Server Maintenance May 21

Hi. I'm still getting an error message when I try to log in. It says, "Error Failed to load game data."

I have still been playing via the web client, btw (and thanks again for keeping that available). I tried clearing my cookies, restarting my browser, and reloading the game, but still get the same message.

 

having the same issue as above, the web client returns error "failed to load data"

 

with an old browser install and the latest flash packaging before the hidden bomb. Like approximately 18% of population that is still using flash for various reasons.

Is that a discrete way to say that web client is being discontinued?

 

Yeah, same: older browser and older version of flash.

So, is this the end of Card Hunter for the likes of us, then? Are my Loot Fairy hunting days a thing of the past?

 

If I hadn't had to reformat my drive I'd still be running in browser with the date set back a year.

 

well, it's understandable. As well as is the fact that installing steam just for this is way too big.

It was nice until it lasted. Farewell CH

 

I literally installed Steam just for this. (Years ago, my laptop couldn't handle playing in a browser. People suggested Steam was more lightweight.) It seems if you sit on the campaign map for hours at a time, it eats memory, but otherwise, my experience, and the experience of those who convinced me to try Steam, is that Steam is not way too big. It's shockingly small, taking fewer resources than a browser. Give it a try. $:^ )

 

Isn't the Steam client written in Abode Air? Can't you just (eventually, perhaps with volinteer help)
Compile a non-Steam Stand-alone version of Cardhunter use the same Adobe Air tools, minus the
Steam Libraries, and then post those on game.cardhunter.com?

If it's no longer in Adobe Air, mind if I ask what's it's being moved to?

As I've suggested before, you don't need to get the game to transact cash directly, because you could
simply setup a seperate Paypal or other payment processor on a Web-page on the Web-server, and
then set a flag or whatever so that the game will "import" the Pizza (or modules) bought. If you put
Pizza prices on the Modules, then Pizza would be the only thing that you need to let people
make all the purchases on the non-Steam version.

(If Adobe Air is somehow bundled to Steam, it would be great if you could let me know more
about that. Thanks!)

P.s. After the recent shutoff, my friend couldn't access game.cardhunter.com using SSL, but
it still works as of this writting if she shuts off SSL via the browser.

Thanks in advance for any and all information and/or consideration!

(I'm pretty stressed/depressed over this.) Yea, I know most games go away after time, but
that's what made Cardhunter, the really good game that didn't go away, all that more special!

 

BTW... I have friends that play cardhunter with me, but only have XP (or Vista,) which Steam won't support.

With XP, they won't be able to play any more. Even I sometimes switch to it when newer machines are busy or unavailable.
(And I hate Steam especailly for intentionally breaking their own XP and Vista support; who knows what they'll intentionally
break or do next?)

My housemate has spent perhaps $60 or $70 on CH over the years, often just to make the LF maps easier and faster to play.

Steam reports I've spent $209.33 on Cardhunter via Steam "since the cardset was released", but that might be missing some purchases.

Without non-Steam support as a "backup" for Steam problems, both of us, and many others, are going to be less comfortable with the game,
(even if she does get a compitable machine again) which we both like due to the way it's managed to "be there for us through the years", even
when we were commuting between two houses and only had XP machines in one with our newer machines in the other.

 

Just to mention a few reasons that came to mind why some players might not want to use Steam. And, yes, I ultimately decided to install Steam now, too, but I still dislike that I HAVE TO in order to continue playing Card Hunter.

• Steam has to be installed separately. Show me one PC (or OS) without a browser in its stock configuration. And when it comes to browsers you have a choice. There is only one (closed source) Steam-client that you can either install or not. And installing software is for a reason considered system-altering (hence, requiring root password) for Linux.
• I have to agree to a 3rd-party's ToS in order to play Card Hunter. That's the same argument I had in the Discord discussion. There is/was a stand-alone client for playing the game (like there is for discussing issues, aka the forum) why does it need a 3rd-party app to interact with any Card Hunter servers (Steam for playing, Discord for chatting/discussion)?
• This also introduces a second point of failure. Sure, when the Card Hunter servers are down, we can't play. But for the (sure, quite unlikely) case that Steam's servers go down? Well, we are locked out of the game, too.
• Each browser is a form of sandbox. I'm not sure, whether Flash is/was perhaps able to partially break out of this sandbox, but after all, most things that happen in a browser are still contained to an extend. Steam can do as it pleases if installed regularly. And it is one of those infamous "phone home"-apps.
• On this regard, in a day and age where data became the new currency, having to link my game account(s) to a Steam account isn't exactly what pleases me the most! Whether or not Steam claims to sell this information, neither Steam nor Card Hunter are open source, so whatever the ToS say, it's not verifiable. And most of the Steam-users probably couldn't even tell if their player profile was sold to some advertiser. But still, it's personal data of some sort.
• Steam and Card Hunter exchange data! They have to, otherwise the Steam achievements wouldn't work. But no-one can supervise this exchange because again, not a single one of the involved apps is open source.
• If I want to play some game, I don't want a myriad of launchers to pop into existence first. Those launchers serve no purpose other than to make my profile worth selling to advertisers. Effectively tracking every single activity. Sorry, but I don't need achievements to enjoy my games. Especially not those from a 3rd party app.
• I understand why game developers like the concept of an automatically updated game and I admit that the browser version also was always up-to-date. But there is this concept of a system user deciding themselves when to update some piece of software. Yes, that would mean that client software and server software would have to be compatible across versions, what a revolutionary idea, I know. Granted that this whole concept is pretty much dead, now that 95% of mankind are practically guinea pigs of Windows 10. So, Steam isn't the odd one out here. Just remember my words when an update of your favorite game completely messes up everything and you can't even log in anymore (and Microsoft has managed to accomplish similar things on a regular basis with Windows updates, if Microsoft can't prevent this, how should a smaller company be able to operate completely flawless). The old version might not have a shiny new title bar but it would have worked. And, yes, I'm aware that I officially have the option to opt-out of Auto-updates in Steam, but if this works as well as the Flash-support in browsers worked then I can pretty much leave it on anyway.
• For my work on the utils (my way of contributing to this awesome community because I never bought any of the paid content, pretty much only because I trust PayPal even less then Steam because PayPal would not only sell my data but be in almost direct contact with my money/banking information) I made use of secondary accounts. Two to be precise, because a team can only contain three players, so more would haven been unnecessary. (And I don't play MP on either of them, so no worries, I haven't manipulated my MP rating) Well, multi-accounting now is officially dead. Or almost, unless you are willing to have several Steam accounts, linked to different Card Hunter accounts, running either from several physical machines or virtual machines. Granted that most of the utils don't require me to co-op in order to validate them, but now that all my Card Hunter accounts are linked to my new (ugh! I never thought it would come this far) Steam account, I won't try to separate them up again.
• Unless you are Epic (the company) or some other major player, everyone uses Steam (even Microsoft)! Just like (almost) everyone uses Chrome (or Facebook, or Windows, or GMail, ...) these days. That makes those products more or less monopolists in their fields. And that is no good thing. Improvement comes from competition. Because of the reasons above I wouldn't have been any happier, if BM had chosen another launcher for Card Hunter back in the days. But why exactly support the most prominent player? It's not as if none of them hadn't had a track record of data breaches, hacking attacks, failed updates, bad PR because of abuse (of some sorts) of personal data, whatever bad you can imagine.
  
• I would tend to believe that the Knights probably indeed have no option to update the Flash client anymore. But either way, abandoning Flash while still supporting essentially Flash as a Steam technology (if the community discussion regarding the end of Flash was actually right on this note) is a huge pile of marketing BS. Not from the Knights, but from Adobe. This is the same that I said for the regular system user: Why not let a game developer choose when it is time to leave Flash behind, rather then forcing its end on them? If the most prominent game launcher still utilizes Flash, it can't be that bad.

To end this with some piece of advise: If you want to still play Card Hunter but like it to be sandboxed, run a VM just for this game. As I said before, this way, you could even play Card Hunter simultaneously with multiply accounts, but you can also just do this for your primary (and perhaps only) account as well. Get some software to manage VMs (Oracle's VirtualBox for example), grab some recent OS iso (Windows 10, if you aren't familiar with Linux, or your favorite (lightweight) distro otherwise), install Steam after you set up the VM properly, perhaps create a (new) Steam account, and enjoy Card Hunter. I can attest that Card Hunter runs just fine even in a VM on a half way decent PC. This should (if I'm not mistaken) be an option for up-to-date Mac users (both Big Sur and M1), too, even if Steam doesn't run natively (anymore).

 

I haven't even read the whole reply yet. I just got here...

...and immediately wanted to say Card Hunter is also closed source. I hope it's not a deal-breaker.

~~

Still reading.

Oh okay, not a deal-breaker then. $¦^ ]

~~

Happens to me all the time on the PS4.
Phoenix, I want to sympathize, and indeed to an extent I do, but the unfortunate fact is that the face of gaming changed after the 1990s. I scoffed when it came, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I mean, besides, y'know, not play modern games.* I mostly don't. ~shrug~ Fwiw, I play PS4 stuff because my sister got me into playing some things on her console; I still only play at her house on her console. 1990s. $:^ ]

(*I don't mean super indie stuff e.g. made during game jams.)

 

I don't think anyone's excited about being locked to Steam. I can't promise or even hint at future plans (I probably genuinely have no idea what they are) but Steam sucks.

 

Welp, gonna' miss you, Card Hunter. So long and thanks for all the Slippogriff.

 

> The web client was about to go down with the release of the "Eastpass Conspiracy"
> update because we couldn't develop the client due to licenses and no support for Flash.

I'm happy to say that I can still play Card Hunter and the new "Eastpass Conspiracy" with
my XP non-SSL version of Chrome.