My goal for this thread is to establish a community for playing MtG online with custom cards.
First I will briefly explain how to play with custom cards using Cockatrice. Then I will describe what I think needs to happen to make playing games with custom cards easy and common. I will describe my progress in generating a program to unify the various MtG related programs
Cockatrice uses a file called cards.xml as its database of cards to use in game. It is human readable and very easy to add cards manually. The two steps for adding your custom cards to Cockatrice are
- Edit cards.xml to include your custom cards.
- Put images of the new cards somewhere on your computer and make sure that the picURL attribute in each card entry points to this location.
Now, I did not edit cards.xml by hand. I have written a program that converts set files exported from Magic Set Editor into an abstracted (python) data type which I can then convert to files compatible with Cockatrice or any other program. For what it's worth my program also allows advanced sorting and analysis functionality. It is currently command line only (python). My first goal is to develop this program so that we have a single package from converting cards and decks from one program to another.
Playing on Cockatrice with my custom cards was a ridiculous amount of fun. My second goal is to make this easy. In order to make this work I had to email my friend a hacked copy of cards.xml and all of the card renders. It was easy, but too clunky for mass use. What we need is a repository of custom cards that people can selectively import. This would be really easy to do using something like Git, or alternatively the Cockatrice server could provide this functionality. I will be in contact with the Cockatrice devs about this. We would also need a repository of custom card images. If anyone has an idea for how to manage this please speak up.
Important note: I think you can use your own custom cards in Cockatrice games without other players adding them to their local database. If you want your friends to be able to add your custom cards to their own decks, then we need file sharing as described in the previous paragraph.
The final goal is to come up with a way for people looking to play custom games to find each other. This could be something as simple as an identifier to use as your game name in the Cockatrice lobby, eg. "mtgsCustom".
Summary of what's to be done
- Get an all purpose converter program up to v 1.0 so everyone can use it.
- Establish a way to share custom card data.
- Establish a means for players looking for custom card games to find one another online.
Anyone interested in this pursuit please speak up. I have already made a meaningful progress in this direction. I have figured out how to make custom card frames and mana symbols in Magic Set Editor, and I've gotten my custom cards working in Cockatrice. I think accomplishing the goals outlined here would be a big step for the custom card community and would be a stupid amount of fun.
EDIT: Here's a link to the MSE->Cockatrice converter magicHack
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1) Those who wanted Necropotence or another equally broken black enchant that would "return black combo to Standard".
and
2) Moronic tinfoil hat enthusiasts who are dead set Wizards is out to get them, completely incapable of looking at the data here on MTGS that showed this card won all its brackets.
Never ceases to amaze me, this thread is the epitome of why I've begun hating the magic community. Some of you are completely incapable of losing in anything, even a stupid little make a card contest. You'll come up with the most insane, moronic excuses as to why it won just to make yourself feel a little bit better.
Grow up, shake hands with the winner, and move on with your lives. There will be other YMTC's, and there will be other black enchantments made in many sets (I promise you).
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It effectively boils down to the old argument of:
"Turning creatures sideways isn't fun and its too easy" vs "Telling my opponent no isn't fun and its too easy"
Every spoiler season, every set that comes out its the same thing..
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Yea.. I'm beginning to think people don't understand we're designing a real card for a real set that's going to be in Standard and effect Modern, and that they're unlikely to pick cards designed on old systems/ways of design that they've long-since abandoned due to a large list of reasons.
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You're the one getting all upset over it. We're just discussing how it.
We're allowed to say a card is bad, people can have fun with any card (hell I'm sure there's someone who'd have fun with cards if they were just paper alone). That doesn't make it a good slot usage, we'd rather discuss WHY a card is bad, and what could be done to make it better.
Its what we do here, we design custom cards in a forum and discuss what Wizards makes and what makes it good/bad design. Welcome to MTGS.
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApPr023YHYR0dGxMNk1EYkNXMWxjVXU0RFNjWDBHWkE#gid=0
There's the decklist I'm looking at (working on it on and off)
I went with 6 less creatures so I can run spells.
Things to take into account: My group is really casual, we just play fun decks, no infinites, no hardcore super-turn shenanigans or tons of counters.