Hi, I'm Mudskipper

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Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by Mudskipper » Tue Jul 24, 2012 03:11

What up guys? :D I was recently looking up Inkscape and other vector imaging tools, when I came across your site. Having been a HUGE card freak as a kid and a major geek to this day, as well as (recently) a linux/open source fanboy, I'm very interested in this project and would like to contribute in any way possible.

My specialty is writing and youtube/video publishing. I'm not a PRO writer (my writing is pretty much all personal stuff atm), but I'm currently managing a fairly popular youtube channel (316 subs and counting in about 3 months) and know how to tag and present vids to attract a decent audience.

My coding skills are essentially nonexistant, and apart from some basic photoshop stuff, I have no art skills whatsoever. But if background lore and youtubing are something you'd want help with, I'd be more than happy to lend a hand. :D
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Re: Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by snowdrop » Tue Jul 24, 2012 15:18

Howdy mudskipper, and welcome to our small but steadily growing group.

Might I ask how old you are and country/city you're located in, and also what you work with or study? Also, what kind of games (incl. computer and board) have you been playing and enjoying most/least?

We have had 2-3 writers passing by but I have yet to see any text from them (c'mon guys, your fingers itch ; ) and it would still be super cool to see some shorter stories set in our universe at about 5 to 15 pages a piece/episode. You'd have great artistic freedom as we haven't set most things in stone, but we'd like to clear your summary of the story and the characters in it before you actually write anything, and also be updated about the process, should you be interested in writing that is. I can also strongly recommend http://undum.com/ ...an amazing tool with huge capacity (most of which is best not used at all actually if you don't want a story/game filled with stats instead of focusing on the storytelling) if you'd want to do some kind of light interactive fiction

We also need a PR-person who's job it is to find relevant sites, forums etc and make posts about us ever now and them and maintain those threads, answering questions etc.

Video is a field where we're totally underrepresented. I got a vimeo plus account though that I have used a little to put some WT.-related stuff on it, and if you have ideas of what to show and how we/you could work more with video it would be really great and something we have been talking about for quite a while. So, please feel free to push any and all ideas...
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Re: Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by Mudskipper » Tue Jul 24, 2012 20:49

Howdy mudskipper, and welcome to our small but steadily growing group.

Might I ask how old you are and country/city you're located in, and also what you work with or study? Also, what kind of games (incl. computer and board) have you been playing and enjoying most/least?

I'm 18, living in Inland Empire, CA, and am currently learning basic Linux and PC maintenance skills as well as fiction writing as a hobby. My Youtube work is a PC-gaming centered community channel that takes submission for Firefall and Smite videos. Both of these games are in beta, and I've also had plenty of experience testing games like League of Legends and Quake Live in CB.

I like games that offer plenty of customization, such as deck construction in card games, or optaining and equipping gear or cosmetic items in games like TF2 or WoW. I like games that promote player involvement and shape the game according the the contributions and additions provided by the player base.

I don't like games that limit this vision, force DLC or DRM (or expansions for that matter) on people without a good reason, and stifle the creativity of the people that they depend on to make the project feasible in the first place.


We have had 2-3 writers passing by but I have yet to see any text from them (c'mon guys, your fingers itch ; ) and it would still be super cool to see some shorter stories set in our universe at about 5 to 15 pages a piece/episode. You'd have great artistic freedom as we haven't set most things in stone, but we'd like to clear your summary of the story and the characters in it before you actually write anything, and also be updated about the process, should you be interested in writing that is. I can also strongly recommend http://undum.com/ ...an amazing tool with huge capacity (most of which is best not used at all actually if you don't want a story/game filled with stats instead of focusing on the storytelling) if you'd want to do some kind of light interactive fiction


I've browsed some of the forum posts before my introduction, and was really intrigued by the Shadow Guild. Are they bad guys, antiheroes, or somewhere in the middle? Are they exploting or helping the poor and impoverished ignored by the House of Nobles and other factions? Are they a cult or a beacon of (slim) hope for those involved? And what would their views on morality, mortality, magic etc entail? If no one's stepped up to the task of writing in a backstory for these guys, I may have to do it myself :mrgreen:

also, undum you say... will def check it out!

We also need a PR-person who's job it is to find relevant sites, forums etc and make posts about us ever now and them and maintain those threads, answering questions etc.


I definitely have experience with this. Running contests, promoting via forum posts, AMAs, etc I can do quite easily. One idea that comes to mind is allowing users to create custom
(ie, non-wesnoth cards) and showcase these via youtube, vimeo, etc. This might sound horrible at first, but when given the freedom to create almost anything in a game, people will come up with AWESOME stuff. Maybe even devote a portion of the website to promote "non-lore friendly" cards submitted by the community. I for one, want Slenderman in my WTactics :twisted:

Also, once Cardscape and an early beta of a playable online client are available, as well as some media, promotions, shooting an email to Penny Arcade and/or someone at TGWTG (CD and Angry Joe come to mind...) would be a good option for promoting the game. You could easily score a strip with PA, and that would be EPIC.

Video is a field where we're totally underrepresented. I got a vimeo plus account though that I have used a little to put some WT.-related stuff on it, and if you have ideas of what to show and how we/you could work more with video it would be really great and something we have been talking about for quite a while. So, please feel free to push any and all ideas...

I'm enabled for monetization on my Youtube accounts, and know how to tag, title and promote videos in order to get a decent-sized audience, especially if you plan on using Youtube's "promote" feature. Vimeo's OK, but Youtube's where the peeps are at.

Also, I think marketing the online element of WT to the PC gamer crowd and Android will pay off BIG TIME. There are plenty of people who would never tough a physical MTG deck that are totally addicted to Duels of the Planeswalkers. Another thing you could do is get a couple of people to make Youtube commentaries and Twitch/Justin streams of WT on Sandscape/GCCG, as this would probably generate further interest among the PC gaming community. After all, any "no strings attached f2p game" pretty much attains divine status among the PC gamer community if done right, and PC gamers would be your most "core" audience besides the tabletop crowd.

Another thing that might generate some interest is having a weekly or bi-monthly "community spotlight" or "The TacticsCast" on youtube, where deck ideas, custom cards, and fan-submitted artwork, emails and more are showcased/answered. Think LoL's summoner Showcase if you will, only a little less obnoxious and geared towards both PC and Tabletop gamers.

Hope you like my suggestions! Please let me know what you think :D
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Re: Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by snowdrop » Wed Jul 25, 2012 13:35

the Shadow Guild. Are they bad guys, antiheroes, or somewhere in the middle? Are they exploting or helping the poor and impoverished ignored by the House of Nobles and other factions? Are they a cult or a beacon of (slim) hope for those involved? And what would their views on morality, mortality, magic etc entail? If no one's stepped up to the task of writing in a backstory for these guys, I may have to do it myself
Honestly, we don't know what the Shadowguild is exactly. There is an effort in finding out in here http://wtactics.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... 1&start=10 and I still like some variant of my suggestions the best this far.

What we need is something different from the other factions. We have:

- The Empire: an empire conquering the world to it's former glory days
- House of Nobles: rich & noble, industrialists and modernizers, also perusing their interests via mercs
- Gaia: peaceful enviormentalists forced to take upp arms for natures realm
- Red Banner: Classwar, freed slaves that rebel and a civil rights based war

....so whatever the SG becomes it shouldn't be anything of the above.

Originally we had ideas of making SG some kind of organized crime syndicate, but it doesn't seem to pan out all too well and mafia set in a fantasy environment is maybe too hard to grasp and maybe not interesting enough?

What we also really want to avoid is having them around as a stereotypical undead faction with the same old story "very evil force, some mage somewhere, or whatever". We want them to be more dynamic, and they will also be way mroe versatile than just a bunch of skellies when it comes to the graphics.

So, as you see there's some room to develop them, but don't write anything until you suggest a couple of overviews/alternatives for them... =P
also, undum you say... will def check it out!
Also discovered an addon for it yesterday that let's you integrate some nice features: http://vorple-if.com/
I definitely have experience with this. Running contests, promoting via forum posts, AMAs, etc I can do quite easily.
What would be helpful is if you did some serious research on which blogs/news-sites and forums are around the net that would somehow allow us to inform their users about our project without our info being considered as spam or totally off-topic.

Currently have have more or less zero exposure and need to work more on that, but for us to start spreading the word we need to have plenty of channels where it's ok to do so and where one might expect that the target audience is interested.

I can think of these five types of sites/forums where it would be useful if we got exposure:
  • Python programming
  • HTML5 / PHP / AJAX programming
  • Card games: TCG, CCG, LCG:s etc. Also sites for specific card games but that also allow a discussion about other games somewhere...
  • Indie games
  • Open source
There may be more types but I can't think of them right now, and as I wrote: It would be good to have some lists of all these sites categorized, and then later on we'd proceed to the next step and create and actually post the info.
AMAs, etc I can do quite easily. One idea that comes to mind is allowing users to create custom (ie, non-wesnoth cards) and showcase these via youtube, vimeo, etc. This might sound horrible at first, but when given the freedom to create almost anything in a game, people will come up with AWESOME stuff.
You are right, it does sound horrible at first :twisted: (Yups, we're perfectly honest in here and have minds set on doing what's best for the project, which often isn't the same thing as anything goes or "my ideas are good and i'm missunderstood" ; )

Our issue right now is that we don't have a following yet that is partaking in the development, and that nothing would ever come out from such an attempt due to that reason.

I also think that the entry level/barrier for getting involved goes up somewhat with the video-requirement when it comes to the casual user. To date we haven't even gotten a single custom card made by anyone even as a JPG-file, suggesting that it will be hard to make people create videos, to say the least.

Here I can admit that the error is also ours: Even though we have no strange source material and always had it all downloadable and public, we haven't explained it basically enough for people to be able to use it with ease to assemble new custom made cards. I will write up a guide and also record a video showing the steps to help this. I'll also make it easier to assemble cards in GIMP on the fly...

My second issue with the suggestion is that showing a card in a video sounds to me like it will be very static. After all, the card isn't (and in our case shouldn't be) animated. Why would you look at the video, and what's actually happening in it? What were your thoughts? (I imagine a user could show off a coupe of versions of it, and put a voice over where he/she discusses it's abilities etc. That would be kind of cool if done properly..)
Maybe even devote a portion of the website to promote "non-lore friendly" cards submitted by the community. I for one, want Slenderman in my WTactics
We'll try to turn as many good card ideas as possible into cards. It doesn't matter if there is lore or not for it already. The game isn't a support function for the lore. It's two different things that overlap each other. And in any case we have no lore yet beyond the two finished background stories. What's good in a CCG is that the art and cards themselves can be so versatile, giving much space when designing.

I'd be happy to let people show off their creations on site if they are serious works.
Also, once Cardscape and an early beta of a playable online client are available, as well as some media, promotions, shooting an email to Penny Arcade and/or someone at TGWTG (CD and Angry Joe come to mind...) would be a good option for promoting the game. You could easily score a strip with PA, and that would be EPIC.
Yes, but as you write, it is important that we have nailed all the rules first by then and that we have it all playable in some form. Else it's premature and would only hurt the project. Btw, what's PA?

(Lastly, feel free to show up at the meeting on sunday.... info in wiki)




One idea that comes to mind is allowing users to create custom
(ie, non-wesnoth cards) and showcase these via youtube, vimeo, etc. This might sound horrible at first,
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Re: Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by Mudskipper » Wed Jul 25, 2012 22:55

Honestly, we don't know what the Shadowguild is exactly. There is an effort in finding out in here http://wtactics.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... 1&start=10 and I still like some variant of my suggestions the best this far.
[/quote]What we need is something different from the other factions. We have:[/quote]

[/quote]- The Empire: an empire conquering the world to it's former glory days
- House of Nobles: rich & noble, industrialists and modernizers, also perusing their interests via mercs
- Gaia: peaceful enviormentalists forced to take upp arms for natures realm
- Red Banner: Classwar, freed slaves that rebel and a civil rights based war[/quote]

[/quote]....so whatever the SG becomes it shouldn't be anything of the above.[/quote]

......

[/quote]So, as you see there's some room to develop them, but don't write anything until you suggest a couple of overviews/alternatives for them... =P[/quote]

As this is a team effort, I'll be running any ideas concerning faction story arcs, details, etc by you guys before submitting anything. I mostly try to focus on characters and the societal, political or relgious views or issues they go through in the context of the given event. What I AM really bad at is coming up with names for fictional alien/fantasy/mythological creatures, people or places, so having an established setting and place, as well as events and characters to work with is totally fine by me.

Anything I submit won't be all "emo doom and gritty gloom" though. Expect some mild tounge-in-cheek pokes at tired fantasy tropes and subtle jokes in the background. Pople want to read fun lore, not wannabe goth poetry with a couple minotaurs here and there. Overall though, I think the empahasis on making sure that each faction has an interesting story to tell beyond "hero of light slays ye dragons" is what's really gotten me into this project. Will check out the SG thread, then submit a couple of ideas for your consideration. I like the Mafia analogy, and will be sure to use it in one of my test examples.

[/quote]What would be helpful is if you did some serious research on which blogs/news-sites and forums are around the net that would somehow allow us to inform their users about our project without our info being considered as spam or totally off-topic.[/quote]

[/quote]Currently have have more or less zero exposure and need to work more on that, but for us to start spreading the word we need to have plenty of channels where it's ok to do so and where one might expect that the target audience is interested.[/quote]

[/quote]I can think of these five types of sites/forums where it would be useful if we got exposure[/quote]
[/quote]
  • Python programming
  • HTML5 / PHP / AJAX programming
  • Card games: TCG, CCG, LCG:s etc. Also sites for specific card games but that also allow a discussion about other games somewhere...
  • Indie games
  • Open source
[/quote]

Here are a couple I'm a bit familiar with...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

Popular site for all kinds of tabletop games, including minatures, TCGs, foreign board games, etc. You should definetly try promoting on their forum once you've finalized the card templates.

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/

While heavily video game focused, Penny Arcade has promoted games like Pathfinder (Which, admittedly I know nothing about except that it's apparently pretty hardcore (http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/11/30 )

If you guys did a Deep Crow card or something (http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/10/10) , the Penny Arcade community woud LOVE you for it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/tabletop/

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/

http://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/

Not really a huge redditor, but seeing how it's pretty much the front page of the interwebs currently, I figured these three subreddits would be a good place to guage interest in our product. Reaching the reddit community could potentially give us a MASSIVE boost in site traffic and interest, especially since these subreddits' demographic (16-25+ in gaming, little older in tabletop/rpg) are the most likley to spread the word via social networking, word of mouth, etc.

http://www.starcitygames.com/

Hardcore magic community and host of the biggest indipendantly run MTG tourney out there. Also sells other TCG games and seems to be very competetive, so once an online client and finalized rules are established, I'd absolutley post something on their forums.

http://www.deviantart.com/

Yeah, I know this one has a bad rep for cringe-worthy fanfiction and anime porn, but there's also an active community of talented artists and Linux users who would be THRILLED to participate in the WTactics community.

http://teamcovenant.com/

While looking up info for a Tim Burton film called "monsterpocalapse" (I LOVE Godzilla/Kaiju stuff!), I found this incredibly nerdy gem that apparently features the monpoc minatures game the movie is apparently based on in addition to some more obscure TCG/Board/Minature games. These guys produce, DVDs, cons, and more to give these games more exposure, and if you contacted these guys, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to support this project.

Dunno about indie game sites. They mostly tend to be video game oriented, which may work once you get your online client up and running. I think focusing on tabletop-friendly sites first is a good idea, then once more interest is generated, we might be able to spark some interest via Penny Arcade, Dtoid, etc.

Python and other codings sites are not really my field. I'm only just getting into Linux, and my knowledge of coding in general is nil. If I come across something though, I'll let ya know.

[/quote]You are right, it does sound horrible at first :twisted: (Yups, we're perfectly honest in here and have minds set on doing what's best for the project, which often isn't the same thing as anything goes or "my ideas are good and i'm missunderstood" ; ) [/quote]

Oh boy, that's gonna be a JOY to deal with...

*email no.23343*

(Nine-year-old derp) "WHY DIDN'T YOU ACCEPT MY PIKACHU SHADOWGUILD CARD?? IT'S REALLY COOL! MOMMY SAYS IT'S COOL! BLAHBLAHBLAH etc.

Yeah, maybe sticking with Wesnoth is for the best. The above nightmare scenario is one of the reasons I think allowing non-wesnoth Cardscape projects - at least initially- might go south on us. Too many kids trying to make their pookeyman/ woogioh cawds.

[/quote]Our issue right now is that we don't have a following yet that is partaking in the development, and that nothing would ever come out from such an attempt due to that reason.

I also think that the entry level/barrier for getting involved goes up somewhat with the video-requirement when it comes to the casual user. To date we haven't even gotten a single custom card made by anyone even as a JPG-file, suggesting that it will be hard to make people create videos, to say the least.[/quote]

...

[/quote]My second issue with the suggestion is that showing a card in a video sounds to me like it will be very static. After all, the card isn't (and in our case shouldn't be) animated. Why would you look at the video, and what's actually happening in it? What were your thoughts? (I imagine a user could show off a coupe of versions of it, and put a voice over where he/she discusses it's abilities etc. That would be kind of cool if done properly..)[/quote]

Before you read any more of this post, please check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lVO3EbtPp8

If you're not familiar with League of Legends, it's pretty much the biggest PC game out there at the moment, with more than 35 million people worldwide playing it.

Yes, she might be pretty annoying, but notice how she's presenting the fan art/creations. In and of themsevles, they're pretty static images, but because she's narrating/joking over the footage, it goes from a slideshow to an interactive experience for fans of the game. If, by the time Cardscape is 100% up and running, you released a similar video with one of the devs on a greenscreen background (perhaps the Wesnoth map), you could easily show off fan-made cards, artwork and more, as well as showcase expansions, events and tournaments hosted by the players once those are established.

This would obviouly have to come after you've promoted the game via forums, trailers, etc, but giving the fans an interactive form of social media that not only showcases fan cards, but keeps more casual gamers up to speed on everything will not only advertise the game's strong points (customization, open source-ness, casual and hardcore appeal), but will encourage people to like, comment and share the vids, resulting in more traffic, more potential consumers, and more support.

[/quote]Here I can admit that the error is also ours: Even though we have no strange source material and always had it all downloadable and public, we haven't explained it basically enough for people to be able to use it with ease to assemble new custom made cards. I will write up a guide and also record a video showing the steps to help this. I'll also make it easier to assemble cards in GIMP on the fly...[/quote]

Sounds good :) Been messing with the inkscape stuff via the public trunk, but the actual monster/creature image is... blegh. Having a simplified template would be a good way to start out, giving people a sneak peek at the customizability of the cards.

[/quote]We'll try to turn as many good card ideas as possible into cards. It doesn't matter if there is lore or not for it already. The game isn't a support function for the lore. It's two different things that overlap each other. And in any case we have no lore yet beyond the two finished background stories. What's good in a CCG is that the art and cards themselves can be so versatile, giving much space when designing.[/quote]

Barring any modern/scifi themes (unless you guys would do a Wesnoth 2056 kind of deal.. 8-) ), You can pretty much do anything with this setting. Robots? Put Iron Golems in the game. Ninjas? "Shadow Assasins", nuff said. Aliens? Just indroduce a few "cosmic entities" (cuthulhu style, not UFOs), and you got that covered as well. I look forward to seeing what crazy stuff people manage to keep in-universe...

[/quote]Yes, but as you write, it is important that we have nailed all the rules first by then and that we have it all playable in some form. Else it's premature and would only hurt the project. Btw, what's PA?[/quote]

An abbrevation for Penny Arcade. As you might've guessed by now, I'm quite a fan.

[/quote](Lastly, feel free to show up at the meeting on sunday.... info in wiki)[/quote]

I'll try, but I can't guarantee anything.

Thanks for responding. Sorry if this ends up being the longest thread in the history of threading, but I hope you consider some of those sites I've linked above for promotion/marketing.
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Re: Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by aspidites » Thu Jul 26, 2012 17:38

Great, we've found someone whose posts' lengths rival that of snowdrop :-P

Kidding, that's probably a good thing, especially if you say you're interested in writing. Welcome aboard, Mudskipper. I'm aspidites, ViCE's project lead. I come across as harsh sometimes, but don't let that scare you away. Look forward to reading some of your work.
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Re: Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by Mudskipper » Fri Jul 27, 2012 18:33

aspidites wrote:Great, we've found someone whose posts' lengths rival that of snowdrop :-P

Kidding, that's probably a good thing, especially if you say you're interested in writing. Welcome aboard, Mudskipper. I'm aspidites, ViCE's project lead. I come across as harsh sometimes, but don't let that scare you away. Look forward to reading some of your work.
Thanks for warning me ahead of time :lol:

I'll take any criticism you throw at me, since any backround lore I submit needs to work with the game mechanics and creatures/events you've already created.

I've posted a basic overview of my SG background lore idea in the General thread, so feel free to critique it to oblivion if you will. It's only an early preview, so plenty of changes will be made anyway.

Hope 'yall enjoy it :D
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Re: Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by snowdrop » Sat Jul 28, 2012 18:16

@sites
Nice suggestions and a good start. We need plenty more though and inet has to be fine-combed to maximize the reach. Should you have more time or lust please put some work in it - would suffice with just categorizing the site / target group and make sure that it wouldn't be spam if we posted there.

There's info about us somewhere on reddit and boardgamegeek, but it's not being maintained... = / Feel free.


@markup

Code: Select all

[tag]  bla bla bla  [/sametag] 

[quote="snowdrop"]Art thou his apostel?[/quote]
 
would markup bla bla... in your case the quotes came of wrong due to the opening with the closing slash (/).
Yeah, maybe sticking with Wesnoth is for the best. The above nightmare scenario is one of the reasons I think allowing non-wesnoth Cardscape projects - at least initially- might go south on us. Too many kids trying to make their pookeyman/ woogioh cawds.
I think it's important to make a difference between:

a) including a card with art of, say, Spiderman
b) including a card that has in-theme art but that mechanicaly is a tribute or inspired by Spiderman
c) including a card that's both a & b

So, when has a Pokemon-card been included in WT? If you ask a 10 year old, then it's probably when a) is true. If you ask a designer it's when b) is true, and if you ask common sense it's always advisable to keep lightyears away from infringing on others copyrights, be it pictures of Spiderman or something else.

My guess is that at least 30 up to maybe 50% of all cards ever created by all the CCG:s in the world together already existed before they were (re)created in game x with the particular theme y. A new game has a slim chace of introducing much that already isn't around in Mtg, let alone if you factor in all other CCG:s and what they have already covered. In that sense Mtg-cards are included in many games every day... also demonstrating that the discussion might be hard to have in the first place.

We won't ever pay for art that clearly tries to recreate a pokemon or spiderman just because people (kids?) happen to think that pokemon or spiderman are cool characters. Nor will any such card become an official part of the game. Not only does it break theme, atmosphere and visual and worldly consistency, it's taking unwarranted legal risks.

The people always have exactly the same access to the very same tools and templates that we have. If somebody wants to use our templates, and mix indianapolis, batman, buffy and jenna jameson in one and the same game along with Elvish Archer, then by all means they have the ability to do so - we'll always encourage the community to be creative. Whatever keeps it active. What's cool is when something like that, however rabid it may sound to me, leads to a card that has a cool mechanic/rule that we can import properly into the official game. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lVO3EbtPp8

If you're not familiar with League of Legends, it's pretty much the biggest PC game out there at the moment, with more than 35 million people worldwide playing it.

Yes, she might be pretty annoying, but notice how she's presenting the fan art/creations
I am familiar with it to the extent that I would have tried it if it were to work on Linux. It didn't, so I played HoN a couple of times instead, and while differences may be blazing for the fans of respective camp in my eyes they're in the very same genre and don't really differ too much in theory. (Keep in mind that the person writing this still believes that most games in any genre are more or less identical from a design perspective, when you kill all theme, all graphics and all lore and just play with geometrical shapes... meaning, just have the game essentials and can focus on design of the gameplay and rules of the game.)

While I was horrified by the super-disturbing jumps between cuts instead of doing proper retakes I agree that something similar to that would be very nice to have eventually. What we need to find out before then, like 1-2 years before ; ) is what we're showing off in the meantime, who, and why anyone would want to watch it ;)
Sounds good Been messing with the inkscape stuff via the public trunk, but the actual monster/creature image is... blegh.


What's the problem with it? Still didn't get it to work?
Barring any modern/scifi themes (unless you guys would do a Wesnoth 2056 kind of deal.. ), You can pretty much do anything with this setting. Robots? Put Iron Golems in the game. Ninjas? "Shadow Assasins", nuff said. Aliens? Just indroduce a few "cosmic entities" (cuthulhu style, not UFOs), and you got that covered as well. I look forward to seeing what crazy stuff people manage to keep in-universe..
Due to budget and lack thereof we won't afford re-theming the game into sci-fi anytime soon. Doing so is also a bad call for a new game as it divides the already small initial playerbase into two groups, making them both smaller, and it also creates confusion.

But, as you write yourself, fantasy is a very allowing genre and one can include great many things, both nicely themed and with proper visuals. For example instead of laser robots you can have 1-2 artefacts that are golems or steam-punkish machinery with some small gobo in the middle controlling it ;) Now, we are not there and won't be for a while since that diversity would be straight out bad to include in a core set (would only make the set look inconsistent and a mix of whatever came to mind), but the possibilities are there to slowly introduce and expand what is known to the world, how it is known and used, in expansions further on. So if we notice that players like monsters, then sure, here you get new ones, and so on.

(Btw, please post a new thread to discuss new or continue discussing ongoing topics in this one... will be easier to keep on a single topic then = )
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Mudskipper
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Joined:Mon Jul 23, 2012 03:22

Re: Hi, I'm Mudskipper

Post by Mudskipper » Sat Jul 28, 2012 19:16

Nice suggestions and a good start. We need plenty more though and inet has to be fine-combed to maximize the reach. Should you have more time or lust please put some work in it - would suffice with just categorizing the site / target group and make sure that it wouldn't be spam if we posted there.

There's info about us somewhere on reddit and boardgamegeek, but it's not being maintained... = / Feel free.

Once some Red Banner cards are made, I'll be sure to post some stuff on BGG so people know the project's still alive ;)

As for Reddit, I'd rather wait until something's at least playable in alpha until opening that can of worms. Reddit may be one of our main sources of traffic in the near future, but promising a game like this without any means of testing or customization might raise a few eyebrows.


snowdrop wrote:Art thou his apostel?
[/code]
would markup bla bla... in your case the quotes came of wrong due to the opening with the closing slash (/).

Noticed that, sloppy editing on my part, won't happen again.

I think it's important to make a difference between:
a) including a card with art of, say, Spiderman
b) including a card that has in-theme art but that mechanicaly is a tribute or inspired by Spiderman
c) including a card that's both a & b

So, when has a Pokemon-card been included in WT? If you ask a 10 year old, then it's probably when a) is true. If you ask a designer it's when b) is true, and if you ask common sense it's always advisable to keep lightyears away from infringing on others copyrights, be it pictures of Spiderman or something else.

My guess is that at least 30 up to maybe 50% of all cards ever created by all the CCG:s in the world together already existed before they were (re)created in game x with the particular theme y. A new game has a slim chace of introducing much that already isn't around in Mtg, let alone if you factor in all other CCG:s and what they have already covered. In that sense Mtg-cards are included in many games every day... also demonstrating that the discussion might be hard to have in the first place.

We won't ever pay for art that clearly tries to recreate a pokemon or spiderman just because people (kids?) happen to think that pokemon or spiderman are cool characters. Nor will any such card become an official part of the game. Not only does it break theme, atmosphere and visual and worldly consistency, it's taking unwarranted legal risks.

The people always have exactly the same access to the very same tools and templates that we have. If somebody wants to use our templates, and mix indianapolis, batman, buffy and jenna jameson in one and the same game along with Elvish Archer, then by all means they have the ability to do so - we'll always encourage the community to be creative. Whatever keeps it active. What's cool is when something like that, however rabid it may sound to me, leads to a card that has a cool mechanic/rule that we can import properly into the official game. :)
Obviously if people want to make copy or joke cards, they're perfectly free to do so with the GNU Liscence. My concern is that people might initially see the site as just another "make your own trading card" site instead of a legit project. The open online CCG client is the most concering for me, as you'll probably have many people who come to the site just to play Magic without an online fee. Then again, there ARE alrready several established clients out there for Magic and stuff, but still.

As for taking ideas from established characters and stuff w/out ripping them off, I've kicked around a couple of concepts for incorporating references to internet phenomena such as The Slenderman, (A Der Ritter card would be pretty sweet) Deep Crow (Penny Arcade, Pathfinder used it too), Cuthulhu and more. The internet loves that kind of stuff, and incorporating references might end up bringing more people to the game.
I am familiar with it to the extent that I would have tried it if it were to work on Linux. It didn't, so I played HoN a couple of times instead, and while differences may be blazing for the fans of respective camp in my eyes they're in the very same genre and don't really differ too much in theory. (Keep in mind that the person writing this still believes that most games in any genre are more or less identical from a design perspective, when you kill all theme, all graphics and all lore and just play with geometrical shapes... meaning, just have the game essentials and can focus on design of the gameplay and rules of the game.)

While I was horrified by the super-disturbing jumps between cuts instead of doing proper retakes I agree that something similar to that would be very nice to have eventually. What we need to find out before then, like 1-2 years before ; ) is what we're showing off in the meantime, who, and why anyone would want to watch it ;)
I think a "Dev Diary" type thing might be a good place to start. Show off the artwork, development process and playtesting to build hype for the game and get early feedback. Another sereis of PC gaming videos done by the developers of Firefall, Red 5, provides and excellent example of this kind of thing.

http://www.youtube.com/user/r5studios?feature=watch
What's the problem with it? Still didn't get it to work?
I just tried to import an image from deviantart to mess with the template, and my photoshop edit made it look all ugly. Probably an issue on my end.
Due to budget and lack thereof we won't afford re-theming the game into sci-fi anytime soon. Doing so is also a bad call for a new game as it divides the already small initial playerbase into two groups, making them both smaller, and it also creates confusion.

But, as you write yourself, fantasy is a very allowing genre and one can include great many things, both nicely themed and with proper visuals. For example instead of laser robots you can have 1-2 artefacts that are golems or steam-punkish machinery with some small gobo in the middle controlling it ;) Now, we are not there and won't be for a while since that diversity would be straight out bad to include in a core set (would only make the set look inconsistent and a mix of whatever came to mind), but the possibilities are there to slowly introduce and expand what is known to the world, how it is known and used, in expansions further on. So if we notice that players like monsters, then sure,
I mostly included the "Wesnoth 2025" thing as a joke, but it would be pretty cool if that ended up being a thing :D

I totally agree about Fantasy being a very allowing genre. Too many people limit themselves when writing/drawing it, and while I think working with familiar archetypes is great, it can easily get cliche.

Oh, and as a general rule, yes, people LOVE monsters. That's one of the reasons why card games involving soldiers and stuff fail and Magic is still around. Commanding giant dragons, golems, gyphons, zombies and other crazy stuff is more interesting than ordering around 50 grunts. Although there's defenitly room for both in Wtactics.
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