CV V6 planning

QFIT

Well-Known Member
#1
CV Blackjack V6 is not due out for a long time. But, I like to start planning early. Any suggestions are welcome. I would like particularly to work on the user interface this version. But, all areas are open to suggestion.

 

Lonesome Gambler

Well-Known Member
#2
This one's an easy fix, but I was pointing it out to a teammate the other day and thought it may be worth changing: the photos of the discards are nice, but the exposure or white balance is different on a couple of them. For example, I believe 3 1/2 decks is normal, but 4 decks has a yellow tint. So when your discards finally change up to the next level, it's easy to "cheat" just by looking for the color change. This might be good to fix for new learners.
 

QFIT

Well-Known Member
#3
Is this V4 or V5? Game or drills? Different photos. I had a problem with the camera auto-adjusting exposure some times. I'll review all the photos.
 

johndoe

Well-Known Member
#5
I had trouble getting the speeds "right" - it was usually way too fast, or way too slow, and the speeds weren't consistent. This goes for play and drills.

Also, I remember on some of the drills the timeout would buzz before I could even find the right block to click. ( <1 second)
 

QFIT

Well-Known Member
#7
johndoe said:
I had trouble getting the speeds "right" - it was usually way too fast, or way too slow, and the speeds weren't consistent. This goes for play and drills.

Also, I remember on some of the drills the timeout would buzz before I could even find the right block to click. ( <1 second)
Did you try View Speeds?

There are many methods of entering responses in the drills, as well as speed controls. Maybe I can allow speed change during the drill. Although that would mess up scoring.
 

johndoe

Well-Known Member
#8
QFIT said:
Did you try View Speeds?

There are many methods of entering responses in the drills, as well as speed controls. Maybe I can allow speed change during the drill. Although that would mess up scoring.
I haven't, I don't think, just the regular sliders. To be honest it's been a while since I've done my drills (and practice), but I'll dig into it. Thanks.
 
#9
Serious in italics

A Real Money mode for rookies.

They send their bankroll to QFIT, and they have to win it back on the simulator. QFIT keeps the interest. This is actually a serious suggestion, to get rookies used to the idea of playing for a lot of money and to generate the confidence that they can win when money is at stake.

Alternatively: a Behavioral Modification module. It'll need some hardware that connects to the USB port, and every time you make a mistake, you get a painful electrical shock. Add-ons may eventually become available to correct other little problems as well.

An MP3 of realistic casino sounds that can be played at high volume.

Can we have a female dealer without a crew cut? She looks like a Hasid wife without her wig. Maybe a Chinese dealer with limited English, to make it more realistic. Or an error-prone dealer, with a button that you push to make a dealer correct an error not in your favor.

A multi-player, online mode, where teammates can practice card-steering, team betting cover, using different counts and techniques simultaneously, and analyze each other's performance.

Two-table mode, to practice backcounting two tables.
 

QFIT

Well-Known Member
#10
Automatic Monkey said:
They send their bankroll to QFIT, and they have to win it back on the simulator. QFIT keeps the interest. This is actually a serious suggestion, to get rookies used to the idea of playing for a lot of money and to generate the confidence that they can win when money is at stake.
Have to move out of the country for that.

Automatic Monkey said:
An MP3 of realistic casino sounds that can be played at high volume.
Considered that long-time ago. Didn't want to get arrested in a casino with a recorder.

Automatic Monkey said:
Or an error-prone dealer, with a button that you push to make a dealer correct an error not in your favor.
That's in the dealer error sections. Hit Foul to correct the error.
Automatic Monkey said:
A multi-player, online mode, where teammates can practice card-steering, team betting cover, using different counts and techniques simultaneously, and analyze each other's performance.
Problem with this is it slows the game enormously. I may revisit this.
Automatic Monkey said:
Two-table mode, to practice backcounting two tables.
That is in the Full Table Drills. It shows alternating tables. Perhaps with very large screens, I could show two at once. But screens seem to be getting smaller instead of larger these days. People are watching movies on 2" screens. Makes no sense to me.
 
#11
It is a great program, but I think the graphics could get punched up. Probably doesn't matter for serious counters, but could increase market a bit. The blackjack vt graphics were good.

Also multiplayer would be cool, not sure how to make it economically viable though. You could do a kind of warcraft marketing model where people pay per month, but again I think the graphics would have to be better. I know my friends and I would use it!

I would look into amazon cloud, where you can pay per mb or kb so you can ramp it up and down as it demands. That's what we're planning for my social network integrated website.

Maybe a simple iphone app? :)
 
#12
CV feature request: Card Pick Up Order

It's hard to imagine that there's anything that CV can't already do, but one feature I'd love to have is the ability to specify the card pick up order. Forgive me if this sounds familiar--I mentioned it once before in a private email.

Anyway, the current pickup procedure is to pick up non-busted, non-natural player hands from third base to first base on PER HAND basis. It would be very useful (to me) if the user could choose an option so that the cards would be picked up from third base to first base on a PER CARD basis.

For example, if third base's cards are A,2 and first base's are 3,4 (from players' left to right), they will currently end up in the discard tray as 2,A,4,3 (from bottom to top). The per card option would result in 4,3,2,A (from bottom to top). Busted hands and naturals would still be picked up as they occur, regardless of the pickup option selected, but cards remaining at the end would be picked up strictly from left to right, with no distinction between hands.

It would also be nice to be able to choose one of the following options for the pick up order for the dealer, though this is not nearly as important as the pick up procedure for the players' cards:

1) Left-to-right, before players' cards
2) Left-to-right, after players' cards
3) Right-to-left, before players' cards
4) Right-to-left, after players' cards
5) Random (would select one of the methods above)
6) Sloppy (not strictly left-to-right or right-to-left)
 

QFIT

Well-Known Member
#13
Iron Man said:
It is a great program, but I think the graphics could get punched up. Probably doesn't matter for serious counters, but could increase market a bit. The blackjack vt graphics were good.
I disagree strongly here. BlackjackVT, like online casinos, has cartoonish graphics. Yes, the nice glowing colors look cool. But, they are completely unrealistic. It simply is not what casino Blackjack looks like. I think it is very important that the discard trays, in particular, look and act like casino discard trays. Yes it might market better. But it wouldn't be "vérité."

Iron Man said:
Maybe a simple iphone app?
No way. Not until Apple drops their unethical activities against developers. Fortunately, Apple is now under investigation by the DOJ and FTC for anti-trust violations. Don't know why it took so long.
 

QFIT

Well-Known Member
#14
David Spence said:
It's hard to imagine that there's anything that CV can't already do, but one feature I'd love to have is the ability to specify the card pick up order. Forgive me if this sounds familiar--I mentioned it once before in a private email.

Anyway, the current pickup procedure is to pick up non-busted, non-natural player hands from third base to first base on PER HAND basis. It would be very useful (to me) if the user could choose an option so that the cards would be picked up from third base to first base on a PER CARD basis.

For example, if third base's cards are A,2 and first base's are 3,4 (from players' left to right), they will currently end up in the discard tray as 2,A,4,3 (from bottom to top). The per card option would result in 4,3,2,A (from bottom to top). Busted hands and naturals would still be picked up as they occur, regardless of the pickup option selected, but cards remaining at the end would be picked up strictly from left to right, with no distinction between hands.

It would also be nice to be able to choose one of the following options for the pick up order for the dealer, though this is not nearly as important as the pick up procedure for the players' cards:

1) Left-to-right, before players' cards
2) Left-to-right, after players' cards
3) Right-to-left, before players' cards
4) Right-to-left, after players' cards
5) Random (would select one of the methods above)
6) Sloppy (not strictly left-to-right or right-to-left)
I'll look at this.
 
#15
QFIT said:
I disagree strongly here. BlackjackVT, like online casinos, has cartoonish graphics. Yes, the nice glowing colors look cool. But, they are completely unrealistic. It simply is not what casino Blackjack looks like. I think it is very important that the discard trays, in particular, look and act like casino discard trays. Yes it might market better. But it wouldn't be "vérité."



No way. Not until Apple drops their unethical activities against developers. Fortunately, Apple is now under investigation by the DOJ and FTC for anti-trust violations. Don't know why it took so long.
Good point, I mean it is obviously the best software program for APs and if that is the only target market then it wouldn't be worth it. I don't mean the table itself however just the layouts, text, background and cassie.

If not iphone maybe blackberry? :)
 

QFIT

Well-Known Member
#16
Iron Man said:
I don't mean the table itself however just the layouts, text, background and cassie.
Not sure what you mean here. I am looking at the look and feel this release, but I don't know what you mean by layouts, text and background. Cassie was a rather expensive animation that will be dropped at some point as the technology is no longer supported. Microsoft talked developers like me into using MSAgent, and then pulled the rug out from under us.

Iron Man said:
If not iphone maybe blackberry? :)
I thought of Blackberry. But, the screen is awfully small for anything decent.
 
#17
I'm solely talking about the look and feel. The blackjack vt table sucked, and like you said it felt like bodog or something. But the way the program looked when you first logged in seemed more user friendly. It had a layout with clean looking buttons that said like money management, report card, etc. I just think that the layout could be more user friendly and with better graphics. I agree that the cards should stay the same for practice purposes. This also could just be a beginner thing as now I am much more familiar with how CV works.

This may be much more difficult, and like I said if it is only for serious AP it probably won't make a difference in your bottom line. Especially since your program is much more advanced than anything else.

Again a team thing would be great especially to practice against heat and working with someone but that sounds like a lot of work, programming wise.

The BB has the storm which is a bit smaller than the iphone touch screen.

Just thought I would put in my 2 cents, but I know how it feels when people tell you to change things on your software and they don't realize how much effort it would take ! ;)
 

QFIT

Well-Known Member
#18
Iron Man said:
I'm solely talking about the look and feel. The blackjack vt table sucked, and like you said it felt like bodog or something. But the way the program looked when you first logged in seemed more user friendly. It had a layout with clean looking buttons that said like money management, report card, etc. I just think that the layout could be more user friendly and with better graphics. I agree that the cards should stay the same for practice purposes. This also could just be a beginner thing as now I am much more familiar with how CV works.

This may be much more difficult, and like I said if it is only for serious AP it probably won't make a difference in your bottom line. Especially since your program is much more advanced than anything else.

Again a team thing would be great especially to practice against heat and working with someone but that sounds like a lot of work, programming wise.

The BB has the storm which is a bit smaller than the iphone touch screen.

Just thought I would put in my 2 cents, but I know how it feels when people tell you to change things on your software and they don't realize how much effort it would take ! ;)
OK, I think I know what you mean. More web-like. Screens are now very Windows-like, except for colors. Actually, I got some negative comments when I switched to the web colors instead of Windows grays and put in an option to change everything back to battleship gray. I'll give it some thought. I also have a screen "real-estate" problem as there are so many options everywhere. And a problem with the huge variation of screen sizes. More and more websites are giving up and assuming screen sizes of 1024 width.
 

fubster

Well-Known Member
#19
QFIT said:
I thought of Blackberry. But, the screen is awfully small for anything decent.
I'd really like this to work out somehow... maybe just drills for the BB? Like deck estimation, hand totals, index flashcards etc.
 

johndoe

Well-Known Member
#20
Ah, here's one - very minor, but would be nice:

When I practice I do so with all the speeds maxed, or just about maxed. I get impatient otherwise. The only time I miss the count is occasionally when the dealer has BJ - it's tough to see them all before they're scooped.

So a separate delay for this would be nice. But again, no real priority. Maybe I just need to further refine my skills. :)
 
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