We've now presented the first of the six races that populate the Rising Empires universe - the Dwarves:

Their racial description can be found in this post on our forum:
Dwarf racial description

I hope you like the image.

Cheers!

As a reminder to all site users here on the PlayByMail.Net website, all that you have to do in order to obtain subscriber status to this site is to just ask.

Just send me either a PM on-site or an e-mail to: GrimFinger@GrimFinger.Net

There is no charge, whatsoever, to become a subscriber, and becoming a subscriber is what will allow you to receive the free e-mail mailings that the site sends occasionally out.

The primary/most frequent mailing that we send out is for PBM News Blurbs.

Project Libertine

Hatch, over at the Project Libertine Development Blog, returned in September from four months worth of work-related travel, and has apparently resumed work on Project Libertine, an upcoming 4X Space Exploration browser game.

Since that September 7th, 2011 blog entry, however, Hatch has not posted since.

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PlayByMail.Net

PlayByMail.Net site user Matrim has posted a review for KJC Games' Phoenix game, and it is a review worth checking out, if you haven't read it, yet.

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Star Throne

While sifting through the cosmic dust of the Play By Mail genre's remains, I happened across a little background history for an old PBM game originally called Power, "The Star Throne Beckons" - a PBM game created back in 1985, and designed by Jim Dutton for Entertainment Concepts, Inc..

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KJC Games

Dropping by the KJC Games' forum, posting activity in the forum there has picked up a slight bit, in recent months, a positive change of pace for a forum site that previously seemed to be a near death experience.

Unfortunately, it still isn't possible to register a new forum account there, which does not bode well for KJC Games' non-Phoenix game offerings. This conscious choice by KJC Games to preclude new forum registrations virtually assures, I think, that the chance of any of the company's non-Phoenix games enjoying a resurrection is nil.

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Lone Warrior Blog

A fellow named Kishember over on the Lone Warrior Blog site apparently recommended the PlayByMail.Net website as a good general Play-by-mail/email website, back in June of this year. It's good to see that our site here is proving to be of value to individuals like Kishember.

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Madhouse UK

The DungeonWorld discussion group on Yahoo! is still going strong, for any who are interested in what some of Steve Tierney's gaming minions are up to, these days.

Madhouse's new website is still under construction, for the curious Internet traveler.

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Far Horizons

Those who continue to wonder whatever became of Far Horizons' last game moderator, Casey, you can track the progress of his nomadic lifestyle and world travels over at his Elusive Truth website, a chronicle of his travel adventures.

The link to his defunct Far Horizons website is now a dead link, it appears. How unfortunate it is for the PBM community to lose this Far Horizons resource.

Phoenix is one of the rarities of the PBM world. It is a PBM game that has managed the transition through PBM's darkest days into the current connected world without losing player base and with a consistency of playability that is the envy of many other games. To discuss where Phoenix is it is also necessary to note how it came to be there. When it first started it followed what many would regard as the standard PBM format. Players would pay a turn fee (say $2) to process a turn which would then return results to them. Years ago the current (and existing) game moderator Mica Goldstone looked to the future and was not happy with the path he saw there (either that or had a brain wave when drunk). He realised that a PBM that was complacent would collapse and took steps to move the game into the future.

The most important and obvious steps he took were as follows. He switched the game from a paper heavy model to an email heavy model. Mail and paper costs were and are still rising and they provided added expense for both the gaming company and the user. This allowed the second major switch from standard PBM usage as he then disassociated turn fees from the ships and moved them to the starbases. In practice this means that it is possible to play Phoenix for free for months should you wish. Costs are tied around more specific actions that either require a moderated input or for money in game (a political (another name for your main persona in game) or a starbase). This allows the games scale to drastically enlarge and provides a means for the players to scale their involvement to the game up and down according to their financial needs without it costing them in game resources. For example say a player runs two starbases and a political plus several moderated actions a week. They are then made redundant. Instead of stopping playing the game they could switch the starbases to become outposts (no cost for outposts) and stop running moderated actions but retain the political allowing them to carry on playing at minimal cost until their financial situation changed. In many other games such a circumstance causes you to stop playing and the chance of re-starting are usually small.

The final major change was that the company switched to using applications to generate the orders as opposed to the players themselves and they are continually improving methods to simplify order generation. This has meant the game has got progressively more streamlined and easier to play as time has passed.

None of this is to say that the company has rested on its laurels. Even with the above the two biggest strengths of the game lie in its two long serving members. Firstly Mica the Moderator who provides the human moderated section of the game and secondly Dave the full time programmer. Most PBMs built and then sold a game that was essentially finished. Phoenix is constantly evolving and improving. Currently plans include a more advanced character skill set and a system to enable more black ops to occur without players having to go pirate (pirates tend to get shot at by warships on sight).

All the above has led to a huge degree of longevity in its player base many of whom have been playing over fifteen years now. That in itself is a testament to the games strength but also leads to a huge reservoir of knowledge and experience that can be accessed via the games 'Nexus' web portal which includes a role playing forum where many players spend more time than they do playing the game themselves.

I should probably describe the game itself. Phoenix is a space Empire type game set in a future Universe that maps to any of the sci-fi specials whether you like Star Wars, Firefly, Starcraft or the Foundation books. Players control groups of ships , starbases and specialist characters (spys, scientists, soldiers) and the game activity splits into essentially seven loosely defined areas.

First up is the military side. This is a dark universe and heavily armed ships regularly fight it out. Ship combat is mainly dealt with by the computer application behind the game but is not something that can be easily calculated or gamed. Combat not only revolves around the configurations of the ships present but also the ammunition types and skills of the officers present so a small well led fleet can beat a large complacent one. Not all military action is confined to mass space combat. Combat can move from huge fleets of large warships down to much smaller frigate types fighting against pirates or ground combat actions to seize various bases.

Next up is trade. The game here functions in a similar manner to Elite. Starbases (usually player controlled) scatter the universe and ships move goods trying to find the best profit and attempting to avoid pirate action or hostile wars. Entire affiliations (the AFT and MOH) exist to trade and make money.

Our third facet is Exploration. Here Mica's moderating comes to the fore. Every world in the game (and there are many in an expanding universe) is designed and designed realistically (I believe Mica is an astro-physicist by training though tat could well be gossip). Players can find new systems and planets and explore and adjust them. The only limit here is the players imagination.

Next we have colonisation. Some people like expanding and protecting a race whether human or alien and this side is also catered for in game. Though the smaller groupings would find it wise to either find a strong protector or not to irritate any of the more militant groupings.

The more devious side of public relations is also available. Players can run spys and attempt to carry out either computer moderated actions to damage their opponents or human moderated actions should they come up with something beyond what the standard orders would permit. I would give more examples but do not want to A) Reveal possible actions to other people or B) Reveal I know about other peoples actions when they think I do not....

Finally their is the diplomatic side. Everything in game has its diplomatic overtones and this often plays out in the forums on the Nexus which have heavily IC (In Character) forums)

This only covers the topsoil really as the game essentially could be whatever you want it to be. The first and most important decision any new player has to make is what affiliation to join. An Affiliation is a group of players often playing with a similar set of ideals and you really want to pick the correct affiliation. This is such an important fact that if you ask them most affiliations will happily point you in the right direction should you wish to join something but are uncertain where you would fit best. It might be helpful to provide quick portraits of some of the affiliations.

You have your war like affiliations. There are the Imperials (IMP) who bear a close resemblance to the Star Wars Empire led by Darth Vader. Naturally a liking of lederhosen and jackboots plus leather gear would seem to assist in fitting in with these guys I affectionately know as 'the Gimps'. They are currently allied with the CNF (see Starcraft's own Confederacy) in an uneasy alliance which contains several other affiliations under the unifying banner of the (Human) Emperor . This alliance is looking shakier now after another military affiliation the Dewiek (DEN) decided to firstly spy on then launch a heavy attack against a minor member of the Empire (House Ravenstone). The DEN are an alien affiliation comprised of werewolf type beings who bear a close resemblance to the Vikings in their attitude to both alcohol and fighting. They are so touchy you would not want to go shopping with one of them

"What's that - you ordered peas!!! You have offended my honour !!!! Roaaaaaaaa for this you will die! Kill kill kill"

and if not for the fact that their military is not quite enough to take on the entire universe they would be much bigger than a general annoyance. If you want a visual reference the DEN are something like the Black Night in Monty Python in the Holy Grail -

" come on fight you buggers" -
"erm I just chopped of your leg " -
"Ha its nothing just a flesh wound have at it scum!".

The DENs attack created problems due to the apparent fractioning of the Empire several members of which were not only severely lackadaisical in their defence of their allies (the IMP went so far as to not to bother turning up and spent their entire time taking the p out of Ravenstone instead) whereas the GTT (Galactic Trade and Transport) turned up late then attacked everyone whether ally or enemy taking an admittedly easy going approach to target acquisition. To cement the 'positive' reception this caused they then proceeded to verbally berate the people they turned up to defend (Ravenstone) whilst dropping their alliance with the DEN (due to the attack) but praising them at the same time. They probably had to go shopping for peas with them the following day. The final big player in this massive fight was the irrepressible (and people have tried to repress them) House Liquan (HLQ) who recently lost their leader 'Prince Liquan' by sending him with a small bodyguard to investigate a huge alien ship which promptly left the known universe leaving the affiliation in the hands of 'Demetrius Liquan' who was last seen in an Imperial Prison due to his love of blowing up planets. It may seem risky to send the head of your entire organisation to explore an unknown hostile ship but the Prince has history of such risky endeavours indeed once the DEN had challenged him to single unarmed combat (he had probably ordered peas somewhere in their general vicinity) and rightly assuming that a pudgy 5 ft human taking on a 7 ft wolf with claws would be a bad idea had semi-meklanised himself (or for Doctor Who fans turned himself into half a cyberman or a cyborg if not) and promptly beat the living crap out of a rather surprised DEN champion.

That only involves a small part of the game elsewhere the Mohache (MOH) continued their trading rivalry and attempt to dominate the known universe without using any ships with offensive weaponry. Players in the MOH seem to have some sort of hive mind and are so single minded (and greedy for profit) that they resemble Team Americas World Police's Matt Damon in their single minded focusing on one thing -

"Hi I would like to trade"
" Matt Damon"
" How about you lower your prices "
"Mattt Dammmonnn"
"Oh sod it do it your way"

Leaving the Matt Damons aside the other primarily trading groups include the AFT (something or other Trade) who were the dominant traders (with guns) until they unwisely picked a fight with the GTT (Galactic Trade and Transport) and got the crud kicked out of them and have been steadily rebuilding ever since and gnashing their collective teeth at the success of the MOH in taking over their niche. The AFT and DTR (Detinus Republic) have recently had some trouble with pirates. It turns out the HLQ had been having the same trouble but took the innovative approach of saying - rather than lose approximately 70,000 stellars (the games currency)worth of ships each time they lost a ship to a pirate why not offer the pirate 25,000 a ship to blow up other people ships instead. The pirate accepted (when they found out the DTR did consider making an enormous bunch of 2 hulled ships (costing 2,000 or so) and leaving them for the pirate to blow up thus bankrupting the HLQ but decided bashing the pirate up would be more satisfying). Anyway the AFT and DTR after months of hunting finally found the pirates base to be that of a mouthy mercenary (Johnny Alpha) and launched an attack. This proved remarkably successful (especially the ground assault where the odds were only 3% in favour of them taking the base and they succeeded. One can only think that the defending officer was foreign and instead of saying fall on the enemy said something like fall on swords and they all bravely killed themselves) right up until the point that the FET (think of the Mafia in space) suddenly announced they had brought the entire lot and they were now under Imperial protection just as the fist was about to crush Alphas face. The FET will probably get some nasty consequences from this but for the moment it has left the others involved not so quietly seething.

The above is all the sweep of big politics on a quieter level my own character has been happily exploring a system and preparing to terraform a planet. As nothing is easy he has just been left disgruntled by the sudden arrival of two new affiliations in his otherwise nice clean system the Wimbles (think the cuddly ones from gremlins) and soon the Falconians (birds in space). My own pirate hunting fleet has shown an outstanding lack of success so far. Indeed the only encounter involved one ship attacking a pirate, realising it was actually unarmed and running away. The pirate, fortunately, surprised at the suicidal nature of this approach ran away as well no doubt suspecting some nefarious counter ploy. On a more positive note in a recent refit one of my combat vessels its officer gained some experience when he failed to find any targeting computers for his ship and this will soon be translated into an increased ability to kill people! I am also planning on moving my lead character out to gain some experience before the character changes kick in. The fact three affiliations would happily kill him is causing me some troubles in planning my route.

There are many other affiliations from the Confederate Intelligence Agency (think of the Stainless Steel Rat or Spys in Space), the Brotherhood (religious fanatics. Hood wearing is not compulsory) and the Flagritz a feline peoples who spend all the time beating up another feline race about events that happened so long ago no one seems quite certain what they are any more. I would not ask them though as they will happily go on for hours about who nit combed who.. Plus many others. If none of the existing appeal then you could go it alone or start your own though this approach is only recommended for the very experienced as any such approach is not easy and loses the friendly advice and assistance that the established affiliations will all be happy to provide.

The above is only scratching the surface really as there is a whole host of events going on which no one is aware of or that people want anyone else to be aware of.

The game covers all the traditional strengths of PBM's - a potentially global gaming group. The ability to play at your own pace. You can send orders in once a week or send orders in daily. The cost is the same the only differentiator lies in how you want to play. Equally it also has some of the traditional disadvantages - it needs some imagination to play and does not provide the immediate impact you get from a mmorpeg or first person shooter. This is not in itself a bad thing.

Play styles differ depending on what people want from the game. For some it is the roleplay and the story and these players build up histories of all their ships and peoples. For others it is the sweep of politics and massive fleets and though they to will often have favoured ships/characters they often possess so many ships this would not be possible to achieve for all of them. Perversely the numerical advantage this provides is often counter weighted by the more personal and individual attention players with less resources can provide to their own units.

Anyway if anything has perked your interest then give it ago. The basic game is free and you can get heavily involved without paying a penny.

Phoenix

If you do have a go feel free to ask me anything. I can happily say that my own character - Senator Matrim Saric of the DTR is one of the most respected and widely loved people in the entire Universe. His wise words and great common sense has won friends everywhere. If anyone says otherwise then they are obviously a deranged, dribbling psychopath who does not bathe. You have been warned.

It's been a while since I fired up the old editorial pen, so let's take the beast our for a spin, and see what PBM related thoughts occupy my mind, this morning.

Tell me something - what would Play By Mail have been like in its heyday, if Wikipedia had been around, then? I think that it would have sparked many-a-more PBM games across a wide range of genres.

It's a great resource, Wikipedia is. It isn't the epitome of accuracy, in all instances, but it sure beats buy a set of encyclopedias in book format - an over-priced curiosity of a bygone era.

I recall spending many an hour "surfing" my grandpa's dated set of World Book encyclopedia volumes. Today, all these many years later, I browse Wikipedia, sometimes for a few moments at a sitting, and other times for extended periods of time. Invariably, I tend to end up somewhere well removed from where I started, as interest in one topic almost always leads to interest in another topic.

What does any of this have to do with play by mail gaming? Quite a lot, actually. Or, at least, I like to think so. As I can't seem to decide what type of PBM game to craft for the modern age, Wikipedia is a great resource to dredge from.

At some point in the coming weeks, I should finally (hopefully) make the transition from my current 14.4K-to-21.6K dial-up Internet connection to a broadband Internet connection. What that transition bodes for this site remains to be seen.

I invest far less time in this site, now, that I did at various intervals in the past. However, that has as much to do with how much others participate in the site, as it does with anything else. The site isn't going anywhere, for the foreseeable future, but it isn't my place to compel nor to pressure anyone else to post their own PBM experiences and PBM thoughts.

While the possibility looms large that I could broadband-warp out of PBM existence, my gut instinct tells me that I will likely use this site more - not less, after the transition, simply due to the fact that broadband Internet will make it possible for the pages of other websites to load almost instantly (at least, compared to what I have been experiencing on dial-up, to date).

Of course, who knows? There's no certainty in any of it.

I do know, from first-hand experience, that it is very tiring and very time consuming to try and sift through pages on various PBM related websites of other companies and individuals. It takes the proverbial forever to do most anything, online.

I speak from the perspective of someone who has never played World of Warcraft, nor participated in any of the more recent online gaming rages of the massively multiplayer variety. Some things simply are not feasible on a dial-up connection.

As the United States Postal Service again contends with remaining viable for the future, perhaps some future de-monopolization of the postal service could hold some glimmer of promise for play by mail gaming to take hold, again. Perhaps not. Probably not. But, at some point in time, after all of us current PBM dinosaurs have gone the way of the extinct, who's to say what the future holds? What if there were lots of local postal services? What if someone found a way to make local postal delivery profitable in ways that the United States Postal Service has not been able to do, in light of changing times, changing technologies, and changing consumer habits?

I had turn results arrive, yesterday, for a game of Hyborian War that I am in. Getting that envelope in the mail is still a good feeling - even if the results that it holds are not always so well received.

If you went to your postal mailbox tomorrow, and opened it to find set-up materials for a new play by mail game, would it intrigue you? Sure it would. You might not end up playing it, but I dare suggest that you would be intrigued.

In due time, I think that I am going to test that theory - with a few of you who visit this site, and with a few others who probably do not visit this site. Consider it to be an experiment, of sorts.

I won't be after hundreds. I won't be after thousands. I certainly won't be after millions of players. No, what I am after will be a more manageable number, a more localized affair.

I pause from writing this editorial piece to flip through a copy of an old rulebook for my defunct play by mail game, Starforce Battles. A PLAY-BY-MAIL GAME OF GALACTIC CONQUEST it loudly proclaims in all capital letters on the front cover, just beneath the title of the game, which I created using the old Dr. Halo graphics program on a 386 16Mhz Emerson computer with 1 MegaByte of RAM.

The names of Scott M. Estrin, John Byrne, Robert Dickenson, Noel Sheffield, Pete Weis, Vinny O'Neil, Eddie Brown, Doug Scharbrough, and Charles M. Sayre all adorn the Credits page on the inside of that rule book. The individual pages of the rule book were all typed up in all capital letters, too. What can I say? My typing skills in those days were not quite what they are, now, all these many years later.

What did I like most about that game? Oh, I don't know. I liked the fact that it was fun. It was fun for me, even though I didn't play in it. It was fun watching how the various players reacted to - and interacted with - one another. It was fun to see enthusiasm for the game grow, one player at a time. It was fun to learn how players tended to perceive their own empire's power in relation to the power of other players' empires.

And the hardest part of it all? Man, that's a tough one. It was probably not being a programmer, which all but ensured that there were things that I wanted to do with the game for the players, that I simply never knew how to do.

Not being a programmer still bites me in the ass, today, all these many years later. But, such is life in the realm of those who consider themselves to be play by mail gamers and would-be PBM moderators.

Life goes on.

A few days ago, back on November 11th, 2011, I received an e-mail from out of the blue from none other than Lorne Mustard, the former owner/operator of Play-By-Mail firm Yellowseed Games.

I wrote back to Lorne, and I heard back from him, again, yesterday. Lorne has registered here on the site, but he is currently busy with changing houses. Hopefully, Lorne will stay in touch with the site and its users, going forward, as I'm sure that some are curious about his old PBM company, Yellowseed Games, and would be interested in learning about what became of the PBM games that they ran, back in the day.

This is an interesting article...


First Amendment News

Inmate loses bid to participate in play-by-mail games


First Amendment Center

Nashville, Tenn.

Tuesday, February 8, 2000





A Minnesota prisoner’s First Amendment rights were not violated when prison officials banned play-by-mail games, a federal appeals court has ruled.


Inmate Kuo Ping, a Federal Witness Security Program prisoner at Sandstone Federal Correctional Institution, contended that he had a free-expression right to receive play-by-mail games.


Play-by-mail games, such as Diplomacy, have been played since the 1960s and are now also available on the Internet. Some of the more popular games are DungeonWorld, Godfather, Legends, Duelmasters and Necromancer. Generally, players mail in orders to a moderator once a week and the moderator mails the results back to the players.


A federal district court rejected Ping’s claim, finding that prison officials had a legitimate reason to ban play-by-mail games: to protect the security of prisoners who are in the Federal Witness Security Program. The danger with the games, according to prison officials, is that inmates could send out messages in code that compromise prison security.


On appeal, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in Ping v. Raleigh, finding that the prison officials had a “legitimate, content-neutral reason for banning play-by-play games.”


The 8th Circuit cited the U.S. Supreme Court decision Turner v. Safley in determining whether the prison ban infringed on Ping’s constitutional rights. In Safley, the high court held that a prison regulation that affects prisoners’ First Amendment rights is constitutional as long as it is reasonably related to a legitimate penological interest. Prison officials often justify regulations that impact prisoners’ First Amendment rights by citing safety concerns.


The 8th Circuit cited safety concerns as its “legitimate penological interest,” writing: “We agree with the district court that the prison’s ban on play-by-mail games — which have the potential to allow inmates to communicate in code with outsiders — is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests, namely the security of WITSEC inmates’ locations and identities.”


Ping also claimed that his First Amendment rights were violated when prison officials prohibited him from sending a money order to buy a play-by-mail game rule book. The appeals court said that “the prison official who rejected it reasonably believed — based on what Ping told him — the rule book could be used to construct the banned games.”


Calls to the assistant U.S. attorney who handled the case for the prison officials were not returned. Ping, who represented himself before the appeals court, could not be reached for comment.

A new issue of our newsletter, the Norberg bulletin, has been published. In this issue we talk about the ground combat mechanics in Rising Empires:

In the tenth issue of the Norberg bulletin we'll look more closely at the ground combat mechanics. Although there are many paths an empire can walk, all empires will be involved in conflict to some extent, even if it's only against neutral bandits roaming the countryside. Rising Empires is a strategy game with a focus on conflicts. War is inevitable...

I've attached the bulletin to this post. Please visit our website: http://www.risingempires.com if you want to know more.

Cheers!

Attached Files

  Norberg Bulletin issue 10.pdf (Size: 373.53 KB / Downloads: 0)

Go and check out our latest blog. It is all about our new GameMaster called Scott Huelsman who has come on broad recently and the game wiki called 'The Arcadia Gazetteer' that is about to go live.

http://gadgames.com/blog/2011/10/31/ilko...-huelsman/

Just blogged around the latest developments with the game: http://gadgames.com/blog/2011/10/17/ilko...t-mongodb/