Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

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Bobit
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Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by Bobit » Thu Apr 07, 2016 07:29

Start of rant.

This forum is hardly even about making a game. It's about making a community where people can feel like they are accomplishing something. The only piece of writing that so much as mentions the mechanics are the rules and faction concepts on the wiki, but most parts of them are just a collection of arbitrary technical details. The other parts of the wiki are also arbitrary details or what is essentially a motivational/persuasive speech (albeit a very good one). It talks about how the game is going to be free, but the truth is that MtG already IS free if you choose to play with proxies (and Wizards has stated they will not pursue players who play with proxies just for fun). The Kingdom mechanic is just a support line, and the Region mechanic is just going to result in people playing defensively in order to inflict mana screw on multi-faction opponents. There's even potentially offensive material that no real card game would allow, like the Oracle and Bound by Love which are both on the front page.

People are making all of these card databases, 20 pieces of art, and other stuff for this game just because they want an excuse to make those things. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty cool work, but at the moment you are not making a game. For every indie game at least 75% of the emphasis must be on the mechanics (and possibly the art if the art is the point of the game), or else it will be outclassed by the vastly superior manpower of money-focused corporations.

End of rant.

But I could be wrong and stuff. And even if I'm right you guys can keep doing whatever you want to do; no need for my rant to ruin your fun time and stop you from making cool art and shiz. Anyhow, I'll post my opinions on MtG-esque game design in a reply to this in case you want to discuss them.
Last edited by Bobit on Thu Apr 07, 2016 07:57, edited 3 times in total.
Bobit
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by Bobit » Thu Apr 07, 2016 07:42

Quick notes on my opinions on MtG-like game mechanics:

-Dealing damage to your opponent should make them mill a card (put a card from their deck into their discards). That way a small deck is balanced by a lower health pool, you can scry opponents then decide whether it's worth attacking, players' health is tracked very easily, graveyard decks don't hard-counter decks without graveyard hate, mill decks don't hard-counter draw decks (and aren't hard-countered by huge decks), etc.

-Land-screw sucks. So hearthstone's mana system is the best way to go, with the change that you can mix factions if you have the right hero (which brings me to my next point).

-Hero cards (1 per deck that comes into play at the start of the game and determines what faction(s) you can put in that deck) are good. They allow the designer to set role-defining cards, reduce RNG by making the "lords" (cards that give a bonus to creatures of a certain type) all heroes, and individually nerf/buff/rework certain faction comboes by adjusting their respective hero(s).

-You should aim to make the card pool as small as possible at first. That way you can summarize core mechanics and make variant cards of the same mechanic later if you want. Besides, Spellweaver only has a card pool of 200 and it is a very good and balanced game. The less cards you have that fit a certain role the more the metagame of that role is going to be impacted by those cards, so a small card pool isn't even necessarily a bad thing. And anyone who just wants a massive card pool is already playing MtG.

-I'm not so sure about this one, but it might be cool if the Reach and First Strike keywords from MtG were merged into one keyword, Ranged. It also might be cool if Flying creatures had "Tap this creature: it fights target creature". It would probably make for less hardcounters and a more interesting metagame.
ngoeminne
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by ngoeminne » Thu Apr 07, 2016 12:30

Hey Bobit,

Of course, all of the things that are being done here are just an excuse to get them done :-)
After all, this is a free voluntary open source project. If you feel it has no added value for you, that's that. If on the other hand, you'd feel you can both offer and gain something from the project, feel free to contribute.

As a side note, I think most of use here are hard core MTG players, and we all love the game.
Kind regards,
Nico
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Peter
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by Peter » Thu Apr 07, 2016 18:07

I think 75% (or any other ratio) makes no sense. It's cool to have much artwork.

And we are nearing a solution to playtest the game.

And to enforce reducing the art production is not reasonable.

AFAIK there aren't persons that do much art and much code. So there is no need for anyone to reduce his drawing to have more time for the mechanics.

Actually I don't see a bad trend for this game.

There are some coders and painters and a rule-writer. Why shouldn't we succeed in making a nice game?
Who is in a hurry about this game? And if in hurry, why?
Kind regards and happy coding :)
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snowdrop
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by snowdrop » Thu Apr 07, 2016 18:46

Bobit wrote: This forum is hardly even about making a game. It's about making a community where people can feel like they are accomplishing something.
The forum is a tool. It becomes what people make of it. It's role in the actual development has varied, depending on what people themselves make of it.

You're partially correct, however, I don't see it as an issue or a necessary contradiction. That said, I now avoid lengthy forum discussions since they eat of dev time.
The only piece of writing that so much as mentions the mechanics are the rules and faction concepts on the wiki, but most parts of them are just a collection of arbitrary technical details. The other parts of the wiki are also arbitrary details or what is essentially a motivational/persuasive speech (albeit a very good one).
This is false, as can been seen in forum if one would harvest and read for a couple of hours. There has been many topics in here regarding to rule discussions, mechanics et.c.

What you describe as technical details in wiki are often needed components and small pieces of a puzzle. Without some of them other things become harder within the project. It's true that wiki also contains something of a motivational character - why shouldn't it, in a project where people mostly work for free? Besides, what you refer to is probably the GDD, which in essence is the very core and vision of the projecy... would be kind of strange to have a project without one.

Thanks for lifting it up in a high regard when it comes to persuasion though ;) Not that it was the intention, but sometimes reason alone will persuade a person reading something.

As of rules >> http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?title=Quick_Rules

It talks about how the game is going to be free, but the truth is that MtG already IS free if you choose to play with proxies (and Wizards has stated they will not pursue players who play with proxies just for fun).
  • MtG is a commercial product.
  • MtG isn't open source or copyleft.
  • MtG isn't libre (meaning there is a difference in "free" as in beer and "free" as in freedoms with the product itself...)
The reason for somebody playing our game should in any case not be that it is free. "Come play it, it is free. It is a good game, because it is free"... are all sad crazy notions nowhere to be found in wiki. Reason to play it is primarily to have fun. Reason to create it may however be the same, but also motivated by other factors. Like the one where there is no pro quality ccg that is open source and has complex play.


The Kingdom mechanic is just a support line, and the Region mechanic is just going to result in people playing defensively in order to inflict mana screw on multi-faction opponents.
http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?titl ... 26_Domains

Yes, Kingdom is indeed a resource zone. That's a feature for several reasons. If you read the sections about kingdom, domiains and advantages + regions you'll see the light and something that has more depth than for example MtG.

There is no way to mana screw anyone in the current ruleset above. If there was, that would be bad design, as in MtG.

There's even potentially offensive material that no real card game would allow, like the Oracle and Bound by Love which are both on the front page.
That's not offensive material. That's yet another feature and reason to create the game: We can make it into whatever we want if there's a good reason.

Given the state of society and many cultures where nudity or homosexuality or whatever is seen as something offensive/sicke/whatever we choose to do a social commentary by depicting certain phenomenons that the commercial game industry wont dare touch in fear of losing sales and upsetting people that find naked bodies etc offensive. Parts of this are already explained at great length in the GDD at wiki, hence I wont repeat.

Summed up: If somebody is offended by our art, he/she should really play something else. I'm fine with that - our goal isn't to cater to every mainstream player out there and to maximize market penetration. That's also stated in the gdd, at least in spirit.

Don't get me wrong, it's pretty cool work, but at the moment you are not making a game.


I beg to differ.

http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?title=Quick_Rules

== a game ruleset, very real one. Albeit one that I haven't playtested yet. Now I'm soon of to the next step, create cards etc. I don't do it to get a look at merfolk tits. I already have access to youporn and can jerk for free if it's about that and one thinks thats legit - no need to setup a faux game project ; )
For every indie game at least 75% of the emphasis must be on the mechanics (and possibly the art if the art is the point of the game), or else it will be outclassed by the vastly superior manpower of money-focused corporations.
We've already been around more years than any corporation would put money into something that developed this slow. We have done all of this for free, because we want to, and I have personally chipped in thousands of dollars. Because I like the idea of it.

I agree that rules and cards development should be about mechanics. Again, rules suggested have that. Cards will. And, here is the cool part: I would love to see you aboard and become part of a tema in here, to create, aspire and contribute. Clearly you have a lot of good thoughts going on and energy and emotions about the subject matter.

Hop on mate...

And if not, don't fret, no company will ever shut this project down. Only our own incompetence can do so ;)
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snowdrop
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by snowdrop » Thu Apr 07, 2016 18:54

Bobit wrote:
-Land-screw sucks. So hearthstone's mana system is the best way to go, with the change that you can mix factions if you have the right hero (which brings me to my next point).
I agree about landscrew, and we all deemed out resource cards á la MtG. However, I figure the gold resource system in current rules is actually better than Heartstones simply because it is more interactive and puts the plyer in the spot of choosing if he wants to utilize a card by playing it, or by converting it into permanent resource.

-Hero cards (1 per deck that comes into play at the start of the game and determines what faction(s) you can put in that deck) are good. They allow the designer to set role-defining cards, reduce RNG by making the "lords" (cards that give a bonus to creatures of a certain type) all heroes, and individually nerf/buff/rework certain faction comboes by adjusting their respective hero(s).
Pretty much exists and is done by active "Region".
-You should aim to make the card pool as small as possible at first. That way you can summarize core mechanics and make variant cards of the same mechanic later if you want.
Well written, agree 100%. We're aiming for 2 pre-cons by end of year, as a start.
-I'm not so sure about this one, but it might be cool if the Reach and First Strike keywords from MtG were merged into one keyword, Ranged. It also might be cool if Flying creatures had "Tap this creature: it fights target creature". It would probably make for less hardcounters and a more interesting metagame.
This wouldn't be in core rules in any case, as it is an ability printed on cards. But, in principle I'm always against of a+b = c....

Reson is to keep design and key words as simple s posible: If player already knows what A is, and also knows what B is, then the card could just get A & B keywords on it, instead of creating a brand new label C that is simplu a merge of the two. That way you use established knowledge and also don't expand abilities / keywordslist by making all kinds of mutations that are just combos reused. Summed up - there is no reson to do so and can already be done using what's around. :P
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xarn
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by xarn » Thu Apr 07, 2016 19:53

Honestly Bobit, I don't get your point. Do you want to blame or insult everyone? Because your tone is very close to. Or at least that's how I felt reading your post.


If you want to improve it or contribute somehow, you're welcome, but I don't see how your post does it.

Start Rant

As for the rules, have you already played with them? Tried it out a few times with different decks? (albeit only few cards are currently available) Played with *someone*? ...if not, perhaps you're completely wrong with your "theorical" assumptions.

End of Rant

Of course the rules are not yet perfect, that's why we need to playtest it in the first place. But even more importantly, we need a healthy and motivated community to move forward.
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Peter
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by Peter » Thu Apr 07, 2016 20:20

snowdrop wrote:
There's even potentially offensive material that no real card game would allow, like the Oracle and Bound by Love which are both on the front page.
That's not offensive material. That's yet another feature and reason to create the game: We can make it into whatever we want if there's a good reason.

Given the state of society and many cultures where nudity or homosexuality or whatever is seen as something offensive/sicke/whatever we choose to do a social commentary ...
Well, I stopped short when I saw the kissing girls and the half-naked Gaia-woman, because I never saw such in a TCG before. Next thought was "Why not?" So from me a strong "Yes" to keep such "topics" in the game. I only wouldn't like display of wounds, or at least excessive ones.
Kind regards and happy coding :)
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snowdrop
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Re: Are you making a game or a motivational speech?

Post by snowdrop » Sat Apr 09, 2016 08:36

Topic locked due to many different subjects and lenght. I broke out one of them and created thread for it. If something is left out or there is a desire to discuss it more please create new subject specific threads in proper subforums, using good subject descriptions. There's nothing that's stated in this thread that is an issue or that should be censored.
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