May 01, 2024, 05:03:25 PM

Author Topic: NEW Beginners guide to play MW online via Octgn and a List of players  (Read 78845 times)

Charmyna

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Hi all,

Most important: I got a new mic! Audio quality is much better now - hurray :). So here you can see/hear the beginners guide with new mic:
http://www.twitch.tv/charmyna/c/3802698

If you like watching mage wars matches with audio comments, here you can find links to many more of them and a brief summary of the matches (including what to learn from my own and my opponents mistakes):
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13428.0


Here you can find infos about the MW module in Octgn and how to install it:
http://octgn.gamersjudgement.com/wordpress/magewars/


If you want to promote Mage Wars, you might want to vote for it in The Boardgames League:
http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/160915/item/2763312#item2763312


Hope to see you in the OCTGN Mage Wars FB group!



I want to post a list of OCTGN players to make it easier for all of us to find players online. If you want to be on that list, pls let me know (contact me here in the forum or in OCTGN).


ahlano
aquestrion
c32ax1
cdavisnet
Charmyna
chrispedersen
dfcsundown
dfcdaryth
dvbrandt90
easy
exesandhoes
fentum
gortout
henry_ketchup
jgoyes
lokidfc
look4honey
maku
murphy
mydnyter
pentacle
pientje
reddawn
ruminant8
tandoorichicken
watussi
wolfone88
zuberi

I decided to add the next players chronically. This way it should be easier for you to track what changed since your last view of this post.

draab
ringkichard
somaddict
puddnhead
wriggel
darthsaber89
mager
abyssalstalker
stormtreffer
hop
jacksmack
vjaas
trotsky
grant12000
fruchtyogurt
erronius
Tim001
mamizousama
junkmaker
semi
magnus1515
soulis6
kitarja
jon
indypendant
kingkris
stormmaster
hashmael
hiax
chambanakid
runatyr
gizzu
ranger
acrazy1
shadowblade
tetriandoch
johanajuhari
Weltenreiter
webcatcher
rinc
oneirophage
Neotoni
DrunkenSaint
MageHorst
sylex
mastermystery (Forumname: Mystery)



If you prefer a written down beginners guide, here is an older version of the guide (think not much changed since it was written):


First, its always useful to know how to change your view on the board:
Scroll to zoom in and out and press the middle button of your mouse to move the screen.

Click “Game” on top left, then click “load deck”.
Before you move any card out of your spellbook (!!!) right click on the board, then click “Setup Player”. If you built your spellbook appropriately (i.e. including both your mages stats card and your mage card) the program will automatically set up your base channeling, mana and life, which all are shown in the row above your spellbook.
Now, from the cards in your spellbook double click on the card with your mages stats and your mage itself to move them to the board face down. Double click on them again to flip the cards which will add the necessary markers to your mage (e.g. Quickcast Marker, Action Marker and Voltaric Shield Marker for the wizard).

From now on all the shortcuts I will talk about will NOT WORK if your chat is active! That might be obvious to some of you, but still sometimes you might wonder why the program does not respond to your shortcuts. Check if you have the chat active!

To start the game, press ctrl+ arrow down. The Initiative Marker will appear and a field which states that you are in the Planning Phase (usually a game round in Octgn starts with the upkeep phase, but not in the first round since there is nothing you want to do in upkeep phase).
To roll for Initiative press the “f1” key. A window will appear and you will be asked to type in the amount of dices you want to roll. So press “0” to roll only the effect dice (the effect dice is always rolled).
Unlike in the normal MW game the Initiative Marker in Octgn has a red and a blue coloured side. By pressing ctrl+f you can flip the Initiative Marker to the correct colour. Btw, the program will automatically flip the Initiative Marker before each round, as well as adding mana to your mana pool and adding mana tokens to conjurations/creatures with channeling (it does realize you casted a harmonize on a creature/conjuration and for the Warlords Barrack it factors in outposts! Unfortunately the program does not recognize stuff that increases your mages channeling, so don’t forget to change your channeling manually after casting a mana crystal etc!)
After you have chosen the cards you want to play this round, press ctrl + arrow down to let the program and your opponent know you are done with planning phase. After both players pressed ctrl+arrow down the phase switches to deploy phase. After both players press ctrl+arrow down again, the phase changes to first quickcast phase and so on.
Most of the stuff im telling you here can be tested without another human player. But, in order to change from one phase to the next, it is necessary that the program receives the order to end the current phase from two players! Therefore, if you want to test the phase stuff by yourself, you will need a second Octgn account (its free anyway) and join the game with both accounts.
You can play in Octgn without using setup player and the all the mentioned automatization by manually changing your channeling, mana etc. But, its very convenient to let the program do that stuff, so I advice to make use of the automatization.

Now, you know the basics. What im talking about next are useful shortcuts that help quickening the game and are mostly used in the Action Phase.
In general, if you want to change the mana in your pool, damage or total life, its best to type in the new value into the appropriate field. Do not use “+” and “-“ next to the field because that will spam the chat and will make it very inconvenient for your opponent to track whether or not you changed the value correctly!
To pay mana costs for spells, you can double click on the card after its face up. A window will appear which shows the mana costs. If you click “ok” the mana will be substracted from your pool and a message in the chat will appear to let your opponent know how much you payed. Btw, the program does realize you got an arcane ring etc.
Ctrl+ arrow right will produce a message in the chat like “Charmyna is done”. This has no effect on the program itself. But, during the Action Phase its useful to let your opponent know that you are done with your current turn.

To use the shortcuts I will talk about now you need your mouse to hover over the creature you want manipulate (and dont have chat activated).
In general the most important shortcuts are ctrl+ the first letter of the associated marker. For example press ctrl+r to add a ready marker (or if there already is a ready marker on the creature the ready marker will switch to the other side). Press ctrl+b for a burn token, ctrl+m for mana token etc. You can see the shortcuts by right clicking on your creature. A complete list of all markers can be seen by pressing ctrl+o.
To add damage to a creature press f2. To remove damage press f4. AFAIK there is no way to add/remove more than one damage per key stroke.
Press ctrl+ page up/page down to change a cards position on z axis (useful for enchantments).
If you want to show your opponent which card you are targeting with a spell or whatever press shift+click on the card. A crosshair will appear. Shift+click again on the card to remove the crosshair.
To show that one of your creatures attacks an ennemy creature you can produce an arrow from the attacking creature to the attacked one. To do this shift+drag your mouse from your creature to the opponents creature. To remove the arrow shift+click on your creature again. Sometimes the position of your shift+click on the card matters, so you might have to play around a bit.
Press f7 to rotate (exhaust) a card. Useful if you want to cast walls.

That’s it! I hope you have fun playing MW and I would appreciate if you join the MW OCTGN League :).




Somehow outdated:
The first MW OCTGN League just started. Here you can register and find info:
http://www.challengeboards.net/boards/standings/1030
« Last Edit: November 02, 2014, 09:50:34 AM by Charmyna »

Ahlano

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2013, 07:52:47 PM »
Ahlano is cool  8)

Ty Charmyna :D nice to have a blacklist...:p

Also... if anyone needs help on their first games on octgn (mage wars) u can whisp me i can play with you and get to know each command...and stuff ;).

Im online almost all day, every day... i need  a life ._.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2013, 12:29:52 AM by Ahlano »
Warlock FTW, untill necro comes out ._.

Charmyna

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2013, 10:40:35 PM »
We need more players - spread it around the world!

Pls contact me in OCTGN or post here in the thread.

Fentum

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #3 on: August 02, 2013, 03:23:03 AM »


Good work Charmyna.

I am very happy to help new players learn the OCTGN system. I teach them the mechanics and they teach me new tricks in the game. A very fair deal!

reddawn

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2013, 03:06:07 PM »
Just downloaded OCTGN and MW plugins/images.  Transfering my books might take a bit, but I'll be online pretty frequently.
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Fentum

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2013, 03:29:31 PM »
Just downloaded OCTGN and MW plugins/images.  Transfering my books might take a bit, but I'll be online pretty frequently.

Look forward to seeing you on line, good sir.

Hanma

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #6 on: August 08, 2013, 03:14:49 AM »
Hanma here on OCTGN, I'm pretty new to the game in general(got it after Origins, hung out with Shad0w a bit there haha) but I know all the OCTGN commands and whatnot. Shoot me a whisper/friend request!

somaddict

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #7 on: August 08, 2013, 04:23:16 AM »
As long as the publishers are cool with it, I play on there. Otherwise, I know nothing.

ringkichard

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #8 on: August 08, 2013, 08:12:36 AM »
Alright, gonna give this a try, since I've got access to a PC for the rest of this week. I'm ringkichard on OCTGN same as here.
I can take the fun out of anything. It's true; here, look at this spreadsheet.

Charmyna

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #9 on: August 08, 2013, 09:25:29 PM »
The first Octgn league just started :).

http://www.challengeboards.net/boards/standings/1030

Fentum

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Re: List of OCTGN players
« Reply #10 on: August 11, 2013, 05:15:19 PM »
The first Octgn league just started :).

http://www.challengeboards.net/boards/standings/1030

Dang. I am on holiday for two weeks!

Stormmaster

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Re: Beginners guide to playing MW via OCTGN and a List of OCTGN players
« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2013, 06:59:41 AM »
Thanks for that information Charmyna.  I love the game and keep wanting to join OCTGN but have been a little intimidated not knowing the interface, and not really want to hold people up or be that "slow" one while learning it.  So this will help a lot, at least enough to make me feel comfortable enough to give it a try.

Thanks!

Fentum

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Re: Beginners guide to playing MW via OCTGN and a List of OCTGN players
« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2013, 07:32:56 AM »
Thanks for that information Charmyna.  I love the game and keep wanting to join OCTGN but have been a little intimidated not knowing the interface, and not really want to hold people up or be that "slow" one while learning it.  So this will help a lot, at least enough to make me feel comfortable enough to give it a try.

Thanks!

Just do it. Plenty of guys willing to help you through it.

ringkichard

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Re: Beginners guide to playing MW via OCTGN and a List of OCTGN players
« Reply #13 on: August 12, 2013, 09:59:47 AM »
Everyone I've played online has been patient and helpful. It's a good community, No worries!
I can take the fun out of anything. It's true; here, look at this spreadsheet.

Stormmaster

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Re: Beginners guide to playing MW via OCTGN and a List of OCTGN players
« Reply #14 on: August 12, 2013, 10:08:57 AM »
Cool thanks.  I will print Charmyna's post out as a reference so I have something to refer to.  And download it and give it a try this week.  Since my friends are not into Mage Wars, I only have 1 regular opponent so don't get to play as often as I like.  So it would be fun to get to play some of you all.  And even though I'm really new to the game what better way to learn than try out different fun strategies and see what some of the other master mages are playing too.

Part of why I love the game is the balance of planning your win conditions but also being able to counter your opponent enough to thwart their win conditions, or at least stay alive long enough to make your plans come to fruition.  There are so many paths to victory in this game it is almost endless.  And the dynamic changes each game so you have to be able to adapt on the fly.

Look forward to perhaps meeting some of you online!   :)