Guest posts by ScaredGirl

61

Card Ideas and Art / Re: Hex | Curse

« on: November 30, 2011, 07:46:01 pm »

I like the idea of a curse and I think this is a pretty solid way to do it. I don't know about the "Deals 5 damage" part though. I just think it's unnecessary. Card designers always tend to try to make upped versions somehow unique, when sometimes a simple difference in cost is enough. Simple is better imo.

I would also change the name to Curse | Lingering Curse . It's more descriptive that way.

But yea.. I like it.

62

Card Ideas and Art / Re: Natural Disaster | Nature's Wrath

« on: November 30, 2011, 07:36:34 pm »

I'm not a big fan of card ideas that are limited to only certain element or elements. Not only does this card force you to use a mark from one of those 3 elements, it also semi-forces you to use a mono deck of those elements. This is bad for deckbuilding because it limits my options dramatically. I like ideas that are more flexible, like instead of listing specific elements, they use "element of your mark", "element of your opponents mark", etc.

63

Forum Bugs, Suggestions and Feedback / Re: End of Year Forum Awards

« on: November 30, 2011, 07:27:32 pm »

Hm.. I think it would make sense if we made a Google Docs form which people could use to nominate people, events, etc. We would then need a screening process, probably involving the Council, to pick the best 12 (or something) for the final poll. Then just make an individual poll for each category. Alternatively we could have a dedicated topic for each category/poll. Latter would definitely make the discussion easier, but could become spammy if we had many categories. Final step would be to make a big announcement topic which has all the winners and prizes.

That's the most simple way of doing it I think.

64

Card Ideas and Art / Re: Skelesaurus | Skelesaurus

« on: November 30, 2011, 06:36:51 pm »

i like the bone wall upon death mechanic
i dislike the huge amount of hp, doesnt seem like this should have more hp than collosal dragon or even bone dragon, for that matter.

I agree.

I think the Bonewall effect is slick, but the HP thing is kind of cheap. Ivory Dragon looks similar to this guy, yet it has 5 HP and this one has 75 HP. I just don't see how someone made out of bone (and brittle one as it is slowly dying) could have this much HP just because it's big. Armagio looks like a transformer with futuristic armor and stuff, yet even that one has only 25 HP.

I would have liked this more with the "Supermassive" and with less HP. The Bonewall ability itself would have been enough to make this card interesting imo.

65

Card Ideas and Art / Re: Volcanoid | Volcano

« on: November 30, 2011, 06:25:20 pm »

Like said before, this should be an card with ability cost. Volcanoes are mountains with lava coming out of them, and if we have to pick an element for a mountain, I cannot see any other choices than . To me would seem like a perfect fit, probably one of the easiest element choices ever.

But my biggest issue with this card is the fact that this card is a creature. A volcano.. not a permanent but a creature. Um.. what? This would lead to all kinds of silly things like being able to lobotomize a Volcano or even eat it. If a mountain is not a "permanent" then what is?

Thematically, I would make Volcano so that it is a permanent and you can make it erupt, say every 3 rounds or so, and it recharges in between eruptions. This would better fit to what a Volcano actually is and does in real life. But if it has to be a creature, then a new theme would be better.

Also, have you considered changing "Supermassive" into something else because it sounds like a lame techno band. Massive, Colossal or Enormous would fit better in the fantasy theme imo.

66

Crucible Archive / Re: Cardinal | Cardinal

« on: November 30, 2011, 06:05:12 pm »

I think this idea is kind of.. weird. Not only is the ability a bit strange and complex, but the fact that is has this Cardinal Affinity, takes the complexity to a whole new level. This is like 3 different cards in one.

I also don't understand the theme. How is that small bird related to the ability? Well, I guess we could call it a "magical bird", but I still kind of like when the theme makes more sense.

67

War Archive / Re: War #4 - Round 8

« on: November 30, 2011, 05:52:17 pm »

IMO, event cards should be fair to all teams. Event cards like this one are very unfair because some teams have amazing mono's, but some elements don't.

We are not going to totally ignore mono-decks because of the assumption that some elements have "amazing" monos while others lose with a mono every single time. The fact is that with a mono-deck that has the right cards, any element can beat any other element at any given time. Sure some elements might be stronger with a mono, but that's how Elements was built, and nobody is forcing you to use a mono-deck.

Do these teams really deserve a second chance to come back and win when it is their fault that they lost?

Teams with less cards are already at a huge disadvantage because they have much less options in deckbuilding. Event Cards like these that could act as a small rubber-band, will help losing teams a bit by making their disadvantage smaller and making the event more fun for them because they still have a chance to win. But to say that round 8 Event Cards will somehow give losing teams an automatic win, is just dumb. It kind of reminds me of the time when everyone was saying that UW will auto-win War 4, and look what happened there.


I kind of regret implementing Event Cards in War in the first place. No matter what the cards are, it always leads to the vocal minority complaining about something, instead of just doing their best with what the organizers throw at them. I mean during this War, when though we have had the most interesting Event Cards yet, people still complain every single round. I guess complaining is a big part of the internet, but to me this has a very negative effect on the whole event and makes me question why we are wasting our time even developing these cards.

68

War Archive / Re: War #4 - Feedback

« on: November 30, 2011, 03:26:10 pm »

I guess this is where i should put this. For war betting only 13 of the people who have started the betting process, have actually submitted every round. I think this is kinda of significant in that it shows the process might be a little bit too difficult. Not that it is hard, but the most of the time people are more focused on war activities themselves, and the time to meaningfully go through 30-50 matchups just isn't there. 

What if instead of each individual matchup, we bet on how each team does per round. So like a mix of the old betting system and the new betting system. I think this would cause a much greater participation rate then the current one.

That's a pretty good idea actually.

I simply stopped betting because one round, the system didn't register my vote. I fell behind.

Next time, I will take screen-shots every round just in case.

I have never seen Google Docs simply not register a form submission, and I've used it a lot. A more likely explanation for your situation is user error, like you closing the window before the page fully loads and you get the confirmation page (has happened before). I will pay $1000 to anyone who gets the confirmation page but their submission somehow disappears. It just doesn't happen.

I must say one opinion (feel free to ignore) :
War plan should exist before war. What card to use at which round. Basicly, imo, the idea should be : each round, the warmaster's only jobs would be to : check vaults, give penalties, randomize battles, post thread. (eventually settle disputes if any). Nothing more.
[/opinion]

From participants perspective, it should not matter when Event Cards are made. Whether it was done 1 year ago or 1 minute ago, you as a participant will see it when the round topic gets posted, and not a moment before that. I would understand making everything 100% ready if we had a bias like "team X is not doing well so we'll make an Event Card to help them", but that's not how we do it. We mainly tweak the numbers to make sure that War ends during round 10.

I think this is something many people do not understand. War 4 has 10 rounds so it must end during round 10. If we do not do things like nerf salvaging, we might be in a situation where only option to end War during round 10 would be to just ignore the Vault numbers and give the win to the team who wins a battle. That would lead to more whining then we have ever seen on these forums. The fact that we do not have a crystal ball and do not know in advance how Vault numbers develop, means it's pretty much impossible to make all the cards 100% ready, and I don't see a reason why we should have them 100% ready.

In War 3 we had all the cards before the event started and it was a total nightmare. The event dragged on and on, and we even had a round where we had to cancel the Event Card because it would have done some serious damage. For War 4 we had a general plan on which type of Event Cards are used during each round. So far this method has worked much better because it's much more flexible.

69

War Archive / Re: War #4 - Round 8

« on: November 30, 2011, 02:32:49 pm »

So much for no war-changing event cards.

Think about that for a second. You are basically asking for Event Cards that do nothing.

Besides, how would it work for Underworld? If it was still here, I mean...

The beauty of making Event Cards as we go along is that we don't have to make it work for UW if they are out.

70

Card Art / Use Photoshop to convert ordinary photos to oil paintings!

« on: November 30, 2011, 01:43:15 pm »

Use Photoshop to convert ordinary photos to oil paintings!

First of all, this is not magic. You cannot just take any crappy photo and change it to an awesome piece of art. The quality of the results depend heavily on the photo you are using. Secondly, this does not replace human artists. Not even close. But it can be used by non-artistic people to quickly produce art that kind of looks like it might have been done by hand. I also understand that this filter does not produce art that is ready to be added in Elements, but it could make finding art for your card idea easier.

Here is an example of what the filter does.

BEFORE


AFTER


How to Achieve This Effect

1. Download and install Adobe Pixel Bender Plug-In for Adobe Photoshop CS5 (http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/pixelbenderplugin.html)
2. Open Photoshop
3. Go to http://www.sxc.hu/ and find a photo you want to transform. You can use these images for free in card ideas or other projects.
4. Apply the filter from Filter > Pixel Bender > Pixel Bender Gallery
5. Choose OilPaint from the drop-down menu and tweak the settings to your liking. In the first photo I used the following settings:



First setting is the most important one because it determines the level of effect. I recommend you try to get it as high as possible without making the photo too blurry and smudged.

Here's some more examples. I'll add some weapons etc. later after I've experimented with this some more.





Same filter with 50% Watercolor effect
I tested some other effects to make it more like an illustration. Watercolor effect helped a bit, although it's still not like the real thing.



I made a quick random card idea that uses the image.



Like I said earlier, these images do not fit in Elements because they are too realistic, but they should be pretty good placeholder images for people who need art for their card ideas.

If anyone has ideas on how to improve these images, please let us know. Thanks.


That's it.

71

Competitions / Re: Competition: Holiday Fun Redux!

« on: November 29, 2011, 11:14:13 pm »

Think you have the holiday spirit in you? Prove it by designing a parody card of any upcoming (or previous) holiday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday)!

Still, the competition would make more sense if it was restricted to Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's.

Isn't that how it is? That one title talks about "holiday season (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_and_holiday_season)" which is the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's. But if it isn't restricted to that time period, then I agree that it should be.

72

Competitions / Re: Competition: Holiday Fun Redux!

« on: November 29, 2011, 11:00:18 pm »

Reserved for:

April Fools | April Fools

I think you have the wrong time of the year.