aspidites wrote:
I seem to remember saying this months ago and you disagreeing...
asp 1 - snow 0
...honestly, I don't recall the details but know we did discuss something I didn't agree about.. lol. Won't recap now due to me having had a change of heart/mind. Generally speaking I am a very very slow learner, so might be it.
Anyways, My issue with the "open" system is that "quests" are then no different than any event card, and as such, it doesn't make sense (to me) to designate them as a special card type that warrants them having their own dedicated section in the rulebook. /../ In short: the card as written doesn't sound like it even needs to be implemented as a quest.
Yeah, I guess quests could very well be implemented as Events if events were extended in some ways, but here is what i think differs Quests as a cardtype from Events right now:
- (Accepted) Quests stay in play and are permanents. Events can not and therefore are not.
- Quests is the only card type that can leave your deck before the game even begins and which the opponent will be able to see. Events, as all other types, are secret until you play them in the game or are stupid enough to tell your opponent what's in your deck and they can't leave the deck before the game starts.
- Quests never cost anything to put into play. Events would typically cost > 0.
- Quests always(?) relate directly to one of the win conditions (Victory Points). Events don't and are more flexible.
- Quests can usually be accepted by any player, regardless of who's quest it is, creating a race and a potential conflict. Events don't work that way, can't/don't have to be accepted.
- Quests are mandatory to include in your deck. Events are not.
In theory we could ditch plenty of card types and just use 2 - events and creatures. It's doable, but I don't think it's desirable, even if it is indeed desirable to keep the amount of card types down. Reasons are that we lose design control or must create it other ways, ad hoc, if we have to few types.
Then again, you are right that types that are too similar should be one instead of two. A year ago, and some times since then, I have tried to answer a question I haven't really solved, the one you are asking here, basically "When is it warranted to create a card type? Why do we have card types? When should something be incorporated into another type instead?"
Only answer I can presently give is that it's about a) design control b) design space c) rules, making it easy to identify what (meta-)rules apply for the card type. For example, Equipment and Enchantments could be seen as very similar, yet they have very important differences, probably warranting own card types.
PS with respect to your administration/moving concerns, how much of that has actually been play tested? I mean, an issue in theory isn't an issue until people complain about it in practice.
Not much or none at all, in the shape of WT.
However, and this is a big however, it doesn't mean it isn't an issue until people complain since it can be evaluated from identical or more or less equivalent cases with other games. For example, I saw it as a major drawback and failure when we finally decided to apply our current resource system. Not that it's flawed, it's not. It's been playtested a trillion times in many games, however, while it solved some issues found in for example MtG it didn't lower administration while handling said resources.
Now, that I can understand even if it hasn't been playtested with WT cards, mainly because pricing + resources work very similar (as it does in most ccgs).
The
moving concerns have on the other hand been tested. What I did was to develop the cards as digital photos, cut, and sleeve. It was superb quality and fully playable just doing that, and fairly cheap considering all. My first versions of WT were heavily based on moving around cards between slots in a 4x2 row system. What I noticed then was that cards were flat. I di not recognize that facts importance until I had to actually sit down and play a couple of games, where I noticed that it is a
physical problem, one which isn't smoothly solved (and no, using tools to play a game isn't smooth in my book and a problem. Hero Clix is a great example of such a bad design - you have to have a ring on your finger to be able to adjust how much damage your miniature took... ehrm...)