Cockatrice - intended as successor to MWS

[BruiZar]

Aesthetics
See also: History of aesthetics (pre-20th-century)
Beginning in the Renaissance, a body of literature on the aesthetics of the golden ratio was developed. As a result, architects, artists, book designers, and others have been encouraged to use the golden ratio in the dimensional relationships of their works.

The first and most influential of these was De Divina Proportione by Luca Pacioli, a three-volume work published in 1509. Pacioli, a Franciscan friar, was known mostly as a mathematician, but he was also trained and keenly interested in art. De Divina Proportione explored the mathematics of the golden ratio. Though it is often said that Pacioli advocated the golden ratio's application to yield pleasing, harmonious proportions, Livio points out that that interpretation has been traced to an error in 1799, and that Pacioli actually advocated the Vitruvian system of rational proportions.[2] Pacioli also saw Catholic religious significance in the ratio, which led to his work's title. Containing illustrations of regular solids by Leonardo Da Vinci, Pacioli's longtime friend and collaborator, De Divina Proportione was a major influence on generations of artists and architects alike.

Architecture
The Swiss architect Le Corbusier, famous for his contributions to the modern international style, centered his design philosophy on systems of harmony and proportion. Le Corbusier's faith in the mathematical order of the universe was closely bound to the golden ratio and the Fibonacci series, which he described as "rhythms apparent to the eye and clear in their relations with one another. And these rhythms are at the very root of human activities. They resound in man by an organic inevitability, the same fine inevitability which causes the tracing out of the Golden Section by children, old men, savages and the learned."[25]




Perceptual studies
Studies by psychologists, starting with Fechner, have been devised to test the idea that the golden ratio plays a role in human perception of beauty. While Fechner found a preference for rectangle ratios centered on the golden ratio, later attempts to carefully test such a hypothesis have been, at best, inconclusive.


Nature
Adolf Zeising, whose main interests were mathematics and philosophy, found the golden ratio expressed in the arrangement of branches along the stems of plants and of veins in leaves. He extended his research to the skeletons of animals and the branchings of their veins and nerves, to the proportions of chemical compounds and the geometry of crystals, even to the use of proportion in artistic endeavors. In these phenomena he saw the golden ratio operating as a universal law.[49] In connection with his scheme for golden-ratio-based human body proportions, Zeising wrote in 1854 of a universal law "in which is contained the ground-principle of all formative striving for beauty and completeness in the realms of both nature and art, and which permeates, as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures, forms and proportions, whether cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or optical; which finds its fullest realization, however, in the human form."[50]

In 2003, Volkmar Weiss and Harald Weiss analyzed psychometric data and theoretical considerations and concluded that the golden ratio underlies the clock cycle of brain waves.[51] In 2008 this was empirically confirmed by a group of neurobiologists.[52]

In 2010, the journal Science reported that the golden ratio is present at the atomic scale in the magnetic resonance of spins in cobalt niobate crystals.[53]

Several researchers have proposed connections between the golden ratio and human genome DNA.[54] [55] [56] [57] [58]

[SiegeX]

BruiZar,

I agree with just about everything you said about the design tweaks this app needs but I think your last post is unnecessary and is detracting from your suggestions.  While redlines are great when you're the boss and can dictate what needs to happen, they don't tend to do so well when you're "just another opinion."  What I find works best in those situations is to come up with a concept design (say in Photoshop) that has enough detail to visually get your point across.  Its hard to argue when the concept art is staring you in the face and is noticeably easier to digest and interpret data than the current design.  As you said, we are very much so visual machines.

[The Atog Lord]

BruZair --

This is pretty harsh. I believe Cockatrice is open source, in which case you could make these changes yourself.

[BruiZar]

Sorry for coming off as harsh. There are lots of ways to handle the GUI and you don't have to use my suggestions. You talked about not wanting to reinvent the wheel, which I agree you shouldn't do. There are lots of useful resources out there.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL0kDfkAGjY&feature=PlayList&p=7F4BE840595FE2C1&index=0&playnext=1

While I think Duels of the Planeswalkers went a bit too overboard with its effects, there's a lot you can borrow from their design. They actually have the same hand I proposed so you can check how that works. By going 3d they cheated more space on their vertical axis and as you can see the deck looks a lot better. Also, I like the visual cue of actually drawing cards.

Personally, I would probably put the main phases either on the bottom or the top, and make it clear in the design that it's irreversable (In MWS you can just click back and forth, I like it when the game doesn't allow you to go back to a previous phase.)

Another idea is to draw your opponent's cursor. Reason for this, is to make it more readable for you to see what your opponent is doing. This probably has implications for the connection, one of the reasons for your rows, but I don´t see a reason why you couldn´t do that. (We´ve had fast paced multiplayer games for many years now, the days of the high ping bastards are over)

An example of the cursor could be something like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vSzCgdNBVE

Don´t listen to the annoying voice over:) Obv, doesn´t need gestures.

[Delha]

Bruizar, I consider your last response irrelevant. In the interest of curtailing the derail, though, I'll drop this.

[AmbivalentDuck]

This is pretty harsh. I believe Cockatrice is open source, in which case you could make these changes yourself.

QFT

Qt-based layouts aren't hard to edit and mbruker is using git for version control.  A programmer could easily fork the whole thing to have a different interface and still pull mbruker's updates to the networking components. 

As someone who'd like to contribute to the project but consistently lacks the free time, I know how you feel about wanting to changes made.  But it's an open source project: if you really don't like the current feature set or interface, sometimes you just need to make time and contribute.

http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.6/layout.html  That should get you started if you aren't already familiar with Qt.

[BruiZar]

Instead I can just play with real cards, work for a salary, or use MTGO. time=money. Just because I don´t like the way Cockatrice looks doesn´t mean I´m going to develop for it. It just means I´m not going to use it. This is valuable information for the developers of Cockatrice. Even though it may come off as harsh, its better than having to figure out why the hell Cockatrice has no users after sweating so many hours to complete it. If you want sugarcoated advise, I recommend you ask someone less honest.

[AmbivalentDuck]

The reason cockatrice has no users is a lack of "critical mass."  If I try 5-6 times to find a game on Cockatrice and nobody is ever on, I stop checking.  I don't particularly care about the UI as long as it doesn't crash all the time like MWS.

Reverse engineering MWS's communication protocol is probably the most relevant thing we could be doing.

[mbruker]

Quoted from the Cockatrice website.

A new release is ready on the download page. This one mostly addresses bugs regarding stability. A full list of users on the server has been included, as well as direct chat.
Have fun.

[piZZero]

I'm playing on the new version and it seems lot better and more stable.

One thing I'm missing: You can't look at your opponent's topdeck with Jace without your opponent knowing what card it is.

[mbruker]

Measured by the number of users on the server in the past few weeks, it seems the community has been growing continuously, which is very good. Hopefully we'll be able to resolve the 'critical mass' issue soon enough.
Inspired by the fact that Cockatrice user Gocho has just contributed a Spanish translation file, I'd like to ask if there are any volunteers out there to translate the user interface to other languages (at the moment, only English, German and Spanish are implemented). You don't need to know anything about programming, there is a simple to use tool for it, and I will explain the process to anybody who is interested. The only problem would be that sometimes, minor updates are required to keep up with the development of the UI.

One thing I'm missing: You can't look at your opponent's topdeck with Jace without your opponent knowing what card it is.

This has obviously been bugging me as well. All the 'reveal' features (library, hand, single cards) will be implemented at the same time. I just need to think of a good user interface for it.

[piZZero]

The server has been down for 10-12 hours already. Is there an estimated time for it to come back?

[emidln]

The server has been down for 10-12 hours already. Is there an estimated time for it to come back?

I just saw this and it looks pretty cool. I got it compiled on a personal server at emidln.com:4747 (should be the default port).

As far as I can tell, login/deck upload isn't working (am I missing sql schema for this? is it even implemented?), but you can play games and chat. Feel free to use it. I'll keep this up and running (assuming it doesn't crash and die on me). Also, when I get some extra time, I have some usability patches (stuff like shortcuts) to write in and send patches for (nice to find a piece of software using development tools I'm familiar with).

[Doomsday]

Liking this so far.  Small suggestions:

-Having the option to save token names/stats and select them when you "Create Token".  
-Can we stagger the cards on top of each other?
-From "View Top x Cards of Library" pop-up, having the normal options (send to bottom of library, send to graveyard, etc).  Using Lim-Dul's Vault properly seems impossible unless I'm missing something.
-Any way to just make the play area bigger?  There's a lot of empty space on the screen.  Already using "Economical View".

Definitely prefer this to MWS, nice job man.

[mbruker]

I apologize for the server crash that happened today. This issue will be resolved, but it's going to take some time as I'm busy at the moment.

-Can we stagger the cards on top of each other?

You can attach a card to another. This is meant for auras, equipments and the like. Why would you like to do that for cards that don't have a relationship?

-From "View Top x Cards of Library" pop-up, having the normal options (send to bottom of library, send to graveyard, etc).  Using Lim-Dul's Vault properly seems impossible unless I'm missing something

The context menu is supposed to work just like it does on the table, though I realize that you can't select multiple cards at once in the library viewer. Scrying and similar effects are a real pain. This will hopefully be implemented soon.

-Any way to just make the play area bigger?  There's a lot of empty space on the screen.  Already using "Economical View".

This discussion has been brought up a lot of times, and I'm going to think of a better solution eventually. However, this requires a lot of testing and shouldn't be changed hastily.
Also, thanks for correcting my linguistic mistake (economical vs. economic). If anybody notices a mistake like that, please don't secretly laugh at me, but report it instead so that it can be fixed. This also applies to everything that, while technically correct, nobody would say like that.

login/deck upload isn't working (am I missing sql schema for this? is it even implemented?)

It's implemented, it just requires a correct SQL table setup. I've added a file called servatrice.sql to the git repository just now. You can use this file to create the correct structures, though be aware that I'm going to change some of them eventually.
In servatrice.ini, you need to set [authentication] method=sql and [database] type=mysql (with the right login data, of course). Restart the server app if you manually make changes to the table data.

assuming it doesn't crash and die on me

It probably will. The current version has at least one bug causing a crash. If you could make a core dump when it happens, that'd be helpful

[Doomsday]

Hey, for stacking the cards I meant the same way you can stagger the lands, you can still read each card name.  When I do Empty the Warrens for 20 Goblin tokens, it takes up a ton of room when each has to have it's own individual space with a buffer zone around it.  Speaking of EtW, a shortcut for the clone command would be very helpful.  Really liking the program, and lots of the little stuff that it does better (like downloading card pics as you play) make a big difference to me.

[mbruker]

The server crash issue has been fixed. This is not to say there aren't any other bugs in the server, but we'll see what happens.

When I do Empty the Warrens for 20 Goblin tokens, it takes up a ton of room when each has to have it's own individual space with a buffer zone around it.

I would think that this happening without your opponent being dead is kind of unusual In situations like this, I often make like 3-5 tokens (so that the opponent can block and play removal) and put a counter with the appropriate number on another one. That way, the play area doesn't get cluttered up. Stacking those tokens (or any creatures with the name name, for that matter) to save space might be possible, but I'll have to think about it for a while.

Speaking of EtW, a shortcut for the clone command would be very helpful.

Agreed, though you can press Ctrl+G to make the same token again.

[mbruker]

Quoted from the Cockatrice website:

A new release is available on the download page.
 
 ATTENTION:
 - You have to recompile your card database using the oracle tool when upgrading. Not doing so will result in cards being placed very awkwardly.
 - The new address of the server is play.cockatrice.de. The old server on cockatrice.de is not compatible with the new client version and is going to be shut down eventually.
 
 This release fixes a couple of bugs and also introduces some new features and improvements:
 - The table height was reduced to three rows. "Temporary" cards are now in an extra zone on the left. This leads to a higher zoom factor when there are not a lot of cards in one row.
 - Zones can now be revealed to selected/all players. Revealing a card from your hand at random is also supported.
 - Middle-clicking a card or a card name in the message log opens a popup window showing all the information about the card. This makes the info area in the top right corner superfluous, which is why you can now minimize it if you don't need it.
 - Improved text rendering on cards.
 - Card tap/untap animation
 - Spanish translation by Gocho
 - Avatar support (though you can't change your avatar yet)
 - and many minor changes you will discover yourselves.
 
 Have fun.

[piZZero]

I was testing the new version of Cockatrice and all I have to say is: GREAT JOB!

The playing experience is smooth, cards are big enough now, and problems with the battleground have been fixed quite well.

Thumbs up and keep up the good work!

piZZero - Jordi Amat (www.eternal-central.com on Cockatrice)

[Tobi]

I was testing the new version of Cockatrice and all I have to say is: GREAT JOB!

The playing experience is smooth, cards are big enough now, and problems with the battleground have been fixed quite well.

Thumbs up and keep up the good work!

piZZero - Jordi Amat (www.eternal-central.com on Cockatrice)

QFT! It is really great. Even more players on the server (at least this is my impression).

[cruzron]

thanks for the walkthrough pizzero. its been a great help!

now to actually find players...

[Daenyth]

How is the support for drafting?

I used to use apprentice and netdraft to host old drafts coordinated on irc (magic-league). It was sometimes hard to find people to fill them but there was a significant amount of people who really enjoyed drafting the old sets. I'd love to start doing that again -- especially I would love more than anything else a "bring your own pack" format where everyone brings 3 different sets as their packs and just drafts them all together. It should be hilarious.

Support for things like winston drafting and cube drafting would be insanely useful I think. We tried to make a reject rare cube but netdraft just doesn't scale to a pool large enough to be fun, and the tools are all obtuse.

[mbruker]

I was testing the new version of Cockatrice and all I have to say is: GREAT JOB!

Thank you, and also for the article you published. It's very detailed and well written.

How is the support for drafting?

I have thought a lot about this question as well and I wanted to do it. It would facilitate finding people to draft AND play very much, as otherwise there is no connection between the draft service (netdraft etc) and the game server.
However, I don't know if it is legal to do so. The game server would have to contain a card database (which at the moment it does not) and transmit some of the contents (card names, at least) of this database to the clients. IANAL, but I believe this information is copyrighted and it could be a large risk to set up a game server that would offer this service.
Of course, it wouldn't hurt to implement support for it protocol-wise, but as long as it's not clear whether the support can be used at all, I don't see a reason to.

[Chill79]

How is the support for drafting?

However, I don't know if it is legal to do so. The game server would have to contain a card database (which at the moment it does not) and transmit some of the contents (card names, at least) of this database to the clients. IANAL, but I believe this information is copyrighted and it could be a large risk to set up a game server that would offer this service.
Of course, it wouldn't hurt to implement support for it protocol-wise, but as long as it's not clear whether the support can be used at all, I don't see a reason to.

Here's what magicdraftsim.com told when they shutted down:

Apparently this site was working too well for Wizards' taste and has been ordered to be shut down. I respect that the cards are their property and therefore I have no choice but to shut down the site despite the fact that several nearly identical sites have been around for years. I was open and willing to make any requested changes, but they seemed pretty pissed and revoked permission to use anything related to their products. If you have any questions, I will still check this email for a little while at info at magicdraftsim.com.

Thanks for all the help with the site,
~MagicDraftSim.com

So WotC isn't looking good on this...

-Jyri-

[Daenyth]

How the hell does magic-league work then? I know they have (or had, last I checked,) web-based drafting software complete with cards and a deck builder that exports to mws format. That's really unfortunate.

[mbruker]

I don't know how or why it works, but there are in fact draft sites that work, so the only real challenge is to find enough people willing to play a couple of rounds with the drafted decks in a reasonable manner. Apart from that, it shouldn't be a problem drafting on one of those sites and importing the decks into Cockatrice. I do it pretty often, though I don't know enough drafters that well, so we always have to use a couple bots, which makes the draft decks unrealistic. That is not a fundamental problem though.

[mbruker]

Again, it's time for a new release. As usual, the client can be downloaded on the Download page.
 Since it's been a long time since the last release, there have been a couple of changes:
 - French and Japanese translation
 - some visual improvements
 - smoother picture caching
 - cards in zone views can be selected
 - removed chat rooms since they were not used, implemented play rooms instead
 - changing the controller of cards works
 - removed economical table layout, implemented stacking instead
 - and a long list of minor fixes, see for yourself.
 
 Attention: The main game server has moved to another IP address. A DNS update is taking place, but it might take a day or two to finish. In the meantime, if you cannot reach the new server via its DNS name, please use this address: 78.47.181.111

[Daenyth]

Glad to hear of the new release! Does this mean that compiling from master/HEAD works again?

[mbruker]

Yes. Sadly, I haven't had time to incorporate your ideas about the build system, but it's going to happen eventually.

[Daenyth]

I can work with what's there now, I just wanted to make sure that if compiled from there that it would work, since I have a -git version packaged. I'll probably add a packaged stable version as well to the official Arch repo.