Virtual Playtable Forum

It's looking and playing great, Detonator.

Just three small things.

First, there are lots of spells that require you to exile cards from your library face down, so it's good that that's the default action for exiling cards from the library. However, I don't think that there are any spells that require you to put a card from your library onto the battlefield face down, so it might be better for the default action to be to put cards from the library onto the battlefield face up.

Second, the official term is "battlefield," not "battleground," but that's pretty insignificant.

Third, in the Test Play, double-clicking the Unstap Step and Draw Step icons only affect the player on the bottom, never the opponent on the top, even if it's their turn.

Lastly, I have a special request. Could you put in an option to hide the price list and the rules text box in the editor so that all we see is the card itself? This would help save a lot of space on computers with tiny screens that run at 1024x600 resolution.

Other than that, it's shaping up really well. Thanks for the great program!

"I can implement "Reveal random card from graveyard", if it's creature, you use it, else try random again."

Shuffling would probably work better; if, for example, there are only 4 creatures in 20 cards, you'd only have a 1 in 5 chance of selecting a creature. It would be frustrating to reveal random cards again and again in this situation.

If the comp rules are an issue, perhaps make the shuffling undo-able? At least, until the comp rules are changed. This is where a virtual table has an advantage has over a real one, after all.

> I don't think that there are any spells that require you to put a card from your
> library onto the battlefield face down

Some cards says like "put into library third from the top", you can simple move top cards into battlefield facedown, put this card to library and return cards back.

> if, for example, there are only 4 creatures in 20 cards

Later I will try to do some automation for card types, but it's need more testing with non-english card type/texts

> Could you put in an option to hide the price list and the rules text box in the editor so that all we see is the card itself?

Ok. I will test it for 1024x600 resolution and add option to hide price.

Just a couple little things I've noticed yesterday, in the play module:

- there are useless pop up menus when I right click the opponent's card/hand/library.

- in the log, when a player disconnects, it says "leaved the game", which is wrong: correct one is "left" or "have left"

- a way to give the opponent control of one of my cards is needed

- if I double click a card in hand, the log says "Player plays [card name]", however if I drag the card into play, the log says "player puts a card into play". It's correct that it says "put", but it should say the card name as well (apart from when I put a face down card in play, where it should just say "a face down card". Same happens when you drag a card from/to a zone to another.. the card's name should be written in the log.

- the undo feature is very nice. Would it be possible to have a "redo" as well?

P.S:
I've opened a topic about VPT on our italian MtG site.. hope more people will try and test this, either posting here or telling me, so that I can report back to you :)

"Some cards says like 'put into library third from the top,' you can simple move top cards into battlefield facedown, put this card to library and return cards back."

Good reasoning.

"Ok. I will test it for 1024x600 resolution and add option to hide price."

And the rules textbox below, too, if that's possible. Because we can have the errataed rules on the cards themselves now, the textbox is kind of superfluous. Thanks!

> - the undo feature is very nice. Would it be possible to have a "redo" as well?

It's is necessary? Undo is for special purposes only. I see problem with shuffle and actions with random number, redo will generate new card order and random numbers. It's enough simple to redo these actions manually, may be with changes.
Also undo is not global, but per-user only. You can't undo opponent's actions, but deep undo can fail targets for opponent's previous actions, and redo then will generate not same state as before.

> - there are useless pop up menus when I right click the opponent's card/hand/library.

Ok, I will try to hide it when all elements are disabled.

Later I will recheck all message log texts .

Ah, didn't notice you could not undo opponent's actions.

I thought about undo/redo as an easy way to review the game with your opponent after the match.. could be nice especially for testing with a friend to review certain choices. That's however a sort of replay feature.. and a replay feature is meant to be done right? Would it be possible to have a spectator mode in replay mode as well? Could be nice to study a game with a friend.

EDIT: so, if in the chain of actions there's an opponent action, and I can't undo it myself, will the undo do nothing, or will it undo my previous action, messing up with the game state?

I mean:

My action 1
his action 1
my action 2

First undo will undo my action1. Will a second undo rollback action 2, or will it fail since his action 1 is actually "blocking" my undo?

Actions always undoned succesfully, it works next way:
Before apply any action I save copy of game state.
When you undo action it restore game state to timepoint of previous your's action, then apply again all opponent's actions after this timepoint. Some may be fail if action target not exists anymore (you can see it in message log as "(Failed)"), in general it's rare situation, but game state always will be "stable".
This undo feature mainly not for manual use, but for internal resolving network delays, I apply local action immideatly, then send action's packet to other player(s), if one of these players failed to apply this action, it will be undoned on all other players to.
Also this "undo" need me to implement rules checking and AI in future.

Game Save/Load/Replay and Spectrator mode will be later, when I finish all gameplay interface features and internal actions list and it's arguments will be stable, else with new version release all old saved games will be imposible to load.

Good, just pointing out that replay should be available together with spectator mode, in order for both players to review the game together, and not just as a sort of replay for yourself alone :)

Version 0.5.8a released: database updated to "Dark Ascension" (see links in first topic)

A friend of mine made me notice a pretty important thing: he ended up passing from MWS to Cockatrice not strictly for a technical reason, but rather for a "community" reason: it's known that there are a lot of bad mannered people on the MWS servers, and you can't do much about it. On Cockatrice, since nicks are registered, you can ban a player in order to avoid playing with him again. Sure, he can re-register, but it surely won't re-register just because YOU banned him.

The above is better than nothing, but can be improved A LOT: on a large player base, banning a player may be useless since you have little chance of finding him again anyway. What I would suggest is a sort of "feedback" system (similar to ebay in a certain sense): nothing flashy.. just this:

- you need to register a nickname in order to play on the server

- every time you play against someone, you can give him a vote from 1 to 10

- you can change your vote for someone you play more times against, but you can't give more than one vote (to avoid two friends spamming each other with high votes)

- when you are waiting for someone to join your game, you can see his average vote, and decide to play against him or not based on that

Having registered nicknames would also allow for banning nicks and even make friends' list, which would be awesome on its own (Cockatrice gives a certain importance to the "keep in contact" aspect as well)

I know there are even more sophisticated algorithms to keep track of someone's "Karma" in order to avoid frauds from vote spamming, for example weighting the votes based on the voter's own feedback, but even a simple system as the above would make a HUUUUUUUGE difference.

Remember: most often than not, when you read about MWS around, it's not about how good or bad the program is, but mostly about how TERRIBLE and BAD MANNERED are the people playing on it. Do something similar to the above, and you'll REALLY have a killer feature to attract players from everywhere.

This looks great, thanks! This could easily replace MWS; and it looks like this will be the main competition for Cockatrice.

Just some quick suggestions:

- When starting a test game, the initial sound is VERY loud. For some reason, the program brings my sound up to like 75% which on headphones is extremely too loud.
- More predefined tokens. I do not think there are a whole lot of them, but it'd be nice just to have access to them all since there're a number of places where you can download all of the tokens and their different art.
- Minor gripe, but I'd like to actually see the health go up and down.
- Lands should be played in their "normal" place, i.e., on the bottom row. Currently, they all stack on top of each other, and creatures go to the same place as lands (the top left).
-This is probably very difficult to program, but would it be possible to have a popup window that you could resize and move around for the graveyard?
- When searching the library, it'd be nice if they all stacked up so you don't have to scroll down, kinda like in MTGO.
- Might be completely unnecessary, but maybe an area for the stack that spells go to (maybe this should just be user done or optional)?

All in all, this looks great! There aren't many people currently playing, but it blows Cockatrice's interface out of the water already! I'd advertise the game more and try to spread it as THE alternative to MWS. Hope you found my comments useful.

"- Minor gripe, but I'd like to actually see the health go up and down."

It can. After you assign all the points of damage and poison and life gain that will happen at any given point, just click "Apply Damage" at the bottom of the life right click menu and the life totals will change. It's an extra step, but it's actually really useful in complicated blocking situations where there are a lot of different triggers going off all at once.

"Apply Damage" can be called by left dblclick on avatar.
In game you simple press Ctrl+Left Click on avatar to assign amount of damage, then dblclick to apply (or "clear changes" in context menu if you for example prevent it)

Ah, thank you, Detonator. I'd been wondering if there were another way to apply damage. I know there are the keyboard command hints in the upper-right corner of the screen at the beginning of each game, but my screen is so small that the chat window cuts off everything below "Adding poison counters."

2 Malhavoc, I will implement server with login/password, and black/friend list too.
Also I'm thinking about game result reporting when you finish match or try close gameplay window (dialog with Win/Lose/Draw/Not finished) and result will send to server for statistics. Then other players can see rating when join to game (how matches you played/not finished), I think it will prevent users to disconnect in game.

Also Cockatrice has only one server, but in VPT any player can run it's own server, for example for friends or league games, or connect directly each to other without server, it's not always possible to check user/password in this situation (internet may be not available if you play in LAN), but I will think about it.

2 KaptainKrunk,

I will check sound volume.

Stack zone in my plans, and will be implemented in closest builds.
Graveyard resizing and other will be implemented too, thank for your suggestions.

About tokens - I will try to implement some automation, when you have revealed card on battlefield/stack/graveyard/exile which can create tokens, this predefine token type will be automatically available in context menu.

Currently, in both the Deck Builder and the Test Play, when you click on a card image to preview its largest size, the preview shows the printed text rather than the errataed text, even if errataed text on the cards is turned on. Would it be possible for you to make the errataed text show up on the large card previews as well?

On an "unofficial" server, people should just be on their own, it's fine :)

Reporting game results would be nice, but I think many people would simply deny to have lost in order to avoid having their statistics getting worse. However, a log of how many times one disconnected (if coupled with how many games one have played) could be quite useful.

A small bug from the former final has survived:
mtg.jar\textures\sets
The CSP_C/R/U.gifs have to be renamed to CS_C/R_U.gifs in order to display the Coldsnap-icons correctly.

By the way, what about other missing set-icons? Mirrodin Besieged and up to Dark Ascension, Magic 2012, Special Sets...

EDIT: I just recognized that a kind of blur filter softens the images in vpt. But in my opinion, the blur settings seem to be a bit too strong so the original pic looks sharper than that in vpt.

> Currently, in both the Deck Builder and the Test Play, when you click on a card
> image to preview its largest size, the preview shows the printed text rather than
> the errataed text, even if errataed text on the cards is turned on. Would it be
> possible for you to make the errataed text show up on the large card previews as well?

I checked it, for me in Deck Editor it shows same mode as in preview.
In Play mode it always shows errated text.

"I checked it, for me in Deck Editor it shows same mode as in preview.
In Play mode it always shows errated text."

I deleted all the VPT files and reinstalled the program and it's still showing up as the printed text on my PC. The errataed text shows up in the normal picture, but the printed text shows up whenever I left-click on the picture and hold to see the full-sized card or when I right-click and select "View Card."

Some specific examples of the incorrect text are on "Camel," "Ice Cauldron," "Thrun, the Last Troll," and "Path to Exile," but really it's happening on every errataed card.

"Camel" is displayed different as described by JNSiQwa in my first attempt too. But after I played with the "show original image"/"show errated text"-settings, the large pic is finaly shown correctly with errated text as is the preview card.

That fixed it. Ridiculous that I didn't try that. Thanks, Sanguinus.

For some reason the play module bumps the sound volume on my computer to 66% the first time I run the program and open it. My ears almost imploded from it (my headphones are loud at 20%).

^ This exactly.

One time a day I get the error "Start tag expected" when starting the deck editor. The editor then starts as normal but with empty deck list, although I left VPT with an active deck in the list.

And the play modul sets the volume to 50% on my machine, which is lower than my default 100% (but sounds okay). That's why I don't recognised it before.

I have the same problem with volume as above. When starting the game It makes it extremely loud. Please Fix this.
Also could You add support for token pictures? (stored in card pictures folder in TK [like "D:/Cards/Full/TK"], also with option for full card pics or pictures only)
The program still needs a lot of development but is very promising. I'm looking forward to next version and I will be testing this a lot.

Volume fix
http://virtualplaytable.com/forum/discussion/30/sound-volume-fix-for-version-0.5.8a

Tokens images will be added soon.

> The program still needs a lot of development but is very promising.

What additional features are you expected in first order?

I've done some testing with my "Start tag expected" error message (see my comment above). I am using .mwDeck-files at the moment, which seems to be the problem:

If I quit VPT with an open .mwDeck and start the Deck Editor again, the error occurs.
If I use a .deck-file, there is no error. It seems to be that VPT expects some information the .mwDeck file hasn't stored.

And btw I don't know if the error message "File not found" should pop up, in case the original file has been moved or deleted. VPT could easily start with an empty deck without any message in such case.

The features I'd like to see:

Soon:
- arrows (or some way to target spells, defences, etc.).
- a way to attach card to a card. (even in opponent zone)
- untap all cards (maybe automatic in untap step?)

Bugfix:
- proper card drawing in testing mode (if you double press draw icon - even though it's opponents turn the Player will draw a card.

Later:
- next phase shortcut (space?)
- card drawing may be automatic if next phase after upkeep
- better zone management (lands automatigaclly landing on the bottom of player zone instead stacking in one place)
- scalable interface

Way in the future or never (optional):
- automatic mana pool management? (tapping a land fills mana pool, casting a creature would empty it)
- automatic combat handling? (after attacking and defending damage being dealt, monsters killed all automatic)
- more automation if possible?
- work in automated or manual mode

> - arrows (or some way to target spells, defences, etc.).

Right button drag & drop from one card to other to draw red arrow.

> - untap all cards (maybe automatic in untap step?)
> - card drawing may be automatic if next phase after upkeep

Usually in game you should dblclick on untap step button (permanents untaps automatically), optionally do something in upkeep, and than dblclick on draw step button (a card draws automatically)

Other things will be implemented soon.

About automatic - it is in my general long plans.

I know, I need guide with shortcuts and actions, will be available on this forum soon.

When I dblclick on the draw step button in order to draw a card as opponent, the player gets the card instead, although the turn bar has been switched correctly.
This also happens with the untap button.

A bit of bug reports I've received on our forum:

- while browsing a card pile, the checkbox to view the cards as sorted is missing

- while browsing a card pile, there's not pop-up menu for the cards I'm looking at

- in the deck editor, at relatively low resolutions (1024x600, 1024x768), card pics are cut at 3/4 (probably using full scans? [Note by M.])

- play module can't be resized, and keeps a square proportion even on 16/9 monitors (resolutions like 1920x1080)

"- in the deck editor, at relatively low resolutions (1024x600, 1024x768), card pics are cut at 3/4 (probably using full scans? [Note by M.])"

It's not a complete fix but if you right-click on the menu bar icons at the top of the deck editor screen and uncheck the "Standard" option, that will save a lot of room and allow more of the card to be seen on low resolutions.

There are some bugs I want to report:
- whenever u look at top X cards, u can't easily move them on the bottom of your library
- token bug - whenever u create for example green wolf 2/2, it's not possible to create black wolf 1/1 with deathtouch

"- token bug - whenever u create for example green wolf 2/2, it's not possible to create black wolf 1/1 with deathtouch"
not exacly a bug, but development choice.
If it gets 'fixed' we can probably expect for tokens pictures to be selected by browse in the future, because it most likely won't be possible to find the picture by the name automagically. You could always create database of which picture is for which token, then that could be automatic, but don't know how much would that be accurate, especially because then why not to create a database of tokens...

The choice of token pic could be preselected by the token creature type. Of course, there could be several wolf, goblin, whatever pics for further selection.
Of course these individual tokens should be saved for future use.

No, it's bug with tokens.

That "token bug" is nothing with the pictures. You can' create creatures with the same type and different collour. If u create black wolf and try to create green wolf, the green wolf won't be green but black.

Bugs:
- Flipping flip-cards will upturn counters and annotations. Additionally, the viewscreen still shows the card in its normal state.
- I've run into what seems to be a memory leak when playing online... I got "out of memory" messages. Unfortunately I didn't save the error logs... but I do remember that it happened in a game I started in the same room right after a game with heavy use of tokens and counters.

Suggestions:
- Face up exile pile should act like another graveyard, to make cards in it easier to manage.
- Allow toggle to keep the top card of the library revealed.
- Allow the creation (and of course, deletion) of additional "piles" (that can be face up or face down) in the battlefield area. These allow you to keep groups of cards together for a particular purpose. (for example, keeping track of cards exiled by a Helvault). Face up piles should be viewable like the graveyard.
- If aforementioned "piles" are shufflable, this would also be another possible solution to the Innistrad random recursion problem.

Low priority: There's a typo in the flavor text of Seal of Doom, Dissension edition. It should say "is a tiresome task," instead of "is a tiresone task."

Quick question about the double cards (Fire/Ice, etc) - what should the card images be called in the picture directory? My own set of images has them just as one word, e.g., fireice.full, but VPT doesn't recognize them. You can't name them Fire/Ice.full in Windows either, as you can't put a slash in anything.

"Fire_Ice.full.jpg" for full image
"Fire.jpg" and "Ice.jpg" for cropped images.

Could you please tell me, how does the sideboard work, if it works?

no, it not works yet.

Minor: If you look closely, you can tell that the art gets slightly blurred when you switch from the original card image to the errataed card.

Bugs:
- When discarding a random card, the card goes to the bottom instead of the top of the graveyard.
- "Move card to" doesn't work when the card is on the battlefield.

For the token bug (about the black wolf and stuff), renaming the black wolf token "Deathtouch Wolf" or something other than "Wolf" solves that problem

Minor:
- the exile area has no description like "Graveyard" or "Library"
- set Attributes/Notes: the notes cannot be seen/read if counters are set
- "sacrifice" isn't a selectable action, instead the card is moved to the graveyard

I play sealed with a friend of mine and we'd love to see some more sets be available, when can we expect this to happen and if you don't have the time, is it possible to simply tag existing cards to create a new set?

> we'd love to see some more sets be available

Ok, I will add them a bit later.

When will be the new version of Virtual Playable available?

Bug report for v0.5.8a: In Online Play mode I looked at my library once and thereafter, all cards that weren't already on the battlefield at that time became card backs permanently. Their faces were never shown on the battlefield, in my hand, in the library or in my graveyard. This applied to my own cards and also my opponent's, although my opponent said that he was able to see all card faces properly. This continued even after we began several new games and only stopped when I restarted the entire program.

I know a version of this bug was patched a while ago and, unfortunately, I wasn't able to repeat it, though I tried several times. I just wanted to let you know, Detonator, that, somewhere in the code, the potential for this bug still exists.

Heh... I also had a similar bug where after multiple resolutions of Ponder on both sides, when I tried to resolve Ponder yet again using the "look at top X cards", I wasn't able to stack the cards properly. Also probably difficult to reproduce.

>Detonator, that, somewhere in the code, the potential for this bug still exists.

Ok, I will check it.

Suggestions:

Have a list of planned implementations, so we don't repeat ourselves (or does taht exist already?)

Deck creation software:

-Advanced search in item cost (search only multicolored or min/max costs)

-Commander format support?

Actual play software:

-Have a new area called the Stack:
So we can stack our instant spells and know which one resolves first. This is a zone where we could use as a buffer to store cards and not be confused with the battle field

-Quick add of +1/+1, -1/-1 counters

-A clear history function for the chat/cache, since it gets laggy after more than 45 min play.

-Better and more discrete sound effects.

-Commander format support?

Great software overall!