Guest posts by davidy22

13

Crucible Archive / Re: Paradigm Shift | Paradigm Shift

« on: August 12, 2011, 12:19:17 am »

oh. my. god. give it a rest.  those three are synonymous in this situation, wtz.

seriously, are you really unable to understand the intent of those options, or are you just being ornery?

I can understand the intent perfectly fine now that I've read the notes.

The three options are not equivalent. They only appear equivalent after adjusting them in your mind. It is not entirely unlikely that a card could be developed to make pillars give quanta to the opposing pool, hence the need for precise wording.

14

Anvil Archive / Re: Neriad | Greater Neriad

« on: August 12, 2011, 12:08:27 am »

You can also block this with creature control, as per poison.

There should be a way to fight against poison though. A card that can remove poison would help greatly.

15

Crucible Archive / Re: Paradigm Shift | Paradigm Shift

« on: August 11, 2011, 10:41:54 am »

The second and third options contain grammatical errors. "Not it's own" can mean the quanta, pillar, or quanta pool.

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Crucible Archive / Re: Paradigm Shift | Paradigm Shift

« on: August 11, 2011, 12:26:49 am »

Appropriate? Yes, If there's a link to the wiki in the game.

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Introduce Yourself / Re: hi

« on: August 10, 2011, 02:08:17 pm »

tadts men yo shuldn sy that abot peples.

neo peple ar gud fr evry1.

18

Tech Talk / Re: Registry information

« on: August 10, 2011, 12:37:28 am »

The registry is only found in DOS and DOS-derivative operating systems. In modern terms, this would mean windows, as windows is the only surviving DOS-based operating system today. The registry is where programmers dump any variables they use to store settings, and is a great tool to use when a stray program goes badly, badly wrong. Not all programmers will agree on what to call their variables though, so the parameters will be different from program to program.

Also, you use regedit to edit the registry. Type regedit in the search box, it'll come up readily.

19

Design Theory / Re: The Idea factory values your opinion. You may comment here.

« on: August 09, 2011, 11:25:55 pm »

Do they have to be rares? There's a distinct lack of weapons in general, and it'd be nice to be able to buy an elemental weapon from the bazaar.

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Crucible Archive / Re: Paradigm Shift | Paradigm Shift

« on: August 09, 2011, 10:41:56 am »

Let's give you a very simple example. Adrenaline. The whole mechanism, interactions of adrenaline with various thing such as steam machine, poison, or antimatter, take a whole 2 pages to explain correctly. (believe me, as wiki editor, i've seen it countless times.
First, there's NO way you're gonna make those two pages fit on the card.
Second, discovering the mechanism of that card is part of the fun of using it. It's not laziness part of the develloper to make a card complicated with very little text, it's laziness of the user (and community, if they all had that opinion) not to test.
Other examples : mutation, fate egg, lobo (Oo it doesn't remove passives?), flying weapon (what are the stats of teh weapon?), Bone wall (oh, so it replaces?), iridium warden, Dissipation shield (not field), Chaos Seed, Pandemonium, Discord, Catapult, Sanctuary, Nymph's Tear (interaction with QT?).

The same complex interactions between cards can also be found in physical card games, such as Magic the Gathering and Yu-gi-Oh! The core effect of adrenaline is the multiple attacks per turn, which can easily fit on the card text. The rest can be derived from the combination of two unambiguously-worded abilities. The only prerequisite is that no room is left for mis-interpretation in the text. It should be possible to formulate and build a good deck without having to have the wiki open to look up any loopholes that may exist.

You never blame the user for being lazy. That's how you end up with a few thousand players on an otherwise decent game. That's how you make people put the game down and play something else.

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Crucible Archive / Re: Paradigm Shift | Paradigm Shift

« on: August 09, 2011, 09:43:38 am »

i wouldnt reword the card, sol.  most people should understand the effect of the card as is, just as if a sign on the road were to say "construction ahead, use an alternate route", a person wouldn't think "well, alternate can mean that you go back and forth, so should i go to a different route, go back to my main route, which is closed, and then go back to the different one, and then back to the main one that is closed, etc?"-  a normal person would know "oh, alternate has many definitions, but the only definition that truly makes sense in this situation is to pick from the many alternatives".  its called reading comprehension. 

not every detail can make it on to the card text, nor should they.  thats what the notes section is for.  yes, this does require some work on the behalf of the reader, not everything can be bundled up in the cliff notes on the card itself. 

"Randomly convert some of the opponent's quantums into other elements. "  from Discord in game lets you know what you need in order to use the card appropriately.  if you want to rage that it doesnt go into the detail of defining "some", thats really an issue with you, not the card.  and this isnt "done badly", its called "sufficient".

Christ, grammar and punctuation. Did you just graduate from grade school?

The problem with your example is context. In the context of the road construction, the reader only needs to apply the general definition of the word alternate, and can choose which other route to take for themselves. In elements, which altenate route  the effect will take matters greatly,as stragetis will be built around the outcome.

If a user has to leave the game to find out what a card does, it's not clever design. It's obnoxious laziness on the behalf of the developer. If you have trouble fitting the entire description onto the card, cut out some of the padding around the card and make space.

Why shouldn't the entire ability be described in the card text? It adds no value to the game to leave it out, and is just plain laziness. The current discord is not a paragon of useful card text. Instead of using existing cards as an excuse to slack off, fix the existing cards. "Good enough" isn't the mindset a flash game should take, not with the vast array of free alternatives available.

22

Card Ideas and Art / Re: Community Card Design

« on: August 08, 2011, 08:21:36 am »

Reactive spells: if a condition is met, the spell can be played on your opponent's turn.

If your opponent casts a spell, deal 5 damage to your opponent.

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Crucible Archive / Re: Paradigm Shift | Paradigm Shift

« on: August 08, 2011, 12:00:27 am »

Alternate is ambiguous. Does it alternate between two quanta, like a pendulum? Does it produce just one other type of quanta? Or does it produce a new, alternate kind of quanta? The dictionary definition encapsulates the intended effect, but it does not describe it accurately.

nothing wrong with somewhat ambiguous wording, if you notice, there are several cases where the card text in game doesnt give you the exact details of what it does mechanically.  the description suffices so that if you use it you will figure it out pretty quickly, or not if you are a rather slow individual- but this card will be the least of your problems in such a case.

What? "It's already being done badly, so we don't have to improve?" If the existing card texts are poorly written, that's a reason to rewrite and improve the existing text, not a reason to relax standards and dig the hole deeper. The description gives at best a vague pointer to the effect, neccesitating trial and error or a trip to the wiki. If you need to read the manual to figure out what a button does, the fault should be placed on the maker of the button and not the "rather slow individual" that the button is intended for.

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Crucible Archive / Re: Paradigm Shift | Paradigm Shift

« on: August 07, 2011, 10:56:22 am »

i disagree, the definition of alternate describes what the function is:
"Taking the place of; alternative
    * - the rerouted traffic takes a variety of alternate routes"

"random quanta, excluding their mark" is unnecessarily clunky/wordy.

Alternate is ambiguous. Does it alternate between two quanta, like a pendulum? Does it produce just one other type of quanta? Or does it produce a new, alternate kind of quanta? The dictionary definition encapsulates the intended effect, but it does not describe it accurately.