Why am I getting so excited about a game that is properly labelled "as expensive and niche as niche can be?" 
Eye Of Judgement
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
Have you ever played simlar trading card games? The strategy of them is very engaging. Combine that with virtual monsters and hi-tech gimmickery, and the appeal is obvious!
I've played BUTTLOADS of them. Which does explain why, really.
M:tG with Antiquities (Missed collecting wholesale when Moxes were still in... curse my timing! ) was my beginning, and over the years I got really into Jihad/V:tES, Shadowfist, L5R, and some others. I'm out of the habit now, but I still do have the yearning...
It does make me really wonder about Eye of Judgement, though... Randomness is always a big factor in making the games exciting and keeping the playstyle from getting stale, even with the same decks. And while you get that with the CPU play, how on EARTH do you prevent cheating against other humans? It would be rampant.
Which does explain why, really.M:tG with Antiquities (Missed collecting wholesale when Moxes were still in... curse my timing!
) was my beginning, and over the years I got really into Jihad/V:tES, Shadowfist, L5R, and some others. I'm out of the habit now, but I still do have the yearning...It does make me really wonder about Eye of Judgement, though... Randomness is always a big factor in making the games exciting and keeping the playstyle from getting stale, even with the same decks. And while you get that with the CPU play, how on EARTH do you prevent cheating against other humans? It would be rampant.
crazygambit
Regular
I've played BUTTLOADS of them.
Ohhh how I want this game too, in fact I can't believe how excited I am for this. I used to play Magic a lot back in the day, I even did well in competitive tournaments with sort of mediocre decks (could never afford all the cards I wanted so I had to make do). But now I don't have the time to play this kind of games, so this game is the closer I'll ever get to the glory days. I can't wait.
Perhaps you don't? The online play could just embrace the fact anyone can have any card, and may the best cheat win! There's a couple of balancers they could do. A time-limit to play your cards would stop people searching through whole packs (though a nice filing system would negate that limit), and if the cards are properly balanced, you wouldn't have uber-power cards that you can drop down and win with, but instead have to build up to them. And that way, it doesn't matter what you have in your hand, and instead how well you play. Take out the low-power fiends before they can be upgraded, and those killer cards are unplayable.
On the whole, that would be rather a let-down. Certainly it would be a limitation, reduce much of what makes CCG's fun and new games each time, and focus too highly on what CCG's annoying... The "power build."
I think it would be too easy to get caught up in the "you NEED this card if you want to compete!" game if everyone, EVERY TIME, could use whatever power card they need, all the time. It just plain worries me.
I think it would be much better if the game were designed to recognize your cards, register your "deck builds" and handle all the randomness of card drawing, etc., on its' own. You would take whatever cards you could legally play from the physical ones in front of you and place them on the playing field, making your move.
Of course, the game DOES seem to look a bit simple, so perhaps it won't be all that important. But that worries me TOO, as the best CCG's are simple on the surface, but have much complexity, depth, and skillful gameplay. If this doesn't have THAT to compensate for the other factors (like lack of a neutral arbiter), then it could be a "fun for a dozen plays, then get bored of it game," which would ALSO suck.
Maybe they have a globally unique ID embedded in a part of a 2D barcode?Hmm... even if you scan the cards into the game... you can still scan 1 powerful card multiple times.
It would be interesting to see how they address cheating.
(it's called CyberCode BTW
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=354667&dl=ACM&coll=GUIDE )
Yeah, but they have to ensure it rejects a counterfeit card for the business sake... :smile:
archangelmorph
Veteran
I guess that's the problem with these kinds of games.. There's so many ways to fool the system and cheat..
I guess if you're playing against a human opponent then there's no chance you could get away with registering a single card multipletimes etc..
But against the CPU there's just so many options.. You could even photocopy and print cards from other peoples decks, make your own counterfiet cards etc..
Must be hard work designing the security of a title like this..
I guess if you're playing against a human opponent then there's no chance you could get away with registering a single card multipletimes etc..
But against the CPU there's just so many options.. You could even photocopy and print cards from other peoples decks, make your own counterfiet cards etc..
Must be hard work designing the security of a title like this..
That's a good idea. But I still think the while power-card thing can be addressed with balance. eg. In Pokemon you need so much energy to use a power, so even slapping down a power card, you then have to top it up with energy. Your opponent can kill it before it becomes empowered, or keep zapping it's energy, or kill the little monster needed to evolve, so just having the card in your deck doesn't mean you get to play it.
The only way I can see that this doesn't work is when you play things that give you extra turns and actions, enabling you to lay the expensive (in terms of setup to be able to use) power card
and play it straight away. As long as they're left out of the cards, problem's solved. And as for buying cards, what's to stop people printing off scans from the internet? The camera's an optical recognition system. You'd only need the markers in the right positions and it couldn't tell a real card from a fake.
Edit : I see archangelmorph noticed this too. I guess that might affect card sales, but it hasn't stopped other card games where players could chedat if they wanted. I've never seen a kid at school with a fake Pokemon card - only ever the real thing.
They can get around it, really, only by making everything HAVE to communicate to a central server to register the card. It doesn't help if people can "break the code" and figure out how to create the codes and graphics for new cards, but so long as they can't do that, it's the only way I can figure to restrict duplication headaches.
As to my other point, it's not about just having one or two "power cards" that you might not be able to play, but the ability to have access to any card you need depending on the situation, around a core build that uses "the best attack pattern possible." You take advantage of mana/energy build curves, and play the best attack-per-mana cards whenever possible, or build up to bigger cards if they leave themselves vulnerable...
Without knowing the rules of the game, it's impossible to say just what may be emphasized how, but SOMETHING is going to get emphasized so hard as to wonk things up if there's no neutral mechanic controlling "random card drawing" and "cards in hand." If those are not IN there, then it's possible to do without the computer control, but it goes right back to emphasizing elements that can make a game damn poor.
As to my other point, it's not about just having one or two "power cards" that you might not be able to play, but the ability to have access to any card you need depending on the situation, around a core build that uses "the best attack pattern possible." You take advantage of mana/energy build curves, and play the best attack-per-mana cards whenever possible, or build up to bigger cards if they leave themselves vulnerable...
Without knowing the rules of the game, it's impossible to say just what may be emphasized how, but SOMETHING is going to get emphasized so hard as to wonk things up if there's no neutral mechanic controlling "random card drawing" and "cards in hand." If those are not IN there, then it's possible to do without the computer control, but it goes right back to emphasizing elements that can make a game damn poor.
crazygambit
Regular
I disagree with the whole looking for cards can be addressed with balance thing. If you can cheat and look through your deck for any card, you're not going to look for the powerful expensive card you can't play yet, you're gonna look for that one mana you need to be able to play the creature you have in your hand, or that spell you desperately need to fend off an enemy attack. You'll look for the most useful card at the time, which effectively robs the game of the randomness ctellis mentioned as a big plus for TCGs (and I agree). I may be naive, but I think that if the camera shows a wide view of the opponent there shouldn't be that much trouble. I mean if I SEE you cheating I'm definetely not playing with you again, which is the same way it works in real life.
As for fake cards, I don't really mind that much if people use them, you still need skill to create a competitive deck (not just buying expensive cards, but combining them properly), plus you also need the skill to play that deck properly, so in the end I don't really care if the game is deep enough, though fake cards are banned in tournament play obviously. The solution I see for this game is some sort of watermark that can't be easily duplicated, it can't be that hard nor expensive to do, I'm sure. I've seen holographic watermarks in the cheapest pieces of crap, so I can see them including that.
Like I said I'm very excited about this game. I'm already sold on the interface, let's hope the actual game has the depth and replayability of something like Magic the Gathering and that WoC took the time to develope and interesting game here.
Edit: I was slow as usual.
Well yes, but at the same time so is your opponent. You both can rely on having the exact cards you want when you want them, which is something deck-games 'suffer' from. You can come up with an awesome idea for a deck, only to find to happen to draw 5 energies in a row and no monsters, and get wipped. The whole-deck solution would elliminate the chance aspect, and come down exactly to what cards you have and when you play them.
If there was a limit to the number of cards in the deck, I think that'd work. It'd be a different experience to real card duels, but I think a game it'd work. Just like if you play any multiplayer game, both teams get to slect from the array of weapons etc. It's not like at the beginning of a Halo multiplayer match, you get dealt one random weapon and another random weapon every five minutes! You don't find you're getting cut down by snipers with no means to retaliate because all you've drawn so far are pistols and grenades! It starts with a level playing field.
The only trouble I can obviously see is someone could just have every card imaginable, and pick all the counter-elementals and traps and whatnot they want. Part of the challenge is working with a limited set of options. In some games that's a finite deck size. In others is limited by what you've drawn, and throwing every card into the deck just dilutes your chances of getting that particular card.
I think the game looks fantastic and is really 'neat'. However the man concern i have WRT to gameplay is that, at their highest levels (if ther is such a thing), the game becomes a very fast paced affair. I think that while novel at first, all the tech might get in the way of the card game. Also, after the discussion here, it seems as if compromises to the card game part were necessary to accommodate the tech. Here's hoping it turns out great tho, as it is bold and innovative.
The main appeal for this game is no different from non-tabletalk videogame RPGs, you don't have to calculate scores or anything. Also the online play will be interesting.
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