ardanet-developers — Developer discussion forum

[Ardanet-developers] playing and keying hazards

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

We got into a discussion of playing and keying hazards today, forwarded
below, and here are my added thoughts.  There's some good intro discussion
quoted below, way down at the end.

 

Adding new stuff to the discussion.

 

 

So there should be a special way to play a hazard which is not exactly the
same as the generic method of playing any card at any time.

 

When you play a hazard, you need to define 3 things, and by normal game
rules, you would declare them in this order:

1)       What is the hazard keyed to?

2)       What is the hazard's target?

3)       Does it count against the hazard limit?

 

 

2. What is the hazard's target?

 

It makes more sense to start with this one.

 

Every card that enters play, whether a hazard or not, must always have a
target.  There can only be one target, and there must be one target.  The
target it either another card (card instance ID) or a game play area.  If a
card is played "in play" not targeting any other specific card, then the
card's target is the "in play game area"

 

Creature hazards are played on a company.  The company is a game area.  The
creature hazard is defined as targeting the company's "game area" object in
the game document.  Assigning strikes comes later.  I'm not going to get
into that in this message.

 

A corruption card targets a character card.  The character card targets its
company game area.

 

The best way to define a UI for this is drag and drop.  Drag the card from
your hand and drop it on its target, either a card or a game area (release
mouse over the empty space or a special icon for "the company" or "the game
area" to place a new root card).

 

I think it's technically out of order to choose the target first, before
declaring how your hazard is keyed, but it makes more intuitive sense for
the UI and the natural flow of play.  I don't think there's any impact on
the game rules by doing this first.

 

Actually, we should back up and discuss:

 

How to Play a Hazard

 

There are a couple of ways to "Play a Hazard" for which you need to define
these 3 things

A)      play a card from your hand

a.       just put it "in play"

b.       on a company

c.       on a character or other card

B)      activate a card in play

a.       usually tap and discard of a hazard permanent event

b.       More generically: Tap but don't discard any kind of card as
activating a hazard

                                                               i.      Then
discard it manually as a separate step

c.       Is this kind of action ever Keyed to the site path?  Is it always
unkeyed?

                                                               i.
Should we ask how it's keyed?

d.       Does this kind of action always tap the card?

                                                               i.      Tap
it manually as a separate step?

 

I guess that's it.

 

Activating a card that's already in play could have all the same targets as
playing a card from your hand.

 

So this is what I mean by "On play of a hazard" . 

1) you select a hazard card, either in play or in your hand

2) you click a button or right click and select "play hazard"

3) somehow you select a target.  Maybe you drag and drop to imply the "play
hazard" command and the target at the same time, or use alternative UIs to
select these actions more methodically.  Multiple options should be
available.

4) somehow you indicate how it is keyed, see below

 

 

1. What is the hazard keyed to?

 

Most hazards are played keyed to the site path, and it's important to keep
track of how the hazard was keyed, in order to be able to use resources like
Elven Cloak: tap Elven Cloak cancel a strike against the bearer keyed to
Wilderness.

 

Note that some hazards can be played "unkeyed" such as corruption cards or
nazgul as permanent events.

 

We can create a list of options

*	Keyed to site by name
*	Keyed to site by type
*	Keyed to site by containing region
*	Keyed to region by name
*	Keyed to region by type
*	Keyed to region by repeating type
*	Not Keyed

 

The list is generated based on the available options which are determined
entirely by the site path of the current company that's moving.  Only the
specific options you can use right now would be listed, with the details
filled in, so the list above is logical categories, and the list below is
what the UI would display.

 

For a starter movement site path from Lorien to The Lonely Mountain, the
keying options would be:

*	Keyed to The Lonely Mountain
*	Keyed to Ruins and Lairs
*	Keyed to a site in Northern Rhovanion
*	Keyed to Northern Rhovanion
*	Keyed to Wold & Foothills
*	Keyed to Wilderness
*	Keyed to Wilderness x2
*	Keyed to Borderland
*	Keyed to Borderland x2
*	Not Keyed / Other

 

For a Region Movement site path from Lorien to The Lonely Mountain, the list
would add two items in bold, because we have two more ways to key the
hazard:

*	Keyed to The Lonely Mountain
*	Keyed to Ruins and Lairs
*	Keyed to a site in Northern Rhovanion
*	Keyed to Northern Rhovanion
*	Keyed to Wold & Foothills
*	Keyed to Anduin Vales
*	Keyed to Woodland Realm
*	Keyed to Wilderness
*	Keyed to Wilderness x2
*	Keyed to Borderland
*	Keyed to Borderland x2
*	Not Keyed / Other

 

Many cards have more complicated rules for how they can be played keyed to
the site path . something like. may be played keyed to a company with a
ranger moving through at least 2 wilderness or arriving at a site in Anduin
Vales, Woodland Realm, Western Mirkwood, or Heart of Mirkwood. +2 to the
hazard limit.  (That is a terrible example, especially because I said "keyed
to a company" which is incorrect. anyone want to give a concrete example?)
In the complicated cases, you would select from the more limited list, in
this case "Keyed to Wilderness x2" and your opponent would see that
satisfies the requirements of the card.

 

How do we do the UI for this?  Here are some options I see, and I'd like to
hear more brainstorming.

 

A) On play of the hazard (as a hazard during the movement/hazard phase while
a company is moving), Prompt the user with a dialog box showing radio
buttons for all these options.  Default to "Not Keyed" so you can quickly
just hit enter.

 

This would occur before the card goes into play and before you send a packet
to your opponent indicating that as your move.  Completing this selection to
answer the prompt, after you click OK, it sends the packet indicating both
the target (card or game area) and how you keyed the hazard.

 

I like the idea of having a reminder, but it could be annoying to be
prompted for every hazard.

 

 

B) Default all hazards to "Not Keyed" but you can right-click on the hazard
after it's in play, and get a popup menu, select Keyed To -> as a submenu,
and then select from one of these options as a checkable menu item.

 

This approach would make it possible to ignore this feature of the program
for more casual game play, but you would have to always remember to declare
how it was keyed.

 

 

C)      Drag and drop the card onto something in the site path to select
from a more limited list based only on that site or that region that you
selected.  This would be how you initiate playing the hazard, so they how
would you select a target?

 

It seems like any way we slice it with keying hazards, it has to be a 2-step
process to play a hazard.  How can we make it a one-step process and declare
both the target and the keyed-to at the same time?  Did I just prove it's
impossible, or can we think outside the box?  Option B above is a 1-step
process, but returns us to the NetMECCG paradigm of completely forgetting
about keying hazards.

 

I am leaning towards option A - just prompt the user prior to sending the
packet, and it's just too bad you have to be prompted every time, oh well.
This prompt could also provide some feedback to make sure you selected the
target you intended.

 

 

3. Does it count against the hazard limit?

 

There are cards that change the hazard limit (all manner of
short/long/permanent events and effects with hazard limit times 2 or +2, +N,
*N, etc), so the hazard limit itself must be under manual control.

 

But we don't want to forget to decrement it each time we play a hazard, in
order to keep track of how many more we can play, so we want each play of a
hazard card to automatically reduce the remaining hazards that can be played
during this phase for this company.

 

But sometimes they don't count.  There are cards that change whether other
hazards count against the limit or not.  For example, Gothmog: Trolls played
after Gothmog do not count against the hazard limit.

 

The game engine doesn't know the details of the Gothmog card (not until we
write a C++ function describing the rules for every card in the game, which
is version 3 or 4) so it is up to the user to declare whether this card
counts against the limit.

 

I think this is always 1 or 0 count against the hazard limit.  I am not
aware of any cards that count double against the hazard limit, or otherwise
count as more than 1.

 

How do we prompt for this?  I definitely don't want playing a hazard to be a
3-step process eww!  But we could have a checkbox on the prompt for how it's
keyed [X] Count against hazard limit

 

 

Some examples

 

Let's say I have a company moving from Lorien to The Lonely Mountain with
Region Movement.

 

You want to play a Cave Drake on me.

 

You do this by selecting the Cave Drake from your hand, and dragging it the
little fellowship icon in my target company's window, indicating you are
playing the Cave Drake targeting my company.

 

A dialog window comes up, that looks like this

 

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

Play "Cave Drake" on Company: "Company 2"

1 of 2 hazards remaining, 1 played so far

 

(radio buttons)

*         Not Keyed / Other / Undeclared (default)

*         Keyed to The Lonely Mountain

*         Keyed to Ruins and Lairs

*         Keyed to a site in Northern Rhovanion

*         Keyed to Northern Rhovanion

*         Keyed to Wold & Foothills

*         Keyed to Anduin Vales

*         Keyed to Woodland Realm

*         Keyed to Wilderness

*         Keyed to Wilderness x2

*         Keyed to Borderland

*         Keyed to Borderland x2

 

[X] Count against the hazard limit

You will be able to play 0 more hazards after this one

 

[OK] [Cancel]

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

 

You select "Keyed to Ruins and Lairs" and press OK or hit the Enter key.

 

The game sends me a packet declaring your action.

 

The hazard limit is auto-decremented because you left the checkbox checked.

 

The Cave Drake moves from your hand window to my company's window for
Company 2.

 

Note that Companies can be renamed by played, so it could be "Aragorn's
Company" or "Raiders of Beleriand" whatever the player entered, in which
case the window title has that name, as well as the target in the "Play
hazard prompt window"

 

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

Play "Cave Drake" on Company: "Raiders of Belediand"

1 of 2 hazards remaining, 1 played so far

 

(radio buttons)

*         Not Keyed / Other / Undeclared (default)

*         Keyed to The Lonely Mountain

*         Keyed to Ruins and Lairs

*         Keyed to a site in Northern Rhovanion

*         Keyed to Northern Rhovanion

*         Keyed to Wold & Foothills

*         Keyed to Anduin Vales

*         Keyed to Woodland Realm

*         Keyed to Wilderness

*         Keyed to Wilderness x2

*         Keyed to Borderland

*         Keyed to Borderland x2

 

[X] Count against the hazard limit

You will be able to play 0 more hazards after this one

 

[OK] [Cancel]

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

 

Let's say you already played some hazards, one of which lets you play cave
drakes without counting them against the hazard limit, and another which
increased the hazard limit.  The hazard limit, number of hazards played, and
number remaining would all be tracked

 

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

Play "Cave Drake" on Company: "Raiders of Belediand"

0 of 4 hazards remaining, 5 played so far

 

(radio buttons)

*         Not Keyed / Other / Undeclared (default)

*         Keyed to The Lonely Mountain

*         Keyed to Ruins and Lairs

*         Keyed to a site in Northern Rhovanion

*         Keyed to Northern Rhovanion

*         Keyed to Wold & Foothills

*         Keyed to Anduin Vales

*         Keyed to Woodland Realm

*         Keyed to Wilderness

*         Keyed to Wilderness x2

*         Keyed to Borderland

*         Keyed to Borderland x2

 

[  ] Count against the hazard limit

You will be able to play 0 more hazards after this one

 

[OK] [Cancel]

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

 

Note that more hazards have been played (5) than the hazard limit (4).  This
is because one of the cards didn't count against the limit.  I like the idea
of being able to see how much I've been able to exceed the hazard limit.

 

Since there are zero remaining, the "count against the limit" box is
unchecked by default.  It should show up in a different color to warn that
you're not counting this card against the limit, an unusual case you don't
want to do by accident.  If you check the box, it will remain red and show

 

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

Play "Cave Drake" on Company: "Raiders of Belediand"

0 of 4 hazards remaining, 5 played so far

 

(radio buttons)

*         Not Keyed / Other / Undeclared (default)

*         Keyed to The Lonely Mountain

*         Keyed to Ruins and Lairs

*         Keyed to a site in Northern Rhovanion

*         Keyed to Northern Rhovanion

*         Keyed to Wold & Foothills

*         Keyed to Anduin Vales

*         Keyed to Woodland Realm

*         Keyed to Wilderness

*         Keyed to Wilderness x2

*         Keyed to Borderland

*         Keyed to Borderland x2

 

[X] Count against the hazard limit

WARNING: Playing this card will illegally exceed the hazard limit

 

[OK] [Cancel]

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

 

Along with the color coding, selecting "Not Keyed" should appear in red as a
warning if it is selected, but appear in normal black if a real Keyed-To
value is selected.  Just to remind you to select something if it applies.

 

-- Ris

 

 

  _____  

From: Birk, Joshua 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 5:31 PM
To: Ris Misner
Subject: RE: Darnassus and Ardanet

 

So about hazards.  I'm remembering more about it now.  It slowly comes back
to me, lol.  I think for corruption hazards they're really played ON a
character not keyed to anything, or played into general hazards as an
overall effect.  What each hazard is specifically keyed to is very important
and needs to be documented, not only to make sure it's valid but also
because certain abilities on both hazards and resources are only available
when the hazard is keyed in certain ways.  A hazard that can be keyed in
more way than one on a particular site path definitely needs to be declared
for the playing of these other cards.  So we should require that the keying
of any creature with such type of requirements be declared through the game
interface somehow.  It should be easy to use as well, cause I found the
right click and search through 100 options method in NetMeccg to be a little
slow and annoying.  It should only list the options available for that
particular hazard or something (with an "other option" to always be able to
override the program assuming player "always knows best").  Know what I
mean?

 

Later,

Josh

 

  _____  

From: Ris Misner 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 12:16 PM
To: Birk, Joshua
Subject: RE: Darnassus and Ardanet

 

Hi Josh,

 

I agree about skipping some weeks on Ardanet debugging, and I want to focus
on honing my skills for Worlds anyway :P

 

You asked about the hazards. yes playing Adunaphel and then using him counts
as 2 separate hazards.  This kind of thing is why we need to automate
counting the hazard count played vs. the limit, cuz NetMECCG you keep track
of the hazard limit in your head and we always forget.

 

You can play a hazard keyed to the destination site, but not the origin
site.

 

You can't play a hazard in the site phase, but you can play the hazard on
guard during the movement hazard phase so that it becomes revealed and takes
effect during the site phase.  If you want to play a hazard on guard, you
can bluff and play any card, but for a revealable/applicable on-guard hazard
that can actually take effect, it must be keyed to the destination site.  I
don't think you can play a cave drake on guard keyed to wilderness, but you
could play the cave drake on guard keyed to ruins and lairs at a ruins and
lairs site.  I've tried to read up clarifications about the details of
on-guard hazards and I only get more confused.  Maybe you CAN key it to the
regions or site path other than the destination site?  Not sure now that I
think about it.

 

If the company doesn't move, you can only key hazards to the site.

 

If you're using starter movement, you can't key hazards to named regions
even if you're looking at the map knowing that the site path from Rivendel
to Lorien is wwbw . you know that route has to go through Anduin Vales to
make that site path, because it's the only borderland around, but since it's
starter movement, you can't key to Anduin Vales by name, you can only key to
the borderland - no matter what you know in this case, you don't REALLY know
for sure that it's Anduin Values, it's just an unspecified borderland region
(even though you could look at the map and logically deduce that it must be
Anduin Vales, that logical deduction isn't allowed by the rules).

 

However, I believe you can key to the origin and destination regions by name
because those are listed on the origin and destination site cards, so for
starter movement from Rivendel to Lorien, you can key hazards to Rhudaur and
Wold&Foothills by name.

 

If you're staying at the same site in Lorien, I can't key hazards to the
wilderness region or Wold&Foothills, and can only key to the site itself
(haven in this case).

 

There are hazards that can be "keyed to sites in the following regions" in
which case you are keying on the site based on the region it's in, and not
actually keying to the region itself.

 

So this makes me realize that we need an improved interface for playing a
hazard as a hazard.  Instead of just "play on company" like we were doing
last night, we need the game UI to track a reminder for us about what the
hazard was keyed to. think about it.  Maybe the company would have it's
region list shown with the region cards (or icons for the unspecified
regions with starter movement) and when you play the hazard, you play it on
the thing it's keyed to.  Then you'd get prompted with options based on the
target you selected, so if I key a hazard to your destination site Lorien, I
would be prompted with options like:

*	Key to "Lorien" by name
*	Key to Haven
*	Key to "any site in Wold&Foothills"
*	Not keyed (??)

 

Are corruption hazards keyed to something?  That is, are there hazards that
aren't keyed to anything at all?  What do we call that?  "unkeyed"?  Keyed
to the company?

 

Putting a nazgul into play as a permanent event is not keyed to anything,
it's just a general hazard.  "General Hazard" is that what we call unkeyed
hazards?

 

 

All of the above is based on my fuzzy memory of hazards. I'm glad we both
have differenty overlapping holes in our memory so we can remind each other
about what we forgot lol.  Saves time on a lot of research.

 

-- Ris

 

 

  _____  

From: Birk, Joshua 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 1:33 PM
To: Ris Misner
Subject: Darnassus and Ardanet

 

Hi Ris,

 

So ardanet debugging was pretty cool last night.  Especially the fact that
we got it working now!  We can keep testing stuff like that when you're
ready for it, it's totally fun to do, and I can work on other stuff in
between test runs.  But I don't think I want to do that every week, or I'll
get burned out :P  We need to play more NetMECCG :-)  That was pretty cool
remembering how to play the game and figuring out the program again and
stuff.  Funny how we had such deadly first turns for both of us, lol.  

 

One thing I was thinking about thoguh was how I was playing my hazards.
First I think playing a nazgul and using it is 2 hazards not one, and
second, can you play something keyed to the site where you arrive or can
that only be played during site phase?  I totally forget that now!  I need
to go find my hard copy maps too cause it will be easier to plan stuff out
and things while watching the screen at the same time..  It's time to dig
out the cards and lists again too I think.  I want to get a comprehensive
list of the cards I have and the ones I need.  My plan is to eventually have
at least 1 copy of all the English cards printed (not caring about limited
vs. unlimited though).

 

-Josh

[Ardanet-developers] Website

[Josh H. <jo...@hu...>]

Hey All,
Since I'm not up to speed in c++, Ris suggested a good way to help out would
be for me to work on the website.  So what kind of info do we want to post
up there?  Is there a logo I can use to start from, or do we still need a
logo?  I'm not much of a graphic artist, but I can try my hand at coming up
with something at least for now if we don't already have something.  Also
pass on any ideas for what we want there.

Two applications I would suggest we integrate into the website for different
uses:  a forum and a bug tracker.  I'm not a huge fan of Sourceforge's bug
tracker.  It works, but it's not the greatest.  Especially when we have a
great program like Bugzilla (http://www.bugzilla.org/) already out there.
For the forum, I'm very familiar with phpbb (www.phpbb.org), but if you have
a different one in mind, I'm up for giving anything a try.

--Josh H.
jo...@hu...

Re: [Ardanet-developers] planning for Worlds - handout materials

[Josh H. <jo...@hu...>]

>
> So far I got the time off work and arranged a place to stay.  I priced
> airline tickets but didn't buy yet.  Still need to get pre-registered for
> the qualifier and hope there are openings.  If I can't get into the
> tournament, this whole plan could fall apart.
>

You'll have no problem getting in...there's plenty of space left, and as far
as I can remember no one has been turned away from Worlds. :)

I want to take some hand-outs with me to give to people who are interested.
> Something with our website address on it, a very brief description, maybe a
> logo, our plea for help...  Any suggestions about this?
>

Something small, with the website address and maybe some brief info on the
project would probably be plenty.  Business-card size might be perfect.
http://www.vistaprint.com/ <-- These guys are cheap and good.  If you get
the free ones, they just put their logo and website on the back (or that's
how it used to be when I've used them).

>
> What exactly should my hand-out materials say?
>
>
>
> Ardanet: The superior solution for playing MECCG online with other
> players, including play-assisting features and guides, but still flexible.
> In the face of NetMECCG and GCCG, we were disappointed, and designed
> Ardanet.  Visit us at http://ardanet.sourceforge.net/ for more
> information, to volunteer, or offer your suggestions.
>
This sounds good to me, but I would maybe change the second sentance.  Make
it something like "NetMECCG and GCCG were good programs in their day, but we
knew they could be better, so we designed Ardanet."  Otherwise I think it
sounds good.


> I think it needs something about the project's newness.  I liked the
> "project infancy" wording from my meccg.net post, but hmmm, maybe I just
> TELL them verbally that it's new, without printing that on the hand-out
> materials?
>
I agree. You can just tell them this when passing out info.  That way if
they put the info on the shelf and don't look at it for 4 months or
whatever, they will still want to go take a look.

--Josh H.

> -- Ris
>

[Ardanet-developers] planning for Worlds - handout materials

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

Hi Team,

 

I'm working on my travel plans to go to Worlds '07 in NY.  I want to use the
opportunity to spread the word about Ardanet and recruit more volunteers.

 

So far I got the time off work and arranged a place to stay.  I priced
airline tickets but didn't buy yet.  Still need to get pre-registered for
the qualifier and hope there are openings.  If I can't get into the
tournament, this whole plan could fall apart.

 

I want to take some hand-outs with me to give to people who are interested.
Something with our website address on it, a very brief description, maybe a
logo, our plea for help...  Any suggestions about this?

 

Should I print out full page fliers on 8.5x11 paper?  That seems too big.
Cut them into halves or quarters?  Fold it in thirds to make a pamphlet?

 

Should I have business cards printed?  Would 200 be enough?  100?  If it's
not too expensive, I don't mind paying for this.  Are business cards big
enough to say enough about the project?

 

OK I'll give this advertising project a budget of $50 out of pocket, though
I'd prefer NOT to spend any money.

 

Can you think of a good way to use MECCG cards as the hand-out material?
Maybe use a bunch of commons and tape something onto the face?

 

What exactly should my hand-out materials say?

 

Ardanet: The superior solution for playing MECCG online with other players,
including play-assisting features and guides, but still flexible. In the
face of NetMECCG and GCCG, we were disappointed, and designed Ardanet.
Visit us at http://ardanet.sourceforge.net/ for more information, or to
volunteer, or offer your suggestions.

 

I think it needs something about the project's newness.  I liked the
"project infancy" wording from my meccg.net post, but hmmm, maybe I just
TELL them verbally that it's new, without printing that on the hand-out
materials?

 

Need brainstorming suggestions here on all aspects.

 

-- Ris

[Ardanet-developers] new Who Is document

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

Hi Team,

 

I created a new document today on the sourceforge site called "Who Is on the
Development Team"

 

You can find it here:
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=52781
<http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=52781&group_id=192968>
&group_id=192968

 

"Here is a brief synopsis listing each member of our development team, the
division of responsibilities, and roughly how much time we're all spending
on the project."

 

I intend to add entries for anyone new we bring onto the project.

 

The main purpose of this document is to introduce the existing team to new
team members when we recruit more volunteers.  It's also meant to help the
team members find who is the best person to ask for assistance on a
particular issue (if not this general mailing list) and I will also use it
for project management to help me suggest task assignments.

 

I would be glad to edit this document to show anything you want me to put on
there, just email your info to this list, or to me directly.  You both have
at least a minimal entry already, but I assume you will both have changes
you want to make.

 

Also, all developers on the project should have access rights to edit these
docs, so you can edit it for yourself if you like, and you're welcome to
maintain a small profile here for yourself.  Where it says "Submit new
<http://sourceforge.net/docman/new.php?group_id=192968>  documentation |
View <http://sourceforge.net/docman/index.php?group_id=192968>
Documentation | Admin
<http://sourceforge.net/docman/admin/index.php?group_id=192968> " Click on
Admin, you may be prompted to re-enter your password, and then click on the
name of the document again and you should be given the chance to edit it.
If the site blocks you from doing this, then please let me know and I will
fix your permissions.

 

Be aware that when editing these documents, the formatting restrictions are
limited to very few HTML tags.  When you are done, you should always go back
out to view the document to make sure it displays the way you intended.  The
slightest error with your HTML can cause the whole document to fail to show
up.  I also noticed a funky sourceforge or IE bug today that to submit my
changes editing one of these docs, the button wouldn't let me click with my
mouse, but the Enter key worked.  That's weird, the mouse clicks always
worked before. So anyway there's a bit of a learning curve involved with
editing the documents in this area, so like I said, I don't mind making the
changes for you if you give me your info.  That said, I would still
appreciate it if the whole team would help maintain the Who Is and all the
other documents in this area as much as possible.

 

Getting back to "Who Is on the Development Team" doc specifically, you can
put any amount of info you want and be as specific or vague as you want.
There's a "time commitment" listed.  I estimated some numbers.  You could
write "varies" or anything you want.  Or you don't have to put anything at
all, if you want me to limit your entry in this document to two words:
username@sourceforge, then we can do that too.  You're welcome to assign
your own title to the Role: part, or add any other notes you want.  You
don't have to follow my format.  The point is to list what you want the rest
of the team to know about you.  While I appreciate verbosity and detail, in
this case please try to keep it brief.  We all have more thorough
sourceforge profile pages to list our full resumes.

 

-- Ris

[Ardanet-developers] Recent discussion of card templates

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

Below you will find a forwarded discussion between Ris Misner and Josh Birk
about how to draw cards on the screen.  In the few days since my last
message on this topic below, I have had some new thinking on this issue, so
there's some new stuff here too.

 

My thinking has been to use a dialog window with transparent controls and a
replaceable background image to dynamically create a display for any card as
needed.  Most of them show the same information in the same places, so I
imagine we can define this layout using the Visual Studio visual dialog
editor, which is a WYSIWYG editor where you can drag and drop things where
you want them to layout the contents of a window.  The layout of the dialog
and where you wanted to position everything is stored as a "dialog template
resource" in the application executable's resource table (see also the
Ardanet.rc source code file).  There are a variety of "common controls"
offered by the Windows API libraries to render things like text boxes, list
boxes, scroll bars, images, and so forth.  It's easy to associate event
handlers and runtime variables with these common controls.  All in all,
working with dialog windows is nice, so I prefer to use dialog templates
whenever possible.  The alternative is a custom drawn window which requires
more code to "manually" draw each element on the screen, and handling any
interactivity is extremely difficult without using common controls for child
windows.  To add special behavior to a common control, rather than make a
new custom control, one will typically subclass an existing common control.

 

In the few days since my last message on this topic below, I have had some
new thinking on this issue.  I was considering what it will take to tap a
card - to rotate a card window that is shown with a dialog template resource
and a CDialog-derived class.  The Windows API doesn't offer any native
capability to rotate a whole window.  We have to resize and redraw the
window to create the illusion that the window is rotated by repositioning
all of the contents of the window and rotating each individual item.

 

There are text drawing functions that allow you to write text sideways, as
needed on a tapped card.  But the common controls don't offer that feature
by default, so we would have to subclass all of those transparent text boxes
in order to add the feature we need to rotate a card window in order to
indicate it as tapped, and still draw all the text on it sideways.

 

Rotating the card art image is actually pretty easy, as well as icons.  It's
only the text that presents us with some problems where I'm not so sure the
dialog template idea is going to work out as well as I first hoped.

 

I have a couple of ideas in mind to approach the rotated text issue.

 

A)      Subclass the EDIT control so we can render them rotated 90/180/270
as needed.  This would theoretically support input boxes that are rotated so
that the card is editable in this view while it is in-play.  We could still
use dialog template resources to create, edit, and maintain the window
layout, as well as Visual Studio tools to assist setting up event handlers
and the relationship between runtime variables and window data.



B)      Do it as a custom-drawn window and use GDI routines to draw all of
the information on the card window.  This would not be interactive, and a
separate editor window would be used to edit the card, and the cards would
not be editable while in play from that view (maybe a double click opens the
interactive edit view).  The interactive edit view would still be driven by
a dialog template resource so we can make it interactive (interactive custom
drawn windows are virtually impossible without using child windows that are
common controls like a dialog window).  The in-game view of the card would
be custom drawn with GDI routines to DrawText() with the parameters to draw
sideways for tapped cards.  We would NOT be able to use the visual resource
editor to define and maintain the layout of this window and instead we'd
have to define a custom data table in the code or use an XML file or
something to define the pixel coordinates of where to draw everything.  The
plus side of this approach is that I think it would be easier to implement
the custom draw routines than to subclass the common controls for rotation.

 

The more I think about this, the more I think we need to do custom-drawn
option B.

 

Consider the concept of "shadow cards" or "ghost cards".  This is an idea we
had about how to keep track of a card that's having a global effect and
which specific cards it's effecting.  For example if Scimitars of Steel is
in play, this is a hazard permanent event that gives +1 prowess to all orc
attacks.  Then we play an orc creature hazard, for example Orc-warband.
Scimitars of Steel gives +1 Prowess to the Orc-warband, and we want the
in-game play assisting features and calculators to count this bonus
automatically.  So I click on Scimitars of Steel and drag it onto
Orc-warband to play the Scimitars of Steel on the Orc-warband the same way I
would play a Sword of Gondolin on Aragorn.  However, that's not appropriate,
because when I discard Aragorn, I want to automatically discard his Sword of
Gondolin at the same time, because the Sword directly targets Aragorn.  The
Scimitars of Steel does NOT directly target the Orc-warband, and I don't
want to discard Scimitars of Steel when I discard the Orc-warband.  SO.
instead of playing the Scimitars of Steel on the Orc-warband, I play a
"shadow card" of the Scimitars of Steel on the Orc-warband.  This serves as
a reminder that Scimitars of Steel is still in play and having an effect on
the Orc-warband.  The shadow card is in the target card's target list, or
vice-versa however that works, so the game calculators find it in the tree
search in order to add up the bonuses (and also tell you which cards are
giving you those bonuses so it's all transparent and you know it's counting
everything correctly)

 

Now consider DRAWING a shadow card.  It should look shadowy or ghostly and
that's more custom drawing, so all the more reason to go with option B and
forget about trying to subclass the common controls for rotation.

 

-- Ris

 

(some non-Ardanet topics have been edited out of this forwarded discussion
thread below)

 

  _____  

From: Ris Misner 
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 5:11 PM
To: 'Birk, Joshua'
Subject: RE: Wintersabor = I'm an idiot, lol

 

Hi Josh,

 

For the card templates, thinking about the Direct Influence stat for a
character card. On the printed cards, a character only shows a DI icon with
a number if he has >= 1 DI.  Zero DI means they didn't print the icon at
all.  I'm thinking that for card templates for character cards, we would
always show a DI icon where it would normally go, and write 0 over it for
those characters that don't have any direct influence.  The icon would be
part of the background image graphic.  The number would be drawn by a
transparent text box, so that code would not be positioning things at
runtime, and that could be controlled entirely by the WYSIWIG dialog editor.

 

For site path icons, that's going to require something trickier, and you're
probably right that we'd have to calculate pixel coordinates for where to
show each icon, in order to build the icon list for a site path on a hazard
card.

 

For the card text, I don't plan to scale the font size to fit all the text
in the available space like they did for the real cards.  It will use a
standard font size and a vertical scrollbar if necessary for very long text
descriptions.

 

For character skills Warrior / Sage / etc, and the race, that will be text
that's drawn onto the card.

 

The card expansion set icons are a small icon that always appears in the
same box, so that's a static icon control that is shown or hidden.  It's
also irrelevant info we don't really need to show and will have a low
priority.

 

For the 2D6 number, those will not be supported.  That part of the card
template should be blank, or use a card that shows 7.  We don't have this
info in our card database to know which random 2d6 value is listed on each
card.

 

Prowess and Body is the little shield in the same place on every card.  A
few pixels in a different place is still the same place as far as I care for
card templates, and those will have transparent text boxes on top of them to
show the current numbers for the current card we're rendering.

 

The title is more overlay text from a transparent text field.  So I think
it's just the site path icons that require special drawing code.

 

BTW, I hope you're saving all these as *.bmp format, because I'll probably
use the Windows API / GDI routines to draw these images on the screen, and
those want windows bitmaps.  Supporting JPG or GIF images would be harder
and require a 3rd party library.  If you've been cropping them all into
JPEGs or whatever non-bitmap format, maybe we can find a command line tool
that could batch convert them all into bitmaps.

 

And yes I'm still considering Worlds.  I checked it out and there's a
qualifier round on Friday morning at 9, which sounds like an open qualifier
but you're right I should email the organizers to make sure.  Also, I
haven't heard back from my mom to confirm the address, but I'm pretty sure
the tournament is being held in the same building where my mom works: the
NYU Graduate Center Building, so that may be a sign that I am meant to go.
I'm awaiting reply from my mom about whether that weekend is OK with her for
me to come stay, but she'll probably be excited about it and it's looking
like I will probably go the way I feel about it today.  I don't expect to be
able to do well in the tournament and probably won't even make it to the
semi finals, but the qualifier is 4 rounds, and round-robin tournament means
I'd get to play all day on Friday and that could be worth it just to lose.
If I'm going to this tournament though, I will need you to play me at a ton
more games of NetMECCG than we had planned, foregoing all WoW time together
until I'm back into practice with MECCG and ready to complete.  I'm still on
the fence about it.  I don't want to go because I don't expect to win or
even stand a chance, but I want to go anyway because why should that stop
me?  My final decision will depend a lot on the response I get from my mom.

 

-- Ris

 

  _____  

From: Birk, Joshua
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 4:31 PM
To: Ris Misner
Subject: Wintersabor = I'm an idiot, lol

 

Hi Ris,

 

Anyway, I finished up some more Against the Shadow card images last night.
I should be able to finish with these entirely for that set before tomorrow
night so I can send them to you at that time.  Then I think I will work on
the templates before starting the next set.  I was looking at that a little
btw, and noticed that all of the info that is put on the sides of the cards
appear in little icon graphics which are all different and in different
locations even for cards of the same type (especially hazards which are
keyed to certain regions or sites).  I'm thinking that we will have images
which get put here not text.  Perhaps for things like mind, and direct
influence we can use a graphic with text on top, therefore allowing any # to
appear in the icon, or we can just cap it at 10 and make 1-10 graphics.  I'd
prefer to be more scalable myself, but either way the image will need to be
applied on top of the template when needed.  I'm thinking all this stuff
will be code created objects which are created when needed based on the
stats of the card, and placed at specific coordinates directly by the code.
It means the code may get a little complicated for that card drawing, but I
think it's necessary.  I can work on some of this code if you like when the
time comes..  We'll see how the project is going at that point I guess and
if we have any other people helping out :-)

 

Did you give any thought to going to Worlds in (July?) this year?  If you're
considering it you should e-mail them and ask about things like qualifying
for the tournament and stuff since the nationals for USA aren't mentioned
anywhere..

 

Later,

Josh

[Ardanet-developers] FW: recent discussions of the card database, card templates, artwork, and copyright issues

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

(non-Ardanet topics have been edited out of this forwarded discussion
thread)

 

Following is a recent discussion of the card database, card templates,
artwork, and copyright issues.

 

-- Ris

 

  _____  

From: Ris Misner 
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 5:06 PM
To: 'Birk, Joshua'
Subject: RE: FYI, Ardanet post

 

Hi Josh,

 

I messed around with the database briefly over the weekend, but my memory of
regular expressions was failing me so I gave up on it for the time being.  I
started on a couple of approaches, both of which wanted me to use regular
expressions and I couldn't QUITE get the code to do what I wanted.  I want
to make a parser/compiler kind of utility app that will read CardList.txt
and generate the CardDatabase.cpp file.  I figure this can be done with
regular expressions and either a python script or a lex/yacc parser.  I
redownloaded the lex/yacc tool I like (Parser Generator by Bumblebee
software, www.bumblebeesoftware.com <http://www.bumblebeesoftware.com/> )
and started a new project wizard kind of thing with it, but immediately
looked at the lex/yacc code and thought "oh man I don't remember how any of
this works." so then I tried the python script approach and got frustrated
with its regular expression library and that's where I left off that effort
after the weekend.  Lex/yacc is probably the easier way to get it done, but
I'll have to do some work to remember how to write lex and yacc code.  Since
that wasn't as easy as I expected, I started messing around with Python
since I can play with data in the interpreter.  I thought maybe I could
parse the data a little bit at a time in the interpreter without necessarily
making a complete tool that would do it all at once, just keep massaging the
data through the python interpreter shell and see if I could parse it that
way.  But I ran into problems making the python regular expression library
match the text the way I expected and I had already played around with it
for a couple of hours by then so I just bailed out on it and played some WoW
at that point.

 

On the card background templates, I imagined it would be a set of different
bitmap images with the main card art part blacked out (and dialog controls
showing on top of the background image).  Which bitmap image should be
identified by the card type flags (resource, hazard, site, etc).  Twilight
is the only card I know of that defies that rule since it counts as both a
hazard and resource and might have both bit flags set, but we'll just use a
hard coded default rule in that case to show it using the correct resource
or hazard background images.  Except I think they printed both hazard and
resource cards for Twilight with different art in different sets, so I
dunno, Twilight will require special handling any way around probably.

 

So that's really disappointing that the data field parts of the card aren't
in exactly the same place or the same size on each type of card.  Hopefully,
the difference is close enough that we can sort of fudge it with the same
window layout, so that any data we dynamically write on top of the card will
be slightly larger than the area it would normally use on the card, and thus
obscures more of the card background image than normal, and thus looks OK
though not exactly like the original card.  It won't look exact but we
should be able to make it look OK.  Alternatively, to make it look exact, we
could use different dialog template resources to layout the dialog window
differently for each type of card so that the data lines up correctly with
the background in every case, but share the same code to implement the
dialog controls and event handlers behind that window class, just swapping
the layouts and background images.

 

On copyright issuesIn general on copyright issues, I'm fairly confident
there's nothing to be afraid of, mostly because nobody makes any money from
MECCG, so nobody would have any damages to sue me for.  Between that and
several apparent precedents that almost every part of our project has been
done separately by others and we're just putting it all together in one
package, I'm fairly confident I could defend Ardanet against any lawsuit.
I'm willing to take the risk and responsibility for it anyway, so yeah go
ahead and send me the images, and I will be the one to add anything to SVN
so that all signs point to me as the only responsible party for any
copyright violations.

 

I think 1 image would be OK in SVN, and that seems like reasonable use to
me, but I suppose failing that, could you make me a plain white image with a
stick figure on it or something to serve as a placeholder graphic of the
correct size and data format?

 

I have an additional thought about attaching a license agreement to the
Ardanet installer that includes language like "I attest that I own at least
one copy of every card printed for MECCG and thus I am already licensed to
view all of the card art, card text, and game rules."  Sort of push it off
on the end-user that you need to be independently licensed by third parties
in order to be allowed to use this software that includes some copyrighted
materials.  Almost everyone using Ardanet would meet those requirements, and
the rest will lie and click Yes I Agree anyway.  Not sure if such a thing
would hold up in court, but it seems like a creative idea to me.

 

Later,

Ris

 

 

 

  _____  

From: Birk, Joshua
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 2:54 PM
To: Ris Misner
Subject: RE: FYI, Ardanet post

 

Hi Ris,

 

Yeah that sounds good!  I bookmarked it.  But in case I don't check it and
some people reply, shoot me a message (I assume you get e-mailed on response
or something?)  I'd love to see if there's some feedback for that!  Here's
keeping the fingers crossed!

 

BTW, have you done any work on the database portion of the project?  I'm
just curious what the current step of that is, since I worked on it in the
past and would be interested in helping out with that again after I finish
with all the images.  I'm about 1/3 of the way through Against the Shadow
now.  I'm just going to work down alphabetically directory wise.  I'll send
you zips of the images when I'm done with each card set, but of course won't
check those into sourceforge.  It will help you with testing, but we
obviously can't be sending out all the copyrighted stuff on a free site like
sourceforge.  I'm even leary to use any image like twilight.

 

Also I'm wondering if the card design/colors and whatnot are copyrighted?
Cause we plan to make blank templates which will have text and images
overlaid on them, and I'd want to be sure none of that was copyrighted.
Have you given any thought to how the template will look?  I can work on
those too with my photoshop experience, but the different types of cards
have slightly different card layouts and portions to them which is why the
images in the middle are slightly different sizes.  Also each type of card
has it's own color which I think we should use as well, so perhaps a
different template for each card type?  Unless we can find a way to change
the coloring of the image with code..  Also the database will need to have a
column which specifies which card template to use if we use different ones,
or which color to use if we find a way to use one template with diff
colors..

 

That ended up a little longer than anticipated..

 

-Josh

 

  _____  

From: Ris Misner
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 11:33 AM
To: Birk, Joshua
Subject: FYI, Ardanet post

 

Hi Josh,

 

FYI, I just posted this invitation for help with Ardanet.  Do you think it
looks OK?

 

http://www.meccg.net/dforum/viewtopic.php?p=18652#18652

 

-- Ris

[Ardanet-developers] FW: recent discussions of card artwork and copyright issues

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

(non-Ardanet topics have been edited out of this forwarded discussion
thread, and I hope the color-coding comes across)

 

  _____  

From: Birk, Joshua [mailto:jb...@pa...] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 8:07 PM
To: Ris Misner
Subject: RE: weekend

 

Hi Ris,

 

Regarding the other newer e-mail you sent:

We decided to use a text based database in a modifiable file so users can
change the data, as well as having all the standard cards loaded from binary
(the cpp), right?  So what you're working on is the initial setup of that
cpp file then and parsing the info from the files I sent you into a cpp
class file?  Just trying to understand the overall effort here and why.
I've never used lexx/yacc except for in college for compilers, so I won't be
much help there.  I was thinking I could finish messing with the data in
those files to get them into a format that your parser could read or
whatever.  Actually what we need is a format which is easily readable by
users so they can modify it, and which will be readable by the code.  So
defining that format and then getting the data into that format is something
that needs done, unless you already did that?  Was just wondering where that
effort was, since I can probably take some of that work on.

 

Ris' replies are in green

 

Ah OK, I see where you're at vs. where I'm at on this topic.  My plan is to
use the lex/yacc parser (or python or something) to generate
CardDatabase.cpp from CardList.txt.  This CardDatabase.cpp is an array
initializer for the default card database information compiled into the
program, and the way we generate our binary database file.  It's an array of
CCardTemplate object constructors, and the data passed into the constructor
calls needs to come from that CardList.txt file.

 

The user can modify the database, but they won't do that by editing an
external text file, they'll have to use the built-in features of Ardanet to
edit our *.cdb files which use a proprietary binary file format of our
creation, implemented by some of my C++ classes.  Ardanet will be the card
database editor.  I have a checkbox in place so far to enable "read only
safe mode" on the card database, which is the default setting, so you won't
accidentally edit your database.

 

So the lex/yacc parser I was going to make to generate the CardDatabase.cpp
array initializer from the CardList.txt file. this would be an external
utility exe that would be a "quick and dirty" implementation to do the bare
minimum work necessary to create the initial CardDatabase.cpp.  We'd run
this to create the CardDatabase.cpp used to compile Ardanet.exe, as a manual
build step just one time to get the starting point for CardDatabase.cpp.
After that, we'd edit the default DB through the CardDatabase.cpp file
directly, or we'd use the features of Ardanet to edit the card database in a
GUI, and then I'd add a feature to Ardanet to "save as" in the format of
CardDatabase.cpp as a special save-as feature on the card database, in order
to use the GUI to edit the default database and then use the GUI again
regenerate the underlying code necessary to make those changes into the new
default data compiled into the EXE.

 

Follow all that?

 

Josh said: So let me get it straight about the background template images.
You're saying you want one for each color change?  Like one for resources,
one for characters, one for hazards, one for sights, etc.?  Because each
resource type has a slightly different layout (as in the cords may be
shifted a few pixels one way or the other).  

 

Ris said: Wait wait.  Are you saying that the picture is in a different
place for a resource permanent event vs. a resource greater item vs. a
resource ally, etc?  Sheesh I never noticed that.  I just assumed all
resources are resources with the same layout.  But OK, I don't think it's a
big problem and we should be able to use a standard resource background.
Lets say we use the resource permanent event layout for all resources.  As
long as the picture is the same size it should be OK.  So we're showing
items with the permanent event layout and this would mean the picture
appears a couple of pixels to the left of where it would appear on the
actual printed version of the card. but it's still going to line up and look
OK in our display because our background template has a hole in it the exact
size of the cropped-out image that we're going to insert in that space, so
where that hole actually falls is arbitrary and doesn't make a difference.

 

For other data items on the card like prowess and body.  Again, different
types of cards might show these numbers in very slightly different places,
but we're going to drop a transparent text box on top of that, which is
going to be slightly larger text than the original card text so it will come
out roughly aligned close to where it should be, but it will clearly not be
the same font etc. it's not going to look EXACTLY like the original cards
anyway, but it should still come out looking good and "mostly like a printed
card."  The fact that some things show up a few pixels offset from where
they would be on the original cards is splitting hairs and nobody will ever
notice.

 

Josh said: Even bringing it down to this coarse grain categories will
require messing with a template which works for all the types.  I will do
so, but I wanted to make sure I knew what you were planning on.  I think it
should be possible.  Also I still feel that we should add a column to the
database which defines the template to use.  That way on a card by card
basis we can do different stuff and even use a unique one for twilight or
any other card if we wanted.  

 

Ris said: The card background color (actually a textured image) is the same
for each kind of card and we already have the card type, so I'm not
completely convinced this extra data field is necessary, but I have also
thought along the same lines in order to handle Twilight and offer a better
flexibility for dream cards.  I'm not opposed to adding another data field
that indicates the card background image type separately from the fine grain
card type bitmask.

 

Josh said: If I can make all the templates have the exact same layout it
will simplify things, but I'm not sure I'll be able to do that until I play
with them a bit.  If we need different layouts, then perhaps a layout def
file (in xml?) would be in order, which specifies coords for each type and
stuff..

 

Ris said: That's what RC files are for, so I don't think we need any special
XML to do the layouts.  If we need different layouts for characters vs.
resources in order to render info at different pixel coordinates, then I
will make multiple IDD_DIALOG_TEMPLATE resources in Ardanet.rc, one for each
background image that we're using.  Since that only impacts the location of
dialog controls in order to make the picture line up with the black hole
that we left for that picture (and other similar data values), the same C++
class can implement multiple IDD_DIALOG_TEMPLATE resources, you just change
it to pass the card-specific IDD value up to the MFC base class functions
instead of passing the hard-coded value.  The card type isn't going to
change while the card is in play, so this only has to be defined when the
window is created.

 

Josh said: I'm not too worried about being sued by Iron Crown since they
probably don't care anymore, but the artists can still make a case in court,
and that's where I'd be more leery of crossing copyright.  But it's up to
you I guess, I'll just send via chat program my stuff when it's done.

 

Gotta go,

Josh

 

Ris said: Yeah, I tend to agree actually, but there's some room for debate.
To err on the safe side, we should avoid distributing the graphics.  But on
the other hand, I kinda want to push the issue, and I see a lot of different
ways to defend our use of the card artwork in Ardanet based on stuff that's
allowed by copyright law based on what I know about it.

 

Since we had been discussing the copyright issues, I spent some time last
night drafting a "Copyright Statement" document to put on the project site
to document our understanding of where we stand on these issues and note any
policies I may need to define.  I didn't finish it yet.  It would be nice to
get some informed legal counsel on these issues, but I imagine that's
expensive and I don't want to pay for it.

 

In general, I think that NetMECCG and GCCG set a precedent that we can
distribute the game rules, card information, and card artwork, and nobody
will stop us.  GCCG and the companion downloads for MECCG are especially
notable.  They've been publicly available on the internet for >=5 years.
During that time, any of the numerous artists who own that artwork could
have done a google search for MECCG and would have found GCCG pretty
quickly, as well as the MECCG companion downloads for GCCG, including all
the scans of their artwork.  If they were going to do anything to stop it, I
think they would have already, which implies we should be safe to distribute
the artwork.  IMO, whether the artwork is distributed as a separate download
like it is for GCCG, or whether the artwork is bundled in one download, is a
spurious distinction.  In either case, SOMEONE is distributing the artwork
and, whether it's strictly legal or not, the responsibility falls on the
copyright holder to defend that copyright, and the artists have not been
doing anything about it so far, so I think that means they are unlikely to
start doing anything about it in the future.

 

Potentially I think it could even be argued that since the artists have not
defended their copyrights up to this point, that they have allowed their
copyrights to slip into the public domain, and have now lost the ability to
block any further redistribution of those digital images.  But I suppose the
artists could hire expensive lawyers to defeat that point by referencing
case law.

 

So let's assume that one of the artists sued us, or even that all of the
artists formed a class action suit against Ardanet for distributing the
artwork.  They'd have to argue that Ardanet caused them damages and come up
with a defensible figure with hard numbers to back them up in terms of sales
lost, etc.  Since ICE is not selling the cards, the artists don't stand to
lose any lost royalties from printed cards.  We'd be into the scenario where
the artists would have to make a case that Ardanet is precluding future
speculative sales of MECCG by ICE, based on speculation that they might
possibly someday renew their license with Tolkien, and this is a dubious and
unlikely case to bring before a court to claim the loss of these speculative
profits.  The artists would be more likely to make a case that they use this
artwork for books, posters, tshirts, and other similar merchandise, and
further make the case that Ardanet is hurting their sales, which wouldn't be
true.  If anything, Ardanet is a promotion for the artists and more likely
to generate sales for them rather than cause them any damages.

 

So I tend to think we should be OK to distribute the artwork as part of the
Ardanet exe and included in the SVN repository, as long as we credit the
artists the same way we credit ICE and Tolkien.  However, if I'm wrong it's
an expensive mistake, both in terms of real money bankrupting me to pay out
damages if it comes to that, or in terms of shutting down and killing the
project.  So even though it's a very slim risk, it's a non-zero risk, and so
I think to err on the safe side, we should avoid distributing the card
artwork for now, at least until I can find a well trained lawyer who agrees
with my assessment.

 

I have a couple more creative ideas to work around the artwork issue.

 

1) Add language to the license agreement attached to the Ardanet installer
and included in the SVN repository with all the code, reading something like
"In order to use this software, I acknowledge that I own a printed copy of
every card in the MECCG collection, and thus am licensed by third parties to
view the card artwork and interact with the game rules in any way."
Possibly by this kind of means, we could pass it off on the end-user that
you must be independently licensed to use this content where third party
copyrights are involved.  This is pretty much the justification behind GCCG
allowing the card images as separate downloads and treated as pure 3rd party
data, with the assumption that you are allowed to scan your own cards - that
purchasing the card grants an implied license to scan that card or view a
digital image of that artwork.

 

2) Get some volunteer artists to make all our own custom artwork to replace
the original MECCG artwork.  I've seen dream cards with some very nice art
so I know this is possible, but finding the people is a problem, and it A
LOT of art to make for what, 3 thousand cards or more?  But we could do
whatever we want with original artwork that was created for us under the
open source license.

 

I just saw you sent me another note so I'll go answer that one now

-- Ris

 

 

  _____  

From: Ris Misner [mailto:ri...@bs...] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 10:37 AM
To: Birk, Joshua
Subject: RE: weekend

 

Hi Josh,

 

Awesome that you're making progress on the Ardanet images!  Wow that's so
cool.  I was thinking it should be OK if we commit one sample image to the
SVN repository.  I think that would fall under "acceptable limited use" in
terms of copyright law, so it should be OK to have one.  I'm not even
remotely ready to start dealing with the images yet, but when you get to
"Twilight" I think that would be a good sample image to add to SVN since the
card is common (super common like C3 or C4) and counts as both a resource
and hazard so it would make sense as a placeholder graphic.  It's a thought
anyway.

 

-- Ris

 

  _____  

From: Birk, Joshua [mailto:jb...@pa...] 
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 7:34 PM
To: Ris Misner
Subject: RE: weekend

 

Hi Ris,

 

Oh so about Ardanet.  I've been making the image crops for the cards.  The
size I'm using is 295x245.  It seems that the actual size of the picture
depends on the type.  Site cards have the smallest size and are actually
like 293 pixels wide, so some of those have a sliver on either side you may
notice.  But most of the other types are like 300x250 and a couple are even
bigger than that.  But by using this common size it should make things
simpler.  Anyway I thought I'd share the size with you.  I'm starting with
Against The Shadow (first directory alphabetical) and I've done 28 of them
:P  This is going to take a while.  Luckily I found a way to make the size
the same everytime with photoshop so it's only like 15 seconds per image or
so now that I have a system working for it.  I updated the code from
sourceforge and compiled and ran it.  Everything seems in order.  I saw the
documents there that you added as well.  So we'll have to test stuff out on
Thursday first before WoW.

 

Later,

Josh

  _____  

From: Ris Misner [mailto:ri...@bs...] 
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 2:11 PM
To: Birk, Joshua
Subject: weekend

 

Hey Josh,

 

I mentioned already that I did some work on Ardanet.  I also posted a new
description on the sourceforge site - I think it's better, don't you think?
"The superior solution." sounds more marketingish.  I also want to make you
aware of a new document I started which is in SVN under \trunk\Documents\
"Ardanet Software Design.doc" is an updated software design document I hope
to keep accurate with descriptions of how I actually implemented stuff (as
opposed to the other docs which are all 4-year-old brainstorming).  I will
probably tend to update this after the fact, but I did already include some
speculative info based on how I intend to implement some stuff I haven't
started yet.  Anyway, the point is for it to be up to date and you should
read it occasionally to get up to speed since I don't plan to email you
about the details of every design decision.  If you sign up for the SVN
commits email list, that will also help keep you informed about everything
I'm doing with the Ardanet code.

 

Later,

Ris

 

 

[Ardanet-developers] FW: MECCG.net and recruiting discussion

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

(the non-Ardanet topics have been edited out of this forwarded discussion
thread)

 

  _____  

From: Ris Misner 
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 4:11 PM
To: 'Birk, Joshua'
Subject: RE: WoW and Ardanet

 

Hi Josh,

 

The thing that made me want to ask for devs on meccg.net was a link I saw on
the NetMECCG download page.  They put a link to the forum profile of a guy
who made a NetMECCG database editor program, so I wanted to contact him
directly to give him an invitation, as well as post a general
invitation/project announcement on the forum.  

 

Later,

Ris

 

 

  _____  

From: Birk, Joshua [mailto:jb...@pa...] 
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:59 PM
To: Ris Misner
Subject: RE: WoW and Ardanet

 

Hi Ris,

 

That's cool about Ardanet.  I don't have any problem bringing in someone
even now so long as we get ultimate control over what they work on/what
makes into the final project.  I assume admin grants that, and that's cool
with me.  I have a feeling though that it will be difficult to find anyone
else interested, since the community of MECCG players isn't that large, and
even fewer of those would actually be able to program C++, but you never
know.

 

I assume any "can I join your project" messages would come via e-mail to me?
Cause I may not log into the project sight everyday and wouldn't notice
otherwise.

 

Later,

Josh

 

  _____  

From: Ris Misner [mailto:ri...@bs...] 
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 10:44 AM
To: Birk, Joshua
Subject: WoW and Ardanet

 

Hi Josh,

 

I didn't really get to Ardanet last night either, oh well, but I did spend
some time on related tasks other than code, to register on the meccg.net
forum and download NetMECCG.  I didn't install it and refine a deck yet
though, because my mom called me and by the time I got off the phone with
her I didn't feel like doing Ardanet stuff anymore.

 

What's your feeling on recruiting more devs for Ardanet?  I tend to think
it's a little too soon or we at least need some updated design docs, but I'm
on the fence about it, and maybe recruiting help sooner would be easier than
trying to bring someone up to speed with the project later on.  I ask
because I was thinking of posting a note about it on the meccg.net forums
asking if anyone is interested in helping out.

 

On a related note, as you should already know, I made you an admin on the
project.  I'd like the policy to be that you and I are the only admins and
any other helpers we recruit will only get developer privileges.  Please
feel free to invite anyone you want into the project as a dev, if you know
or meet anyone, or if you get any emails from people asking (you're listed
first, alphabetically, so you're more likely to get random "can I join your
project?" spam than I am).  Invite anyone you want, but please don't promote
anyone else to admin level.

 

 

-- Ris

[Ardanet-developers] Suggestions Forum

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

Hi Josh and Josh,

 

We need to set up a good way to capture suggestions between now and Worlds
on July 27.  I hope to recruit more help at Worlds or at least generate
interest from people who are unable to assist with the project but likely to
have a lot of suggestions.  I want to be able to capture these suggestions
in a good place and keep them well organized.  What is the best way to do
this?  I see several options.

 

1)       Create a public suggestion forum on the sourceforge site.  These
forums are limited in terms of features, but it's a feature we can enable by
flipping a switch, so this is an easy solution.  I am talking about the
forums found here: http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=192968 

2)       Since the forums are so limited, perhaps a mailing list for
Ard...@li... would be a better approach.  Again
this would be easy to set up, just by flipping a switch to create a new
mailing list.  The downside to this approach is similar to using the
sourceforge forums feature, in that the discussions of any particular issue
may not follow a sensible thread, and it would be up to all writers of each
message to quote any relevant past discussions.

3)       Set up a better forum system like the one at meccg.net.  AFAIK,
such forums use a standard available free solution called Ultimate BBS which
can be installed and configured with "minimal" work.  I've never set one up
so I don't know how much is involved.  We could theoretically install such a
system in our shell area of sourceforge, to run the forum under
http://ardanet.sourceforge.net/

4)       On a similar line of thinking, I saw a note on the meccg.net forums
indicating that they offer hosting for a private forum for any MECCG-related
project.  That note was a couple years old, but if that service is still
available, perhaps we could apply for a forum area hosted within the
meccg.net forums, and point people to it from the Ardanet website.  "Have
suggestions? Click here"  These forums are far more powerful than the forums
provided by sourceforge.

 

In addition to a suggestion forum, we will eventually need a support forum.
Whatever approach we use for the suggestions, we should do the same for
support requests.

 

Both of these systems need to be open to the public so that anyone can
submit suggestions or support requests without necessarily having to
register or be authorized as a developer on the project.  Option 1
definitely allows anonymous access to those forums.  Option 2 is a moderated
mailing list so I would have to approve any posts the first time a person
writes to the list, so that's not good, but hopefully I could turn that off
so that anyone can write to the list by default without requiring my
authorization as mailing list admin.  Do options 3 and 4 support guest
logins for public anonymous access to submit suggestions and/or support
requests?

 

Oh there's a 5th option: make everyone use the tracker system from
sourceforge to submit bugs, feature requests, and support questions.  The
tracker is less intuitive than the meccg.net forums, and offers less room
for an ongoing discussion thread about each issue, but it lets us track
duplicate suggestions with references to each other, and we can assign
everything as tasks to specific developers on the project with related info
about % completeness and so forth.  We can also easily keep track of which
suggestions are new vs. which ones we have reviewed.  I am talking about the
trackers found here: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=192968.

 

-- Ris

 

[Ardanet-developers] cross-platform compatibility

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

The original plan for Ardanet was to make a native Windows application.
Thinking about the non-native interface of GCCG and the outdated interface
of NetMECCG, we decided to use the MFC document/view architecture to as
closely mimic the look and feel of Microsoft Office as possible, to create a
familiar GUI with dockable toolbars and other familiar Windows features.

 

Considering that Linux users make a big portion of GCCG players, it may be a
good idea to revisit this decision.

 

I still want to see a native GUI on Windows, but theoretically, this could
be done with a shared cross-platform engine (a static link library or DLL)
to share data formats and network protocols, with a separate UI layer (the
EXE) that is platform-specific for Windows, Linux, or other platforms.
These platform-specific GUIs would not match in appearance, but they would
be able to communicate with each other to allow players to play across
platforms, and they would support most if not all of the same features in
terms of game guides, etc.

 

The network engine we have today uses the Windows Sockets 2 API to open and
manage the network connection.  Since it's a Windows API, it would have to
be part of the platform-specific UI layer, but the message packet formats
and all of the ID numbers would have to come out of the common engine.

 

I tend to write code that is fairly well encapsulated anyway, so I think
this is possible.  We could at least start with the division of engine from
UI and implement only the Windows UI layer for the time being, until we get
a volunteer to create a Linux layer.

 

An alternative approach would be to use a GUI function library like
wxWindows which is cross-compiled for multiple platforms to create a native
look on every platform and support the same common APIs from every platform.
If we can find a free one that also supports dockable frames and the kind of
rotating card views we need, then that may provide us with a way to create a
single module that compiles with a native look on multiple platforms based
on the same code, instead of separating it into an engine module and a UI
layer compiled as separate entities.

 

Or we could be brave enough to create our own conditionally compiled
platform adaptation layer into one big module without a separate engine DLL,
but I think this would be code that varies wildly across platforms, so I
think separating what is common from what is platform-specific is probably
the better idea.

 

Comments anyone?

[Ardanet-developers] info coming in next couple of days

[Ris M. <rm...@ne...>]

Stay tuned for a flood of info over the next couple of days when I extract
my notes from a variety of emails covering other non-Ardanet topics.