Q_x & snowdrop Chat 24 Oct

[snowdrop]

(11.38.14) snowdrop: i was at work yesterday & need to help my grandmother today... mother's birthday and stuff....
(11.38.25) snowdrop: so all plans were disrupted...
(11.38.44) snowdrop: however, i agree - we shold create all rebel cards in theory
(11.38.51) snowdrop: i think about 50 should be enough
(11.39.10) snowdrop: I'll try to write up a guide for pricing of creatures
(11.39.12) snowdrop: in wiki
(11.39.47) snowdrop: that said - im not sure where we should create the cards while raven still isnt done with the site coding
(11.39.51) snowdrop: forum?
(11.40.03) snowdrop: one trhead per card? would be easiest maybe
(12.04.16) Q_x: hi
(12.04.49) Q_x: we may make a wili page with all the Rebels cards in one and work on it
(12.05.07) Q_x: not a bunch of 50 threads
(12.06.02) Q_x: may be a table or something like this, separated into different card types
(12.07.56) Q_x: It will make easier things like comparisons and pricing
(12.26.06) snowdrop: k... a page does actually exist for thar purpose.
(12.26.31) snowdrop: *looking*
(12.27.21) snowdrop: http://chaosrealm.net/w/Suggested_Cards
(12.29.56) Q_x: looks good for me
(12.30.07) snowdrop: =)
(12.32.20) snowdrop: the description/story of gaia is more or less done in the wiki...
(12.32.36) snowdrop: so by using it one should get a feeling for what kind of cards and feelign we want associated with that faction
(12.33.02) snowdrop: that + http://chaosrealm.net/w/Faction_Concepts
(12.33.03) Q_x: cool
(12.33.19) snowdrop: the revels + merfolk + order of dawn = Gaia
(12.33.50) snowdrop: haven updated that brainstorm yet, but info is pretty accurate... its just that we bake those 3 together as one, which is Gaia
(12.34.08) Q_x: uhm
(12.34.54) snowdrop: you see some values from 0 to 5.... 5 is "high".... so tribaQ_x: 1 means they don't co-work much with their own.... weapons 5 means they are really good with weapons
(12.34.57) snowdrop: etc
(12.35.05) snowdrop: price 5 = they are costly.
(12.35.19) snowdrop: however, these are general outlines. not a necessary truth for each individual card.
(12.35.52) snowdrop: order of down = humans in gaia. they will also not use that name, and just be a part of gaia.
(12.36.10) Q_x: ok
(12.36.38) snowdrop: further down on the page you can see which creatures go where in the factions
(12.36.44) snowdrop: in the huge png
(12.37.04) snowdrop: apparently i decided we should only release 24 gaian creatures in teh core set
(12.37.11) snowdrop: rest = for later expansions etc
(12.37.25) snowdrop: also makes life easier for us to balance and playtest and get started in general.
(12.37.59) snowdrop: its also equal to how WotC are doing it - they seldom release more than that amount of creatures in MtG in their core sets
(12.38.50) snowdrop: so, we need to make up 16 elvish creature cards and 8 merfolk cards, which would result in 24 gaian creatures in total... and add to that about 20 additional gaian cards (magic, equip, etc)
(12.39.00) snowdrop: and that would be our 50 gaian cards ready for playtest.
(12.39.51) Q_x: well, now I'm confused about what threshold really means
(12.40.21) Q_x: am I supposed to have X creatures on tbable, X gaian or X rebels?
(12.40.40) snowdrop: threshold x means that "you need to have x amout of gaian cards in play and/or have played x amoiunt of them this turn, in order to be able to play this card"
(12.41.02) Q_x: ok
(12.41.39) snowdrop: yes, thats my my mindmap is confusing: forget all faction names on it. There are no rebel faction, no merfolk faction, and no order of dawn. There's just gaia, which is all those previous three factions baked into one single.
(12.42.14) snowdrop: In total we'll have 5 factions, which is enough and way better than having a zillion ones that are "thin" and not "rich" in culture/diversity/own history....
(12.42.19) snowdrop: relates to depth etc
(12.42.27) snowdrop: but changes very little for us dev wise.
(12.43.14) snowdrop: so, if I have a card with threshold 3, and I play 1 gaian instant, and i already had 2 gaian creatures in play, then I may play my threshold 3 card.
(12.43.37) Q_x: well, if so, what are the logos supposed to mean for the player
(12.43.38) Q_x: ?
(12.44.02) snowdrop: with oither words, threshold doesnt just take "permanents" into account (a "permanent" is WotC terminology for a card that stays on the table. Which most creatures do, and equipment etc. But events don't. )
(12.44.19) snowdrop: leaf logo = gaian logo
(12.44.38) snowdrop: there are still 5 factions, and we need to somehow identify whych card belongs to which faction.
(12.45.22) snowdrop: we could ofc just use the colour of the cardframe etc (green) but that's a problem for colour blinde and so on, and it also feels kind of really cheap - a faction should, imho, have a logo.. a mark, that its associated with
(12.45.29) snowdrop: adds to both playability and feeling
(12.46.39) snowdrop: that does however leave us the option to, if we want to, use different card frame colors for different card types... but I'm not sure thats really a good idea.
(12.47.02) snowdrop: i.e. all equipment, no matter what its faction belonging was, would have "white" card frame...
(12.47.15) snowdrop: all creatures "green" etc etc...
(12.47.40) snowdrop: but im probably against that idea... since it forces players to use LOGO to identify card belonging
(12.47.53) snowdrop: instead of as it is now - use logo OR card frame colour
(12.48.09) snowdrop: then again - it would also be only time we send the message in TWO ways...
(12.48.13) snowdrop: which also feels like overkill
(12.48.19) snowdrop: so im not sure about this really.
(12.48.55) snowdrop: when looking on a table that has many creatures/cards on it however... i think it would be confusing / bad idea to let the card drame colour equal the card type instead of the faction colour
(12.49.52) snowdrop: so i think i lean towards keeping it the way it is and only use text for card type... or maybe we hsould try to stuff an icon for that as well somewhere, but its very crowded as it is already = P
(12.52.57) Q_x: What I had in mind was - what player can do with a card that has Merfolk logo and not Rebels - what is the difference here? Of course it may be a difference if a card, like event, works only for Merfolk, but we may say it works for sea creatures or wood elves as well
(12.53.41) snowdrop: ah
(12.53.45) snowdrop: no, the merfolk logo wont exist
(12.53.55) snowdrop: it was only interesting while merfolk was a faction
(12.54.07) snowdrop: now its not - merfolk + elves + some humans = gaia
(12.54.16) Q_x: Of course card frame may be an information separate from logo, green is really good for whole gaian thingy
(12.54.50) snowdrop: originally it WAS such info: Card frame was ALLIANCE belonging... and LOGO was faction.
(12.55.32) Q_x: Well, we can always separate the factions when there will be too much cards
(12.55.35) snowdrop: problem is however that we had a zillion factions, and you get TOO much specilaziation in each and each one becomes too nisched / fragmented IF one wants to keep factions DISTINCT and their existence meaningful
(12.55.52) snowdrop: so i thought it would be better with just 5 factions instea.d
(12.56.28) snowdrop: yes, i think that if we reach a point where we have such a huge card pool and good identities for them we could re-structure the faction system and then introduce alliances as well.
(12.56.50) snowdrop: but it makes no sense to start with that system as we'd end up with very poor and depth-lacking factions.
(12.57.18) Q_x: My idea was to keep small factions with asymetric strategies, I've been writing to you about that, and the card may operate well within an alliance
(12.57.43) Q_x: But there is no reason to mark a faction really
(12.58.03) Q_x: "all elves" or "all sea creatures" will do the trick
(12.58.40) snowdrop: yeah, i agree about assymetric strategies...
(12.59.05) snowdrop: i really really believe that IF we have factions at al, then they MUST PLAY as different as possible
(12.59.22) snowdrop: to attract different players
(12.59.33) snowdrop: as well as allow the game to get more depth and replayability
(13.00.32) snowdrop: you're right that it can all be done with card type properties (i.e. Elf would be a creature card type. Human another.)... small-factions would just be a "meta "card type property, just like the current faction property is now.
(13.01.28) snowdrop: usually, one doesn't use so "wide" meta properties, since it makes a game very hard to balance and easy to abuse. I.e. "All gaian cards get +2" is a very very powerfull card... and opens up many doors
(13.01.36) snowdrop: compare that with "All Elves get +2"... =)
(13.02.21) snowdrop: to be honest, my main reason for having factions relate to deck building and what i mentioned earlier - having distinct and separate ways to play the game.
(13.02.50) snowdrop: giving the player a different feeling and also demanding that she adapats and understands the new faction, and that it can't be played as the previous one.
(13.08.07) Q_x: well, there will be a hard to design it so that it all would work
(13.08.54) Q_x: I mean you will have to bury some rules into cards description
(13.09.57) snowdrop: yes, indeed... but thats unavoidable and standard when it comes to ccg:s...
(13.10.23) snowdrop: i mean, a ccg is really just game with super-modular rules that you get in small doses, mostly on a card to card basis.
(13.10.27) Q_x: and it will be uncool to have faction behavior or strategy determined by lets say 3 events, period.
(13.11.00) snowdrop: i dont follow that one - please explain.
(13.12.10) Q_x: If you have sea creatures, or elves within the gaia, it would be not good to determine strategy of play by using small amount of cards
(13.12.44) snowdrop: ah
(13.13.31) Q_x: like three events that will make certain strategy benefit
(13.13.55) Q_x: or will make "whole strategy" dependable on the three cards
(13.14.01) snowdrop: no,intention is to design most of the gaian cards around the gaian "style"... and feeling... meaning, gaians are not really aggressive, they are loving, etc.... what defines gaian as a faction shoul dbe the SUM of all gaian cards.. not 2-3 individual cards
(13.14.24) snowdrop: meaning, much thought must actually also go into the ABLITIES that creatures of each faction has
(13.14.36) snowdrop: as it defines much of the faction capacity and feeling
(13.14.38) Q_x: uhm
(13.14.47) Q_x: thats my point too
(13.14.54) snowdrop: ah. then i do follow =)
(13.15.39) snowdrop: what we ant to avoid is a situation where factions play identical with the exception for a couple of cards that define them... and i think that's what you were saying justnow...right?
(13.15.58) Q_x: uhm
(13.16.01) Q_x: exactly
(13.16.30) Q_x: its just rude to force a certain strategy this way
(13.17.50) snowdrop: yups, agree 100%
(13.18.15) snowdrop: also, it defeats like half the purpose and beenfit a ccg bringd -- modularity and creativity to create your specific deck and strategy
(13.19.19) snowdrop: if WE tell the players "there is really only 1-2 good ways to play this faction" then the game is a failure from my perspective... it needs to be as open ended as possible... but, at the same time it should still offer diverse styles and mechanics through the various 5 factions
(13.19.52) snowdrop: back later... must run to bus... it's pouring rain outside... yum yum... can I post this convo on forum?
(13.20.16) Q_x: sure
(13.20.21) Q_x: bye
(13.20.22) snowdrop: goodie. later =)

[TorbenBeta]

I will comment on your chat, but next time maybe drop a note for the rest of us.

12.32.20) snowdrop: the description/story of gaia is more or less done in the wiki...
(12.32.36) snowdrop: so by using it one should get a feeling for what kind of cards and feelign we want associated with that faction
(12.33.02) snowdrop: that + http://chaosrealm.net/w/Faction_Concepts

If I look at http://chaosrealm.net/w/Story it says that: Notice: Nevermind this story, it and the names in it will soon be changed.
So shall I believe you or the wiki? But the page needs some love, I just edited it a bit.
Oh, and what is tribal as an attribute in the faction concept?

(12.38.50) snowdrop: so, we need to make up 16 elvish creature cards and 8 merfolk cards, which would result in 24 gaian creatures in total... and add to that about 20 additional gaian cards (magic, equip, etc)
(12.39.00) snowdrop: and that would be our 50 gaian cards ready for playtest.

And what is with order of down? In the core set are 24 gaians, 16 Elves and 8 Merfolk but no single Human. And if we add the 20 non-creature-cards then we have 48 and not 50 by the way.

(12.39.51) Q_x: well, now I'm confused about what threshold really means

http://chaosrealm.net/w/Abbreviations I explained threshold there.

(12.45.22) snowdrop: we could ofc just use the colour of the cardframe etc (green) but that's a problem for colour blinde and so on, and it also feels kind of really cheap - a faction should, imho, have a logo.. a mark, that its associated with

I don't understand the problem here. Why can't we just use the logos like the gaian leaf? And what means ofc?

(12.46.39) snowdrop: that does however leave us the option to, if we want to, use different card frame colors for different card types... but I'm not sure thats really a good idea.

I think that this is interesting, but would be needed to be tested in order to show if it creates confusion. Which I personally think isn't the case. Another logo would be 'overkill' to quote you again.

(12.56.28) snowdrop: yes, i think that if we reach a point where we have such a huge card pool and good identities for them we could re-structure the faction system and then introduce alliances as well.

But that would create the problem that we need to redo all of the cards with the new system and it would disrupt the card discernibility (I can't find a matching word, hope you understand me.)

(12.57.18) Q_x: My idea was to keep small factions with asymetric strategies, I've been writing to you about that, and the card may operate well within an alliance

Can you explain to me the concept of asymmetric strategies?

(13.12.10) Q_x: If you have sea creatures, or elves within the gaia, it would be not good to determine strategy of play by using small amount of cards

I second this with 100%.

[Q_x]

Dunno what is the reason behind snowdrop posting it. But I appreciate the idea. In fact, I'm really OK with having full chat logged somewhere, as it is with PARPG - the other project I'm into. I'm a little bit trollin', but thats only to raise morale

We were at freenode, #wtactics

Changes in how factions are separating and joining is all in snowdrop's head, I think I've got it all, but I don't want to make a mess, so I'll let snowdrop explain what has changed.

Rearrangement of alliances is I think yet to be discussed. If we plan to do it, whole game needs a lot of care, esp. in choosing the right words for describing a group of cards ("elves", "sea creatures", "gaian", "humanoid" etc.)

Only thing I'd like to explain is what I mean by asymmetric strategy.
There is a concept of game that tells to have it really balanced it has to be played similarly no matter on which side you want to play. On example of RTS it would be having similar (symmetric) units and buildings, no mater what - they may look different, thats all.
Asymmetric gameplay or strategy looks more like there are distinct good ways of playing each of sides (factions) - like when side X has expensive strong units, and side Y has cheap, but weak. With RPG it may be as little as different set of base skills, or even different starting place (note how much this may determine for the player)
Warhammer Fantasy battle used to have this fancy concept of an army specializing in certain strategies of play, so that you have Skaven army with lot of cheap infantry, and Bretons with quite a powerful artillery unit (I was playing it around 2000, it may not be this way right now).

But, asymmetry may be introduced in many various ways - from very delicate and gentle, as it is with chess (all the tactic stuff diverges from the only simple fact who is starting), to a blunt brute-forced type where you have very few cards that are making certain strategy more fruity. I'd gladly avoid both of this ways.

[snowdrop]

TorbenBeta:

I will comment on your chat, but next time maybe drop a note for the rest of us.

I'm not sure I got you right now, but if I did: Participating in chat with me/Q_x, and really everyone and anyone that decides to work on my dev path, is always open. Everyone is always invited to participate or just stay there and "listen in". This particular session was not pre-booked, it just "happened".

Reason for that: Q_x has my xmpp info, so we can easily send each other an instant message if we want to. If you want my IM I'm happy to share (would PM it to you, prefer not to post it in the open on a forum ; ))

In addition we fired up an irc channel called #WTactics on freenode. That medium is also very well suited for discussions/chat with more than one participant (although xmpp does perhaps support us creating a 3-way chat? Don't know, never done it.)

My xmpp client is Pidgin, while my IRC client is KVirc. Both of those are open source and free, so go grab them if you're interested

If I look at http://chaosrealm.net/w/Story it says that: Notice: Nevermind this story, it and the names in it will soon be changed.
So shall I believe you or the wiki? But the page needs some love, I just edited it a bit.

Both Stories there aren't finished. However, Gaian story pretty much is, and I don't plan on changing the main points with it. I'm "currently" working on the Red Banner story.

Names will be: The Empire, The Gaia, The Red Banner, The House of Nobles and perhaps the Dark Legion (uncertain if it's copyrighted by Mutant Chronicles universe. I don't think it is a legal problem, but using that name should maybe be avoided just in case.)

The warning text is there to not give visitors the impression that we're finished with the work on that page.

Oh, and what is tribal as an attribute in the faction concept?

"Tribal" is a terminology that was founded by WotC with MtG dev. discussions. A tribal card is a card that works very well with a specific creature type. I.e. a creature that works very well with "Elves" (and elves are a creature type) would be considered to be "tribal". A better example is a deck: A deck that is only made up of Elves and elvish cards interacting with each other would be very tribal.

Tribal creatures are often only strong when they start getting combined with other tribal members and don't impress much when "being solo". There's more to say about this, but this will do for now.

And what is with order of down?

Order of Dawn was originally a faction of Humans that belonged to the Naima alliance. So was and did The rebels (elves) and the Merfolk (merfolk). However, I decided to dicth the alliances and also the concept of having zillion factions. Instead, elves + merfolk + some humans = Gaia, which is a faction.

Orc + goblins + some humans + some others = Red banner
Undead + monsters + some wicked humans = Dark Legion
Mostly humans: Empire
(hired) Dwarves + humans + some other: House of Nobles

That's what I imagine at this point when we have the amount of art we have and with the initial core being done. Very much time can be devoted to explaining why I rather go with the above setup than my original one (3 alliances, each faction belongs to one). Without the discussion and all summed up very much: It's mostly about our resources (real money, which btw you contributed with - thanks again ) and about game universe depth.

I rather have fewer species in the game and fewer factions but try to build a rich and wide and deep culture and identity of each one than have a hundreds of species and plenty of factions that are all shallow. Parts of this discussion also relates to game mechanics and identities. Say we have 20 factions, or even 12 for that matter - it is very very hard to make them all feel BOTH unique, deep and versatile, while at the same time maintaining a logical identity.

Bottom line: I don't want factions that super specialize in one single thing. But, that's what you end up with in the end when you introduce a lot of factions in a game, if not, they will start overlapping each other. If they do, then why have them around? Instead, I want there to be factions with a unique style and that still can allow multiple and somewhat exclusive strategies to be utilized. I also believe the building of identity and depth is easier if we start with 5 factions instead of more.

I also think that new concepts in the game should later on, with expansions and in order to create the depth, be added and distributed among the existing factions, instead of creating new factions all the time, that many devs seem to do. I know that "many" is something good in the mind of many players, but for me this is not about quantity. It's about quality. I don't want to end up with a shallow game, and this is the way I believe we should proceed. (Heck, I'd even ditch one of our existing five factions if we can't find it's unique place..)

This is all summed up in the new updated brainstorm map in the faction concept wiki page. Please reload that image if you still see Order of Dawn included in it - they are erased.

In the core set are 24 gaians, 16 Elves and 8 Merfolk but no single Human. And if we add the 20 non-creature-cards then we have 48 and not 50 by the way.

Yes, the info you supply is correct. I am not or seldom so when I do math or talk about numbers

I don't understand the problem here. Why can't we just use the logos like the gaian leaf? And what means ofc?

That's because there is no problem. What's discussed is not if we should use logos or not. We will use them, and they will symbolize the faction. What was discussed was if we should use the cards frame colour to a) represent faction belonging as well or b) represent card type (event, equipment, creature etc). The answer isn't all too apparent, at least not to me.

I think that this is interesting, but would be needed to be tested in order to show if it creates confusion. Which I personally think isn't the case.

DoomTrooper CCG does it that way: The cards colour represents what card type it is. So, all creatures in DoomTrooper, have BLUE card background/frame in that game. All event cards have GREEN, and so on. When look on a table with 2-4 players, mid game, I fidn it hard to instantly identify which creatures belong to which faction in that game. The faction info is there in the right corner as a logo I think, but, the player needs to look at each cards corner, in contrast to looking anywhere on the card. (Btw, in MtG they do this the other way around: There they use the model I want to go with.)

I think the best would be to clearly signal whatever info is most often used in the game. I think that card metatypes (Equipment / Event are to meta types, or primary types. While "axe" could be a subtype of the Equipment meta type) will probably be more seldom used in the game than subtypes are (and subtypes must always remain as pure text, not icons etc), and that faction belonging will be more central. If so, then we should use the colour as we do already. If not, we should change it's significance. Hopefully this will start to show once we playtest...

Q_x:

Dunno what is the reason behind snowdrop posting it. But I appreciate the idea. In fact, I'm really OK with having full chat logged somewhere, as it is with PARPG - the other project I'm into. I'm a little bit trollin', but thats only to raise morale

No special reason except the fact that I knew there was info in that chat that hadn't been published anywhere else on our site. That and to show we're alive and kicking.

You're trolling is good All projects that are 10 or less active devs need the morale boosting trolls. If activity starts fading in a project it's very hard to pick it up again, and people also tend to work more if they see that their partners are serious and actually do something in the project... so I'd say that what you do is both good and justified.

Changes in how factions are separating and joining is all in snowdrop's head, I think I've got it all, but I don't want to make a mess, so I'll let snowdrop explain what has changed.

Yups. Hope I did in the above somewhere.

There's plenty more in snowdrops head and hopefully snowdrop will, during next week (44) get to jot it down in the wiki and elsewhere as snowdrop will have 1 week of work then that can be mostly dedicated to WT.

Rearrangement of alliances is I think yet to be discussed. If we plan to do it, whole game needs a lot of care, esp. in choosing the right words for describing a group of cards ("elves", "sea creatures", "gaian", "humanoid" etc.)

Let's start with no alliances and just 5 factions, and we'll take it from there when and if there will be need of changes. The option for us to introduce both new factions and/or alliances is there (and go hand in hand really) if we ever want to. But let's not go there until that day comes, if it does.

[TorbenBeta]

This particular session was not pre-booked, it just "happened".

Well, I thought it was planned. I will maybe look around sometimes then.

My xmpp client is Pidgin, while my IRC client is KVirc

I've pidgin as well, but I do not use it this much. I downloaded KVirc4 and will look at it.
And it should be able to do a three side conversation, but I would prefer irc as people could join then, as opposed to xmpp where only the three of us could participate.

We can use the name dark legions for a time until we find a suitable alternative.

So tribal means that cards of a specific type work well with cards of the same type.

Tribal creatures are often only strong when they start getting combined with other tribal members and don't impress much when "being solo". There's more to say about this, but this will do for now.

Order of Dawn was originally a faction of...

You have taken this out of context. I meant that in the core set are no humans just elves and merfolk.

I also think that the "new" concept of the factions is better suited to our needs than the old one.

It's mostly about our resources (real money, which btw you contributed with - thanks again ) and about game universe depth.

No problem, but I just spent a few dollars.

problem, but I just spent a few dollars...

I second this. But about factions super specializing: They should feel different, like Q_x said in his post about asymmetric strategies, but not "forcing".

You're trolling is good

For now this is good but maybe in a distant future this will backfire badly .

here's plenty more in snowdrops head

Torben thinks that this is strange.

Let's start with no alliances and just 5 factions, and we'll take it from there when and if there will be need of changes.

Yes, but let's us just concentrate on the core right now, and don't get lost in the future.