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sonar

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Cross posting from the CM:SF forum:

I posted this on an ASL forum; I think perhaps it is applicable here...

Back when I "grew up" with ASL, it strikes me that there was very little interaction between many (most) members of the community and the actual powers that were. If we wanted to know about "Squad Leader" (as we continued to call it), we read The General every two months, and might be treated to a two row mention in the coming attractions column. When the Annual came out, we were blown away by the concentration of ASL content. Sixty-four pages once every year! Unbelievable!

If we had a comment, we sent it in via snail mail, usually to never hear back. I was thrilled to have a letter printed in the second-ever Annual, though horrified that in attempting to correct someone's spelling, I had managed to get it wrong myself. In those days, correcting my slip would have cost another 30 cents or so, and taken two weeks to get to the editor. The chances of getting any feedback on my letter was nil; being an annual publication, with only one page for letters, there would be no chance for meaningful "discussion."

Obviously,then, times have changed dramatically.

Twenty minutes ago, Bill Connor was busting my balls right here in open forum. Growing up on a diet of The General, Bill Connor was some name in a magazine in a part of a foreign country I knew I would never visit. He was spoken reverentially of whenever his name appeared in print. A few years ago, I played several PBEM of Combat Mission with Charlie Kibler, whose artwork on the scenario cards was so dramatic (better than MacGowan, I think) before they took the life out of them and started using the actual photographs that inspired the art. It dawned on me he was a regular guy who liked games and social interaction like the rest of us. I've interacted here with Mark C. Nixon of Anvil of My Eye fame. Would never have dreamed it possible as a high-school kid asking mom's permission to buy Beyond Valor with her credit card because I didn't realize I needed it to go with my new ASLRB.

We get monthly, weekly, even daily updates on upcoming projects by MMP, and a host of TPP to discuss with, debate with (and about), and a hugely interactive community where you can talk to fellows from Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Japan, or anywhere in between with a few keystrokes.

And yet - it blows me away that some still have the chutzpah to complain that MMP doesn't provide regular updates often enough or that the Journal comes out too irregularly, or that they are in the dark about VOTG. In 1989, you wouldn't have even heard about VOTG unless they needed filler space in The General, much less gotten detailed pictures of the box top, counter samples, or mapsheet!

It only struck me today as I was folding laundry that when dad was telling me how when he wanted to play "guns", "cowboys & Indians", or "war" and had to use a hammer (instead of an elegantly crafted replica Thompson SMG by Mattel in high-impact styrene complete with spark-action Cutts compensator and ratatatatat sound effects with every pull of the trigger), I don't think he was wishing for me to have "suffered" without glitzy toys the way he did. I think he just wanted me to be able to appreciate more what it is I had, since I clearly didn't know what it was like to go without. He didn't suffer - he made his own fun and experienced something I didn't. I think he is richer for it. He certainly thinks so.

So too, I think, will it be with ASL as the years go on. Need an overlay? Download the .pdf and print it out 10 seconds later. Want to ask the scenario designer about some errata? Log on to a forum and engage him directly.

But to those of us who came up with it in the 80s, when interaction with "the community" meant sending a letter to Rex Martin and wondering if he would publish it, when getting inside scoop on a game meant reading a passing reference in The General - which you paid the princely sum of 4 dollars to buy sight unseen in hopes that there would be a snippet of ASL in it - I think we're richer somehow, too, for knowing what it used to be like.

In the bad old days, if you wanted your own variant article or scenario card, you did it by hand, or at best on a dot-matrix printer (or typewriter - I have one of those in my collection), then photocopied it - if you could find a photocopier. They were interesting times.

I never did get into the electronic bulletin board scene, and was a latecomer to the internet (hell, I was convinced the computer mouse was just a "fad" until I broke down and bought one). I don't wish to go back to the dark old days, but I am glad to have experienced them.

Some part of me, like dad and grand-dad, wishes that everyone could experience them. I wonder what this forum would be like if everyone did? I expect that much of the friction - such as it is - may simply be experiential in genesis - that those who came up used to being in the dark really don't have the same level of concern as some of the newcomers to the hobby. That is only a guess, I am sure much of it is personality driven also. But perhaps there is something there.

As "bad" as it was for board games, computer games were "worse". I knew of no "community" in the 1990s for those interested in historical wargames. When M1 Tank Platoon came out by Microprose, I was tickled pink. Oh, sure, you could read a review in Wargamer Magazine, but usually weeks after the game came out. There was no advance "buzz", no one to talk to unless your jackass friends saw the game in the store. Gaming was done solo (Knights of the Sky, Red Baron, Silent Service, M4, Under Fire, Close Combat), at least for me, and the only word I got of new games was when I saw them in the store.

I'm glad for what we have now - interaction with designers directly is good - but part of me would like for everyone to have experienced those "bad old days".

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I suppose it might be interesting to produce a graph of activity in the skunkworks forum charted against product releases. You'd probably see a surge everytime something went in and out of Beta. The problem is the target of the output is too hypothetical to pin down, whereas our slumbering giant lends itself well to traffic analysis.

It's also possible that they're using the restricted CMC forum to dicuss the volume of activity in the public CMC forum, so the more we post, the more they post, usw....

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I don't think the two games will really compete all that much. JMM's game looks like it will be a real wargame that allows you to simulate historical battles fairly accurately. Empire: Total War looks like it will be another iteration of the Total War formula that will allow you to simulate the game system of the Total War franchise. Empire will probably sell circles around Histwar, but we don't really want another influx of that kind of player.

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I beg to differ. One post in a week constitutes a twitch.

Whether that twitch is subliminal or not is another matter. It's a well-known fact among medieval hagiographers that hair and nails continue to grow post-demise.

And it's not vaporware. It just has a really long production schedule.

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