We need more cards in this game, seriously!!! A lot more.

[OldTrees]

Just to hammer the point home:


If you jump dump card ideas without respecting the ideas, then people will learn to ignore you.
If you treat each card with the care it deserves, then people will come to respect you.


My suggestion is to submit 3 ideas this week using the correct format (read the READ THIS FIRST thread). Then submit more as you learn from your ideas.

[Keeps]

I see 'cultural' or 'mentalities' that need addressed:
For the arguments with how many zanz can or will implement, let me say this:

I know of the development issues:  We have zanz whom is the sole developer and this is only a portfolio project that he only updates once and a while.  It's coded in action script and flash both of which are limited.  A couple years I offered my coding experience, database experience, AI development experience, and musical talents to zanz, all of which he dismissed out of hand. 

However, that was a couple of years ago.

Zanz will no longer need this as a portfolio project:  He should have been working now for a while now and that experience is worth more than this portfolio project as is.  In addition, it is no longer showing value of current technologies.  Flash and Action Script are seriously outdated.  If you aren't working with HTML5, Javascript, C#, Java, Air, or one of the mobile device SDKs, you out of date.  Unless you are an embedded C kind of guy.  He tossed this up on Kong so he makes enough money to pay for the server load.  At that is that. 

Elements only has two futures:  1 to die the slow death; which this community has spoken of at times, many times, yet this community drives to keep this product alive because they love it.  2 to mature and grow; to become the next big thing.  I know Xeno and the likes are close to Zanz; if zanz cares about this community or this product at all.  Whatever the community demands he will have to conform with or finally admit to abandoning this product.  If zanz is smart and we can make a convincing argument.  By growing this to a mature level of complexity; A mature CCG/TCG of this type, requires 4 to 5 hundred cards as the core set; this could have the next big money making thing.  Instead of a portfolio project, he could launch his own game company.  He could totally crowd source this through kick starter and reference this as his base prototype.  I see driving the community to push, something like, the community is demanding a 200% increase in cards and by the way they have you totally backuped with all the BA style requirements, launch this in kick starter and have your own company is the best argument I can make.

Would anyone with more clout then me like to back that up.  Anyone else out there with real world dev or business experience like to make the pitch to zanz with me?

As far as submitting.  I had two goals, the first is philosophical, in which putting down 130 cards in a semi-tangible form is needed so people can understand the degrees of complexity and pushing through one card at a time is foolish at best if not completely asinine at this stage.

Based on that, a card idea that as an individual seems cool to others, they are free to submit to the crucible on my behalf or tweaked to their own liking.   

[ZephyrPhantom]

While I understand the idea behind this (see Gaian vs Cthonic for my own take on an 'evolved' Elements), and consider a fairly solid proposal, the main difficulty lies within getting Zanzarino’s attention. (Your argument is convincing but it might have been wiser to post it separate from the card idea series. It's also much easier for users to critique individual ideas than be overwhelmed with a whole list.)

2 to mature and grow; to become the next big thing.  I know Xeno and the likes are close to Zanz; if zanz cares about this community or this product at all.  Whatever the community demands he will have to conform with or finally admit to abandoning this product.  If zanz is smart and we can make a convincing argument. 
As a stated above how will you make him listen? Even some well-known members of this community are not so known by Zanz. In addition, how do you answer to the part of playerbase that is accepting of the slow update pace?

By growing this to a mature level of complexity; A mature CCG/TCG of this type, requires 4 to 5 hundred cards as the core set; this could have the next big money making thing.  Instead of a portfolio project, he could launch his own game company.  He could totally crowd source this through kick starter and reference this as his base prototype.  I see driving the community to push, something like, the community is demanding a 200% increase in cards and by the way they have you totally backuped with all the BA style requirements, launch this in kick starter and have your own company is the best argument I can make.

Would anyone with more clout then me like to back that up.  Anyone else out there with real world dev or business experience like to make the pitch to zanz with me?
All of this (yes, including getting people onboard) will likely require money, and Zanz is implied to dislike the idea of a 'dev team'. How would you convince Zanz that A) a dev team is worth the trouble and B) where would you get the income for a significant boost of code/art/features improvement from?

Keep in mind this completely disregards the fact Zanz may have taken on other jobs and that an active coder that could devote most of their time to this game would be even harder to find.

In regards to immediately 'expanding' the game, though, it's quite possible to build around the game's limitations as opposed to seeing them as our 'sky' : Donuts Vs Noodles (which evolved into the Playtesting System), Elemental Adventure, Forum Brawl, War, and many other events organized by the various other users on this forum have proven to be a great success that expand on the ETG we know, even with the slow pace of the game’s updates. We've even had a recent attempt to customize the trainer, as done by Planplan.

[Keeps]

Zblader,
I really didn't intend to post that part in the card series or at this time originally.  I wanted to see if the community was presented with a large number of cards could they get behind the idea of radically changing the game or are they 'too stuck in their ways'.  The rough and informal approach tells me a lot on if people 'get it' or if they simply think differently than me.  For my hopes to work, I need enough people to 'get it'.

This is of course the principle to answer your questions, which I will elaborate on below. 
 
As a stated above how will you make him listen? Even some well-known members of this community are not so known by Zanz. In addition, how do you answer to the part of playerbase that is accepting of the slow update pace?
Zanz knowing us is not so important, it's us knowing how to reach zanz.  We can reach him that's easy enough.  However, we do need a player base who is willing to fight for a faster update pace.  The current culture is accepting the slow update pace, and that's the problem (in my mind).  This is why I'm making a 130 card post in the first place.

All of this (yes, including getting people onboard) will likely require money, and Zanz is implied to dislike the idea of a 'dev team'. How would you convince Zanz that A) a dev team is worth the trouble and B) where would you get the income for a significant boost of code/art/features improvement from?  Keep in mind this completely disregards the fact Zanz may have taken on other jobs and that an active coder that could devote most of their time to this game would be even harder to find.

for A.) it is not needed where B.) is already provided.  The idea behind getting the community involved and seeing the response (and using kick starter etc.)  Is to have the community provide this.  In fact, the community already sort of does.  The added cards outside of the shards were largely community driven cards, much of the art is community driven art, etc.  My thoughts are:

We have an art community.
We have a card idea community.
We have a beta testing community.
All willing to do this for free out of the enjoyment and love for a game.  This is what crowd sourcing is all about.  What if we took that next step, and became business mature about it. 

I have a background in all things IT (Dev, Data, Hardware, AI, Factory to Cloud at an Enterprise level).  I'm coming off of a major cloud application where I was the PM.  Functionally, part time BA, Designer, Software Architect,  product manager, etc.  If I'm out here and could contribute 10 hours a week, then maybe there is another like me in the community.  As a team we could take another step at organizing this and taking all the community has provided and build requirements.  I know some musicians (being a pretty crappy one myself, be in the community) that could provide sound and music effects.    Zanz could be the sole developer still and owner of the whole thing, for the rest of us, it's a work of pleasure.  He could easily recode in the HTML5, the wrappers, conversion tools, prebuilt libraries such as node.js, jquery, jsmvc, etc.  Have grown massively over the past couple of years.  Instead of working for the man, he could start his own company and work for himself.  (Most developers I know would love this, I am hoping zanz is the same.)  Having an already partially completed project is a great way to launch a kick starter project and pull in 100k.  So Zanz could work on it 100% for a full year.  We might only get 10k without what elements is.

In my mind he has all the components here for a great start.  What I want to see is.
a.) is the community too stuck
b.) would the community support such a project if not stuck.
c.) would someone from the community with the background needed where I could collaborate with to make a pitch to zanz
d.) would zanz accept.

I'm on a.) right now.

[Drake_XIV]

This thread has become less about Pre-Smithy Ideas and more about issues and individual sees with the current system.  Please move this line of conversation to another subsection.  This thread should only be to discuss the balance of the cards, be it as individual ideas or as a whole.

[CuCN]

You are not going to get much support from this community to push for a faster update pace or radical changes, mainly because people who are not satisfied the way the game works do not tend to continue playing.

[Drake_XIV]

This thread has become less about Pre-Smithy Ideas and more about issues and individual sees with the current system.  Please move this line of conversation to another subsection.  This thread should only be to discuss the balance of the cards, be it as individual ideas or as a whole.

This line of discourse has been moved here.

[OdinVanguard]

I wanted to see if the community was presented with a large number of cards could they get behind the idea of radically changing the game or are they 'too stuck in their ways'.  The rough and informal approach tells me a lot on if people 'get it' or if they simply think differently than me.  For my hopes to work, I need enough people to 'get it'.

*snip*

We have an art community.
We have a card idea community.
We have a beta testing community.
All willing to do this for free out of the enjoyment and love for a game.  This is what crowd sourcing is all about.  What if we took that next step, and became business mature about it.

While we have a great card idea brainstorming and card art capability in this forum, I think one key difficulty in launching a large number of new cards lies in the beta testing.

While this is doable using various methods in Sync.in or PiratePad, I think the problem is that doing so is rather tedious.

Playing a game wherein you have to track everything manually makes for a very slow process. Running a meaningful amount of beta testing tricky, at least if dozens or more cards are to be tested.

Also, although I have no knowledge of the inner workings of the game engine, I get the impression that adding a new card to the game is less than trivial for Zanz.

If you are really serious about pushing forward a big induction of new cards, you will first need to push forward the infrastructure to do so properly.

What would really help that along is:
1) A beta-testing engine that mimics EtG as closely as possible but allows for "easy" introduction of new cards
2) A reorganization of the upper tier CI&A boards to coordinate and track beta testing of cards

This is a very important piece in getting your proposal off the ground.
Without a means to streamline play testing and debugging of card ideas, attempting to introduce a large number in a short time will almost certainly do mor harm than good.

If someone can get a useful beta-testing process up and running then I can get behind taking step towards a major change...
But I don't want to see what is currently a fairly well balanced system ruined by spamming in a bunch of poorly balanced cards just for the sake of adding new content.

I would love to see the card base expanded, but it needs to be done so in a rigorous and conscientious manner, not in a shotgun style.

[Keeps]

OdinVanguard,

While we have a great card idea brainstorming and card art capability in this forum, I think one key difficulty in launching a large number of new cards lies in the beta testing.

While this is doable using various methods in Sync.in or PiratePad, I think the problem is that doing so is rather tedious.

Playing a game wherein you have to track everything manually makes for a very slow process. Running a meaningful amount of beta testing tricky, at least if dozens or more cards are to be tested.

Also, although I have no knowledge of the inner workings of the game engine, I get the impression that adding a new card to the game is less than trivial for Zanz.

If you are really serious about pushing forward a big induction of new cards, you will first need to push forward the infrastructure to do so properly.

If you bounce around or look in some of the other threads, you will notice I keep bring up recoding the application.  (Also why we would need kickstarter money).  Because the site is just flash and action script, it does take quite a bit for him to code in new cards or AI changes to new cards, in fact, it's probably completely tedious and I wouldn't want to do it in the given languages.  The stack would have to completely change.  I argue for an HTML5/Javascript -> Java API/DAL -> MongoDB style structure.  Doing it this way, the testing tools could be all automated behind selenium including alpha and beta testing.  In addition, coding in analytics to track all games for the AI to use and coding fuzzy logic algorithms in (the easy way out), you then run a second cycle for the AI to cycle through millions of combinations in addition to player versus player combos and player versus ai combos so it can keep on top of new found 'ideas'.

See here are the numbers as I see it
An typical kick starter start without a strong pitch might get 5 to 10k for a game.
To recode this game or code it from scratch without the art into HTML5/Javascript->A Java API/DAL -> Mongo DB, would be about 6 months.  5 to 10k isn't going to be enough to pay for it.

Now elements is already joined with Kongregate so it couldn't be 'EtG' would have to become 'Elements 2' or 'Elements the True Gods', etc.

Third is the game would have to have a large enough following to pay a decent wage to the makers.

Now, if your a kid in high school or college you might have enough time to start something like this, or fiddle, or contribute...  But once, out, it simply requires a lot of upfront capital or someone with a ton of time and into it.

This is why in my eyes zanz and EtG has the potential

If you already have a partially completed project to make a strong pitch that number becomes about 10x to 50 to 100k  this is.  This is why Elements is a possible kick starter project.   That's enough to pay for zanz for a year or two of dedicated programming.

We do have talented kids with  enough time to start something like this, or fiddle, or contribute outside of zanz.

Third is the game would have to have a large enough following to pay a decent wage to the makers, EtG at it's peak had around 17 to 20k unique players.  With regular and large enough updates that number could grow.  But at 20k unique players, if you got 5 dollars out of the players on average per year, overhead would be taken out from the machines, but server costs at most for that many users would be 25k or so, so you would have an ROI <1.5 years.  That's an incredible ROI, enough to keep zanz on indefinitely, enough to burn this game into something that operates until we all become ancient in of itself.

But, hey, that's just my take.  I don't know if zanz is even worth while to work with yet, but before I made a pitch, I would have liked to offer the community, and if I don't make the pitch but someone else does, that's great too...  so I leave it to the community.  Just think on it, if anyone is experienced enough.