How is the playtest going?
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 5:32 pm
So I am assuming that the playtest is ongoing but off the forum.... how is it going? Any general impressions? How does the combat system work?
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Oh yeah. While we learned a lot I think my GS setting was the biggest problem. Players didn't seem to like the senate and wanted a more traditional 4x. I couldn't keep anyone interested.Emiricol wrote:Hi, just realized I hadn't checked in when I got back online. I lost internet for quite a while, phone included. I've been back on for a couple weeks maybe. I assume my little empire got removed from play. It sucks, but there wasn't anything to do for it.
darbycmcd wrote:So then what? Is this project dead, or are you going to roll with no public playtest, or are you going to start a new one or ????? Of course I totally understand that you are under no obligation to tell us anything, but I don't really understand the lack of communication here. There was a playtest, it ended but no one said anything. Tyrel is MIA. No updates. Ok, this is not your day job, understood. But isn't it kind of fun to have the community of people here that want to play your game? Give us something. Or say it is dead. I mean there is virtually no activity on this board. Is this the way you want to treat your (potential) customers? It is just sort of strange to me that this is the way this company is rolling right now. A monthly update takes all of 15 minutes.
Yeah, that is one of my 2e projects. As I saw in GS if there isn't interest in the setting the audience just won't want to play it. I have been told most players want to build their own setting. And hey, that is great! It just presents a challenge when pairing random major and minor objectives with a ship construction and tech system. So far the most successful campaign was the 2 year long Wing Commander game with 8 players.PaulB wrote:Will any of the advancements made in FA translate to 2E? Like the border campaign, and so forth?
I haven't played Federation Commander in quite a while, but the fact that book never came out is still a huge disappointment for me as a player. I can only guess how you, the artist behind the book, feels about it.
I honestly don't think it hurt anything either. I sent that original manuscript back in early 2008. This is one of the projects Charlie and I were looking to salvage in some sense. We get in to the issue that there is a lot more interest in the SFU setting than any of ours and most of the FA rules depend heavily on an attached tactical system or setting.PaulB wrote: Hopefully my arguments with SCole on those forums didn't contribute to his apparent lack of interest in the project.
Well, the strength of VBAM is its flexibility. This allows people to adapt it to their current game, run a generic vanilla exploration and conquest game, or plug in one of the provided settings. The people involved in creating these settings, such as yourself, Tyrel or Charlie can probably gauge interest by how much any given book sells. Personally I haven't played the game much at all, but I still enjoyed picking up and reading the setting books and I'm sure for some other players this would be the case as well.mwaschak wrote: Yeah, that is one of my 2e projects. As I saw in GS if there isn't interest in the setting the audience just won't want to play it. I have been told most players want to build their own setting. And hey, that is great! It just presents a challenge when pairing random major and minor objectives with a ship construction and tech system. So far the most successful campaign was the 2 year long Wing Commander game with 8 players.
Well, to be blunt "there are so many good ones" is not a reason not to try.mwaschak wrote: Tyrel and I talked about our own tactical system where we would own the material, the sources, and not depend on other companies who could pull the rug out from under us. But there are so many good ones on the market today. I suppose if I went that route I would build something at a fleet scale since that would fit VBAM campaigns a bit better.
I'm patiently waiting.Also I think VBAM could benefit from a little bit of computerization. This would help facilitate online play much more. Like if there were simple tools for GMs and players to create and process turns and to track unit costs and so forth. Though it would of course depend upon someone with the computer skills to create it. And there's maybe not much point doing it until the rules are finalized.