| X Value Mp3, X Value Music Lyrics
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X Value biography, X Value discography
Download the partial source code by clicking here.Once you have opened the FLA file, we can begin!Release or Rollover, I selected the Key Press checkbox.Note that I did not declare this variable prior to use.This one got a lot of reader feedback, partially because it's on a topic that's near and dear to all of our hearts: Namely, how do you have FUN in this game?There's no strategy here, just an attempt to make you think a little about the game as a whole.What I'm going to talk about today involves all three.Once X was set in stone, we could all say, "All right!I'm going to meet up with some people I don't even know...Defining the precise value of X, in other words, would make the world a lot more entertaining.Magic site for over six years, and I've been playing Magic casually since the day The Dark was released.In other words, I'm a greybeard who's seen 'em come and seen 'em go.It's inspired countless essays on StarCityGames.That sounds crazy, but the kinds of guys who are drawn to, say, competitive chess or Street Fighter championships tend to have the same essential components to their personality.After all, they're all taking a game that gets you absolutely nothing in real life, and applying a fair amount of their time and energy to get good at it, and hoping to win The Big Prize.Word Wars on DVD, and it was bizarre: I'd met all of the people on the competitive Scrabble circuit.I'd just met their Magic dopplegangers.But what David goes on to say is that an omnipresent debate in any gaming culture is the subject of "cheap" wins.Street Fighter, because it's just too easy to win with them."Doing one move or sequence over and over again is a tactic close to my heart that often elicits the call of the scrub.This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over?That is true by definition of playing to win.The game knows no rules of 'honor' or of 'cheapness.The game knows only winning and losing."What David is saying cuts straight to the core of any game: "winning" may not equal "fun."There's a lot of repetition in playing the same deck over and over again to master its format, playing against the same decks repeatedly to hone your game.You often wind up facing the same matchup several times in a tournament that lasts ten hours or more, getting exhausted, frustrated, and angry.It's not all roses, folks.The best play is not always the satisfying play.Why should you switch a strategy that your opponent cannot beat when you goal is to beat him?It wouldn't matter whether it was a particularly enjoyable deck, because "enjoyment" isn't necessarily on the agenda.But at casual games, where "having fun" is the main factor, then how do you define "fun"?But at the same time, winning is a significant part of fun.You mean winning at random isn't fun, either?So what you want is a challenge.You want a challenge where it feels like you had a chance to win, and your own choices helped to make that happen.So now we've defined what most players want out of their casual games: a good, but not overwhelming, challenge.There's another set of factors we have to consider: Play skill and time.How Much Time Do You Have?The problem with throwing in Street Fighter is that it's pretty easy to do against novice players.They don't know how to break out of a throw, and so you can throw them twenty times and win.Try that against an experienced player, and you'll be eating your hat.Experienced players know how to block a throw, and to counterthrow.In other words, they know how to counteract the "cheap" strategies and to turn them around.Play creatures that come back.Play with indestructible cards like Darksteel Colossus or Darksteel Gargoyle.There are a ton of ways to work around Wraths.If you create a deck that continually beats your group of players, I guarantee you there's a counterdeck to it that smashes it flat.How much do you want to warp your metagame to face this problem?Those groups usually break up pretty soon afterwards.That's why some cards get the banhammer.There's a whole spectrum of preferences to be hammered out.But did you spot the problem?As an experienced casual player, the effort that it takes me to break a given challenge is a lot less than it is for a novice player.Pox deck (which are very nasty in casual play) that just wrecks the table.Ban the Pox deck and satisfy Greg, thus leaving me feeling as though there's a distinct lack of challenge at the table, because I could have beaten it.There will always, always be "cheap" strategies.The lesson was clear: given the same card pool, players of superior abilities will build better decks.Wizards does it on occasion.But you can't create a "casual" setting by banning every card that's good, because the good players will always gravitate towards the best possible cards.Well, someone will find a way to break something else.Given time, after being beaten enough by the same cards repeatedly, you'll say "enough!"But others will groan if the same powerful card shows up twice in an evening, because that's just lame.None of this is wrong, incidentally."Diversity in approaches" is a strategy.Akroma, Angel of Wrath is the best multiplayer finisher out there, some people are going to use her until you tell them not to.Satisfies both the people who enjoy ferreting out the most powerful decks in the format and those who just want to play the sixty cards they threw together.Allows strategies that are beatable by both novices and experienced players.Rewards players who put in a lot of time without penalizing those who don't want to bother.I'm not saying that you can't create a good casual game.You can't create a format; you can only create a culture.You can't define "casual" because there is no casual.Knowing what your X is (and what the X of your local group is) helps to define exactly what you do or do not want out of Magic.But one man's "cheap" strategy is another man's challenge, and so it always shall be.The more specific you can be, the better.If you tell them that Skullclamp is unrestricted in your group because you like to keep it casual and their eyes light up because they can break Skullclamp again, well...They may not be for you.It might be possible to come up with a set of standards to define the many flavors of Casual.Our group is almost exclusively combo decks facing other combo decks, and it's a race to see who can go off first."We frown on someone who uses "cheap" strategies, and will kick someone out if he consistently uses them, but whipping some broken deck out occasionally is fine.Boy, I don't play multiplayer, but I hate to be left out of a poll.All right, you nitpickers, we'll say that nobody loses by getting decked.To be fair, they kind of would be.But I can't eat them, because my frickin' gums haven't healed yet.Home on the Strange, and most important of all he lives in the Cleveland metropolitan area.Tuesday if you'd like to drop on by!
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