text:
Eastbridge Group
Investment Portfolio/
Managing Partners
Davina Bruckner – Managing Partner
Davina joined Eastbridge in 2010 and became Co-Managing Partner in January of 2015. Prior to becoming a Managing Partner at Eastbridge, Davina was appointed Chairwoman of Eastbridge in August 2013 where she led the group's strategy and partnering efforts. During her years at Eastbridge, she has worked in various Eastbridge divisions analyzing investment opportunities, operations, and divestments. In parallel, she was a founder and managing partner at Medbridge, an early stage investment vehicle that invests in healthcare companies. Davina previously served on the Board of Directors of Immobel and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Ageas Insurance. Prior to Eastbridge, Davina worked at McKinsey and Company with a primary focus on pharmaceutical companies and hospitals across Europe.
She graduated Suma Cum Laude from the ULB Erasmus medical school with a M.D., where she was granted the Pfizer honorific prize for her research thesis.
Daniel Haimovic – Managing Partner
Daniel joined Eastbridge in 2014 and became Co-Managing Partner in January of 2015. Prior to Eastbridge Daniel was CFO of Marval Biosciences. Previously, he was Senior Director of Life Sciences & New Markets at Alexandria Real Estate Equities. At Alexandria, Daniel was a member of the East Coast and European venture capital efforts, explored new markets for possible expansion and developed collaborations with leading pharmaceutical firms. Before Alexandria, Daniel co-founded DiscoveryOrtho Partners. At DiscoveryOrtho, Daniel helped form three companies focused on medical device technologies.
He holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an AB in Biology from Harvard College.
Andrew Fishkoff – Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel
Andrew joined Eastbridge in 2017 as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel. Prior to Eastbridge, Andrew was General Counsel of Macklowe Properties, overseeing all legal work and advising the senior executives on a wide variety of transactional matters. Previously, he served as General Counsel at Rockrose Development, a New York-based real estate company that owns, develops and manages a multi-billion dollar portfolio of assets in New York and Washington DC. In that capacity, Mr. Fishkoff oversaw all of the company's legal work and advised the principals on strategic planning for acquisitions, joint ventures, tax matters and organizational growth. He started his career in the real estate department of Latham & Watkins.
Andrew holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in political science from Brown University.
Jason Beren – Chief Financial Officer
Jason joined Eastbridge Group in 2014 as Group Treasurer. Jason has worked in the real estate and leverage finance sector in New York since 2005. Previously, he worked at Deutsche Bank on Wall Street for nine years, serving as Director in the Capital Markets and Treasury Solutions division. He was responsible for advising multinational corporations on mitigating market risk of financing strategies and implementing structured financial solutions.
He holds an AB with honors in Economics from Harvard College
Nathan Bruckner – Partner, NY Office
Nathan led the establishment of Eastbridge's US real estate platform, DTH Capital a partnership with AG Real Estate. He has overseen the repositioning and development of both 70 Pine Street and 20 Exchange Place from office buildings to multi-family rental buildings. This include conversion of 210 residential apartments at 20 Exchange Place and 612 residential apartments at 70 Pine Street. He has led the development and design of Crown Shy, a 200+ seat restaurant at 70 Pine and the landlord work for a 100,000 square feet of commercial space at 20 Exchange Place. Nathan is also active in all of Eastbridge's new real estate investments in New York and the broader US Markets.
Nathan holds an MLITT from the University of Glasgow/Christie's in London and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from New York University.
Sam Friedland- Chief Investment Officer, U.S. Real Estate
Sam joined Eastbridge Group in 2017 as Chief Investment Officer of U.S. Real Estate. Previously, he worked in the investments group at NorthStar Asset Management Group (now Colony NorthStar) where he focused on equity and debt investments across all U.S. geographies and asset classes. While at NorthStar, he was directly involved in over $2 billion of real estate equity and debt investments.
Sam holds a Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Studies from Cornell University.
Timothy Lucey – Partner, 39 North Capital
Tim is a founding member of 39 North Capital and is a member of the Investment Committee.
Tim joins 39 North Capital from his previous position as COO of Meineke Car Care, a private equity-owned automotive repair business with 900+ franchised locations. In this role, he led a comprehensive revamp of Meineke's operating playbook prior to a successful sale of the company. Previous to his operating role, Tim focused on private equity investment at Harvest Partners. He started his career in the Mergers & Acquisitions group at Wachovia Securities.
Tim holds an MBA from the Wharton School and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Finance.
Jacob Roffman – Partner, 39 North Capital
Jake is a founding member of 39 North Capital and is a member of the Investment Committee.
Most recently a Principal at 13th Floor Investments, a real estate private equity firm with over $1.5Bn in assets, Jake focused on sourcing and capitalizing opportunistic investments in South Florida. Jake previously focused on small-cap private equity transactions across various business services industries at H.I.G. Capital, a $19Bn+ global firm. He started his career in the Global Industrials and Services group at Credit Suisse, where he executed a number of M&A and Leveraged Finance transactions.
Jake holds an MBA from the Wharton School and graduated cum laude from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Finance.
Michael Kyriak – Investment Manager
Michael joined Eastbridge Group in 2017 as a financial analyst. Previously, he worked at Iridium Capital, a real estate investment fund, where he focused on acquisitions and asset management of commercial properties across the U.S. He was responsible for leading equity investments, underwriting assets, conducting due diligence, and obtaining financing.
Michael holds an M.S. in Real Estate from New York University and a B.A. in History and Economics from Vanderbilt University.
Sharon Lahmy – Group Treasurer
Sharon has been with the Eastbridge Group since 1995. She worked her way through the financial department and is currently in charge of the accounts and treasury of the groups Luxembourg Holding entities. Sharon also manages the Brussels office.
She holds a master's degree in financial management from Brussels' university of Saint Louis.
Sandra Richard - Finance Director
Sandra joined Eastbridge in 2015 managing accounting and finance of the group entities in Luxembourg.
Previously, she worked for Vodafone Luxembourg for 6 years as a senior financial accountant and 2 years at Deloitte Luxembourg as a senior consultant. Before that she worked for 5 years as an auditor and accountant in France for a trust company.
Sandra graduated from the University of Rouen in France with a master's degree in business administration.
Investment Specific Collaborators
Howard Gutman – Advisor to the Management Board
Ambassador (Rtd). Howard W. Gutman is the Managing Director of The Gutman Group, an international consulting and advisory practice focusing on energy, finance, trade, infrastructure, real estate, market access, and related strategic foreign policy issues. He also serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of Exmar, a leading independent LNG and LPG Carrier Owner and Operator and a provider of industrial marine and energy logistical solutions for transport, regasification and liquefaction within the oil and gas industry, with offices in Europe and America. Howard Gutman has become the Chair of SR2, a sophisticated hardware and software platform for commercial drones. He is on the Board of Advisors of several start-up companies in the technology and finance space. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and meetings, focusing among other topics on European-U.S. relationship, energy, trade and the changing patterns in the world.
Howard was nominated by President Barack Obama to be U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 24, 2009. He was sworn in on August 14, 2009. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium until July 23, 2013, becoming the third longest serving U.S. ambassador to Belgium in over 100 years. Ambassador Gutman has been called "the most popular ambassador ever" by one Belgian newspaper and "The Ambassador Who Made Us Love America Again" by a leading Belgian magazine. As Secretary Clinton noted during her last visit to Brussels, during Ambassador Gutman's tenure, the favorability rating for U.S. leadership in Belgium increased 600% and in 2012, Belgium finished first in the world with the highest increase in favorability towards U.S. Leadership.
Michel Chamboud – Board Member of DTH Partners
A graduate of Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (1973) and the Paris Institut d'Etudes Politiques (1975) with a Phd in Tax law (1977), Michel Chambaud started is career as a strategic consultant at Arthur D. Little and held different finance teaching positions in french business schools until 1978. From then until 1982, he was a consultant for African development banks under contract with the World Bank, and he concurrently founded Surf System (sport press group). In 1982, he joined the Schlumberger Group, where he was Chief Financial Officer in France, the United States and then Japan
Since 1987, Michel Chambaud has contributed to the development of the Pargesa-GBL group, a leading European listed holding controlled by the Frère (Belgium) and Desmarais (Canada) families. The Pargesa-GBL group is currently managing a portfolio of euros 15 billions, it creates value by taking influential positions in important listed companies and by performing a friendly governance. Michel Chambaud held management positions in the holding companies together with board positions or alternately operational responsabilities in the affiliates : until 1996 he was Managing Director in charge of investments at Parfinance (Holding company listed in France), from 1996 to 2003 he was a member of the Management Board of Imerys. and until 2014 he was Managing Director in charge of investments of GBL. During his career Michel Chambaud initiated most acquisitions and disposals made by Pargesa-GBL including Schneider, CFAO, Delmas Vieljeux, Strafor-Facom (Parfinance) or Bertlesman, GDF-Suez and Suez Environnement (GBL). The most recent acquisitions he performed include Lafarge, Pernod Ricard, or SGS
Michel Chambaud is currently Manager of Nyala Sprl, Senior Advisor of Ergon Capital Partner, Vice President of the Board and Board member of Filhet Allard SA.
© Eastbridge Group 2015


text:
Municipis:
 Benlloc, Benlloch o Bell-lloc del Pla, municipi de la Plana Alta
 Bell-lloc d'Urgell, municipi del Pla d'Urgell
 Entitats de població:
 Bell-lloc (Santa Cristina d'Aro), veïnat del municipi de Santa Cristina d'Aro, al Baix Empordà
 Bell-lloc (la Seu d'Urgell), enclavament del municipi de la Seu d'Urgell, a l'Alt Urgell
 Bell-lloc (Vilafranca de Conflent), despoblat del municipi de Vilafranca de Conflent
 Altres:
 Castell de Bell-lloc, situat al municipi de la Roca del Vallès, al Vallès Oriental
 Castell de Bell-lloc (Sant Pere de Ribes), edifici documentat des del segle X a Sant Pere de Ribes Garraf
 Club Patí Bell-lloc, club d'hoquei sobre patins de la ciutat de Bell-lloc d'Urgell, Pla d'Urgell
 Mare de Déu de Bell-lloc de Dorres, capella a l'Alta Cerdanya
 Bell-lloc del Pla (escola), escola gironina
 Torre de Bell-lloc, torre senyorial del  en territori proper al nucli de la ciutat de Barcelona

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Cargo transportation is performed by medium-haul aircrafts Boeing 737-800 and Boeing 737-300, as well as by short-haul aircrafts ATR 42-500.
You can obtain detailed information about cargo transportation and related services and arrange shipment of cargo at the offices of the authorized cargo transportation agents, where cargo transportation specialists will answer all questions, prepare a set of documents and accept the cargo for shipment.
Moscow, Domodedovo Airport, cargo complex of LLC "Domodedovo Cargo"


text:
// src/polyfills.js must be the first import.
import '#3p/polyfills';

import {draw3p, init} from '#3p/integration-lib';
import {register} from '#3p/3p';

import {videointelligence} from '#ads/vendors/videointelligence';

init(window);
register('videointelligence', videointelligence);

window.draw3p = draw3p;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tesla: Design Challenge 062915 — Interactive Progress
In last week's discussion about the kinds of progress and anticipation that we might use in Tesla, we talked about certainty. If progress is too certain, Jenesis notes, then Tesla games devolve into "solitaire resource-accumulation". If progress is too uncertain, Lee Owens observes, and "when it works, you aren't happy that your machine finally worked. You are frustrated that it took so long to do something it was built to do". The problem is finding a balance between these.
Jenesis did note one solution: interaction. If your opponent has nothing hidden, outcomes are certain - but if they have an unknown, hidden variable, all your results become uncertain. This changing nature of interaction allows us to find a balance in a fun and natural way. This week, let's explore this further. Your challenge is to design something that uses progress in an interactive way.
You can follow Jenesis's example, and use combat, the most prevalent and exciting form of interaction in Magic. Or, perhaps you can strike into new territory and find other forms of interaction to use in the mechanic - perhaps even new forms of interaction that we haven't seen before.
Bonus Debate Topic: What counts as interaction, and what doesn't?
Posted by Inanimate at 10:00 AM
Labels: design challenge, mechanics, progress, Tesla
Jay Treat June 29, 2015 at 4:55 PM
Burning Innovation {R}
~ deals 1 damage to target c/p. If you cast the largest spell this game, ~ deals 3 damage to that target instead.
Tommy Occhipinti June 29, 2015 at 7:59 PM
Do we lose too much by looking at highest CMC in graveyard / play? Like some of your other suggestions for today, I like them if there are never any memory issues, but think there will be memory issues.
Development of the card aside, this is my favorite.
Inanimate June 29, 2015 at 8:30 PM
This is a great idea, and I think this relates to our debate topic quite nicely.
One, the card is superb. I think it truly is interesting and plays out quite nicely, as each player struggles to find the card that trumps the current max. If we have tools like Aspire in the set, that help you find and cast these large spells, then this becomes even better.
My big concern is that this might not really feel sufficiently 'interactive' though, since not enough cards can really mess with the 'trump'. For example, I'd consider creature combat the pinnacle of interaction, since so many cards can affect the outcome of combat. And the minimum of interaction is probably the stack, since the cards that can interact on the stack are few and far between - protection, hexproof, and counterspells are all that come to mind.
I think this is definitely somewhere in the middle. There are plenty of 'big cards' in Magic, and technically casting any card puts you on 'top'. But does it give players a sufficient amount of agency to really feel like they're 'interacting' in a spell-based struggle? Or is it more of a tangential bonus, like Ferocious?
Lastly, I worry that the fact it counts 'high score' means that the player on top can often just cement themselves in that position. Mechanics like Ferocious allow players to remove the creatures that are causing the bonus. But this one doesn't give players an ability to topple the current 'high scorer'.
Still, these are only my opinions, and I admit they're just my starting thoughts. I'm curious to hear what other
Do we like this better or worse than progress (the highest generic mana cost among permanents you control)?
Test Subject 22 {1}{G}
2/2 Human
As ~ ETB, experiment. (To experiment, secretly choose a number of mana to pay. An opponent guesses that number.)
If your experiment wasn't guessed, ~ ETB with two +1/+1 counters.
This feels very random, and kind of annoying to implement, so I think I'm missing something. What are you trying to get at here?
Oh my! It's (almost) Six-y Beast, one of my favorite cards!
The fact you have to pay the mana makes this very, very interesting. However, I see a couple problems:
1.) Does this really feel like 'progress'?
2.) I agree with Tommy that this is a little too uncertain. Especially since it's one-time, rather than repeatable.
Jay Treat June 29, 2015 at 10:10 PM
It's a solid game mechanic, as featured in Melee, but you're right that it's not progress at all.
Tommy Occhipinti June 30, 2015 at 11:54 AM
What is Melee?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012515236/melee
What you're capable of paying determines the number of choices your opponent must consider, and the value of paying less rather than more weights the decision. It's a mind game. An excellent one in the context of a simple war game like Melee.
Suppose I have two mana up when I cast this. What do you guess? If I simply choose randomly, you cannot do better than me having a 66% chance of getting a 4/4. This is like a Clash except as the caster I'm almost always going to win.
How much gold do you have in Melee when you're making this guess? Is the gold persistent from turn to turn? (Unlike in Magic where you untap every turn?) I'd be interested to know how it works out in Melee that you say it works well (though it is obviously possible that Melee is just not my kind of game at all).
Gold is persistent in Melee, and you're right that if you've got no other use for your mana, that changes the nature of this interaction drastically. But if you do have a use for it—or more importantly, if I don't know that you don't—then the chances skew in a way that allows satisfying bluffing.
My point was that if I just choose randomly, you can never beat 66%. And that's just when I have two mana up. If I have 3 or more it is basically a sure thing. I think the gap is that 90+% of the time in this situation where I have two mana left, paying 1 mana and paying 2 mana are exactly the same (unless I have a one drop on turn 4). Thus my opponent can never tell the difference between those two. A big percentage of the time as well (certainly 60+%) the same is actually true between 0, 1, and 2 mana (if I have no 2 drops). That percent of the time, it is literally a blind guess (or worse if my opponent makes the mistake of trying to outthink me).
In Melee, these 3 conditions (pay 0, pay 1, pay 2) are never the same because money is persistent. I'd always rather pay 0 than 1, I'd always rather pay 1 than 2. That is essential to this working. Maybe in a set with Gold tokens this could work great.
In order to be satisfying bluffing (something, by the way, I'm not convinced belongs in a Magic mechanic), it needs to have a either a lower spread or a more skewed preference function. Something like "pay or don't pay," perhaps, though I can't quite get that to work. I do not think it is possible to get satisfying bluffing with this mechanic in Magic if both players understand how to correctly play the mechanic.
How did you like Master of Predicaments? I was pretty disappointed by how that played out. I can't think of Magic getting the bluffing mini-game right. I think it is definitely possible to get a rare that really satisfies the kind of player who is into that kind of thing. I'm less optimistic (though I don't rule it out) that a whole mechanic could be made that does not alienate a significant portion of players, particularly Spikes.
Again, you're totally right that if you've got nothing else to do with your mana, you can use any amount of it and that spread hurts your opponent's chances of stopping you. That situation is definitely less interesting than in Melee where you keep what you don't spend.
The part that I don't buy is the idea that you've rarely got other uses for your mana, or that you'll have enough mana to make the spread unguessable large.
When I cast Test Subject 22, I've already spent {1}{G}. If I control 1 more untapped land, you get a 50/50 to stop me. In terms of EV, I'm getting a 3/3 for three. With 2, you've got a 33% chance. Suppose I've got 6 untapped lands. Am I willing to pay {7}{G} for a 4/4? If I've got nothing in my hand, and no abilities to activate, yes. (And otherwise, hell no.) You've got a 1/6 guess. But suppose I've got a land in my hand. You don't know whether it's a spell I want to cast or not. You factor that in, and I factor in you factoring that in.
Again, it's not as interesting as when mana/gold persists, but it's better than you make it out to be.
Tommy Occhipinti July 1, 2015 at 1:37 AM
Well, first of all, in the specific (and I don't think uncommon) instance that I play this as a four drop, I really do think it is very unlikely I have something else I want to do with my mana. I will have played all my one and two drops by that point almost certainly.
You seem to find this really interesting, so I'll ask, I have four lands, I play this guy. What do you name? What is your thought process? Do you, as my opponent, find this though process interesting? If you guess correctly, do you feel good because you have outsmarted me?
On the other hand, if you have four mana untapped, and you play this, what do you name? Imagine you have nothing else you can play. Imagine instead you have another two drop you could play, but it isn't a huge deal if you don't. How do you feel if your opponent guesses wrong? Do you feel you've outsmarted them? How do you feel if they guess right?
For me, the combination of my answers to those two is a net negative, but for you maybe not. Part of my strong emotional reaction here is probably because the variance is so high. A 4/4 is far more than twice as good as a 2/2. This is the Gilt Leaf Ambush of Experiment. If instead it was some tiny rider like "you get a 1/1 Saproling" or "you gain 2 life" it would probably come closer to equal (although if it was a small benefit, it would probably feel silly to go through the minigame).
Being the offspring of Clash and Tribute is not a great place to be, but I think there is promise in the right version of this mechanic. I kind of want to use something like revealing cards from hand, but I don't know how.
A favorite mechanic of mine from ages ago that did not survive was "Gamble -- Guess whether the cost of the top card of your deck is odd or even. If you guess right, [effect]," which was fun and you could even draft around it so that you could guess right more often than not. (There weren't lands at the time, lands mess it up a bit.)
One last complete aside: This makes me think of one of my favorite rules from the original Dungeonquest (sadly not kept in the sequel). When you happened into a room with a Swinging Blade Trap, you had to roll a d12, and declare a number. If the number you rolled matched the number you said, you died. Otherwise you dodged it. Obviously this is the same as saying "If you roll a 1, you die," but this had so much more emotional impact, and if you died, you felt it was 100% your fault. A beautiful design choice for an incredibly sadistic game!
Jay Treat July 1, 2015 at 10:42 AM
Yes. All of the scenarios you named are satisfying to me.
Tommy Occhipinti July 1, 2015 at 11:31 AM
If the card asked you to flip a coin and you got the counters if you guessed right, would that be satisfying?
I find this super fascinating. I can't tell if this is some aspect of your pscyhe that I don't have (which I don't find super likely, because there are a ton of guessing/bluffing games I really enjoy), me underselling the mechanic by not having played it, you overselling the mechanic because you played it in game where it worked really well, or some additional unknown cause.
Is anyone else lurking in the comments super eager to play with this mechanic? If so, can you try to summarize why?
The coin flip would not be satisfying for me (but there are players who would enjoy it, and I would play that card if the EV were good).
Tommy Occhipinti July 1, 2015 at 12:28 PM
Yeah, I think one of the worst things we can do as designers is make cards they hate good enough they feel they have to play them.
I remember a lot of Spikes groussing about Mad Cap Skills because they didn't like playing Auras but they had to because it was so powerful, but then of course they'd get blown out (like happens when you play auras) and end up even more unhappy about it.
Spike's focus on winning adds an awkward wrinkle to the task of giving everyone what they want. It's very much not fair to Tammy and Johnny to make only bad cards for them, simply because Spike plays strong cards.
As someone who took a long time to admit he's a Spike, I have very little empathy for "I play this because it's good, but I hate it because it's unreliable." Playing something good but unreliable is a choice. Either own it, or make the other choice. You can choose to play Mad Cap Skills despite the risk, or you can choose not to because of the risk, but when your choices are fueled solely by the goal of winning, I don't want to hear you complain when the consequences of your choice come to bear. Either you chose correctly, or you didn't. And that's on you.
(I'm agreeing with Tommy, just pointing out an issue with that design philosophy.)
Jenesis July 1, 2015 at 3:17 PM
The solution seems to be to have enough top-quality cards that both lovers and haters of unreliable cards can find an archetype they will enjoy playing.
I liken this to the "archetype balance" that WotC tries to retain, at least in its Standard metagames. There are some Spikes who disproportionately dislike aggro, and will play it when it's the best deck but grumble about how control sucks in that meta. This has less to do with Spikiness and more to do with each individual's psychological quirks (there are Timmies and Johnnies who hate aggro too), but clearly there are enough of them that it is in WotC's interest to swing the tournament-quality pendulum back toward control every so often (Timmies/Johnnies' grumbling is likely less correlated with which archetypes are doing particularly well in tournaments), rather than just tell everyone to suck it up and play aggro or lose all the time.
Ideally, a format will have multiple viable archetypes, but it's certainly very difficult to balance formats like that consistently.
Tommy Occhipinti July 1, 2015 at 5:25 PM
I think what you are saying, Jay, is the opposite of what Mark tends to say about these things. Do you agree with that?
For example, Mark often talks about how Odyssey was a mistake because players did the thing they were supposed to, but didn't have fun doing it. Should the players who didn't have fun have just done something else?
Cards involving coin flipping and randomness like Goblin Test Pilot are always printed at power levels so they don't see play outside of casual (or usually even in draft) because it would upset most players. Is that unfair to the players who want that?
Spikes are really hurt by cards like Mad Cap Skills which, at least to their eyes, basically say "If you put this card in your deck, you'll be +5% to win the match, but you will have 50% less agency in whether you win or not." Personally, few things frustrate me more as a player than games where I feel like my in-game decisions are rendered basically irrelevant, but I know not everyone feels that way.
I think the psychographics are a very useful design tool, but ultimately I think most everyone is a mixture. I've met almost no one who doesn't have at least some Spike, and even the hardest of hardcore Spikes show their Timmy side sometimes. For example, the other day Noah Sandler (probably the Spikiest player on the planet) cast Villanous Wealth for X=10 in the last game of a match and was deeply saddened that his opponent conceded and he didn't get to resolve it.
Nope, Mark's position on Odyssey is wise. But you're right that I don't think it's right or fair to make every card like Goblin Test Pilot weak. The goal is to have a format where players can play great decks without Madcap Skills as well as with. The more auto-play cards and the more auto-skip cards, the less agency players have in building decks. It's also ideal to put more power behind the cards that are more fun; but years of trends have shown a massive bias toward rewarding Spike-fun over Johnny-fun and Timmy-fun. The justification is that Johnny and Tammy don't care about winning as much, so let Spike win, but when every card is like that, the Jenny-Spikes and Timmy-Spikes suffer. Not to mention the non-Spikes, who also like to win, even if it's not their main reason to play.
I think that if you are a try Spike, you don't let your preferences dictate what deck you play or what card you pick in a draft at all. Either the Madcap Skills or the [Spikiest card ever] is the best, and no matter how much fun Spike will have playing the second card, she will pick the first. The same is true in constructed. Spike plays the miserable 56.7% deck over the awesome and fun 56.6% deck. Eric discusses this at length on a recent episode of Constructed Resources, if you want to hear more about how he thinks about these things as a Spike.
I can understand how in some Platonic ideal universe all decks would be 56.7% decks and all cards in limited would be equally playable so everyone could play exactly the combination of colors and cards they wanted in both limited and constructed. But as we all know, this Platonic ideal of format balance is not a remotely reasonable expectation of design or development.
I don't actually think it is fair to blame Spike for being unhappy when he is forced to play Madcap Skills and gets two for oned in a draft. It is the designer's job to keep Spike happy. One of the reasons Spike gets so much focus (perhaps unfairly) is that Spike is by far the most predictable of the bunch.
(I'm not necessarily disagreeing with Jay, but I think what he is suggesting is a very tough ask.)
Jay Treat July 2, 2015 at 9:06 AM
Tougher than "predict the entire meta game down to one tenth of one percent?"
This is the exact scenario where I lose all sympathy for Spike. If it were a 5% difference, yes, totally our fault. 2% I feel guilty. 1% I understand but can only feel so bad. But making that choice at 0.1%? That player has chosen misery and cannot be helped.
I think you underestimate what 1% means at a GP. What it means if you're fighting to keep Platinum. Hell, even what it means if you've never day 2'd a GP and just think that would be pretty cool.
What about in limited? Even if (and I don't think this is true) each pick is a 0.1% choice, those add up very rapidly. What about when money/prizes are involved (as it is in almost all drafts)?
For me, one of my favorite parts about cube is that I feel, since nothing is really on the line, I can make the fun choice instead of, as Marshall Sutcliff calls it, the grown-up choice.
A separate but related discussion: What can we do to make Magic Online less Spike-y?
(I'm no where near a tournament grinder, and I never intend to be. But I'm really surprised that you are so unsympathetic to those that are. Is your hope that Timmy will get a Goblin Test Pilot good enough to go out and win a GP with? Because I think there are really a lot of reasons that is never going to happen.)
Archeoptics {1}{U}
Draw two cards, then discard a card.
Mining — If there are more land cards in your graveyard than any other, draw another card, then discard another card.
How are we typically getting lands into our graveyard?
I can imagine working with this in a cool way, and this card has obvious synergy with the word.
My inclination is to make this "2 or more land cards in your graveyard" rather than comparing, as I don't want to assume both players are competing over this.
The threshold version is likely better, just not interactive.
This would live in a set with dig.
I thought Dig would ever put a land in the graveyard because it was "reveal until".
Also I really don't want to motivate players to horde the sets smoothing cards.
Uh.. dredge?
(kidding)
Creative Torture {1}{B}
Target creature gets -X/-X until EOT where X is your ingenuity. (Your ingenuity is the number of noncreature spells you've cast—including this one—since your opponent last cast one.)
This seems to have bad memory issues. Also, what happens if your opponent responds with an Instant? Is your ingenuity now 0?
It would be 0, yeah.
Lef June 29, 2015 at 10:07 PM
Experimental Bolt - 4R
Experiment (When you cast this spell exile the top card of your library. If that card's converted mana cost is lower than this spell, you may play it without paying its mana cost. If its equal to or higher than this card, put it into your hand.)
Deal three damage to target creature.
I wish this weren't so much text because it's a much faster cascade, and better balanced too. Needs an option that keep land when you've already played one this turn.
Experiment ( When you cast this spell reveal the top card of your library. If its a nonland card with a converted mana cost less than ~, you may cast it for free. Otherwise, put it into your hand.)
lpaulsen June 29, 2015 at 10:59 PM
Great idea, and nice work with the templating. If we follow cascade's reminder text, it will look like this:
Experiment (When you cast this spell, exile the top card of your library. If it's a nonland card that costs less than this spell, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. Otherwise, put it into your hand.)
That seems like a solid middle ground. It adds half a line as a way to be clearer. Of course, the whole thing isn't interactive. While it doesn't seem to be progressive, it does progress along the mana curve. The higher the mana cost of the card, ie the number of lands played, the higher your odds of success. While it won't dig like cascade, the ability to then play the spell you draw off of it is pretty rewarding. The worst case scenario is that you get a land, which progresses your mana into casting other Experiments.
Nice idea!
Could we get away with "Put the top card of your library into your hand. If its a nonland card that costs less than spell, you may cast it without paying its mana cost [instead?]."?
That way, it's "may" so you don't have to reveal it if you don't want to, which saves a few words, and it doesn't have a branching if clause which saves some words.
But it has the drawback that players have to know they can't mix it in with the rest of their cards if they're going to cast it.
I'm not sure if "instead" would work in the rules?
Pasteur June 30, 2015 at 7:39 AM
If it works, I like jack's solution.
Lef June 30, 2015 at 7:46 AM
I think if it was made a keyword action it would be manageable. Then it would be,
Experiment (Exile the top card of your library. If it's a nonland card that costs less than this spell, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. Otherwise, put it into your hand.)
That doesn't feel too long, and as an upside means it can go on permanents, either as an activated ability or with the phrasing, "When you cast this spell, experiment." I suppose the problem would be a lack of obvious timing. If I cast an instant, when does experiment happen? If it would have to be worded "When you cast CARDNAME, experiment," on everything, then its probably not worth the wording change.
I think there were a lot of logistical issues with Miracle and revealing. I don't know if that's a worthwhile thing to do again, though it does reduce the overall text by a decent amount.
Oh yes! Obviously a keyword action is better for both reasons.
I think this is better than miracle, because with miracle you had to remember every draw step to look at the card first (and it would have been worse if it was every card draw, not just the first, why they didn't have "when you draw this" effects before). But this, you know before you draw the card that THIS one, you have to look at first.
But even though it's much less of a problem, it might be a problem, I'm not sure.
Jay Treat June 30, 2015 at 9:53 AM
Given Miracle, I think we can get away with:
Experiment (Draw a card. If it's a nonland card that costs less than this spell, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.)
Which also helps demonstrate just how strong it is (and how ridiculous cascade was).
Tommy Occhipinti June 30, 2015 at 12:07 PM
Unfortunately, I think people (myself not exempt) just find this is exciting because it is so powerful. Otherwise it is pretty much just random. Even in limited, Cascade had much lower variance (and proved to have probably too little).
Timmy will love this, probably, but Spike will hate the variance of "Sometimes my opponent flips a Rumbling Baloth." I think Manifest is about as high on the swinginess scale as they are willing to go (I at least can't think of a swingier mechanic), and this is significantly further.
I had given a long warning before about how if you tie the power level of a card to its CMC you really hogtie development, since cost is their number one tool. So I'll just give the short version here. Oh wait, I just did!
Lef June 30, 2015 at 4:55 PM
The vast majority of the time this is going to be "Draw a card." On the occasions that it does its thing its spectacular, but even then its less swingy than Manifest. Manifest was about hidden information and forcing people into making bad choices around that hidden information. Experiment is a known quantity. The spell goes on the stack so there is plenty of time to react for your opponent.
While the mechanic looks like Cascade, Cascade wasn't a low variance mechanic. It was a no variance mechanic. It dug till it did its thing. In limited you still had an idea of what you could get. With Manifest your worst case scenario was getting a 2/2. With Experiment your worst case scenario is draw a card. I don't think that's objectively much more powerful than getting a mana free 2/2.
Also, I don't think this came across, being harder to develop doesn't mean impossible to develop. It makes it more difficult since changing cost changes the worth of the ability. So it adds an additional variable. That doesn't mean you can't get it right though. With Cascade it was very difficult because of the guarenteed nature of the mechanic.
There's an X and Y nature to the way the cards would be built. X is the N of the spell. So in my example, the Bolt does three damage. We'll reword that to X. The cost of the spell will be our Y.
Experimental Bolt Y
Experimental Bolt deals X damage to target creature.
As you increase Y you decrease X. The values are inverse of each other. The higher the Y the more likely you hit a spell. The more likely you hit a spell, the smaller your X has to be. I don't think its far fetched to believe that there are some values for X and Y such that the spell is balanced on the whole.
Not necessarily impossible. Though your example is a beautiful illustration of how complicated it is, because it certainly isn't the case that as Y increases X decreases. Or the case that as Y increases X increases.
But yes, there are pairs (X,Y) that work. But development doesn't need to find one pair (X,Y) that works. They need to find such a pair for every card with Experiment in the set. And not every effect is as divisible as damage to a creature. These cards have to appear at a variety of costs and rarities and such.
Great. Suppose we have a file filled out with these cards and we're developing it. We do some tests, move some stuff around, and now we've got three five mana Red Common sorceries. So now we've got to move stuff around, and that's a real problem when it comes to Experiment cards. They are all delicately interlinked because the costing is so sensitive.
Is it insurmountable? No, but as someone who has managed files with this kind of mechanic, I will say that it is almost certainly more of a pain than you're imagining.
Could it be worth it? Absolutely, I think we'll see another mechanic like this at some point, but it is a large development commitment.
Lef July 1, 2015 at 1:50 AM
Oh I imagine it would be the hardest aspect of the set to properly develop. Does the set need something splashy that can nonetheless go on a relatively small number of cards? One of the largest variables of developing these cards would be how many cards does it need to go on? Cascade was only on 12 cards. If this was a 10 card mechanic I think it would be much simpler on development to properly situate their costs. It would be helpful if the other mechanics in the set were easier on development. I imagine Experiment going into a set that has a lot of bare bones tried and true mechanics that don't need as much attention.
Now, its entirely possible that Tesla is going to need too many resources on other mechanics to commit to something as complex to pin down as Experiment, but I don't think I would be overly concerned putting it 5-10 cards worth of it in a large set file.
Note that they deliberately put Cascade in a small set that was the last set so they could put it on so few cards. Tesla does not have that luxury.
OK... does this count as interactive? (I'm well aware that several variations of it have been proposed before.)
Flourishing Society 1G
Gain life equal to your progress. (Your progress is the greatest converted mana cost among permanents you control.)
Loath as I am to make removal spells even better, it makes a ton of sense from a flavor perspective that taking out my best, and probably newest, creature would set my progress back.
Jay Treat June 30, 2015 at 10:04 AM
It's not terribly interactive since most permanents are not in great danger to removal, and even creatures can be held back, but we can nudge it toward interactive by keeping most expensive permanents creatures and enabling combat (with must-attack effects and similar), or by including a lot of artifact/enchantment removal that can be maindecked.
I may be alone here, but killing my opponent's 7 mana bomb with a removal spell does not feel interactive at all. I admit it technically meets the dictionary definition, but we both know that if I can kill it, I will kill it. The move is forced.
This isn't to say, necessarily, that removal spells are non-interactive, but I don't think that part is. I might hold my removal spells waiting for Jay's Leviathan and he migth wait to cast it until he's baited me to use any removal I might have on his other creatures (and those things are very interesting) but despite what people on forums complaining about hexproof like to claim, the raw stench of the Doom Blade meets Angel Flesh moment is not, to my mind, interactive.
One of the worst things about Magic, to me, is the existence of permanent types like Artifact and Enchantment that can't be meaningfully interacted with. The best you can do is see it game one and hope to bring in your Naturalize or Indrik Stomp Howler, and some colors can't interact at all. And again, simply blowing something up, or blowing it up and getting a juicy two for one, is, compared to the rest of Magic, a pretty low bar for "interaction."
One of the best things Magic did, in my opinion, was to make players able to attack planeswalkers. Almost every deck ever made already has an answer to planeswalkers. That is what it means to have interaction in games.
If Magic started over, I would want them to find a similar way for players to interact with global artifacts and enchantments.
I agree that artifacts and enchantments aren't interactive because it's so rarely worth main-decking Naturalize.
Whether a choice is obvious or not, strong or weak, dominant or poor, however, has no impact on its interactivity. Interaction is simply a measure of players affecting one another. It's very true a game needs meaningful decisions, and that the best games have a lot of both player interaction and meaningful decisions, but it helps no one to conflate the two.
Interaction is much more to me than me doing something that impacts you. It is me making a decision and thinking about how it will effect you and how you will respond. Interaction is the branching decision trees where I have to factor in what you might do.
Is the following game interactive? We each start with 20 beans. On our turn, we roll a red die and a green die. I take a number of beans equal to the value on the green die and you lose a number of beans equal to the value on the red die. We win when we get to 40 beans or our opponent gets to 0 beans.
Am I interacting with you because I'm rolling a die that hurts you? I certainly think the answer is no, but it sounds like you might think the answer is yes.
Here's another example. We're playing Agricola, and I see that you have a huge pile of wood. I most want the wood action space most, but I infer from your actions that you probably have enough wood, and so I take the Occupation action space instead. Am I interacting with you? It sounds like you think no, and I think yes.
In the red and green die example, yes, we are interacting. It has no value whatsoever because it's devoid of meaningful decisions, but it is interaction nonetheless. The opposite example is that we each play Solitaire: We're both making meaningful decisions, but our games have no relevance to each other because there is no interaction. A game can have one without the other, both, or neither. A good game has both.
Agricola has interaction (though not nearly enough relative to the game's length for my taste) and your example is the quintessential example of interaction in the game. Your choice affects me: interaction.
As a game designer, interaction to me is a form of unknown information. I don't know what you will do, and I have to plan around that, and make intelligent guesses. As a mathematician, the game I described with the dice can't be isomorphic because it is isomorphic to one where on my turn I gain chips equal to my green roll and lose chips equal to my red roll, and isomorphic games can't have different levels of interactivity.
Perhaps we can agree if I instead call what I call interaction "good interaction," or "rich interaction." Perhaps it is a spectrum, with Doom Blading your Stormtide Leviathan and Naturalizing your Citadel Siege at the very low end of richness and attacking my 3/3 into your 4/4 on the high end of richness.
Jenesis June 30, 2015 at 4:59 PM
Since one of my comments in part inspired this debate, my own definition of "interactive":
A game is interactive by design if all players gain a strategic advantage by altering their decision-making based on their opponents' known decision-making.
A game is interactive in actuality if all players are able to alter their decision-making based on their opponents' known decision-making. (I make the decision because games with variance can randomly screw over decision points; for instance, I consider Magic an interactive game, but I consider mana-screw to be uninteractive, and thus nonrepresentative of the intended Magic-playing experience.)
Doom Blade your Stormtide Leviathan is interactive in the context of two decks with limited amounts of removal and creatures (therefore making it a real, relevant decision when to cast Doom Blade, and when to cast Stormtide assuming the blue player can reasonably suppose the opponent is playing removal spells).
Dice throwing game is uninteractive because neither player is basing a decision-making process on what the opponent is doing (because there are no decisions).
I'm not familiar enough with Agricola to speak to that example, but I generally find that in city-builder-style board games attacking an opponent's resource is not an option, so if Player A is accumulating a stockpile of Resource X, then the best way that Player B can win is by accumulating an even bigger stockpile of Resource Y. If the result is that neither player has an incentive to pursue alternate strategies, then the game is not interactive.
The key phrase I use that a lot of Magic players don't is "all players." To me, trying to talk about a specific deck or card being "interactive" because it generates particular effects is missing the point, and doesn't lead to more fun games. A deck can be part of an interactive game in one context and part of an uninteractive game in another (think Storm vs a deck with counterspells as opposed to a deck without them: in the case of the former, "Island, go" can be a form of interaction because the untapped mana affects whether the opponent wants to make certain decisions!)
Some decks, like Manaless Dredge, by their very nature strive to have as few interactive games as possible. Decks that actively promote interactivity, on the other hand, are few and far between; the best example I can give is an EDH "hug" deck, where giving everyone extra mana and cards has a high likelihood of altering their game plan from what it would have been otherwise.
It's probably no surprise that the vast majority of Limited formats are based around creature combat as a win condition, since creature combat is the most widely accessible way to interact in Magic.
The best decks look to avoid interaction, because why give your opponent an opportunity? The best decks are not fun.
The only thing* we're disagreeing on is our terminology, which is only relevant to discussion. Tommy's 'Rich interaction' is more useful than my 'pure interaction,' but I value precision when discussing abstract concepts with the intent of forming conclusions; when we shorthand interaction to mean 'interaction with meaningful decisions' we'll arrive at hypotheses that hide assumptions among their fundaments.
*Okay, so we also disagree whether removal is interactive. I'd love to hear Tommy discuss the interactivity difference between "well clearly I D'Blade your Leviathan, whatevs" and "well clearly I chump-block your Leviathan, whatevs" or "well clearly I double-block your Leviathan, hope you don't have D'Blade, lol."
Based on what Inanimate wrote in the post, I think it makes sense to interpret "interactive" as "non-goldfishy", i.e. more like Jay's "pure interaction", in the context of what we're trying to achieve. I also believe that Tommy's "rich interaction" is a very good thing; I'm just not sure that a mechanic built around 'progress' has a reasonable chance of achieving it. Here's another re-used mechanic that might move us a little more in that direction:
Aspiring Inventor 1U
Creature- Human Artificer (Common)
Advance (Tap ten untapped creatures, artifacts, and/or lands you control: You become advanced.)
As long as you're advanced, CARDNAME gets +2/+2 and has flying.
I'd claim that Advance is slightly more interactive than CMC-progress because it leads players to make attacks they otherwise wouldn't or vice versa. For example, I'm more likely to attack my three 2/2s into your three 2/2s if one of yours has an Advance ability that you're close to turning on-- and you will be less likely to attack me for similar reasons.
I debated elaborating a bit more about the Doom Blade interaction thing, but my post was already getting long winded.
I think removal can be interactive, and there was interaction that got to the point where I Doom Bladed your Stormtide Leviathan. For example, maybe I decided not to use the Doom Blade on your Centaur Courser earlier even though I could have done so to push through four damage with my two Zombie tokens. Maybe you played a Skywinder Drake to try to bait me into using my Doom Blade early. All of that is interaction. But when I'm facing down something like Stormtide Leviathan, I literally must Doom Blade it, or I die. At that point, I don't really consider it interaction, because, as I mentioned, when I look at interaction as a designer, I'm looking for (and this sounds pendantic) mutually impacting decision spaces. Doom Blading the Stormtide Leviathan involves the same amount of choice as in the dice game.
This example was intended (but this was lost) to illuminate that there are many senses of interaction. For example, as mentioned above, people often call dredge or storm or control decks non-interactive, or argue that indeed control is the most interactive, or etc. When people complain to Mark Rosewater that Hexproof is non-interactive (or complain as happened today about Gaea's Revenge), the word "interaction" is code for removal (and possibly counterspells).
Inanimate July 1, 2015 at 12:39 PM
Ipaulsen: That is exactly what I intended. And I like your iteration of "Industrial Revolution", the flavor is really nice!
Take the dice game. Split it into two separate games, one using the green die, and one using the red die. Under the metric of "pure interaction," one game is interactive while the other is not, but as far as I'm concerned they're both the exact same game. If we're talking about a metric that we can use to gauge whether one game design is preferable to another, I don't believe whether or not a game contains "pure interaction" helps us at all.
For the Stormtide Leviathan example I prefer to look at the game as a whole to judge whether it was interactive (and ultimately a satisfying experience) or not. At some point in every game that was won by combat damage, the defending player needed to have removal or die. If you deal enough chip damage to me with your other creatures such that I'm forced to either Doom Blade the Stormtide or die, that doesn't render moot all the interaction that presumably happened up to that point. (On the other hand, trading chip damage for a few turns before one player executes an infinite damage combo is much less satisfying.)
My comments on Industrial Revolution/Advanced remain the same, i.e. if both players are playing the Advanced deck, what incentive is there for them to engage in combat/play disruptive noncreature spells as opposed to both assuming they have the greater momentum and trying to race to 10 permanents as fast as possible?
There will be windows where it's better to just try to kill your opponent and ignore IR/A—much as there are with planeswalkers—but I still think you make a great point, Jenesis.
My point was more to shift the focus in terms of where the interaction is away from the playing the removal spell part to everything that came before.
If your mental model for interactivity is Doom Blade (which I'm not saying anyone here's is, but I see it a lot) and you want to make games more interactive, you think "Great, let's print more Doom Blade's, and let's move it back to Common, and put Dark Banishing and Ultimate Price in the same set!" But while doing this increases interaction in the face punching sense, it significantly decreases the rich interaction I've been discussing because you no longer have to play so carefully with your removal spells. You no longer have to make careful choices and guess what your opponent is likely to play, and how they'll respond, etc.
It is important to highlight which parts of the interaction are desirable, or you will conclude the most interactive formats involve stacks six Force of Wills deep over an Ancestral Recall, because hey, look at all that interaction!
Indeed. I was quite excited when Doom Blade became uncommon and common removal became expensive/conditional.
Jenesis July 1, 2015 at 11:56 PM
*raises hand* Put me in the camp that enjoys both good removal at common and six-card-deep counterspell stacks.
A format in which I am incentivized to pick twice as many Centaur Coursers as usual because I'd rather play Centaur Courser than a marginal five-drop removal spell is not a format that sounds fun to me.
You hurt my soul. Centaur Courser is probably my favorite card. It is so efficient!
Mind you, Vintage is awesome, and I don't meant to disparage it any more than jokingly, but I think if you adopt too niave a definition of interaction, you will end up designing something more like vintage than like magic.
Jenesis July 2, 2015 at 2:10 AM
Although I know WotC considers it a design mistake for all the instant-speed interactions, Faeries is one of my favorite decks of all time for precisely that reason. There wasn't a zone in the game it couldn't interact with (except possibly graveyard), it cared about creature combat, and it had both incremental-advantage generators and single-card trumps.
Adding more nonblue options for interacting on the stack (in a way that doesn't involve targeting creatures) would go a long way toward bridging the gap between Vintage's Counterspell Wars 'R Us and Intro Pack Magic's combat focus. Getting to Silence Miracles is sweet; Containment Priest is a pseudo-counterspell to a few specific classes of cards; C15 brought us Dualcaster Mage, and while it works great in my monored EDH deck, it's a mana or two too much for Legacy. I'm sure those aren't the only examples, but they're the only ones that I can remember having played with or been used in a competitive capacity in recent years.
Also, Nessian Courser is far superior to Centaur Courser. :P
I think closing the gap between vintage and intro pack Magic is about the last thing WOTC wants to do.
For the record, I often think about how easy it would be to close the gap by banning everything in sight, in, say, Legacy.
For the record, as a player I may be close to you... grinding someone into the dirt with card advantage and sitting on a hand of six counterspells while they're hellbent and I chip away at them with my Creeping Tar Pit and wait until their end of turn to flashback my Forbidden Alchemy is perhaps my favorite way to play constructed.
That said, my designer side definitely wants to protect the world from players like me, and find ways to reintegrate delinquent control players like myself back into productive society. [This last sentence may be a bit tongue in cheek, but also bears some truth.]
AlexC July 6, 2015 at 8:32 AM
I definitely agree that it'd be great if colours other than blue could interact on the stack more. Silence, Containment Priest and Dualcaster Mage are great examples, but there ought to be many more. Maybe this could be a Design Challenge one weekend - design a nonblue card that interacts on the stack?
"My designer side definitely wants to protect the world from players like me, and find ways to reintegrate delinquent control players like myself back into productive society."
I was surprised at the implications of the outlast mechanic after playing with it. The option to attack or grow was entirely dependent upon both board states. This led to fun decision points, IMO.
...I wonder how a cross between modular and outlast might play out:
Steady wrench-jocky. 1W
Cre- human assembly-worker
Assemble 1W (1W, T: put a +1/+1 counter on an artifact creature or a charge counter on a non-creature artifact.)
Vedalkin engineer. 2U
Cre- vedalkin artificer. (Unc)
Whenever an artifact you control becomes assembled, untap it.
Assemble 1U
Geist of the Factory Floor. 1B
Creature- spirit. (Com)
Whenever CARDNAME assembles an artifact creature, that creature gains menace until end of turn.
Assemble 1B
Steamflogged lackey R
Cre- goblin rigger. (Com)
When CARDNAME assembles an artifact, sacrifice it at end of turn.
Assemble R
Ventilation Ouphe. G
Cre- Ouphe. (Unc)
Sacrifice CARDNAME: destroy target artifact with a counter on it.
Assemble GG
Automated replicant. 5
Art cre- assembly-worker (rare)
Whenever another artifact creature you control dies, you may distribute any of its +1/+1 counters among artifact creatures you control.
Assemble 3
Pipe Wrench. 3
Artifact- equipment (unc)
Equipped creature gets +3/+0 and has Assemble 3
Cranial Umbilicus. 6
Artifact- contraption (rare)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are any charge counters on CARDNAME, draw that many cards.
Steamflogger Boss 3R
Cre- goblin rigger (rare)
Goblins you control get +1/+0 and have haste
Whenever a rigger creature you control would assemble a contraption, it assembles two contraptions instead.
Sorry to spam with that post. Fleshing out a new mechanic, I tend to cycle it out to see what colors feel right for it. (In this case black and green seem out of place.)
Growing (in size or effect) is as simple a way to show "progress" as I can imagine. It's immediately grok-able, backwards compatible, and non-parasitic (except that it requires artifacts).
Ps: flavor text for the Geist of the factory floor- "Results: Fatal. Zero production lost. Worker continues to show up for his shift." -Injury report 217.C.0800049
*assemble only as a sorcery
** I said modular, but I meant sunburst. (It's the same ability on creatures and non creatures, but the reminder text is different. One uses +1/+1's the other charge counters.)
Tentatively love this mechanic. I'm not sure how it'll play off in practice, but this is an artifact set, so we might as well start from the assumption of a density of artifacts and go from there. Ventilation Ouphe and Pipe Wrench are both pretty cute.
I had been trying to work with some sort of symbol that means "tap an untapped creature you control" to put on artifacts to show them being worked on, but putting the activation on all of the creatures instead is not a bad idea at all.
I'm not hyped on doing cards like Cranial Umbilicus, but parasitic build-around-me's with a high payoff are certainly a tool development can use, and it's good to know that at least it looks clean.
The unfortunate thing arises when you have noncreature artifacts that don't care at all about charge counters, like, for instance, Pipe Wrench. The other thing to take in mind is that Assemble kind of narrows what a charge counter can be worth on a card. But all in all, I like it, almost as an echo to Proliferate.
This has a lot of potential. The only downside I see immediately is that people will not like the assemble costs. For example, Steady-Wrench Jockey almost certainly comes back at 3W for its assemble cost, unless having an artifact creature is rare.
Unlike Outlast, this also lets you build up blockers and then block with them, which is a bit scary.
That's an important distinction. Tapping one creature to boost another is much less dangerous than tapping a creature to boost itself.
Outlast being sorcery speed only helped this immensely.
Charge counter accumulation has felt the most steampunk-y of the various "progress" mechanics submitted thus far, although it works much better online than in paper. My primary disappointment with this submission is the dreadful paucity of Riggers.
Excellent question, I think that's right about a balance between "too certain" and "too uncertain", and that interaction is a good solution (is basically always more interesting!)
Come to think of it, anything that costs mana is a _bit_ interactive, since you have to decide whether to spend the mana on playing new attackers/blockers or on progress-ing your creatures (with level-up or some form of charge-up). That might be enough!
Or you could go further with creatures, eg. some combination of "you can pay/tap to put an extra +1/+1 counter on this" but "it only untaps (or only attacks/blocks) if you pay X where X is its power/number of counters". Then you have a constant choice -- how big do you want it?
Or creatures which get charge (or +1/+1) counters when they attack already do this.
Like Mike George I also immediately thought of Outlast as a progress-interactive mechanic. Anything with "tap, only as a sorcery" is somewhat interactive. You could apply that to individual creatures "Charge up 3 (3, T: Put a charge counter on this. Only as a sorcery.)." or to the energise-like mechanic "Energise 3 (3, tap any number of untapped creatures with energise: put a counter on each of them. Only as a sorcery."
BTW, I love these open design questions posts, one of the things I find most interesting is spotting high level structure like inanimate did, and looking for an overall answers for it.
OTOH, would it help to make clear they don't follow the rules of the art challenges? I assume the idea here is to suggest any ideas which might be helpful, not one card per commenter.
That is correct, jack. I'll be more clear about the fact it's meant to be a themed brainstorming challenge rather than a card design challenge.
HavelockV June 30, 2015 at 9:44 AM
I'm not convinced this is the right goal to design towards. What makes most mechanics interactive is that they go on creatures and spells, which you use to interact with your opponent. Very few of them actually include a direct opponent interaction within the mechanic itself. In the last few years, have there been any at all, aside from Tribute?
Why did they choose to print Ferocious and Formidable instead of "If you control the creature with the greatest power", which would have been the more 'interactive' version? I think it's because fundamentally, people don't want their deck to only work sometimes depending on the opponent's actions. Having them turn off Ferocious by killing your guy feels reasonable, since they might have killed your creature anyway. Having them turn it off by playing a bigger guy would feel like, "Oh, I guess my deck only gets to work sometimes."
There have been more: Renown is the latest, not unlike cypher. Werewolves were a highly interactive and high-profile mechanic.
But your point remains relevant: Interactive isn't always better.
The game needs to be interactive, and comes with a good amount of interactivity through combat and spells that affect your opponent or her cards. Generally one mechanic per set that's immediately interactive is a good level, but if everything were like that, games become more complicated and opportunities for a losing player to come back for the win become rarer.
Does progress need to be interactive? I'm not so sure.
HavelockV June 30, 2015 at 11:13 AM
Renown and Cipher are interactive in the sense that the opponent can interact with your creatures by blocking them. But that's already how creatures work, so they aren't tacking on an extra layer of the opponent getting to mess with your stuff.
Werewolves, though, are a notable exception, and a very well-designed one. I'll have to think about a more precise why to formulate my thoughts here, because there's a certain ill-defined notion of "feeling fair" that some opponent interaction mechanics lack. I'm not yet sure how to nail it down. For starters, why did werewolves turn out good and Tribute mediocre?
The last part is easy. Tribute almost always leads to disappointment when you don't get the thing you were hoping for. It's possible to mislead your opponent into making the wrong choice, but rarely worth the effort.
Casting two spells to turn off your werewolves, when all you did was spend mana elsewhere for a turn, is a significant effort from your opponent, so it feels like they earned it. And doing that puts them closer to having a turn where they don't cast a spell.
Under that light, Test Subject 22's experiment will be quite disappointing when your opponent guesses correctly, because it cost them nothing. Hmm.
I really still don't see what the Test Subject is going for.
I definitely agree with Havelock here about the woes of adding extra "interaction," (though admittedly I consider Agricola pretty interactive). Magic will always be interactive, and it has a lot of forms of very direct interaction built into the game. We have the opportunity to augment that, but it isn't obligatory, Magic isn't going to suddenly turn into [Game people claim has no interaction here].
Here is one reason I don't like "Have the highest X" mechanics, and why I think we almost never see them. Every game of Magic, some player loses (or more!). But it is very possible to have your deck do what it is supposed to, and still lose. It happens all the time. The other day in a three player SOM draft I was a heavy control deck and built this giant defensive line, and turn after turn is passing by while I chip away at my opponents with my Neurok Invisomancer. Then, my opponent draws Concussive Bolt, and wins. My deck did what it was supposed to that draft. I was satisfied, I executed on my game plan. I just also didn't win. And maybe next time my plan needs to account for that.
If instead my goal is to "control the most artifacts," say, and turn one my opponent plays a Golden Urn and I never control more artifacts than she does, I did not execute on my plan. I was soundly defeated.
If you lost to a Golden Urn, you earned that loss.
Haha, admittedly I could have thought of a better one cost artifact, but it was the first one that popped to mind.
HavelockV, you're right. I guess a better way to phrase this would have been, "Design a progress mechanic that isn't non-interactive". I was hoping the idea would get across, though.
I agree that putting a mechanic on a creature will usually lead to some degree of interaction. But, for example, I don't think Level Up or Suspend are necessarily interactive - or at least, they're not sufficiently interactive for my tastes.
Another idea:
Molten Hammer 1R
Deal three damage to target creature or player.
Forge 2RR (When you cast an instant or sorcery, if Molten Hammer is in you graveyard, you may pay 2RR. If you do, add Molten Hammer's text to that spell and exile this card.)
Originally I thought this was "Splice from the graveyard" and was going to say it was undevelopable, but this is more like weak flashback.
So now my question is, why would we use this instead of bringing back Flashback?
Because Flashback cards are discrete entities. This is like building a better spell. They have tried before to have vertically progressive spells with the original splice and replicate. I think this does a lot to solve the issue with those, which was that you sat on your spell too long. With these cards you could cast things as normal and then enhance spells later down the line.
Flashback-only-when-you-cast-a-[type]-spell might be interesting, but I'm not sure what the text-splice accomplishes.
Projectile Magma {4}{R}
Instant (unc)
~ deals X damage to target creature, where X is the number of Mountains you control.
Iterate — {R}{R}, Exile ~: Target spell you control with X gains "This spell deals X damage to target creature."
A cute design Jay. I think (but welcome disagreement) that this is obviously way too little design space for an ability word, but I think it could be a rare cycle or something. There are a lot of strange rules about X in spells that I don't 100% understand, so we'd have to clear it with the rules team.
I'd probably want a non-mana cost on the "flashback" since otherwise this gets so much worse.
Agreed about the design space. Just demonstrating one way to make text-splicing meaningful.
Yeah I think that was super clever!
brainstorming new form of progress:
Gold artifact counters as new victory condition
15 gold counters to win
Gold counters have sac: add one mana of any color
Wealth - when control 7 or more gold counters, effect.
Interest: per upkeep get extra gold
Artifact interaction: destroy, steal, sac, summon,
if opponent has more gold, effect or drawback.
Capitalize - when damage opponent, get gold.
sac a gold counter: put charge or +1/+1 counter on this.
I like Poison counters that count up (I think it is only a matter of time), but I'm not so sure I want to combine that idea with Gold. If design uses Gold, I don't wnat people hesitant to spend it.
The biggest obstacle to poison counters that count up is figuring out a way to do them that feels different from Infect but doesn't make Magic feel unlike Magic.
Orbital Cannon
T: 1 dmg target player
Contested (When a creature deals combat damage to you, its controller gains control of this.)
Formative Militia
T: Gain a civilisation counter.
CARDNAME gets +3/+3 for each five civilisation counters you control. (Whenever a creature would deal damage to you, its controller may have you lose a civilisation counter instead.)
Lef July 3, 2015 at 10:27 PM
I think for the idea of incremental progress nothing is going to beat +1/+1 counters for creatures. Battle-Forged is a great mechanic that captures the the feel of progress. However, one of the challenges of BF is that it needs something to push it in case you can't attack. In green and white there are tons of ways to get +1/+1 counters on things, but in the other colors it can be more of a problem.
I was casting around looking for things that could help. The closest I could come was Proliferate. Proliferate was part of Phyrexia so people tend to think of of it as a degeneration mechanic, but it only counts up. Tesla has always felt like the anti-phyrexia to me. Where Phyrexians are toxic and corrosive, Tesla wants to be about unbounded growth, the Spirit of Adventure. For anyone that plays League of Legends, Tesla is basically Piltover.
One of the reasons why Proliferate worked in SoM was the presence of Infect. There were three different types of counters to affect. +1/+1 counters and charge counters are a given, but I think the idea of having a type of counter that goes on players is pretty central to the nature of Proliferate. While I don't think Gold counters are the way to go, its a way to show continual progress. Maybe counting up doesn't need to win the game outright, what if there were thresholds on cards? What if you as the player had a version of the Level Up mechanic?
Vampiric Gains 2B
Gain a Level counter
Deal damage to target creature or player equal to your current Level and you gain that much life.
Level Factory 6
At the beginning of your upkeep, gain a Level counter.
Evolving Strength 1G
Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn equal to your level.
Scholar of Levels 2UU
Creature - Wizard
When Scholar of Levels enters the battlefield you gain a level counter.
Scholar of Levels has flying as long as you are level 5 or higher.
Inanimate July 4, 2015 at 8:25 PM
Lots of people have thought of this, including myself. It's a fascinating idea, but pretty parasitic unless designed well.
Weekend Art Challenge Review 062615—artofjustaman
CCDD 062915—Recall to Duty
Weekend Art Challenge 062615—artofjustaman
CCDD 062515—Splitting Shambler
CCDD 062415—Unnatural Order
Weekend Art Challenge 061915 Review—Ruslayer
Tesla: Forms the Future Takes
Weekend Art Challenge 061915—Ruslayer
CCDD 061815—Magcore Sentry & Geistbond Reaver
Tesla: Design Challenge 061715—Automation
CCDD 061715—Sandtribe Marauders
Weekend Art Challenge Review 061215—kattnboys
Weekend Art Challenge 061215—kattnboys
Tesla: Ascendancy
Weekend Art Challenge Review 060515—quaz
Weekend Art Challenge Review 052915—Sakura Mitsukai
CCDD 060915—Unravel
Weekend Art Challenge 060515—quaz
CCDD 060315—Claim Pet
CCDD 060315—March of Progress
Tesla: Design Challenge 060215—Anticipation
CCDD 060215—Ulamog's Gorger (Bloodfeast)
CCDD 060115—Unfeeling

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The purpose of a background sound is quite simple: Some audio that you hear in the background of something else that is what really catches your attention. Otherwise it would not be a background sounds but a sound you are actively listening to.
So, the main purpose of a background sound is to strengthen or emphasize any action or other content in the foreground which is the "real thing". Why and with what purpose would you need to reinforce or accompoany anything with a background noise?
There are some standard uses and among these the main functions are to support video footage, add realism to game levels and prevent you form loosing concentration.
Inside the Ambient Mixer sound database you find among all its categories a lot of useful background sounds which will help you with the recreation of specific audio backgrounds.
Many use background sounds for working to help with concentration issues. When we are focused on anything, silence can be as annoying as sudden or irregular noises. Just like in meditation situation, thinking about a problem in a silent room can lead to constant deviation of our thinking. We don't think pauseless without any interruptions. When we brain-work, we need some spare moments to process thoughts, rethink and just brainstorm things over. It often is during this short "not-so-hard-thinking-phases" when we loose it.
A discrete audio background helps preventing the void in such moments. We can pause our thoughts and there is still something that we more or less uncounciously are listening to and thus we can refocus as fast as we paused a though.
Therefore background sounds for working tend to be quite repetitive. New research has shown that constant rhytmic movements, like running or walking, help to manage personal problems and increase problem-solving thinking. So why should not a regular, repetitive or rhythmic audio background help with concentration too?
There is a therapeutical method called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, promoted by the EMDR institute, that bases its method on rhythmical patterns (eye movements, but also audio signals) to heal patients with traumatic stress disorders. EMDR Therapy also works with rhythmic hand movements and tones.
So it could be a rhythm you tap with your fingers or your feet while trying to solve a problem that finally helped you to get this special intution you need. Or it could be a smooth background noise that helps you to keep your thoughts in order.
Popular categories for working audio backgrounds are coffeeshop atmospheres, audio background of offices or public libraries and even special designed audio for people suffering from attention deficit disorder that use binaural beats and similar experiments.
With the Ambient Mixer, you can just try to make something special that works for you and share it with the community if you think it is useful for others too.
Modern Coffeehouse Chain, the sounds of a busy urban coffee chain.
Chit Chat Coffee Shop is your typical coffee shop, also known as the second office, for many.
A Rainy Cafe: It is a rainy day and you are in a crowded cafe.
Users searching for background footage for videos often do not look for regular repetitive patterns of quite background atmosphere but for very specific sounds for each scene. Depending on the type of video you need to add the sound to, the audio background will range from nature sounds to city soundscapes, machines or anything related.
If you have a commercial video running with images from a sunny beach, you probably will be looking for sounds of beaches, shores, ocean waves, seagulls, children and family chatting and so on.
The main purpose of a background sound for a video is to underline with audio what the image is already showing. Are you recording a technical screencast? For the lapse of time in which you don't speak you may want to fill the acoustic gaps with some keyboard typing, some mouse clicks or a server humming in the background. Or are you loading footage you took at a vacational tripo to Venice? Maybe you need some water, a stream or a river to underline the sensation of being on a ship.
Thousands of possible uses that you can always achive easily with the Ambient Mixer tool and its sound database.
An audio background for a movie is a very different thing than a background footage for some video clip. A movie has a story and shows complex relations between characters. Film music gets composed having in mind different motives for every character, mood, place, situation and relationship.
But nevertheless, if you have some actores speaking, some film music playing and all this, you still will need background audio for special effects or just the audio recreation of a realistic background. If you film a scene inside a house, you will need some "house noises" like doors slamming, windows opening or shutting, chairs, tables, sounds outside the house and so on. The same applies to a forest scene, a jungle, a ship or any place you are setting the action.
Every big studio and every film production team has a bunch of specialists for this. But for a homemade video it maybe quite easy to use any given background or just mix something for yourself.
Could you imagine playing a car racing game without car engine sounds or a war game without shots and gunfire sounds? No, you would not play long before it got boring. Why? Because the scenerie needs sound. A game without sound is like a fish without water.
FX sounds for common effects like explosions, fire, gunfire or any other sorts of sounds are quite common for games. But there are lots of other audio backgrounds suitable for all sorts of game categories, especially for role playing and simulation games. Train simulators, flight simulators, civilization and empire building games include lots of background sounds that can be simulated with our ambient mixer.
Just take a look at the variety of tavern and marketplace ambiances users create and that can be applied to custom made levels in videogames.


text:
France Says It Summoned Iran's Ambassador Over 'Intolerable' Detention of Academicians
© Photo : Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal Support committee/facebook
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201912271077881725-france-says-it-summoned-irans-ambassador-over-intolerable-detention-of-academicians/
Two French researchers at Sciences Po in Paris have been held on spying charges by the Iranian authorities since June.
The French Foreign Ministry has summoned the Iranian ambassador over the "intolerable" detention of two French scientists, the ministry said in a statement.
The envoy "was reminded of France's demand that Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal be released without delay, and that the Iranian authorities show display transparency concerning their situation," AFP reported, quoting the ministry's statement.
Adelkhah and Marchal, both researchers at Sciences Po in Paris, were detained in Iran over spying charges in June. They are being held at Evin Prison in the north of Tehran. This prison is being overseen by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the web site of the detained scientists' support committee says. According to Sciences Po, Adelkhah and another detained academic, Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert, had started a hunger strike this month.
Fariba Adelkhah was born in 1959 in Iran and came to France in 1977 to pursue her university education. She is a specialist in social and political anthropology. According to the web site of Sciences Po, her current research focuses on the movement of Shia clerics between Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. Roland Marchal is a sociologist and one of the most internationally renowned specialists on Somalia.
scientists, Iran, France


"Jane Eyre", the first published work of Charllotte Bronte received such an enthusiastic response from the public that it was required to print the third edition of the book within a year. This work with its display of passion and emotions of a woman, unusual for a 19th century England, was quite a stand alone for that time and brought fame to its creator, though to a pseudoname of "Currer Bell" assumed by her.
The story is told by Jane herself starting from her childhood as an orphan, a dependent living in her aunt Mrs. Reed's house, with no claims to beauty even as a child and being a constant object of tyranny and ill treatment by her cousins. Hers is a passionate nature with strong feelings and when tormented, she can't refrain from retaliating to her oppressors. Her aunt sends her away to a charity institution called Lowood School, run by a hard-hearted clergyman, who is bent upon depriving the girls living there of even smallest comforts of life. Jane survives through the unfreindly climate and bouts of illnesses. She performs well in her studies and becomes a teacher in the same place. But when at the age of 18, her best teacher and friend Ms. Tample leaves the school, she also decides to leave it and by advertising gets hrself a post of governess at Thornfield Hall.
She arrives to Thornfield to find an old, kind housekeeper called Mrs. Fairfax and a young girl Adele. After a few months, the master of the house, Mr. Rochester arrives, and slowly in spite of his moody and piculiar nature, Jane and he developes a co-ordial realationship. He then brings a party of guests to his house, including beautiful Ms. Ingram, who is considered to be his future bride. Slowly, watching them together, Jane realises her love for him, but she doesn't forget that she is a plain governess with no claims to beauty or wealth in the world.
Since her coming to Thornfield, Jane has observed that the place holds something mysterious on the third floor. This is confirmed when Mr. Mason, one of the guests is injured seriously on the same floor and Jane helps Mr. Rochester by attending him through the night. But the very next day, she is called away to visit her dying aunt before she can learn anything more about the mystery. Jane goes and learns that while she was at Lowood, one of her uncles had called and asked about her. This paternal uncle had earned good fortune and wanted to take care of her. But her aunt Reed, not able to help hating and disliking Jane, informed him that she was dead.
Jane comes back to Thornfield after death of her aunt Reed and tries to live in peace, but her love wouldn't let her. When faced by the prospect of being divided by Mr. Rochester for ever, she does confess her love and finds that he also loves her. Together they are happy and are to be married in a month. But Jane's fate is not to be so happy in life. On the day of their marriage, she discovers that Mr. Rochester is already married to Bertha Mason, a crazy, mad woman and it is she that is kept on the third floor of Thornfield Hall. She learns the entire story from Mr. Rochester himself of his being drawn into the marriage by his and her family without knowing the truth, his despair, his attempts to cure and care for her, his own grief followed by his reckless search for comfort and finally the solace that he had found in Jane.
Jane, torn between love and righteousness, leaves him on that night. Friendless, penniless, she travels to an unknown district and is driven to death by hunger and dissipation. What happens next? Does she survive? Does she find friendship and comfort again? What happened to Mr. Rochester? Will he again slip into the life of wildness and worldly pleasures? Doesn't he have a right to love and domestic felicity? Don't they love each other enough to redeem him and unite?
"Jane Eyre" was a subject of criticism and debates almost as soon as it was released, because of its being almost one of its kind. It doesn't deal with the civil world of gentlemen and women who had nothing to worry about in the world except courtships and connexions of fortune. Before Jane, women in literature didn't speak of their passion and feelings; they waited for men to approach them. Jane told the world that even plain and poor women fall in love, with as much emotions as men, and she had the strength and daring to declare her love for someone who was indifferent to her, was about to marry another woman, and that to in his face. She had the understanding and faith to proclaim that in front of God, everyone was equal, as in spirits they were. But even with her passionate and feeling disposition, Jane had equally strong sense of right and wrong and followed what her conscience deemed right, no matter what it would cost her.
Charllotte Bronte had a gift for creating atmosphere and it is visible every here and there in "Jane Eyre". Besides, one of the most interesting part of the narrative is Jane's discourse with Mr. Rochester, which almost always has a feeling of underlying banter amongst all the romance and solemnity of feelings. Like other Brontes, she also believed in superstitions and these are present here, too. Observant as she was, many of her characters, incidents and events are traced and linked to various stories she heard and people she met; but finally she was able to create the world of Jane Eyre, where these pieces fit.
Though, filled with real people and their everyday realities, Jane Eyre is after all a fairy tale love story that makes you believe in true love. That if you loved with purity, "God will temper judgement with mercy", and that the heart you yearn for, will be yours, in this world and beyond, in flesh as well as in spirit.


24U Email OSAX is a scripting addition that extends AppleScript® by a few easy-to-use commands to send emails directly from your scripts, without need of any additional application.
With 24U Email OSAX installed your scripts can send e-mails through SMTP server directly from AppleScript with just a simple command.
Having a simple command for sending e-mail lets you automat e-mail sending without spending time learning complicated 3rd party technologies.
24U Email OSAX allows you to attach one or more files to your e-mail. The attachments can be encoded in a way that suits your receiver's e-mail app. You can choose from AppleSingle, AppleDouble, Base64, and BinHex encoding.
Sending your attachments correctly encoded will assure their readability in many kinds of e-mail clients, even in the old ones.
24U Email OSAX allows your script to send e-mails in background while it's working on something else. The OSAX can automatically let your script know when the e-mail is sent.
Ability to send e-mails from background lets you make your script work fast without having to wait for every single e-mail to be sent.
With 24U Email OSAX your scripts can send formatted e-mails as HTML or multi-part messages. The message is properly constructed and encoded using the current standards.
Having your e-mails properly formatted using HTML lets you automate sending e-mails that look good and still are less likely to be filtered as spam by mail servers.
To safeguard your communication with mail servers, 24U Email OSAX can use secured SSL/TLS connection and your choice of automatic, plain, cram md5, login, or pop3 authentication.
Using secured connection and proper authentication reduces the risk that your communication will be intercepted by a hacker. It also further minimizes the risk of your e-mails being filtered as spam by reliably identifying the sender.
Version 5.0 of 24U Email OSAX brings support for the new OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan.
Compatibility with the latest versions of OS X lets you upgrade your Mac to the newer version of operating system without worries that the scripting addition could stop working.
24U Email OSAX 5.0 is built with the newest version of OpenSSL, replacing SSL with TLS 1.2 to secure STMP communications via encryption and authentication.
Having your e-mail communication protected by the current version of security standards allows you to sleep rested knowing that your e-mails are being sent securely.
email contact n : specifies person's name and e-mail address.
send email v : Sends e-mail to given person.
status of scheduled mail v : Gets information about scheduled mail.
wait for scheduled mail v : Waits for sending of scheduled mail.
version of Email OSAX v : Returns version number of the 24U Email OSAX.
Important: This product is currently not compatible with macOS 10.14 Mojave because Mojave does no longer support scripting additions. If you are interested in funding Mojave upgrade of this product, please contact us.


The AVAYA 1403 digital phone handset is the standard model (most basic, feature-wise) in the new 1400 AVAYA handset range. This new line replaces the superseded 5400 series. The 1403 offers amazing value and is the perfect handset for staff not requiring advanced functions and features. If you're looking for the equivalent of an IP phone (VoIP handset) then you're after the virtually identical AVAYA 1603 IP handset.
If you're after additional functionality, on top of the very latest innovations from this world leading brand, check out the 9504 IP handset from AVAYAs' high-end 9500 series. The 9504 offers a larger screen, a more visually driven navigation system and enhancements such as digital button labeling for the very best handset technology available in the market today.
The AVAYA 1403 digital telephone handset for the IP 500 Office PBX is a great entry-level phone that compliments the more advanced digital and IP handsets favored by heavy phone users. It's also more feature-rich and easier to use when compared to the superseded 5402 handset it replaces.
AVAYA has changed back to a more traditional looking phone with this new 1400 series. In fact, the 1403 is now very similar to offerings from LG Aria, Cisco, Panasonic and other popular handsets. That means you now get popular design combined with leading technology and functionality. If you're looking for a market leading phone system on a budget then the 1403 is the one for you.
The AVAYA 1403 digital office phone is a great handset for office kitchens, waiting rooms and temporary desks, as well as staff that really only use the phone for receiving/making the occasional call.
If you are considering phones for staff that are everyday users (therefore require more flex keys) then look to the 1408 or 1416 models. If you're looking for the IP (VoIP) versions then check out the 1603, 1608 and 1616 models.
If you're looking to implement the awesome One-X on-screen platform where everything can be controlled with the click of a mouse then you can probably get away with the 1403 rather than the more pricey and feature rich models like the 1408 and 1416 handsets. Since you'll be able to do everything you need on your computer anyway – from listening to voicemail, answering and transferring phone calls, accessing personal and company speed dials and even coordinating a conference call.
For a no-obligation demonstration of the AVAYA 1403 digital phone handset or a free quote, give us a call today and discover how the new AVAYA IP Office R.6 will improve the way your office communicates.