Here is the art - you do the rules.

[Just Mick]

I also don't know of many (any?) others except the blender site for 3d models. But, what do you think it is lacking? What would make it exceptional?

"Only" problem I can see at this point with the site is that it is low on content, but that is hardly the admins fault - the site becomes whatever the world makes of it. If nobody uploads resources to it then it will be less useful. If there were a million successful projects that had good free art and all would share it on the site then people would have a pretty huge resource bank to choose materials from.

There are many others. They never go anywhere because they start from the premise of just tossing random stuff in at random. The way I am approaching this differently is A) all of the artwork needs to be consistent in style. B) if you want to make a different look for the artwork, then the same treatment needs to be applied to as many of the assets in the database as possible, so that ideally you could totally swap out the visual style of any game. C) People are encouraged to reuse the same assets so you end up with many games with the same stuff in them but with a few things new each which then goes into the pool.

When you can enforce that kind of consistency you can start to form an inventory that people can actually make games or whatever with. Also we encourage sets from completed games to be added versus one off stuff. I would like to eventually grow the model to a worldwide generic repository of public domain content but it will have to be extremely organized in order to work effectively. Hopefully within a year or less I plan to have all models from PSOne games opened up to the world. That's the graphical level I think people are best equipped to work with. And I think it's good enough to convey whatever people need to do. For a CCG you don't have the problem of needing to be consistent if you follow the original MTG model of each card being a work of art within itself. For games for example obviously its not acceptable for all of the assets involved to be in random styles.

[eyerouge]

xchokeholdx:

* Doesn't the combat system / unassigned creatures-win-automatically condition make it very preferably to try to just spam as a huge amount of creatures as possible? That the game favours weenie decks?

A: cheap creatures die fast, and we?ll just have to make sure that they do. Maybe a simple change to the rules can solve it: you lose 1 influence if one of your creatures dies, instead of the other combat rule that you lose 1 influence for each unnassigned creature

• Even if weenies die fast it doesn't matter much: It still seems viable that the rules favor weenie decks. Say you have 4-7 weenies in play all the time and that the opponent keeps killing them off with his mid/heavy-sized creatures. As long as you have more (unassigned) creatures than the opponent then you start winning, especially if you can keep up the creature spam... unless I miss something here.



• I don't believe the rules should be changed in that way to fix this particular problem (Notice: if this is indeed a problem. It's very easy for us to speculate here but it's not worth much until we playtest it and see how it all fares. Thus, I don't think we should waste that much time on polemics compared to playing and discovering what's broke and what works great.) Reason is that removing a dead creature is already a method to "count" and administer the outcome of something important in the game - the result of the combat. To create ad hoc rules that demand yet another counter/arithmetics operation to activate every time a creature dies is not elegant or streamlined, and it doesn't solve the problem - it would perhaps only clean up it's consequences. In other words: "Double counting" should be avoided.

A: indeed. You can go simple and only use 2 colors, RED+GREEN, or use three, or even add numbers to the colored icons to have an influence cost as well on top of the colors. all up for testing.
Adding AP's would force you to keep track of it. Do I still have 1 AP left, or did I used it up? with the Flow, you know for sure when you played that RED flow card. no need for counting, no rules questions (does this action cost 1 AP or is it free?)

There is a really huge difference to AP:s and Flow, and while the concepts seem very similar at first glance I'd still want to point out the apparent and main gap between them: AP:s are a pure cost system that is definitive. Flow is not, and harder to grasp in all it's brilliant simplicity. Bear with me here. 

Example with AP:

• Imagine the game has some kind of resource system. Let's call it mana, gold, force, or whatever. This is the main cost in the game.
• Pretend that each player gets 3 new AP every turn. AP:s are not saved between turns. AP:s are a "secondary" cost.
• Imagine that 40% of all cards in the game cost 0 AP, 30% cost 1 AP, 20% of the cards cost 2 AP and 10% cost 3 AP. (Or use any % you want, as these are examples..)
• Now, a player can play however many 0 AP cards she wants, but 60% of the game's card pool costs ≥ 1 AP. To build a viable deck you would have to master the AP:s, and in most situations a player would have to make decisions based on how many AP:s he/she has left that round. I.e. you can't play 2 x 2 AP cards on one round. Nor can you play one 1 AP-card and one 3 AP card during the same round.
• Compare this to flow: Flow doesn't really restrict anything at all beyond what order you will have to play the cards. I can play a zillion cards as long as I can afford it, and still finish off with red flow card at the end if I can pay it's resource costs.
• Point being: AP:s don't necessarily effect the order of how the cards will be played, and they offer a great tool for balancing. Flow does not offer the same instrument for balancing, and does not fill the same extra-cost effect as AP:s do. Instead, it brings something else - timing/order (which could very well be what we're after, would depend on the game and purpose of the system)


• I agree that counting AP:s each round can be tedious if there isn't a simple and 100% coherent system for doing it. An example of how most games do it is to let certain actions cost AP:s (usually same amount), while others are free. Another way is to simply print in numbers/icons how many AP:s some things cost. As long as AP:s are kept ≤ 3 I'd say it's very easy to keep track of them & almost impossible to fail. Once you start giving a lot of AP:s to each player and have very different AP-costs for all kinds of stuff you start getting chaos.


• This brings me to the question at hand: What is the purpose with Flow? Why do you have it around at all? What's the rationale behind it? Is it a) as a secondary cost to balance cards? b) to, for some reason, affect the order of cards being played? or c) Something else I'm missing here? Please don't get me wrong here - I ask because I want to fully understand it's part in the game, and only after knowing what it's intention is would it be possible for me to grasp how well it's performing it.

and as I always say: keep the rules simple, let the cards create depth. It is very easy to add Banding, flanking, first strike, flying, hidden etc.. abilities to cards and actions, but I always felt the rules should have a basic "feel" about them. Then let players create the depth and fun

I'm totally with you on this one. I also think we should start playtesting clonewars as soon as you have created the patch - learning by doing is the way to go here. All discussions in the world won't help in the end compared to a good old session at the table (Btw, I'll mail you about this as well)

Just Mick

There are many others. They never go anywhere because they start from the premise of just tossing random stuff in at random.

I'm not sure I agree: My guess is there are plenty of resources from the same source, i.e. a GPL game. Then the content from that game is not "random" at all - it's relevant to that specific game. This could of course still give us as viewers a very random feeling when seeing different parts from the game being scattered all over the place and not seeing the pieces within their original context.

Then again, I think you very well could be correct that there are many small fragments from different sources there. But, that is not related to the site per se - it's all up to the users how they make use of it.

The way I am approaching this differently is A) all of the artwork needs to be consistent in style.

I'm not sure I follow: If that was to be  true, it would mean that such a site would have to be nisched towards i.e. 2d and not contain any 3d, or vice versa. Or realistic vs cartoony, true isometric vs top down view, and so on and so forth. However it would have been done it would exclude more styles than it would include. As a result, the site would be very usable by people that want a specific look, but worthless to anyone else. All games based of the site would also look identical. It would probably also mean that several such sites would be needed. I don't see any benefit with that, as it would most likely only fragment the community thats is slowly evolving around it. (If that site is slow and is low on content, what would a site with a super-nisched style be?)

B) if you want to make a different look for the artwork, then the same treatment needs to be applied to as many of the assets in the database as possible, so that ideally you could totally swap out the visual style of any game.

Ah. I get an impression you want a gigantic database that contains very very huge amounts of objects, and where they're all a part of one specific "art set". I.e. let's say we have a chair, a gun, a cow and a car (+ 10k other objects) drawn Manga style. Then we'd want the same objects available in western realistic style, and in full 3d, and so on. Am I getting you right?

That would of course allow people to choose the style of their game and get all the graphics they need directly. Problem with the style coherency within  an art set would be born from the fact that so many objects in one set are likely to have very many different artists involved. Even though they all draw i.e. manga, there would probably still be huge variations quality wise.

The only way of achieving what you(?) are envisioning is through a massive and coordinated effort. One that probably needs to be financed by plenty of cash in the end. 

C) People are encouraged to reuse the same assets so you end up with many games with the same stuff in them but with a few things new each which then goes into the pool.

Yes, could turn out that way. Would be interesting with some kind of license that even forced people to give back/add about 2 - 5% of the total number of objects they "took" from the db to begin with or that they could choose to pay an inhouse artist to create those % of the new objects that will then be added to the public pool. That would insure the db's growth and also make it a give-and-take-thing.

. For a CCG you don't have the problem of needing to be consistent if you follow the original MTG model of each card being a work of art within itself.

True, but I don't.  It would make life simpler for the project but I want something that feels way more consistent than MTG does and hope WT will feel more so in the end than many other CCG:s do. It's an aesthetical question based on my own subjective preference vs economy and patience - it's usually much easier and cheaper to pick up random art and create a CCG than using the same artist(s).

Sadly this seems to be a fact for WotC as well as they have used a million different artists despite the fact that they have the worlds strongest CCG brand and millions of dollars to invest in unique and original artwork that could very well be 100% consistent if they ever wanted it to. The fact they're still mixing styles wildly both within expansions but even more so in between them suggest that there are strong economical and time saving incentives to use "random art".

[waz]

hey i have started a card game but have no idea how to get it up onto the lackey software
how do i do this? thanks!

[xchokeholdx]

Allright, I am playtesting some basic rules that were adapted from the clone wars card game. Since creatures now have life, I had to tweak some rules a bit. Also some other changes to the rules were needed.

I?ll post once I get the rules to work.

but to give an insight:

1 vs 1
60 cards decks
creatures have no "cost", just Flow.
each creature has stats: Influence, Strenght, drain and Life
players start with 4 cards, and 4 influence (4 face down cards). Numbers will vary.
each time you play a creature, opponent gains 1 influence, or X influence (X=creature power). needs to be tested.
have 20 influence = win game
have no influence at end of turn = lose game
no draw deck = lose game

players take turns assigning one of their creatures to opponent creatures until none can be assigned.

creatures compare STR vs STR, higher wins and dealt 1 wound. creature life=wound=death=discarded.
when you win a combat, you "drain" influence from opponent = value of drain on creature.
if you have any unassigned creatures = opponent loses 1 influence for each unassigned creature, or just 1 influence in total, needs to be tested., or none at all. (maybe some creature may never be assigned)

influence can be used during combat to add STR to your creature (place cards used from influence back under draw deck). this might come in handy to tie STR in combat, to prevent a massive drain.

influence may be used to draw cards from at end of turn. This sounds very broken, but each card you draw is one less influence an opponent needs to drain from you. however, it MIGHT just be that cards you were looking for to turn the game around.

early testing shows that "swarm" tactics are very effective early on, but they lose out very fast, due to low life creatures, and massive influence loss.

my one big creature with high Drain will constantly win the combat vs your swarm deck, thus "draining" you of equal influence. because my creature is ALSO killing your swarms, you need to play more cards to "keep up" the influence battle. needless to say that you will soon run out of cards in your hand to play, and you will have to use influence to draw extra cards, or use influence to prevent the big draining creature to drain more.

will post more when the dust has settled.

------------

What happens here is that for each card you play, you are giving influence to your opponent (just a bit like lord of the rings ccg did ). You might think this will cause players to NOT wanting to play cards, and only use cards that give out very little influence to your opponent. True, but due to the way players assign creatures, you NEED to keep playing cards to increase your chances of a favorable assignment of one of your creatures, either to drain, or to prevent draining.
I think and hope it will be like a small domino effect. Because I play this, you need to play that, which makes me want to play this, etc...

this weekend I?ll test more. I need to do this before I can send in some final rules. I need to know if the game flows enough, does not stall too many times (e.g. players run out of cards too fast), and if the mechanics are broken by itself.
This also depends of course on the gametext/numbers on the cards itself, but a basis that rules out a lot of possible abusable mechanics is needed, and I think I am already pushing it by using influence in so many ways.. maybe that needs to change, and just stick to the "Decked = loss" rule.

---------
To add something about the flow: True, you probably want to play with lots and lots of GREEN creatures, to just keep playing, but you will also add RED creatures, since you can play one as well during your turn. Both players can use this swarm tactic, thus balancing it. If you do not like to play a swarm tactic you can. that one big RED creature will probably stay on table a lot longer than your GREEN creatures, thus having an equal impact.
If not, we can always create effects on cards like: GREEN creatures may not be played, see here:
http://www.cardgameforge.com/game.php?id=138&mode=cards&cid=9364
or
http://www.cardgameforge.com/game.php?id=138&mode=cards&cid=8628

Take a look at the EPIC card game, which pretty much uses a similar system. I prefer mine, since you also get to use other effects on your cards as well if you want.

[Just Mick]

Per response aimed directly at me. I really don't want to get into a back and forth. But yes you have to choose somewhere to start, ie. a niche. And people just have to get in line behind that niche if they want to be realistic about making DIY games. Not being (or wanting to be) multi-millionaire studios you can't have everything your way and there is no reason to expect to. You start with a cult fan set. For instance what I'm working with is this interesting software has virtually no EULA restrictions and comes with a lincense to print games with a major IP attached including a built in database with hundreds of assets that look like this (http://www.fromsoftware.jp/main/soft/som_dl.html)

The style of the assets are very similar to a PSOne game called "Shadow Tower" which the company was doing before they did this. So I'm going to take everything out of ST and add it to this database doubling its built in size. At the same time people making games in this vein add regularly to the trough so to speak. There are also many games with different visual styles that can also be mined in this way. Point is you have to start somewhere that is practical and build up to a pitch, and only then is it feasible to talk about branching out. People who gripe it's not their style can either A) start their own thing, or B) be realistic (but that is understandable if the style is too particular or too difficult to replicate, which is why if you're interested in the interest of others it is important to keep things simple if not also generic)

[johnbrad]

I've hired an artist as a result of a discussion in here Here are some sample & work copies of the new original art work for the game:  Please don't comment mechanics & wording as these are mere samples.






Developers are wanted and needed.


nice picture, i like to save it...

[eyerouge]

xchokeholdx:

Wiki wiki my friend. Create a user, login in and put it all online there so it becomes readable and easier to edit. + Shout when you have a lackey patch for clone wars, so we can try stuff out.


new artwork:

[xchokeholdx]

will do!

I play tested some different rules during this weekend with some friends, and we all agree that some sort of resource system is needed for this type of game. I do NOT want this to become the main focus of the game though (like Magic somewhat is).

Like, if I miss my land drop, I lose.
I need to include these different resource cards in order to..
etc, etc..

so we came up with a sort of system that the Lord of the rings had, but without the need for counters. I also HATE to have too many different states in the game to keep track off (life, resources, victory conditions, life on creatures, etc), so I am trying to fit Loyalty both as resource AND victory condition together. I think it will be HELL to balance it, but it will be awesomesauce if we can.

Players start with 4 (still needs to be tested if this is the right number) Loyalty. maybe the first player starts with 5 (one more).

Loyalty are face down cards from your draw deck.


each time you play a card, you lose X loyalty, and your opponent gains X.
example: card XYZ has the following cost:(1/3). This means you lose 1 loyalty, opponent gains 3.

this provides the game with a VERY WIDE field of card costs, without the need for further going into colors or resource types.

losing 1 loyalty means placing one card from your loyalty pool underneath your drawdeck.
gaining 1 loyalty means placing the top card of your draw deck face-down into your loyalty pool.

So playing a lot of cards means losing loyalty, AND opponent is gaining loyalty. This gives the game a "stop" on both ends. I can not play too many cards, since it will deplete my loyalty and I can not play too many cards since my opponent?s loyalty is getting close to 20.

So playing card is bad? not really, as the cards in play (creatures) will of course be a bigger threat to my loyalty then the cards in may hand. How? through combat.

game winners needs to be fine tuned, but the No loyalty=lose, 20 Loyalty=win seems possible.

This will mean that in the beginning of the game, players really need to be careful with their Loyalty, and they are probably not able to play strong cards that have a high loyalty cost. As the game progresses, players will slowly begin to build up loyalty, giving them the option of playing that big fat loyalty Duke of Hazards that turns the game around.

don?t forget that players may use loyalty during combat to turn the combat into their favor, AND use loyalty at the end of turn to draw extra cards.

Combat still needs fine tuning, because it is very hard to find a perfect balance. Will creatures have just 1, 2 or even 3 values? (ATT/DEF/LOYALTY DRAIN).
Will the winner of a combat just drain 1, drain equal to their loyalty drain value, or is the defense from the defender subtracted from it? etc..etc.. will play test more, but it is beginning to take shape.

Players will have LOW loyalty because of:
- Playing cards from hand
- Losing combats vs Creatures
- using loyalty during combat to win
- using loyalty to draw extra cards eot.

Players will gain loyalty because of:
- opponent?s playing cards.
- winning combat vs creatures (game text rule: if XX wins a combat, gain 1 loyalty for example).
- not using loyalty during combat
- not drawing extra cards.

I hope this will create a cause and effect gameplay, where players are forced to respond to opponent's actions and cards. Increasing interaction and preventing too much sitting back and doing my own thing.

Another cool option would be to have the following rule:
Start of each turn, each player may EITHER draw one card or gain 2 loyalty. making it easier for players gunning for that 20 loyalty.. all needs testing of course.

I think the basis is here, and once I tested some combat scenarios, i will outline the rules, create sample cards and we can lackey it up to test.

""EDIT"": Awesome ART there eyerouge. Can?t wait to see the final product!

EDIT 2: Another thing I forgot to include: I want to see a game where players are able to draw and play lots of cards. Not seeing the game go up in smoke after only drawing 4 cards or so, just because I drew a crappy hand. cards must flow and I would like to see each game end with both players fearing for their lives because their draw deck is almost empty. This would mean that both players had all the opportunities they needed to turn the game around. Will this also mean the game might be longer than other card games? perhaps, but I do not see that as a bad thing. If needed, some higher cost cards can be included to "speed" up the end game.

[innuendo]

I've tested that sort of resource system in some of my prototype games chokehold.  What it usually leads to is players not playing cards they otherwise would want to.  A chief rule in game design is to make sure you aren't making players do something they don't want to.  In this case you are making them play cards (they want to do that) but punishing them by giving the other player more life and more resources.

It can work if the game forces play somehow, but the rules I've seen for this don't.  Once I get enough forces out I'll just never play another card, it doesn't benefit me in any way, if my opponent keeps playing they are just getting closer to dieing.  It's like casting a lightning helix on yourself and letting the opponent get the life!

It may work if you make it so the resource isn't your life total, that way it's not *as* risky to play cards, but it will still hurt a little.

[eyerouge]

: xchokeholdx


I wrote an extensive answer and got 2h wasted when the page (or maybe it was FF) reloaded/did some magic to the page and it all became a cybermemory. This time around I'm writing this in gEdit & posting it once done, but I'll be more direct and won't go into long explanations due to time & patience. So please, don't take this as me being harsh or unfriendly - I'm just still traumatized over the loss

1. The resource system you suggest = double the work & administration. When I pay for _my_ cards & manage my own resources it also entails that the opponent has to manage his.

2. The system is also _maybe_ (with strong maybe here) too complicated: It would be simpler if what I paid equals what my opponent gets. I agree on that your suggested way of handling it with 2 variables (one for my cost, one for opponents gain) does indeed lead to more balance control and wider scope of resource handling. However, I think that it can be accomplished easily with other means instead if you'd choose to go with 1 variable instead of 1.

3. What happens when a player has 18 victory points (loyalty) - what incentive does his/her opponent have to play any card at all at that point, since playing them would result in loss of the game? Sure, there could be cards that cost/give 0 loyalty, but woyld they be a 30-50% of the game cards? And what would this mean if I was in that situation - I'm almost losing the game, I have powercards, I "can" play them, but if I do I will lose for sure. It seems to me it "ties up" the losing player when the opponent comes close to winning. (This crique resembles the one already given, which I also agree with, but it's form the other side)

4. I agree on it being a good call to strive to _not_ use the MTG resource system: Whatever the benefits of the MTG R-system (primarliy balancing between factions in meta game + balancing power of individual cards)  are it can be done in other & less tedious ways, and also without wasting 20-30% of the deck on resource realted cards.

5. Fully agree on keeping the number of "states" in the game low: A game that is heavy on administration will get less number of players. As simple as that. While I myself, and a lot of fellow nerds in all size shapes & colours, may enjoy complex games that take a day to a week to complete, the goal with WTactcis is _not_ to create such a game. Nor is it to create a game that plays within normal time but where very much of that time was spent in administering it instead of  _making decisions_ and _thinking_.

6. I'm skeptical that the power-up-with-loyalty while doing battles is a good idea: How often will it be used? If seldom, then make it a card instead. If often, then it prolongues the game and one of the win-conditions will seldom be triggered. On the other hand, it sure is an interesting concept worth testing, and I was born a skeptic so it doesn't matter much what I think =)

7. Placing cards (used resources) below the draw deck all the time is not smooth. It makes players constantly fiddle with the deck, lifting it, and sliding in cards non-stop. Instead I suggest you use another pile: The recycle/karma/resource graveyard-pile. Whenever a card is used up as resource put it _on top_of that pile. You may never look through the pile or re-arrange it unless a card tells you so. When your draw deck is deplted the recycle-pile becomes your drawdeck, and thus a new recycle pile will soon be born. When draw deck depletes and you have no recycle pile to replace it with you lose the game. All in all, this = much less administering.

8. I'll stop whining about you putting stuff in the wiki and will count on you doing that, as well as mailing me when it's time to playtest anything =) I'm free another month and then I will be much harder to come by as I'll only have time on weekends, so please make it happen as soon as you get the chance. (That said, IRL always comes first =)

9. Thanks for the art praises, but I don't create the art myself - I "only" pay for it. Sadly art is an expensive deal and I will likley only afford one faction (elves + friends), but the rest will be done as soon as others chip in with donations. Luckily this doesn't affect us creating the game as we can use placeholdes and simply replace them with the finished art when it becomes created. (We have pieces for 120 or so creatures and 10 or so new pieces, leaving around 100 pieces left in total for a core set...)

10. Agree on the card usage in a CCG, it should be there, at least in WT. It will be interesting to see if you manage to pull of your tight integreation of the resource system so it really affects the game in all the ways you want it to. It's a real challenge, but probably possible. If it succeeds it would in many ways surpass many other resoruce systems. Tight integration and dependence is good. =)

11. An example of something simillar is DoomTrooper CCG. The game is old as hell but has an beautiful universe, good graphics and feel. Sadly it has a million broken cards and is totally unbalanced. One of it's strengths though is it's resource system. It works as follows:

a) Resources stack/acumulate. What you earn, you keep between turns. The same for what you spend ofc

b) Every creature has a "gold" cost.

c) There are two ways to earn gold: Spending an AP to take gold from the bank and add it to your own gold pile OR to kill an opposing creature.

d) When you kill an opposing creature you get to freely distribute it's cost as x amount of  new gold added to your resource pile and/or y amount of victory points.

That's the basics of the DoomTrooper eco system, described in non-DT-terminology =) It's cool as it creates a direct relation between your resource managment and your path to victory: The more you spend on resources in the game, the less it seems you would win. And vice versa. Some kind of balance is needed to pull it off.

12. I'm not following: Why would the things you have laid out pro-longue the game? Because the game _only_ ends when a deck is empty? If so then yes, it could mean that the game would take longer time to play than others. Question would be how much longer. As for WT, one of the goals is to keep it around 1h in average (or whatever the average time of casual MtG is). If you add 10-20 minutes it's not a big deal if the time addition can be justified and _brings_ something which can't be done in the game in any other way with less time adding. But... one could easily regulate all this by simply lowering the amount of cards allowed in a deck and/or copies allowed of each card. Btw, for WT we must _never_ cross the 60 card per deck line (relates to player economy, competetion etc).

[xchokeholdx]

Sorry for the delayed reply. I am very busy right now remodeling my home, as a second mouth-to-feed is on its way (november)...

You guys all were right, the adapted system from the clone wars rules indeed punishes players too much to play cards, thus stalling the game and creating too much of a power swing each turn. This is not what I wanted it to be. I wanted to have a more balanced way. So back to the drawing board I say.

The next idea is basically the same, still with no real resources to use on cards, just the "flow" system (RED cards use up your turn, GREEN cards are "free").

What I am testing now is that for each GREEN card you play, your opponent will gain one influence. RED cards will not have this.

Result: If I want to flood the board and use Swarm tactics (e.g. playing loads of GREEN cards), I will be providing my opponent with a lot of Influence points, which he or she can use. A RED card will not do that, but will use up my turn.

Another side effect to this (and the "old" wrong system above) is that the win condition must change. having 0 or 20 influence will not suffice, as the game interferes too much with it, and it creates big balance swings as well. So currently I have only 1 win-condition, which is having no draw deck. (combat will target player's drawdecks). So I am looking for other win conditions.


I dont know how you feel about this, only having this as win condition.


What I could do is use the locations from Clone Wars as win condition. You know, like winning enough Political points on that planet to earn its Victory points or something.


As soon as the Dust settles in my home (1-2 weeks) I should have loads of time to figure it out.

Thanks for the detailed response.

[VladShadeu]

I ask you to forgive me for not putting much detail into this, usually I would but I'm not in the best of conditions right now.

As to the legality issue:
Creative Commons Free Distribution and Attribution Liscense.
Go find the CCL website and your problems shall be solved. GPL is a fantastic liscense, but it's written for everything this game ISNT so far, and thats a rules set. From my understanding, GPL is used so that publishers can produce NEW CONTENT for an EXISTING GAME whereas you are offering PREEXISTING CONTENT for NO GAME. The idea behind CCL is simple: What I am doing is not for profit. What you are doing is not for profit. Credit me, the liscense adds with a fond farewell and a tip of its hat. The point is, it's written along the ideals of internet distribution in it's ideal sense, where everyone is free to mess around with whatever they bloody well want to so long as proper credit is attached and no money changes hands. There are about five different versions of the lisense, I think my rabbling up at the top may be the proper one or you may need to look into it further. Either way, Liscense wise CCL is DEFINETELY the way to go. GPL seemed like more of a tag, something that you thought "oh, this is vaguely what I'm talking about" but it wasn't quite. And our lovely system designer was right about public domain, it is a grab bag for the money hungry corporate elite or those out there with no ideas of their own looking to score a few bucks. The way to go with this project is CCL, look into it, drop existing label, done.

Once more, sorry, mind not in the best of conditions at the moment.

[eyerouge]

xchokeholdx:

Sorry for the delayed reply. I am very busy right now remodeling my home, as a second mouth-to-feed is on its way (november)...

It's ok. All have real things to handle in their lives, it's even a point in the project's philosophy that all those things come first. Work on the rules when you get a chance to.

The next idea is basically the same, still with no real resources to use on cards, just the "flow" system (RED cards use up your turn, GREEN cards are "free").

What I am testing now is that for each GREEN card you play, your opponent will gain one influence. RED cards will not have this.

Result: If I want to flood the board and use Swarm tactics (e.g. playing loads of GREEN cards), I will be providing my opponent with a lot of Influence points, which he or she can use. A RED card will not do that, but will use up my turn.

For what purpose would the influence points be used? They are not resources to pay cards with, or are they? (Maybe they are only used to pay activated abilities etc?)  Or are they still the same as Victory Points?

I have only 1 win-condition, which is having no draw deck. (combat will target player's drawdecks). So I am looking for other win conditions.

Having just 1 win condition isn't necessarily a bad thing, in the same sense having several of them doesn't have to translate to a good thing. I also don't think that the no draw deck-condition is a bad one. The only draw back, and it's maybe a huge one depending on the size of the deck, is that the game would probably always take longer to finish than a game that offered other conditions (as well).

What I could do is use the locations from Clone Wars as win condition. You know, like winning enough Political points on that planet to earn its Victory points or something.

"Mission" cards (or Quest cards as they would be more thematically called in WTactics) are a possibility, as well as "location" cards, and could very well work as win conditions. Only problem I foresee with them is that if players put them into their drae deck we could end up with many games where the players just pursue their own internal goals (succeeding with the quest) and that, since the quests could be very different, it could lead to weird situations where player interaction is minimal and it could all be compared with yourself against a timer.

"Soft" win conditions (using cards etc, like suggested here) seem also to be way harder to balance than "hard" win conditions (those identified by the core rules).

I think the problems with figuring out multiple win conditions and making them not work symmetrical/synergical in a positive way is a really tough one when creating rules. And I also think that it is the only time they should be around - when being the leader towards one of them means that you are not, at the same time, the leader towards the other.

So, we have the problem of making actions in the game to not make you the leader in more than one win condition at the time, and then we have the problem of still having to put a red thread between the player interactions and the win conditions, so we don't create a game where the players can just pursue different win conditions and seldom interact.

VladShadeu

I ask you to forgive me for not putting much detail into this, usually I would but I'm not in the best of conditions right now.

I think it was enough of detail to deliver your point. Hopefully you'll also be in a better state soon.

. GPL is a fantastic liscense, but it's written for everything this game ISNT so far, and thats a rules set. /../ Either way, Liscense wise CCL is DEFINETELY the way to go. GPL seemed like more of a tag, something that you thought "oh, this is vaguely what I'm talking about" but it wasn't quite. And our lovely system designer was right about public domain, it is a grab bag for the money hungry corporate elite or those out there with no ideas of their own looking to score a few bucks. The way to go with this project is CCL, look into it, drop existing label, done.

I'll try to keep this equally brief, as it's a very interesting topic and I'm sure we could discuss it plenty:

1. I define "the game" as the "whole" and "finished" product. Meaning, a game, as I understand it, is not only the ruleset, but also it's cards, the artwork on them and everything else that it offers "in the package". This is especially true seen from the end users (players) perspective, and the way a normal player understands the terminology. Either everything in a game could be licensed using one and the same license or several licenses, or, some of it's parts could be licensed using one license, and other parts using another. These options seem to be both very legally viable, and all have their pros and cons.

2. Reason for why I went with the GPL for the whole game, this far, is that 120 of our art pieces are under the GPL. That is nothing that I can change, nor will I break the law by re-licensing them to anything else but a later GPL version. Thus, those 120 cards, must probably be licensed under the GPL. That however, doesn't prohibit us from licensing the rest of the cards in the game under whatever licenses we want.

3. As for the CC: The one I'm looking into is the CC-BY-SA license. I will, as soon as I have understood it fully/more than I do currently, think about using it AND the GPL licenses for all our new cards (meaning, all except the 120 pieces mentioned above). Thus, every card in the game will have it's own license. But, all cards will have open licenses, making the game fully legal and modable etc. Doing this is, from what I have seen, legal and problem free. The only important thing to remember about it is that "the game" has no license. Every component of it has it's own license(s). Meaning, the rules can be released using one, the cards using another etc. To the player all of this doesn't matter at all in the end and doesn't show. It doesn't take away any freedoms whatsoever, since I would never go with non-free licenses.

4. As for the public domain, I wouldn't willingly put the game in it, as I don't see what benefit that would have to anyone in the world except for people that want to exploit you/me/whoever contributes to this project. I am an advocate of copyleft. Public domain isn't copyleft, as it allows copyright to be enforced on the derivatives from the public domain.

[xchokeholdx]

For what purpose would the influence points be used? They are not resources to pay cards with, or are they? (Maybe they are only used to pay activated abilities etc?)  Or are they still the same as Victory Points?

Influence points are indeed used for a lot of cool things:
1. To draw extra card at the end of your turn. (one influence point is one card)
2. To use in combat (one influence point is +1 strength)
3. To pay for abilities on cards in play (Pay 2 influence to do xxxx)

It might be even more beneficial (will test this) to add the following:
RED cards use up your whole turn
GREEN cards you may play as much as you want.

RED cards. You MAY GAIN one influence point when played.
GREEN cards. Opponent MAY GAIN one influence point when played.

for reference: when you gain 1 influence, place the top card of your draw deck face down on the table. When you lose/use 1 influence, place a card from your influence "pool" back underneath your draw deck. So there is no penalty for having 0 or 2, or 14 influence, but if you got a lot of them, Combat becomes a lot easier, even though the 14 face down cards you have (for example) will count towards an empty draw deck. especially late game, any influence you gain might prove fatal. (unless you are able to use it during combat or with abilities).

Other cards can easily be created to trigger of Influence. for example: XX is STR+2 while you have 5 influence or more. YY drains 3 cards if opponent has 4 influence or less, etc..etc..

the nice thing is that Influence now is a resource not tied to the cards you are able to play, but still impacts a lot of things.

Just imagine being able to create a peaceful ranger deck that skips combat each turn while you are unable to get rid of your 34 influence due to that (you are unable to use it in combat). Sure you could draw the cards, but your deck is still 34 cards closer to being empty.

Having just 1 win condition isn't necessarily a bad thing, in the same sense having several of them doesn't have to translate to a good thing. I also don't think that the no draw deck-condition is a bad one. The only draw back, and it's maybe a huge one depending on the size of the deck, is that the game would probably always take longer to finish than a game that offered other conditions (as well).

Deck size will be standard 60 cards (or even lower if needed). If you add some starting cards and a good starting hand, (8 cards or so), that can easily speed up this win condition. Add to that the extra cards you can draw with the Influence you gain/create, the cards you lose from your draw deck through combat, and the time to complete a game will go down a lot.

"Mission" cards (or Quest cards as they would be more thematically called in WTactics) are a possibility, as well as "location" cards, and could very well work as win conditions. Only problem I foresee with them is that if players put them into their drae deck we could end up with many games where the players just pursue their own internal goals (succeeding with the quest) and that, since the quests could be very different, it could lead to weird situations where player interaction is minimal and it could all be compared with yourself against a timer.

Maybe it will be easier to see with an example. The "main" win condition will be to deplete an opponent's draw deck, but the Mission/location cards make EXCELLENT opportunities for a second win condition, without going into the "solitary deck building" and "less interaction" danger zone:

there may only be ONE location/mission in play at any time. BOTH players will be able to attempt/solve that mission/location to score VP point, or just the card itself (score 5 to win the game, or score xx VP to win the game, still up for testing).

Nice thing is, that EACH player will be able to play a new location/mission when they have one in hand, meaning that the one in play will be discarded. This will be an automatic failsafe for players thinking to just solve a few of their Missions and be done with it. Not if an opponent plays another one which your deck can not handle.

the second ability of having just one location in play is to easily being able to determine who goes first each turn and who has priority. The player owning the location goes first. This can be a deciding factor for the assignment of creatures for combat, for example, so having some locations in your deck would be helpful. Sometimes you want to go first, sometimes you want to go second to see what creatures your opponent plays.

Players will use locations, not only to be able to go first (assigning my weak creature with a massive game text to your weak creature is good I hear), but also to prevent somewhat my opponent going for a VP win with their missions (yeah, solve THAT mission sucker!), AND it automatically provides an "out" for when the game stalls (yeah, that decking thing does not work so good, lets try something else while I am at it.)

Try to see it this way:

"hmm, my opponent already has 12 VP, and is about to solve another mission. Maybe I should play that difficult mission card in my hand, but that will mean that I have to play first next turn, so my opponent can easier react to the creature(s) I play that turn, but on the other hand, I do get to assign first this turn, so that will be helpful." Gotta love decision making!

Locations/missions will of course also be tied to the Flow! (creating influence and having RED/GREEN ones).

Just to be sure, there must be no mix of missions and locations cards, just one. Maybe another name will do: Global Event? Obstacle card? any name will do.

So, we have the problem of making actions in the game to not make you the leader in more than one win condition at the time, and then we have the problem of still having to put a red thread between the player interactions and the win conditions, so we don't create a game where the players can just pursue different win conditions and seldom interact.

with the additional "location/misson" cards I described above not. Player will still play creatures (even if it are just RED ones), to drain cards from an opponent?s draw deck. Being able to solve/take control of a misson/location card is a nice way to have not only a second win condition, but also to keep the game flowing forward. For example: Having a lot of defensive creatures is a nice way to prevent cards being drained from your draw deck, but it does not prevent your opponent from completing 5 missions/getting xx VP's, because you can only control what missions are in play on a limited basis, and stocking up too many missions in your deck is a sure road to losing the game. A fine balance needs to be found.

For example, a mission could read: use (1) influence. If you control 5 or more RED creatures, complete this mission.
Adding a VP victory point to the card is optional, but could be used for balancing issues.

"solved" missions are put to the side for easy reference (get to 5 missions and win, or to 10-20 Vp and win). No need to write stuff down, just a basic 2+3+1+2=8 VP on cards easily visible on the table.

Solving a mission for example might be a RED action (thus spending your whole turn to do so). that is no problem is you are doing missions, but it will be a problem for your draw deck, as your opponent will still be able to play creatures and "drain" the living hell out of your draw deck.

solving a mission could also have another "cost" to it, like forfeiting all assignments for that turn or needing to have and lose 4 influence. This would mean that Solving missions will come at a price for the other win condition (no draw deck), creating a nice balance for players thinking to be smart and focusing on just one win condition.

the no-draw-deck win condition will be the main one, which all players more or less automatically work towards. the solving missions win condition is a second win condition which users might be tempted to take one every now and then, for whatever reason that might be (losing on the other win condition, and going for a last resort attempt for example).

So will players add Locations to their deck? I think they will, for various reasons already explained:
1. To be able to go first with assigning creatures.
2. To prevent an easy mission win from my opponent
3. To have a second win con if needed.

if this fails, a simple deck building rule can easily be created (your deck needs to have xx missions)

will do some rough testing when I get that stupid Ceiling Fan to stop wobbling!

[eyerouge]

Saw you finally started to add the rules to the wiki. I've PM:ed you about that in here. Please feel free to proceed with whooping up the cards as well =)