I think you should take advantage of how small you’ve made the “cards” (which I love) and put the hands stacked vertically off to the side, like you did for ice.
there are unfortunately a limited number of columns available.
i think the next think i will try though is absolutely maximizing the number of columns. while still having readable, un-truncated card names.
Given that there are hypothetically infinitely many remote servers, the interface needs to be able to handle an arbitrary number of servers somehow anyway.
the column with the remotes would scroll, but that doesn’t create an extra column for cards in hand. there are only so many columns.
1 Like
Another related subject of discussion: how should matchmaking be done?
Should it be mostly automated? (ie. you select a deck, click start game, wait for another random player to start a game with a deck from the other side, game starts)
Should it be mostly manual? (ie. have a lobby where all players can chat and start game with other players)
What would be the best user experience considering the actual number of online players? (which I’m guessing should be between 10 to 100)
Probably mostly manual, although a large advantage of a web based system is the ability to host games at a URL.
Like to be able to shoot someone a link to play via IM or email, bypassing any kind of lobby or matchmaking system entirely.
Not that this would eliminate the need for some kind of lobby and/or matchmaking system.
Wait, the final version will have the actual card images right?
I also had that idea in mind and I believe it’ll be the easiest to implement in order to get started. Lobby can come later.
I’m 98% sure that the final version will not have the actual card images. These are subject to copyright/IP and will most likely force FFG to take it down.
1 Like
Oh wow, that’s really disappointing…But what about the OCTGN plug-in for ANR? That has card images, and hasn’t been “taken down” by FFG.
Not to mention all the online automated sites and clients for Yugioh, which Konami hasn’t taken down.
I mean, as long as it’s free and the creator doesn’t profit from it in any way, why is it a problem?
I think one of the goals is to take this in a different direction than OCTGN. I actually find the minimalist style presented to be really appealing and would love to try it.
This is why the card names are as large and prominent as possible and the faction/corp colours cover the entire “card” and are as bold as possible and everything is sorted by card type as much as possible.
without card images, the other ways to quickly identify cards become more important.
in some ways, even if card images were legally available i wouldn’t want to use them. too space intensive for their role in a medium where display resolutions are still typically much lower than print, for a game board that tends to involve high information densities.
2 Likes
It isn’t installed into the main OCTGN client, or created/supported by anyone FFG could ever really “go after” even if they wanted it “taken down”.
Konami isn’t FFG.
What I can say, is that there are these things called user scripts, that can alter web pages, including web apps, in various ways, and that you really wanted card art in a web client, or really make any kind of UI tweak, that doing so via a user script would be pretty easy - this kind of general customization being another advantage of a web based approach.
1 Like
As I said in the first post, another developer was forced to take down a video of the web-based application he made that was displaying card images. As a safety measure he also removed them from the application.
So this means that they’re watching. As @striatic said, I also believe that they haven’t taken down OCTGN because it’s actually hard to identify who’s distributing the images (neither OCTGN nor db0’s plugin are).
Have a look at how Hasbro took cockatrice down because they were showing MTG card images in some of the screenshots of the application. This scares me 
I know right. But hey, what can I do against large companies and their lawyers…
Good point. Would require lots of work though.
1 Like
I don’t think it’d be such a huge deal, with GreaseMonkey or a similar solution. Hell, there’s already a Chrome plugin that does exactly what you need - as long as your UI has the names as text, that thing would get you exactly where you want to go.
1 Like
That Chrome plugin is awesome. And yes, displaying the actual images on hover is easy. I meant it would require hard work to display the images on the board.
I don’t even really want the images. I love the futuristic, minimalist GUI feel of this, and I like how things are visually designed around the mechanics of the cards, instead of trying to emulate a tabletop. I think that’s this idea’s strength.
1 Like
And that’s only the mockup. I plan to have it look way more *cyberpunk-*ish 
1 Like
Anything you can currently show us?
Not yet unfortunately. But I do have some questions:
-
Where would you put the root of local servers?(figured it out) - Where would you put current operations/events?
-
How would you handle more than 5 cards in the hand?(figured it out) -
How would you handle more than 1 scored agenda?(figured it out) - Do you have any idea on how runs would work (interaction-wise)?
Again, thanks for helping me out! Really appreciate it 
Here’s what I have “built” today…
(You will need a recent browser. Tested in latest versions of Chrome/FF)
Still plenty missing…
- hosted cards
- remote servers
- chat/logs/actions
- SVG icons for clicks/credits/links/tag/bad publicity/agendas (?)
- better overall styling
- …
I’m terribly awful at CSS and it shows… I would love if someone could help me out here (cc @cpsubrian) as I’d rather spend my time working on the interactions & back-end logic/rules than fighting with CSS
3 Likes