I have updated in the PBM Hivemind section, to reflect the new forum for Empyrean Challenge Cluster Wars.

I have updated in the PBM Hivemind section, to reflect the new forum for Fall of Rome.

There is a poster for the movie, Prometheus, which features a giant head of some sort, and the text teaser overlaid onto it says:

It appears that Russ Norris of Rolling Thunder Games is getting married, this month. Specifically, on July 7th, 2012, to be exact.

Congratulations to Russ Norris on this most auspicious of occasions!

http://www.rollingthunderforums.com/inde...entry57499

The successful registration and activation of Ellowyn d'Arvenost's account at the KJC Games forum, today, appears to be the first successful new registration at that forum site since Karen Summers's November 6th, 2009 registration there.

Ellowyn is already posting there, breathing some fresh life back in that forum site dedicated to KJC Games' various play by mail gaming experiences.

It's a small, but I believe positive, glimmer on the PBM scene.

OK, so maybe they're not all saints, and maybe it's not so much a march as it is that they're just trudging along. Many of them are tired of wandering around in the PBM wilderness for years on end. Is the PBM Promised Land anywhere in sight, yet?

Over on the Facebook page for Starweb Play By Mail ( http://www.facebook.com/StarwebPBM ), which I visited, today, I took notice of two postings from a few months back.

The first of these two postings was dated September 1, 2011, and it explained that a Starweb player of over 30 years, someone named Lee Knirko, had decided to retire from playing that game. He was 88 years old, and he just wasn't able to manage it, anymore.

The second, but related, of these two postings was dated November 18, 2011. The news that it heralded was more sad than the first. You see, Lee Knirko had died.

I never knew Lee Knirko, but I knew guys like him - long time players of play by mail games. Eighty-eight years old, and still playing PBM games - almost right up to the literal very end. Now, that says something - both about Lee, and about this thing that we call a hobby.

Resilient. Enduring. Legacy.

I sent out an e-mail to PlayByMail.Net's site users a little while ago. Another one of those PlayByMail.Net News Alerts, as I like to call them. It was conspicuously silent about this editorial. Why? Because, I hadn't written it, by the time that I mailed it out. In fact, I had no plans to even write another editorial pertaining to PBM gaming, tonight. But, what the Hell? Why not??

Whenever I send out those mass e-mails to the not-so-massive mass of site users that receive them, I tend to monitor the site shortly thereafter. Why? To see how long that it takes for the early bird to get the worm.

Shortly after firing that latest News Alert into the nether void of e-mail cyberspace, along comes site user Hatch. Not long after Hatch takes the bait, what do my eyes behold, with their PBM vision so keen? Dastardly old Greybeard!

OK, so maybe he's not really dastardly, but he beat most of you to the punch - everyone except for Hatch, of course.

And my point is, you might ask?

My point is that sending out e-mails of this type have always clearly revealed to me how relevant - indeed, how critical - it is for someone to be talking about PBM gaming. Whether it's a News Alert e-mail, or whether it's someone publishing a PBM magazine of some kind, some kind of active pursuit of PBM dialogue goes hand-in-hand, I believe, with the success of the PBM industry.

Even when I am not hanging around this place, and even when I seem to be quite content to allow this site to dry up and die, like so many other PBM gaming sites before it, don't assume that I'm never checking up on the place.

If I want this site to live, and to show signs of life, then it is helpful to me to know and to better understand what makes it die.

Of late, a few have begun posting a bit, here in the forums. It attracts my attention. It renews my interest. Isn't that really at the crux of it all, though? If you want to see a new golden age dawn for play by mail gaming, then isn't what we really need to see happen is that there be a perpetual renewal of interest, on the part of interested parties?

Some of the biggest names from PBM's days of yore are registered on this site. How often do they post, though? Maybe there's just nothing here that's of interest to them. Perhaps they had interest, but lost interest. What if they just don't know what to post?

Lee Knirko fought the good fight. Many like him have fought the good fight. The wars of play by mail are seemingly without end. Some have retired from the conflict, while others have stuck it out to the bitter end.

Decades ago, the seers of PBM looked into the future. They foresaw devastation. Today, we walk amongst the remnants of a once great genre of gaming. We walk in the footprints of giants!

God bless Lee Knirko! May the saints march on.

Back in August of 2011, Kevin Flynn posted some material to Google Sites pertaining to something called Balkania, which is apparently based upon the El Mythico II Gaming System.

Responsible for development of Balkania are Paul Shields, Ed Savaris, Graham Rawlins and Kevin Flynn, with special thanks going to Bob Morris of Mercury Games and Laurent Potet of Finoldin Games.

https://sites.google.com/site/balkaniapbm/

https://sites.google.com/site/balkaniapb...alkania-c1

https://sites.google.com/site/balkaniapb...entChanges

Instead of back to the future, it's time, once again, to go forward to the past. Our destination? An ancient relic of an article by none other than the PBM Notoriati, itself, Bob McLain, titled, "Play By Mail: The Infancy of Cyberspace."

Our landing zone from that article? Right where old Bob says, "No one, it seems, has the time or the money to expand the frontier."

So, if we fast forward from there in the past back to here in the present, once more, let's dust off Bob's words that refuse to decay, and analyze them under the sun of a new era. Do you dare to help me to solve The McLain Riddle?

Was it just me, or did Bob McLain seem perhaps a bit too eager to bury play by mail gaming in the dustbin of history?

All of that money just poured into the coffers of PBM gurus from thousands upon thousands of game-starved enthusiasts went somewhere. Was Bob McLain the D.B. Cooper of the PBM industry? Was that article of his an attempt to parachute out of PBM gaming with the bulk of turn fees amassed by the industry during its years of golden heyday?

You don't have to take my word for it. Read Bob's article for yourself. It's his words, not mine. The McLain Riddle clearly posits it right in front of our nose. Why wasn't the PBM frontier expanded? Who was the real culprit in bringing down this house of PBM cards? Time or money?

Which is the key to resurrecting and expanding play by mail? Money or time?

The thing about conducting an autopsy on an almost dead, perennially dying patient, such as the hobby of play by mail gaming, is that the damned patient keeps moving, every time that I poke it.

Whatever else might be said about it by the Amalgamated Society of the Purveyors of Doom, PBM gaming has proven to be resilient, if nothing else. Starved of both time and money, the cottage industry just keeps on defying the odds. Come to think of it, wasn't there an old PBM game called Against All Odds?

For some strange, bizarre, and utterly inexplicable reason, both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did not sink their respective billions into expanding the frontier of Play-By-Mail gaming. Go figure!

Even at the apex of its absolute height in the annals of gaming achievement, if the truth be known, there was probably more time invested by more people in the PBM hobby than there ever was money invested into it.

So, all things considered, which of the two do you think is more integral to expanding the frontier of PBM gaming? Time or money? Money or time? Some say that time is money, and if they're right, then how do we write that equation out, much less solve it?

If T=Time, and if M=Money, then the solution to expanding play by mail is what? An excess of one or the other? Or perhaps a little or a lot of both?

For that matter, even if you have both, aren't you still left with an equation that doesn't quite add up?

What about inspiration, imagination, and passion? Don't these all somehow factor into the equation, as well?

These days, Bob McLain is as likely as not to be found in some small corner of the Net, one where his lustier, craftier, mightier self meets with other lustier, craftier, mightier selves for epic adventures. I say that, because isn't that what he also predicted?

Wax nostalgic!

New Standard Game (G87) starting on July 8th. If you are interested in joining, please send an Email to warlord@play-by-e-mail.com by July 8th with initial build or login to your account and submit it through the website or fax me the initial build at 484-334-7634.

In addition to the standard rules, the game will be using:

1) Random Corporations (i.e. the Corporation numbers will be be based on the sector)
2) Victory is considered 90+ Sites.
3) No Events
4) Starting year is Y165


Paul Franz
warlord@play-by-e-mail.com

Not THAT kind of flesh...

I'll be in St. Louis for three nights next month, staying at the Chesterfield Hilton, and would love to buy a round for any old friends in the area.

-- Bob McLain