BattleTech PBeM Development Group From: bc@fccn01.fccn.pt (Luis Miguel Sequeira) Date: Mon, 07 Dec 1992 09:47:06 +0000 ******************************************************************* B A T T L E T E C H P B e M D E V E L O P M E N T G R O U P ******************************************************************* To all of you who haven't heard of me, my apologies. Have been busy playing PBeMs :-) Just wanted to get some new stuff posted, to "reawake" old contributors and "shake" the regular ones with new ideas... ;-) LEGAL STUFF - YET AGAIN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have here a letter addressed to FASA to ask their permission to develop a BattleTech PBeM. I've enclosed with the letter a copy of the GNU General Public License, under which the game will be run. After some talk with FASA's representative in Portugal, he said that FASA *will* give us the permission, but may demand to "control" what's being done just to ensure that the BattleTech spirit is kept (and *may* act as censors on this). I'll drop the letter on the nearest mailbox when I finish posting this... :-) THE PBeM SERVER ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Uh, on the last post I mentioned that <mechwars@wkux02.fccn.pt> has an ftp server with most of the discussed stuff. Seems that many of you can't contact the server, though. Can you at least send mail to there, and see if it works? I'd like a few comments on this... I may have to get a working `ftp mail server'... (I've changed the ftp daemon.) If that site is useless, I'd like to know, because I'd have to ask someone around there for a new site! This one is the only one I have to offer (for now). In a few months I *may* have another site to try (and one which has exceptional connections to the Internet!), but on that one, email is actually *watched* by the net managers, and they really have the nerve to bother you personally if you're sending a lot of mail :-( (I have a few friends in that nasty situation). ORGANIZATION...! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are a few of you (thanks, guys!) who are now more than regular contributors. They are, in fact, creating the game. Some of you have already heard about the follwoing suggestion: As the game has a lot of things to do, at several, different levels, it would be nice if we could get small "discussion groups" on particular subjects. They would send their ideas to the group moderators, discuss between themselves, and then inform the "rest of the world" (ie., the other working groups) of their suggestions. Ok, I admit, I'm lazy - I could act as a global moderator. However, as I have often admitted (and I'll do it again!) I *don't* know EVERYTHING about BattleTech. So, I always feel embarassed when someone asks me what I think about having just 20 types of mech weapons instead of the usual 45? (I wouldn't know how many exist, anyway). I really have just fought a few battles and done a mini-campaign of BattleTech, and despite the bunch of 'mechs painted (& gathering LOTS of dust) and displayed on a bookshelf, a Marauder blueprint on the wall, one RoboTech box (still to be opened), the BattleTech Compendium on my night table, and the codes for the MechWarrior PC game on the computer, you wouldn't ever believe that I ever played BattleTech :-) I REALLY don't know the rules! Just a couple of them, and I still remember the difference between running and walking (it generates an extra point of heat, right? :-), but NO details. This is, of course, just laziness. And lack of play. I played the first battles on a local club when BattleTech was *the* new thing, and no one knew the rules (uh, 3 years ago, I reckon). Now I can't tell a 3025 Shadow Hawk from a 2750 one apart... even if it dropped on my head. Ok, fun besides: this are my proposed groups, and their moderators (on no particular order): o Field battles: mech stats & battlefield orders - Adrian "The Cenobite", agiblett@cch.coventry.ac.uk o Interstellar travel, jumpships & dropships, orders, etc. - Hunter Chen, hunterch@chaph.usc.edu o Character stats, contracts & negotiation, political game - Jonny the Z, zamick@yoko.rutgers.edu o Planet stats, planet economy - Paul Paukstelis, rdna@matt.ksu.ksu.edu o Automatic battlefield generation, maps et. al. - Toni Kotinurmi, gvbraun@lesti.hut.fi and... of course... :-) o Automatic game processing, order parsing, database managing - Luis Sequeira, bc@fccn01.fccn.pt (I *had* to do something, don't you think? :-) ) If anyone DOESN'T want to act as discussion moderator please let me know! This is just a suggestion, based somewhat on the types of suggestions I received of the above people - and, BTW, those are the few who have sent more than two suggestions on the same subject! To all others, please let me know what you want to help with!! Many have expressed a desire to "help with programming", or "help with the rules". Now you have a chance to do so. You may find that we still lack a few subjects to cover. Others have few suggestions to start with. Hope you don't feel "excluded" in any way; still, some of the above mentioned people may lack the time (or the patience) to moderate a discussion... From now on, if someone sends some suggestion to be, I'll forward them to the group moderator which is discussing that subject. Of course, I may, now and then, add my own silly remarks... :-) THE NAME OF THE GAME ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yep, I'm still missing naming suggestions! Remember, FASA may have a saying on this, so a long list of suggestions are really welcome. Presently we'll live with the "codename" `MechWars', but I really expect that someone comes out with a better suggestion... Well, bye and thanks for everything, - Luis Sequeira PS. If you want, I can give you all the names who have, until now, contributed in some way (even if to say: "I hate BattleTech. Please concentrate on other game instead") to the game. Please email me for more details. Yet Another Silly Signature (YASS!): _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ -= MechWars =- _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ The Ultimate BattleTech PBeM _/ _/ mechwars@wkux02.fccn.pt _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/_/ Up