American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)
http://www.wargame.ch/board/acwgc/

Open Source User Developed Game
http://www.wargame.ch/board/acwgc/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20481
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Author:  Christian Hecht [ Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Open Source User Developed Game

Well our board has only 550 members and these seem to be all that ever were on it, maybe someone of the cabinet can tell some numbers but really active are surely less than 100 and of these a lot are running not only this club but other clubs too.
And as we play almost exclusively the Tiller Civil War games it also limits the pool of people than join us.
I'm sure there is a bunch out there play boardgames via the VASSAL system, others play CW mods for modern games like the Total War series, again others may only play some grand strategy games like the CW series of AGEOD, the pool of people playing CW related stuff is surely large but only a small portion ends up here.

You should really go to other boards too, be it game related like http://www.wargamer.com/ or historic related like http://civilwartalk.com/ or maybe even professional boards for graphics and whatever else you need.

Regarding BaB, well I thought about buying it but some rather strange game mecanics kept me from it like the way FoW works for example. It's seem a good engine but it needs to be developed beyond the current status or it is just a nice attempt but nothing more. There is still a bunch of active BaB players but the problem is if nothing goes ahead from the design perspective the players get the usual feeling of gaming a dead game, the natural effect is that it's less and less played. There also seem to have been PBEM issues what is absolutely fatal for such a game, the last patch from July 2015 so fixes seem to be overdue what just proves that it was likely dropped by the designer/publisher, at that point it makes no sense to beat a dead horse neither for the owner nor for the rider.
So the failure of BaB shouldn't discourage you, it is just an example of what to avoid.

Author:  nsimms [ Thu Sep 22, 2016 8:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Open Source User Developed Game

Don't know about forum members but definitely remember counts exceeding 775 people on the active rosters about 14 years ago.

Author:  Christian Hecht [ Thu Sep 22, 2016 6:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Open Source User Developed Game

A pity but that high tide of the club is surely long over.

Author:  Berto [ Fri Sep 23, 2016 4:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Open Source User Developed Game

KWhitehead wrote:

I have also been watching the Brother Against Brother forums. The game introduced about a year ago is an excellent PBEM Civil War game addressing many areas that JT/HPS games don't. It's forums look like a graveyard.

The first to leave were the Devs. They have zero presence in their own forum.

Like their Conflict of Heroes (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=1040) before it, BAB appears to be abandonware. The Devs patched the game for 4-6 weeks after release, then walked away. I am still intrigued by BAB (so too COH), but will only return to play it if some things get fixed. (Let's please not re-open that discussion.) That doesn't seem likely, or -- given the total disengagement of the Devs -- the release of new titles in the BAB series either. A shame.

About your game: I am interested, but I have no time to contribute.

Author:  KWhitehead [ Sat Sep 24, 2016 9:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Open Source User Developed Game

Quote:
About your game: I am interested, but I have no time to contribute.


And therein lies the problem. Going open source and letting anyone interested contribute by developing scenarios, graphics, discussion, testing, etc. only works if enough people are interested to spread the work load so only one or two people aren't carrying all the load. HPS through the ACWGC had that kind of support in spite of the limited ability to mod their games. Extensive graphic files are available. Back a long time ago even the Battleground series got significant contributions in scenarios that were truly labors to add. There was an entire series of battles developed for it covering the Valley Campaign which is still waiting on HPS to complete (hint).

My game isn't an easy game to master. It introduces a lot of tactical decisions that higher level games like HPS just factor into the resolution. Many people want a game like HPS which is relatively easy to learn and doesn't require a lot of thought if you don't want to. So by its nature the game I developed would only appeal to the grognard subset of the gaming community further limiting its potential player base.

And, as you pointed out BaB came out with some still loose ends that have not been tied up. They had resources. I don't so I will probably have plenty of loose ends. If people wait for a finished polished product it will never be. Open source projects don't start out polished. If there was a know potential customer base for the game then I could crowd sources it and actually hire people to give it polish. But I am pretty certain there isn't such a base.

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