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By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
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#461917
Reading about Lackey and now Tabletop simulator, open source programs that STCCG is sort of shoehorned into...

Was just wondering if CC has ever approached any software development firms for a quote to make a program JUST for STCCG. Would think they could put in a lot of bells and whistles to streamline gameplay that some of the other programs don't offer. One thing I think would be really cool is if it tracked your resources for you and your opponent so if you click on Dukat in your hand it offers you options.... play for free to central command, play for free with I Miss this office, or play using your normal card play. Then it announces that on the screen... There are so many report options stacking sometimes i get dizzy trying to keep track of what my opponent is doing LOL

Anyway... another option would be to look for a student taking software development courses who might want to even do this for free or only for material costs as a finals project.

Depending on the actual costs it could be something the community could try to crowdsource.

My gut tells me that because this doesn't really involve any complex animations this would probably cost $10,000-$20,000 dollars. That's really the low end for custom program if you can find some small independent company to do it for you (not Microsoft LOL).

I'd be willing to help you write a RFP (Request for proposal) you could use to shop prices if there is any desire to pursue this.......
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By Maelwys (Chris Lobban)
 - Gamma Quadrant
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Community Contributor
#461918
If you have $20k to offer, I'll happily program this myself. Unfortunately, I don't think we have that kind of money laying around...

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
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By Boffo97 (Dave Hines)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Retired Moderator
#461921
If we had the money, what I would love is something like the online Lord of the Rings CCG program Decipher had back in the day. It was actually built around the game, so it would highlight cards you could legally play and then highlight where you could play them.

Now, 1E would be extraordinarily complex for such a program and 2E wouldn't be much better, but man would it be fun.

I also remember being in the Beta for the online CCG and actually getting fans because I'd throw together decks based on what they have and contrary to a meta at the time that favored small Fellowships, I'd bring entire convoys into Mordor and my opponent wouldn't have enough enemies in hand to even think of touching Frodo.
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Ambassador
 - Ambassador
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#461942
This thing is a life long project, you don’t want to pay someone so little that they don’t care about the outcome and it drags on year after year like an albatross around the poor student’s neck. Bear in mind that once this thing is up, the work is not done, not by a long shot.

The only model that makes sense here is open source. Where everyone can contribute, not something one programmer hides away until their (inevitably disappointing) guess at what we want goes live.

Look at what l5r and GoT have done with jinteki and ringteki respectively (I know about gemp for Star Wars as well but that code is hella out of date now). What we need is a bunch of people who are willing to put time in on the side for years on end.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#461947
We likely have the raw programming skill in the community. The ratio of coders to non-coders here is... very different from the ratio in real life.

What I think would really be needed is a dedicated project manager and an extremely dedicated architect who can parcel out pieces of the project to different volunteers as they are available. Very tough job.

If we hired someone? 20k feels very lowball to me. A single software developer working on contract costs that much in eight weeks, and I dont see this as doable in eight weeks, especially not for a newbie.

So, yeah, gotta be volunteers.

Not to shoot down your post or anything, Takket. It's still a good question!
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By Tim (Tim Davidson)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#462066
I don’t think rules implementation is possible for 1E. Something like lackey, and to a lesser extent TTS, a card game sandbox that simulates a real table, is the best we could hope for.

I think rules implementation may be possible for 2E. What cards do and where cards are at certain states seems to have a finite pattern and structure. I’m not really that familiar with 2E beyond all the basics of how to play. I suspect there are plenty of exceptions in its long history?


A limited subset of 1E like something similar to warp speed could be possible. I dono if t would be worth it though vs playing the whole game on lackey.
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By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#462076
BCSWowbagger wrote:We likely have the raw programming skill in the community. The ratio of coders to non-coders here is... very different from the ratio in real life.

What I think would really be needed is a dedicated project manager and an extremely dedicated architect who can parcel out pieces of the project to different volunteers as they are available. Very tough job.

If we hired someone? 20k feels very lowball to me. A single software developer working on contract costs that much in eight weeks, and I dont see this as doable in eight weeks, especially not for a newbie.

So, yeah, gotta be volunteers.

Not to shoot down your post or anything, Takket. It's still a good question!
yeah i'm looknig at the glossary and all the things the program can allow and disallow you to do and you'd have to leave a LOT of stuff up the human to enforce on their own... at which point you are back to what Lackey already is.... otherwise the cost would be astronomical.

8 weeks doesn't seem nearly enough. it could take 8 weeks just to explain the game to the programmer so they know what to do LOL
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