OCTGN is way better than Magic Workstation. Why isn't it used for Magic-League tourn?

[Clark Kant]

It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this fantastic program and that magic-league tournaments aren't hosted on it.

Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.

Yet all people talk about is Workstation.

Why isn't OCTGN used in the Magic-League tournaments?

By switching over to this program, magic-league could hold regular drafts and multiplayer tournaments as well instead of just hosting duals.

I just stumbled onto this program and it is worlds better than Workstation in every aspect.

It looks cleaner, runs faster, is completely free, and is OPEN SOURCE which means it just keeps getting better and better.

Best of all, there is an even better version, Version 2.0, about to be released. Version 2.0 enhances and perfects every aspect of the program. I don't see why magic-league wouldn't atleast consider swithing over to that version as soon as it's available in the next two months.

http://octgndev.wordpress.com/

So is there any reason this program isn't getting the mad props that it deserves?

If you are interested, here's a comprehensive list and great descriptions of all well built magic related software out there...

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=56796 <--- I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading through this once, there's a lot of great software out there.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

How do you actually d/l it, and how much room does it take?

[Clark Kant]

The official site is http://www.cardfloppers.com/

Their site appears to be down temporarily but they're working on it, so it should be back up soon.

You can still get to the irc channel through http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=56796

Or you can get it through any of the torrent sites, here's an old torrent that a quick search popped up http://www.mininova.org/tor/364281 but it might be an older version.

FYI, you will need to install this... http://filehippo.com/download_utorrent/ before you can download torrents.

Or I guess you just wait for 2.0's release here... http://octgndev.wordpress.com/

[Nihil Credo]

It's a pain in the butt, I'm going through that right now because the 2.0 screenshots were awesome (the 1.x a bit less).

You need to register on octgn.org (you can just use BugMeNot) to download the program, it's about 6 MB.

However, all the site says to get the card database is to go to the OCTGN irc channel and ask... I did, and was told to download it at http://files-upload.com/files/5752/Alpha-Time_Spiral_Patch_EN_11-13-2006.zip.html.

Which is, unfortunately, a single file with all the pictures... in other words, 600 MB. And no, as I was informed by an urbane fellow on the channel, you can't just download a text-only database (and if you did, you couldn't use MWS pictures because OCTGN uses a weird naming format).

Lacking a broadband connection as I currently do, that means I won't be the one testing this program for the benefit of the Source.

[Machinus]

Do they have database updates?

I hope someone will post when the second version is released.

[Kronicler]

Does it work on macs?

[marit]

To add on the all the questions, how's the shuffling compared to MWS?

[SuckerPunch]

Machinus, yes.

Kronicler, no.

Marit, it seems to, but I can't be 100% certain.

[center425]

A couple guys who do some programing looked at the source code and its rather unsecured as well as the fact there website has been down for 4ish months, leaving one to believe there will be little support for updates and other fixs. That's prob. why m-l doesn't use it.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

Hmmm a realy bad website... so i dont like it!

[Curby]

Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.

Then, there are the downsides: its netcode seems to be incompatible with Apprentice, MWS, and everything else, further splitting the playerbase with not only competing but incompatible products. FOSS (free, open-source software) advocates like doing their own thing, but they return to existing standards for compatibility. Mozilla didn't create a new Web, they just made Firefox a more standards-compliant way to access it.

It can't even use existing databases and imagesets that other popular programs use. So not only do I have to install two programs to be compatible with the current standard (MWS) and the emerging shiny "rogue" program (with the abysmal name), I need two copies of every image? Disk is cheap, but c'mon! Using Winamp and iTunes doesn't require that I store two copies of every song on my drive. (Incidentally, reuse of existing resources is also integral to FOSS philosophy).

As previously noted, it ties things together that arguably shouldn't be together (database + images), forcing you to download something you might not want/need to get basic functionality. Much like the bundling of the buggy, standards-incompatible IE with Windows, hmm? In this case, a strength of Apprentice, MWS, etc. is that you only need to download a few megs of program+data to get going.

For all the shiny goodness, these sorts of design flaws call into question the foresight and vision of the project. I hate the bugginess of MWS, the adware/shareware aspect of it, and everything else, but it is the current standard. Why not at least attempt some compatibility with it rather than starting completely from scratch? Even if the de-facto standard is subpar, being compatible helps you break into the market. After you've shown yourself to be clearly superior, influence the standards for greater efficiency, robustness, etc.