New Bobbins site

General
#1

Hello everyone

As part of our continuing development we’ve created the following Wikki pages. They’re intended as a method for players to update simply the encounters on-line so that as a community you can have simple access to them. We’ve copied across the Bobbins information to the site.

http://www.middleearthgames.com/encpmwiki/pmwiki-2.2.0-beta65/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Home

So ideally we’d need you to check it out, feedback as you feel appropriate. As before the content is PLAYER content not GM content, so any responses, comments are all those by a player (and so attributed). We’ve not corrected, updated or changed any of it.

As a bicky-bonus you’ll find a link to the KS encounters as well. Read the instructions for Site Use before asking “how does it work”… please… :wink:

We’re adding some functionality to the site as well, you should shortly be able to create a pdf of the pages for you own storage but if you’re aware of anything else that can be added (and how to do it ideally!) that would be great.

Clint

#2

So any feedback guys?

Clint

#3

I like it. Simply put, it’s not dissimilar to the mepbm list but I like the format and the other scenarios that are on it.

A valuable site I believe. Thanks for taking the time to put it together and update the information.

Jason

#4

So does it suite everyone? Ideally I’d like players to use it as the default encounter search, given that players already have their own sources of course.

Clint

#5

Doubtless this will seem ungrateful. I do appreciate that someone has put in a lot of work on this. Appreciative, or not, Harley has made its decision and will not undo the work done.

As a matter of policy I am opposed to giving players crib-sheets, particularly with some sort of GM blessing. And, yes, I opposed the MoS boys and Bobbins. They have played their role in the erosion of this game.

One of the alien concepts that was incorporated into this game’s creation was ‘ambigous environments’. It was one of the things that made this fantasy game ‘realistic’. We were never suppose to know all the rules or all the answers. Even pedestrian and regimented thinkers can operate in known and boudried universes. It is the unknown and unknowable that separates the men from the boys and the imaginative from the noncreative.

About six years ago I wrote this on the List:
“It is the nature of military command that decisions must be made quickly under fluid conditions with inadequate and, often, incorrect information. Some persons show a flair for this and some persons do not. GSI caters to the former while Harley caters to the later.”

#6

Good to have you back Ed. I wasn’t aware I’d been drafted.

As I recall Bobbins et al were around, and wasn’t there a publication, supported by GSI, that put out these details and dissemination? The only difference seems to be the collation of that data in one place. Note the information there is in no way sanctioned, supported or verified by us.

Players are going to create these crib sheets regardless of what we do - the only question is it going to be in the public domain or not. For new players to the game, and I suspect that players support us bringing new players into the game right?, such resources are invaluable for their quick education and appreciation of the game.

But before we get sides-tracked into “GSI (who sold up and didn’t want to do it anymore) was great, Harley’s (who do want to do it) crap” tired argument, anyone else feel that’s it a useful resource?

Clint

#7

17 or 18 years ago when MEPBM was brand new, I would have killed for a place to get the information. There were several players who got together back then and made an internet list: The Mouth of Sauron. One can still view all 40+ issues of it from this webpage.

The belief was that as long as the gaming was played on a level field, then it is good. You can see it in how the players all shared the info they garnered in The Mouth of Sauron.

For one, I shall readily use the new website as it easily places the information I will seek. Thank you Clint for doing the job!

Aaron

#8

Extremely useful resource. I simply agreed with Tilley that the GM’s shouldn’t have wasted a second of their time on it. I have all the info on my hard drive, any new player in their second game can assemble it in a few hours at a leisurely pace (broadband required…) if they so choose. The info is public. Once cracked, it’s all out. Fine, but the MEGames wasting their/our time on it is my real beef. Stop raving about Kin Strife, it’s 2 years late. We’re constantly assured that you’re all doing everything you can and then it turns out you release someone else’s phd thesis or something instead of the Kin Strife we’ve all been hearing about for years/months. Now you’ve collated and uploaded all the player compiled info onto a web site…instead of the other things. The players can find this easy enough, already the links here and middleearthgames.com, etc.

Sheesh, after you spoon feed them are you going to chew for them to?

But taking a step back from the facetiousness a bit, in all honesty Clint, it is easy to find this stuff and you do have better things to devote your time to. That’s my point.

Cheers,

Brad

#9

Dude, chill out :slight_smile:

I think it’s a great addition. For many that are very busy, yet enjoy the PBeM experience, the time to search the public domain for some of this data has just been made easier. nothing more, nothing less. I search the different sites now and again to check for new info and now to find everything at one location is a time saver for me and others.

I support 100% anyone that is passionate about something they enjoy doing and I don’t view it as a waste of their time. I took a leave for 5 years and I’ve been back for over a year now and I’m pleased at many of the changes I’ve seen. Still not happy about the drops, but overall, I like what I’m seeing.

Dan

#10

I’m very chilled, I just have a very simple opinion. Let’s put it to a vote:

Who would prefer:

  1. MEGames to finish all the old jobs they’ve been saying they’re doing for a long time, all well past previous deadlines

or

  1. MEGames putting in time to do something that’s…already been done… in numerous places, researched, compiled, posted, linked, explained, written about, etc.

I’d rather more emails advertising games setting up.

Polls to the players asking what kind (of a oft-discussed list…) of improvements they would prefer.

Dedication to finish the outstanding jobs (Kin Stife, something to do with coding, new xml’s, etc).

Updating of PRS, replacing of PRS, or removing of PRS.

Lots of other things would be better, in my opinion (opinion: feel free to have your own), than spoon feeding something that they don’t even endorse to players who would have absolutely no problem getting if they cared to bother to look for it at all. I don’t believe spoon feeding improves the game. You can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink. I’d rather the horses found their own, but there you go.

Brad

#11

Clint,
This is a great resource. Thanks!
For those of you that are whining, stop it. You sound like my 2 year old at dinner when presented with something healthy & delicious that she’s never had before.

The wiki is the correct implementation vehicle for this repository and is an upgrade over archived copies of MOS and Bobbins. Now people can update it and it becomes a living document.

Complaints voiced by those in the “know” wanting to retain an edge vs. newer players are sad and misplaced no matter how they’re couched in military jargon.

Great job Clint.
Dave

#12

Yes, you are correct in identifying the wiki as the best kind of repository for such. Which leads me to a couple of new questions, actually…sigh…should really just go to sleep instead…

  1. who manages/approves access to make changes?
  2. who will administer/approve/edit/confirm the changes?
  3. am I a whiner because I’m not a cheerleader? Nobody wants to address my simple points that a) this info is already easy enough to get anytime, b) doesn’t MEGames have better things to do? I’m not against giving out information, anyone been around for more than a month or two would know that. I’m against MEGames doing it, pretty simple.

Or, to simplify again: Coming from the man who thinks MEGames has better things to do with their time, will this take up even more time on their part? (see 1 and 2 above…). And, if no central “authority” will take responsibility for administering/manageing/confirming the information they’ve already written a disclaimer about, then it’s really going to be Buyer Beware, yes? Geez, now that I’m thinking even deeper, this might actually have been Ed’s idea in the first place…!

Cheers,

Brad

#13

Hiya Brad,

well, erm, whiner != cheerleader for sure.

I will only give you my personal perspective. I am not so good at keeping encounter records. I have tons of information on game mechanics all squirreled away in various word documents or worse in email threads that are hopeless to search through or turn pdfs… I check the archived Bobbins site weekly it seems. I’d be more than willing to update a wiki with what I learn from encounters.

I find it to be a pleasant unsolicited surprise and a service that ME Games has put the wiki up. Now, it is my hope that the user community will keep it updated. I personally haven’t investigated who is going to moderate it (if anyone). Can’t we all be adults and keep it in good shape ourselves? Are we worried that there will be malicious behavior on the part of the player community? I guess that is the argument for a moderator. I’d hope we can run it without one and then see if when/if it’s proven necessary.
If, in 6 months time, the wiki has provided a significantly upgraded improvement to Bobbins’, then I think you will accede that it was well worth the opportunity cost. That is the bet that Clint has made, and I personally believe it to be a worthy one.

So, get some sleep, get up, have coffee & a danish. Breath deep…

It’s a good thing Brad. really.

Dave

#14

Note, I didn’t have to spend much time on it. It’s a resource within the office, ie one of the staff, that didn’t have much work to do so I allocated them this after some discussions on the KS list. It doesn’t impact on the development of the PC conversion, that’s other resources and going ahead reasonably well. Note we’ve completed many of the projects that we’ve set-up, memories are short… :wink:

I probably spent around 4 hours on it myself.

As to administration, that’s under John’s control, it’s simple to join - request the password, then you guys can add content as you wish. It’s always been buyer beware for all the other sources of information. Just because it’s not of use to you personally, doesn’t make it a bad thing.

As for future use, I recall LT mentioning that the web was the way forward for such future things; one thought there is the ability to put articles, suitably ordered. Would that be a useful resource?

Complaints voiced by those in the “know” wanting to retain an edge vs. newer players are sad and misplaced no matter how they’re couched in military jargon.

Yes that’s my thoughts as well. I’ve seen it in many games, players like to keep their edge, I don’t mind discussing tactics etc and some players. Brad’s created documentation that’s helped players in the past so I’m a little confused.

If the complaint is mis-allocation of resources, I don’t agree for the reasons above. If the complaint is that we’ve not finished off some of our other projects, well we’ve got limited budget and we’ve done what we can and the end is in sight (again?!):cool::smiley: If it’s that we’re not doing what Brad wants, well sorry but I think it’s a valuable resource that could be useful and in response to players’ requests. We’ve had many players come back to us asking to add content to Bobbins for example, now you’re able to do that yourself.

Is it useful - clearly to some, not to others, for those that don’t want to use it, don’t use it. For those that do want to that’s fine. I’m presently looking for ways we can improve it though or added ideas/content.

Clint

#15

Brad’s not complaining about making information public. Brad simply feels, from a high level perspective, that it’s not your role to do so. The police don’t make the laws, they enforce them. The goalies don’t run down the field to score, they stay in their nets. Kin Strife has new encounters to put the mystery back into the game - and a section on the wiki to enable demystification as quickly as possible. Doesn’t make sense…

Brad

#16

The police don’t make the laws, they enforce them. The goalies don’t run down the field to score, they stay in their nets. Kin Strife has new encounters to put the mystery back into the game - and a section on the wiki to enable demystification as quickly as possible.

But we’re judge, jury and executioner. Given that i) we already do do it (we host Bobbins now for example) and 2) we do create the rules (ie we’re the law of the land) and the enforcers (the police) then that’s a given. Our job is to be the people who create the game, run the game, apply and create the rules of the game. We do that with feedback from the players, but we still cover all the angles here.

The encounters for say KS, and potentially we can look at other formats if the opportunity occurs, will have players will create their own lists. Some new players and players will want a ready form of that data available via a readily available source. If we don’t do it then others will do it (there must be around 10 such lists world-wide in the public and I suspect around 1/3rd the players have their own additional sources), and this enables it to be all in one, easily accessible and modifiable place.

The demistitification will occur, as more games get played then the encounters will be learnt. There’s nothing to stop that. But i) we can randomise the encounter responses but effectively that means that players won’t go for them, in the same way that should you come across a crevace in most games most characters won’t investigate them from a) fear of death of character, b) other more important jobs to do, or

ii) However, should we get the Encounter system set up so that it’s a matter of an hours work our end we’ll add new content, and allow players to create such encounters as well. That should be useful, mean that there won’t be too much CGI (cross game information) yet still interesting and dynamic for players to look into. I think that’s very exciting. Players will then collate that information, the only question is where.

For reference I’ve probably spent 2 hours debating this with you. That’s half the time I actually spent creating the thing in the first place… :wink: Seeing that you’ve created your own player guide etc, I suspect that you’re the go-getter sort of person who’s self motivated in such manners. Not all players are that way though. Both types can benefit from this.

Any thoughts on the article being uploaded/created in a similar manner?

Clint

#17

  1. So if the encounters are useless and redundant, as you imply, and people will only deal with them in game if they’re going to get something good, then just do away with them entirely.

  2. Choose how you spend your time. Are you trying to point the finger at me and say “Bad Brad, keeping me away from developing the game and my family!!”. Advice: you don’t have to take everything personally. You don’t have to always be right. You get to take responsibility for the choices you make.

Cheers,

Brad

#18

1) So if the encounters are useless and redundant, as you imply, and people will only deal with them in game if they’re going to get something good, then just do away with them entirely.

That’s not what I said. I don’t actually know if players like the encounters or not though, so it would be interesting to find out. I can see ways in which they can be improved (KS) though. They are important in that they add a certain level of randomness.

2) Choose how you spend your time. Are you trying to point the finger at me and say “Bad Brad, keeping me away from developing the game and my family!!”. Advice: you don’t have to take everything personally. You don’t have to always be right. You get to take responsibility for the choices you make.

It’s not about being right nor personally - I can agree to disagree - I just don’t think you’re making valid points in a consistent argument, it’s called a discussion. So for example, one of your points earlier was about wasting time, I tried to point out that it’s not wasting time, rather that we can develop several projects simultaneously. It’s about giving options to everyone. There’s no way to “win” these sort of discussions, but hopefully the issues can be raised and gone through to check that it’s sensible.

I’m somewhat curious, you’ve spent a lot of time collating and compiling information and creating a player guide and then giving it out to players, it’s very useful as well. Why do that? Simply put because it can be fun, it’s useful and peer review is interesting.

As you are aware I do listen, change opinions (eg OBN). I do how I spend my time on the game, part of that is answering these sort of questions. Sometimes I’m wrong. I’m just trying to make sure that the resource we’ve created is a useful one, and where it is not that I can improve it. Like GB format, like KS, like the mapping programs, like many other aspects of game development and support.

So are there ways we can improve this service? I quite like the concept of articles on specific topics, linked appropriately. So one on each of the character classes, one on the armies, one of PCs, artefacts etc. Any other thoughts?

Clint

#19

:confused:

I’ve made the same 2 points over and over quite consistently, thank you very much. They’ve been addressed, not necessarily to my satisfaction, but what can you do.

But the discussion has morphed somewhat, and I’m a little confused about how on one hand you seem to accept that players will eventually solve and share the new KS information (on the wiki…) but you’ve also wrote:

However, should we get the Encounter system set up so that it’s a matter of an hours work our end we’ll add new content, and allow players to create such encounters as well. That should be useful, mean that there won’t be too much CGI (cross game information) yet still interesting and dynamic for players to look into. I think that’s very exciting. Players will then collate that information, the only question is where.

Isn’t the answer: “The wiki pages you’ve already set up”…??

So some real questions are for clarity, I suppose: The old encounters, will they Stay? Will their affects change? Only new encounters will be added?

And yet again, I’m still confused over this:

we can randomise the encounter responses but effectively that means that players won’t go for them, in the same way that should you come across a crevace in most games most characters won’t investigate them from a) fear of death of character, b) other more important jobs to do…

People won’t go for randomized existing encounters, because, apparently, uncertainty is something to be feared - but they’ll go for new encounters, because uncertainty is something they find exciting…?

So we have some encounters on the wiki, others we don’t know where. And we have some encounters where uncertainty is scary, and others where uncertainty is exciting.

You’ll have to excuse me if my tone is overly grumpy. I truly find all this amusing. I eagerly look forward to new developments in game read: Kin Strife. This discussion, from LGT’s thoughts on the mepbmlist and some of the stuff you’ve written, seems to point to possible changes within the existing modules - which I would find exciting. So understand my perspective - a fan of the game. Also understand how I’m confused that repeating the same 2 points over and over is considered “inconsistent” in light of what I’ve noted above.

Brad

#20

[i]Isn’t the answer: “The wiki pages you’ve already set up”…??

So some real questions are for clarity, I suppose: The old encounters, will they Stay? Will their affects change? Only new encounters will be added?[/i]

Well yes, if it’s a source that players want. At present I’m not 100% convinced it’s right but it seems the best solution.

People won’t go for randomized existing encounters, because, apparently, uncertainty is something to be feared - but they’ll go for new encounters, because uncertainty is something they find exciting…?

Broadly speaking yes, that’s correct. Where players think they know the answer and it comes up with a different impact then that’s something that players generally are wary of. Where it is clearly new then there is no information to base the response on so it’s basically punt/research and hope.

New developments: Well I’ve not really considered what to do when the PC conversion is done, the encounter routine set up and working fully for old encounters. Rather than try to re-do them (well Radagast and some others are re-vamped for KS for example) it might just be better to add new ones and leave the old as they stand.

The old encounter code is awful, all hard-coded, needlessly repetitive etc, it was of its day and programming has moved on since then. Add to that the content is somewhat boring, as has been mentioned, and IMO it could do with an overhaul. I have to be wary of souping them up too much, but that’s a balance issue and KS is where we’ll test them to start with. Hence the delay so converting it so that you get the same responses takes more time, should the encounter routine be set-up, than creating new encounters. That’s for the future so I don’t know right now - it might be that enough players don’t want any change for, say 1650, so we’ll leave that discussion for future when we’re in a situation to offer it.

Clint