Many people do not know that you can play FEDERATION COMMANDER on-line in real time against live opponents. Eight years ago, www.SFBonline.com was created to provide players of STAR FLEET BATTLES with an on-line gaming experience. It was a smash hit as hundreds of gamers joined the battles. Tournaments and other competitions, plus general opening gaming, have gone on around the clock since then. This successful operation has now been expanded to include FEDERATION COMMANDER! Now you can play with real live human (not to mention Klingon, Romulan, Kzinti, Gorn, Tholian, Orion, and other) opponents all over the world in real time 24 hours a day! The computer automates many functions and acts as a friendly assistant for mundane chores. For the modest subscription fee of less than $4 a month, you have access to all of the ships in the FEDERATION COMMANDER game system as well as new ships still in playtest and development. The Java Runtime system is compatible with Windows and Macintosh systems. Never worry about a lack of opponents. Never worry about opponents who don't show up for games day because of silly reasons like family reunions or their own weddings. Don't be cut off from your regular gaming group while on vacations or business trips. Even better, you can join in on-line tournaments and campaigns, and your victories will add up to a higher and higher average score! The system also allows you to chat with friends, taunt your enemies, and watch other players fight their own savage battles. (Why learn from your own mistakes when you can learn from someone else's?) This "observer" system allows players of either game to learn the ins and outs of the other game before deciding to invest time and money in it. So come to www.SFBonline.com right away. You can even fly the Federation CA or Klingon D7 as a free trial, or watch any game in play. Legendary SFB aces and new FEDERATION COMMANDER aces strut their stuff in combat arenas all the time, and you can learn from the best.
Fun and Games
This is Steven Petrick Posting. While SVC and myself were away, Leanna and Mike tried to do some upgrades to our computers. The result is that SVC's computer, which was already having various problems, now has major problems. He cannot "copy and paste" without his word program literally shutting down, and if he reopens it, it crashes the computer. His E-Mail system is in a disastrous mess. There are other things I could say. So we are having a lot of fun just now. Sigh.
Competing Desires
This is Steven Petrick posting. Along our trip to Origins and back is Sweetwater Barbecue. SVC and I both consider the barbecue there to be very good. We always look forward to stopping there for lunch on the way to Origins. We always consider stopping there on our way back. The problem is that however much we like the barbecue there, we also just want to get home, and the drive to get home makes us move further than we used to. Originally, we would stop at Effingham, Illinois, on our way home. We usually got there about 2100 hrs, and would bed down. Come the morning we new we could not leave Effingham until after 0800 hrs, because if we left earlier we would hit St. Louis in the middle of the morning rush hour. Staying until 0800 meant we would hit St Louis at 1000 hrs, when most people would be at work and we could slip through. We would thus hit Sweetwater about lunch time and be able to stop. But we always wound up wasting time sitting around in Effingham either not able to sleep yet, or having woken up early because we were still on the Origins schedule and not able to leave yet or we would be caught in the rush hour traffic. We want to get home. So one year we decided to try pushing on to St Clair. This gets us through St. Louis about 2300 hrs, when most people have gone to bed because the next day is a normal work day. The result is that every year we tell ourselves we will sleep in at St. Clair so we can have Sweetwater Barbecue, but every year we wake up on "Origins time", and cannot sit around waiting because we want to get home. So, every year (but the last year) since we adopted the St. Clair pattern, we pass Sweetwater Barbecue about an hour before they open. We talk about waiting for it to open, but neither of us can stand the idea of losing another hour on the trip home. The desire to get home has always trumped the desire to have some of that really good Sweetwater Barbecue. The only reason we got to have it on the trip home last year was that we decided to stop at Fort Leonard Wood to visit the museum (WHICH WAS CLOSED FOR RENOVATION). We lost so much time going through security and finding the museums (why security could not tell us the museums were closed we have never figured out) that Sweetwater Barbecue was going to be open. It was worth it to back track the five or so miles from Leonard Wood to exit #163 to eat there (we think the Barbecue is that good). It is just not good enough to wait more than 15 minutes (we have discussed this, and it is the maximum amount of time either of us is willing to wait) for it to open.
In Praise of Our Volunteers
The adventure game (wargame+roleplaying game) industry is a small one, and there isn't the kind of money inside of it that other industries have. The industry consists of creative game designers willing to work 60 hours a week for half the pay they could command outside the game industry, all because they get to BE game designers. Even at that, the only way the game industry survives is by the hard labor of unpaid volunteers who (for honor, glory, and rarely some free games) provide no end of valuable services to game publishers. Mike West answers rules questions on FEDERATION COMMANDER. Mike Curtis does the same thing for Federation & Empire, Andy Palmer for Prime Directive d20, Gary Plana for GURPS Prime Directive, Richard Sherman for Star Fleet Battle Force, and Mike Filsinger for STAR FLEET BATTLES. Frank Brooks runs the Play-by-Email system as a volunteer. Paul Franz charges barely enough for the On-Line game system (for SFB and FC) to pay the server costs. Federation & Empire would not exist without Jeff Laikind in charge of the overall game system and the Ship Information Tables, or without Chuck Strong (a real-world colonel from Space Command) keeping the scenarios updated and coherent. Very little would get done on any of our games except for the Playtest Battle Labs run by Scott Moellmer in Colorado and by Mike Curtis and Tony Thomas in Tennessee. And all of the other playtesters are invaluable to us. We have other staffers who do specific things (and sometimes a wide variety of things) for us including Scott Tenhoff, and Chris Fant (the F&E staff); Jean Sexton (Director of Proofreading and Product Professionalization); John Berg (Galactic Conquest Campaign); and John Sickels, Matthew Francois, Jonathan Thompson, and Loren Knight (Prime Directive). Some vital part of the product line would grind to a halt without each one of them. Added to this list are hundreds of others who, during any given month, by Email or BBS or Forum, contribute in some way to the company and its product line. They may report a glitch in an existing product, playtest a product in development, suggest a new product, point out something another company is doing what we may want to take a look at emulating, look up a rules reference for another player, report on somebody who using our property improperly, comment on a posted draft of a new rule, or simply ask a question nobody else ever dared to ask.
Sunday Lessons
Jean Sexton writes: Ever gone to a con and wondered about how the booths are set up? Today I got a practical lesson in how to do that in reverse. Steve Cole was my instructor. The rules of Origins are that you may not break down the booth until after the last customer leaves. We didn't break down anything, but we also didn't feel compelled to add more copies of things we sold as long as there were copies already out there. At 4:01 p.m., the fun began. We had some boxes already packed by having consolidated our stock. We quickly packed all of our books and the unsold minis. The shirts were already in boxes and all we had to do was to add the lids. Then Steve Petrick came back with the bad news: no big carts were to be had. That meant he would have to make multiple trips with the hand cart. That change in procedure meant packing the vehicle would be much slower and also meant that he couldn't help Steve Cole pack things up. Boy, was I glad I stayed to help them! The tall magazine rack broke down into three parts, each with its own box. The clear magazine racks were actually six parts that had to be packed "just so" and then they would fit into three boxes. The boxed-up minis fit into the back of the mini display rack. That pretty "tablecloth" turned out to be sheets! While Steve Cole went looking for someone (we'd accidentally missed a bag of stands that were supposed to go home with that person), I folded those sheets and the ones we'd used to cover the stock each evening. (Yes, the person was found and the stands sent to the correct destination.) The big display stand behind the booth folded down into a very compact bundle and went into its zippered bag. The triangular shelves went into their flat box. Miscellaneous "stuff" went into a couple of boxes. The two tables folded down and each actually folded in half with a handle for easy carrying. Then Steve Cole gave me a hug and headed out to supervise the loading of the minivan. I folded up the two chairs that belonged to ADB, Inc. and watched our boxes while Steve Petrick made a next-to-last trip. When he came back, he loaded the final boxes on the hand cart, gave me a firm handshake, and headed off to load up and head out. I got my cooler (Steve Cole had already made sure that I felt safe about going off to my car by myself), my cat bag that holds the working copy of edits for Prime Directive d20 Modern, and my purse and set off on my lonely trip back home.
The Need for Fun
Steve Cole reports: I have been working long hours for two months to get ready for Origins. This (plus my weight, age, and health) has left me perpetually tired (exhausted, really), cranky, and weak. I cannot walk from the hotel to the booth without sitting down. Today, I "played" in a live-action RPG called Terrorwerx. This involved a squad of space Marines fighting their way past monsters to find the parts to fix the drop ship. I got to be the combat engineer who fixed the radio and called for extraction. I shot a few aliens, saved the colonel's life, and dragged the corporate lady out of the line of fire. I came back from the "game" feeling better than I have in years. Maybe it's the adrenaline or maybe it's some kind of endorphin. It's not just mental. I feel physically better. I do not feel tired. I do not feel sore. I walked, briskly, from the game back to the booth. This has been a revelation to me. I must make it a point to do something physically fun every day.
More from Origins
Jean Sexton writes: Friday was a day of learning. After a shift in our booth, I got to shadow our judges for the tournaments at Origins. There's a huge amount of paperwork that goes on to make sure the SFB players face a variety of different ships in order to show their skills. The Federation Commander tournament has different paperwork to check. If the judges do have to make a decision about who won a game (due to an SFB game exceeding the time limits, usually), the deliberation is measured and meticulous. Much thanks to Steve Petrick and his judges for letting me shadow them. And then I learned a whole bunch about how the miniatures come into being. All I can say is "Wow!" John Schneder went through the steps he took to make a new mini model and talked about the materials he used. Steve Cole talked about the manufacturing process. I know so much more now.
Got Any Marketing Ideas?
ADB, Inc., is always interested in great marketing ideas, ways and places to sell our products, as well as new products to sell. We are developing a line of non-game products (calendars, paperback books, ship books, plus Cafe Press). We have an Amazon store (not to make money so much as to put our products in front of other groups of potential customers), and the MySpace page exists for that reason as well. We tried a lot of things that didn't work (Google Pay per Click, full color ads in trade journals) and a lot of things that did work (banners on gamer websites, Star Fleet Alerts) and are always looking for new ideas. If you have any, send them to us at Marketing@StarFleetGames.com and we'll think them over.
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