Elements Updates

[plastiqe]

I surmise your suggestion is that we add cards in the forge to the trainer for testing?  Who would do the programming for each and every forge card that we try out?  You want a finished or near finished product that only requires a few tweaks before you consider going into beta.

[OdinVanguard]

I was using the forge as an example its probably a bit too low and there would be too many to try out there. But there is need for being able to playtest once the prospective cards up for review have been narrowed down enough.

My point is though, that if we are to expect faster updates, then:

-There also needs to be improvement over the current "which of these are your top N favorites" polling system at the upper end of the polls.
 --Data from testing would help
 --More flexible polling system(s) at the high end would help (e.g. rate balance, playability, originality, etc.)

-there needs to be a way for the community to alpha test cards without directly integrating them into elements.
 --if this were a physical card game you could always do the "make a prototype, put it into a sleeve and test it out"...
     we need a way to do that here ( there is a text based play test engine out there if I remember right, thats a place to start)

[plastiqe]

Unless there is a revolutionary superior system it would probably reboot only the Crucible and add a new layer. I do expect most ideas would get more fine tuned. (The problem is most of the card creators think their submissions are great)

Revolution is my middle name. : P



Here are the problems as I see them, with solutions:

Everything gets archived
New rules means everyone starts on equal footing.  I wouldn't want to grandfather cards in the armory that were created under the old system into the game.

Overall level of ideas poor
Limit how many card creations players are allowed to submit each month.  Things like a 1 month wait after you register before you can start.  Amount of card threads you're allowed to submit per month limited by forum rank.  Less flood of ideas hopefully equals more consideration put towards each idea.  No more collections of card creations or ranking the best card creators.  Shift the goal from climbing the polls to creating the best card for the game.

Reusing old ideas
You're allowed to re-make one of your old cards from the archives as your idea for the month.  You can remake someone else's with permission/if they're long gone/give them credit.

Not getting the right ideas
Have more contests like Shard Revolution (bad example, shards suck) where a specific theme that is lacking in the game is explored with card ideas.  CC protection for Life contest, or PC for more elements contest, etc. 

People don't vote for best idea
No card art during card creation, card mechanics are voted on rather than looks.
Once an idea is selected for In Development, have art contests to find the best art.
Blind submission/voting system.  Maybe all card creation ideas are pm'ed to curators, who sort them and post them for voting.  Or we don't use player names on the submissions.  Ideally we'd remove player popularity from the equation.  If several people have the same idea then several people get credit. 

I'm probably quite a few checks and balances away from anything near a perfect system.  It's all just fantasy since I don't think zanz would ever let the players take over.








Edit:
[21:53] <plastiqe> Xeno I'm curious, if zanz would let you, are you capable of doing the programming to add new cards to the game?
[21:54] <!Xenocidius> I am. I'm 95% sure Zanz is in a coma or something at the moment though.

[regen2k9]

[21:53] <plastiqe> Xeno I'm curious, if zanz would let you, are you capable of doing the programming to add new cards to the game?
[21:54] <!Xenocidius> I am. I'm 95% sure Zanz is in a coma or something at the moment though.

Have we tried to contact him about it, via email/another means of communication?

Edit:  If we have that, can we contact him?  ...preferably one of the mods (probably Xeno, since he would be the one doing the programming).

[plastiqe]

You keep asking about e-mails, something tells me you opened a new e-mail account and you're just dying to try it out.  : P

And.

We shouldn't put Xeno in charge of the game because he'd get lost in the Berministrator Triangle too.  : P

[BluePriest]

Wait you didnt know? I could have sworn everyone figured it out by now...

SG kidnapped Zanz. Xeno has gotten many hostage emails demanding that him and Higurashi relinquish the forum if we ever want to see him again

note... kidding... Id hope no one takes that seriously but... you never know...

[OldTrees]

Unless there is a revolutionary superior system it would probably reboot only the Crucible and add a new layer. I do expect most ideas would get more fine tuned. (The problem is most of the card creators think their submissions are great)

Revolution is my middle name. : P

-snip-

It suits you too. Those are good ideas that you should bring to the Curators.

[plastiqe]

Thanks for the compliment.

First we get the , then we get the power.. then we change the CIA section.

Actually, archiving everything is harsh.  A lot of people enjoy card creating as it is so I think it should stay.  That way I won't end up getting killed by the CIA in Boliva.

[Annele]

You said in chat you had horrible ideas... these don't look half bad.
However, it's still up to Zanz, who only has a 5% chance of not being in a coma atm.

[Tiko]

Overall level of ideas poor
Limit how many card creations players are allowed to submit each month.  Things like a 1 month wait after you register before you can start.  Amount of card threads you're allowed to submit per month limited by forum rank.  Less flood of ideas hopefully equals more consideration put towards each idea.  No more collections of card creations or ranking the best card creators.  Shift the goal from climbing the polls to creating the best card for the game.

+1 for this. This is a much needed change, could've been like this from the beginning; as for the reasons, plastiqe summed those up well too.

I'm a bit against the 'no art during creation' thing, though I see you point. One of the best part(s) in the process (at least in my opinion/practice) is when you're ready to present your idea to the public and you're trying to visualize somewhat how the idea should actually be imagined; be it just searching for the proper (royalty-free!) pic or you're drawing it from sketch. Yet people still tend to favor shiny presentations.

I know that Zanz has expressed an interest in being the sole programmer, but does that mean that he would be opposed to giving one of our admins access to adding new card here and there?

While it would be nice to get more toys to play with in a relatively short timescale, the only problem I see with this solution is that every person concerned/involved in the game and/or the community is somewhat biased towards ideas, concepts, or even elements - no matter how objective he/she may find themselves. I pretty much respect Zanz's viewpoint and judgement in balance/concept matters (though I still question the purpose of shards).

[regen2k9]

While it would be nice to get more toys to play with in a relatively short timescale, the only problem I see with this solution is that every person concerned/involved in the game and/or the community is somewhat biased towards ideas, concepts, or even elements - no matter how objective he/she may find themselves. I pretty much respect Zanz's viewpoint and judgement in balance/concept matters (though I still question the purpose of shards).

While I respect Zanz's judgement (except with shards), I do think that a relatively unbiased forum member or members (people we would suggest as being the most objective, compared to others), would be better than inactivity/lack of updates everyday.

If someone like OldTrees were responsible for this role, I would not be worried about idea, concept, or elements balance whatsoever.

[Cheesy111]

While it would be nice to get more toys to play with in a relatively short timescale, the only problem I see with this solution is that every person concerned/involved in the game and/or the community is somewhat biased towards ideas, concepts, or even elements - no matter how objective he/she may find themselves. I pretty much respect Zanz's viewpoint and judgement in balance/concept matters (though I still question the purpose of shards).

While I respect Zanz's judgement (except with shards), I do think that a relatively unbiased forum member or members (people we would suggest as being the most objective, compared to others), would be better than inactivity/lack of updates everyday.

If someone like OldTrees were responsible for this role, I would not be worried about idea, concept, or elements balance whatsoever.

I would.  For all of OT's great analysis, he does not have as much practical competitive PvP experience as some of our other members.  I think that a duo of him + an experienced PvPer would be great for testing card balance/power, but either one alone would not do nearly so well.