WarZone 2100

As I have mentioned before, I am cheap. I don't like to spend money.

Don't get me wrong, I can spend money - I'm a Mac owner after-all! But, if I can get away with it, I like to keep my money in the bank.

Gaming, in all it's forms, is a great hobby. But, it can be a downright expensive one. Since role playing companies have gone back to the idea of hard bound books, a new gaming book can run $50 or more - it's silly.

Computer games are worse. A game you might play for a month or two can also run you $50 or $60 new. When I think about computer games, I think about two things a) how much play will I get for my money and b) do I need to buy it now? How soon will it be in the bargain bin for $15.

When I buy a game, I want to be able to play it for years. Games like The Sims and SimCity and Civilization are nearly infinitely replayable. Heck, I played Civ II on the Mac up until Civ IV for the Mac came out. I wish they would com out with a newer version of Tropico - if I play my current one anymore, the disc will melt!

On the PC side, I'm big on waiting a year to pick up "the latest games". I picked up Warhammer 40k Dawn of War and it's first expansion six months ago for $20. When those came out, they were $60 each.

Often, I prefer free or low cost online games. If you look at my Project Wonderful ads, you might spy a button for TinyWarz. Very cool, you can play for free, check it out! I consider my monthly payment to World of Warcraft to be pretty low cost. I think it's silly that they charge anything for their supplements - much less what they actually charge! But, they are making money on it. I think we will see a day when MORPGs will be entirely free to download and play, they will find other ways to support themselves. To a degree, we are already seeing this with Second Life and other games.

And, although I shouldn't admit it here, I have been a pirate from time to time. Being cheap means I will go to some extraordinary lengths. This doesn't mean I have a hard drive full of warez - quite the opposite. I have gone out and downloaded some abandonware here and there. Abandonware is such a funny thing. It's illegal to download the game, yet, if I was given the original disk by a friend, it would be legal. If I paid a quarter for the disk at a used shop - it would be legal. Silly. I want to play the old games, the copyright holders don't make them available, so I have to break the law to play them. Go figure.

However, I like that a few companies have gotten smart. Nearly 10 years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a game called WarZone 2100. Fun game. I didn't buy a copy at the time - I didn't own a PC so there was no reason. I did however do a review of the game for Epinions, I hope that made up in karma what I didn't pay in dollars.

A few days ago, I looked back at that review. I think someone had linked to my blog from that review and I caught it on the site monitoring software. I decided to Google WarZone to see if maybe someone had it on eBay or ... who knows?

Google gave me a gift in the first link: The WarZone 2100 Resurrection Project! Apparently, the copyright holder, Eidos-Interactive, made the game open source on the GNU license. So, a group of geeks are rebuilding the game - they even put out a release for the Mac!

I downloaded it and played it. The game is still awesome! Yes, the graphics are simple and look at least 10 years old - who cares? Most chessmen don't have a kung-fu grip, either! This is what all companies should do with their old games! Allow the gaming community to rebuild their games as we wish and allow me to download them for free!

Role-playing companies should take a cue here. Wizards has already come up with open source gaming with their d20 product. Why not release old games as a .PDF - this would promote the new games and bring more people into playing those games. I would love to be able to download old modules and source books instead of trying to scrounge them up in used book stores. My game shelf at home would be a lot cleaner if I could! Even charging a buck for an old supplement would be better than that material just fading away. Or, release it to the public domain and let the players do great things with those materials.

In this day, it's too easy to make an illegal copy. Instead of making interested players into criminals, make them into customers. Game-makers, what do you have to lose?

Must be jonesing ...

It's been a while since I have played a game. This time of year, adultitis kicks in and all my gaming buddies begin to have a lot of work and family obligations that deeply cut into game time.

Today, I bought a pot pie for lunch in the cafe' at work. I began cutting little hex maps in the landscape of the pie crust with my fork!

I'm currently reading Betrayal (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force, Book 1). I'm spending most of the time I'm reading with thoughts like "Hmm! That's a neat Jedi trick!" and "Oh! I'll have to use that move in my next starship dog fight!"

It's very sad how a gamer can be reduced this low - all from lack of playing!

The adultitis has gotten so bad that I proposed putting together a game with a group of friends - most of whom don't have a regular group. They had to be jonesing worse than I!

They didn't seem very interested. I thought it was a fun idea. So, I thought I would share with you all - feel free to steal.

I gave the group a tease along these lines:

The Federation lost 40 ships at Wolf 359 to the Borg cube.

Eleven thousand crew were presumed dead or assimilated.

What if a few crew survived?

If you are a fan of Star Trek the Next Generation and a Role Player - I figured this would get you ready to stand up and cheer. No such reaction from my would-be players!

My thought was that the players would have been masked from the Borg, and later the Enterprise, by warp core breeches or radiation or some such. Eventually, the players could reestablish contact with each other and begin to rescue one another and gather someplace they could establish life support.

At this stage, pirates would show up to raid the remains of the fallen ships - some good hand-to-hand combat would follow. *Cue Amok Music!*

Next, the PCs would probably try to resume communications with Star Fleet. Between the radiation from the wreckage and other issues - they would have no luck.

I was figuring that someone would start looking at the fact that they were not going to get rescued - but, there might be enough bits and parts in the field of wrecked ships to allow them to assemble a ship and escape.

I was willing to give them all the time in the world to do this. I came up with a list of bits; saucers, nacelles, engineering sections, etc. I figured I would make up a set of funky photo copied pieces and allow the players to puzzle together what ship they wanted. All the the bits have strengths and weaknesses, one saucer had a working computer core but non-functioning phasers, etc. Some of the bits also had surprises. A few bits had deactivated Borg who were there to gather intel and act as booby traps. One computer core had gone insane - all kinds of fun!

I figured the next challenge would be to drop some Ferengi into the area. They would want the salvage rights to the ruined ships - even if they had to take it by force. If the crew had built a simple ship, they could choose to fight or simply warp out. A more complex or heavier ship would have to rely on whatever it had ready to go at that moment to defeat the Ferengi - who probably wouldn't put up much of a fight anyway.

Once the ship was finished, or finished enough, they could warp to a new area and call Star Fleet. Star Fleet would inform them that they had been declared dead. They would also tell them that they didn't trust them to not be a trick by the Borg. If pushed far enough, Star Fleet would tell them that their signal was corrupted and looked like a Borg comm signal. The only way they could prove they were not dead would be to show up in person for a full medical exam.

At this point, the players could choose to do as the Federation requests or go rogue. I imagine they would stay with the Fed just because it's easier. But, I'd leave the option open.

Next, I'd drop a couple of Klingon Birds of Prey on them. The Klingons think they are Borg. The group will either have to talk their way out or fight.

Once they get to a Fed base, they are checked out and confirmed to be alive and they are reinstated with promotions all around. They will need those promotions as they will be given back they're refitted "Wolf Class" starship and given missions appropriate to that ship's capabilities.

Not a bad little plot, eh? Well, it's your plot now - my potential players didn't bite!