Community Set: Recent Activity
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| Mechanics | Skeleton | Common Breakdown Ref | All commons for playtesting |
Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2025-12-20 00:39:10)
PS. I agree with the things you think should definitely be in (at least for the moment). Looking at some old discussion I also agree with where you say the flood cr/spells shouldn't be clustered at the same mana cost. PPS. I hope I'm not too much repeating comments I drove into the ground before :)
I'm banking on someone else playing the part of 'Head Developer' that will go and rip my skeleton to shreds by the time he is done. Since that's the case, yeah, I want the best representation of our ideas much more than perfect numbers. Oh, hey, yeah, I'd like to imagine that we could do this whole thing Athena jumping from the head of Zeus, numbers and all... but, more importantly, I want every concept represented. We won't get that (There are, after all, more cards than the skeleton allows. That's the point of this exercise.), but it's a good ideal.
Since Jack Edited, I need to edit. Give me a second.
FWIW, I think we need to assume we'll do some playtesting somehow (if not, I don't think we're going to get anywhere). If so, I think the most important thing at this state is to put in cards that represent our themes, and our more wacky set-specific ideas, on the assumption that we may yet need to revamp/reimagine them significantly, so its important to see what plays well first, and not try to make definite decisions on individual cards.
"Does anyone see a problem with this plan?"
It seems like a good start.
EDIT: I uploaded some more of my suggested commons breakdowns into the details page. I'm not sure if everyone agrees, but I found that sort of breakdown very sensible because I think havnig "N flying creatures, N hexproof creatures, etc" more clearly suggests what a new set should have than assuming that there should, or should not, be a hexproof-flying creature because the last set had one.
In this case, I'd suggest we start by over-comitting to the themes, starting with lots of theme-specific cards even if they're not the most interesting designs, trying it out and seeing the "flood" theme is fun, and then adding in more specific cards later.
So I would suggest something like:
What I want to see is, is flood fun? Do we have the right implementation? Do we have the right balance of cards that care about flood so one flooded land is useful, but two is better? Is it too non-interactive if blue has lots of islandwalkers? Is blue too useless as a creature colour if it doesn't have a flying replacement?
Do people agree that's the right approach, not to worry overmuch right now if the most interesting commons are in or not as long as we have a sensible skeleton?
jmg, do you think it would be useful if someone else (or me) made a provisional list? You volunteered, but I think it makes sense to delegate anything someone else is willing to do? :)
I'm not saying that we need to do this yet, I'm just trying to get a point across. When working on deciding what will stay and what will get cut, I'm really only going to be looking at the cards linked to a submission category. I don't want to go hunting throughout this set seeking out all the white uncommons, for example, that have been submitted.
So, if the submission is serious, even if it isn't attached to a skeleton or anything, it should be linked in the appropriate category, so I have a chance to see it. Also, if we could keep individual card discussion out of this page, that would also be helpful, since these pages have a tendency to get a lot of talk. Thanks!
Oh. Hmm... Looks like there was already some preliminary work on the skeleton in blue and gold. I'm going to assume people don't mind if I completely refudge what's on the skeleton, if it results in people getting what they want to see on the surface...
JMGariepy here taking over the reins of 'Head Designer', and working to get a consensus on which cards are going into our set. First up, the color we understood the best walking into the community project: blue.
So far this much I know: Serpent of the Endless Sea is in. :)
We've had some discussion of what we'd like blue to do in this set. I'd like to see it more of a creature color than in many other sets, since the theme of attacking an opponent with a flooded island seems more flavorful to me than forcing your opponent to have an island, then claiming that that gave you an advantage. I plan to add my bonus Nessian Courser islandholmer, Link's Islandwalkers, and a creature that adds a flood counter. Then, I'll step back and see what needs to be added for spells and/or how we can improve the creature selection. Does anyone see a problem with this plan?
Oh, also, I assume Giant Hermit Crab is in as well, since we wanted a "firebreather" in every color, and that's the only one here?
All right, it's been 5 days and no one has stepped forward. I suppose that means I'm shouldering the burden. Let's get something done, then.
I don't think it's a good job for me. I have to be honest and say that I don't think I could remain unbiased, and that I would probably want to push my ideas.
It would be awesome if we were to continue with this set and even finish it, and I'm sorry we all sort of slowly stopped working on it. I haven't even been designing that many Magic cards recently, and I almost feel like I've gotten rusty. I need to take a step back and look back over everything in the set. Maybe it will give me a fresh look. As for the playtesting, well, there are plenty of programs on the internet already that let you play magic with other people. The only one I'm familiar with, really, is OCTGN, and I am capable of making sets for that (though I have to be frank, I'm not that great with computers and it always takes me a while). However, I don't think we could do sealed with the OCTGN sets I know how to create, even though OCTGN supports it, because I don't know how to do the coding (or whatever it's called) for the individual sets which allows that. Well... I guess we could make random packs on here and then build from those. Anyway, what I'm saying is that playtesting won't be an unreachable goal, once we know what cards to playtest.
Personally, I like the making of random comments over time. No reins for me, go ahead and walk past :)
I agree with the proposal, although on the terminology side I'd say it's not development or devign yet, it's still early design; the set needs a head designer to propose a first candidate cardlist for playtesting.
It would definitely help if we had some way to playtest online. I have had some luck with using "shared document" sites like Google Wave to track game state and game actions when playtesting home-made card sets (it was what Chowlett and I used to playtest some cards from his set Arcunda).
(I have considered adding a gameplay window to Multiverse, to let people assemble decks of their card designs and play them against other people (obviously not enforcing any rules, just providing a deck-shuffler and game-state-maintainer). But it's a heck of a lot of work.)
I don't think I'd have time to be head developer/designer for this set, because my creative time is mainly going on Flash development and on developing Multiverse itself, sadly.
That sounds reasonable. The difficulty is part of the reason I suggested having a coordinator for each color (or some other combination). I'd like to, but unfortunately I don't feel I've time to do organisy stuff (even if it takes less actual time, the energy to make decisions is what I'm short of at the moment).
I don't think it would be too bad if you took the reins; I know its more difficult to listen to other people when you're cutting cards you loved, but I think it's sustainable if other people responsibly provide opinion when asked...
We taken a fair amount of time off from the Community Set, so let's see what we can do to get this thing off the ground again. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that we were plagued by 2 issues:
I can't do anything about the playtesting issue. Hopefully, someone will step up in the future and help us out with that. I don't think there's a way to outthink it... it just needs to be done. The organization thingy... I think we can outthink it.
Since the method we were employing (Throwing out ideas, then assuming the group would be able to decide where the cuts should be made) didn't work, I suggest a new plan. We need a head of development. This person will be in charge of the 'devign' stage, the period between design and development, and will have final say as to what is in the card file and what is not. That person should show a lot of leniency, and will, hopefully, know that they should ignore their own desires when the majority opinion is against them.
So... any takers? Assuming that, as a group, we're okay with this plan (Please say something if you object to this. I don't want to walk past anyone), I assume that lead developer should be someone besides Link or I. If no one steps forward, I could take the reigns, and I'd try to be as fair as possible, but I really don't want to be in that position. Man. I really, really don't want to end up in that position... that's really awkward. But I want to see progress on this set, and this seems to be the only way to do it. Any takers?