Thoughts on Alamaze

[Kalrex]

For many years Pegasus had a site and it had a bunch of information. Is that lost or can it be retrieved? If possible you could copy it and bring it over here.

The game is solid. I think without the time lapse you should be able to build some sort of player base. Frankly, the core game is better than FOR.

Modern gamers, I would basically ignore them. People who appreciate this game are going to be older. Maybe some younger players will enjoy the game but in order to build a player base I think YOU HAVE to find "Grognards" types of gamers. Did Phil keep a database of the players?

http://playbymail.net/mybb/portal.php
This is a PBM site. I would mention it here. How else do you advert this game?

There are D&D sites and the like. I think you could net potential gamers that way but seriously it might be difficult.

If you had a list of previous players you could get extreme and hit them up on Facebook or something

If it cost too much out the gate it will fail.

How do you compete with stuff like Magic the Gathering on one end and MMORPG games on the other end? That's the trouble. I know Alamaze is/was a GREAT game but how to get people to invest the time reading rules/paying $$ for an old school type of game they're completely unfamiliar with.

This is the same issue as FOR has had but Alamaze has a lot of potential imo. I think if you can develop a player base here it will grow... and grow. FOR on the other hand is just too narrow, IMO.

I will play Alamaze and I will bring some new players to at least try it out. Nostalgia is a powerful force and I think your best bet is to find the older players but I don't know if that's possible.

[Ry Vor]

http://playbymail.net/mybb/portal.php
This is a PBM site. I would mention it here. How else do you advert this game?

How do you compete with stuff like Magic the Gathering on one end and MMORPG games on the other end? That's the trouble. I know Alamaze is/was a GREAT game but how to get people to invest the time reading rules/paying $$ for an old school type of game they're completely unfamiliar with.

This is the same issue as FOR has had but Alamaze has a lot of potential imo. I think if you can develop a player base here it will grow... and grow.

I will play Alamaze and I will bring some new players to at least try it out. Nostalgia is a powerful force and I think your best bet is to find the older players but I don't know if that's possible.

Good points, Karlex, and welcome. We do have a thread running on the site you mention. We have a thread on the old Yahoo Alamaze group too, and once we do get an Alamaze website up (soon), we'll be asking our visitors here to post on the forums and websites they frequent.

So, yes, I am in the process of editing the rules, working on business issues like pricing and signup, and we'll have a web based order entry utility.

[Lucky Tiger]

So, yes, I am in the process of editing the rules, working on business issues like pricing and signup, and we'll have a web based order entry utility.

I'm still trying to grasp in my own mind how to get in on Alamaze. It sounds like if you haven't been an active player of Fall of Rome you won't be in on the bug hunt test game, but how about the real game two weeks later? I'm going to follow up with all of this to the email address you provided, but I figured there may be other who have the same question.

I am eager to get in on it. I have been reviewing a bunch of my old game turns, all of the sample set ups from the old web site, and the old issues of the Oracle.

Thanks for bringing this back.

[Ry Vor]

We are eager to have eager players and want to have Alamaze ready soon. But our timetable cannot be so tightly defined when there are still lots of unknowns, and when we invite players in that will be paying for the service, we want to be comfortable that they will have the quality service and reliability that they have always had with Fall of Rome, which runs flawlessly and always on time, for example. We have a team of three right now developing Alamaze for release, and different pressure points as it were. We need the website, the signup, the processing, the payments, and the community ready to go.

For now, don't worry too much about submitting a request for sign up or making payment. Now that we have this forum and are accumulating content for the website a bit faster than we anticipated in the first postings, we can keep you abreast this way. Not too much longer until we will have good news!

[Kalrex]

I only played Alamaze via snail mail- I hope there's a way to submit orders now/in the future where someone wont have to manually enter them asides the player. This is where FOR shines as far as entering and editing orders. Obviously Alamaze was built in a different era and the best we can hope for is an easy way to submit the orders and hopefully the turn can process automatically? If this is possible it should keep the actual costs associated with running the game down.

Hopefully this can run on a subscription base similar to FOR. Maybe even entwine the two.

The biggest trouble with the existing PBM games is the "turn cost" which has basically driven them from the market. Asides MEPBM (and maybe Legends) I don't think there's actually another PBM that's more than maybe a labor of love type of deal anymore.

FOR's payment system was always a good idea. I think this will work for Alamaze assuming someone doesn't have to "work" getting all the turns out and everything like Pegasus did.

Whatever the case I'd highly suggest making the game very affordable and building a player base- then decide on payments. The upside of Alamaze is MUCH greater than FOR so I think there's a good possibility that you'll get more than a few diehard players. FOR is just too easy to get burned out on. Great game but having a line-up of games "should" improve the player base quite a bit I'd imagine.

A lot of people have posted their 2 cents over the years on the various incarnations of these forums but I think getting Alamaze up and running is a great development!

Just remember that due to the nature of the game itself and current "gamers" habits the old pay by turn method should probably go out the window...