I just noticed; we never had a topic keeping track of our progress and laying out exactly what kind of steps we'll be taking to ensure this actually gets done. I know, this is more for my reference than it is for everyone else, but hey, can't blame someone for being too organized, right?
My/our work will be separated in phases (not to be confused with the card game's phases. lololol) and as we progress each phase, this topic will be updated with more information that really doesn't fit anywhere else (For example, us getting the possibility of a whole new forum/generating a card back design/possible hiatus and staff openings and closings).
So here it is.
Phase 1 (Fuck details let's just get out there!)
The first phase stays very true to it's name. Many TCGs in development often die off early in the making because;
1. They're too concerned with how the card game will progress, and often are too scared to make cards fearing whatever havoc they will bring.
2. Too concerned for pictures. Picture production is ALWAYS something that slows these things down.
3. Disorganization
4. Loss of interest
Our first phase is set to tackle all four of these, and I'll even list how we will.
As you've no doubt have noticed in the card development topic, I've made a bunch of random cards, and am even accepted new card ideas and am in an attempt to stay in touch with said idea contributors through PM or IM and such. You probably have thought me as paranoid about some effects, and your right, I'm probably going with the first reason why TCGs fail. However, I am contributing every effort I have to get these cards out there, perfect or no. I "balance them" on the post so as to when we begin testing, we aren't feeling the heat from one particular card over all the others which impedes the testing process. Eventually, a storm of new cards will come whenever I have the time, all ready to go.
Concern for pictures? Bah! Humbug! Screw pictures! A lot of TCGs fail because the makers of them feel too obliged that every single card must have a picture accompanied with it, and often wait for these pictures to either be produced by someone or they wait for their artistic abilities to kick in. This slows down production A LOT, if not stopping it. Worlds, a TCG Crystal Cave was making before it suicided, suffered from this exact reason.
Disorganization. Dude, I've made, what, 4 topics now for different things, this one writing down the very path that the TCG would follow? I mean, I have every single card NUMBERED, and I have a program that lets me edit their text alone and re-release them! Yeah, we are not losing to this reason, NO MATTER WHAT.
And finally, Loss of interest. This depends on the role play itself and the interest of the card game. I hope that Role play interest = TCG interest, so as long as this board is alive, interest in this will remain alive. Simple as that.
With all of this, we will hopefully tear through the first phase onto more important phases. Once we have enough cards to make some pretty unique decks (I'm thinking of maybe over 100 cards.), and if everything goes according to plan, we can then proceed to phase 2!
Pseudo Phase 2
Interest in the card game is lessening. We'll be holding a pseudo Phase 2 at 70% completion of Phase 1. Keep in mind that we are still in Phase 1, but hopefully this'll let everyone that's interested try out the game a tad earlier.
Phase 2 (Refinement and Playtesting)
So we have a bunch of cards and eager people willing to play with them. Now what? Playtesting! During this phase, members of SPTCG will finally be able to play the game they've been endearingly wanting to play for so long, pictures or not! During this phase, while duel after duel is initialized in succession, I (and whoever else I've recruited) will closely observe each and every duel, record data such as "What card won this match?" "What is the real average attack/life/soul points?" "Were our initial assumptions on our numbers wrong, or just need tweaking?" "Is this win because of the player's skill or because of the cards? or both?". While we answer such questions, we will be fine tuning rules and cards to make them fit better according to whatever data we collected. We may even ask players to go to war again with the same exact turn and deck order, only with edited cards to see how much of the duel would change.
In other words, while you all are having fun, it is going to be like hell itself for me and whoever is staffed at the time. Once we have a sizable amount of data, and answered our concerns...
Phase 3 (Hiatus tiem)
This will be the shortest of the phases. Here, me and whoever else is staffed with me will look at the data we collected, the revisions we've made to the rules, and at all of the refinements of the rules (Why else did you think I provided a changelog on those other topics? Gotta keep track of this stuff!) and we basically go over almost everything: What worked? What didn't work? What can we do to make so-and-so work? Should we scrap so-and-so idea?
All of this is taken into account, and massive rule changes/card changes may or may not take place. Once we are pretty confident of what we've done...
Pseudo Phase 2
Yes, we move back to phase two, only for a much shorter time to test exactly what all we did fixed anything. If things go bad, and there are still concerns afoot, we go back to Phase 3 and repeat the cycle until we are satisfied with our results. Once we are satisfied with how the game is played, and know that what we have is a true card game on our hands...
Phase 4 (Release! And pretty pictures!)
The card game is available for everyone in it's completed entirety. It is also during this phase that we will finally be getting in all of those pictures that we've neglected so long. Stuff like getting our own forum or section will be discussed (If we haven't already gained it by phase 2. or pseudo phase 2.) and possibilities of branching outside our humble card game section/forum...
Phase Final (Marketing)
The final step of this card game is to get it published and sold everywhere. I'm not going to put too much in the phase because, hey, what do I know about getting stuff published, let alone marketed? SPTCG is never truly finished until we get to this phase. We may get to it, we may not. Who knows?
You've seen the plan. You have a general idea of what we're/I'm going to do. Now let's get to it!
Current Phase:
Read the last post.
