Card Idea Engine (Communal Card Creation)

[OldTrees]

Welcome to Communal Card Creation!

Our goal is to create a steady flow of higher quality ideas that target perceived wants by the game.

This started out as a trend born out of unfinished card ideas series. The author of these series sought better quality by opening the unfinished series to the community at large. This resulted in either better cards or more cards (sometimes both). This trend then continued into card series with multiple authors. Once again the average quality of the cards improved. Here we are testing the limits of the synthesis of multiple creative sources and a limiting focus to create high quality but focused cards.

Here is a board that will be useful. (http://typewith.me/CCC)

Archive of CCC competition winners

The Communal Card Creation team congratulates Thicket|Thicket (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20858.0.html), Fever|Fever (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20807) and Lignification|Lignification (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20590.0.html) on winning the CCC's "Soft Creature Control for Life" competition. They are quality examples of potential Soft Creature Control for the Life Element. We feel that any of these cards would be a great improvement to Elements the Game. If you liked any of these cards you may like the others as well.

The Communal Card Creation team congratulates Garden Spider | Garden Recluse (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21189.0.html), Invisible Stalker | Invisible Stalker (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21399.msg292362.html), Lizardman | Lizardman (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21211.0.html) and Paper Crane | Noshi Crane (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21280.msg290501.html) on winning the CCC's "Vanilla/Semi Vanilla" competition. They are a quality examples of potential Semivanilla cards. We feel that this card would be an improvement to Elements the Game. We feel that any of these cards would be a great improvement to Elements the Game. If you liked any of these cards you may like the others as well.

The Communal Card Creation team congratulates Graviton Buckler | Graviton Aegis (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,26461.0.html) and Stone Guardian|Stone Warrior (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,26295.0.html) on winning the Card Design Challenge's "New Passive" competition. Pride | Pride (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,26459) received a notable 3rd place only lagging behind by 1 vote. We find these Passive abilities (Gravitation, Resilient and Pride) to be valuable if added to the game.

The Communal Card Creation team congratulates Time Adept | Time Sage (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,22545.0.html) on winning the CCC's "New Time Mechanic" competition. It is a quality example of a new Time mechanic. We feel that this card would be an improvement to Elements the Game. If you liked this card you might like the runner up New Birth | New Birth (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,22580.0.html).

Archive of CCC cards that make it into the Forge

[Ajit]

I agree Air needs something more.

Also new mechanics to be introduced.  New abilities, not the same ones recycled over and over.

[EmeraldTiger]

Areas of the card ideas forum that we could work from is:
1. Archives
2. Steal My Idea.
3. Old Smithy pages.
4. Create New Ideas.

[EmeraldTiger]

Since none has responded i guess i will ask. What are we going to do next to get this moving?

[Nepycros]

Well, the biggest problem to date is abilities. Since new kinds of mechanics haven't been implemented (as being new) we should try to reach into Unknown Territory and start deciding a foundation to base off new abilities that may make it into the game.

For example:

Creature generating
Field-Dependent
Turn-based
Sacrificial (my personal favorite)
etc.
If we all pitch in, we can set up various classes, and to each class we'll set up a questionnaire:

Is your card a:
1. Creature (go to question ??) 2. Permanent (go to question ??) etc.

This way, when a player has designed a card for themselves, they can go through this checkbook. The main objective of this is to show players how the mechanics they design fit into the world today. Samples include effects that pretty much work like TU, as many people seem to not consider that card, and make effects similar. Using this set of questions, we can encourage designers to create mechanics never even conceived until just then.

[OldTrees]

As soon as ArtCrusade posts any additional options for Phase 1 we will move onto Phase 2. Which should be done quickly and then it is onto Phase 3.

[ArtCrusade]

I believe Air needs a serious buff, because right now it has a passive ability which's only effect is that it allows the creature to ignore Wings, but it also has a counter (Phase Recluse), so it's seriously unuseful and situational right now. If there were more cards that took advantage of Airbourne, Air would be much better.

I strongly believe Life should get some kind of CC/PC as well, since a mono-Life rush will be crushed by any deck with a single shield. Moreover, Life should get some new source of healing as well, since Life is about creating (-> creature generating creatures should be added) and keeping creatures alive. A passive ability like Surviving, which allows creatures to regenerate for Life quanta would be nice, and if it'd only be used for one creature I'm totally fine with that. An active or passive ability that heals the creature's owner is highly appreciated as well. The question is, does Life need spells/permanents or does Life need new creatures to add more diversity? 

[EmeraldTiger]

new mechanics are needed, but we will need to see what we have in order to reduce the chance of recycling old stuff.

[OldTrees]

Voting Complete:
9:Fleshing out an element
1:Quanta Generation
12:New Mechanics
2:Expand use of old Mechanics

The result was Creating new mechanics with fleshing out an element as a very close favorite.

I think we should combine these two by
1) Identifying the elements that need fleshing out
2) Brainstorming some new mechanics that are versatile enough that they can fit at least 3 of these elements.


I think that Air is in the biggest need of expansion with Aether (Creatures) and Earth (Skills) included.
A mechanic that fits both Air and Earth would be/is hard.

A mechanic that represented movement of creatures around obstacles would fit
Air, Maneuverability, Flying
Aether, Alternate Realities, Tesseract
Earth, Protection, Tunneling
This sounds a lot like momentum though. Is there another way to represent this spatial freedom?

More ideas to come.

[ArtCrusade]

Air: Deadly Precision (critical strike)
Earth: Tunneling (30% for all spells to miss creature)

[EmeraldTiger]

The elements that have some connection to real life are much easier to design for.
We experience  when the wind blows.
We experience when the  is off
We experience when a loved one is gone.
We experience when we plant a seed.
We experience when burn wood.
We experience every day else we would float away.
We experience when the planted seed grows.
We experience when we can see.
We experience when a clock tick-tocks .
We experience when we drink it.

I am uncertain if we truly experience
For me is the most intangible of the elements so it is the most difficult to design for.

[ArtCrusade]

  and  are not the most difficult elements to design for, just the most abstract ones. All other elements are natural in a way.  and  are supernatural, so every card has an effect that is not so common in nature. Effects which can reflect damage would fit I think, and I always wanted to see an  card which would apply one random positive effect to its owner, and with a low chance would damage all creatures on the field (like Pandora's Box). Entropy is a theory about the balance of energy in the world; yes, in the whole universe. So you need to find effects that suit this best. Aether is the floating, immaterial element all around us (at least some people say that). Creatures which could shift between different universe-s, being one creature in one turn and another in the next turn, could be a great addition to . You just need to think about what the element represents, how it is presented in Elements, and where the major differences are.