Salley/Pg. 1
Name: David P. Salley
Date: June 30th, 2005
Magic: The Gathering;The Database
Part I. Collection description and its information objects
1.1 Location of Collection
The card collection is located atDave’s Comics and Cards, a hypothetical store that buys and sells comic books and gaming supplies. The store is located at 10 West Main Street, Fredonia, New York [non-existent location] and has a website at [non-existent website] Cataloging information for this database comes fromand on the Internet. Both URLs will take you to the same website. Wizards of the Coast, Inc. is the company that created the card game. They are involved with a variety of games, including; Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, Avalon Hill board games and war-gaming with miniatures. The database will be limited to Magic the Gathering collectable cards.
1.2 Purpose of Collection
The database has been set-up for cataloging Magic cards for retail sale by a shop owner. The users of the database are the shop owner, employees, and customers who buy Magic cards either as an investment or to create or augment their personal decks in order to play the game.
1.3 Physical and Intellectual Aspects of Objects
While paraphernalia for the game include score sheets, card checklists, and playing manuals, the physical aspect format of this database will be limited to simply the cards themselves. The intellectual aspects of the cards include both playing information printed on the cards, and information not mentioned on the cards,such as current market value and printing edition.
1.4 Extent of Collection and Plans for Growth
The official website, , currently lists 7694 different Magic cards. The collection will continue to grow because Wizards of the Coast, Inc. produces at least one new edition or expansion set each year. The hypothetical retail store which operates this database would purchase cards as they come out, or from individuals selling their collections for resale.
Part II. Users of the Collection
2.1 User Groups
The principal users of the database would be people considering the purchase of Magic cards, either to improve their decks for playing the game, or for their aesthetics, or as a financial investment. Rare cards and first edition cards tend to increase in value over time. Both collectors and players need to have an in-depth knowledge of the game in order to choose cards according to their needs.
The secondary users of the database are the owner and employees who have access to the restricted portions of the database. They will use the database for inventory purposes as well as assisting customers.
2.2 Demographics
A brief survey for Magic players was created and posted to several appropriate online discussion boards. All responses to the survey are included in an appendix to this report. Demographically, the typical respondent of the survey is either a teen-aged boy or a well-educated (Associate’s Degree or better), male in his mid-30’s to mid-40’s. (But this may reflect the population of boards where the survey was posted as much as anything.) Nearly every respondent buys Magic cards for their usefulness in the game. Only a small percentage of buyers purchase some cards strictly for their aesthetic value or for financial investment and re-sale. Female collectors of Magic cards appear to be a nearly negligible percentage of card buyers based on observations on the boards.
The owner is a college-educated male in his mid 40’s. The two employees who have access to the database are his wife, a college professor in her late 40’s, and a mutual friend, a divorced mid 40’s male with three kids. He’s also a college professor, but used to own a comic book store. He helps out on weekends.
2.3 Types and Levels of Knowledge
Domain Knowledge
Beginners to “Magic: the Gathering” generally buy cards by the starter deck or booster pack in order to start playing the game quickly. It isn’t until they develop some familiarity with the game that they bother to seek out individual cards for purchase. Therefore, it can be assumed that users of the system have at least a moderate to expert knowledge of “Magic: the Gathering” and the playability and value of individual cards.
System Knowledge
The demographics indicate that the typical user is either an adult male or a child. Furthermore, the adult males are educated and tend toward ‘geek’ technical skills. Users would therefore be likely to range fromexperts sophisticated in using search systems to those who would perform only simple single-word searches.
Task Knowledge
As stated in Domain Knowledge, the user of a database on Magic cards probably has a strong familiarity with the game. They probably have a very well-defined goal when they search for a specific card, either to complement their deck’s playing ability or to purchase as an investment.
World Knowledge
Female collectors or players of “Magic: the Gathering” appear to be a rarity. The typical player is male. A world view of the typical Magic player would have a strong male bias. However, the game is played both by children in playgrounds and adults in tournaments. The world knowledge therefore covers quite a range.
2.4 User’s Problems and Questions
Users buy Magic cards for one of three reasons; for their usefulness in the game, as financial investments, or for their aesthetic value as collectors’ items. The store database, accessible via an in-store terminal, will most likely be used by buyers looking for cards with certain specific characteristics. Buyers looking to browse will more likely be scanning the card albums themselves.
User Question: I’m looking for a red mana card with flying skill, at least 2 points of power, and 3 points of toughness.
Suggested Attribute: Playability, Subject
Desired Precision / Recall: The user is seeking multiple cards with highly specific attributes, high/moderate precision and high recall.
User Question: Are there any cards available in the $50 to $100 range?
Suggested Attribute: Value
Desired Precision / Recall: High precision, low recall
User Question: Any cards by the artist, Phil Foglio?
Suggested Attribute: Creator
Desired Precision / Recall: High precision, low recall
Part III. System Design
3.1 Entity Level or Unit of Analysis and Why Appropriate
Each record in the database represents one individual card. Magic cards are available for commercial purchase in starter decks of 50 common cards, or by booster pack of 10 cards at random. Card stores and E-bay often offer cards on an individual basis. Most collectors purchase their cards either as singles or in packs (and in some case, boxes of packs) hoping to acquire an uncommon or rare card cheaply or to augment their decks with individual cards chosen from the packs.
3.2 Attributes Chosen and Their Appropriateness to the Collection
The attributes chosen for the collection were based on the design of the actual Magic cards and by the responses to the survey. Anything that physically distinguishes one card from another was included as an attribute. One of the questions on the survey was “What should a database of Magic cards be searchable by?” The answers the respondents supplied were also included in the database as attributes. Interestingly, this included information not available on the card itself such as tournament legality and printing. Legality refers to the types of tournaments the card may be played in. Different kinds of tournaments bar particular cards from play in an attempt to control the length of the game played each round.
Subject – The main focus of the artwork on the card
Creator – The artist who did the original artwork
Identifier – These attributes distinguish one card from another
Playability–These attributes determine how useful a particular card is in playing a game of Magic.
Value – These attributes identify the extrinsic worth of a card
Aesthetics – These attributes identify the reasons collectors, as opposed to players, acquire a card
3.3 Field Names and Indexing Decisions
GENERAL ATTRIBUTE / FIELD NAME / SEARCHABLE?Identifier / Card Name / Yes
Identifier / Card Type / Yes
Creator / Artist Credit / Yes
Identifier / Expansion Set / Yes
Identifier / Series Number / Yes
Identifier / Copyright Year / No
Identifier / Catalog Number / Yes
Playability / Mana Color / Yes
Playability / Mana Cost / Yes
Playability / Power / Yes
Playability / Toughness / Yes
Playability / Legality / Yes
Playability / Rules Text / Yes
Value / Rarity / Yes
Value / Printing / Yes
Value / Condition / Yes
Value / Purchase Price / No
Value / Sale Price / Yes
Subject / Theme / Yes
Aesthetics / Flavor Text / No
Aesthetics / Artwork / No
The fields that are indexed were chosen primarily by respondents’ answers to the survey. With a few minor exceptions, nearly all the fields are searchable.
Nearly all of the identifier attributes are searchable to assist buyers who wish to purchase specific cards. The copyright year field is not indexed, because buyers are more likely to be interested in acquiring all of the cards of a specific expansion set produced in a particular year rather than simply all cards produced in a specific year. The copyright year however, does help establish what the printing of a card is.
On current cards, the number of times the expansion set symbol is printed designates the printing. If the symbol is printed three times, it’s the third printing of the card. Establishing the specific printing of an early card is difficult. Wizards of the Coast, Inc. did not include the printing on the card itself in early cards. For over 99% of all Magic cards, the printing is irrelevant: the card is cheap regardless of the printing, and the card’s purpose is to be used in a game. However, for the rare cards purchased as an investment, the printing is possibly a difference of hundreds of dollars. Establishing the printing of early cards involves examining the copyright year, the artwork, the exact cut of the corners of the card, the width of the black edge around the artwork and a host of other small details. There are entire books written on how to establish the printing of a rare Magic card.
All playability attributes are searchable. Players want to find cards with specific abilities to improve their game deck.
Value attributes are searchable for the collector who buys Magic cards as an investment, hoping that the card’s value will increase over time. The purchase price of a card is not indexed because the owner of the card store would designate it as a restricted field and not permit the buying public to have that information.
The artwork attribute is a graphic image which can be included in the record, but not indexed or cataloged, much the same way Amazon includes a picture of the book cover in its record. Users who want to purchase cards based on the artwork would be searching the database by Artist Credit or Theme. The Flavor Text contains nothing that cannot be more efficiently searched for by using either the Rules Text or Theme attribute.
The Theme attribute is one of only two attributes that allow multiple values. (Legality is the other attribute; a card may be playable in more than one type of tournament.) It may also be the hardest to categorize, as it is user defined. One of the survey respondents summed up the problem quite nicely in correspondence:
“The user who requests to search by theme is incredibly vague, but what he/she probably wants is:
All Elf related cards, or
All Goblin related cards, or
All Dragon related cards, et cetera.
This is easy for the creature cards. They have allhad their official wordings changed to "Summon X". Soif there is an established theme it might say "SummonGoblin". If there is no established theme it will say"Summon Beast" or "Summon Human".
The hard part is finding out what non-creature cardsfit the theme, and that is where a database shouldshine.Once you know that there are about 5 breeds of elf, orgoblin, you should be able to search for 5 or 6 termsand bring up all related cards.
For example: Goblin(s), Mogg, Akki (and whatevergoblin tribes are eluding my memory right now, willselect among many others:
Patron of the Akki (legendary spirit)
Goblin Cannon (an artifact)
Granulate (a sorcery which mentions Goblins in the flavor text)
Krark-Clan Engineers
Armed Response (a White instant that mentions Goblins in the flavor text and which would be effective against goblins.)
Juggernaut (an Artifact Creature made by Goblins)
Great Furnace (an ArtifactLand).
If I were you, I would -not- try to anticipate whatthemes users want to pick up. Instead, just give theman easy and/or keyword search that will find any cardwith 1 or more of the terms on it.
Ideally, as a user, I want to be able to ask (e.g.)what Knight and/or Cleric cards are in the sets 8thEdition, Betrayers of Kamigawa, and Champions ofKamigawa (Which comprise the legal sets for one kindof play).
The reason I suggest working off user keywords ratherthan preset keywords is because new themes areconstantly emerging, and what one person considers atheme is not what everyone else considers a theme.”
Part IV. Semantics, Syntax and Input Rules
4.1 Field Names and Semantics
FIELD NAME / SEMANTICSCard Name / The official title of the card
Card Type / The classification of the card
Artist Credit / The official creator of the card
Expansion Set / Which producer collection the card belongs to
Series Number / The card’s ranking in the Expansion Set
Copyright Year / The date of the card’s creation
Catalog Number / A unique index number for this database
Mana Color / The type of magic the card uses
Mana Cost / The amount of magic required to bring the card into play
Power / The number of hit points the card can inflict
Toughness / The number of hit points the card can sustain
Legality / The types of tournaments the card can be used in
Rules Text / The card’s ability in a game
Rarity / The scarcity of the card
Printing / The number of times the card has been produced.
Condition / The physical appearance of the card
Purchase Price / The amount the dealer acquired the card for
Sale Price / The amount the dealer hopes to get for the card
Theme / The subject of the artwork
Flavor Text / Text designed to add to the aesthetics of the card
Artwork / The graphic depiction on the card
4.2 Record Content and Input Rules
Field Name:Card Name
Semantics:The official title of the card
Chief Source of Information:The Card Name is on the upper left corner of the card itself
Input Rules:
Card Names are standardized by the manufacturer
Transcribe it exactly as written on the card including spaces, capitalization and punctuation.
Examples:Devouring Greed; Quiet Purity
Field Name: Card Type
Semantics:The classification of the card
Chief Source of Information:The Card Type is on the left side of the card itself between the artwork and the text box.
Input Rules:
The six major categories are: “Artifact”, “Creature”, “Enchantment”, “Land”, “Instant”, or “Sorcery”
Transcribe it exactly as written on the cardincluding spaces, capitalization and punctuation.
Examples:Artifact; Creature– Cleric; Land
Field Name:Artist Credit
Semantics:The official creator of the card
Chief Source of Information:The Artist Credit is on the lower left corner of the card itself, between the text box and the copyright information.
Input Rules:
The Artist Credit field will be keyword searched by surname
Enter the artist’s surname followed by a comma, a space and the artist’s first name. If the artist has a middle initial, add a space, the initial and a period.
The only cards with more than one artist are the ones created by the Brothers Hildebrandt, their entry is “Hildebrandt, Greg and Tim”
If only one Hildebrandt created the card, enter the name in the normal manner.
Examples:Foglio, Phil; Hildebrandt, Greg and Tim
Field Name: Expansion Set
Semantics:Which producer collection the card belongs to
Chief Source of Information: [non-existent website] which is reproduced in thetable in Appendix I, (The search engine for ) and the Expansion Set symbol which is on the right side of the card itself between the artwork and the text box.
Input Rules:
Find the symbol in the table in Appendix I
Enter the text to the right of the symbol exactly as it is listed, including spaces, capitalization and punctuation.