Eternal Magic

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2009-12-15T14:52:00.001+01:00

Artwork for Eternal Magic!

2009-06-14T10:25:00.005+02:00

An old friend of mine named mondu, has amazing collection of works at http://mondu.deviantart.com/.

I don't know where they will be placed in the game yet, but I'm sure I will need them sooner or later.

Some of his works here are dated back to 1994, when magic was barely popular. Although if you started at that time, you could've purchase the power 9 cards are much more cheaper!

Just look at this mox sapphire!
I am glad to have a bit of help :)

A lot to catch up on

2009-06-03T14:17:00.000+02:00

It seems that 2008 was a great year for Vintage! That's a lot of interesting decks. I especially love the Painter and Prison decks. I will add them to Eternal Magic, though I know they are very complicated decks to play (by the AI), it will be cool to have them.

I do think that WoTC went overboard on the current restrictions. Anyway, I hope the next announcement would be a positive one!

Old Friends

2009-06-02T13:20:00.000+02:00

I've finally come across with my old friends/teammates through a forum called The Sphere. It's also an interesting place to read information about the Philippine-meta. I am glad to hear that tournaments for Vintage formats still exists because in Europe, they are very scarce and no offense, but you'd also rarely see good builds.

I'd like to make my own primer about LandStill. It was a deck that I used on my first official Vintage tournament in the Philippines. It's just amazing how the deck evolved with collaboration and lessons learned from actual play.

Currently, there's a lot of powerful decks out there and I still believe that Landstill can be a viable strategy, especially with the new cards.

Baby Steps

2009-05-28T15:51:00.000+02:00

The murky water is finally clearing up! I do regret not having continued my old beta back in 2006.

The coding is less of a hassle. The real problem lies in the data I have. Sometimes the picture directory or the cost, type, etc are wrong so I had to do some modifications on the internal data itself.

Right now, I'm adding cards slowly and excluding crap and totally useless cards which will be available for viewing, but not for actual play.

Madness VS. GroAtog. Not the best matchup, but good for a start since none are as complex like combo decks

Good MTG Implementations

2009-05-18T17:17:00.001+02:00

For those time i get "hunger pangs" for Magic: The Gathering, I use these programs :

The Forge, card rules are excellently implemented, although cards side more to newer expansions.

Another program I use is for my PSP is the one called WTH! Wagic: The Homebrew! Another cool implementation of the game and so far it works well on the PSP engine!

I have reflected on the way these programmers have implemented the rules on their programs and assessed why I still need to create my program when I have theirs. It's still a matter of the cards included, sure I can add cards and program those, but it would be way more easier for me to make something from scratch.

MTG Online could be good... If they'd make an offline version without the need to spend the bandwidth plus subscription. I guess that's the capitalist's route.

I really do miss the days when MTG wasn't too popular. When it could be for everyone. When Vintage gameplay was abundant. When smackers were only a few.

When there were good players...

Primary Decks

2009-05-12T17:53:00.000+02:00

I've decided to make contrasting premiere decks, namely one control and one aggro. Gro-atog was the first one since it had lots of the core effects needed for most cards in MTG like remove-from-game effects, countering, etc.

But this is for testing the core effects. Next would be Madness deck which will add color-changing and tokens. After that would be I guess Stax and various decks with looping such as Dragon.

My choices for the aggro deck are probably elves or goblins(not GFC at the moment). Meh, we'll see.

Image optimizations

2009-05-11T10:25:00.000+02:00

I'm currently resizing all the pictures to be used with full, small images (75 x 104), as well as the bigger images (189 x 268).

I'd really like it to have pictures, although smaller, it adds the feel to it. If you're familiar with the card's artwork, you could instantly recognize them, if not, you can have a bigger picture on the right side of the screen.

I'm going to be needing a bit of beta testing soon, once the stable release is out. Long live the Type 1 community!

Beta realease coming up soon!

2009-05-03T15:10:00.000+02:00

Finally have a working module. I'd like a full-color environment where all the cards are in images --- Just like playing the real thing.

I am still contemplating whether to release the first version along with working decks from the Invasion Block (Invasion, Planeshift and Apocalypse) or Tempest Block.

Invasion block is a bit trickier because of the various exceptions, especially the color changes, but to me this is one of the best releases they ever made because during this time, you can see a LOT of decks and a whole lot of variations which makes the games very interesting.

Dump LINUX!

2009-02-26T16:29:00.000+01:00

I've trashed away Ubuntu for my HP mini-note 2133 because the OS is on hold or worse, abandoned. There were a lot of bugs and I don't see the way things should work when I code on my Windows machine and this one.

I decided to try Windows 7 beta for my mini-note, that would last for a few months before I purchase the real OS after. I like it very much and now, installation and coding are far more easier than it was on my Ubuntu. I'm sorry to say that linux still isn't ready for primetime, There are still a lot of work to do and a whole lot of software that doesn't work with it. It just takes so much time to make things WORK.

So now I'm back to Windows and hopefull will have the time to complete this project. There is an existing program out there, it's just that I'm really not good at continuing code and I'd like the game to be Vintage/Type 1 -oriented.

Wish me luck, eh?

NetBeans 6.5 on Ubuntu

2008-12-18T09:56:00.000+01:00

Netbeans is convenient but freakin' slow! It continuously scans code for errors, which is really convenient rather than the errors showing up at compile time, but it's getting to be a real pain when even the slightest change of code takes more than a few seconds to show up.

So now, I'm using Geany for Ubuntu. Faster, doesn't have all the Intellisense but worth the speed, especially for testing out small modules.

I hope this would speed up my project :D

Why make it???

2008-10-29T01:43:00.000+01:00

I've always loved playing MTG since '97. Back then, we had a place where you can always find good Vintage/Type 1 players. Tournaments were also abundant for this format.

And now, because the store owners "think" that Type 1/VIntage players won't render them money. They decide to drop the number of Vintage tournaments! FYI and FU... Vintage formats also needs new cards from the new sets, so in that aspect, we also generate revenue.

But it all boils down to the green stuff. Whoever piles up the more cash, gets the better service. So they shove away the Vintage format, because Standard(Type 2) players always have to buy new cards and therefore, generate more revenue.

It's like when SEGA just decided to discontinue the Dreamcast, leaving a LOT of Dreamcast owners for dead. Is this how you treat your customers? Once you get their money, you rip them off?

Well, enough of that rant. So, I'm off to make the game that concentrates on Vintage constructed gameplay.