Welcome to openCards!
Posted October 19th, 2007 by Telak
Welcome to openCards!
For all information and new's about the Beta-Test see here.
Let’s begin with a general view of the different areas of openCards. The independent and toll-free trading card portal openCards will include the following three Areas at the start:
- Games: all about the Games Star Trek 1E & Star Trek 2E supported by openCards
- Tools: “Deckbuilder 2E” and “Collection Manager”
- myOpenCards: the openCards cockpit, contacts and appointments
The area Games supplies information about the supported Trading Card Game itself (Inside), the deckbuilding (Build), the actual gameplay (Play) and “the Rest” (Underground).
As an independent supplier we care to offer only information of high quality about a game, especially for the subject “Inside” (expansions, cards and rules). Therefore we generally open to integrate any Trading Card Game, but only those that pass a quality check to fulfill the requirements for the “Inside”-area.
Responsible for this (as we call it) “official openCards Content” of the “Inside”-area will be the openCards Brand Manager of the according Game. He takes care of all openCards areas of one game, and is the first person to ask if you got any questions about your game on openCards. We start openCards 2007 with two trading card games and their designated Brand Managers: Michael David Csont for Star Trek First Edition and Ulf Benjes for Star Trek Second Edition!
Parallel to the “official openCards Content”, we care much the content that can be created by you, the community. openCards is the first trading card community that offers to its members an interactive community, adjusted to both interests: players AND collectors.
All members are able to write articles (card-reviews, strategies, tournament reports or deck listings) and post them online. We will discuss this in the article “Strategy Advice”. Furthermore areas for optional house rules and dream cards are planned. Also we took a focus on tournament support. Tournament directors will be able to announce their tournaments online - with the option to automatically register it online. All tournament related functions will be discussed it the article about tournament support.
Only one requirement is necessary: being a registered user (anonymous Guest will not be able to create any content).
The area Tools will give you access to the tools currently available on openCards: “Deckbuilder 2E”and “Collection Manager”. For both tools there will be freeware version available (free for all openCards members to download) as well as a purchasable advanced version.
The Deckbuilder 2E is a tool, specially designed for Star Trek Second Edition to support your deck building as well as creating deck listings. Also it can be used to post your decks on openCards.
On the other side the Collection Manager is a tool optimized for collectors and will be offered for all supported games (right now Star Trek First and Second Edition). The aim is to cover all available cards of a game. According to this information the collection manager can be used to manage your collection or “just” to create trade lists. With extensive configuration possibilities you can customize the Collection Manager the way you need it. Both tools will be introduced in more detail in the article "openCards Tool.
The third area of openCards that we will describe only briefly here is called “myOpenCards”.
The core of this part is the openCards Cockpit, which will be your main control room - your headquarter. Not only can you decide which information is presented first to you, but also how it is presented. It’s your decision if you like new ST2E product information to be shown first or you prefer the newest deck of your favorite affiliation. Shall it be just a list of the newest articles or shall the every first paragraph be displayed?
These and more possible configurations will be available in the cockpit for you to process the information in the best way you see fit. In addition “myOpenCards” offers functions around your contacts and appointments, to allow you inviting friends to the platform, write messages and manage your appointments (in your personal calendar).
Michael David Csont (Brand Manager Star Trek First Edition)
Dr.Csont@open-cards.com
Ulf Benjes (Brand Manager Star Trek Second Edition & WebMaster openCards)
Telak@open-cards.com
