Sites linking?

Greetings and kudos for a nice project!

I'm from a "sister project" where we're developing an open (GPL) game called WTactics and would love it if we at the very least linked to each others projects in good spots and maybe also blogged about them respectively - I think the spirit of them are close in several regards and that we have much to gain from teaming up in whatever ways possible in the open card game community. Hopefully you also see the benefits.

If you're interested in this or any other forms of co-work please contact me via email >> snowdrop at wtactics dot org or drop a post or pm in here.

Same goes for questions and what not. :=)

That does sound like a good idea. I'll definitely blog about it in the next little while, and we'll see about linkage elsewhere. I'm actually hoping not to clutter our sidebar anymore (it's already very busy), but maybe there's other ways to go about this.

Do you know of any other open card projects?

Rage was a published game that is now supported by fan sets. (with original publishers permission.) Werewolves battle ecological destruction. All the artwork for the 9 fan made sets was done as creative commons.




Since this involves werewolves and general horror, I'd rate Rage as being PG-13 due to violence and mature themes. Current block of cards is dealing with Africa, so there's a lot of scary stuff in there that's based on real world horror, before you add the supernatural stuff.

"Mature" in this context isn't the usual suspects of sex and drugs, so much as the outright horror of war and large scale destruction. That Blood Diamond card is pretty typical the real world inclusions. Parents probably don't want to explain the background for that to an 8 year old. teenagers are probably at the age where they can comprehend it and can deal with setting where there's some fantastical elements (werewolves) but it's largely based on real world setting (with conflict diamonds, child soldiers, famines, plague, oil wars, etc)

Not at all intended to be directly educational, but another example of an open project. WTactics and Rage are probably a better match for each other than Rage and Phylo just because of the different target age.

davehwng wrote:That does sound like a good idea. I'll definitely blog about it in the next little while, and we'll see about linkage elsewhere. I'm actually hoping not to clutter our sidebar anymore (it's already very busy), but maybe there's other ways to go about this.

Do you know of any other open card projects?

No, I'm not aware of any more open projects, but would love it if we could manage to compile or maintain a list of them.

As fenrislorsrai points out above, WTactics and whatever other game may have more in common thematically and/or when it comes to target groups. With that said and agreed upon, it wasn't my main thought when I suggested that we try to co-work in whatever way possible.

My thoughts went to the open card game scene, one which seems to be very very small on the internet (not to mention beyond it), and especially so if we only pay attention to games that are actually legal and don't have copyrights issues or other legal problems associated with them.

That's why I still think people on the scene should try to stick together in whatever ways that work for them. Bluntly put: Finding the games is hard, finding the people that contributes to them is even harder. By building up some kind of network we would make these processes easier, for the benefit of both players and developers.

As a way to start this networking to the benefit of all parties on the scene I have fired up a site dedicated to the cause on http://www.opencgs.org/

The goal is to at least assemble and maintain an up to date list of all free & open source card games, as well as invite representatives of each such game to the site by giving one account to each project, enabling each game project to write (copy & past?) news about their game, thoughts on development and what not.

I'd love it if you guys would want an account. Please email me the password you would want in such a case, and you'd get login etc from me and the freedom to utilize the site in any way you want. Hopefully you would at the very least write a presentation of your nice game, and not rely on me doing it for you (But I would if there wouldn't be any interest in here)

E-mail: snowdrop at wtactics dot org

Not to criticize, but making people email you their desired passwords probably isn't the best idea. Not that I don't think you're trustworthy, but giving any third party access to all of one's login info is a red flag for a lot of people. Might want to see if you could automate the system and store passwords cryptographically hashed.

I know this is a minor point to a lot of people, but being a security geek, I feel obligated to bring it up.

Wootfish wrote:Not to criticize, but making people email you their desired passwords probably isn't the best idea. Not that I don't think you're trustworthy, but giving any third party access to all of one's login info is a red flag for a lot of people. Might want to see if you could automate the system and store passwords cryptographically hashed.

I know this is a minor point to a lot of people, but being a security geek, I feel obligated to bring it up.

Good points and also shows I need to add some clarifications:

1. Needless to say(?) nobody should mail me any "real" password, meaning, if one uses it for any other site anywhere on the internet - then pick another and mail that instead. I never asked for such password nor did I imagine anyone being that reckless. That said, it was a good call making the warning-post.

2. In my reply to the email there would be a url, username and your selected password, which enables you to login at the site.

3. Once done & logged in you can change the password to whatever, which is indeed hashed and as private as anything ever can become on the internet. It's a WP-based site and it has tight and always up to date security and professional hosting as well.

Fair enough. The idea still seems kind of troublesome -- making users think of a new throwaway password just for your site -- but I suppose it's not too bad.

One thing I'm curious about, though -- if an automated system exists for changing passwords, why not for creating accounts? Not to criticize, of course -- I'm just curious.

Wootfish wrote:One thing I'm curious about, though -- if an automated system exists for changing passwords, why not for creating accounts? Not to criticize, of course -- I'm just curious.

No automated system exists for changing passwords - a human would still have to go into his/her own settings and click "change password", as well as input the new password and then click save.

As for making sign up process publicy available: It is possible to set the system in that mode, but I am against it as I don't want bots etc to register and also only want chosen projects (i.e. all that meet the criteria for the site) to have own accounts on it.

Easiest way of accomplishing this is to simply create the accounts for them and give them the info of how to use it, and also allow them to set the password later on to whatever they want.

If people think it's hard to send me a temp password then they could of course send me a blank email just saying hi and that they want the account - I would then send them the temp password and they would have to change it once logged in.

davehwng wrote:
Do you know of any other open card projects?

Do Trading Card Game sites with Print-to-Play samples count? Both ChessHeads and Rawen have them, though it is greyscaled in the former's case.