When I was working at Rhino Video Games (which was bought out by GameStop) they had a few 8th Edition Starter decks. I bought a few of them and really enjoyed the game. At that time I thought that trading card games were a gift brought down by the gods. After I explored a few other trading card games I understood that Magic: The Gathering was the first and the best TCG game around. Other TCG games are interesting but nothing has the depth of Magic. The first TCG videogame that I was exposed to was Yu-Gi-Oh on Gameboy Advance and I absolutely fell in love with it. The game enforced all of the rules and it was phenomenal. At the beginning, MTG Forge was actually an implementation of Yu-Gi-Oh and later I learned of Magic and converted my project. Later I found Magic Online and through my experience I learned the rules of Magic well enough in order to program MTG Forge.
MTG Forge to me is a very personal project and I'm very glad that other people have fallen in love with my program. And although MTG Forge was started as a one man project, currently there are a few people who help out. The forums have really been a great help. I personally coded MTG Forge's first 1,200 cards but other people have contributed all of the other cards past that point.
p.s.
The worst videogame TCG that I played was the awful "Marvel/DC Vs." game for PC, if you clicked on a card you HAD to play it, the program didn't have a cancel button. Playing the videogame was dreadful for a beginner because I would accidentally click on a card like "Giant Growth" and the computer would make me use it. I still admire the VS TCG since it has comic book characters and interesting mechanics, no land cards.
p.s.s.
MTG Forge was also greatly influenced by the Microprose PC game Duels Of The Planeswalkers, which people informally called Shandalar. I love creating decks using all of the cards but drafting, even with those horrible old sets, really sucked me in and I wanted to draft more. One of my biggest pet peeves was annoying draft cards that were either too powerful or too wimpy, so that is why I allow the user to easily add or remove cards from the draft set. (Just remove the card name from one of the files: common.txt, uncommon.txt, or rare.txt)
since you mentioned you started out with Yu-gi-oh. how about making a Yu-gi-oh Forge or something. any chance of that happening? =) by the way, keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteit's a huge task, of course, so many differences: limited playfield, different types, different way to play cards, different combat and so on (and my personal motivation is pretty low...)
ReplyDeleteby the way, a thing I like abount mtg is the strict wording. Yu-Gi-Oh uses an improper wording with room for interpretation. I like at mtg that if you know a card's wording, you can really see its funcionality. and the other way round, if you don't know a card's text, but know how it works, you can still recite it word for word...
OK, the "Magic Language" is still complex enough, but at you programmers: who doesn't like strict, complex languages?^^
"How about making a Yu-gi-oh Forge or something. any chance of that happening? =)"
ReplyDeleteYugioh became less interesting since it doesn't have the depth of Magic. Yugioh and the Pokemon TCG are a nice appetizer but Magic is the main course.
I agree, not to sound disrespectful, but I for one wouldn't want to spend any time coding "Yu-Gi-Oh".
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem with Shandalar was this: Unlimited series cards only. I wanted my Legends, and Dark, and Arabian Nights, and Antiquities and even Forgotten Realms cards. Those would have made it so much better IMHO. I can't wait till we can add those old cards to MTG Forge and set it up so you have tournament deck rules built in to the system.
ReplyDeleteMost awesomest MtG prog ever. ;c)
Resonantg
" I can't wait till we can add those old cards to MTG Forge and set it up so you have tournament deck rules built in to the system."
ReplyDeleteWhat tournament deck rules do you mean? Are you talking about restricting cards to only 4 copies?
Most of the older Magic cards are easier to add because they are less complicated.
I played the VS system game and I agree. Not having a cancel option was really frustrating. I do miss that game a lot. The flavor was great. I really wanted to play the last couple of sets but I could not get myself to spend the money.
ReplyDeleteIs the VS game still being made?
ReplyDeleteI am not Resonantg, but maybe he means that it would be nice to specify whether you wanted to play standard, extended or legacy format and the computer would generate or only use decks with such a restriction.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a great idea.
VS was killed at the beginning of 2009.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI opened a new Magic site for questions & answers about Magic.
http://draw3cards.com/
It's online for only about a week, but I really think it would grow to be a good place for the Magic community to ask questions about Magic. It uses the same technology as the successful programming site http://stackoverflow.com
Do you think you might want to publish a post about my site?
If so, I'd appreciate it a great deal, and I think your readers will enjoy it.
Thanks,
Ron
"It would be nice to specify whether you wanted to play standard, extended or legacy format and the computer would generate or only use decks with such a restriction."
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good suggestion. I tend to not look at format (standard, extended, etc..) and just use cards. You could use a prefix like std for standard and create your own decks.
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I was young when I started play magic the gathering, and now eleven years has pass since the day when I opened my first booster, I so glad to keep play this.
ReplyDelete