Question

I need to turn Excel data I have here for about 5,000 trading cards(name, play cost, power/rules, health, type) in order to use it for my game done in Flash and ActionScript 3.0.

Keep in mind that there are different types of cards(ability, quest, equipment(armor, weapon, item), ally, hero, etc…)

So, I was wondering whether I should dump it all in one XML file or have many different XML files?

EDIT:

I will be using the data for creating/managing the player’s card decks and displaying cards during the match.

The card database

Answer 1

If the trading cards are related and share the same properties (for example if the ability card and quest card both have ‘name’ and ‘health’ properties), then I would have them all in one XML file.

If the different types have different properties (e.g. weapon card has ‘strength’ and ‘defense’ properties, and hero card has ‘name’ and ‘health’ properties), then perhaps it’s better to have an XML file per card type.

If you’re going to deploy your project to the web, you want to be careful that the size of your XML file isn’t too big or your users will be having to wait for the XML to be loaded.