Card creator App

[Stonewall78]

Since the rules are going to be available online and not all alt models and old models are likely to have cards soon. It would be great to have a little web app where you could select the card you want, upload a picture for it (you could even take a picture of your own mini) and then it would give you a jpg or pdf that you could then print out to play with.
It should be fairly easy to maintain and would give everyone the ability to create cards for models that they use multiple of to tell them apart.

[solkan]

2 hours ago, Stonewall78 said:

It should be fairly easy to maintain and would give everyone the ability to create cards for models that they use multiple of to tell them apart.

I think the counter example for "fairly easy to maintain" is the crew builder app that someone wrote during the beta that had problems with not preserving the italics in action text.    (Time consuming isn't "easy" when it's someone else's time.)

In an ideal software development scenario, it could be fairly easy to modify the card generation code to use user-supplied images instead of the official artwork.  I don't think it's likely that we're going to see the ideal software development scenario, unless Wyrd reverses course and approves of the development of fan-written apps to compete against Bad Things Happen.

But the ideal software development scenario would involve giving access to something better than PDF files of the cards, either database or some XML style form.

[Stonewall78]

19 hours ago, solkan said:

I think the counter example for "fairly easy to maintain" is the crew builder app that someone wrote during the beta that had problems with not preserving the italics in action text.    (Time consuming isn't "easy" when it's someone else's time.)

I think you have mistaken maintain for develop. Once the interface is written weird would be able to add new cards rather easily.

I have seen the  beta crew builder app but since using the card layout and graphics would be impossible due to not owning the IP I but worth the idea that it may be something for wyrd to look at. They already have app developers on contract so it would not be outside the realm of something they could pull off. A simple web applet page would be needed and would alleviate the bottleneck of putting out cards for all the alt models they have ever made. That is unless they have already done all those cards but the feature would be cool none the less.

I myself made a couple custom cards for M2E but that would leave it open to abuse. Having a page to generate the card would make it so no one could modify the stats on the cards.

I don't think weird should let people develop apps against ones they have already put money info (though I have loved crewfaux for M2E). It could even be part of the app but printing is more difficult from a mobile device.

 

[solkan]

40 minutes ago, Stonewall78 said:

I think you have mistaken maintain for develop. Once the interface is written weird would be able to add new cards rather easily.

Once unicorns roam the land, we will have peace.  The problem is getting the unicorns.  

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I have seen the  beta crew builder app but since using the card layout and graphics would be impossible due to not owning the IP I but worth the idea that it may be something for wyrd to look at. They already have app developers on contract so it would not be outside the realm of something they could pull off. A simple web applet page would be needed and would alleviate the bottleneck of putting out cards for all the alt models they have ever made. That is unless they have already done all those cards but the feature would be cool none the less.

I think there's a scale/feasibility mismatch.

The data provided by Wyrd (the PDFs) isn't a suitable format for us (the players) to write something to generate custom cards using.  There are (hopefully?) enough software developers among the fans of the game.

Trying to have Wyrd host the data and host custom card-generator software for players to use isn't going to feasible unless the person maintaining the software works for Wyrd.  I don't think that passes the feasibility tests for funding.

There are indications that Wyrd has the card information in something resembling a modern database.  If we had access to a copy of that database, it would be routine to write software that anyone could use to put their own graphic images on cards.  But that's the unicorn that we're not likely to get.  

 

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I myself made a couple custom cards for M2E but that would leave it open to abuse. Having a page to generate the card would make it so no one could modify the stats on the cards.

Sure.  A few minutes on a desktop computer to take one of the M2E cards (either scanned or with the card image copy/pasted out of one of the M2E PDFs), then edited to replace the graphic with what you wanted.  It helps that the M2E card format has the graphic in a square area that no text overlaps.

There's text overlapping the M3E graphic element, and it's a non-rectangular area.  There are a few images of the M3E cards on Wyrd's website (one of the preview articles has a fairly big graphic for Misaki's card, if I remember right).  The card design is complicated enough that it would be cleaner to regenerate the card from component data, rather than trying to image-edit it together.

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I don't think weird should let people develop apps against ones they have already put money info (though I have loved crewfaux for M2E). It could even be part of the app but printing is more difficult from a mobile device.

No comment, other than to say that "Adding AirPrint support so that you can print your own cards on your iPad" would be a routine feature request for a fan-written app.  And that would be routine to implement.  (Because the app people have to maintain their own card data database, whether they have to maintain it the hard way or not...)

But fan-written software is crazy--you don't have to pay for it, but you can't tell people what to implement next.

Disclaimer:  I assume Bad Things Happen represents a good value for what Wyrd could afford to pay for it.  But I think fan-developed apps could do so much better than what Wyrd can afford to pay for.  But that's not my call, or anyone else's call, outside of Wyrd.

Edit:  And I assume "vet and manage a bunch of crazy people who want access to the card database and are willing to work for no money" goes beyond what the folks at Wyrd want to do, as well.  O.o.  I mean, aren't Henchman enough work?  

[Erik1978]

On 6/3/2019 at 12:16 AM, Stonewall78 said:

Since the rules are going to be available online and not all alt models and old models are likely to have cards soon. It would be great to have a little web app where you could select the card you want, upload a picture for it (you could even take a picture of your own mini) and then it would give you a jpg or pdf that you could then print out to play with.
It should be fairly easy to maintain and would give everyone the ability to create cards for models that they use multiple of to tell them apart.

I've made my cards through this, where you can browse all models and build a crew. When you print you can choose a picture to put on, you can print in both M2E and M3E format, it's brilliant:

 

https://m3e.hong-crewet.dk/

[Stonewall78]

On 6/18/2019 at 9:27 AM, Erik1978 said:

I've made my cards through this, where you can browse all models and build a crew. When you print you can choose a picture to put on, you can print in both M2E and M3E format, it's brilliant:

 

https://m3e.hong-crewet.dk/

Thanks for pointing that out, I have used that site before but never built or printed a list with it. Wyrd should honestly just hire him to do web version as it is mostly done already.

[Erik1978]

Yeah he is a programmer, I kbow him. 

I always use the "build crew" feature when looking at models or potential crews.