MArcomage

I was inspired by a recent thread from Spoon. He suggested a way to add notes to specific cards, so you could remember properties about them in hidden games. For example, you know he'll have Wind in a certain position after you've played Wind Witch, or you'll know he has a Mage at a certain position after he plays Mage academy. You can do this with the notes section, but it's tedious. I've written a script that I think improves on the process.

Here's what it looks like in action (don't look, Tibelix!). It's pretty self-explanatory. You type in the boxes, and press the "set" button, and it saves the note. Press "clear" to instantly erase the note.

This script requires a firefox add-on called Greasemonkey. If you don't have it, you can download it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748/.

The script itself is located here: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~colin/cardnotes.user.js. Once you have Greasemonkey installed, you can just click that link and you'll be prompted to install. You can also view the source code before installing if you're worried that it might do anything fishy.

I'd be happy to get any feedback, or feature requests. For those curious, it achieves persistence by saving to local files on your computer, rather than interacting with the Arcomage servers (this is why saving a note is lightning fast and doesn't require reloading the page).

If Mojko wants to use any of this as a starting point for making this a bona fide feature in-game, I'd be flattered. However, maybe it's better this way, since it's kind of a "meta-game" feature, and might look overly complicated for new players.

Enjoy!

This gets my thumbs up, exactly what I had in mind! I'm actually considering Firefox simply so I can use that, though I do quite like my Opera..
If it were to be implemented as a true part of Arcomage, I think it's a good idea to have it as optional and disabled by default to prevent new players getting confused, as mentioned above. I know I'd be pleased with such an add-on, I'll assume Dindon quite likes it, and hopefully the others would too.
Thanks for the work, I'll be sure to check it out asap :)

I think the textboxes below cards are quite a good idea, however I see much room for improvement. I would like to:

- move the boxes above the card so they could be nicely aligned

- add a nice show/hide animation on the boxes

- store the saved information on the server instead of local files

I'll add it to my TODO list. Currently I'm busy with the Christmas update and with the Christmas preparations themselves.

I hope there isn't any XSS involved in this, right? :P
Just kidding.

Seriously, it wouldn't be bad if this were to be implemented as a feature of the game, though I don't know what's the point in playing "hidden" anymore if this is enabled. And we already have Notes and History.

It is a logical extension of what people already do with the Notes feature. This just encourages you to be more thorough, and maybe to remember to clear certain notes when the cards are played.

I'd use something like this if someone wrote a version for Chrome.

Chrome actually supports Greasemonkey scripts, but the script as I've written it would need some modifications to work in Chrome (since its local-storage functionality is superficially different). If there's any demand for this, I could definitely give it a try in the next few days.

As for Opera, I've looked into it, and it seems that there's just no way to make something like this work in that browser. Sorry :(

I agree that the alignment is a bit janky. I like having the notes below the cards though, since I want to see my opponent's cards first, and not have the notes get in the way.

dimitris wrote:
Seriously, it wouldn't be bad if this were to be implemented as a feature of the game, though I don't know what's the point in playing "hidden" anymore if this is enabled. And we already have Notes and History.

Huh? It's not like it's a crystal ball that tells you exactly what's in your enemy's hand :P

I don't think it really changes the nature of hidden games. It's just a convenient memory aid. Notes and history are less convenient, because they open in a new page, meaning it takes extra time, and that you can't be looking at the cards as you write your notes (unless you have multiple browser windows open).

Seems like cheating to me, but ok, I like it.
since firefox users can use it, it should be avaible to every player.
I would like to have it on chrome.

Fithz wrote:
Seems like cheating to me, but ok, I like it.

Like I said, it doesn't accomplish anything that you can't do now with a pencil and a notebook, or the history section, or the notes. The only difference is that it makes it more convenient. I don't play a lot of hidden games, but when I do, I always find it a bit annoying that my opponent (or I) can hide a revealed card by using Renewal on it, or Magic portal, or that revealed Durable cards get hidden after they're played, even though it's obvious that that card is going to stay in that position.

Fithz wrote:
Seems like cheating to me, but ok, I like it.

I mean: seems like cheating to me that you can use it and other players (me) cannot.

I have a very comfortable chair in front of my computer. It makes the MArcomage play experience decidedly more enjoyable, though without giving me any actual benefit since it does not alter the game in any way, just the way I perceive it. Still, in the name of fairness, I should probably make this same chair available to all other players. =P

Fithz wrote:
I mean: seems like cheating to me that you can use it and other players (me) cannot.

Oh! Well I don't actually play hidden games, if it's any consolation. I only played a couple recently to test this out. And anyone can use it if they get Firefox, which is free and works on pretty much any OS :P

I'll look into making this work on Chrome though.