American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

ACWGC Forums

* ACWGC    * Dpt. of Records (DoR)    *Club Recruiting Office     ACWGC Memorial

* CSA HQ    * VMI   * Join CSA    

* Union HQ   * UMA   * Join Union    

CSA Armies:   ANV   AoT

Union Armies:   AotP    AotT

Link Express

Club Forums:     NWC    CCC     Home Pages:     NWC    CCC    ACWGC
It is currently Mon Mar 18, 2024 11:50 pm

All times are UTC - 5 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 35 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3
Author Message
PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:26 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 3:24 pm
Posts: 1145
Location: Bouches-de-l’Elbe
Well our board has only 550 members and these seem to be all that ever were on it, maybe someone of the cabinet can tell some numbers but really active are surely less than 100 and of these a lot are running not only this club but other clubs too.
And as we play almost exclusively the Tiller Civil War games it also limits the pool of people than join us.
I'm sure there is a bunch out there play boardgames via the VASSAL system, others play CW mods for modern games like the Total War series, again others may only play some grand strategy games like the CW series of AGEOD, the pool of people playing CW related stuff is surely large but only a small portion ends up here.

You should really go to other boards too, be it game related like http://www.wargamer.com/ or historic related like http://civilwartalk.com/ or maybe even professional boards for graphics and whatever else you need.

Regarding BaB, well I thought about buying it but some rather strange game mecanics kept me from it like the way FoW works for example. It's seem a good engine but it needs to be developed beyond the current status or it is just a nice attempt but nothing more. There is still a bunch of active BaB players but the problem is if nothing goes ahead from the design perspective the players get the usual feeling of gaming a dead game, the natural effect is that it's less and less played. There also seem to have been PBEM issues what is absolutely fatal for such a game, the last patch from July 2015 so fixes seem to be overdue what just proves that it was likely dropped by the designer/publisher, at that point it makes no sense to beat a dead horse neither for the owner nor for the rider.
So the failure of BaB shouldn't discourage you, it is just an example of what to avoid.

_________________
Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac
Image
"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."


Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 8:40 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 22, 2001 8:03 pm
Posts: 2410
Location: USA
Don't know about forum members but definitely remember counts exceeding 775 people on the active rosters about 14 years ago.

_________________
Gen Ned Simms
2/XVI Corps/AotT
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00


Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 6:36 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 3:24 pm
Posts: 1145
Location: Bouches-de-l’Elbe
A pity but that high tide of the club is surely long over.

_________________
Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac
Image
"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."


Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 4:51 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2014 7:21 am
Posts: 124
Location: metro Chicago, IL, USA
KWhitehead wrote:

I have also been watching the Brother Against Brother forums. The game introduced about a year ago is an excellent PBEM Civil War game addressing many areas that JT/HPS games don't. It's forums look like a graveyard.

The first to leave were the Devs. They have zero presence in their own forum.

Like their Conflict of Heroes (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=1040) before it, BAB appears to be abandonware. The Devs patched the game for 4-6 weeks after release, then walked away. I am still intrigued by BAB (so too COH), but will only return to play it if some things get fixed. (Let's please not re-open that discussion.) That doesn't seem likely, or -- given the total disengagement of the Devs -- the release of new titles in the BAB series either. A shame.

About your game: I am interested, but I have no time to contribute.

_________________
Civil War Battles Lead Programmer, https://wargameds.com
Panzer Battles & Panzer Campaigns Lead Programmer, https://wargameds.com
Campaign Series Lead Programmer, https://cslegion.com


Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 9:26 am 
Offline

Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:32 am
Posts: 1737
Location: USA
Quote:
About your game: I am interested, but I have no time to contribute.


And therein lies the problem. Going open source and letting anyone interested contribute by developing scenarios, graphics, discussion, testing, etc. only works if enough people are interested to spread the work load so only one or two people aren't carrying all the load. HPS through the ACWGC had that kind of support in spite of the limited ability to mod their games. Extensive graphic files are available. Back a long time ago even the Battleground series got significant contributions in scenarios that were truly labors to add. There was an entire series of battles developed for it covering the Valley Campaign which is still waiting on HPS to complete (hint).

My game isn't an easy game to master. It introduces a lot of tactical decisions that higher level games like HPS just factor into the resolution. Many people want a game like HPS which is relatively easy to learn and doesn't require a lot of thought if you don't want to. So by its nature the game I developed would only appeal to the grognard subset of the gaming community further limiting its potential player base.

And, as you pointed out BaB came out with some still loose ends that have not been tied up. They had resources. I don't so I will probably have plenty of loose ends. If people wait for a finished polished product it will never be. Open source projects don't start out polished. If there was a know potential customer base for the game then I could crowd sources it and actually hire people to give it polish. But I am pretty certain there isn't such a base.

_________________
General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)


Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 35 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 95 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group