Re: Moving to PBEM

From: "Bill Heron" <bill@novagames.u-net.com>

Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 17:52:23 +0000

MadCentral wrote in message
<20000906060704.29095.00000529@ng-ba1.aol.com>...
>>>Thats a pretty high price differential there - are you saying that the
sheer
>content within a turn sent via email would required a 20dollar fee just to
>pay for postage and printing costs?<<
>
>thats quite normal in ''big'' games like Olympia.  Odyssey used to be the
same.
> turns can be hundreds of pages, and the printing and mailing of big
bundles
>like that aint cheap, and thats before you take into account the manual
typing
>in of 600 long, complicated orders, per player.

Damn right. I think if these games are still running then there must be
_some_ demand from players :). Personally, as player I prefer printed turns.
It's a bit more satisfying getting a big envelope from the thump through the
letterbox (you get what you poay for after all), rather than a sodding great
attachment that takes a hour to download.

As a PT GM I run playtests in the email format, but it's a real bastard
trying to come up with a common format for orders. I'm using MS access and
the SendObject allows me to output the turns to RTF (yes I know! But it
works for most of my players!) and send them to a specific e-address. The
good thing about email playtests is that it doesn't cost you much except for
the phone costs - and you can simply upload the rules to your web page

As an aside, is there an average dropout for playtests? My experience so far
is that out of 20 playtests, you end up with half of them after 6 turns.

Bill Heron, Game Designer
Nova Games
Email: bill@[nospam]novagames.u-net.com (remove [nospam] to reply)
Web: http://www.novagames.u-net.com/

References

Re: Moving to PBEM
"Roy Pollard" <plod@ntlworld.com>
Sat, 02 Sep 2000 21:08:50 +0000
Re: Moving to PBEM
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Wed, 06 Sep 2000 10:07:04 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Moving to PBEM
"Roy Pollard" <plod@ntlworld.com>
Sat, 02 Sep 2000 21:08:50 +0000
Re: Moving to PBEM
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Wed, 06 Sep 2000 10:07:04 +0000