Who is still on board?

Anything related to dev. & that doesn't fit in below categories.
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xarn
Posts:101
Joined:Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:50
Who is still on board?

Post by xarn » Sat Jan 16, 2016 09:04

Hi,

...nice to see some activity!
I used to come visit the forum once in a while and it looked like a dead fish in the water for almost two years. I just had lost any hope that this project could be revived. However, it's nice to see there are still some people on board and renewed interest.

So, who is still on board?
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Ravenchild
developer
Posts:131
Joined:Sat Sep 04, 2010 19:21
Location:Germany

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by Ravenchild » Mon Jan 18, 2016 19:15

still checking from time to time...
Lynxx
Posts:12
Joined:Tue Feb 09, 2016 21:30

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by Lynxx » Thu Feb 11, 2016 03:49

i would like to continue developement of this game
_red5
Posts:1
Joined:Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:08

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by _red5 » Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:54

I've been watching progress on this project for years. I have the utmost respect for the people who've made the project what it is today. The detail and effort put into various aspects of this project is amazing.


All that being said, I'd like to give some feedback.There are several problems plaguing this project.

Problem 1

There's no tutorial out there that explains the game rules and how to play. Just a bunch of disjointed wiki articles of propositions, definitions, rules and game concepts. I've been bouncing around on the wiki and I can't make heads or tails of how the game is played.

Someone needs to make a video tutorial explaining the standard rules of the game while playing 2 or 3 actual matches. The docs might be OK for hardcore or experienced CGG players. But as a casual player (that's me) they just aren't good enough. I don't understand how to play at all.

Problem 2

The tools and assets are not as accessible as they should be. Make the game assets, the cards, the mat etc. more easily accessible. Toss it into a folder on Google Drive or OneDrive. No FTP.

Problem 3

Sandscape. That's really just an open source version of Tabletop Simulator. We need something specific for WTactics that actually implements the standard game rules. That way even people who don't understand the game can figure it out and play test for us.

Then we just improve the game based on user feedback. If people want to change the rules than they can fork the project and change it as they like.

Take care of problems #1 and #2 and I could have a playable prototype server and client that implements the game rules whipped up in 2-4 weeks. With the FLOSS game engines out nowadays it shouldn't take very long.
ngoeminne
Posts:324
Joined:Mon Feb 29, 2016 15:34

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by ngoeminne » Mon Feb 29, 2016 16:35

Hey everyone,

To bad i wasn't looking for a open community ccg a few years back, I could have helped.
I'm feeling sad that so much effort had led to nothing, but probably all the contributors have learned a lot.

If we were to give rebirth to the project we'll need input of the original contributors and find out were it went wrong. After browsing through all the form posts, the wiki, the design documents, the original rules document, etc, I'm very impressed with all the work done, but it also shows a big fragmentation.

I do like the original philosophy, giving the cards game back to the gamers, for free.
The design document has some valid points, such as the distribution of booster-packs being a lottery, and playing on young adults that don't know the way the industry works. However if this project is going to survive, it's going to need some funds.

Some suggestions on how we could revamp the project:

Short term
=========
1. Focus on the hard copy card game, forget about the software part for now.
2. Create a fixed rule set, so the game can be played,
3. Get the cards of the core set and the gameplay ready (without the art)
4. On the home page, make the game available (pdf)

Long term (and I know snowdrop is not going to like it)
================================================
1. Sell a printed/hard copy of the single cards, but on a fixed price
- gamer can build his/her deck, and buy the cards he/she wants to a fixed price
- no booster-lottery, no commons, uncommons, and rares,
- still allow for the DIY appoach, (but offer professional print's, and explain it's a donation to the project).

2. Set up some crowd funding

3. Allow for 'patronage' on card, (I don't have the skills to do the artwork), but I wouldn't mind paying for the artwork of one card (e.g. a one time 200$ donation), with the optional possibility of getting my name on the card.

As a result there will be some small funds coming in, and there will be a small budget to spend.
The way it's spend should also be here visible to everyone. But then we could
- pay for some artwork
- keep the site open (and the resources)

Btw, the ftp is down, does someone still has the content from what was on there?
Luckily some of the artwork can still be found on github.
Who did this artwork anyway? It's amazing.

Oh, yeah a last suggestion "WTactics", really?
Kind regards,
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xarn
Posts:101
Joined:Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:50

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by xarn » Wed Mar 02, 2016 20:14

Hi,

I agree with all of you. There has been lots of talk, lots of effort, in every direction. It's fragmented, diversified, but in the end very little came out of it. After many years, it went out of breath without having produced a minimal playable game. Sadly. Since then, it's lacking lead and is dormant.

As an asian saying goes: "talking doesn't cook rice". I think it describes best the situation. The project, in order to be revived, would need a few dedicated individuals.

IMHO, there is already too much talk, informations, complexity, etc. Forget about making cards with complex effects. To be honest, a good developer should pick up the graphics, think of some really dumbed down rules and just try to build something minimalistic.
ngoeminne
Posts:324
Joined:Mon Feb 29, 2016 15:34

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by ngoeminne » Sat Mar 05, 2016 19:41

Hey all,

Today I've tried to get the github cardscape set up locally.

First attempt failed miserably, it has dependencies on the yii framework, and could only get the login page to show. All else failed. Since there are no install instructions and we have no idea of the state,
I decided to try to install the cardscape-legacy from github (at least we know that this worked at some point in time).

So after, upgrading some of the code to PHP7, some tinkering I got it working. Yeah.
What's more there seem to be some resources and stuff on http://wtactics.org/files/
And there is a card-table dump that I was able to use.
There are about 80 card definitions in there, without the art :-(

I'll do some more searching, and I'll try to get a view on the current state of the whole project.
Then I'll see if I can make up a battle plan to get things rolling again.

We'll definitely need a new kickoff meeting with people willing to contribute.

So who's still aboard? (or new aboard)

Count me in!
xarn?
_red?
Lynxx?
Ravenchild?
ngoeminne
Posts:324
Joined:Mon Feb 29, 2016 15:34

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by ngoeminne » Sat Mar 05, 2016 20:05

Hello 'The team'

I've been sniffing around some more, and looking at the last visited timestamps of 'the team' (see link below the forum)

snowdrop Thu Jul 10, 2014 15:39
Mattaiyah Fri Mar 04, 2016 17:52
Knitter Mon Sep 07, 2015 13:30
Q_x Tue Mar 25, 2014 17:42
Ravenchild Sat Feb 27, 2016 21:15

So Mattaiyah, Ravenchild, are you still aboard?
Or at least willing to help get us started again?

Share admin permissions for the forum, the wiki, the static site,
figure out where/how the everything is hosted, get us all lingering resources, etc ...
And if not, get us in contact with snowdrop, Knitter, Q_x,

Kind regards,
Nico
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xarn
Posts:101
Joined:Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:50

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by xarn » Sun Mar 06, 2016 10:33

You can try snowdrop@wtactics.org, but I don't think he still looks at them.

Count me in, but I'd prefer to take a back seat and act more like a technical adviser. I don't have the leisure to dedicate large amounts of time and effort to it.
ngoeminne
Posts:324
Joined:Mon Feb 29, 2016 15:34

Re: Who is still on board?

Post by ngoeminne » Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:13

xarn wrote:You can try snowdrop@wtactics.org, but I don't think he still looks at them.
As a matter of fact, I did some private-eye detecting and got a hold of snowdrop. And we started some email conversations about the pitfalls, the vision, the way forward, his involvement, project management. It does seem his willing to renew the project, and cooperate with who's willing to rive the project.

In the mean time I've been doing research, I worked my way through the entire wiki, almost all the forum threads, (sometimes is hard to get the time frame right). The status of all the software out there cardscape/sandscape/vice, on github, sourceforge, bazaar.

I've set up cardscape-legacy from github locally, and found a (partly) card db on http://wtactics.org/files/

I've also been gathering all the resources I could find (they are very fragmented)
Finally I went to over the rules/quickrules a couple of times to get a feeling of the game (as much as I can do without playtesting)

Now I'm looking a bit more into the people that brought this project this far.
I've read the blogs of http://aspidites.org about his disappointments and also the frustrations of others.

Taking all that stuff into account, I'll try to figure out whether this project can be revived, and how to achieve it.

So help me to help you to turn the vibe around.
Kind regards,
Nico
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