We are proud to announce the release of Virtual Combat Cards version 1.7.0. For user the most noticeable change is that you now longer have to start and end rounds explicitly. The entire logic has been streamlined. A new Next button will handle all the logic, including reminding the DM of delaying combatants. Besides this we include some minor fixes to the D&D Insider capture logic.

Version 1.7.0 is starting to become a reality, we still have some work ahead of us, but most of the big work is now behind us. This post is just a brief report on what is going on, since the last update. VCC is now approaching its third birthday, and is alive and moving forward. We hope to have a release up in some weeks, surely before the end of the year. As always people willing to test the release candidates are really welcome.

Fellow Dungeon Masters, we are happy to announce the latest release of Virtual Combat Cards version 1.6.0. This version is the first step in a large transformation we have been working on. On the surface the main new feature is the addition of drag and drop to the user interface.

New in this version:

• Drag and drop for changing health and applying effects (see #238: Drag and drop effect on Combatant);
• New Project News panel, which will check this site for news;
• Automatically check for updates.

We are proud to release a new version of Virtual Combat Cards (version 1.5.2). It includes three bug fixes and a new feature. The new feature is the ability to copy entries on your compendium. This includes monsters, traps and characters. The new version of the Firefox plugin should work with future releases of the browser. One thing detected on the last minute was a slight change on the D&DI format that rendered the capture logic unusable. This has been fixed on this version too.

Version 1.5.1 of Virtual Combat Cards has just been released, this is a patch version. We also released version 1.5.0 of the Firefox plugin. Thes two releases include some minor improvements (list of issue can be found on the release note), namely:

• You can now create and edit traps as a their own entity. This allows you to create and add your own traps to your encounter.
• Reloading monster and character will update the version already loaded.
• The Firefox plugin now works on Firefox 4.0
• Plugin now allows you to add a Icon for the Capture as a normal Firefox tool pallete icon, this means you can customized where it will appear.

We are very proud to announce that Virtual Combat Cards version 1.5.0 is out. This release includes several improvements including:

• Remind user of saving throws (including effect that change on failed saving throw)
• Remind saving throw versus death
• Remind user of effect that can be sustained
• Handle ongoing damage
• Handle regeneration effects
• Auto completion of conditions and effect

Version 1.4.3 of Virtual Combat Cards has just been releases. This release include a bug fix and an user interface improvements. The issues included in this release are:

• #210: Clearing monsters after rolling intiative will cause VCC to hang
• #211: Add option to start combat automatically after rolling initiative

I'll use this post to describe the state of development and plans for the next release. I'll be using a somewhat blog format.

Development has been very slow due to a series of personal and professional challenges in the last quarter of 2010. I also suffered a “writer's block” and some of the helping hands seem busy too. The result was that no really significant development happened.

However VCC has been a very nice pet project. Not being a professional developer, this project help me brush up on programming skills and development process. I has been very helpful for my day job too. So despite the slow output of the end of 2010... With the new year comes a renewed effort!

Version 1.4.2 includes a single fix to a rather annoying issue that could lead to skipping combatants on the second combat in a session. It seems that a lot of people update their version after seeing the Virtual Combat Cards news. This means a lot of the users missed the version 1.4.1 release. In future releases we will always post the story.

This version fixes the following issue:

• #197: After first combat delay does not work correctly if it's the first action of new combat

Version 1.4.1 fixed the following issues:

• #194: Fail import of monsters with power usage: "At-Will (1/round)"
• #195: Monster Template does not include Free Actions

We are proud to announce the latest Virtual Combat Cards upgrade, version 1.4.0. The focus of this release was the D&D Insider capture feature. This new version makes capturing much simpler: we can now capture monsters in old and new format, traps, and any creature that you have not yet captures will be automatically added to you repository.

This is a quick update from the development front. June 2010 has seen a hiatus on any development. This is mostly due to vacation and traveling of the lead developer (Nebulorum). With the return to normal, I hope that new feature development will resume. There are two main goals for the next release: remind DM of save end, ongoing and other effect that happen at end of turns; provide support for the new stat block format.