RE: [DL] Doomtown could still live...

["Phalen, Pat" <Pat.Phalen@infores.com>]

>I'm sure most of you are aware of WOTC's CD-Rom that
>released the original Magic: The Gathering card game
>into a video game format. The AI was horrible and if
>you had already plunked down hundreds or thousands of
>dollars on collecting the cards it was a virtually
>worthless purchase.

I didn't think the AI was *too* bad.  It certainly played better than a
good deal of RL opponents.  Granted, it did some downright stupid things
at times, but given the overall complexity of the various combinations
and permutations of card combinations, and strategies regarding those
combinations, I was downright impressed with the game's abilities.

The plus side was that it let you experiment with whack illegal deck
combos.  Nothing like trying to figure out what the correct combination
of Black Loti, Ancestor Recall, Black Vices and Timetwisters were for a
guaranteed first turn kill!
Also, The most fun I had playing MtG came when we all abandoned our
suitcases full of cards, and played in a limited card environment for
ante.  Although the campaign engine in the CD game was a bit clunky, the
aspect of wandering around battling for cards was close to this feel.  


>But a friend of mine found a way of rewriting some of
>the coding to change certain attributes of the cards,
>and I was thinking about this the other day when it
>struck me that someone with enough programming
>knowledge could probably manipulate the
>characteristics of the M:TG video/card game and turn
>it into a Doomtown video/card game.
>Thoughts?

Confusion?
You thought the AI sucked, so you want to use it to make a Doomtown
variant?
How do you plan on handling game mechanics, such as moving, drawing,
completely different turn sequences, etc. ?

It seems like editing the card attributes is the simplest task to do,
that doesn't come close to handling the multitude of other programming
tasks you are faced with.
Otherwise, it is a decent idea...

Patrick