Here is the situation to the best of my knowledge....
In the past, we've been getting full spoiler data from Wizards for all of
their games. For Magic, this happened to be the same data that Wizards was
posting on their website. We wrote a conversion program to take the data
format provided by Wizards and generate the corresponding CV data files.
This converter has been used for a few years now.
A number of months ago, the data published on the Wizards website became
fractured into three different sets of spoiler data, each with different
pieces of the overall data we need to include in Card Vault. So we need to
get the complete spoiler data from Wizards in the original format. Lacking
that, it will literally take more than two full days to piece together the
information by hand from the fragmented and differently formatted data now
available on the Wizards site. As a tiny company with a very full plate,
that's a hefty amount of work that will put us behind on other tasks. So
our hope has been that we'd be able to get the spoiler data from Wizards,
just like before.
This entire process worked until the Saviors of Kamigawa release. With this
new release, we have encountered complete radio silence from Wizards. We've
tried contacting everyone up the chain of command, but no one has
responded. We are fully covered under a blanket NDA with Wizards, and we
have made no mistakes with releasing information prematurely that Wizards
could take umbrage with. We continue to receive the appropriate spoiler
data from other Wizards teams, but not for Magic. Needless to say, we're
just as frustrated as some of you are and we're trying to figure out how to
get through to people.
One possible explanation to all of this is a rumor we learned about in the
past few days. It seems there is a significant personnel change occurring
at the upper levels within Wizards that directly impacts Magic. If this
rumor is true, then the impact could definitely have rippled down and
affected our access to the spoiler data. Once the dust settles, we ought to
be able to resume normal operations with regards to the Magic spoiler data.
The problem is this limbo period inbetween, and we're all caught up in it.
I realize this doesn't get you the data files any faster. However, that's
the situation in which we now find ourselves. If nothing else, this
explanation will at least shed some light on what's going on. If anyone has
any direct contacts within the Magic team and can help spark a response
from Wizards for us, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Rob
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Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (408) 927-9880
Lone Wolf Development
www.wolflair.com