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Announcements / Re: How can I help?
« on: October 27, 2013, 12:27:56 PM »
I'll be able to help with testing a bit, never streamed anything before though.
News:
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Forum Bugs, Suggestions, Complaints / Re: Suggestions for SpiritWars 2013
« on: January 02, 2013, 04:15:32 PM »
I never found 2nd move to be as much of an advantage as most people, but I was both an experience chess and MTG player before I started Spiritwars. There are a lot of things you can do with strategy and deck construction to limit the effectiveness of Gold, but they are learned skills. Gold is easier, but they both have their strengths. I thought at one point Randy produced some stats of the win % of each colour and they were close, but I could be mistaken. (These results could also be skewed as better players would more commonly be playing with first move.)
There is definitely an issue in that the advantage of second move seems insurmountable to most new players. New populations generally have far too few answers to gold archers. I think a "first strike" skill would be too good for first player, but I think there are several ways, using existing mechanics, that balance could be increased.
More stationary units(energy/defenders) with better vision, though not as powerful as Oracle. Some 2 def 2 vision, or 1 def 3 vision energies. This would allow better scouting for first player, and to put enemy units in range for spells. Very few people ever used their energies offensive/defensively though. The flip side...more scouting energies makes it tougher for the first player to set traps for the second player.
More 2+ range first turn defend defenders. Most defenders are useless. A few more good defenders could buy the attacking player the extra time they need.
More removal, even if it's conditional. Clinging Vines, Sloth, Flame Strike, Weakness, Dark Curse, spells that increase the move/maint or reduce the attack/move speed all work. Keeping the universal removal rare is a good idea.
There is definitely an issue in that the advantage of second move seems insurmountable to most new players. New populations generally have far too few answers to gold archers. I think a "first strike" skill would be too good for first player, but I think there are several ways, using existing mechanics, that balance could be increased.
More stationary units(energy/defenders) with better vision, though not as powerful as Oracle. Some 2 def 2 vision, or 1 def 3 vision energies. This would allow better scouting for first player, and to put enemy units in range for spells. Very few people ever used their energies offensive/defensively though. The flip side...more scouting energies makes it tougher for the first player to set traps for the second player.
More 2+ range first turn defend defenders. Most defenders are useless. A few more good defenders could buy the attacking player the extra time they need.
More removal, even if it's conditional. Clinging Vines, Sloth, Flame Strike, Weakness, Dark Curse, spells that increase the move/maint or reduce the attack/move speed all work. Keeping the universal removal rare is a good idea.
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Forum Bugs, Suggestions, Complaints / Re: Suggestions for SpiritWars 2013
« on: January 02, 2013, 02:18:27 PM »
I think the most important issue is distance between castles. I found that a distance of between 5 and 10 hexes was ideal, 3 was too small as it let a spotted leopards or barbarian raiders be beside your castle on turn 1. Longer castle distances, or maps with too many choke points led to the longest games, especially when both players were playing undead. Foujaad and I had a game that lasted well over 100 turns.
A taller, slimmer map with roughly the same amount of hexes may be OK. My concern would be whether it would give the second player too much flexibility of movement. The extra height would make it more difficult to trap enemy units against the edge of the board. A well designed map with few Deep Water/Cursed Terrain could negate this.
A taller, slimmer map with roughly the same amount of hexes may be OK. My concern would be whether it would give the second player too much flexibility of movement. The extra height would make it more difficult to trap enemy units against the edge of the board. A well designed map with few Deep Water/Cursed Terrain could negate this.
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Forum Bugs, Suggestions, Complaints / Re: Suggestions for SpiritWars 2013
« on: January 02, 2013, 11:29:28 AM »
Switching to a larger the map size would affect balance in several ways, mostly in favour of the second player:
Spellcasters become more powerful
Flanking becomes easier and more effective
Aggressive dungeons become less effective
Map/point control becomes more difficult
Slower dungeons, with more expensive and powerful units become more effective
Movement speed becomes more important
As someone that played first player for %80-90 of my games I'd be very concerned about any map size changes. More varied(or random) maps of the standard size would definitely be beneficial though. I knew the layout of most of the maps, including terrain and possible starting castle locations. This was definitely an advantage, though perhaps not an unfair one consider how many games I played.
Spellcasters become more powerful
Flanking becomes easier and more effective
Aggressive dungeons become less effective
Map/point control becomes more difficult
Slower dungeons, with more expensive and powerful units become more effective
Movement speed becomes more important
As someone that played first player for %80-90 of my games I'd be very concerned about any map size changes. More varied(or random) maps of the standard size would definitely be beneficial though. I knew the layout of most of the maps, including terrain and possible starting castle locations. This was definitely an advantage, though perhaps not an unfair one consider how many games I played.
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News / Re: Advice, please
« on: September 26, 2012, 12:31:20 PM »
My previous place of employment used a program called Gammadyne to send bulk emails. I have never used Send Blaster, but I imagine it has a similar features. This is probably the easiest approach. Send Blaster may allow you connect directly to the database, otherwise, it might require you to transfer the data to an excel sheet or something similar. The other thing you are going to need is some kind of short form letter. The program should allow you to insert other fields from the database directly into the email body to customize the letter to each person. Some people are going to be wary about this email being a spam/fishing attempt. To avoid this I suggest adding a couple of lines to the email to refresh their memory of Spiritwars as well as including their username and the date of their last active membership or something similar. The program should also allow you to specify a "from" address for the email. You'll have to decide whether you want to use a "real" address, if you don't you should mention in the email that responses will not be read.
Some other things to keep in mind:
Make a test dataset with only your personal email to do a couple of test runs to make sure you are happy with the emails being sent. If you are including links in the email make sure they work.
Their should be an option to send a bunch of individual emails, or to multiple people in the same email. Make sure each person gets their own email.
Spend some time to develop a well-written email. People will be more likely to take it seriously and less likely to think it spam.
If you have any other specific questions I may be able to provide some input.
As far as redevelopment of Spiritwars...rewriting the program in another language will be a lot more work. I guess the main question is whether it is possible to fix in Visual Basic. I seem to recall it was a new version of windows that caused it to stop working and you can't expect everyone to run a Window's XP emulator.
Hope some of this helps.
Some other things to keep in mind:
Make a test dataset with only your personal email to do a couple of test runs to make sure you are happy with the emails being sent. If you are including links in the email make sure they work.
Their should be an option to send a bunch of individual emails, or to multiple people in the same email. Make sure each person gets their own email.
Spend some time to develop a well-written email. People will be more likely to take it seriously and less likely to think it spam.
If you have any other specific questions I may be able to provide some input.
As far as redevelopment of Spiritwars...rewriting the program in another language will be a lot more work. I guess the main question is whether it is possible to fix in Visual Basic. I seem to recall it was a new version of windows that caused it to stop working and you can't expect everyone to run a Window's XP emulator.
Hope some of this helps.
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Introductions / Re: Wewt!
« on: September 20, 2012, 09:02:34 AM »
Some of you may remember me... I used to play extensively and SpiritWars kept me sane (and awake in class) while going to college. I'm not sure how many thousands of games I played, but I frequently check into SpiritWars and I'm glad to see that there is a forum up and running!
I have a Computer Science degree, and work as a programmer. I'm willing to help where I can, but I don't have the free time to make any major commitments. You can definitely count on me as a member when things are up and running again. I hope to see some familiar names again!
Minmaxer
I have a Computer Science degree, and work as a programmer. I'm willing to help where I can, but I don't have the free time to make any major commitments. You can definitely count on me as a member when things are up and running again. I hope to see some familiar names again!
Minmaxer
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