Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Deck Editor 0.3 Beta Available
http://virtualplaytable.com/download/vpt03.zip
* Implemented booster generator
* Added mode for Sealed and Draft decks edit
* Added Booster Draft Simulator
http://virtualplaytable.com/draftsim.jpg
Planeswlk, check this build for MWS image names.
* Implemented booster generator
* Added mode for Sealed and Draft decks edit
* Added Booster Draft Simulator
http://virtualplaytable.com/draftsim.jpg
Planeswlk, check this build for MWS image names.
Comments
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/534/snag0080.png/
Otherwise all seems to be perfect :)
- At the beginning of a pack, I noticed some of the cards to appear flipped for a second before revealing themselves. This may be due to some loading time. Could you make them load off-screen to avoid this glitch? After all you should know the incoming cards in time
- New draft and new sealed work, but the other formats seems not (probably it's just not implemented yet, but just in case..): I would expect the card pool to shrink to only the cards I'm allowed to use.
- My resolution is 1920x1080. I would like to use more of the screen for the draft, letting me see bigger images. You should stretch the pop up window to use all the space available (btw, also in the library, being able to resize the card to a bigger one would be nice)
- The picked up cards aren't so easy to read as you draft (their names I mean): solving the issue above should be enough to fix this as well
I imagine that you are planning to expand this draft engine to enable multiple players to connect to each other and draft together, right?
Could you please edit your first post and list the filesize megabytes? I'm on limited downloading and I have to watch my total Mb.
-I agree with Mal on being able to resize the card image box. The 2 size settings are okay for the resolution being outputted, its just easier to allow software resizing too (of course this will result in some blurryness but is to be expected if the user wants to resize).
Also on a related idea, on the card view, it would be helpful to make a hover popup/tooltip showing the card text in easily readable font, for those cards with ALOT of text crammed into them and the renderer shows unreadable itty bitty tiny text.
I see how the cropped vs. full images setting works - if I select Crop, and only a .full.jpg is found, VPT shows the full image behind the rendered card frame, simulating a crop showing thru the "window". Nice.
Question: I see the magic database only has unique card records, meaning only the latest printing of a card is listed (and only that set's image is shown and searched for). Does VPT "know" how to handle decks that have entries for cards set to an older edition code? Example - VPT has Aether Flash as the 7th Edition version. Would a deck containing [WL] Aether Flash still work (and show a correct pic)?
Will VPT support turning off unique card record mode in the future, so we can see pics, prices, and such for every printed version of all cards?
Also some people prefer certain editions of a card to be in their deck for card art preference or physical inventory matching, so its important from the deck building aspect.
I will tune it later, start time is for multiplayer mode only and will be changed
>At the beginning of a pack, I noticed some of the cards to appear flipped for a second before revealing themselves.
Yes, it is need more optimization.
>but the other formats seems not (probably it's just not implemented yet, but just in case..
Yes, not implemented yet.
>My resolution is 1920x1080. I would like to use more of the screen for the draft, letting me see bigger images. You should stretch the pop up window to use all the space available (btw, also in the library, being able to resize the card to a bigger one would be nice)
I don't want to use stretched window, but later will prepare design for 2-3 fixed sizes to optimal support all common screen resolutions.
>I imagine that you are planning to expand this draft engine to enable multiple players to connect to each other and draft together, right?
Yes, soon multiplayer version of booster draft will ready for test.
Software about 30Mb, but if you run autodownload images it use additional 160Mb now, and much more when I will prepare all card scans for download.
> Also on a related idea, on the card view, it would be helpful to make a hover popup/tooltip showing the card text in easily readable font, for those cards with ALOT of text crammed into them and the renderer shows unreadable itty bitty tiny text.
In deck editor you can see text in Oracle Text and Printed Text tabs under card view, In booster draft right click on any card to see it in big size popup.
> Question: I see the magic database only has unique card records, meaning only the latest printing of a card is listed
Dbl click (or press "cursor right" on keyboard) on database item to expand all card variants, same for deck too.
It can handle all card sets/versions/languages/art variants/foils
It's will important when "Collection" feature will ready.
And after all, with a p2p system, this isn't going to strain your bandwidth
I think prepare next fixed resolutions variants:
1024x768 (currently) and 1440x900
I don't have 1920x1080 monitor for try, but I think 1440x900 window will be enough for you.
I'm sure bigger images would be helpful on such screens.
I'm linking a couple of screenshots as examples.
In the first you can see the main VPT window: card is perfectly readable, but still there's a huge amount of useless blank space around. I would highly prefer that space to be used for a bigger card image. Being able to dinamically resize the frames, or having pre-set configurations wouldn't make much difference, as long as those configurations were good.
In the second screenshot, you can see the draft interface. Here the cards' text definitely starts to become less readable (much worse in draft, where I have to choose fast!). You can also notice the stack of chosen cards having their names too tiny to be actually understandable.
http://xs.to/media/14439
http://xs.to/media/14441
I have 1680x1050 and 1280x1024 monitors and 1440x900 on my notebook.
1920x1080 is bigger only by width, but not height. For better card size screen height is more important.
I see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution
1680x1050 and + have 50% of users.
May be two fixed sizes 1024x768 and 1640x960 (to still be windowed) will better.
I will try later.
i just started to try beta 0.3 but i can't find draft simulator.
can anyone help me? THX
EDIT: ok i found it, let's try!
The following may or may not be already planned, but here go the suggestions nonetheless:
Being able to sort the columns by mana color, converted mana cost, rarity, or card type would be great.
How about using the planeswalker symbol for the planeswalker cards?
Currently no, I will update database as official M12 spoiler will available in gatherer.wizards.com
Later I will add feature to import/add sets
I already use special symbol for planeswalker.
What other "planeswalker symbol" do you mean?
http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Planeswalker
But anyway, that was just a minor cosmetic suggestion.
Very good software so far.
Keep on trucking.
Java part will be published as open source (game modules, interface windows and dialogs, card rendering, database and game state objects)
Main app (c++) is closed source (widgets/graphics/sockets and other framework API implementation)
If you want to see Java source:
http://virtualplaytable.com/download/vptsrc03.zip
The big problem is the programmer programs closed abandon the project.
The MWS (which you participated) is a great example of this, making the program a more "abandoned-wear."
I think everyone would benefit with a good platform (as this is becoming) and it is opened.
Two other questions that do are:
1 - How to handle the database in a simplified manner (as was the case of MWS), this is possible in VPT?
2 - How to deploy other card games in the same program? It supports? When you start the program can choose the card game we want to handle at that moment?
I want earn some money from it. When finished it will be like MWS. Deck building and online play for free, but multiplayer, online draft, collection managing will be only in paid version. Also rules enforcement and AI in long plans.
> How to handle the database in a simplified manner
I don't understand what you mean. What operations you want to do with database?
VPT has data as complex xml structure, not table or relational database.
But later I will add simple way to create/add custom sets.
> How to deploy other card games in the same program? It supports?
Yes, but only mtg available at this moment. See "mtg" folder in program.
Program can have multiple folders with game modules. It scans them for game.id file
> When you start the program can choose the card game we want to handle at that moment?
Yes. But currently it asks only first time and then save it as default in .ini file
Later dialog to select/download/update game modules will available.
http://www.xfire.com/cms/xf_game_sdk/
If it have interesting feature, I can add it.