Introducing myself

[killd1]

Hey all,

Stumbled across this site the other day when I was waxing nostalgic about the old SWSF on AOL.  I used to post there under the name Tarathiele.  I've seen a couple names I recognize post on here (what led me here) though not sure they are active anymore.

I joined the IGE sim when Darkstar was in charge of it all.  I want to say that was 1995-6.  Joined up under the Battletech Clan faction and eventually even led it after a couple years.  But I was far more active in the After Endor universe.  I ran the GI after Soriano stepped down and took over as Head GM after Lee and Wedge left AE.  I even tried my hand at my own "universe" that attempted to take a different approach at the Star Wars sim - smaller scale (sector vs entire galaxy), allow people to be rogues/independents, etc.  But by that point (1999-2000ish) the SWSF was well into membership decline and I was heading off to college and other priorities entered my life.

I've been mulling over different ways to resuscitate a version of the SWSF.  Would love to get something like it going again.  That is what got me searching for any remnants of the SWSF. 


- Julian

[Rinny]

Well hi there!  I was really only super active in FP, but it's great to see old folks coming back!   I think a couple of the guys are working on a new game, but it's usually pretty quiet around here.

[SWSF Hoppus]

Hey! I remember you. Those were the years I was most active.

I would love to have another AE style universe. The problem is you need many members to make the dynamic work (as we've found here over years of experimenting and failing).

Always open to ideas though!

[SWSF Eidolon]

Ahoy Duder!

  I was an AE die hard for most of it. (Weller, or some version of it probably) Started SIU originally with KJustice14 under Lee/Wedge. I loved Soriano (Jason).  Also Amir was/is a dear brosef from those days.  I think he's too busy solving cancer and/or alzheimers to get down with us these days though!  I probably did one of every faction in AE in some iteration of it.  SIU, Black Sun and Hapans definitely that I can recall.  AE VSDs.  Mmmmm. Such a keystone of my lifetime star wars fan experience and growth happened in the AE Universe years.  Tons of fun.


  So cool to see old people showing up again after quite a dry spell.  Disney and The Force is with us! 

[SWSF Hoppus]

Ok thanks to you I spent the weekend rereading AE rules (http://swsfonline.com/warbooks)!

[killd1]

Hey! I remember you. Those were the years I was most active.

I would love to have another AE style universe. The problem is you need many members to make the dynamic work (as we've found here over years of experimenting and failing).

Always open to ideas though!

Hey!  I do remember your name now that I see it. 

I realize any attempt at resuscitating simming as we knew it will be a tall task.  Back in the 90s, we weren't competing against the sophisticated multiplayer online games that exist nowadays.  But pen and paper RPGs are still a thing so there are plenty of people out there who are ready and willing to use their imaginations and text based games to have fun.

Ahoy Duder!

  I was an AE die hard for most of it. (Weller, or some version of it probably) Started SIU originally with KJustice14 under Lee/Wedge. I loved Soriano (Jason).  Also Amir was/is a dear brosef from those days.  I think he's too busy solving cancer and/or alzheimers to get down with us these days though!  I probably did one of every faction in AE in some iteration of it.  SIU, Black Sun and Hapans definitely that I can recall.  AE VSDs.  Mmmmm. Such a keystone of my lifetime star wars fan experience and growth happened in the AE Universe years.  Tons of fun.


  So cool to see old people showing up again after quite a dry spell.  Disney and The Force is with us! 

Remember you too!  I had forgotten about the SIU.  Just remembered GI, RA, Hapans, and the Ssi-ruuvi.  I had kept in touch with Amir for a year or two after I went off to college in 2000 but lost touch after that. 

[gallpizi]

I don't remember you honestly but I am all for a resuscitation of the SWSF.

Let me know what I can do to help!

[SWSF Hoppus]

If we could reorganize, go back to a more or less old school rule set like AE... and get 3-4 players per faction who would be willing/have the time to command a single ship or a single ship and a support ship at most rather than the huge fleets we've done in the past... maybe we could get something going again.

Would be interesting to see how things played out with a 3 player RA, 3 player GI, and 2 player (IG/SIU/RHL) ...

Ideally I could put together some browser-based tools to help streamline things further (like copy/paste in enemy posts and get back tallies of which units are hit for how much damage, a dogfight calculator that outputs a copy/paste line of code for your combat summary, etc).

Could we do this?

[gallpizi]

I am down for this and can do 1-2 ships or even lead one of the sims (For construction or such if necessary).

[SWSF Hale]

We could always pull some GCWII specs off the shelf and do some free-for-all space battles if people want to blow stuff up for the time being. GCW was always meant to be the synthesis of AE and GR plus some heuristics to simplify fleet vs fleet battle.

Instead of going full monty with a whole galaxy, we could just port GCWII into a single sector/region and make it compact.

[SWSF Hoppus]

That's a good possibility. I would like to play around in a mock to see how the rules and specs feel to me now.

Part of me feels like part of the issue in the past has been too many units, too little team play, which makes the entire game feel a little cold and without meaning... if that makes sense?

It would be so nice to go back to fire arcs, some version of dogfighting, and controlling just one ship and having 2-4 players, split into two sides. I could find time to write battle posts for a single ISD or VSD or MC80. It allows for more focus on your ship and your character(s).

In AE most players rolled around in ISD, VSD, MC80-variant, or RAFs/QFBCs... which I think would be fine for us. The PDFs had smaller ships on them so that they still appeared on the battle field. This means you're commanding 1 ship, 6 squads, and about a dozen auxiliary craft. The only other overhead comes with coordinating with your teammates about targets etc. Whch was always a lot of fun!

The other good thing about AE was the balance of damage tolerances and damage ratings, so ships didnt last forever, and battles could resolve quickly. Which I think was an issue before for us too with out x3 ratings for shields, armor etc.

I would be all for a reduced scope of galaxy though, given we can hope for at best 2-4 players and two factions. However im not sure reducing scope to a sector versus just using the 'big name' worlds. Is part of the appeal the galactic-political theater? In a single sector, you lose that a bit, and it feels too small? Or am I off base here?

[SWSF Hale]

<> I mean.. if we're being honest, we should just cut out all the ships we don't want to use and roll with a simplified spec list.

Empire: ISD, VSD, STRK, CRAK, ESC
Republic: MC80, RAF, NEB, CORV, GR75
Common: PBC, ACC, DREAD, QFBC, AVIG

<> Lack of integrated team players has really hurt simming IMO, I don't think you're off base with that.

<> The intergalactic geopolitical theater is a big draw, but this can be scaled down. If we do go with a compact galaxy or a single sector, we need to get rid of this idea that we're an Empire Builder and embrace the idea that we're a Fleet Commander.

[gallpizi]

Why not have both? Why not have people with the ability to command the "empire" if they were interested but the majority are just fleet commanders.

Honestly someone will need to be responsible for building and PDFs and the like. I am willing to volunteer for team Empire.

[SWSF Eidolon]

  I think one of the more realistic and reliable options is to go with a reduced/contained setting rather than an open galaxy and set up the game play more as Fleet Commanders than Empire Managers as Hale accurately put it.  For a reward system, we can have unit access or temporary/permanent combat bonuses that a player might get for achieving certain things.. i.e. winning a battle as an Imperial at a world with some trait of heavy production gives the Imp player enhanced support unit replenishment or something, a Reb player could attack that location to take that bonus away and temporarily get it themselves maybe, some aspect like this to take over for the normal psychological tickle of accumulating possessions in form of star systems.  So a player is never really literally fighting to get a world under their own control and add to a spread sheet to total up some income and build things really, in this way as Hop says we have the room to focus more on a simple old style combat system and character stuff/writing.  So long as we don't get in to one player controlling more than 1-3 cap ships it could work.

  At least initially, we should set the game up for a player to be either Rebel or Imperial only though so we could try and build the base population of activity we need to make the old game work.  However, I think we can look at the Rebel Alliance as more patchwork than unified entity, depending on our time frame anyways. But ultimately, a player is deciding what they do either on their own, or together with other affiliated players. 

  I think even at the moment, the Rogue One/Early Rebellion/Pre-Yavin is the most ripe for this general concept.

 


  Galaxy wise to keep a full feel, we could map out Coruscant, and then say the Corellian Sector (I have the Armada Corellian Sector expansion pack which has a new "canon" material map of Corellian Sector with some light info that we can enrich if needed).  Rich and well known prominent locations for our Rebellion Against the Empire to be more intense and upfront and less of the "slinking about the Outer Rim" type of game.  I think it's a good place for all elements a setting for this sorta game needs from Political, Industrial, Economic, Civilization and Diverse.

[gallpizi]

I think the following:

We need a simple, realistic system much as Hoppus has suggested with revamping AE rules. Once we have this simple, realistic system we need to start playing. We have had some new life join the forum in the last few weeks and they seem interested in Simming.

If we can get a game up and running we can than do 1 of 2 things.

1.) Tweak the system that we are using to make things even easier/better
2.) Work on a different system in the background.

I think we have had the issue of too many cooks spoiling the soup so to speak. We haven't had a game really going in months if not longer.

Lets all give our input. Hop has already been working on simplifying the rules of AE. It may not be perfect and it may not be what I would fully want right away but I don't think we will ever get that unless we get something off the ground and show some life.

I don't care what that is just let me know what I can do to help.