Coding Projects and Duga Heaven :)

Dagg Nabbit

12:04 AM

www2.zomis.net/tcg-creation/39/…

Stack Exchange

12:14 AM

TCG Creation - Recent questions: What guidelines should we follow when considering a feature?

posted on August 02, 2014

I think we should come up with some guidelines to help determine whether features are appropriate when considering them for inclusion. This doesn't have to be a strict set of rules, just guidelines to help facilitate the decision making process.

Phrancis

Startup disk almost full :(

Dagg Nabbit

12:33 AM

aaand they're gone

Feels like we made a lot of progress today though, yay

Hey @syb0rg

syb0rg

Hello

What's this about?

Dagg Nabbit

IDK if you're interested in this stuff or not but we've been busy here today

Bunch of CR regulars designing a trading card game

syb0rg

Language?

Dagg Nabbit

just thought I'd let you know in case you have any interest

We're leaning towards Java for the core/server, but this would be highly moddable...

It's looking like possibly Java with Lua bindings in C through JNI, or something

unless Java plays nice with Lua, then maybe no C or JNI

syb0rg

Was C++ suggested?

Dagg Nabbit

12:47 AM

That top pinned comment is a link to a Q&A where we've been discussing stuff

Yeah it was

but we didn't have anyone really dedicated and well-versed in C++

syb0rg

Oh. And for Simon's point #2? --->

Dagg Nabbit

that, yeah

we want to be able to deploy pretty much everywhere

syb0rg

oleb.net/blog/2014/05/…

Dagg Nabbit

although it's definitely shaping up to be a client/server thing so...

yeah C++ works great for iOS/Android

IDK about web though

with Java we can just drop in an applet

I guess there is stuff like Alchemy/Pepper/WebGL though

syb0rg

True.

We will be using mostly WebGL, right?

Dagg Nabbit

12:52 AM

If it's Java, probably not

just a plain old Java applet for web

web isn't really as important to me as mobile

syb0rg

And we are unsure whether or not this should be open source or not?

Dagg Nabbit

yeah lol

syb0rg

Are we trying to make money? If not, then it should probably be open source.

Dagg Nabbit

I'm thinking open source alpha, closed beta

I'd like to make money :p

but don't mind if we don't

syb0rg

Yeah, I could really use some for college...

Dagg Nabbit

12:54 AM

it should be able to support the cost of the server though

so yeah

we need to talk more about that

syb0rg

btw, why a card game? why not a strategy game or something else?

Dagg Nabbit

I guess we all like TCGs

but it will definitely be a strategy game

syb0rg

appfog.com

Do we want a custom domain name?

Dagg Nabbit

for sure

hmmm that looks interesting

I usually use amazon EC2 for this kind of thing

web services in general I mean

syb0rg

Hmm, well my Java is very rusty. I'm not sure how much of a help I can be with this project, despite me wanting to help.

Dagg Nabbit

1:02 AM

@syb0rg the design is shaping up to be a very minimal core with most of the actual game done through a "modder's API" in something like Lua

the core will just do the minimum stuff to keep the game running and provide API bindings for everything else

the idea is to have something very moddable to attract a good modder community

syb0rg

How much graphics are we planning on implementing? Simple, or high-end?

Dagg Nabbit

Simple, I think, as far as effects and stuff

Of course we want nice art on the cards

that's still TBD though

syb0rg

We are going to need mockups if we really want the ball to get moving on this thing

Dagg Nabbit

yeah for sure

a lot of this has only been discussed in chat, we're trying to get stuff on to the Q&A site and then eventually graduate things to a wiki when we make decisions

syb0rg

If we do go open source, where are we going to host this? Github has an integrated wiki

Dagg Nabbit

1:14 AM

My first thought was to open a github project just to put stuff on a wiki

Simon created the Q&A thing at pretty much the same time and I think that might be better for discussing things, then move them to a wiki

and even if it's closed we can use github, we'd just have to pay

then again hosting git repos is pretty damn simple, so is throwing mediawiki on a server

just don't get all the bells and whistles

skiwi

12:31 PM

hey, the Q&A site at least has inline answering :P

Stack Exchange

12:45 PM

TCG Creation - Recent questions: What is the scope of the moddability of the game?

posted on August 02, 2014

How much are we going to let people mod the game, what are the conequences of it? My own intent would be to only allow players to create their own cards (with own effects, etc.), subsequently they should all be added into the game via a central gateway, such that we can track their cards. I disagree with people being able to add cards client side, as then we have no way to track and balance …

Stack Exchange

1:29 PM

TCG Creation - Recent questions: Should we start talking about the Card Strength Algorithm?

posted on August 02, 2014

I'm sure some of the brainer ones among us have a lot of good ideas about this already. I have some ideas myself, though I have never built anything quite as sophisticated as this. The question is, should we start discussing this or should we wait? I feel like this is a major part of the game, and it will need to be really good for the game to be successful. But we may need…

Dagg Nabbit

5:38 PM

www2.zomis.net/tcg-creation/44/…

skiwi

@DaggNabbit I'll check it out later, a bit busy righ tnow

Dagg Nabbit

@skiwi cool, just a response to the question about moddability

Phrancis

6:01 PM

Hey guys

Dagg Nabbit

hey @Phrancis

skiwi

Hey @Phrancis

Phrancis

What's the latest news?

Dagg Nabbit

Looks like we need to define the scope of moddability

skiwi

We've made the product and sold it already, we've even been on the news, you missed it @Phrancis?

2

Dagg Nabbit

6:03 PM

lol

skiwi

@DaggNabbit No but in reality, what he said

Phrancis

Moddability is something I've actually thought about quite a bit

Dagg Nabbit

IMO we should go all-out on the moddability and not really worry about player-created custom cards

having a good modder community is the kind of thing that could make this the real deal

custom cards is more of like a nice but hard to manage gimmick

Phrancis

Let's suppose one of the "medium" units, let's say generic Rook which is the higher defense one for instance

The minimum value to get higher defense/HP than attack is 3, which would make it either 1/2 or 0/3, we could make this Tier 1 and keep the casting cost at 3

Dagg Nabbit

This is still sounding like a "let's try to balance mods" approach

Phrancis

6:09 PM

Then Tier 2 could be 6, Tier 3 could be 9, etc. with associated casting costs. Or we could even not set up "Tiers" and let the user decide the casting cost

and the balance accordingly

Dagg Nabbit

Don't think of it as the user, think of it as the modder

modders will be like < 1% of users

Phrancis

Well the modder, sure

Dagg Nabbit

you just let them do whatever they want

if they want to make a 1/1 card with a casting cost of 100, fine

nobody will play their mod

you just give the modders as much control over things as possible and let them go nuts

the core only worries about who's turn it is, where the cards are, how much hp players have at any given moment, etc.

Phrancis

OK that sounds fair. But I think if we established a simple method that the average player can make a customize card, submit it to us for approval (at least for the "official" version) that would give them some form of empowerment and an incentive to be invested in it

Dagg Nabbit

that could work but we need to keep that idea completely separate from the modder's API imo

Phrancis

6:12 PM

Yes, that sounds like a good way of thinking

Dagg Nabbit

it would not be hard to balance custom cards really

at least i don't think it would

they assign it an attack and defense value

an algo calculates casting cost from that

now, for special abilities...

within any given mod (including "vanilla") there is a pool of effects

Phrancis

Right. And my thinking is to keep card-attached special abilities to a minimum, say if it is above a certain cost you can have one, an above a certain other cost another more powerful one, but specifically have them standardized depending on what type of unit it is. Of course modders would be free to use their own mechanics

Dagg Nabbit

yes... i'm thinking the mod could assign a point value to each effect

that's where tiers come in

Phrancis

And rely more on cards you can cast on a unit to modify it

Yeah that was also my Tier thinking

Dagg Nabbit

well, i'm thinking effect could either be on an "effect card" or an ability of a "unit card"

but in the mod there is just a pool of effects

independent from cards

if you want to have custom cards, give each effect a "tier" like 1,2,3

Phrancis

6:16 PM

Tier 1 no effect, Tier 2 maybe a small buff like absorb 1 damage or attack on same turn cast, and Tier 3 a more potent effect like an AOE or spell of some kind

Dagg Nabbit

casting cost goes up by the same number

yeah except no effect would be tier 0

Phrancis

Sure

Dagg Nabbit

because you don't want it to add to the casting cost

and negative effects would be negative numbers

so for example

Phrancis

Ohh, I kind of like your negative tier idea

Dagg Nabbit

you make a catapult that does AOE damage (a tier 2 effect, say)

but the catapult is slow, it only attacks every other turn (a tier negative one effect, say)

so the catapult only incurs one additional casting cost from those effects

Phrancis

6:18 PM

Then just have the algo compute that right?

Dagg Nabbit

yeah and it would be simple to compute

so if the catapult is 6 attack and 4 defense, that's an average of 5... 5 casting cost

+1 casting cost from our effects

so that catapult has a casting cost of 6

Phrancis

And we could just store the various effects and types in the DB, and have a positive_effect and negative_effect column for each card, with FK to the effects table that has the positive or negative value

Dagg Nabbit

the user just assigns attack, defense, picks some buffs and maybe some nerfs from a pool of effects, and done

@Phrancis yes the mod (or vanilla) would store a pool of effects

Phrancis

Would average not return fractionals though sometimes?

Dagg Nabbit

yeah, you could just round to the nearest even number or something

Phrancis

6:21 PM

Though I don't know that it would be a problem if we had a "gauge" type of mana... has there been much discussion about the mana algo?

Dagg Nabbit

no but... i see no reason the mana couldn't be "half points"

or just take the average attack and defense and double that, take the effect tiers and double those, give two mana each turn

Phrancis

Yeah, even maybe 1/4 points, this would allow us be more fair if we had card effects like "Gain 25% of damage dealt as mana"

Maybe even just use one decimal point

Dagg Nabbit

i think nhgrif was right when he suggested stating away from fractional things / multiplying

i thought about that some more and could see it getting messy

and it's turn based after all so you don't want to make things too fuzzy

Phrancis

Could be. I'll trust you algo and TCG guys to make the best decision on this

Dagg Nabbit

I just want to make sure we can get everyone on board with very flexible moddability and not worry so much about player-created custom cards

Phrancis

6:27 PM

My graphics guy had an interesting idea last night, I was at his place telling him about the project

Dagg Nabbit

what was it

Phrancis

To (later after the game works) make a store where you can buy and sell cards with a currency, and players could also use the currency to place bets on games

You get currency by selling cards you don't need

Dagg Nabbit

that is a cool idea

Phrancis

Although this could be exploitable depending on what mechanics would be used to earn cards

Dagg Nabbit

instead of selling the card back to us, they could just list it in an MMO-style auction house

let players determine the cost of cards

Phrancis

6:29 PM

(i.e., earn cheap crappy 1/1 cards over and over and sell them)

Dagg Nabbit

but if the cards are very common they would be worthless

so players would farm pve for rarer cards

and sell in auction house

it could work

Phrancis

This would be fairly simple to manage using the DB and just build a few procs to insert card FK and price and listed player (another FK)

Dagg Nabbit

yeah it would

Phrancis

Just build a UI that calls the procs

Dagg Nabbit

it breaks the idea of premium features not affecting game balance but idk if anyone really cares about that but me

Phrancis

6:31 PM

Now I was curious about what the incentive would be for winning a game... earn a flat currency amount perhaps, along with any bets?

Dagg Nabbit

and i don't care that much really

I think the incentive is to win cards

it's a TCG after all

Phrancis

True

Dagg Nabbit

but you could have casual pvp matches where you just play for fun

Phrancis

Maybe earn one card at random from opponents desk, for "serious" matches?

Dagg Nabbit

yeah or let them make wagers

Phrancis

6:32 PM

Or perhaps choose the card ahead of time?

Dagg Nabbit

yeah

i like that

Phrancis

That sounds fair and moddable enough

Dagg Nabbit

because if you know you have a better deck you could wager a good card against a weaker one bc you're pretty sure you'll win

Phrancis

It would have to have a card you're using in the game though, right? Not one from warehouse...

Dagg Nabbit

actually i was thinking it would have to be one you're not using

but really it shouldn't matter either way

Phrancis

6:35 PM

Hmm. Things to consider, although one way or the other it would be a simple matter to change it one way or the other during testing

Dagg Nabbit

We need to figure out where everyone stands on custom cards

is this really an essential feature or just something that would be cool to have

Phrancis

Is there a post on this already? If not I'll make one

Dagg Nabbit

There's a post about moddability that imo confuses moddability with custom cards

To me they are two very different things but i think a lot of us are thinking of them as the same thing

here's the issue i'm thinking about now

Phrancis

OK we definitely need to separate those then.

Dagg Nabbit

even if the custom cards were balanced the way we were talking about

Phrancis

6:39 PM

Why don't you write it instead, since you've obviously invested some thought into it

Dagg Nabbit

yeah I will in a little bit but I want to see how people respond to the moddability question first

or to my answer on it

the problem with custom cards I'm seeing is not a balance problem

it's the description and the art... quality controls

and since the custom cards would be in the context of a specific mod, it would have to be up to the team of modders to accept it or not

this makes things really confusing

Phrancis

Yeah. That's why I was suggesting in chat a few minutes ago that customer cards have to be submitted for approval to make sure it is not a duplicate and it has proper description etc.

Dagg Nabbit

yeah but submitted to who

you know

Phrancis

Yeah...

Dagg Nabbit

but if people can do whatever they want with mods, we can just write up some card balance guidelines using the algo we talked about

Phrancis

6:43 PM

And if the vanilla mod had multiple themes, which was a thought of mine... then it has to have a proper name and image for each theme

Dagg Nabbit

then people who want to create cards submit their ideas to the guys who made whatever mod they're playing

yeah that would be nuts lol

i think vanilla should just have one theme but there's no reason why there has to be only one "vanilla"

i mean we could make multiple mods ourselves

Phrancis

Thought with only 2 themes (say Steampunk and Fantasy) it may not be that hard

Dagg Nabbit

another good reason to have a clear separation between the core stuff and the game itself

Phrancis

Just a couple extra columns in the DB

Dagg Nabbit

yeah but why roll them together

just make two separate things

Phrancis

6:45 PM

Not sure :)

Dagg Nabbit

built on the same core

unless you're going for a weird anachronistic nethack-style universe

which could work maybe

Phrancis

That's likely the better idea, and if there are two vanilla mods they can pick off each other's ideas

Dagg Nabbit

yeah esp. if different groups are working on them... maybe some people working on both and some people on only one or the other

Phrancis

I'm really liking the Steampunk type theme and wouldn't mind to be one of the owners of that mod. Some others (can't remember whom) seemed to prefer a more Fantasy theme so perhaps they could be owners of that

While maintaining the DB for both

Dagg Nabbit

i might have been the only one suggesting the fantasy theme and that was just as kind of a "safe bet"

i don't care too much about the theme really, as long as its consistent

Phrancis

6:48 PM

OK. Well may be best to just stick to Steampunk style and let independent modders do whatever theme they please

Dagg Nabbit

i think whoever we get to do art should have a say in that decision too

like if your guy does art

if he loves drawing steampunk stuff and will be perfectly happy cranking it out all day

that's the obvious way to go

Phrancis

I'll speak to him today, was gonna go there to work with him on some music anyways

Dagg Nabbit

obviously we'll need more than one artist to get the thing into production but you get the idea

Phrancis

Yeah.

Dagg Nabbit

it's obviously going to be kind of a labor of love, at least at first, so we have to make sure people are doing something they enjoy

Phrancis

6:51 PM

If we start with a fairly small set of cards, say, 30 it may not be too big of a workload. But we may be able to recruit some artists from some SE site or something. But that's way down the road

Dagg Nabbit

yeah I was thinking deviant art or something

Phrancis

Or that yeah

Dagg Nabbit

also we could get a tax id and set this up as a regular business and just use interns

if we need to

Phrancis

Maybe. Not sure about the implications of that, but that's way down the road and probably would be a PITA since we're all in different parts of the world

Dagg Nabbit

yeah true

Phrancis

6:54 PM

Would be fun to get on a Google Hangout and talk "face-to-face" some day with everyone involved

Dagg Nabbit

it would

we can find out who's in the best part of the world for small biz

like someone might be in Malaysia or somewhere

Phrancis

lol

Dagg Nabbit

or Indonesia, lol... a lot of the small game dev companies end up in that area

I guess they get tax breaks or something

Phrancis

Well I'm going to step out for a smoke

Dagg Nabbit

alright

Phrancis

7:09 PM

Back. Curious, where are you at @DaggNabbit ?

I posted an answer on moddability: www2.zomis.net/tcg-creation/44/…

@DaggNabbit I thought of some general guidelines for requests for a new card:
1) Database approval to make sure it is not duplicate or near-duplicate.
2) Algo approval to make sure it would not cause an exploit or a bug.
3) Design approval to make sure we can make graphics for it, and that it fits within the theme of the "vanilla" mod.
4) Upon approval, creation and publication of the new card to "News" or some other form of place on the GUI, so all players of the mod know this new card is available for purchase in the store. That way it is not unfair and even the player who requested has t…

New cards could be anything from a unit, effect or upgrade card

Unit would mostly be a case of (1) and (3) but effect or upgrade cards, (2) would be crucial. That's when people like you and GreyWolf would jump in

Of course requesting a unit card with an effect which does not already exist would involve (2) quite heavily as well

Other modders would be free to go as they please but I think for vanilla this would work well. We could use make a form on the GUI to fill out with desired card properties that would just get emailed to use and we could go from there

skiwi

7:43 PM

Nooo, the chat's been spammed again :P

Phrancis

^ that

Read up though @skiwi interesting stuff

skiwi

I will in a bit :)

Phrancis

We talked a whole bunch about character creation and modding

Anyways, time to drive over to my graphics guy, will check in from there. I got some creative/art questions for him

Phrancis

9:09 PM

Back

With the graphics guy now @DaggNabbit

skiwi

9:30 PM

@DaggNabbit yeah, my post was perhaps a bit too broad

Dagg Nabbit

9:56 PM

I'm back

what did i miss

@Phrancis these look pretty good. 1 should should be easy to automate. 2, I don't think you'd have that problem if they're just drawing from existing effect pools. If there's a bug, they're just discovering it, not creating it.

3 is the tough one. 4 depends on game mechanics; I'm not sure I like the idea of cards entering into the game from people buying them. I kind of like the idea of them farming them in PVE. Or if they do buy them, they shouldn't be able to buy specific cards, only packs (with more chance for legendaries, etc)

Phrancis

Please upvote so graphics guy can access this chat, only need 20 rep:

graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/36802/…

Dagg Nabbit

@skiwi I guess I sort of feel like if we can build a really great modder community, custom cards won't matter so much... it can be more of an informal thing, like the "extended family" of some modder group sending them ideas for inclusion

@Phrancis I don't have an account there =/

i do like that logo though

it'll get upvoted

Phrancis

Just make one, get auto 100 rep for being trusted on another SE site

Dagg Nabbit

how many votes does it need, 4?

Phrancis

I think so

Dagg Nabbit

10:06 PM

why is it not on the front page

Phrancis

It is...?

Just follow my link I guess, see above

Dagg Nabbit

i did but

it's not showing up on the front page for me

just keep bumping it or something

i hate having a bunch of SE accounts =/

Phrancis

Try this?

1

Q: Psychoproductions Company Logo

This is the logo I designed for my Music and Graphics Productions Company, http://www.psychoproductions.net. Can you please review, and provide feedback. Is this logo well branded for the type of company? Does it draw attention?

Dagg Nabbit

i can see the question i'm just saying it's not showing up on the front page

if it's on the front page people will vote

it only has 3 views

and two are you and me

he needs to keep bumping it

there someone else bumped it

Phrancis

Oh looks like it got ~~jamalized~~ bentehized

Dagg Nabbit

10:13 PM

it's still not on the front page for me

Phrancis

graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions

Dagg Nabbit

maybe not having an account fucks things up somehow

oh now it's there

Phrancis

I posted on Monitor

Dagg Nabbit

nice

@Phrancis if you have him self answer you can upvote that :p

that should give him enough rep

Phrancis

Don't know that it's gonna happen, he spent a lot of time on that, but good suggestion

20 rep should take no time to acquire

Dagg Nabbit

10:18 PM

nah we'll just be patient lol

Phrancis

He (jay) suggested we have a "trap" card class, any thoughts? He thought the trap could be hidden or only basically hinted at, at most, for the opponent

Dagg Nabbit

I'm skeptical of anything that breaks the physical-cards dynamic

I feel like it should be playable with nothing more than physical cards and MTG-style counters

just because if we do that we have really solid guidelines for what's acceptable and what's not, and we don't wander too far from the CTG thing

i like the idea of a trap card but I'm not sure how being hidden would work

unless it's just face down or something

Phrancis

OK. What about a trap card that could be played during the opponents turn?

Dagg Nabbit

but if there's a face down card on the board your opponent will know something's up

Phrancis

(his idea, again)