Note: I used Google to match our deck descriptions with existing card flavor texts, and then used Google again to check whether the text was in the public domain (the fact that a verse from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner appears on the Scathe Zombies card, does obviously not preclude us from using Coleridge's work ourselves). I may have missed something in wither process, please report if I did.
For the time being, this is unfortunately a loss in quality, since the official flavor texts were obviously better than the replacement texts I thought up in a few minutes. Feel free to replace my texts with something better. This could be original work of yours, or something that's clearly in the public domain. The latter includes classical literature and poetry btw. We already have Milton, Browning, and Coleridge in the flavor texts, and we could certainly use more of that. Unfortunately I've read about 100 SciFi/Fantasy books for every book of classical poetry I even touched, so I'm in a bad position to provide such material, but perhaps someone else can.
I discussed this change with wololo beforehand, because it required changes to decks that weren't made by me.
Please review / criticize.
* In GuiBackground, we now load and use all of backdrop.jpg. This is for effects like that in Jade. It's an extremely minor change, so shouldn't effect stability.
-fix issue mentioned at http://wololo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=371&p=6296#p6296 . I touched a very sensitive area of the code so please let me know if something goes wrong with this revision with spells or abilities that involve targets and/or sacrifice
* I've tried to keep the same kind of luminosity as the old backdrop.jpg, and matched the psuedo-jade to the colors of the phase icons. I'm still not certain what to do with wood/gold/goldglow, as they clash terribly.
* The whole "recessed playarea" thing was inspired by the recent forum posts of Kaioshin.
Thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc?
Change list:
Taiga: Power Surge not available any more, replaced with a third Orcish Oriflamme
Taiga: removed a stray "a" in the deck description
Savannah: 2x Benalish Hero not available any more, removed (deck has still >60 cards)
Savannah: 2x Mesa Pegasus not available any more, removed (deck has still >60 cards)
Plateau: only 59 cards, added a third Bull Cerodon
Plateau: corrected an (arguable) spelling mistake (goblin -> goblins)
Badlands: only 59 cards, added another Swamp (still only 19 lands in this deck)
Yavimaya: Timber Wolves not available any more, replaced with Scryb Sprites
Shatter: corrected a spelling mistake (you -> your)
Howlins: (supposedly) corrected deckname spelling to "Howlings"
Howlings: only 56 cards, added 2 Mountains, 1 Black Vise, 1 Howling Mine (would've been better to add creatures, but all creatures in the deck were already at 4 pieces)
Alliance: Corrected a spelling mistake in the deck description (castel -> castle)
Djungle: Corrected deckname spelling to "Jungle"
Jungle: Only 56 cards, added 1x Tundra Wolves, 1x Scryb Sprites, 1x Forest, 1x Mountain
Deep Blue: Only 56 cards, added 3 Islands (the comment read "24 Islands" but only 21 were present) and 1 Merfolk
Soldiers (deck24): 4x Balefire Liege not available any more, replaced with 4x Thistledown Liege. This card was not originally present in the deck, but all present cards already had 4 pieces in the deck. The replacement is also pretty weak, please change it if you find a better one.
Kithkin: Added a missing "#" sign
Soldiers (deck29): Renamed deck to "Vigilant Watch" to prevent confusion with deck24.
Vigilant Watch: Corrected a spelling mistake in the deck description (held -> hold)
Depletion: 52 cards, added 2x Swamp, 2x Island, 1x Psychic Drain, 1x Forced Fruition, 1x Tome Scour, 1x Traumatize
Spectral Rack: Corrected "Volrath's Stronghold (TMP)" to "Volrath's Stronghold (STH)"
Kinsbaile Cavalier: Sortened name so that it fits into the menu
Bad Dreams: Corrected "Font of Mythos (ALA)" to "Font of Mythos (CFX)"
Viashino Warrior: Viashino Bladescout not available any more, replaced with Viashino Sandscout
Ashenmoor Cohort: Corrected "Smoldering Butcher (CFX)" to "Smoldering Butcher (EVE)"
Treefolk: Corrected "Mirri, Cat Warrior (M10)" to "Mirri, Cat Warrior (10E)"
Treefolk: Corrected a spelling mistake in the deck description (hidding -> hiding)
Dragon: Changed filename to lowercase
Dragon: 2x Ashenmoor Liege not available, removed (deck still at 61 cards)
Dragon: corrected some spelling mistakes in the deck description (Dragon -> Dragons, wil -> will). Changed deck name to "Dragons" since it's evident from the deck description that plural was intended.
several of my decks: Corrected comments that weren't recognized as such (the "#" sign has to be the in the first column)
Notes:
Three decks have more than 60 cards: Savannah 62, Giants 64, Dragons 61. It's unusual, but no illegal, so I didn't change it. But I didn't see any particular reason for having additional cards in these decks either, so I'm bringing the matter to your attention.
Also, "Howlings" uses 2x Wheel of Fortune (erroneausly listed as "Wheel of Fate", which is a different card that's not yet implemented). Wheel of Fortune is restricted in Vintage. AFAIK we there's no official standing on whether or not AI decks should be Vintage legal, so again I'm leaving this as it is, but bring it to your attention.
1. temporarily removed my "Pyromancer" and "Terravore Turmoil" decks. Both performed very badly in my AI comparison done here: http://wololo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=736
While having low-performing decks is not a bad thing per se (actually we *need* some low-performers, as stepping stones for beginners), these two decks currently throw AI deficiencies into the face of the players (targeting problems / fetchlands), and we don't want to do that. Players should feel that they beat the low-perfoming decks because of their own improving skills, not because the AI can't play its own deck.
I'll re-add both decks after the next release, hoping that we can improve the AI until the release after that.
2. Added "Millage" and "Bad Dreams" decks by Niegen. I see that we are in "bug fixes only" mode since yesterday, but I had announced these additions to Niegen two days ago, and he liked the prospect, so I didn't want to cancel the additions.
3. Updated "Kobold Overlord" deck with two flyers, this is actually a week-old change that I just hadn't submitted so far because it was so minor.
I'll also do a general deck audit to prepare for the next release (respective task will be added to Googlecode tracker). Since we're in "bug fixes only" mode, I'll just fix some obvious mistakes - it's always tempting to do last-minute tweaks and improvements, but I wouldn't want a card or deck that was added late, and hardly tested, to cause problems after the release.
This means we can release the next version with 50 AI decks, more than double than the previous version (which had 24). :)
* The alternate theme is just useful for testing themes, but please comment on the changes to the main theme.
* Options reading and initializing separated from UI.
* Options UI abstracted a bit, made more easily extensible.
* With some extension, the options UI could be used as the basis for more complicated themes, if we load a file and use it to do stuff like GameStateOptions::Start()
