MagARENA

A friend of mine recently noticed I play magic and recommended me to try this AI software.

And lo and behold its Magarena





It is a really cool game and the best thing is it is FREE!



Not just free but GNU GPL v 3 FREE!



Whats even more cool? My friend (Melvin) is the developer of the A.I. how cool is that =)

I'm so proud of him really =D


Alright enough hollering.


I tried the A.I. and it is pretty addictive.


I have not tried to make it run more than 40 cards, tho I suspect it might be possible.



One of the disclaimers of Magarena is that it is not meant as a duel playtest software, which is a little bit of a pity since, the playtesting facility will really stress test the A.I.

and more importantly provide another playtesting avenue.

Having said that,unless the AI is able to play with the nuances required in the various types of decks, it would be useless. The reason being that MWS allows a player to play against himself already so that niche is covered.


Hence I can see why Magarena does not want to pursue duels since it would significantly up the ante in complexity.


A few things to note:

- You want to download the images and use the image version
- It can take a while but its worth it
- Its really good for learning combat and phases of a turn, without the pressure of a life opponent say on MODO or MWS















You probably can get a better view here

Clicking on a card gives you the a bigger card image so its readable:










There is also a text version but I found it difficult to use as there is no way to see what the card does. I did ask Melvin what was the use of the text version, he said it was for portability. Still something a little more friendly would be good. Apprentice was a software that was pretty lightweight and text based.. so that might work =)




About the A.I.
================

It is good enough to give you a good game. I suspect it is actually stronger than I think it is but it underestimates poison and landwalk.

Alot of the games I literally have a walk over because of landwalk.





Have fun ppl!

CSS Positioning

I thought this website was useful =)


this one also helped in my understanding

Postgre

I am currently using the windows version and to let you in on a secret...





It is good stuff =)

Now.

I have yet to ascertain if it is good in huge databases, but I can say it is definitely better than mySQL. Which is a shadow of itself ever since Oracle took over.

Here is hoping that Postgre will go the distance =)




A few bits o' weirdness though.


1) You really need to work out the SQL statements (with ' or or ").
2) Standard SQL - no funny vendor specific syntax


Both are not Postgre's fault but can be a little irritating when you are converting.

BUT!

having said that, i think it is good to have standard syntax.

1) It maintains the Open Source as Open (i.e. it is really FREE OPEN SOURCE)
(again free as in Libre and not Beer)

2) Once you use standard syntax, you will be enlightened. =) (My colleague did remark that Postgre is actually easy to use and reliable once you get the hang of it, before using, my colleague was rather despondent about the whole thing : She needed to get perl and php to talk to Postgre - which all worked out in the end =))

3) I think Postgre's current implementation is in a good compromised stage. It is alot more accessible due to its (very good) port to windows. In the past Postgre was the cream of the crop in the FREE source world, mySQL was the popular kid due to its accessibility to the windows crowds. The problem was windows users (who tend to be a little softer - yes I admit i am a wussie) find that mySQL hits a bottleneck in performance, then switch to some "Enterprise" commercial software. Not cool. Nobody went to Postgre from this crowd, as the crowd rarely bit the bullet and jumped into the Linux oasis. (Granted I am being unfair here, there are many reasons not to use linux, incumbent environment, incumbent software, administrator's expertise, management view of software and its management etc). But now with its newfangled port to windows! Kazaam!!! I luvz it it =D


Keep it up FOSS!!!!