Restricting large numbers of sets in config.json

[odd pewter]

To get my fix of Shandalar nostalgia, I've been working on a full conversion of the decklists and setlists to pre May-2003 (Scourge).

I haven't managed to successfully restrict the sets available in shops, even though I'm using the config.json correctly(?)

Does anyone have successful experience with restricting sets?

[analog relic]

I wish that too

[mortal hamlet]

You can restrict sets in shops by modifying shops.json which is located here : res\adventure\Shandalar\world. For that you must add the line "editions": [""] with the three letters of the corresponding set in between the [""]. Here is an example :
"rewards": [
{
"count":8,
"editions": ["40K"]
"cardText": "Black"
}]
},{

[odd pewter]

thank you! its actually working now via the restrictededitions thing. I had one set that wasn't correctly labelled and it broke it all.

however, I noticed that certain cards didn't come up anymore, so I was suspecting that anything that got a reprint in later sets, was maybe no longer in the game?

Do you have any idea how that logic works?

In these screenshots, you can see my "oldschool" restricted version only shows 12 possible cards to smith for revised, whereas a clean build shows 289 possible cards.

EDIT: It is indeed very likely the culprit. When I enabled "30A" (MTG 30th Edition), I got 200 more cards available in revised.

[mortal hamlet]

I've only started changing a few things in the shops.json a few days ago to help me build decks with cards that were hard to find in unmodified shops. So I don't know much more about how it works but you seem to have found how it works for the smith.

One thing that could help you though, that you might already have noticed, is that for booster pack shops you can restrict by dates using something like this :
"rewards": [
{
"type": "cardPackShop",
"count": 8,
"startDate": 2014,
"endDate": 2020
}]
},

I've not tried it for single card shop but it works for boosters.

[odd pewter]

Thanks. I've tinkered with the shops too, and I've managed to get all the old sets in via the start and end-dates. However, there seem to be some issues around LEA, LEB, 2ED and 3ED. Those don't show up as boosters or purchasable cards for me with my restricted editions. However, in base game, these super-old cards do show up in shops, so that's weird...

[mortal hamlet]

Don't know if it can help but for boosters shop I noticed that the commander editions like 40k or FDC for example don't appear even with dates restrictions. This limitation might be in another file but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know which one.

[odd pewter]

Thanks for sharing your experiences! It's def helpful. I'm gonna try and scour the deeper codebase for clues

[spiral knoll]

I talked with the author of shops about it too and editions with restricted cards will not appear in shops

So no antiquity, Arabian nights, editions one two three and some urza's

You have to remove the restricted cards from the config

[polar dome]

Hello, first time posting here. I was trying to restrict the adventure game mode to only use older sets, and I've edited the config.json to include a lot of the newer sets manually. However, when I enter a town, drafts still include march of the machines. I'd also like to tweak the shops as well, but I haven't figured out where to add the line Mefistos suggests. Do I just place it at the top?
Any help would be appreciated

[mortal hamlet]

HI, I can only help you for the shops. In the shops.json file you can try and add the line at the same place I did in the example I provided. I only did it for one shop so I don't know if it works for every type but at least it works for 8 single card shops.

[polar dome]

I have added it like this, however all the shops are now empty, I think I must have made a mistake in how i added it (i'm not knowledgeable about programming)

[mortal hamlet]

I'm not either but it seems like you can't specify card text or colors like this when it come to cardpackShop which sells boosters. You can do it for the other type of shops that sells 8 cards though like this one for example :

"name":"Black1",
"description":"Certain Death",
"spriteAtlas":"maps/tileset/buildings.atlas",
"sprite":"RotatingShop",
"overlaySprite":"Overlay6Black",
"rewards": [
{
"count":6,
"cardText": "(destroy|exile) target|sacrifice",
"colors": ["black"]
},
{
"count":2,
"cardText": "(destroy|exile) target|sacrifice"
}]
},{

[plain whale]

The reason it broke is because the json is formatted wrong (and also because it doesnt have filters for that), the [ ] of rewards should cover all the rewards you want. But yeah, right now booster shops can only be filtered by the release date of the set. The color one is a special booster that only contains cards of that color and it cannot be filtered any further.

[analog relic]

how about banning single cards by name?

maybe banning not reprinted cards from single sets could filter better (obviously not human friendly).

[plain whale]

I made a PR last week that kinda fixed this, but it was not a good programming practice, and since then i still havent worked on it. Tomorrow i will try again and send it.

[brazen finch]

@odd pewter This sounds so amazing and cards only to Scourge would be so sick

Let me know if you need test help. Any idea how to change the drafts offered at the inn?

[odd pewter]

I do need testing help 🙂

I haven't tackled the drafts yet.

https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/Old-School-Forge

[odd pewter]

I just finished all the enemy decks (490) a few days ago. They are far from perfect, but still offer an enjoyable experience so far.

Lemme know if the instructions on how to mod it aren't clear, I can walk you through it.

[odd pewter]

I will def look into how to mod the drafting, but its deeper embedded in the compiled java code than some of the other stuff...

[brazen finch]

Ok great. I'll try to set this up. Is this itself a fresh install i can put in a different folder?

Lol should of read that first. Ok so it sounds easy enough, but I don't see where the files I'm meant to replace the old Jsons with are on the page.

Ps. You're a champion for putting this together. The newest cards kind of take over and I miss the past!

[odd pewter]

Basically when you download the Forge latest release from github and install, you get a folder with a bunch of java executables. But theres also /res/ (resources) folder

should be the same for mac and pc

Config.json (set restrictions): /res/adventure/common

Decks folder: /res/adventure/common

Enemies.json: /res/adventure/common/world

Shops.json: /res/adventure/Shandalar/world

[brazen finch]

copy paste the text to replace?

[odd pewter]

just copy and replace the whole file

[brazen finch]

Gotcha so download it and then go file by file

[odd pewter]

do you know how to download the github repo?

https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/Old-School-Forge/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

So there are 3 json files to replace, and then copy and replace the whole decks folder. (there are some additional files that I'm not replaceing in the decks folder, so don't delete the old one, just replace)

There are several instances where new cards will show up because they are hardcoded as rewards or item cards for enemies - i'm working on that.

[brazen finch]

Ok cool

[odd pewter]

But with this setup, you have 99% no intrusion of newer cards

[brazen finch]

Ya so far I had only painstakingly added a bunch of restricted new and promo sets manually.

This sounds great. We'll see if I've done it correctly momentarily

[odd pewter]

The only cards that aren't buyable in the shops are:
"Black Lotus",
"Mox Emerald",
"Mox Pearl",
"Mox Ruby",
"Mox Sapphire",
"Mox Jet",
"Ancestral Recall",
"Timetwister",
"Time Walk",
"Gaea's Cradle",
"Serra's Sanctum",
"Tolarian Academy",

But you can change that in config.json if you like. I wanted to play it this way, cause I enjoy the new booster shops. So you can pull the Cradle/Sanctum/Academy in boosters. I wanted to remove them from single shops, because they just show up too often in land-shops, so they didn't feel like big hits.

[odd pewter]

Lemme know if you need any more help. You're my first tester haha

Oh, one more thing. I think you have to play "constructed"

the game crashes otherwise. haven't quite figured that out

[brazen finch]

Shops look great. I think I did the others wrong somehwo.

My starter had lots of new cards.

I'm gonna try again

I extracted the files the first time. I imagine I'm supposed to.

Here's a weird thing I have two installs of Forge and they both show my save file

Do I need to run the patch at all?

[odd pewter]

Yeah, the save files are stored in a centralised cache, so when you install a new update for forge, it keeps the saves.

[odd pewter]

No, the patch doesn't work yet. It basically is just supposed to copy the files in the right folders though. Doesn't do anything else

[odd pewter]

OH! My bad, i never uploaded the starter decks

heres the folder, just unzip and replace in /res/adventure/common/decks

ill put it on the github repo now too

[brazen finch]

Just put it over the same decks folder?

Do you mean over starter?

I suspect so

[odd pewter]

yep, just copy and replace the contents of the starter folder

[brazen finch]

Starters working Great. Shops working great. Pack shops appear to only sell packs old packs.

Enemies have a wide range of spells in their decks some appear to be old and some have lots of new tech I havent' beaten one yet. Maybe I messed up my folder when I was doing it a first.

Im digging this so far tho, Much further than I got on my own.

Scourge is a great cutoff.

[brazen finch]

Mtgonline promos are getting through to shops. I believe set code PRM

starters working great shops look great.

I haven't mastered the enemies and decks yet. I did a fresh install and set it up incorrectly again.

Have you figured out how to filter for the new sets without also filtering out the old versions? I guess so? I saw Llanowar elves in my starter from 7th and they were reprinted after scourge

[odd pewter]

Basically all the enemy decks are in these folders. copy and replace all contents in these folders:
/decks
-/boss
-/miniboss
-/standard
-/starter

they are all in /res/adventure/common/decks

[odd pewter]

Yes, it works the way it should now. You will find llanowar elves from Alpha to 7th in the game but not the newer ones.

Oh, but not for the Smith. That's another hardcoded filter problem.

I'll try to get the patch working today so it does it automatically.

[brazen finch]

My Pile option works. In this version I don't have the starters added. But the pile version works with all your created restrictions.

I'll mess with it some more tomorrow Im out of town this weekend but I"ll be back to it again soon next week. Such a cool experience with all the old cards! Great work!

Ps. Pile works for me. Pre fixing the Starters

I believe its all working now thanks so much!

What's the Smith?

[spiral knoll]

🤩 premodern in shandalar I'm going to try this immediately

[brazen finch]

It's stellar

[odd pewter]

https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/Old-School-Forge

Lemme know if you have any issues or questions!

[odd pewter]

Its where you can gamble to generate cards in the main towns. But they dont show cards that have been reprinted, so it doesn't work correctly. Not recommended to use 🙂

[odd pewter]

The patch should now work automatically if you download the latest release. Just put the extracted folder into your forge game folder and run the patch. I've tested it on mac, but it should work on windows too.

the .bat file

[spiral knoll]

I just installed it and it works flawlessly, thank you so much for this addon

I'm getting nostalgia overload right now

[odd pewter]

So happy to hear that! Please let me know any issues you run into or if you have any improvement recommendations! That would be so helpful 🙂 Thanks

[odd pewter]

@spiral knoll @brazen finch I just updated all the boss and miniboss decks to play competitive premodern decks. The bosses also have power9 and the minibosses have duals 🙂

[brazen finch]

🔥

[spiral knoll]

that's awesome to hear

so idk if I did something wrong but the .bat file didn't work for me so I had to manually replace all the files

but when I fight against certain enemies the game crashes straight to desktop

oh it's probably because I am on forge 2.0.4, should I downgrade for the best experience?

[odd pewter]

it should work on 2.0.4. Did you copy/replace the decks? or did you delete the decks folder and then copy the new one in?

Because you should copy/replace. There are files in the decks folder that are not modified.

also, please send me the log from the shell when it crashes. then we can check out whats going on

[odd pewter]

Ok thanks. I don't have a windows PC at hand for another week so I can't test it I'm afraid...

[spiral knoll]

Yea I deleted it and copied the files afterwards, done the installation properly and it works like a charm now.

As somebody else pointed out there are still some secret lair artworks but that's a minor thing.

I also noticed that some cards never appear in shops I've been rolling goblins like crazy now and never seen some cards like lackeys, piledrivers, etc. Have they been made harder to get or am I just incredibly unlucky 🧌

[brazen finch]

Goblins are fun. Rolling with mono black triple nightmare here.

Away for the next 2 days, but I'm going to be excited to get back to this! So fun.

[brazen finch]

There are 1000s of cards. Onslaught draft will be a great place to find piledriver. Hes a blast

He prolly will show up in goblins shops, but there are a ton of goblins.

[brazen finch]

Are you running goblin grenade perchance?

[spiral knoll]

idk man something's wonky in the shops, I ran through 100s of crystals at this point for goblin or elf shops and there are some cards that just refuse to show up, for example llanovar elves

since it only goes to onslaught block there's only so many goblins or elves possible in the shop

[odd pewter]

Yeah, I agree, somethiings wonky in the shops. I had the same experience with looking for piledrivers. Also I couldn't find a tabernacle in lands shop either. I'll try to investigate but the smith and singles-shops seem to be affected in weird ways by banning so many sets. I thought it had something to do with reprints, but tabernacle was never reprinted.

So I accepted it for now in my playthrough and just shop booster packs 🙂

[odd pewter]

here's my latest shops.json for /res/adventure/Shandalar/world

it doesnt fix the problem you pointed out. but the booster packs are better structured and you shouldn't be seeing any secret lair stuff anymore.

[odd pewter]

go hunt the goblin chief for good cards. he runs a competitive premodern goblin deck!

[brazen finch]

Some of the shops have dual lands for sale(I don't mind this, but I kind of like your idea about them limiting them, but I'm going to play this a bunch. I started compiling a list I don't have with me of

Shops that are empty always, cards that appear in shops from other sets. I'll send it next week. I plan to play a good bit thanks for all the work!

I think mtg online promos code [PRM] and [SLD] show up in some shops.

Super fun build!!

[brazen finch]

Out of town until tomorrow evening.

[odd pewter]

Wow thank you! That would be amazing. 🤩

[spiral knoll]

Something broke down with the shops again, the Ancient Archives or Planar Cache booster shop doesn't show ATQ anymore

[odd pewter]

I'm working on the shops right now. Trying to understand how the whole thing works. I'll update you when I got something

[odd pewter]

here's my latest shops.json for /res/adventure/Shandalar/world

I'm not sure that ATQ shows up correctly. According to the configuration, it should. I edited a lot of the shops to remove shops for stuff like planeswalkers, vehicles, etc.

[odd pewter]

LOL i figured it out. Its just one setting hardcoded, so i have to recompile the game. But now the lands shop looks really cool. You can collect all the old basics too!

I will have to upload a full fork of the game. Will try to get it done tomorrow

No more missing cards. in shops though

[spiral knoll]

Wow that's awesome to hear, got 2 friends of mine hooked already 🤩

[odd pewter]

Here is the full fork of the game. Just unzip and launch 🙂

It works on Mac, please let me know if you're on PC and if it works. Thanks!!

https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/forge-old-school-shandalar/releases/tag/v2.0.04

So no more patching. I will continue to maintain and update in this github repo.

Feel free to share! And if you have feedback, bugs, requests, etc. please feel free to let me know directly or post them in "issues" on the github page. Thanks 🙂

I noticed that "unlocking" all the cards, regardless of set, has a couple issues - namely that now all basics are "smithable" in LEA, LEB, 2ED, 3ED - this is definitely a bug. The other sets seem unaffected. Not sure if there are any other adverse effects of the hard unlock. Haven't had time to playtest yet...

Changes i noticed so far:

• Mod doesn't affect existing savegames. You can continue playing on old saves, it seems.
• All cards of all (old border) sets show up in shops now. Sometimes you will see a beta white knight next to a 4ED white knight. I really like this.
• Basic lands of all sets show up in the land shops now. I like this too 🙂
• All duals are available in the land shops. I actually would prefer to restrict this and try to manually make duals only quest rewards and boss/miniboss fight rewards

The piledriver shows up now - I didn't see him before

[brazen finch]

Very cool, put this on my Dads pc this weekend.

[odd pewter]

I'll be pushing a lot of updates in the coming days/weeks until i feel like it's in a good, playable state. So please do update to the latest versions :). It seems to work fine with existing saves too.

Use the full forge fork from now on: https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/forge-old-school-shandalar

I'm discontinuing the "patch".

[odd pewter]

lemme know what he thinks! 😄

[spiral knoll]

it's awesome it's getting better with every iteration, also helps a lot that it's just unpack and play

my only issue is, albeit a minor one, that certain boosters like USG and ATQ are still not available due to restricted cards inside of them. I think the creator of the booster system ran into the same issue with no possible solution

[odd pewter]

Ah, i see! Thanks for the info. So since I put Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Academy, Serra's Sanctum on the restricted list, the boosters dont show? And it must be mishra's workshop from ATQ...

I'll look into it. I'm sure there's a way. For now, I'll remove them from the restricted list.

@spiral knoll @brazen finch Just FYI, I did a massive update today: rewards (chests are no longer empty), items (all user items that have cards now have new old border alternatives)

[odd pewter]

I think I just found it btw. Seems like its maybe just one little change in a line of code...
testing it out now

[odd pewter]

yep that did it.

However, I've changed the years of the sets in different shops. I think having LEA, LEB, 2ED breaks the game a bit. So I've made it that there's the antique booster shop that has 1994-1995, where you can get legends and antiquities. But you can edit the shops.json as you like 🙂

Uploading the latest build right now

Gonna start a new save game now as well because there are lots of rewards and new items I missed out on on my last playthrough 🙂

https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/forge-old-school-shandalar/releases/tag/v2.0.05

here's the latest release. enjoy! I'm gonna go start a new save game

[spiral knoll]

I understand this correctly you can buy Unlimited boosters but they don't contain p9 cards?

[odd pewter]

Not quite - boosters will always contain all possible cards. I've basically made no shops stock 1993 boosters, which is LEA, LEB, 2ED, ARN (unfortunately). This seems to be the only workaround right now.

But singles shops won't stock the restricted cards

Give it a try! I'm curious to see what you think.

[spiral knoll]

I see that sounds fun, just on the screenshot I see the 2ED (Unlimited) booster which still contains p9

[odd pewter]

Then there's a rare "antiques" booster shop, that holds 1994 cards: 3ED, ATQ, etc. So you can pull duals and mishra's factory in there.

[odd pewter]

Yeah I saw that and then made the adjustment

That boosters are only categorisable by release year. Maybe I can figure something better out. But for now, that's the way the system works.

[brazen finch]

Downloaded new setup. Pile still works great.

Shops look much imprcved I'll report if I see anything. I did notice the town shops that sell armor don't exist now. Which I personally haven't used in any of my games. Just pointing out in case it wasn't intended.

[odd pewter]

Thanks! I noticed that the armor shops / item shops are broken, Investigating...

[brazen finch]

Not worried about them, the cards are coming in noice

[odd pewter]

I'm taking the modded items out for now. Seems like it's not that simple... sorry!

[odd pewter]

fyi, items work now in the latest release 0.32: https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/forge-old-school-shandalar/releases

added some old items, but wasnt too selective - so feedback is welcome!

[brazen finch]

Should I get the new daily snapshot?

[odd pewter]

If you don't have the latest release, I suggest you always download the latest one. I'm updating it almost every day now as I notice things when playtesting. The biggest change to the last version is that I changed all the items to old-border-legal items

I'll try to be more thorough with documenting change-notes 😄

you can always continue with your save-game. nothing I update breaks savegames (so far)...

[brazen finch]

The in app updater is asking to update. Is that from you or from the typical build?

No way to make the shops all run draft yet correct? The part that edits that not in a file folder correct?

[brazen finch]

Ps this is a general game question what are the silver medals for?

[brazen finch]

Another question, supposed I wanted 8th edition and chk block to be available for draft only would I simply edit the block data file adding them in? Would changing that effect current saves? Would it work even though those sets aren't in the rest of the world?

[brazen finch]

Tried that. Got it working. It can also allow for Tor Tor Tor for example.

I noticed clay golems and perhaps other golems appear to only have the card wastes in their deck.

[odd pewter]

Thanks! Noticed that today too. I’ll fix that asap.

[odd pewter]

I thought it was for jump starts?

[odd pewter]

Ah! That’s the forge updater. No point in running it. Wouldn’t affect our mod. I’ll have to hide that somehow

Thanks for pointing that out

[neon bane]

This is so cool, thanks for your work on this Remuslord! Drafting is bringing back memories of my first limited play when I didn't know how to do it 😄

[brazen finch]

Me too!

[short blaze]

Fantastic work ! thx you !!!

[brazen finch]

There are 3 coins gold is draft. Silver and copper one of them is jumpstarts. Whats the other?

Remuslord has been molding an amazing experience!

[odd pewter]

I dont do much drafting in the game. Do you have any suggestions on what to change about the coins system long-term?

[brazen finch]

I don't know what the other coins do.

If it can't support other formats tho (sealed might work), maybe just make it give you 2 gold tokens or just the one gold token, and none of the others.

Obviously taking the other choices away from the shop options(jumpstart) might be nice so there is always some draft offered. But it works great now. The gold token works great since there is draft. You could simply remove the others.

I love to draft and then usually just sell all the cards and then also rampage around with elves or goblins or discard as my main deck.

The fights in structures are so much better since

I drafted a lot from 7th to Ravnica. Before taking off 2 sets and then drafting for a ton of formats in a row again. I ran weekly drafts at my apt and played at a store another night every week for years.

So draft is dear to me. But the old school progressive constructed legacy game that this version of shandalar is, is still the main course.

I find I am always checking for draft precisely because I don't know if it'll be around when I'm ready for it so I just take it if I can see it.
Usuallly.

The last few sets you included are fun blocks and triple 7th is also a romp. I love drafting the old crazy ones too some. Revised is fun. Lost in rd 2 with a sol ring and mana vault and channel and 3 disintegrates recently.

[odd pewter]

So I'll try to make all the towns have drafts, rather than the jumpstarts. do you have some thoughts on how to distribute the probabilities of draft blocks? would you even do cross-block drafts? i'm really curious about how you would make the whole drafting element of the game more fun.

And I'll try to remove other coins other than gold coins too.

Was there "sealed" competition in the forge base adventure game?

[neon bane]

I don't believe so, they have it in the non-adventure version though.

I think you can also do it in quest mode

[brazen finch]

@neon bane Do you know what the third coin pays for? One is draft, one is jumpstart, what is the other?

@odd pewter
The drafting works great, and I wouldn't worry about weighting, if folks want block mixing they can edit that, but most won't prefer that as the standard. Only thing the draft really needs is to be available. And of course pitch the other coins if they are useless. They don't matter, but might as well remove the clutter.

[brazen finch]

I'm getting stuck here. I think because the new snapshot is out.

Prolly need a way to not need the update

[odd pewter]

Did you click update or is it just broken now since the update is out?

[brazen finch]

I didn't update it.

I can get a fresh install tomorrow night

[odd pewter]

I pushed a new release just now

https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/forge-old-school-shandalar/releases

[neon bane]

The devs have only said that the third coin hasn't been implemented into the main game yet

[neon bane]

Oh nice, deck list fix for enemies, is that for the ones that just load like a deck full of wastes and no other cards? 😄

Know there were a couple golems I saw do that earlier

[odd pewter]

Yes i fixed that. I think all of them are fixed. The problem was that they were randomly generated decklists with "tribe": "Golem", "Colour":"Black", or something like that. Then it looks for all available golem cards in black, but didnt find any. So i had to just change the colours to cards that existed in 93-03 basically

it should work now

[neon bane]

Oh that's the genetic lists

[odd pewter]

Thanks a lot for the bug feedback! It's really helpful, since I can only playtest so much as one person...

[neon bane]

if I can ever help out with anything let me know, I've dabbled a bit w/ the source code, so know a little bit about it. I'm also the guy who co-owns the forge subreddit

[odd pewter]

That’s awesome. Thanks for the offer. Of course in the spirit of open source, I would appreciate any contributions and suggestions. I’ll write out what I think the game still needs in the coming days.
Is there anything that comes to mind what you would like to change, implement or work on?

If it’s something here and there that you notice and you know how to fix, please throw it into the issues bucket on the GitHub repo.

[brazen finch]

Weird fresh install still doing for me. There must be some scrap I need to clear off my pc

[brazen finch]

Seems like it no longer allows for me to define other draft formats. With a clean install and no adjusting the doc it will start. Any ideas?

[odd pewter]

Can you send me the log from the terminal/shell? the error should be posted in there

[odd pewter]

I haven't changed anything about the drafts except editing the blocks.txt file... strange.

i pushed a new release about 30 mins ago too btw. didn't change much, just images and minor bug fixes though

[brazen finch]

Got it running. Something was weird in the text I entered to adjust the draft sets. Working now. Seemed to have an issue with 10ED

Maybe the abbreviation is 10E and that was preventing open.

Love to see the no update fix !

[odd pewter]

yeah that was annoying! I was trying to get it to autoupdate the mod, but i couldnt get it working, so i just scrapped it for now...

[brazen finch]

That would be cool.

This Shandalar has been a dream so far.

I've had fun building elves overrun kamahl

Goblins

And

Black aggro discard

All have been a blast. The shops are nearly perfect these days!

And I guess my days of schooling golems for free are over as well. 😂

This time I'll try white. And I've been saving blue for last.

I'll prolly have to do a run of every color, then try some pairs so many cool decks to build in this time

I love that you added the basics to the land shops. Very fun. I find myself collecting all the lands like I always did in real life.

[odd pewter]

Thanks for your kind words! I'm really happy to hear you're enjoying yourself. I also love collecting all my favourite lands :). I think it works well because there aren't that many non-basics in that era anyways, I think...
Please do keep me up to date on your feature wishes and bugs you encounter 🙂

I'll try to get rid of the jumpstart towns

[odd pewter]

Haha I basically did the same! I've yet to stumble into any duals though in my latest run. I wonder if theyre too hard to obtain now...

[odd pewter]

i managed to find an "ancient archives" booster shop, which has ATQ and 3ED. So now i find myself gambling for duals. Much harder than through the singles shop and very rewarding when it hits 🙂. Curious what you think of the balancing right now...

[brazen finch]

I have been playing Mono, but I'm duals focused so I would save any color and would crack revised for them.

It's fun to crack for uncommons tho. No doubt. Still not that easy to hit.

I would play them if on the main color too of course.

[bleak cape]

Love this modification, really lets me scratch the old school nostalgia itch.

I have noticed a couple of the enemy decks can’t be piloted well by the AI

The wandering eldrazi in the colorless biome has Phyrexian Devourer as its main threat, but the AI doesn’t know how to use it

[elder bloom]

Hello, Sorry but draft in this version are also old sets only? Also wow you're doing One hell of a job!

[odd pewter]

Thanks for letting me know. I think I'll get rid of the devourers...

[odd pewter]

Yep, old sets only drafts.

[elder bloom]

You sir are a very nice person

Going to install again forge for this, thanks

[wooden fjord]

#adventurers-guild message

[bleak cape]

Anyone else run into Booster Shops turning into regular card shops?

I just bought a few packs from one, left town, and when I re-entered it was a creature shop

[wooden fjord]

are you sure it is the same town and not the next door town?
i'm pretty sure that once a town has been randomly generated it won't change, and so are their offers unless you change the card restriction config or refresh their offers

[bleak cape]

Yep, I bought 3 packs, stepped out to save then right back in

It was a creature shop with the same three slots empty

[wooden fjord]

😆

what kind of creature shop it turned into?

[bleak cape]

Hunter's Glade

Also got a couple out of era cards from the Kavu dungeon (and seen Deb in shops too)

[atomic rose]

When loading the game I am seeing art from modem border sets as well, is there a setting I need to change or something I need to do?

[scarlet hemlock]

Yes

Good thing I save frequently!

[odd pewter]

like, a lot? there are couple promo sets i havent quite managed to identify correctly yet to filter out...

[wooden fjord]

#adventurers-guild message

do note that my config is intended for official forge, if you are using the modded one, you might want to compare their contents first before using it

[atomic rose]

Fresh save and first town, there are quite a few cards in the newer frame. Masters Edition cards also show up but thats less of a concern

[odd pewter]

That’s weird… are you running the modded game in a separate folder? Or did you merge with the original game?

It looks like those are all reprints

[odd pewter]

I'm wondering whether it has something to do with how your images are organised and how the game fetches images - since I haven't heard of any other users with this issue (yet).

[brazen finch]

I'm only very rarely seeing newer cards these days. Which is just how I like it.

I ignore them if I see them.

[atomic rose]

I uninstalled the normal version of forge before using it, Ill look and see if there are files hidden somewhere

[odd pewter]

Some of them are baked into how bosses work... But that's my long-term goal, to recreate the whole world to be pre 2003. So that we have bosses, maps and dungeons that are fitting for the era and the sets.

[odd pewter]

It shouldn't be an issue to have parallel forge installs, to be honest, because the game fetches game and config files from the folder its in. It's the image files that are fetched from the cache folders in application support - that's pretty much the only overlap. So that's why I suspect there's something going on with your image cache structure.

If you're willing to delete your image cache and let the game redownlaod the images automatically as they come, that might fix your issue.

also, make sure this is OFF:

maybe that's the simple issue with yours.

[atomic rose]

I don't have access to my desktop today but I did install the mod on my laptop and it seems to be working just fine

I'll delete the cashe when I can sit down at my desktop again and see if that fixes the issue

[odd pewter]

I believe the problem lies with the "Use card variant from all sets" option. It must be checked off. I was able to recreate your issue with it.

I will have it removed in the next update so players cant accidentally run into this

[odd pewter]

Pushing a new release now to the github repo with 0.36.0

Im very happy with this one, was a tricky update. Finally fixed some tedious card logic with the shops. Now even have fun basic land shops!!

[atomic rose]

I've been playing some today on my laptop and I noticed that even though I uninstalled the original Forge before downloading the mod my old saves seem to still be visible. I'm wondering in old settings carried over and that's how the box got ticked

Either way it's working well

Just two things I've seen

The default "add basics" in deck building seem to be using the jumpstart ones. It that a bug or just not added yet, I assume they would use portal 2 basics.

The second is that there are still some enemies using modern cards. I got wrecked by a spider in the slime cave using an amulet titan deck. Do you need more people to help make decklists for the ai to use? I would be willing to help with that now that my semester is over

[neon bane]

Yes, even uninstalling the old app still leaves the settings folder. That's located in the %appdata%\forge\ folder on windows, so to do a full uninstall you'd need to delete that folder as well. (Don't worry about your downloaded card images though, those are in a different appdata folder)

[odd pewter]

Actually all the decklists are updated. But I would be tremendously grateful for update and change requests. I did about 5% of them myself, and used a pretty convoluted custom array of AI agents to create the rest using decks on the internet. It's far from perfect, but I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome, which is why I decided to publicise the project in the first place.

If you think specific decks need changing, please feel free to propose it on github directly or send me a DM. I'd be happy to change them. I'm constantly trying to tweak them here and there when I notice something too.

[odd pewter]

I'd love to know which enemy that is. There are definitely still new cards in the game, especially ones that are unique boss or dungeon effects. That's still work-in-progress. They are generally cards that are "hard coded" into the quests, enemies or dungeons.

[atomic rose]

I will be sure to screenshot and catalog any errors I find. But this particular one was a spider in the slime boss cave in the bottom left of the map.

[odd pewter]

Btw, was it you who wanted to try the android version?

[atomic rose]

Yes that was me

[odd pewter]

First attempt at vibe-coding some solution. I don't think it will work out of the box, but there are instructions along with it.

https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/forge-old-school-shandalar/releases/tag/v0.36.1

It should have a working android build in it. But since I have no android device, I can't really test it. It works on emulator

[atomic rose]

I won't have proper Internet access until tomorrow so I won't be able to download android studio to make the apk

But I'll try it out then

[odd pewter]

ill try to learn and see how i cabn make it easier for the androidies

[brazen finch]

@odd pewter you rock. This is such a joy to play! I'll grab the new update soon!

[odd pewter]

Thanks dude! So happy to hear that.

[oak radish]

This is exacly what I hoped someone did for this fantastic game, thank you so much for this.

Now the only thing missing would be some nostalgic sound effects and music from the first 10 years of magic... like let's say music from 1995... I feel it would fit the vibe of Shandalar perfectly. 🙂

[odd pewter]

Hah! That's a brilliant idea. I'll look into it

[oak radish]

I may have done it for the sounds... Sometimes it does some wonky sounds because it doesn't translate 1 to 1, but the essence of it is there! 😄

Is it against the TOS of the server to share a link to a rar file of the modified sounds or are the old shandalar sounds still protected even though the game is on abandonware?

[odd pewter]

Oh boy, I'm not sure. I've kind of been careful to not mention anything with the words MTG on my github repo. However, I suspect that the 1997 game's elements and sprites would be owned my microprose, and not WotC. It might even say in the credits, in the readme or when you load up the game?

I doubt whatever is left of Microprose would pursue legal action for this, but WotC are pretty aggressive, afaik. Would be interesting to know if Forge devs ever had issues over the years with WotC

What would be cool is if there's an AI that can maybe update or modernise the old soundbites. That would probably make it "IP-safe" too 🙂

[odd pewter]

Oh wait, you're asking if it's against the TOS of this server 😄. I dunno...

Can you send me the link in DM? I'd love to mess around with them..

[teal karma]

How do I install it on Android?

Nevermind, I found the explanation

[teal karma]

I can't solve the Gradle issue

I don't see the option that is on the read me

[quaint sky]

We don't use gradle

[teal karma]

But the apk for this adventure old school needs to be build, and it says to use gradle

[quaint sky]

Ah sorry didnt realize what thread this was

[odd pewter]

Sorry I’ve never actually tested it on android. Maybe @atomic rose managed?

[atomic rose]

Unfortunately I haven't had time to go mess with it since my last batch of testing the PC version

Started a new job

[warped jackal]

Loving the Old School fork! Only oddity is I’m getting random foreign language card art and occasionally art from sets after Scourge. Is that a known issue at this time?

[livid sable]

I just downloaded it today and am loving it, big upgrade from not being able to limit newer sets. Is there a similar option for earlier modern border sets? I'm not sure how much you had to change for the old school mod.

[warped jackal]

The sets being drastically limited is so nice. I love adventure but 30 years of sets is nearly unplayable for me

[atomic rose]

It also makes many of the earlier sets basically useless. Why would I go draft something like stronghold when there are effectively zero cards strong than a common from foundations?

[quaint sky]

I get your point, but also Stronghold has some very strong cards in it..

[atomic rose]

Oh yeah you're right, I forgot how many great cards are in that set

Portal then

In this mod while portal is far from the best set, even a basic set like that might just have the filler you need to improve a deck and it has a few high end bombs worth grabbing

Especially early game, drafting portal sets is what keeps you alive

[quaint sky]

Yep there are definitely sets that just have nothing worthwhile in them

(If you consider all set availability)

[brazen finch]

Meanwhile in rl, random commons from the portal sets are absolute moneyball.

[odd pewter]

It's tricky, because you have to change all the enemy decks, you can't just restrict the sets, unfortunately. You could simply restrict the sets for yourself though, that way you will only be able to purchase older sets - but the enemies will have newer "old border" cards...

[odd pewter]

Sorry for the late reply. I would recommend you clear your card art cache, then it should automatically download the art again.

[warped jackal]

I did end up figuring it out, apparently I needed to dig into the classic mode options to set that properly. As for foreign languages that seems to be a Scryfall problem and required manual overrides

[atomic rose]

@odd pewter were you ever able to look at the opponents in arenas using modern cards?

[odd pewter]

So sorry, I've been swamped with work and haven't been able to find the time to work on the mod for the moment... I'll get back to it in a few weeks probably!

[atomic rose]

Yeah similar situation, I got a job with a language school and haven't had time to do much else

[paper thistle]

@odd pewter I'm pretty solidly into the process of building a way for multiple Planes to be in the game at once, and able to be swapped at the user's leisure... I was wondering, if once I'm ready to push it to the main git and seek approval. if you'd like this project of yours merged in as an extra Plane option (I'd probably call is "Shandalar Classic" in the plane menu.)

Obviously you could do so yourself later if so desired (i'm trying to build this as a standardized framework for allowing more and more planes.) I just saw you are swamped for a bit, and wanted to offer to merge it in. (Or leave it out if you want it to remain completely seperate.)

[odd pewter]

This would be amazing! 😻
There are some particular nuances to the card reward logic that I’ve had to (and others I wanted to) change in the Java code, so I’d have to find a way to harmonise that.
I’d love to know how your framework will work

[odd pewter]

If you’re working on it intensely already, please feel free to use the “old school” mod as a test plane, if that’s useful in any way. And I’ll do my best to support you.

[paper thistle]

I mean, to be honest, I already have it up to the point planes can, in fact, be swapped. I'm finishing getting an alpha of an entire new plane in place, before I push it all to live, and that's getting pretty close. ( check out #1387403602816929803 for updates. It's also a strongly limited plane... Even more than what you did here. It's Innistrad only.)

As I do so, I'll look at what you got here and see how easy, or hard, it would be to incorporate directly. I may reach out to you on some questions of how you did X, Y, or Z specifically. But in theory, this should be relatively easy for me to incorporate in, since I've got things pretty well laid out for most set limitations.

I'll also let you know when it's pushed, so you can see your baby live 🙂

[paper thistle]

okay. so, one thing I notice, is you have a "validcards.json" added to the world/biomes folder. I haven't had a chance to heavily dig through the project yet to see what all accesses it. It's also a massive file, so I wasn't sure what the specific purpose was as-yet, and if I already have a different solution on place

but I've got enough in place, we can see it. 🙂

and it looks like I got it mostly up and running.

your created decks are in.

the shops are working, mostly, as intended. (seem to be occaisionally pulling cards from non-standard sets. like the "mystery booster" sets.)

for your information though. the framework is literally set to point to the config.json file in the selected plane's folder. As well as any file in that folder that gets called by the game code. if it cannot find a called file, it then defaults to the data within the /common/ folder.

(including the config file, if that is never created.)

/wall of text

[paper thistle]

Pull request has been added, that would get the framework, my alpha-level planes, and this in its current state, all into the game. (I will continue to update it as I find more that needs to be merged in, and have built any necessary logic.)

[jade peak]

Thanks for the amazing mod, got a question how do we get the restricted cards like moxes etc?

[odd pewter]

Holy moly, this is amazing!

Amazing work. Let me know when it's ready to test 🙂

[odd pewter]

So I think that I only used this file to validate "StartBattleWithCard" Items. It's not used otherwise and can be left out.

[odd pewter]

Does it also fetch the custom java game files?

[paper thistle]

sounds good.

[paper thistle]

not as yet, but I hadn't fully tracked down which files you had to customize, and why

[odd pewter]

One more thing, I think I would call it "Shandalar: Old Border", to differentiate it precisely :). Cause everyone knows where the cut off is then.

[odd pewter]

I can explain

[paper thistle]

yep, any info you got. would be great 🙂 feel free to pop it here, or just DM me. and I'll change the name then. I was just sticking to the original name you gave. since it was the last name I'd heard. lol

[odd pewter]

Moxes are attainable from bosses!

[jade peak]

Thanks, I'm actually enjoying the playthrough the starter decks are balanced on the early enemies. Since its just premodern cards I have a high chance of getting the cards I am searching on the shops.

[safe pawn]

I wish we had a premodern one.

[paper thistle]

a pre-modern...?

draft?

or just have the drafts only populate pre-modern sests?

[safe pawn]

Premodern is a format (4ed until scourge). I wish we had a Forge with only these sets.

[paper thistle]

Yeah, I was aware it's a format. Just wasn't sure what all you were hoping to be able to play IN said format. (I asked about draft, as that was what the post Remus was discussing about, that you responded to.)...

And are you talking just forge as a whole? Or a pre-modern Adventure mode?

Because if the latter. That can be arranged.

It'd likely be a ways down my list as-is. (Already got 2.5 planes ahead of it to get ready.) But I've also got a pull request under review that would make things far easier for any other invested modder to make it happen, than the current state is.

[odd pewter]

Well the drafts are in the modded adventure mode. You will almost only find premodern drafts. You might run into the occasional 3ED drafts tho. My “old border” shandalar is almost premodern. You can edit the config.json and just ban all the sets up to 4ED and then you have it. Some enemies will still have older cards tho.

Have you played it? https://github.com/vanja-ivancevic/forge-old-school-shandalar

[safe pawn]

That is great thanks, im going to install this tomorrow

[jade peak]

mate im playing in a white boss dungeon, i need to kill 4 mini boss. I have done that but it is still asking me to kill. Struggling to pass that hard bug as i restarted my game 2x already.

Any suggestion? Do I need to kill all 4 mini boss wihtout going out the dungeon? I am going out the dungeon but the mini boss doesnt respawn.

I am going out per mini boss to save my game.

[atomic rose]

There are 5 in the castle

[jade peak]

i killed all of them still won't allow me. initially it did. the next day when I played it's closed and asked me to kill the mini boss again. however they didn't respawn.

[jade peak]

what deck are you running? Im stuck at White Castle damn Landstill lol

[odd pewter]

i think you need to ask for help in the general adventure support. the old school mod doesnt really change anything about quest dynamics...

[brazen finch]

@jade peak several different decks. Have a few runs going.
Goblins/burn

mono white aggro

Mostly black discard with a little blue control

And

Elves

[atomic rose]

Akroma herself is easy, the AI doesn't know how play all of the cards in the deck leaving some cards dead in hand and also plays humility which makes it easy to deal with the angels she plays. If you can throw down a few creatures, kill spells, and something like infest or pyroclasm she usually just decks out.

Honestly I think the humility should just be taken out of the deck to actually make it a challenge

[paper thistle]

I mean.. .that can be arranged

[jade peak]

ok thanks cleared now, stuck with black castle lol! There cards are just too strong. and that draw per turn of the AI gives huge tempo. Any suggestion?

[soft veldt]

I want to remove Secret Lair cards. Am I misunderstanding that in the example given here I'd need to put in ALL sets except the Secret Lair ones to restrict what's for sale?