WTactics

- open source strategy ccg

Posts Tagged elves

Erode

Jun 23

Posted by snowdrop in ORC | 10 Comments

A new card that follows up on the peaceful tradition we know our beloved elves have of being more or less pacifist unless forced to take action.

Does the “destruction” of something fit the elvish profile? Like in this case, the destruction of an aggressors weapons? I’d argue it could very well do so. This is of course a matter of taste and understanding how “a real elf” would act. But, wouldn’t a real elf “destroy” anything that was evil, aggressive or threatening if it had no other choice? Or would an elf perish and rather die and see all others do the same instead of standing up for it’s rights?

It seems like a bizarre notion to have the general elves depicted as such hard core pacifists (while it also seems very likely that there would exist religions & cults where ones own death would be preferable instead of raising arms against an aggressor). From what little I know about fantasy there is plenty of room for elves to destroy whatever is bad. :P

Notice how this is still less powerful compared to “Destroy all equipment carried by target creature”, which would typically be something I’d like to have associated with the Black Legion (Undead & Co.) instead. Elves will never have the full power of destruction or the means to target such forces. Whenever they do have it it is conditional and in line with their alliance profile of being peace loving.

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take from the rich

Jun 3

Posted by snowdrop in ORC | 3 Comments

Here’s some new artwork and another card. As usual, this baby is a work copy and subject for heavy change. This is how it looks like currently, ready for playtesting. For it to be effective though it will most likely have to be released as a permanent (a card that stays in play until removed by something) at a cost of 3 or 4 instead of a free instant as it is now.

I’m also thinking about other possible and nice names for the card. While I myself like the current which sends a clear message about the function of the card I think there might be more elegant ways of doing the same. Question is, are they as straight forward? Which brings me to another one: Are elfs straight forward? Or are they mysterious and speak in riddles? I have a hard time imagining them as tall & thin Yodas, and in my imagination they are honest and direct, but without being aggressive or meaning harm, and they also have good motives for their actions. In this particular case, a hint of that can be seen in the flavor text.

I also experiment with adding some kind of flavor text at the bottom right whenever there’s room for it. Wtactics goes for simplicty for the eye and we won’t ever include the flavor as a part of the main card text, nor will it be mandatory to have flavor texts for all cards either.

The photodevelopers I ordered “test prints” from have informed me that their only machine that can deliver exact dimensions when developing the cards needs to be repaired. They estimated it would take 3 weeks, so I still haven’t been able to see if the flavor text is too small yet. I’ll get back to this as soon as I receive the prints and will then share my findings with you.

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love & the kinds of it

May 24

Posted by snowdrop in General, ORC | 2 Comments

Time again for a work copy of a card that will be playtested in the Original Rules Concept: Bound by Love. Personally I’m weak for civilian elements and drama even if it’s in a war centric game. I think this card has a nice touch to it, uniting mechanics and story in a natural and understandable way with beautiful artwork. It’s one of my favorites this far.

I got some reactions asking of there are homosexual elfs. In short & minus the discussion:

  1. Why wouldn’t there be?
  2. WTactics shouldn’t be heteronormative. On the contrary, it should be pluralistic and inclusive.
  3. A kiss is a kiss – it says little about the subjects sexuality.

    4. Would anyone react if it was a male an female elf making out? No? Then surely the question should be why people react on this, and not why I choose to include such art.

My ambition is to avoid making WTactics a clone of every default fantasy setting that’s already out there. That mission is impossible to a certain dagree. Some basics should remain there. An example is the basic appearance of Elves. Without following any fantasy convention the world would be very hard to understand and grasp for the players, and, it would maybe even not be a fantasy world at all in the meaning the term “fantasy” is used.

That is why many things will indeed stay stereotypical to the genre. They are defining it and they make it easy to understand the world. At the same time my belief is that WTactics should dare to push the genre in new directions, some of which touch up on real world contemporary issues, stereotypes and other problems. This would all have to be done in a balanced way of course. There is a real big difference between daring and challenging, and out right provocation & propaganda.

WTactics can create a revised and modernized fantasy setting which isn’t afraid of the controversial or unusual topics being shown and, via the game, debated among the players. Maybe it will even giving birth to thoughts, perspectives & discussions even though it’s a game made primarily for entertainment.

Let’s try to find our own way and convention of what we want to deliver instead of following the same old path blindly.

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new card & event template

Apr 19

Posted by snowdrop in General, ORC | No Comments

A month has passed and I’ve been very busy with my real work, but fear not beloved cardplayers – much has happened. I donated gold and the gods of creation answered my prayers: A couple of new artwork pieces have been born and are now a part WT’s great art pool. If you feel the divine calling please consider doing the same ;)

To show a sign of life (yeah, there is a rule on the internet which says every great project which hasn’t posted anything in a month is stone cold dead, I know…) and calm your nerves I decided to show some double folded progress.

card
As seen to the right the new art looks delicious, doesn’t it? It’s a sample of how it could be used on an Event card. In this particular case, it also happens to be a card that will be playtested once I get enough cards done for the next major experiment with the orginal rules concept, one which kill the ORC and breathe life in a brand new offspring from my masterful wannabe-wose mind. :P

template
As the observant reader may have noticed there have been some development on the Event card template. We have gone from this template to the one you see to the right. In particular, the following has been changed:

Info box added at bottom: This will contain the artists name if the artist has contributed for free by donating his/her work under the GPL. In any case, it will also contain info about the cards ID number.

Each card will have a unique number which is a fast way of identifying the card without using it’s name. Next to that, followed by a dot, there is also a version number. This allows you to easily check if you have the latest and most up to date version of a card, since sometimes a card will undergo balance adjustments, spelling corrections et.c. as needed. Example: 1.3 would mean that the card ID is “1″ and it’s version is “3″, meaning that is the third time that specific card has been changed since it was officially published.

Leaf Icon: The new leaf icon in the top right corner of the card represents the Elvish Faction in the game, which would probably be called “Rebels” and be a part of an alliance (alliance is shown by the green colour of the card’s borders/containers).

Thought is that each faction will get it’s own icon which easily identifies the cards faction belonging. Sadly the factions lack official icons in BfW, but it won’t hinder us from drawing completely new ones when it’s time for the others.

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orc re-vamp & a tool

Feb 24

Posted by snowdrop in ORC | 1 Comment

the ware
First I’d like to introduce a nice new tool I discovered that’s called Dia. It allows us to create nice flow charts easily and a sample of the original rules concept turn/phase sequence can be seen here to the right. Dia is open source of course and available for lovely Linux among other OS:s. I’ve added the link to it in our FAQ and recommend everyone with the need to try it out.

the vamp
As anyone that has actually playtested the orginal rules concept (orc) has surely noticed it’s not working out and has some serious and fatal issues.

1. victory points á la shapes
The main problems it has is that the victory point system – which enables a player to get points for creating an empty shape in his opponents army – does not play together very well with the fact that a player can recruit freely every turn (even if he/she pays for the recruit). Most of the different empty shapes never occur because the opponent will mend the holes in his/her army by recruiting a new unit.

Using shapes for any kind of victory condition has proven to be very tricky to accomplish. I’m probably abandoning that idea for now, but would gladly revisit it should anyone have some good input on it.

The concept of shapes can, in any case, be used as a requirement for some types of ability payments: The more we want to limit the use of an ability without having to make much more expensive in marked cards, the more incentive we get to ask for a payment in a shape, i.e. [c] instead of [2].

2. overpriced
Most cards are overpriced. All creatures should probably have their cost lowered with 1, and many of the abilities are also too expensive. This will be fixed in the next revision of the elfs.

3. AP:s goodbye?
There may be good reasons to ditch the AP:s, allow unlimited number of attacks (but still just 1 per creature due to the fact that attacking marks a card) but limit the number of movements to just 2 per turn.

4. attack system
I’m not impressed at all by how I devised the attack system and will look at alternatives. The thing which bothers me the most and which is related is the admin it takes to keep track of HP of each character. If possible I’d fool around with letting everyone have just 1 HP and use some kind of MTG approach instead to lessen admin work and add elegance to the system, if I can also still keep the effect of Rows and Spatial placement in the game.

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elves playtest proxy 1.1.2

Jan 31

Posted by snowdrop in ORC | No Comments

A new and current proxy sheet of the Elves as they are this far has been released in the downloads section.

A pdf-version has also been added for your convenience.

v.1.1.1

  • Archer price was made higher, from 2 to 3
  • Fighter close combat lowered, 4 -> 3
  • Druid Self-heal cost lowered [ ] [C] -> [ ]
  • Druid Heal cost raised [ ] -> [ ] [ 1 ]
  • Wose cost lowered, 5 -> 4
  • Wose Self-Heal made eaiser, [ ] [ P ] -> [ ] [ 3 ]
  • Mage Fire Elemental cost lowered, [ ] [ 2 ] -> [ ]
  • Marksman is missing? Marksman has Shaman art.
  • Elvish Captain & Hero artwork is mixed up. It needs to be swapped back since they’re already known with their associated artwork. (And the Captain, bearing the flag standard, gives the bonus through it – troops get inspired seeing the flag etc)
  • Elvish Captain (the one with the flag) close combat raised, 4 -> 6
  • Elvish Captain Defense lowered, 6 -> 5
  • Elvish Hero ranged combat lowered, 4 -> 3
  • Elvish Hero defense lowered, 5 ->

1.1.2

    • Druid:

    • Renamed Heal to “Greater Heal” to mark diff from the Shamans Heal ability
    • Lowered Self-heal cost, [ ] [C] –> [C]
    • Reworded [Ensnare] –> “[Ensnare] – Enemies hit by Ensnare get their Attack Points reduced to half this turn, and also can’t move this turn.”
  • Shaman: Changed wording of Entangle. “[Entangle] – Enemies hit by Entangle get their Attack Points reduced to half this & next turn.” –> “[Entangle] – Enemies hit by Entangle get their Attack Points reduced to half during this turn.”
    • Marksman:

    • Changed wording. “Sharp Shooter – May attack enemies in 2nd Row in Ranged Combat even if there is an enemy in front of them in the 1st Row.” –> “Sharp Shooter – May attack an enemy even if it’s in cover.”
    • Replaced it’s Evade ability with –> “Suportive Fire – Target Elvish Archer gets +1 in ranged combat during this turn.”
    • Wose:

    • Lowered Self-Heal –> [ ] [ 2 ]
    • Raised cost for Wose 4 –> 5
    • Captain & Hero: Reverted back.

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elves playtest proxy released

Jan 25

Posted by snowdrop in ORC | No Comments

A new and current proxy sheet of the Elves as they are this far has been released in the downloads section. Future revisions of that file (and there will be plenty of those) will be announced on this news page.

Notice: If you download it and want to play test the cards with card art you must update the paths to the card art in Inkscape once you open the svg: They need to be manually set to point to wherever your /portraits is located (download the card art in /portraits as well from the download page if you don’t have the images already). To do it just mark and right click the card art container.

Please tell us how it goes if you try things out.

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