Virtual Playtable Forum

Filter by color or what?

It would be a nice thing if you use arrows, it would also be displayed in the logs like "terror targets birds of paradise" or something along those lines. Also, when I looked at the screenshots, I saw that logs say player x puts a card on his battlefield. I can only assume that in the future it will say the cardname?
Another thing would be seccodes for the decks.

> It would be a nice thing if you use arrows, it would also be displayed in
> the logs like "terror targets birds of paradise" or something along those lines.

Ok, I will do it.

> I can only assume that in the future it will say the cardname?

Yes, later I will adjust log text for each command and use name if it is faceup.

Hello, great job,
it will be great if card images are automatically downloaded from Internet when you click on the card. Its much quicker and you spend time for downloading only for cards you use, (I could be similar to "mtg Studio" function)
btw, do You have any ideas about pricing policy?

> it will be great if card images are automatically downloaded from Internet when
> you click on the card. Its much quicker and you spend time for downloading
> only for cards you use, (I could be similar to "mtg Studio" function)

Who will host these images? It's copyrighted materials.
I don't know from what "mtg Studio" dowloads it's images, but if many users will download them in same time it can down this site and owner can have a lot of paid traffic (1000 users x 1Gb=1Tb, on http://aws.amazon.com/s3/ it's cost about 130$)
If you for example download images from http://magiccards.info, it's owner should pay for this traffic? WOTC Gatherer cards don't have enought card quality/size.
Today I see torrents as good solution when one users help others to download images.
Later I can add possibility to download only sets you want, but in one-zip-file-per-set form.

> btw, do You have any ideas about pricing policy?

Not yet.

i was thinking maybe you could put some integration for mtgo.. like upload a deck from mtgo to virtual playtable/vice versa. i understand the whole point of this is to be able to play magic without paying, hence most people will not have mtgo but i would be using virtual playtable for deck management/deck construction via importing my mtgo library into virtual playtable and making decks with VP. just a thought :)

Hi! I would like to be able to filter also the my Main Deck in the same way of the Database (colour,card type, and rarity). It would also be nice index by name the Main Deck's cards. Thank you! =)

This is a great program, Detonator, definitely the heir apparent to Magic Workstation.

One of the cooler features of MWS was that it used all the latest Oracle text and errata on all the card faces themselves, even older ones. It was extremely useful to be able to play some older cards using the clearer and more concise modern text.

Could you add the ability to turn on the newest Oracle text and creature type updates for all the cards, no matter which set they're from or how old they are?

Thanks for all your hardwork and I'm looking forward to when we can start to make donations for the project.

Also, could you make an option to hide the prices panel to save space on smaller screens?

Ok, I will add this.

Is it possible to create an option to add cards to a category? When adding cards, they show up at the end of the decklist and i have to sort them by clicking the arrow button. When building Highlander decks, this is very unpleasant....

I going to add drag&drop in deck editor grids in next versions.

I just found this program today and it am incredibly excited about it, as it looks like the next coming of MWS. A few things I'd like to see though (and I understand if they are low or no priority)
1) Filter a card pool by color, name, CMC, and so on
2) The ability to play solo with two different decks
3) A stack, similar to that of OCTGN (maybe not with the automation that has for some newer cards)
4) Also an OCTGN feature I love: Being able to press enter at anytime to respond
5) An option for when you are using full card scans to have the type and text covered by a textbox with current Oracle text
6) Targeting arrows and what have you, though I understand that is already on the list

I don't mean to be pushy or anything, I love where this program is going. those are just the main things I can think of that might make it even better.

Also, I feel like I should mention the things I love about this so far:
1) The ability to do Sealed with bygone sets, with fairly accurate pool generation.
2) The ability for Constructed to filter the card pool with the various formats, and especially blocks).
3) The actual gametable being MWS inspired, which in turn draws from MtG:O and the Microprose games, both of which are wonderful for a duel setting.

and one more feature request: I wouldn't complain if you could do Sealed with even older blocks or even custom. I understand that doing draft AI with that is too much effort for too little gain, but I wouldn't mind doing Tempest draft to remind me how old I am.

Again, thank you for the wonderful program!

Could you give a hint as to when I will be able to "Easily manage collections: track inventory, trade lists, want lists, and colleciton value"?

Also, will it be possible to import collections from Magic Workstations.

I am reluctant to once again spend a month manually registering my 13000+ card collection again.

Oh, and keep up the good work.

Hi, can you please add a bigger size image of the cards, now the biggest is 312x445, which makes the card text really hard to read... I mean on monitors that have pixel pitch of 0.254, it's hard to read...

to robuzt:
Collection features will be available in about tree months later.
Import from MWS format will be available too.

to salo:
May be later, when I will have money to buy 0.254 monitor for test.

Hi, good work so far! I'm planning to move from MWS to this fresh looking new DB!

Some "Bugs" I recognized while "search cropped images first" ist active:
- Split-Card-Pics like "Assault|Battery" don't look good. Even if there are no Crops in my directory and only Fulls, a normal card image is generated which therefore doesn't look like the original.
- Flip-Card-Pics from Kamigawa like "Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant|Sasaya's Essence" don't look good. Although there are no Crops in my directory only Fulls, a pic is generated which doesn't exactly look like the original. Perhaps there chould be another tab below the card's image named "Flip Card", which works similar to "Card Back" in Inistrad and loads/generates the exact flipped card pic?
Perhaps a normal pic frame shouldn't be generated when "search cropped images first" ist active AND there are no Crops only Fulls in the directory. This also refers to the Un-Sets.

And, would it be possible to spare the flavor text as an option? This would allow more room to vital text.
It would also be great if the possibly revised oracle text could be used to generate the card image (as an option) rather than the original printed text.

(Sorry if these points were already mentioned...)
Greetz

Deck window would benefit from having more columns such as P/T and full type. Maybe move the sideboard down like in MWS, right now it takes too much screen space. You could also just make the boundary between deck and SB draggable. (All of this would be optional)

I would also very much like a clickable rating column (like in music players) to be able to rate cards that are contenders for a space in my new deck idea.

Adding keyboard shortcuts is vital for increase/decrease count of a card, move from/to sideboard, move up/down in the list. It would be great if you could move cards in the list by dragging with the mouse too.

Dunno whether this has been asked for before, but we need a "look at bottom X cards" option.

What card use "look at bottom X cards"?

I've searched for cards with oracle text "look at the..." and found only "look at the top..."

No cards that I'm aware of. Of course, you never know what the future could hold..

Anyway, at the moment I'd find it useful onlyl for undoing certain spells, like Impulse. However, having the undo feature completely satisfies this need, and even in a better way.

Actually, the card I was thinking of was Cellar Door. "Look at bottom X cards" just seems like more versatile feature than "draw bottom card".

I can just add "Put the bottom card " -> "into Graveyard" in library context menu.

Hm. I suppose so.

There are other weird functions like in "Aladdin's Lamp":
"... put [several cards] on the bottom of your library in a random order..."
I don't know if this random feature is already possible in VPT because I have not installed the 0.5 beta. Of course you have to mark the cards you've looked upon and click "put at the bottom of your library in a random order".

A request for the far-future wishlist: Once you're getting around to aesthetic optimizations, Detonator, please consider replacing the old tap symbol (which shows a black card with a white arrow inside it) with the new tap symbol which is just a black arrow inside a gray circle.

This is in there with getting all the up-to-date expansion symbols installed and cleaned up.

Some minor requests:
- is it possible to display the "edition [cardnumber] rarity" line (last line of the "show printed text" tab) on the oracle text tab too?
- a Fullscreen Playtable option would be nice
- it may be useful if a deck/collection could be dragged into the appropriate field from outside the program. At the moment you can only do that via the "open..."-dialogue or symbol.
- the "open..."-dialogue(s) should remember the last folder from which a file was loaded (perhaps as alternative option for showing the default folder).

Please add volume control please please please!!! It's hurting My ears ><<br />Also icons are a bit too stacked up on a card in hand, could You maybe make some icons appear only when hovering a card? Like above? (just suggestion to consider)

Volume control doesn't need to be added. For some strange reason the program automatically sets your system volume to 67%; that's what's causing the problem.

On my machine (Win XP SP3) the system volume does change to 50% (default 100%).

Do you have plans to add deck analysis tools? Like CMC, color percentages, legality, etc like on MWS and deckstats.net?

For slower computers that already have a little trouble loading java apps, it would be nice to eventually have options to turn off things like card animations (such as for tapping and entering the battlefield) and sounds completely, just to save a few system resources.

Also, for players playing the Test Mode as a hotseat game (both players playing on the same computer) it would be nice to have the option to hide each player's hand so the opponent can't see it on their turn.

Hotseat games are difficult to implement for MTG anyway, as there are things you can do on the opponent's turn (instants, abilities, declaring blockers).

It's definitely more difficult but I almost exclusively play hotseat with my friends and it works out pretty well, so long as you're playing with people you trust and you're both willing to narrate your turns as you take them. Hiding hands would just make it a little more convenient.

The Filter-dialogue needs "all" and "none" buttons for quicker selection.

> The Filter-dialogue needs "all" and "none" buttons for quicker selection.

Right click for context menu.

@Detonator
Fine, works! It's just a bit confusing that the selection options in the Sets-dialogue work differently ("all" and "none" buttons) than those in the Filter-dialogue (right-click context menu).

Firstly. I really like this. Seems cleaner than MWS.
During play, you have the ability to put a "Token" card on the table.
You even have the option to create a custom token. Awesome.
Icing on the cake would be able to store a note on the new template so that cards displayed them automatically.

JNSiQwa:
I just thought of a solution for hotseat. Just open two clients and connect them to the same game (use a password to prevent others from joining). Then you can use those clients to play.

That's a great idea, Spheniscine; thanks! The only potential drawback is that opening up two different copies of Virtual Playtable on my weak, little netbook introduces some serious slowdown. I know that's my fault for trying to play games on a netbook at all but it's all that I have.

It's a good alternative for now but it would still be nice to be able to hide hands in the Test Mode some day.

Could you do a filter for mana cost when looking through cards? Like being able to set the highest as three mana, and showing everything three and under. Possibly also add a lowest setting, so to show cards between three and five, for example.

@PlatinumOverlord
To sum things up, card search or deck design would definitely be easier if we would have the many table columns as in good ol' MWS - in my opinion.
I've designed a deck for the current tournament idea and it wasn't so easy.

Adding some sound options to the online chat would be a great idea.
Currently I am waiting for the right opponent in the tournament and with sounds on, I would'nt have to keep an eye on the online window all the time.

After using your wonderful program for a while, I noticed some areas that could be approved. I've not checked if someone else has mentioned them, so I appologize beforehand.

I would love to see the following improvements for deck building:

1. being able to drag and drop cards from the Database to the Main Deck or Sideboard

I'm currently building an EDH deck with different groups and it's a pain to sort out 100 cards. They always get added at the bottom of the Main Deck and with more than 35 cards in there, you have to scroll even on a 1920x1080 resolution screen. And for moving the cards around requires a tremendous amount of clicks.


2. Add a "Quick Filter" toolbar next or under the current row of icons.

For quickly filtering in the Database without going through the Filter menu. You could add the 6 colors, the option to choose for Instant, Sorcery, Creature, Planeswalker, Land, Enchantment or Artifact. Other types aren't important for deckbuilding for most people.


3. Collapseable groups would help keeping the overview, especially with large decks (EDH)

The ability to make groups is already there, it also counts the correct amount of cards so making a group collapseable, to hide for instance land cards, easier to help keep the overview.


4. Give the option to have cards automatically join your Main Deck in a card type group.

You could call the option: "Auto Card-Type" or "Auto Sort". For instance, when adding "Llanowar Elves" from the Database to a new and empty Main Deck, have it make a group called "Creatures" and add the card to that. When a Forest is added, a group called "Lands" should be added with the Forest in it. This way, we save a lot of time doing it ourselves.


5. Sorting by name, type, cost or color

This could be useful in the Database but also in the Main Deck. I use it with Decked Builder on my tablet and it makes building decks a lot easier because when you search for a card with for example "Deathtouch", you can sort according to cost, seeying very fast if an idea based on that would be viable by the average mana cost of the cards. Or when looking for any green card that needs to fill your 2-drop slot. Or when you are looking for Eldrazi's "Quest For" cards and don't know which would work.


6. Adding an option to the search bar if you are searching for title, text or type

It would help a lot if we could quickly change the way we search is altered without using the Search icon. Adding a button which carrousels around "title", "text" and "type" next to it would be my suggestion.


7. Hiding the Sideboard

I don't want to think of the sideboard before the deck's main theme is set, so it would be handy if there where a button to quickly hide/unhide the Sideboard pane and also reduce/enlarge the window size accordingly. It would also help the people with lower resolutions.


8. When hovering over card names, it should display that card

It would be another big help for deck building that when you hover over a card name, the image would show where it does now when you click it. Another tip would also be that when you don't hover over a card name, it should display the card that is selected.

thank you, phuncz, I will add your features in todo list.

No problem, I'm just voicing my opinion on improving the app. I'm proud of what you've did and I see the potential for it to become thé best MtG app out there.

Anyway, if you ever need to bounce off some ideas or need some creative input, you can always contact me, I would be glad to help in any way.

Two requests:

One, while we're waiting for the ability to directly transfer control of permanents to our opponents, could you make "Create Copy of Card under Opponent's Control" an action on the right-click menu instead of only being available through Ctrl-Shift-C?

Two, something I'd always wanted in MWS and which would be awesome in VPT would be the option to be given a random card in the Deck Editor. For example, there could be an option in the Edit or Tools menu that would allow you to choose a color or colors and then the program would give you a random spell of that color in the card list. This would be a little like Sealed Deck but on steroids, giving people spells that they might not ever otherwise think to use for constructing totally random decks.

I'm not sure how difficult that might be to code but it's one of the many features that's possible in digital Magic that might be difficult or impossible to reproduce well in paper Magic and which would definitely set VPT even further apart as a special program in a league of its own.

Thanks, Detonator.

Oh so that's how to do it... I kept having to create arbitrary tokens for my Phantasmal Images and Phyrexian Metamorphs...

If automated card placement will be available in the far future, I have some suggestions based on the card's type. The three rows could be filled as follows:

top row, left to right: creatures, artifact creatures
top row, right to left: creature tokens
middle row, left to right: artifacts
middle row, right to left: enchantments, planeswalkers
bottom row, left to right: basic lands
bottom row, right to left: non-basic lands

In addition it would be nice if there could be a quick/stack area then for placing instant and sorcery spells.

Better in game EDH support would be nice. It seems like the only way at the moment to have a general is to put it in the main deck and exile him before the game starts. It would be nice if you could see sideboard cards and play from that (which would solve that and Spawnshire Of Ulamog if anyone runs that)

A quick action/stack area could be placed on the right between the two exile areas, if the exile zone would be arranged as a graveyard zone aka a pile of cards with a pop-up window showing the content.
Perhaps it would make sense then if you rearrange the piles and move the graveyard to the right next to the exile zone, to get more space for the quick action/stack area on the left - I don't know what's better.

Not sure if someone already recommended it, but I'd love to see support for up to four players, since it's all manual, it'd open up more possibilities for other game types like Two Headed Giant, Archenemy and free four all modes for three and four players.

My addition for a feature request is, as is my thing, better Price statistics. I want to be able to use the filtering features to boil down to a list of cards, then hit one button to get a sum of all those cards median prices. This way I know how much money I have to spend or how much my collection is worth.
This would of course be logically paired with value summations for entire decks, inventories, etc.

Right now the on-demand price lookup is okay, but very resource intensive if you want several prices at once and requires quick internet. An option to switch it to a downloaded file for prices, as opposed to real-time lookup, would be best.

I am trying to look to see if someone has asked for the feature of being able to print deck list? Also, I am excited to see the collection feature be activated.

collection feature not implemented yet at all.
Deck list print and card proxy print will be available in next version.

Needed...
1) The ability to attach cards to other cards so moving around cards with aura's/equipment is much easier and displays correctly for both players.
2) Exile zone should function just like the graveyard.
3) Stack zone.
4) The log should state the names of cards moved between zones as long as it was known to that player in one of those zones.
5) All cards moving from any zone to the battlefield should default to face up unless shift is held. It works strangely now as moving from library to exile makes it face up but moving from library to the battlefield is face down.
6) Targeting arrows should not clear when changing attack steps, they should at least stay until 2nd main phase starts.
7) Need both "play with top card of library revealed" and "play with hand revealed"
8) When searching a library, the cards should be sorted in some way rather than in their current order.
9) When searching the library it could be helpful, in order to correct an illegal game state, to have an option to not shuffle afterward.
10) Mousing over face-down cards should display the face-up side if you control it instead of the card back. Right now you have to move the card to your hand and then undo it if you forget what it is.

"2) Exile zone should function just like the graveyard."
I actually don't think that's such a good idea anymore, since exiled cards often have additional info marked on them.

In the deck builder, it would be really nice to have a way to select a certain number of a basic land type and have that number of those lands be added to the deck at random.

Basically this would be an art randomizer so that those players who really dislike having all their lands look the same can quickly randomize the sets and artwork that they add to their decks instead of having to go through every single expansion and add a few different lands, here and there, manually.

A new mechanic from Avacyn Restored needs to be clear about what you last drew. http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/avr/9uqket0fm4_en.jpg

An easy way to implement this would be to remember what is the last drawn card of both players at all time (in a variable) and add a function that says in the log what is the last card you drew. You could play as usual and prove it was the last card drawn if you want to play it's Miracle cost.

ok

@jonhwoods
How would you in reality make sure that this miracle mechanic will be correctly used?
One draws the card and has to play it instantly before putting it to the other cards in his or her hand?

Actually, I think an option like "show last drawn card" would be the best. At the moment, you could "undo" last draw, and then show first card on top of the deck, but that's obviously not so handy.

Hi Detonator,
Congratulations for your work.
Here are some suggestions for the gameplay:
1- I can see that many have already asked but, can you create a stack zone?
You could put an option in the context menu of the cards to determine to what zone it's going to when being played, and, after, when resolving. You can put another context menu option for cards on the battlefield to determine abilities that are being played and going to the stack and these abilities would be represented on the stack zone by a copy image of the respective card or something like.

2- Can you create a priority control?
It would be in the form of three buttons at side of the phases bar. One button for each player pass the priority and a third to when no player have priority (as when no players will respond and the stack starts to resolve). The player who have priority can act and the other will be prohibited and will have to wait until priority. This priority pass control could create a message in the log. It will control instants, abilities, responses and phases's ending as the stack.

I don't know if it are in your to do list, but I really think these two issues are important for the game.
I have other stuff to suggest, but in another opportunity.

Thanks for your amazing work.

PS.: Sorry for my bad english, i'm not fluent.

I think for right now, for simplicity's sake, all we need for the stack is a new pile on the left-hand side of the screen, in-between both players' graveyards, which can be accessed by both players and would act, essentially, like another, shared, graveyard.

When casting a spell, a player would just drag it from their hand to this pile. When activating an ability, they would just copy the card with the ability and put that copy on the stack. When the ability resolves, they drag the copy to the graveyard and it's gone.

I think it would be better if the stack was a single frame at the right side, similar to the exile, it's a matter of strategy to see the order of spells and abilities on it. Off course, the stack should be accessed by both players and drag and drop the cards to and from the stack is still the usual option.

I only suggested the stack on the left so that it's closer to the graveyard and makes it easier to drag sorceries and instants there after they resolve. Doesn't really matter where it goes, though, ultimately.

However, I wouldn't want it to work the same way that exile does right now. The stack is all about timing, when an object enters the stack and when it leaves. It would be too easy to lose track of the order of objects in a stack that works like the exile zone does.

I suggested the graveyard model because, hopefully, it's easier for Detonator to just copy the graveyard code than to write up a whole new kind of zone, and also because the graveyard already very clearly depicts what entered first and what entered last. If the objects on the stack ever need to be reviewed out of order, a player could just right-click on the stack, as they would with the graveyard, and look at the "stack window" without necessarily altering the objects' order.

@JNSiQwa
OK, now I undestood your point and I agree totally.

Can you please make the Deck Info function work? Additionally, when you import decks from MWS, all the text in the COMMENT/info and comments for deck base field should appear when you click on the Deck Info button.

Detonator
Its very cool the option to create groups in VPT, but to organize the cards when you insert them into deck that has more than 4 groups is very boring (you have to click a lot of times on up/down arrows to put the card in especific group). it would be nice if could drag and drop a card inside the group or if you could move up/down more than one selected card in the same time.

@joollim
In next build deck editor will support drag&drop for reorder and movements between database/deck sections

Hello:

New to the program.

I think its great.

Below are some ideas for consideration.

Ideas for Deck Editing
- “Something”+RightClick = Add 4 cards
- “Something”+LeftClick = Open dialog box. (Type in the number of cards to be added, good for lands.)
- Select all and Select none for cards filter. I don’t know how many others do this, but my build style is “one at a time”. I clear them all, and select “creatures”, then and pick what I want, then “artifact creatures” etc… so starting cleared instead of the reset being defaulted to select all would be good for that.
- If the database list of cards has its own filter system it would be helpful. So that cards were arranged in order of casting cost, or creatures, spells, artifacts or etc etc… This way all the cards would be present and available, and you wouldn’t need to modify the filter in-between each view.
- A special set of filters for lands, so that if only lands are selected, the “costs” filter is understood to be a “mana” filter, only showing lands that generate the selected forms of mana.
- A mana cost filter. This would help a lot in finding zero mana cost cards. Examples, Kobolds, ornithopters etc…
- A list premade groups for basics found in the filters to select from, such as creatures, instants, auras etc… (For the main deck column)
- Some small unobtrusive way that cards are marked rather Restricted or Banned. Since it differs from one tournament style to the next, I presume the markings would be similar to MB (for Modern Banned), and VR for (Vintage Restricted). These could be added to the text somewhere as well so as not to obscure the art of the card.
- Perhaps banned and restricted can be added to the filters.
- A way to tell if a card is found in any other set even if those sets are filtered out.
For me personally this comes into play when Im trying to figure out if a card is unique to special or promo cards, or if the card is a duplicate from another set.
- It seems difficult to select which variant of a card (expansion / art etc...) you want when building a deck. Ive never got it quite figured out. It seems to switch to a default image at times.
- Shift / Ctrl group selection for listed cards.
- Auto sort filters for listed cards.
- Resize / Fullscreen "Sets Filter". window
- Drag added group categories between main deck and sideboard
- Collapsible custom groups to save space

Ideas for the Play Table
- Option to set a card image for tokens.
- Mangaras Tomb requires a way to shuffle a stack of cards in exile.
- Targeting arrows should not be cleared until after the End of Combat Step
- White, black and colorless counters are missing from the attributes screen.
They are useful for many artifacts that collect selectable specific colored manna.
- Has the ability to allow spectators been considered? Then perhaps spectators could trade "control" from active players to take turns playing.
- Add hotseat mode?
- On the play table card stack is inverted for players. Such as, If I have 2 enchantments on top of a creature, and order my cards so the creature is on "top" to be viewed easy, the opponent sees the creature as buried under the two enchantments.
The auto arrange does well already, but could a "card stack order" be added?
Perhaps with a shift, or ctrl, or etc along with an up or down arrow do it?
- I like how a Dbl-Clck on untap and draw does that for you. It would be neat if double clicking the "upkeep" button did something like have cards with an upkeep flash. Or, what if the owner could set a card as an "upkeep" card, so double clicking on the upkeep button would send a text reminder in the chat window. Bottom line, could a upkeep reminder function be added for when double clicking the upkeep button.
- Non-Contiguous game play. (allow games to be played by sending turns through e-mail.)

Ill post more as I go along.

Again, awesome work, and great project!

MeVII

P.S. - Detonator: Is this "the" place for feature requests? Or should I have posted this separately?

I would like the ability to block a user from joining my games. If I am not getting a long with someone, I would like to be able to start a game that they can't join.

Nice software :)