About 3-6 months ago, there was some talk of doing something like face to face for the U.S. but using Yahoo Groups.
If I recall, in face to face, a turn is run about every 2 hours, 3 or 4 turns Firday, 7-9 turns Saturday and 4 or 5 turns Sunday for a total of 15-18 turns for a weekend. Yes?
What ever happened to the idea of doing this kind of a rapid game, but with Yahoo groups? MEGames uploads the files to the team’s Yahoo group. You then have an hour to make plans and argue plans, and change plans, and get plans back into Yahoo group. MEGames downloads, runs the turn, and uploads the next set of files.
Any interest in trying this?
I know I’d be in for $100-$120 to get 15-20 turns run in one MEPBM dedicated weekend.
Thats very risky. I know I have seen time when yahoo lagged over an hour to post a message.
I think Clint had also said it was a huge workload for them to try and do a yahoo group “face to face.” (I could be remembering that wrong though.)
Well I don’t think that using a Yahoo! group would be a requirement. It would not be a great deal of trouble, for example, to replicate something like that on the server that runs these forums. At least there would be fewer unknowns to contend with.
it’s a neat idea in that it doesn’t require travel/hotel expense
but…
part of the draw of the face-to-face is to actually meet real people, other MEPBM’rs that you email all the time but haven’t connected with as human beings. Also, it seems that more strategy can be accomplished in-person than via email.
the other interesting question is what version of the game would be played? I can see that a lot less coord/communication would be necessary for a FA game than for 1650 where there’s so much knowledge of successful strategies and a more intense requirement to figure out what the enemy is doing so as to counter it while pressing forward on your own. So maybe this kind of yahoo-version could be done more successfully for FA?
In fact, it might be an interesting way to playtest the new FA proposed rule changes after they solidify.
Okay technically it could be done. We’d have a server and you guys would download the files from there. (Probably zip each team up and post for speed - or use multiple formats for back-up).
However, I find that to keep the pace and make sure everyone is able to get turns in you need a GM to keep things in check. I’ve done around 6 of these now and you probably need that. One option would be to have a team in the US and one elsewhere (could be 2 US teams of course).
Not saying it can’t be done - and it’s possibly very viable as well - what’s the sort of numbers interested in this format? It might be worth a try as well. Possibly a US internet team against a Danish farm-house team? (Just chucking out ideas here).
I would NOT want to try out a new format or game - recipe for disaster that one. 1650 12v12 would be fine to try, any other I’d be very wary of. I’d be tempted by 2950, but definitely not 1000 - we just don’t have the players for a 1000 game over the net like this I’m afraid.
Clint -the reason I suggested FA is that it seems that we need to playtest the new rules, and a one-weekend playtest is much more efficient. but if you think it’s a disaster waiting to happen, i bow to your judgement.
But all talk of where to hold a game in the U.S. fell apart quickly. It’s not like England where we can hop in a car and be there in a few hours. People in L.A. wanted it in L.A. People in Wisconsin wanted it there. I wanted it in Colorado because I didn’t want a $300-400 plane ticket or 20+ hour drive.
So, yeah, if a REAL U.S. face-to-face could be put together for say… Phoenix where I now live, or even Sothern California where I can drive to in 6 hours or so… I’m there.
If it’s in the Midwest, or East… Well, it ain’t gonna do me much good.
Short of a Southwest location, I think I’m stuck with something like a Yahoo Group rapid game.
Seems to me that to get the most people possible, you’d want to go with the most popular game… 1650.
The problem with a non-U.S. team would be time zones. Take Friday as an example. If we ran 6PM-midnight central time, that would be 7PM-1AM Eastern, 5-11 central, and out here in Pacific I’d be taking off work early to be home by 4PM to play until 10PM.
Now, add in team from Europe. Starting at 6PM central time on Friday would be midnight GMT. Are Europeans gonna’ want to play midnight until 6AM, take 8 hours off, then come back and play 16 hours from 2PM until 6AM again? Quitting Sunday at 6PM would be midnight in Europe.
Oz would be even worse. Our Sunday noon is their Monday morning.
“the reason I suggested FA is that it seems that we need to playtest the new rules, and a one-weekend playtest is much more efficient. but if you think it’s a disaster waiting to happen, i bow to your judgement.”
Yep think so it could go wrong. I prefer to break one egg at a time… When I’ve had a bit more feedback about the 1000 ideas I’ve got some feedback that I want to see how that takes. For now I’d want to keep the 1000 Set-up and FTF (Yahoo or otherwise) separate as they are different issues.
Point taken about the difference it times. Mostly for US game we’re talking about, Eastern, Central and Western times though. Hawaii etc well they’re not pertinent to this discussion IMO (no interest/player base). So I’d see a 8am EST start (+6 hours for Denmark = 2pm) and then end at 9pm EST (3am) wouldn’t work but 2 hours earlier end might work. Hard for some WST or the like players but doable.
Or just all North American players (plus some hardy others) would be possible.
Agree on Hawaii being out. (BTW, I used to live there. Really nice place to visit, but I was ready to leave after 4 years.)
And, a correction. The contigeous 48 U.S. states span 4 time zones, not 3. Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacifc (Then there is Arizona that is Pacific half the year and Mountain the other half… go figure).
If we set the time as 6PM to midnight Eastern, that would be 3-9 Pacific. That is why I suggest the ideal be set for Central. Eastern would be an hour later than ideal (7PM to 1AM) and Pacific 2 hours early (4PM-10PM).
1AM may be a little late for East coasters to stay up Friday and Saturday, but 6AM is equally early for the West Coasters to get up on Saturday and Sunday.
Anyway, probably a moot point since no one but me has expressed interest at this time.
I to would be interested, and could probably talk my brother into it as well providing the weekend is correct. But that still only makes four and I doubt we would have a game with just the four of us.
Max Skibinsky and I would be interested. I know that Chris Lanka is also in the Silicon Valley area. I don’t know if there are others. If so, please speak up! If we could get four people here in the bay area, we could all get together at my house for the weekend.
My issue would be scheduling. The more advance notice I can get, the better. I referee youth soccer on the weekends and would need to plan far ahead to get the time off from soccer and to negotiate with my better half the permissions to have an entire weekend with no parenting responsibility…
I would absolutely be interested. Of course, I can’t really do much in the way of travel unless it’s within a couple of hours of Central Texas (which doesn’t even get me out of Texas). But I’d love to take part in an online version of an FTF game.
I could probably to L.A. Maybe we can do this “left coast” vs. “right coast” with gatherings in a 2-3 groups West of the great divide and 2-3 groups east of. Would easy communication quite a bit.
Set up could be something like
Northmen-Easterlings-Eothraim in one group.
Woodmen, Dwarves, Sindar and Noldor another.
Arth, Cardolan, Dun the 3rd.
NG and SG the 4th
DS could be WK, Rhudaur, Dragon;
IK, FK, QA, Harad or Corsair;
BS, LR, DkLts, Dog, Cloud
There would still have to be communication between groups, but this would be much easier between 2 to 4 groups than 12 individuals.
(Just chucking out ideas here).