Can Play By Mail Gaming Survive the Devouring Hand of Time?

[GrimFinger]

Sorry GrimFinger, but I have to agree with Jon.

I don't mind your agreement with Jon, Sean.

I have read this thread and can see both sides of the argument, but I do think you are missing Jon's point.

You do tend to shoot 'us' down! You've been actually very nice to me of late regarding my blogging etc, but if I get onto the subject of online versus pbm, it can get a little heated.

People like Jon and myself and other GameMasters who during the hayday actually designed games and ran them for a living, who had offices, employed people and serviced thousands of players do have some experience and understanding that quite frankly you will never have. We've been there and done it, gone through the challenges and actually seen how the internet and online gaming has effected the demise of PBM in it's original state to what it is today. It actually happened, our business felt it, we had to change with the times and the transition was difficult for many reasons.

For this reason our opinions do hold some value.

From a player's point of view your opinion is just as valid as another, but from a PBM Company's point of view? I'm not so sure.

The few PBM companies that are running today and / or restarting are all looking towards online technologies. Any company that is serious about running a half professional game and service for more than a handful of players are going online. The vast majority of players want this.

Sorry, I was starting to get back into that age old topic of online versus postal!! Oops.

But you should try to be a little nicer to us guys, cos we are really trying hard to bring PBM into the 21st century.

Well, everyone is free to form their respective opinions on what they think constitutes "being nice" to site users or to participants in a discussion or debate.

I didn't create the site to either be mean or to be nice. Discussions that involve opinions that differ can and do become heated, at times. I haven't seen any discussion on this site, yet, that has even been lengthy enough, to be heated. Everyone has their own opinions on such things, though.

Here, there are different programmers each going their own way with what they think will be the right way to create a game with a PBM type of feel that harkens back unto the olden days of play by mail. Some of their thinking, I agree with. Some of it, I don't.