Open question for Toby...

[lawquoter]

Galak seemed to sum up everything I was going to say. The vision is not a bad vision at all, for some people. Blood Bowl is a game, a subset, within a hobby, at least for me. I'm not much of an artist, but the artist in me is given a chance to do something with the odd bits of metal I get when I plunk down my cash for a new team. There's a process involved to this game than just playing it, and I don't care how spectacular the graphics of the online version would be, it would be just like every other game. Blood bowl, for me, is not like every other game, and that's why I love it. The vision may include 100s of thousands of copies, t-shirts, movies with Arnold Schwartzenegger as Griff Oberwald, and it may make a bunch of people at GW very rich. But then it will cease to be a hobby, with it's own pace, flavor, and niche, and instead, fall into line with every other over-hyped and commercialized game in a morass of like-minded, like produced drones. Does it make sense? I submit for the corporate financier, corporate executive, a resounding Ye$. For your average hobby enthusiast, just keep producing solid miniatures, give him his paints, and a friend to drink a beer with on a Friday night after a week at crappy work, and well, that's all he needs. He doesn't give a damn about whether his favorite game that allows him to escape from life for a while and improve his hobby talents makes some suit a king's ransom.

[GalakStarscraper]

[Wow. Galak, finally.

Actually ... finally you listened to what I've been saying all along. I've NEVER opposed a great online game. That's been your viewpoint of my views ... not my own.

Ok if we had this LRB Online Blood Bowl.

Imagine.

Now, think of more gimmicks, more things that you would want to be in the game, because they now seem to be possible or necesarry... remember a league with > 1000 coaches....

And I can picture that easy. I think this time its you that hasn't kept up to date. The FUMBBL league using Ski's program has about 1000 coaches already. So by gimmicks, I picture what FUMBBL offers. Detailed stats on every player, team, and race can be accessed easily from the server that the FUMBBL league resides on. But its 2.0 rules still ... no player trading, no purchasable stars, no screwing with the LRB rosters to make new Big Guys or new positions.

Toby if you were willing to agree that the FUMBBL league format with a high end 3-D graphics LRB Blood Bowl program is what GW should create ... I'll be first in line to support this. Go back through all my posts. I've ALWAYS said this.

And lawquoter ... even if BB did go properly online ... it will never change the Beer and Pretzels crowd. As long as going online is not allowed to change the game. An electronic version doesn't change a thing. I buy just as minis now as I ever did even with PBeM ... because I want to make sure my hobby survives and thrives.

Galak

[Grumbledook]

Toby the bottom line is games workshop have to do it. No one else is allowed to make this game and publish and start selling it on the scale you want.

The only way this will happen is if games workshop want to do it, so go and campaign at them.

may i just direct you to the fumbbl stat page

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=stats

As you can see at the time of writing there are over 19000 matches since the beginning of the year (stats start on 3rd jan)

there were 6531 matches last month and 738 coaches were involved in playing them (got the coaches stat from christer not the page)

Now considering this has all been set up for free and non profit and running just over 4 months, I would say that is popular. At the moment the server is constantly overloaded and a new one is order. This means there is also some downtime when the server can't cope and we still get coaches coming moaning about it cause they want to play.

There are loads of stats there and christer can easily put some more code in to grab some more off the database should you want them.

Javabowl works almost identical to the LRB with a few things that still need implementing, it is still in beta after all. Basically put 3d graphics on it and you are practically at what you said anyway no?

Some of the coaches organise their own tournaments and provide prizes themselves.

We already have here a league with 1000+ coaches 1764 registered atm in fact.

I imagine you are thinking along the lines as battlechess or something as to how it would work in 3d, what with it being turn based and such. Though the bottom line is without games workshop willing to make it, the game you invision on sale in shops will not happen, but apart from the graphics javabowl is pretty much doing it already and ronald and galak have made an email version for those without the time to play a full match.

Maybe you should check it out huh.

[Talafar]

Galak seems to have got it pretty much right. Online, great graphics BB, would be good, but only if it was the same game. If we followed your lead and changed the game, we would lose the "essence" of BB. Its because of that, at least partially, that people like lawquoter are so strongly opposed to your online game.
BTW toby, do you play any of GW's other games? Its just that I recall a letter in the citadel journal a while back, using very similar arguements (starcraft) about why 40k should be changed. Just wondering...

[GalakStarscraper]

We already have here a league with 1000+ coaches 1764 registered atm in fact.

I imagine you are thinking along the lines as battlechess or something as to how it would work in 3d, what with it being turn based and such. Though the bottom line is without games workshop willing to make it, the game you invision on sale in shops will not happen, but apart from the graphics javabowl is pretty much doing it already and ronald and galak have made an email version for those without the time to play a full match.

Ah Grumble .. thank you very much for the stats. I knew FUMBBL was close to that 1000 coach mark just really underestimated it.

Toby ... this is what I was trying to tell you. You've been so opposed to JavaBowl that you didn't pay attention to what it became. The FUMBBL league is already what you want from an Online community. The JavaBowl tool is already what you want from an Online game IF (please see I said IF) it got a serious graphics and sound upgrade.

And as Grumble said the PBeM program is there for everyone who doesn't have the time to play.

I think the community over the last year has gone to where you thought it should go. Graphics are all that stand between the FUMBBL league and what I think you are saying you want. Which I what I've been trying to say last night and today. No one was really ever opposed to an online game Toby ... its was all the changes you were demanding had to be in the online game or it would not work. Doesn't 1,764 coaches in the FUMBBL league prove that the LRB rules by themselves can work as an online community WITHOUT player trading and special star player rules.

Again thanks for the stats Grumble ... couldn't get into FUMBBL to pull them myself.

Galak

[Grumbledook]

Christer just given me some more info, in the last 48 hours there have been 300 differenct coaches involved in a match.

I for one can't wait for the new server to arrive, should make things a lot smoother and work can begin on implementing more functions rather than sorting out problems arrising from the current server.

[Toby]

OK Galak, mabybe we should reset our differences and start all over again.

I hope that we can all agree that a Full Retail 3D Online Computer Game would be great for Blood Bowl.

Now, the Rules. Starting point of the Ruleset is LRB 2.0. There should be a "Directive". First, and foremost, Blood Bowl must be exactly the same game in terms of "Playing a Match" electronically or tabletop.

Now, there are some Features that could/should/must be in an Online Game.

Example 1. "Observer Mode".
More than 2 Coachse can join a Match. While 2 play against each other, the "Observers" just sit there and watch, but can click at all Players and get comments about the propabilites of actions and stuff. The Spectators can chat without the Coaches hearing them.

Example 2. "Replays"
You can "save" a match of you just played. You can then upload the "replay" and watch it with other coaches and discuss the game online. You can "forward" and "rewind" the replay as if it was a videotape.

[Grumbledook]

Both those features are allready available for javabowl, you can connect as spectators to matches in progress, i had 2 watch my match this morning in fact.

Also as for replays christer has made a java replay program, you load in the message.log file that is produced after a match and you can watch it again.

[Toby]

Those features were missing when I first started this discussion one year ago.

And guess what game was the first to feature Replays and Observers ?

StarCraft.

Do you now get my point of "being inspired by already succesful existing online games" ?

[Grumbledook]

um i had a pool game on the c64 that did replays, hell even worms had replays

been years since i played starcraft

I think the misunderstanding months ago was that you gave the impession of making it a computer game rather than a computer simulation of the board game.

I think part of the charm of the way things are at the moment is thats its free and its spread by word of mouth. A fair few of the fumbbl coaches have been introduced to the game by existing coaches as well as the current board game players finding it online by themselves.

The fact thats its free also helps, its not really the type of game to sell big money cause its turn based and I don't think it will generate the kind of sales and money that games workshop would be after. I am not saying that turn based games won't sell but if you compare it civ or madden, its a different sort of game, madden works cause its imitating a sport not a set of board game rules and civ is a really in depth game far more so than blood bowl is.

I would say that javabowl is pretty much there already anyway, if you ignore the graphics side of things but personally I think that 3d graphics and models would take away some of the charm thats there and won't really add much. Take civ as an example of this.

[christer]

I'd say there are two ways to go if you (ie, GW/Fanatic) were to create an online version of Blood Bowl:

Galak's way: Strategy with full LRB rules and dice rolls and everything.
Toby's way: RTS variant more in line with Blizzards *-craft series.

Now, looking back, both of these paths have been taken before. Final Liberation being one example of the former and Dark Omen being an example of the latter.

What it comes down to is a business decision. Personally, I would prefer the LRB variant and I'm sure alot of the people on this board would agree with me on this.

However, I totally see that the RTS variant would be more popular. Alot of people are not really interested in reading 50 pages of rules in order to play a computer game. They just want to quickly get into the action.

So, if GW/Fanatic were to create an online version of the game, I suspect it will be something that relates to Blood Bowl like Dark Omen relates to WFB.

However, one could hope that they would follow the lead of various other online games and include a possibility for the community to create their own modules, for example a strategy variant using the full LRB rules. Prime examples include Neverwinter Nights and Half-Life (ie. counterstrike).

-- Christer

[GalakStarscraper]

Those features were missing when I first started this discussion one year ago.

And guess what game was the first to feature Replays and Observers ?

StarCraft.

Do you now get my point of "being inspired by already succesful existing online games" ?

Uh ... actually I have several games pre StarCraft that included Obervers and Replays.

Okay, I don't want to turn this into any bashing against StarCraft, but Toby I think you would be greatly overestimating the influence of StarCraft on the gaming community if you believe that Observers and Replays were introduced by that game. However, I really don't want to get into a debate about the "value of StarCraft in the history of gaming".

Suffice to say this:
Today you learned that JavaBowl became pretty much everything you were hoping for from an online game just minus the graphics. You learned that a league of almost 2000 coaches already is playing in the FUMBBL online league. And we all agreed that the JavaBowl tool with 3-D graphics and sound would be what you have in mind for GW to make (which agrees with what I and Andy Hall think also).

Hooray ... we all agree! ..... See Toby, like I said I never disagree with the online game. I didn't like all the new rules you insisted had to be part of it.

Galak

[Grumbledook]

*Grumbledook gets the balloons, cake, jelly and ice cream out!

[Toby]

Turn Based will work because its a game for 2 Players only. Civilization for example with 4+ Players makes you wait to long. Also, there are some things you need to do during your opponents turn, like pass plock and intercept.

And if the 3D graphics and animations are really great, they will add to the charm. If the graphics suck, they will destroy it. Thats a tricky part i admitt.

I think Blood Bowl has incredible potential because the the concept of developing playing pieces is so fascinating and gives so much long term motivation. It has tactics(playing a match) and strategy (team development) there is luck but its part of the skill to minimize the luck factor. So I think Blood Bowl is suited to powergaming.


I want to say something about the Player Trades. This is in my oppinion something that only gets possibel by online play. Because if you play tabletop in a gaming club, most of the time everybody picks a different race;

[Toby]

I'd say there are two ways to go if you (ie, GW/Fanatic) were to create an online version of Blood Bowl:

Galak's way: Strategy with full LRB rules and dice rolls and everything.
Toby's way: RTS variant more in line with Blizzards *-craft series.

Now, looking back, both of these paths have been taken before. Final Liberation being one example of the former and Dark Omen being an example of the latter.

What it comes down to is a business decision. Personally, I would prefer the LRB variant and I'm sure alot of the people on this board would agree with me on this.

However, I totally see that the RTS variant would be more popular. Alot of people are not really interested in reading 50 pages of rules in order to play a computer game. They just want to quickly get into the action.

So, if GW/Fanatic were to create an online version of the game, I suspect it will be something that relates to Blood Bowl like Dark Omen relates to WFB.

However, one could hope that they would follow the lead of various other online games and include a possibility for the community to create their own modules, for example a strategy variant using the full LRB rules. Prime examples include Neverwinter Nights and Half-Life (ie. counterstrike).

-- Christer

Christer let me point out that I do not think RTS BB would work. It should be Turn Based.

I a thinking of other things like the "collecting Items in Diablo2". Something similar could be "trade ST6 Human Blitzer vs Thrower with Strong Arm"