally I agree with you that draft is the perfect word, and I wouldn't want to change it if it wasn't in a CCG context)

My suggestions aren't brilliant, but here are some more of them: sandbox, blueprints, devbox, genesis, cardforge, dna, genome
User avatar
Ravenchild
developer
Posts:131
Joined:Sat Sep 04, 2010 19:21
Location:Germany

Re: drafting area: renaming it

Post by Ravenchild » Sat Oct 09, 2010 13:11

Thank you for this explanation :) I knew that tournaments based on random booster packs exist but the name "draft" hat never occurred to me in this context.

The different statuses for cards are adjectives. In fact, "draft" is not a proper adjective. Therefore I will simply replace it with "new".
Just for comparison: the other states of cards: Concept, [new], discussed, playtested, official, rejected, superseded.
Of course "Concept" is not an adjective but I think that's not something to worry about 8-)

The "drafting area" will be renamed to "card development area".
User avatar
snowdrop
developer
Posts:798
Joined:Mon Feb 01, 2010 15:25
Location:Sweden
Contact:

Re: drafting area: renaming it

Post by snowdrop » Sat Oct 09, 2010 14:02

Sounds all good. :)
Locked