In order to provide more meaningful suggestions for Scrolls, I think it would be useful to have official answers to some questions. In no particular order:
How are the scrolls being organized from a design standpoint?
Is there a set maximum number of scrolls to be created for the release?
Is there a coding system to sort the scrolls in development or are scrolls being numbered as they are proposed?
Are scrolls being developed in batches with concern for expansions or sets?
Is there a system of baseline standardization for scrolls? (For example creatures start at cost-0 atk-0 count-3 hp-1 and get to spend 5 points for each extra resource they cost where it cost 2 points to increase the attack by 1, lowering a countdown costs 2 points, but raising health by 1 costs 1 point.)
Is there rarity associated with scrolls?
If so, then are some scrolls inherently more powerful than other scrolls because they are more rare?
Is there a synopsis of each resource type and what it represents? (Like the color pie in Magic)
Will there be more resource types later?
Will there be scrolls that are strictly worse than other scrolls or are bad on purpose?
I ask these questions because I think that being able to answer them authoritatively will help the game be more balanced and scale better as more scrolls are created. Are there any other questions anyone else would like to add?
2. There is no maximum number of scrolls for release as they don't know how many ideas they will get or how long beta will last. 4. Obviously. Otherwise you wouldn't get neat synergies. 5. Yes. Otherwise say "gg" to balancing. 6. Yes. They said they are adding the rarity icon within the next few patches. 7. Yes, but they will obviously cost more resources to play to keep everything nice and balanced. As far as I have seen even the strong creatures are balanced thus far (except if they have relenthless, those are way too powerful). 8. Just look at the names, man! Growth: stuff grows (buffs). Order: stuff is orderly (control). Energy: stuff is energetic (prolly damagey and fluxey). 10. That would defeat the purpose of balancing, but I bet 95% there will be. There are in magic, so you have to buy more boosters. There are currently in alpha creatures that are visibly crappier than others (see junk pile vs druid burial ground). Last, but not least: the scrolls will be collectible, so you shouldn't get a good scroll every time.
“I will do this. Nothing in my life matters except this. No moment of my life exists except this moment. I am born in this moment, and if I fail, I will die in this moment.” Raistlin Majere, The Soulforge
I think that while some of these questions seem obvious there are, from a design standpoint, philosophical reasons for doing things a certain way. Let me go back through the questions to explain myself a little better.
How are the scrolls being organized from a design standpoint? The importance of organization ties into the other questions and I asked it as a catch all so that I can understand any fundamental aspects of how scrolls are made in relation to each other.
Is there a set maximum number of scrolls to be created for the release? If the answer is no, then that worries me slightly because it would imply that there is less editing happening than there should be. If all scrolls that fit the game are allowed then it may impact the focus or vision of the first release unless there was some way to break scrolls up into expansions or blocks.
Are scrolls being developed in batches with concern for expansions or sets? Scroll synergies can be created without a concern for batches or expansions. The idea of sectioning scrolls into themed blocks or coherent sets is unnecessary but could help with the editing process and make the game scale easier as they build more and more scrolls.
Is there a system of baseline standardization for scrolls? (For example creatures start at cost-0 atk-0 count-3 hp-1 and get to spend 5 points for each extra resource they cost where it cost 2 points to increase the attack by 1, lowering a countdown costs 2 points, but raising health by 1 costs 1 point.) If Mojang has a system of standardization then it would be beneficial to share it with us in order for us to submit scrolls that aren't automatically too powerful. It would be possible to make the 110 scrolls they already have in the alpha without some kind of system, but for the long term balance of the game it would be odd if they didn't have a baseline to at least flag scrolls that are proposed which are overpowered.
Is there rarity associated with scrolls? This is just for question 7. I think I put it in here to have 10 questions instead of 9. :)
If so, then are some scrolls inherently more powerful than other scrolls because they are more rare? The distinction between rarity does not have to imply an increase in power, it could be done strictly for the feel of the game, but it is my thought that rare scrolls will be more iconic and probably more powerful. Raising the cost of rare scrolls would be an obvious way to make the game more balanced but that isn't the only way. As far as balance is concerned it's not that every scroll is balanced with every other scroll, rather it's more important that the different resources be balanced with each other. There are many ways to approach the issue of rarity and I would like to know how Mojang is doing it.
Is there a synopsis of each resource type and what it represents? (Like the color pie in Magic) Yes we can get a basic understanding of the concepts from the names of the resources, but that doesn't mean that it will fall in line with everyone's understanding, especially in a game that is being translated into other languages. There is value in understanding what each resource type represents because it helps us to know what scrolls of that type should or should not be able to do. For more on this see, http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr85
Will there be more resource types later? If so then it would be good to try and fit that into the design of the game now so that you aren't stepping on territory that will be covered later. For example, the idea of a stealth character which I brought up in the Assassin enchant thread would be really cool, but if they are planning on making a Shadow resource that draws on the dark or something like that, then it would make sense to leave stealth for then.
Will there be scrolls that are strictly worse than other scrolls or are bad on purpose? Again this is not so obvious. Many games produce cards that are not good at the competitive level. The reason is not always to sell more packs or to balance the game, but it's a skill test for new players. If you have sub-par scrolls then you are allowing for new players to progress and learn as they start to realize what makes a scroll good . I think there is value in that so I want to know Mojang's stance on it.
Most of my game development theories come from Magic and that sometimes makes it so I don't see things from the video game development perspective. Maybe it's unnecessary to build in the structure of card organization that physical games require. Maybe you don't need to edit as much because the cost of implementing new scrolls is much cheaper than a physical game. I want Scrolls to be what Mojang wants it to be. I want to help them however I can to make this game and the way I feel that I can be most beneficial at this moment is to ask these questions. It doesn't matter if they give me any answers, but it will matter at some point in the future if they can't answer these questions for themselves.
It's not that I worship Magic, but I have played it the longest of any game. (About 11 years.) I have played other CCG's competitively such as Yugioh, Legend of the Five Rings, WOW TCG, and A Game of Thrones but there has been more written about Magic development than any other game similar to Scrolls. That is why I reference it in this post. While I like Magic I do think it's not perfect and that there is room for improvement.
I'll try to answer. The following statements are solely my own view and does not represent Bethes... I mean Mojang. Any lawsuits that follow as a direct result of perceived damage to literacy, feelings or pets will be mocked in tweets by a minimum of one Mojangutang.
1. The scroll design is planned thematically, graphically and mechanically based around the respective resources. Over time as we've developed new scrolls we've tried to make each new scroll relevant to previous scroll or plans for future scrolls. The design "documents" we follow are, however, living documents. Scrolls have been continuously added from the very conception of the game, so in the first set there is a decent amount of "legacy" that we would've made different today after spending more than a year learning what we want to achieve. We have kept as much as possible because with very few exceptions it's been deemed that removing "not quite right" scrolls hurts the game more than keeping them. It's a learning process. Don't take that to mean we're noobs. Collectively in the team I'd say we have some 20-25 years as active card game players and even more at Mojang as a whole. BUT, (and this is very important) playing games WILL NOT teach you how to make games, and each game is unique. Unless you work at Zynga.
2. The "release" is a fuzzy term at Mojang as you might know. But the first sold version (beta) will look pretty similar to the Alpha in terms of scrolls. A few new scrolls, some rearranging and a few nerfs/fixes. How scrolls will be released post-beta is not something I can share atm. The scroll dev plans are made in sets/chunks/piles. Even though I'm intrigued by the concept of infinite planning, I'm not really a believer. :)
3. We do not have a public versioning system since it's digital only and there will only be one single common version for all players. But if you are asking if we are considering proportions between various types of scrolls, the answer is yes. We love Mark's blog and we'd be fools not to learn from the best in the biz.
4. see 2.
5. Yes, and no we'll probably not share it. It is a very small part of how the scrolls are balanced. Other parts are frown frequency and Ouija boards.
6. Yes.
7. There is no deliberate discrimination of common scrolls. BUT everyone want rares to be special. Which means we're going to try to make them fun and interesting. That means they won't be cookie-cutter, formula based and totally cross-tested. Which means that from time to time, they'll end up as central to totally uber decks in combos we missed, more frequently than the commons. (This is quite hypothetical btw.) Also you often end up with a scroll's perceived "true" cost being between two numbers. At such a time rarity will be one of the factors that makes it slightly too costly or slightly too cheap. Personally I'd love if we could use the digital-only format to keep updating and balancing cards. That, unfortunately has it's own set of problems, so we'll keep that to a minimum.
8. Yes there is. We (probably) won't be sharing our design documents, but it is in our job description to broadcast the underlying designs through the product in a manner where it is felt, sensed and grasped without you having to read the theory behind.
9. There is nothing in the tech that prevents further resources. How many to have is a balancing act between a lot of headache-inducing factors. In the dark parts of the internet, people whisper of forces yet discovered. Short answer: It's for me to know, and for you to find out. ;)
10. Yes and no. We don't WANT useless scrolls. We try our hardest to make sure every scroll has it's use, even if only to get a laugh. But theoretically speaking, if you put one million monkeys in one million tournaments, after they've evolved human brains they will reach a consensus as to which deck is the best. In competitive play that means that all cards not in that deck is, per definition, useless. I'm not calling you fine gentlemen monkeys of course. It is amazing how fast the same logic in human hands will render a very large portion of the cards "unplayable". Different people will have different views about which cards/scrolls those are, but there will be surprising amounts of consensus. Regardless of the designer's ambition there will be less effective cards. I have no problem with that. IMHO the very point of most games is to figure out where it is unbalanced and exploit that. That is what game skill IS. One example is the theatricals of professional soccer players who'll fall whenever an opponent touches him/her. On my most judgmental days I'd almost say that the less time it takes before a loser says "It's totally unbalanced!", the less he knows about games and game design.
I recommend the Extra Credits show "Perfect Imbalance" http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/perfect-imbalance It's a much more entertaining way to get into some of the problems we face. I like the part that explains the ecology that arise, i.e. how a certain deck becomes a winner because the majority believes another deck to be better. That same communal consensus thing has great impact on the stock exchange btw. I worry that Nasdaq doesn't even have game designers to balance the cards in their game.
I might bring this forum to the dark part of the internet and say that yes; there is another yet undiscovered resource that we have seen... But has mysteriously disappeared from all gameplay videos... But the evidence remains! Incidentally; i am working on a suggestion that has to do not only with new resources; but also; unintentionally at first; the mysterious 4th resource that we have seen!
How do i know this? I speak only that which i have seen...
I might bring this forum to the dark part of the internet and say that yes; there is another yet undiscovered resource that we have seen... But has mysteriously disappeared from all gameplay videos... But the evidence remains! Incidentally; i am working on a suggestion that has to do not only with new resources; but also; unintentionally at first; the mysterious 4th resource that we have seen!
How do i know this? I speak only that which i have seen...
*slinks back into the inky shadows*
Mhhh, the presence of Decay has been known for almost 9 months now. :D
Thanks for the response Carnalizer! It was more than I was expecting. First of all, the Extra Credits series on PATV is an excellent source for game design info and I'm glad you are considering it in the development of Scrolls. I want to apologize if I came off as rude in questioning the design process. I was not trying to criticize your methods or question the ability of Mojang to produce a CCG. I just couldn't find any information on the process and I wanted to know what considerations were being made for these issues.
When I played Magic more, I read Marks articles often and they instilled in me this importance of planning and editing a game that I was trying to talk about. Essentially my questions were some odd form of an interview, but also to help me in better helping you. While it's a bit presumptuous of me to think that I can help Mojang with their game, you have stated a few times that you are seeking input from us the fans for Scrolls.
I think the answers provided form a good foundation for explaining how the design process works without giving away much information on the specifics. While I understand the reasons for this, my thought is that on the specific issue of thematic undertones for different resources (Question 8), it would be beneficial for those of us that want to offer suggestions for the game to get some kind of explicit information about these themes or styles that each resource represents. I understand the desire to convey these concepts through game play and the scrolls on their own for those who just want to play the game, but for those of us trying to help develop scrolls or mechanics that accurately reflect these different types, it would make sense to have some kind of guide. (Especially for those of us without alpha keys.)
I want to thank you again for responding. It was great to know that I was listened to and that my comments are worth a response.
I wholeheartedly agree with carnalizer, and would have answered much the same had he not answered first. From a developer's perspective (and much as carnalizer said, this is my opinion and not necessarily all of Mojang's), our main focus right now is making sure the game mechanics are in place to give an enjoyable experience. Hopefully, we can speed up the process of content creation further as the fundamental features are more in place.
With that in mind, game design and creating new scrolls is a continuous process, involving the entire team, and definitely one of the areas I'm most passionate about. We're constantly discussing balance, interesting combos and new scrolls in order to enhance the game experience. You'll be seeing a couple of new scrolls in the next version, and I'm very interested in seeing how these will be used in decks :)
@tinfox: I didn't read rude or critique into your questions. Don't worry, it's me that got this affliction where I think I'm writing in "Witty" and when I read it later it reads more like "Defensive A-hole"... I wrote the answers directed to anyone really. I'm happy to answer because these high level design issues are my main interest as well.
And please keep asking any questions and don't censor yourself. If we can't answer tough questions, the fault is with us. Any feedback is relevant to us, specially civilized, educated posts like yours.
I wanted to ask another thing. It's more of a target audience question. Here goes:
Will there be scary (undead, etc) or violent (bloody maybe) scrolls, or is the game strictly E for Everyone (or T for Teen because of mild violence)? Also, what would be the boundary for both.
- If we can't have decaying zombies and the like, can we at least have some scary, evil-looking spiders? - If we can't have decapitated units, can we have bloody weapons?
The question is just to clarify a bit the feel you are going for the game. Should I suggest scary/violent scrolls and where do you draw the line on scary/violent?
PS: If no scary/violent is allowed, I'm going for "badass" (like eighties/nineties action movies) scroll suggestions :P
“I will do this. Nothing in my life matters except this. No moment of my life exists except this moment. I am born in this moment, and if I fail, I will die in this moment.” Raistlin Majere, The Soulforge
I'm not entirely up-to-date on what makes the various ratings. I'm not sure that a higher state of decomposition would make for a higher age rating. We certainly have "cartoon violence." Does cartoon blood up the rating? To what and in which countries?
I'll talk to the koob.
Scrolls.com
@carnalizer
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In order to provide more meaningful suggestions for Scrolls, I think it would be useful to have official answers to some questions. In no particular order:
Good idea, hope it works
Silence fills the empty grave, now that I have gone. But my mind is not at rest, for questions linger on. I will ask, and you will answer.
Fate had us meet as foes, but this Alpha will make us brothers.
I can answer the obvious ones if you like.
2. There is no maximum number of scrolls for release as they don't know how many ideas they will get or how long beta will last.
4. Obviously. Otherwise you wouldn't get neat synergies.
5. Yes. Otherwise say "gg" to balancing.
6. Yes. They said they are adding the rarity icon within the next few patches.
7. Yes, but they will obviously cost more resources to play to keep everything nice and balanced. As far as I have seen even the strong creatures are balanced thus far (except if they have relenthless, those are way too powerful).
8. Just look at the names, man! Growth: stuff grows (buffs). Order: stuff is orderly (control). Energy: stuff is energetic (prolly damagey and fluxey).
10. That would defeat the purpose of balancing, but I bet 95% there will be. There are in magic, so you have to buy more boosters. There are currently in alpha creatures that are visibly crappier than others (see junk pile vs druid burial ground). Last, but not least: the scrolls will be collectible, so you shouldn't get a good scroll every time.
“I will do this. Nothing in my life matters except this. No moment of my life exists except this moment. I am born in this moment, and if I fail, I will die in this moment.”
Raistlin Majere, The Soulforge
I think that while some of these questions seem obvious there are, from a design standpoint, philosophical reasons for doing things a certain way. Let me go back through the questions to explain myself a little better.
The importance of organization ties into the other questions and I asked it as a catch all so that I can understand any fundamental aspects of how scrolls are made in relation to each other.
If the answer is no, then that worries me slightly because it would imply that there is less editing happening than there should be. If all scrolls that fit the game are allowed then it may impact the focus or vision of the first release unless there was some way to break scrolls up into expansions or blocks.
Read these two articles:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/21
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/78
Scroll synergies can be created without a concern for batches or expansions. The idea of sectioning scrolls into themed blocks or coherent sets is unnecessary but could help with the editing process and make the game scale easier as they build more and more scrolls.
If Mojang has a system of standardization then it would be beneficial to share it with us in order for us to submit scrolls that aren't automatically too powerful. It would be possible to make the 110 scrolls they already have in the alpha without some kind of system, but for the long term balance of the game it would be odd if they didn't have a baseline to at least flag scrolls that are proposed which are overpowered.
This is just for question 7. I think I put it in here to have 10 questions instead of 9. :)
The distinction between rarity does not have to imply an increase in power, it could be done strictly for the feel of the game, but it is my thought that rare scrolls will be more iconic and probably more powerful. Raising the cost of rare scrolls would be an obvious way to make the game more balanced but that isn't the only way. As far as balance is concerned it's not that every scroll is balanced with every other scroll, rather it's more important that the different resources be balanced with each other. There are many ways to approach the issue of rarity and I would like to know how Mojang is doing it.
Yes we can get a basic understanding of the concepts from the names of the resources, but that doesn't mean that it will fall in line with everyone's understanding, especially in a game that is being translated into other languages. There is value in understanding what each resource type represents because it helps us to know what scrolls of that type should or should not be able to do.
For more on this see, http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr85
If so then it would be good to try and fit that into the design of the game now so that you aren't stepping on territory that will be covered later. For example, the idea of a stealth character which I brought up in the Assassin enchant thread would be really cool, but if they are planning on making a Shadow resource that draws on the dark or something like that, then it would make sense to leave stealth for then.
Again this is not so obvious. Many games produce cards that are not good at the competitive level. The reason is not always to sell more packs or to balance the game, but it's a skill test for new players. If you have sub-par scrolls then you are allowing for new players to progress and learn as they start to realize what makes a scroll good . I think there is value in that so I want to know Mojang's stance on it.
Ugh, people worship Magic way too much in this forum.
Decipher YEAH!
Silence fills the empty grave, now that I have gone. But my mind is not at rest, for questions linger on. I will ask, and you will answer.
Fate had us meet as foes, but this Alpha will make us brothers.
It's not that I worship Magic, but I have played it the longest of any game. (About 11 years.) I have played other CCG's competitively such as Yugioh, Legend of the Five Rings, WOW TCG, and A Game of Thrones but there has been more written about Magic development than any other game similar to Scrolls. That is why I reference it in this post. While I like Magic I do think it's not perfect and that there is room for improvement.
I'll try to answer. The following statements are solely my own view and does not represent Bethes... I mean Mojang. Any lawsuits that follow as a direct result of perceived damage to literacy, feelings or pets will be mocked in tweets by a minimum of one Mojangutang.
1. The scroll design is planned thematically, graphically and mechanically based around the respective resources. Over time as we've developed new scrolls we've tried to make each new scroll relevant to previous scroll or plans for future scrolls. The design "documents" we follow are, however, living documents. Scrolls have been continuously added from the very conception of the game, so in the first set there is a decent amount of "legacy" that we would've made different today after spending more than a year learning what we want to achieve. We have kept as much as possible because with very few exceptions it's been deemed that removing "not quite right" scrolls hurts the game more than keeping them. It's a learning process. Don't take that to mean we're noobs. Collectively in the team I'd say we have some 20-25 years as active card game players and even more at Mojang as a whole. BUT, (and this is very important) playing games WILL NOT teach you how to make games, and each game is unique. Unless you work at Zynga.
2. The "release" is a fuzzy term at Mojang as you might know. But the first sold version (beta) will look pretty similar to the Alpha in terms of scrolls. A few new scrolls, some rearranging and a few nerfs/fixes. How scrolls will be released post-beta is not something I can share atm. The scroll dev plans are made in sets/chunks/piles. Even though I'm intrigued by the concept of infinite planning, I'm not really a believer. :)
3. We do not have a public versioning system since it's digital only and there will only be one single common version for all players. But if you are asking if we are considering proportions between various types of scrolls, the answer is yes. We love Mark's blog and we'd be fools not to learn from the best in the biz.
4. see 2.
5. Yes, and no we'll probably not share it. It is a very small part of how the scrolls are balanced. Other parts are frown frequency and Ouija boards.
6. Yes.
7. There is no deliberate discrimination of common scrolls. BUT everyone want rares to be special. Which means we're going to try to make them fun and interesting. That means they won't be cookie-cutter, formula based and totally cross-tested. Which means that from time to time, they'll end up as central to totally uber decks in combos we missed, more frequently than the commons. (This is quite hypothetical btw.) Also you often end up with a scroll's perceived "true" cost being between two numbers. At such a time rarity will be one of the factors that makes it slightly too costly or slightly too cheap. Personally I'd love if we could use the digital-only format to keep updating and balancing cards. That, unfortunately has it's own set of problems, so we'll keep that to a minimum.
8. Yes there is. We (probably) won't be sharing our design documents, but it is in our job description to broadcast the underlying designs through the product in a manner where it is felt, sensed and grasped without you having to read the theory behind.
9. There is nothing in the tech that prevents further resources. How many to have is a balancing act between a lot of headache-inducing factors. In the dark parts of the internet, people whisper of forces yet discovered. Short answer: It's for me to know, and for you to find out. ;)
10. Yes and no. We don't WANT useless scrolls. We try our hardest to make sure every scroll has it's use, even if only to get a laugh. But theoretically speaking, if you put one million monkeys in one million tournaments, after they've evolved human brains they will reach a consensus as to which deck is the best. In competitive play that means that all cards not in that deck is, per definition, useless. I'm not calling you fine gentlemen monkeys of course. It is amazing how fast the same logic in human hands will render a very large portion of the cards "unplayable". Different people will have different views about which cards/scrolls those are, but there will be surprising amounts of consensus. Regardless of the designer's ambition there will be less effective cards. I have no problem with that. IMHO the very point of most games is to figure out where it is unbalanced and exploit that. That is what game skill IS. One example is the theatricals of professional soccer players who'll fall whenever an opponent touches him/her. On my most judgmental days I'd almost say that the less time it takes before a loser says "It's totally unbalanced!", the less he knows about games and game design.
I recommend the Extra Credits show "Perfect Imbalance" http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/perfect-imbalance It's a much more entertaining way to get into some of the problems we face. I like the part that explains the ecology that arise, i.e. how a certain deck becomes a winner because the majority believes another deck to be better. That same communal consensus thing has great impact on the stock exchange btw. I worry that Nasdaq doesn't even have game designers to balance the cards in their game.
Scrolls.com
@carnalizer
I might bring this forum to the dark part of the internet and say that yes; there is another yet undiscovered resource that we have seen... But has mysteriously disappeared from all gameplay videos... But the evidence remains! Incidentally; i am working on a suggestion that has to do not only with new resources; but also; unintentionally at first; the mysterious 4th resource that we have seen!
How do i know this? I speak only that which i have seen...
*slinks back into the inky shadows*
Silence fills the empty grave, now that I have gone. But my mind is not at rest, for questions linger on. I will ask, and you will answer.
Fate had us meet as foes, but this Alpha will make us brothers.
Mhhh, the presence of Decay has been known for almost 9 months now. :D
Looked like this:
Edit: image added
Thanks for the response Carnalizer! It was more than I was expecting. First of all, the Extra Credits series on PATV is an excellent source for game design info and I'm glad you are considering it in the development of Scrolls.
I want to apologize if I came off as rude in questioning the design process. I was not trying to criticize your methods or question the ability of Mojang to produce a CCG. I just couldn't find any information on the process and I wanted to know what considerations were being made for these issues.
When I played Magic more, I read Marks articles often and they instilled in me this importance of planning and editing a game that I was trying to talk about. Essentially my questions were some odd form of an interview, but also to help me in better helping you. While it's a bit presumptuous of me to think that I can help Mojang with their game, you have stated a few times that you are seeking input from us the fans for Scrolls.
I think the answers provided form a good foundation for explaining how the design process works without giving away much information on the specifics. While I understand the reasons for this, my thought is that on the specific issue of thematic undertones for different resources (Question 8), it would be beneficial for those of us that want to offer suggestions for the game to get some kind of explicit information about these themes or styles that each resource represents. I understand the desire to convey these concepts through game play and the scrolls on their own for those who just want to play the game, but for those of us trying to help develop scrolls or mechanics that accurately reflect these different types, it would make sense to have some kind of guide. (Especially for those of us without alpha keys.)
I want to thank you again for responding. It was great to know that I was listened to and that my comments are worth a response.
I wholeheartedly agree with carnalizer, and would have answered much the same had he not answered first. From a developer's perspective (and much as carnalizer said, this is my opinion and not necessarily all of Mojang's), our main focus right now is making sure the game mechanics are in place to give an enjoyable experience. Hopefully, we can speed up the process of content creation further as the fundamental features are more in place.
With that in mind, game design and creating new scrolls is a continuous process, involving the entire team, and definitely one of the areas I'm most passionate about. We're constantly discussing balance, interesting combos and new scrolls in order to enhance the game experience. You'll be seeing a couple of new scrolls in the next version, and I'm very interested in seeing how these will be used in decks :)
scrolls.com
@MansOlson
Will we?
haha Had to get the "i dont have alpha dig in" ;D
Silence fills the empty grave, now that I have gone. But my mind is not at rest, for questions linger on. I will ask, and you will answer.
Fate had us meet as foes, but this Alpha will make us brothers.
@tinfox: I didn't read rude or critique into your questions. Don't worry, it's me that got this affliction where I think I'm writing in "Witty" and when I read it later it reads more like "Defensive A-hole"... I wrote the answers directed to anyone really. I'm happy to answer because these high level design issues are my main interest as well.
And please keep asking any questions and don't censor yourself. If we can't answer tough questions, the fault is with us. Any feedback is relevant to us, specially civilized, educated posts like yours.
Scrolls.com
@carnalizer
I wanted to ask another thing. It's more of a target audience question. Here goes:
Will there be scary (undead, etc) or violent (bloody maybe) scrolls, or is the game strictly E for Everyone (or T for Teen because of mild violence)? Also, what would be the boundary for both.
- If we can't have decaying zombies and the like, can we at least have some scary, evil-looking spiders?
- If we can't have decapitated units, can we have bloody weapons?
The question is just to clarify a bit the feel you are going for the game. Should I suggest scary/violent scrolls and where do you draw the line on scary/violent?
PS: If no scary/violent is allowed, I'm going for "badass" (like eighties/nineties action movies) scroll suggestions :P
“I will do this. Nothing in my life matters except this. No moment of my life exists except this moment. I am born in this moment, and if I fail, I will die in this moment.”
Raistlin Majere, The Soulforge
I'm not entirely up-to-date on what makes the various ratings. I'm not sure that a higher state of decomposition would make for a higher age rating. We certainly have "cartoon violence." Does cartoon blood up the rating? To what and in which countries?
I'll talk to the koob.
Scrolls.com
@carnalizer