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The PalinDrome: Palin's Thoughts for October 29, 2007:
What I Like About the
Chaotic Portal
With all of the
bellyaching I did in my last post,
you might be thinking that I despise the Chaotic portal, TC Digital, and 4Kids.
I don't, but it did sound like it so I won't blame you. Here are a few examples
of what I think they're doing right with the Chaotic portal.
1) Free Online Decks - this is probably the big one. Providing a
way for people to try out the game before making a purchase is a wonderful
thing, and I think they did a very good job with it. The free decks are only
supposed to be a sample; something to whet your appetite for better cards, which
is why the demo decks aren't spectacularly powerful. However, you can mix them
in with other cards you have in order to boost your deck.
2) Decent Forums - we all know that the forums have a slightly
overzealous word filter. However, the fact that you can post in real time
instead of having to wait for a mod to OK it is a plus, and the fact that the
mods are pretty active in the community is also nice. Some would say that
they're shirking their responsibilities, but the thing is, there's only 4 of
them and a couple hundred of us. So, while they can try to address as many
issues as possible, there's no guarantee that they can take care of everybody.
3) The Learn Page - having an online resource for rules and tips
is great, because that way you don't have to dig out your copy of the rules when
you have a question. It's all right there.
4) It Actually Does Alert You if Someone Accepts Your Challenge -
Apparently, I was working Chaotic Pad wrong when I wrote the last post. What I
needed to do was click on the "Minimize Chaotic Pad" button. It puts a Chaotic
icon on the statusbar, and makes a game window pop up when someone accepts your
challenge. I didn't know it did that until I read the forums, and so I'm sorry
if I misled anybody!
5) The Leagues Page - while I probably won't be seeing the top of
the leaderboards any time soon (simply because I don't play as much as the
people on there), I do have to say that I love it anyway, especially the use of
ELO scores. ELO scores were invented as a better way of ranking Chess players
against each other, but now it's finding use in other games, which is great. And
just in case you're curious: I'm currently 42nd out of 786 players, with an ELO
score of 1782.
So there you have it. I don't hate Chaotic Pad; I'm just somewhat
disappointed because I was expecting more. For all I know, I might get it
eventually, but not right now. If that's the case, then I'm more than happy to
wait.
Today's Card of the Day is a Danian Mugic called Song of Symmetry. For 1
Danian Mugician counter, you can deal 10 damage to an opponent while at the same
time removing 10 damage from yourself. It's a better version of Melody of Malady
for Danians (MoM only does 5 damage to a target creature). After playing a lot
of 1v1, I realized that it's important to put as much of a gap between your
Energy and your opponent's Energy as possible, and this one Mugic can create a
20-point gap between you and your opponent. That's quite a bit of insurance!
--Palin (formerly Dangeresque)
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