VBAM Games Forums

I'm sorry to report that after a careful review of sales, the MAS-WWII expansions are being tabled for the forseeable future. We just aren't getting the sales to justify the time involved in creating the finished product.

That said, I refuse to leave MAS-WWII fans out in the cold, so next week (or possibly this weekend if I get the time) I'll be releasing the stats for the unreleased planes - this includes additional German planes, plus the Japanese, Americans, Dutch, Poles and Russians. I'll also try to create some blank plane sheets and counters for those who like to push pieces around on the board.

We take solace in that those who have gotten MAS-WWII (and MAS in general) really seem to enjoy the system. We just wish there were more of you out there!

The Unreleased Edition of PTO has been posted on the Yahoo group and has been submittted to BoardGameGeek under MTO. It will show up on the blog as soon as I rediscover how to do that.

Really sorry to hear that MAS-WW2 / PTO has fallen-through,

But thanks for posting links to your hard work,

Gareth_Perkins wrote:Really sorry to hear that MAS-WW2 / PTO has fallen-through,

But thanks for posting links to your hard work,

We are certainly not going to abandon the line. We will continue to support it with the option to revisit it in the future. Right now we just can't justify the very substantial amount of time it takes to create, develop, and test the material, and all that is before the graphics work begins.

Charlie and I talked about what it would take to make it more delivery friendly but every option we considered (laminated plane cards, box, cardboard pieces, etceteras...) would have increased the price five fold. That is really hard to do with these sale numbers.

Thank you everyone,
-Jay

Probably the most likely way for MAS to come back will be as a boxed set, with short manual and laminated plane cards. The "booster packs" of extra laminated cards would then be where we would have to make the money off of the game. For short production runs, however, the cost is very high -- but as Jay hinted, once our major 2009 projects are over we will likely revisit MAS and see if there is any additional interest in the game line.

I'm sorry it was canceled too, but maybe it'll come back in the not so distant future?

I am wondering how are things looking for this bbok at this time?


David P.

At this time, MAS-WWII:PTO is tabled, and that's not likely to change any time soon. Our efforts are currently being focused into VBAM 2E. At some point in the future, Jay and I want to revisit the MAS system and see if we can't make some substantial improvements that might widen its potential fanbase, as right now, the sales just don't justify the effort given our very limited time.

Thanks for your interest, though. Fortunately (IMO), we've put enough material out for both MAS and MAS-WWII that those you who have been enjoying the system can continue to do so for some time to come.

It is nice to some new planes MAS-WWII have been made available and I am wondering if you might have plans to release MAS-WWII PTO this year?


David Peters

There are no plans to release PTO this year per se.

That said, the plane lists for PTO are available for free on BoardGameGeek: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/3 ... ed-edition

The plane pack released this fall for MTO has seen limited success, and with some more time, I might be willing to explore that avenue for some sort of official release of the PTO material. There's also the small matter of the Russian air force.

The big question mark at this point is my time: creating those plane sheets is more time intensive than you might realize, and the given the uber-small niche MAS occupies, it truly is a labor of love. I've got higher priority projects that desperately need finishing and those have also been languishing due to the crushing load I've been under at my real job that generally leaves me lacking the mental energy at the end of day to do design work.

Work is in a high state of transition right now and the burdens I've been laboring under may soon go away (or at least evolve into something more manageable) so I won't make any final pronouncements about future MAS:WWII plans at this time.

The great lament of VBAM the last two years is that we've all seemed to have been burdened with extra workload at our day jobs which has left us feeling like we've been run over by a bus at the end of the day. I know that's been a huge problem for me with VBAM 2E, and Jay and Charlie have been hit similarly (well, as Charlie just got done saying! )

Here's to hoping that Charlie does find some time in the schedule to get some more MAS content out. At this point the most likely future for MAS is in the form of plane packs like the one released last year, though, as those releases are small enough to be manageable given time and scheduling compared to the larger supplements that take longer to write and create plane sheets for.

Tyrel Lohr wrote:The great lament of VBAM the last two years is that we've all seemed to have been burdened with extra workload at our day jobs which has left us feeling like we've been run over by a bus at the end of the day. I know that's been a huge problem for me with VBAM 2E, and Jay and Charlie have been hit similarly (well, as Charlie just got done saying! )

It really has been a couple of years of "work smarter" as we just don't have the time like we did a few years ago. But, I think we have a fairer idea of how to concentrate our efforts better. I know we have been pretty focused on 2e now that FA is kinda out of the spotlight and it is so close to finished.

-Jay