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Post by gwek on May 3, 2010 22:25:54 GMT -5
While the line limit is one thing to factor in, I think basing it on lines may be simplifying it too much... and we also don't necessarily have a clear definition for what constitutes a line of text. Because of the different font sizes involved, it can vary quite a bit.
I'm running some numbers and will be back later with a second, related proposal.
As for longer names... Why? The qualifiers usually only go on additional versions of a character after the first "normal" name version has been released.
EDIT:
As a corollary to Surf's line counts, I've taken a look at number of special abilities over the past few sets.
I looked at R/VR pieces since the switch to 40-piece sets (6 sets, 16 pieces each, for a total of 96 pieces). I counted "qualities," with a quality being defined as one of the follow:
1) A special ability (not including Unique, Melee Attack, Droid, or Double Attack)
2) A Force rating
3) A Force power
4) A commander effect.
So, for example, a character with Stealth, Force 1, and a commander effect, would have 3 qualities.
The overall average number of qualities for R/VR from the past six sets is 5.08, while our average is 6.4. Does that mean our pieces are pieces have an average of about 1.3 more qualities than WotC pieces. This might not seem like much, but when you're only talking about 5 or so qualities to start, another 25% is a pretty big leap.
Now, I'm not proposing that we just trim a special ability or Force power off each piece, but it's something we should consider in any pieces we revisit.
Overall, Force-using pieces have more qualities, so I would recommend that we look very closely at any Force-user we've created who had more than, say, 7 qualities, as well as any non-Force user with more than 4 or 5. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be statted as they are, but simply that they bear closer examining.
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Post by surfrider56 on May 3, 2010 23:58:29 GMT -5
As for longer names... Why? The qualifiers usually only go on additional versions of a character after the first "normal" name version has been released. I was thinking mostly about doubles of already existing figures like Lord Hoth and Ganner, but also some characters that may need a descriptor to identify which timeframe the character is portraying; ex; Celeste Morne, Pawn of Muur as opposed to Celeste Morne, Jedi Shadow ... Vergere, Sith Trainer as opposed to Vergere, Jedi Knight ....
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Post by gwek on May 4, 2010 8:36:53 GMT -5
My thoughts on the line number is more along the"Limit line number/standardize the size numbers in terms of the three sizes needed per card; SA/Force Powers, Ability/Power Titles, and Descriptive text ... four sizes if you include Character Title. All well and good, but I think we should attempt to mirror WotC style as closely as possible, and they don't limit themselves to only one set of font sizes. Compare, for example, GMLS with Dengar. I think as long as we're in that range (and have less pieces that look like GMLS than do look like him), we're okay. I could see doing it for Ganner and Hoth, since they've now been made. It does bring up an interesting point, though: often, when a new version of an existing character is made, there's clear relationship between the versions. That is not the case here. I think we should just offer them as alternate versions, using their simple names, or perhaps something like "Lord Hoth, Lost Twenty Version".
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Post by surfrider56 on May 4, 2010 21:14:41 GMT -5
I have nothing against "Mirroring" but they probably have formula's for how to do what with what amount of lineage ... If we streamline and make them more manageable, they'll Mirror each other, which will be close to standard enough as to be negligible.
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Post by surfrider56 on May 6, 2010 22:49:20 GMT -5
We seem to have ground to a halt ... playtesting or wondering about line counts?
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Post by surfrider56 on May 6, 2010 22:50:39 GMT -5
We seem to have ground to a halt ... playtesting or wondering about line counts?
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Post by gwek on May 6, 2010 23:35:48 GMT -5
I think we need direction. Will all pieces essentially approved, I think we need to define which ones we want to re-visit... and what criteria we want to use when we re-visit them.
I think we also need to try to get the cards into the same format as WotC. Surf, the work you're doing is great, but the font size and spacing aren't always a solid match for WotC, so it's just a guideline.
Not that this is hard and fast, either, but I did a character count of the special abilities/force powers/commander effects for our pieces. Looks something like this:
Gryph – 615 Lord Hoth – 968 Admiral Saul Karath – 806 Darth Zannah – 954 Captain Fordo – 303 Alto Stratus – 500 Tycho Celchu – 506 Admiral Daala – 577 Jerec – 714 Ben Skywalker – 995 Ganner Rhysode – 864 Saba Sebatyne – 901 Chief Chirpa – 549 Cassus Fett – 613 Demagol – 370 Yammosk – 459 Supreme Overlord Shimma – 663 Vergere – 1098
GMLS and Yoda Force Spirit clock in at about 750 and 950 characters, respectively, but both are pretty tight. It's also important to remember that Yoda is unusual in that his card is mostly taken up by a single special ability and a commander effect, which means his 950 characters are being used very efficiently. The same number of characters, spread across twice (or three times) as many special abilities, is going to take up much more space (because of white space, bolded/larger font Special Ability names, etc).
Based on character count, I would tentatively divine the characters into a few categories:
CATEGORY ONE (up to 550 characters): These guys will clearly fit on a card using WotC-style formatting. They don't need further edits for space, although that doesn't mean we can't revisit them any way. This includes:
Captain Fordo – 303 Alto Stratus – 500 Tycho Celchu – 506 Admiral Daala – 577 (although Daala is slightly over the limit, like Yoda, she has few abilities, so should have an "efficient" card) Chief Chirpa – 549 Demagol – 370 Yammosk – 459
CATEGORY TWO (551-750): These pieces will probably fit on a WotC-style card, although the font may well be shrunken down to some extent (still within reason, though). I would recommend that we look at these pieces to see if they can be streamlined, but we probably don't NEED to edit them for content. This includes:
Gryph – 615 Jerec – 714 Cassus Fett – 613 Supreme Overlord Shimma – 663
CATEGORY THREE (750+): These guys all have a very high word count... high enough that they may not fit on the card at all using WotC's guidelines. Galak Fyyar said he could not fit Vergere and the Joruus as-is. I think we should definitely look at these characters to see if they can be streamlined. Even if we can cram them onto a card, they might look (and play) better if they were more streamlined:
Lord Hoth – 968 Admiral Saul Karath – 806 Darth Zannah – 954 Ben Skywalker – 995 Ganner Rhysode – 864 Saba Sebatyne – 901 Vergere – 1098
If we look at the project overall, if a third or more of a pieces have cards that are filled to bursting, that's probably not the greatest overall look.
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Post by surfrider56 on May 7, 2010 1:07:21 GMT -5
Using G's thought on what was unique about certain cards, I used a size that would fit/be legible, and tried to be "uniform" in all sizes.
Special Abilities/Force Powers heading - FB Agency size 16 Ability Headings/ CE Title - FB Agency size 14 Descriptions - FB Agency size 13
Using appropriate spaces, all of G's Cat #1 fit fine; in Cat #2, Gryph and Cassus fit, but Jerec is just too big - I've not made a Supreme Overlord card for lack of a pic ...
Cat #3 is just too big if we want to make it WOTC-like and include spaces; some Force users are also missing the "Force Powers" heading ... if we want uniformity, changes need to be made.
Certain areas of WOTC cards are colored blue in the description boxes ... I've not bothered doing that but that would be easy to adjust. Also, I have no idea if there's an official font used for Character Titles ... its not FB Agency, but otherwise I haven't a clue ... just been using Arial because its my default font. I do recall seeing it somewhere once .....
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Post by gwek on May 7, 2010 8:28:03 GMT -5
Based on my "findings" and Surf's, I'm formulating some ideas on where I think we should head next. I'll post later, when I have a little more time.
Surf: On the cards that you're making, what font are you using for the bolded text? It looks to me like WotC uses a different font for the bolded text (eg, the names of special abilities) than from main text. We should try to match that, because it will impact what fits on a card (the "name font" isn't as narrow).
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Post by surfrider56 on May 7, 2010 12:35:39 GMT -5
Based on my "findings" and Surf's, I'm formulating some ideas on where I think we should head next. I'll post later, when I have a little more time. Surf: On the cards that you're making, what font are you using for the bolded text? It looks to me like WotC uses a different font for the bolded text (eg, the names of special abilities) than from main text. We should try to match that, because it will impact what fits on a card (the "name font" isn't as narrow). Again, anybody have an idea of what's used beyound FB Agency? I'm guessing .....
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Post by gwek on May 7, 2010 13:42:12 GMT -5
I'm not sure that anyone actively posting here these days can answer that. Do you want to try Galak Fyyar and/or Darth Chaos? They're members here, but are more active on the WotC boards.
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Post by xpraider on May 7, 2010 16:32:11 GMT -5
I'm just going to take a guess about Celeste and figure she may end up in the 750+ category, and the same might be true with Tholme and C'Boath.
Is GMLS the highest count currently? If so I'd like to keep everyone below what the highest count is. We shouldn't go above that except in extreme cases.
And of the higher count ones, are they really appropriate for their count? Like say, Ben Skywalker, if I'm not mistaken, this is a young version of him. Does he really justify a count of 985, or shouldn't he be around 450-500 (depending on the abilities).
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Post by surfrider56 on May 7, 2010 18:04:18 GMT -5
I'm not sure that anyone actively posting here these days can answer that. Do you want to try Galak Fyyar and/or Darth Chaos? They're members here, but are more active on the WotC boards. I'm finally home, so I did some research into this. For the older ones of us who've been around a few years, you may remember myname, who along with ironlightsaber and nickname, seem to be the godfathers of customs, in particular myname and custom cards. In this post community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75862/19478686/mynames_Custom_Card_Templates?pg=1I found the "original" old templates for cards, along with the comment on post #10 "Every set wizard produced had slight differences in the cards, (even the basic blue one have slight variations from set to set). what I tried to produce is a basic set that should match 99% every set made." The basic font used is of course FB Agency; Our very own Jm419 wrote in post #20 "I use 6 point font for the actual stats (Lightsaber Deflect, Jedi Hunter) , 8 point font for the Special Abilities type headers (Special Abilities, Force Powers, Commander Effect) 10 point font for the base stats (HP, Defense, Attack, Damage) and 12 point for the cost. My Title's aren't quite right but the font is different." Another oldtimer, Sathenus, identified the Title font as " a font called Vipnagorgialla" in post #21. I've since downloaded it. As an experiment, I redid the Gryph card with the new "Vip" font on one side and the Arial I've been using .... Apparently, I was the last person to "Bump" the thread 4 months ago. The numbers that Jm used look small; anybody regularly talks to him, or if he actually sees this maybe he can explain??
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Post by gwek on May 7, 2010 21:12:22 GMT -5
Perhaps you should try replicating the stats of an existing piece? That way, you can adjust the numbers and spacing until it matches the "baseline" model...
As for xp's question: I don't think that GMLS is the outlier. Certainly, Yoda Force Spirit has more characters. I picked the two of them as examples of pieces where the stats are on a card at a much smaller font than "standard." (To the best of my recollection, I think WotC uses at least 2-3 different font sizes on their cards, although the majority of cards fall into one set font size).
Also, I assume we're talking about samples of ONLY pieces using the new template (CLONE WARS and after).
Any way we count it, it's just a starting point and will be an art rather than a science. Because of spacing between special abilities and the increased font size of special ability names, for example, 3 special abilities of 3 lines each are going to wind up taking up more space than 1 special ability of nine lines. And, number of characters being equal, a character with a commander effect and Force powers is likely to require more lines of text than one who only has special abilities.
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Post by surfrider56 on May 7, 2010 21:17:12 GMT -5
Anybody have an opinion of the Title font above the front/stats side? Look right?
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